Atari v Commodore

[TMR]

Wait that many years after the release of the C64 and there's the C128 and at least some of the bets are off; one random example there (and this works from C64 mode, there's a demo by Antic if memory serves that uses it) is the ability to force the VIC-II to "forget" the chroma and just send luma to the display, giving eight shades of grey at 320x200. Of course, there are more possibilities and quite a bit of uncharted territory there as well...

 

C128 part in Up the Limits 2 ?

 

That's the bugger. =-)

 

Risen From Oblivion does a few things to hammer the C128's VIC-II as well, although i'm not sure how much of that is available from C64 mode (and VICE doesn't emulate that side of things properly right now).

[TMR]

The Commodore 1541 (by far, the most common drive in the US) is the drive known for knocking itself out of alignment.

 

That's the weird thing... people keep saying that about the breeze block 1541, but the two i've got on my desk have never needed aligning once (i occasionally remember to clean the heads) and it's not as though i've wrapped them in cotton wool or anything like that either, i'm rough on my hardware and they've had more than their fair share of use over the years.

[analmux]

Well, it's not perfect and i've tweaked a few bits here and there (the knife blade reflecting the blue of the moonlight looked "wrong" to me) but i thought this went pretty well...

 

 

As that resolution is at 2x1. Would be just as easy to have used Koala Mode or/and to use colors of similar luma every odd even lines to create non standard colors which 'fit' more better with the atari colors. ofcourse this would require more colors per 4x8 block but nothing that FLI cant do.

 

Well, i was just doing a quick and relatively simple by hand conversion (i added in the bottom right corner of the picture to expand it out to 40 bytes wide and tweaked some of the colours a little here and there, but generally speaking it's the same image) and it's just a stock multicolour mode pic at the back end of that.

 

i had a go at Altar as well, it didn't work particularly well to be honest (the yellow on the tiger's face was a mistake) but the source image wasn't exactly a masterpiece to start with and, again, this is straight multicolour bitmap with the C64's CPU idle whilst the A8 is throwing significant wedges of processing power and about 6K more bitmap data at it.

 

...and 4 times as many colours. I consider that cheating. Then I can take whatever C64 pic, take 4 colours instead of 16, or half resolution....and say that A8 can easily do all C64 pics with CPU sitting idle.

[+wood_jl]

The C64 is lucky to have so many excellent artists dedicated to making great pixel art on it, the A8 seems to lack the dedicated pixel pushers sadly...

 

Devil's advocaat for a moment, perhaps more artists went for the C64 because it's the more flexible machine to work with...

 

Maybe more artists went with the C64 because it sold so many more to artists and non-artists alike. Maybe it sold so many more because it was cheaper. Gee, yes, I think simple, proven economic law could have something to do with it, without resorting to subjective hypotheticals.

[frenchman]

Look, I'm not following this discussion, all 384 pages of it. But I will tell you this. When I want to play classic computer games I use my C64.

 

There are two reasons. The main one is that 8-bit disk drives that work without repair or rehab are uncommon. I don't have the chops to get them all going, or the time. I rarely have trouble with 1701 drives. As I understand it, 8-bit Atari drives tend to need alignment and other maintenance.

 

The second reason is that the C64 was more popular, or at least the software is more readily available, and I happen to have found a ton of it. I wish I had found the same amount of 8-bit disks, but I simply haven't. I think that Atari disk soft is generally harder to find.

 

I would rather use Atari software and play games on my Atari computers, but I limit that to cartridges for the above reasons. And I boot up my C64 for most of my disk retrogaming needs. Shameful, isn't it?

 

 

As for breaking down A8 fdds, I got 4 working since 1985 without any problems. Some fantasy story you picked up from C64ers perhaps?

 

C64 was indeed more popular, that is why software was more readily available. But in Europe A8 software was always available, even in the UK all software shops used the 'Software Link Chain' which would order any piece of software for your A8 within the next day. No probs there.

 

Well, you got 300+ gorgeous A8 cartridges for excellent retro gaming needs to choose from. Nothing shameful about that.

Edited October 3, 2009 by frenchman

[frenchman]

 

Once upon a time, one quiet autumn afternoon, the Atari fans were sitting around relaxing on their favourite forum.

 

 

 

Then suddenly, the big bad c64 fans arrived to cause a ruckus! Eek!!!

 

 

 

Soon there was some flaming going on, and everyone had fun barking at each other and playing with pencils!

 

 

 

And then A8 users tamed the big bad c64 fans and showed them who's boss!

 

 

 

 

that's better

Edited October 3, 2009 by frenchman

[Atarigmr]

 

Once upon a time, one quiet autumn afternoon, the Atari fans were sitting around relaxing on their favourite forum.

 

 

 

Then suddenly, the big bad c64 fans arrived to cause a ruckus! Eek!!!

 

 

 

Soon there was some flaming going on, and everyone had fun barking at each other and playing with pencils!

 

 

 

And then A8 users tamed the big bad c64 fans and showed them who's boss!

 

 

 

 

that's better

 

What about having Atari pics? Anyone up the challenge of having these converted to the Atari and 'enhanced'?

[Jetboot Jack]

Devil's advocaat for a moment, perhaps more artists went for the C64 because it's the more flexible machine to work with...

 

Nah - that's clearly not the case - by the time great pixel artwork was really underway (1984/85) the next generation of systems were with us (PS/ST/Amiga etc) - at least a couple of those were far more artistically liberating than the C64 - just MUCH more expensive!

 

The C64 was cheaper, more readily available, better marketed with a broad range of software, it was an appealing system, and as a result fell into the hands of many creative people as result of it's ubiquity, if the A8 had sold as many units then there would be a huge archive of wonderful pixel art for that too I would think...

 

sTeVE

[TMR]

i had a go at Altar as well, it didn't work particularly well to be honest (the yellow on the tiger's face was a mistake) but the source image wasn't exactly a masterpiece to start with and, again, this is straight multicolour bitmap with the C64's CPU idle whilst the A8 is throwing significant wedges of processing power and about 6K more bitmap data at it.

 

...and 4 times as many colours. I consider that cheating.

 

As i said "it didn't work particularly well" and that was, as i explained, in part because i wasn't throwing anywhere near the resources at it that the A8 version does.

 

Then I can take whatever C64 pic, take 4 colours instead of 16, or half resolution....and say that A8 can easily do all C64 pics with CPU sitting idle.

Well, the first bit is a false argument (i've neither halved the resolution of the image or reduced it to a quarter of it's original colour count since Altar is 38 colours) but i don't remember offering this as any form of proof that the C64 can easily do all A8 pictures anyway, so i'm not sure where you got that from...

[TMR]

 

And then A8 users tamed the big bad c64 fans and showed them who's boss!

 

It's a good job this is a fairy tale - it's not as though that happened in real life! =-)

 

What about having Atari pics? Anyone up the challenge of having these converted to the Atari and 'enhanced'?

 

Umm... i hate to use the word "impossible" with frenchman around, but two of those four are 320x200 at sixteen colours... "enhancing" that is going to be [tries to think of another way of saying it] erm, a bit hard? =-)

[Tezz]

Umm... i hate to use the word "impossible" with frenchman around, but two of those four are 320x200 at sixteen colours... "enhancing" that is going to be [tries to think of another way of saying it] erm, a bit hard? =-)

True, however, the second pic is 2:1, 160x200.

 

EDIT... well there are areas of blended colours in hi res but it's essentially 160x200.

Edited October 3, 2009 by Tezz

[TMR]

Devil's advocaat for a moment, perhaps more artists went for the C64 because it's the more flexible machine to work with...

 

Nah - that's clearly not the case - by the time great pixel artwork was really underway (1984/85) the next generation of systems were with us (PS/ST/Amiga etc) - at least a couple of those were far more artistically liberating than the C64 - just MUCH more expensive!

 

That's not really relevant to artists looking at two machines in their own price band (or indeed existing A8 artists being tempted to the "dark side") and trying to decide which is better for them, is it? And those artists didn't appear suddenly in 1984/5 fully formed, at least a percentage of them would have been already working with the machine by that point to hone their skills.

[TMR]

Umm... i hate to use the word "impossible" with frenchman around, but two of those four are 320x200 at sixteen colours... "enhancing" that is going to be [tries to think of another way of saying it] erm, a bit hard? =-)

True, however, the second pic is 2:1, 160x200

 

As is the fourth, but he was talking about the whole set and 50% of that is going to be an utter pig to do. If someone is just going for one, i'd prefer seeing the last one because it's my favourite. =-)

[Allas]

Why don't exist C64 games with this quality pictures on intros?

All the lastest productions, are so simple.

[TMR]

C64 was indeed more popular, that is why software was more readily available. But in Europe A8 software was always available, even in the UK all software shops used the 'Software Link Chain' which would order any piece of software for your A8 within the next day. No probs there.

 

That didn't happen if the store owners weren't interested in being that helpful and from my experience, the independents weren't offering that service and the chain that sold me an 800XL didn't even carry software for it in the first place. And without an easily available magazine (again, mileage probably varies based on location but i never saw a dedicated A8 mag in our local shops) there was no way to know what was even available to order.

[Bryan]

The Commodore 1541 (by far, the most common drive in the US) is the drive known for knocking itself out of alignment.

 

That's the weird thing... people keep saying that about the breeze block 1541, but the two i've got on my desk have never needed aligning once (i occasionally remember to clean the heads) and it's not as though i've wrapped them in cotton wool or anything like that either, i'm rough on my hardware and they've had more than their fair share of use over the years.

 

I've aligned a few of them. It helps if you reassemble the stepper pulley with some heavy-duty thread lock compound on everything because once they slip once, they seem to do it again.

[STE'86]

Devil's advocaat for a moment, perhaps more artists went for the C64 because it's the more flexible machine to work with...

 

Nah - that's clearly not the case - by the time great pixel artwork was really underway (1984/85) the next generation of systems were with us (PS/ST/Amiga etc) - at least a couple of those were far more artistically liberating than the C64 - just MUCH more expensive!

 

The C64 was cheaper, more readily available, better marketed with a broad range of software, it was an appealing system, and as a result fell into the hands of many creative people as result of it's ubiquity, if the A8 had sold as many units then there would be a huge archive of wonderful pixel art for that too I would think...

 

sTeVE

 

actually mate thats not strictly true (in UK anyway) the ST didnt really become available in its stfm form to the mass market until 1987 and the amiga a500 about 12 months later, so for 2 years the c64 was the machine of choice for any would-be graphic designer because it was the best platform available for anyone with any aspirations of working in the industry. As i say i can only be certain of these facts in relation to the UK, but as, during the period the best art was produced on the 64 in the uk, i feel confident enough to post this.

 

Steve

[TMR]

Why don't exist C64 games with this quality pictures on intros?

All the lastest productions, are so simple.

 

i wouldn't have said all the latest ones are, Berzerk Redux has a decent loading picture, Knight 'n' Grail has several well drawn multicolour bitmaps in use for presentation (in fact, all the Psytronik releases are nice in that respect) and the Scramble 2010 preview mentioned previously is using graphics of a similar nature during the game itself (drawn by the same person who did the second "girl, dog and dragon" picture).

 

But we get quite a bit of less serious game development on the C64 (one of the advantages of the hardware, a game based around a joke can be written in a day or two), productions that were just knocked out for the laugh like Bable Bable (think Bubble Bobble but the dinos have to burp at the enemies) and in those cases the people behind them don't see the point in going bonkers on presentation.

[Tezz]

... the ST didnt really become available in its stfm form to the mass market until 1987 and the amiga a500 about 12 months later

That's exactly the dates I got mine. 520STFM 1987, Amiga 500 1988. We could only dream about owning an ST looking at the the ads in the magazines from it's original launch... way too far out of my price range.

[oky2000]

For realtime codec work it is impressive for a 1mhz 6510 in any case. Looks better than those A8 Matrix reloaded videos anyway and faster too

 

I can't find the bloody Tron lightcycles C64 realtime video on youtube though which was great.

 

Your personal preference. A8 Matrix scene is clearly better and cannot be done on C64. Fact.

 

I can't argue with that because I can not find the Tron lightcycle FMV sequence done on the C64 which looked just as colourful.

 

And the matrix FMV is also your personal preference too then

[Jetboot Jack]

actually mate thats not strictly true (in UK anyway) the ST didnt really become available in its stfm form to the mass market until 1987 and the amiga a500 about 12 months later

 

I beg to differ, I was selling ST (not FM) machines from 1986 in regular UK retail and the A1000 around the same time...

 

for anyone with any aspirations of working in the industry. As i say i can only be certain of these facts in relation to the UK, but as, during the period the best art was produced on the 64 in the uk, i feel confident enough to post this.

 

Now those wanting to make a stab at making a living from the games industry in the mid 80's in the UK - sure the C64 was the machine of choice - there was a high demand for C64 software from the large installed base right up until the end of the 80's...

 

But that's people who want to make games - and as a by product there is art involved. And those who were even remotely forward looking were getting into the ST and Amiga as soon as they got exposed to "the industry" - so by 1986/87 there was a lot of people who had made games on the C64 and were now targeting the new 16bit machines professionally as they were the next wave (there were no shortage of releases on ST and Amiga in 1987 that had to be produced- you needed to be at least 12/18 months ahead of consumer demand to be any good at games development (still do...).

 

Activision, Firebird, Incentive etc were getting into the 16bit machines in 1986 so they could release stuff in 1987. I know I was doing work for them.

 

Anyway it's not the C64's graphical ability per-se that gates the great artwork we see here, but the skill of the artists who used it - or am I wrong thinking that?

 

sTeVE

[Lazarus]

I've aligned a few of them. It helps if you reassemble the stepper pulley with some heavy-duty thread lock compound on everything because once they slip once, they seem to do it again.

Then they weren't really misaligned. Aligning a misaligned drive head takes an oscilloscope, an alignment disk written with certain analog patterns and a lot of time. My guess is that your "misaligned drives" simply had their head moved beyond track 35 which the 1541 DOS cannot deal with. That can be fixed with software: Insert a disk and send either the Initialize command or the Format command to the drive.

[STE'86]

But the atari sts and stms werent what u could call "mass market" were they? they, and the a1000s were "enthusiasts" machines. they were outside the price range and availability of pretty much most computer users until the arrival of stfms and a500s. i remember in 87 my stfm costing £350 which is almost double what a 64 cost me in '85. my amiga fortunately was a freebie to develop on (which i never did i always preferred the ST design apps)

 

anyway what i am saying i suppose is that the c64 art had an extended lease of life because of the availability and affordability of the "next gen" machines.

 

and as to your last, somewhat "barbed" comment, i would say that its MUCH easier to produce something that looks reasonable on the c64 than any other 8bit because of its superiority of multicolour bitmap display.

 

however, as i have said MANY times before, the artist who i thought was the dogs bollocks of any computer artist was Dave Thorpe who was a spectrum specialist, and did the loaders for ocean/imagine and US gold.

 

Steve

[Jetboot Jack]

and as to your last, somewhat "barbed" comment, i would say that its MUCH easier to produce something that looks reasonable on the c64 than any other 8bit because of its superiority of multicolour bitmap display.

 

eh?

 

What on earth is barbed about me saying that "hardware" is not the gate of great art work, but artistic skill is!?!?

 

Is everyone on this board so myopic about their own preferences for some aged computer hardware that they can't accept that NONE of these machines is particularly powerful or wonderful, and that those who created interesting and compelling images on them did so despite the technology!?!

 

sTeVE

[potatohead]

(enjoyed the game mechanics / hardware discussion a lot more than "hey, don't these pictures kind of suck somehow?" one)

 

You and me both, mate...

 

Sort of on that subject, i've been mulling over GTIA-based backgrounds and questions like which is better, going for 4:1 ratio pixels at sixteen colours or having each pixel line repeat so they can be 2:1? The latter is easier (in my case it'll reduce the CPU load for background-related jobs by over 50% and drawing game graphics in 4:1 ratio is an utter pig) but feels like cheating somehow.

 

Frankly, I would go for the 2:1 ratio. Maybe I'm kind of off in left field, but I like the lower resolutions. It's part of retro. 160x96, 80x96 on Atari can have a lot of colors in PAL land at least. Why not? YOOMP! basically uses square pixels, and the presentation of it came out great. IMHO, this is a style that contrasts nicely with the higher resolution character style. Game then becomes more abstract, and can be a lot more colorful. Of course, there then comes the sprite challenge. A great multiplexer is gonna be needed, or some kind of interleave scheme to permit the higher resolution graphics modes. That means 25Hz motion in the end, but again --I think this is a style thing.

 

After looking through this thread, I find a lot of my favorite games ended up being some artifact of the hardware. I like the overall feel of those artifacts, which is why I like Atari, and am not exactly jazzed on VBXE. Damn cool project, don't get me wrong, but not something I'm wanting to game on, at least not now. Maybe later.

 

The project Claus worked on is more my speed, where some additional color ends up being an option, but the core flavor of the machine is still well presented.

 

3D projects make good sense this way too. Given CPU speeds and RAM limits, the lower resolution makes perfect sense there too. I was stunned at the impression of movement and being there I experienced on that quickie 3D demo. As somebody who lives in NTSC land, was more than a bit envious of the color possibilities too.

 

A whole lot of the discussion comes down to 320 pixels and higher color density. Yep. That's what the C64 does, and it does it well. I can get that on a NES too --well, maybe not the 320 pixels, but you know what I mean.

 

The more abstract, pre character oriented games, are my personal favorite. An Atari more or less forces that. An Atari can do the newer styles, but it takes a LOT of work. I see the challenge in that too. That whole dynamic is what makes the machine interesting to me personally.

 

-->Totally agree that better pixel art is possible on Atari machines. It's gonna be more blocky, as in "there! I can see the pixels", but some of us LIKE to see the pixels.