Atari v Commodore

[TMR]

How come the Commodore didn't have the extra level?

 

Well, i suspect that, because Pitfall was ported to the C64 in 1983 and the A8 version with the extra level added wasn't released until a year later, it proved somewhat hard for the C64 programmer to install a level that didn't actually exist when he was writing the code...?

Edited October 20, 2009 by TMR

[Kr0tki]

He was talking about Pitfall II, and it was released for C64 in 1984, the same year as the Atari version.

 

Check out Wikipedia, there's the real story about the additional level.

[TMR]

He was talking about Pitfall II, and it was released for C64 in 1984, the same year as the Atari version.

 

Ah, my bad - sorry. i'm simultaneously looking through Amstrad CPC games as "research" for Format War at the moment and have something of a cold, what little functionality my brain has is pretty much out the window today. =-)

 

Check out Wikipedia, there's the real story about the additional level.

 

Right, so if i'm reading that correctly the two were converted simultaneously and the coder on the A8 added the new level himself, it wasn't "official". Essentially the same reason (it wasn't there when the C64 version was coded) but different timescale then...?

Edited October 20, 2009 by TMR

[oky2000]

Well Loren Carpenter who wrote ALL the routines for RoF did so using an Atari 800 donated to him by Lucasfilm (he was a consultant for the movie division on loan to the games division). I suspect given the location (USA) and the time frame (early 80s) the A8 was the initial target machine. Any coding to translate it to the C64 was much later and very quick. What is interesting is all versions of RoF (Amstrad/C64/Spectrum/Apple II) run quite slow not just the C64.

 

1. Loren Carpenter is the only person who truly understands what that code is doing (otherwise a kickass PC or Amiga/ST version of the routines would have been made).

2. The fractal routines were hardly changed and never used again because he wasn't available to do it.

 

Couldn't tell you why Eidolon is much improved on C64<>A8 speed difference but like I said any optimisation for one could easily be patched into the other version. Perhaps now we can move on?

[Kr0tki]

Right, so if i'm reading that correctly the two were converted simultaneously and the coder on the A8 added the new level himself, it wasn't "official". Essentially the same reason (it wasn't there when the C64 version was coded) but different timescale then...?

Exactly. There's no reason a C64 couldn't pull it out.

 

On a side note, the same applies for the missing screen in IK.

 

While I'm at it, does anybody have a C64 dump of IK that loads screens after reaching certain level, just as the Atari version does? All I could find were different versions each having 2 screens that could be switched by keyboard.

Edited October 20, 2009 by Kr0tki

[Rockford]

... or count pixels in each of your comical comparisons, you must be out of your tree !

You even don't know the difference between a histogram and a single pixel? Many graphic programs can count different colours...

 

I know it perfectly (it was an irony, if you didn't notice) but you seem to have difficulties recognizing the difference. A8 Spy Hunter better my a..

 

 

...MAKE THESE FANCY PERCENTAGE COMPARISONS

 

Still NO percentages. Percentages are irrelevant. Maybe the post #9048 from popmilo helps you.

You are not able to accept that "Blue Max" and "River Raid" are better on the A8 - this means for me EOD and trying to enlighten you is simple a waste of time.

For f..k’s sake, man… could you stop playing the fool, please ? Look if a game has a Lemon rating 8.2 out of 10 it’s the same as 82% out of 100%, right ? It’s just a semantic so, don't catch me in my words and do as you bragged about. If any doubt refer to your own words, which I always cited, didn’t I ? So again: "For every title you can find, there is an other C64 title with a higher 'Lemon-rating' where the Atari version is even better." I encourage you as much as I can to MAKE THESE FANCY SCORES COMPARISONS. It's your idea, remember ? Or maybe you just have relised that it's impossible because your list is too short, hence we can see your comical comparisons like Blue Max, Spy Hunter, etc.

ACCORDING TO YOUR THEORY THE BARE LIST ISN’T ENOUGH. SO, COMPARE THESE LEMON: SCORES, PERCENTAGES, RATINGS, POINTS (WHATEVER YOU CALL THEM) AS YOU BRAGGED ABOUT. COULD YOU DO THIS OR NOT ? IF NOT, GO DREAM SOMEWHERE ELSE AND STOP BOTHER ME, PLEASE.

Edited October 20, 2009 by Rockford

[Rockford]

Sorry lads, today no C64/A8 comparisons, because my main source (Atarimania) of A8 pictures is down (I don't know what happened). I'll be back tomorrow.

 

It's not down, simply been redesigned. just go to the main www.atarimania.com url and you can get back to the games pages from there. Wouldn't want to deny everyone their daily comparisons.

 

 

Pete

It has been redesigned indeed and looks even better now. Anyway, I'm back like a bad habit.

[Rockford]

Look, you just might want to skip the next one.

 

...just sayin'

No way man.

[Rockford]

Hey Rockford, while you're on hold, I'd like to let you know that every time you use Atarimania screenshots to support an argument of wrongly chosen colours (mind you I'm not talking about less on-screen colours), you are essentially defeating yourself. Screenshots at Atarimania simply have wrong colours; that's because they used an Atari800Win emulator which emulates colours improperly. To add more to confusion, NTSC and PAL Ataris actually produce different sets of colours, and that emulator does not support this feature at all!

 

So if you want your claims of wrongly chosen colours to have any value whatsoever, you would want to make the screenshots yourself. It is possible for the emulator to produce correct colours only by means of loading an external palette. The most accurate palettes available right now are Oliviern.act for American games, and laoo.act for European ones.

Hey KrOtki, thanks for the tip, but it has been already discussed. To make long story short – nobody would have enough time to do this and my comparisons are based on playing real games (not pictures). Besides, the Atarimania pictures aren’t so bad, so let’s not dramatize. What’s more C64 pictures aren’t perfect either. Anyway, if you or somebody else know the better and more reliable & complete source of A8 pictures, let me know please and I’ll gladly use it.

[Rockford]

Right, so if i'm reading that correctly the two were converted simultaneously and the coder on the A8 added the new level himself, it wasn't "official". Essentially the same reason (it wasn't there when the C64 version was coded) but different timescale then...?

Exactly. There's no reason a C64 couldn't pull it out.

 

On a side note, the same applies for the missing screen in IK.

 

While I'm at it, does anybody have a C64 dump of IK that loads screens after reaching certain level, just as the Atari version does? All I could find were different versions each having 2 screens that could be switched by keyboard.

A hard nut to crack, it’s a different story than International Karate, since the C64 London stage was official and the C64 version was released first.

[Kr0tki]

1. Loren Carpenter is the only person who truly understands what that code is doing (otherwise a kickass PC or Amiga/ST version of the routines would have been made).

2. The fractal routines were hardly changed and never used again because he wasn't available to do it.

Both your points can be refuted by the credits sequence in the Amiga game Masterblazer. That probably lend a lot to the rumor that RoF was being developed for the Amiga.

[Lazarus]

You are wrong, RoF draws the entire frame. If some things don't move it's because of integer coordinates for the lines. You know, subpixel accuracy only got common in the mid 90's and I definitely never have seen it on 8 bit 3D games.

Come on. The whole C64 gamescreen is a "trick". Please examine the hills in the A8 version and the weird black-bars that seem to look like.

The C64 version uses a fully different logic for building the scene.

Even IF C64 draws all content, it doesn't calculate all the needed stuff.

See, the lines are drawn with integer coordinates. If the spaceship is moving slowly you easily end up having the same integer coordinates for some vertices for more than one frame because integer does not show changes in the fraction part. This happens on both versions.

 

And, well, you call it "Subpixel accuracy" what's missing in the C64 version, why doesn't this "move only 20% on the screen" happen in the A8 version?

Subpixel accuracy is missing in EVERY 8 bit 3D game. It became common after Quake/Doom came out but not before.

[Kr0tki]

Hey KrOtki, thanks for the tip, but it has been already discussed. To make long story short – nobody would have enough time to do this and my comparisons are based on playing real games (not pictures).

I assume you play them on a physical machine? Then it still poses a problem. Assuming you have a PAL Atari, you are still not getting correct colours on American games. However if you use an emulator, then please use the palettes that I've mentioned.

 

Besides, the Atarimania pictures aren’t so bad, so let’s not dramatize.

Well, you were using their screenshot a few days ago while stating that water on Spy Hunter looks worse that on a C64, while on a real machine it looks the same. So sorry, I don't believe that you've actually played a real game in that instance.

 

Anyway, if you or somebody else know the better and more reliable & complete source of A8 pictures, let me know please and I’ll gladly use it.

There's no such resource right now, sorry.

 

A hard nut to crack, it’s a different story than International Karate, since the C64 London stage was official and the C64 version was released first.

But still, there's no reason for Atari to not be able to pull that, and on that point it's the same story.

 

Anyway, you admitted previously that you were not sure which version was first; have you checked it out like you said you'd do?

Edited October 20, 2009 by Kr0tki

[www.atarimania.com]

A hard nut to crack, it’s a different story than International Karate, since the C64 London stage was official and the C64 version was released first.

Released first but not necessarily written first.

 

The first mention of the game was a snippet in Computer & Video Games and the screenshot posted was from the Atari version. There's also a beta with slightly different graphics for New York City. Seems what happened was Rob Hubbard was asked to do the music for the C64 and the conversion for the Atari was written later, which delayed that release.

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

[roland p]

Subpixel accuracy is missing in EVERY 8 bit 3D game. It became common after Quake/Doom came out but not before.

Do fractional values count as subpixels?

[oky2000]

1. Loren Carpenter is the only person who truly understands what that code is doing (otherwise a kickass PC or Amiga/ST version of the routines would have been made).

2. The fractal routines were hardly changed and never used again because he wasn't available to do it.

Both your points can be refuted by the credits sequence in the Amiga game Masterblazer. That probably lend a lot to the rumor that RoF was being developed for the Amiga.

 

I know Ball Blazer was converted by Rainbow Arts as a semi-official Amiga version with that game sure, but Rescue on Fractalus/Koronis/Eidolon has nothing in common with the code of Ball Blazer. In fact it was two completely separate teams writing two 'disposable' games to show to Atari..one was BB other was RoF. Lucasfilm merely acknowledged the remake by Rainbow Arts as well in that set of screenshots. What there is a rumour of (although I have never got confirmation of by anyone working there at the time e.g. David Fox) is that there was also a port for the IBM PC thought about, whether any code got written I couldn't tell you but that is the only 16 bit code that potentially exists. Once the Eidolon was released I believe that was it for the fractal game development, they then started doing the adventure games which lead to the SCUM system which All their Amiga games were written with to be honest. Never ever heard even the slightest rumour of RoF/KR/Eidolon being coded or though of for the Amiga which is a real shame....as Monkey Island is also rubbish and boring AFAIC

 

No offence but I think Ball Blazer is rubbish, doesn't interest me at all anyway sorry.

[www.atarimania.com]

Hey Rockford, while you're on hold, I'd like to let you know that every time you use Atarimania screenshots to support an argument of wrongly chosen colours (mind you I'm not talking about less on-screen colours), you are essentially defeating yourself. Screenshots at Atarimania simply have wrong colours; that's because they used an Atari800Win emulator which emulates colours improperly. To add more to confusion, NTSC and PAL Ataris actually produce different sets of colours, and that emulator does not support this feature at all!

You're right about the US stuff but most of the other screenshots on our site match what I can see on my original PAL Atari. I had to adjust the palette but the colors can't be that wrong, considering how close they are to the ones on Fandal's site and Ekranowia Atari (they're a bit darker on the latter).

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

[+selgus]

are we not speculating about ROFL? I personally doubt that they splittet the drawing into layers... this does not make sense from programming point of view...

 

look... if we are saying we are drawing only the front mountains when necessary and save the cycles... how would you do that?

 

I mean you definitly need to redraw the whole screen... we do not have a z-buffer or a blitter where we can see if we need to draw (so to say delta-updating)

 

we draw from back to front otherwise we run in clipping issues... so... the background needs to be drawn anyway? you can not leave it there for the next frame and draw on top? why? how would you erase the moving front mountains and restore the background?

Actually, this is sort of how the routines in ROF work. The world is broken up into a grid, and the grid points form the endpoints of the fractal lines. The game draws the fractal lines front to back in layers, into a sort-of Y-buffer. it then fills from the previous Y position from each column to this current one, only drawing the delta from the previous frame.

 

The clipper uses a similar technique Loren used for REYES, where you sub-divide the line, culling parts which are totally off-screen and continuing to divide lines that have one end-point on-screen and one off-screen. This was done in 16-bit math, until the MSB hit zero, and then shifted to 8-bit math.

 

BTW, I never thought I would be posting in this thread...

--Selgus

[Rockford]

Hey KrOtki, thanks for the tip, but it has been already discussed. To make long story short – nobody would have enough time to do this and my comparisons are based on playing real games (not pictures).

I assume you play them on a physical machine? Then it still poses a problem. Assuming you have a PAL Atari, you are still not getting correct colours on American games. However if you use an emulator, then please use the palettes that I've mentioned.

 

OK mate

 

 

 

Besides, the Atarimania pictures aren’t so bad, so let’s not dramatize.

Well, you were stating a few day ago that water on Spy Hunter looks worse that on a C64, while on a real machine it looks the same. So sorry, I don't believe that you've actually played a real game in that instance.

 

 

I did play the real game and I refered to the appearance of water not colour. On C64 there are "signs of waves" whereas on A8 the water is waveless. I know it's comical, but it's the Irgendwer's way of comparing games, not mine.

 

 

 

Anyway, if you or somebody else know the better and more reliable & complete source of A8 pictures, let me know please and I’ll gladly use it.

There's no such resource right now, sorry.

 

So, we agree on this one.

 

 

 

A hard nut to crack, it’s a different story than International Karate, since the C64 London stage was official and the C64 version was released first.

But still, there's no reason for Atari to not be able to pull that, and on that point it's the same story.

 

You are wrong, A8 couldn't have handled the London stage due to disk capacity and music had to be cut because of smaller RAM in older models of A8. Atarians said that, not me. What's more A8 version was released later so, it's not the same story.

 

 

 

A hard nut to crack, it’s a different story than International Karate, since the C64 London stage was official and the C64 version was released first.

 

 

Anyway, you have previously admitted that you were not sure which version was first; have you checked it out like you said you'd do?

Atarimania has alredy answered your question.

Edited October 20, 2009 by Rockford

[atariksi]

Hey Rockford, while you're on hold, I'd like to let you know that every time you use Atarimania screenshots to support an argument of wrongly chosen colours (mind you I'm not talking about less on-screen colours), you are essentially defeating yourself. Screenshots at Atarimania simply have wrong colours; that's because they used an Atari800Win emulator which emulates colours improperly. To add more to confusion, NTSC and PAL Ataris actually produce different sets of colours, and that emulator does not support this feature at all!

 

So if you want your claims of wrongly chosen colours to have any value whatsoever, you would want to make the screenshots yourself. It is possible for the emulator to produce correct colours only by means of loading an external palette. The most accurate palettes available right now are Oliviern.act for American games, and laoo.act for European ones.

 

I don't know about these files, but I previously got some palette file which did not even have 256 unique RGBs-- some were repeats. Now unless some colors on A8 require more than 8-bit per primary to represent, the 256 colors should each have unique RGBs.

[Kr0tki]

I know Ball Blazer was converted by Rainbow Arts as a semi-official Amiga version with that game sure, but Rescue on Fractalus/Koronis/Eidolon has nothing in common with the code of Ball Blazer. (...) No offence but I think Ball Blazer is rubbish, doesn't interest me at all anyway sorry.

I'm not sure whether you got the point - that the RoF fractal engine has ben ported to a 16-bit machine.

[Kr0tki]

I did play the real game and I refered to the appearance of water not colour. On C64 there are "signs of waves" whereas on A8 the water is waveless.

Ah, I get it. However I seem to remember that those "signs of waves" are visible in the Atari version when you get to the boat-swimming sequence. Alas I'm not willing to be pulled into this screenshot-throwing debate, so let's forget about it.

 

I know it's comical, but it's the Irgendwer's way of comparing games, not mine.

So why are you doing it?

 

You are wrong, A8 couldn't have handled the London stage due to disk capacity and music had to be cut because of smaller RAM in older models of A8. Atarians said that, not me.

Those arguments explain why THEY did not handle it back in 1986, but there were Extended-Density disk drives as well as 64KB Ataris available back then, so they still COULD handle the stage as well as the music if not for economic reasons.

 

What's more A8 version was released later so, it's not the same story.

But it seems it was written first, as Atarimania pointed out.

Edited October 20, 2009 by Kr0tki

[Kr0tki]

You're right about the US stuff but most of the other screenshots on our site match what I can see on my original PAL Atari. I had to adjust the palette but the colors can't be that wrong, considering how close they are to the ones on Fandal's site and Ekranowia Atari (they're a bit darker on the latter).

You're right, only the very first screenshots made for your site had wrong colours. Sorry, I didn't mean to belittle your work.

[Rockford]

 

 

I know it's comical, but it's the Irgendwer's way of comparing games, not mine.

So why are you doing it?

Only to show how comical it was. I wrote "If I were you I would..." remember ?

 

 

You are wrong, A8 couldn't have handled the London stage due to disk capacity and music had to be cut because of smaller RAM in older models of A8. Atarians said that, not me.

Those arguments explain why THEY did not handle it back in 1986, but there were Extended-Density disk drives as well as 64KB Ataris available back then, so they still COULD handle the stage as well as the music if not for economic reasons.

 

But they didn't and as a result there are 2 different official games.

 

 

 

What's more A8 version was released later so, it's not the same story.

But it seems it was written first, as Atarimania pointed out.

I wouldn't say that. You see, a game without music isn't a fully finished game, is it ? So, in the end the C64 version was made and released first. When the Atari version hit the shelves people already had seen the C64 version. Besides, IK was made by the same programmers at different time, while Pitfall II by different programmers at the same time. So the story isn't the same.

[Heaven/TQA]

1. Loren Carpenter is the only person who truly understands what that code is doing (otherwise a kickass PC or Amiga/ST version of the routines would have been made).

2. The fractal routines were hardly changed and never used again because he wasn't available to do it.

Both your points can be refuted by the credits sequence in the Amiga game Masterblazer. That probably lend a lot to the rumor that RoF was being developed for the Amiga.

 

it was not a Rumor... Julian Eggebrecht, former CEO of Factor 5, wrote me an email years ago when I was asking him what happened to ROFL and he told me that he had access to the source codes but LucasArts were not keen in releasing them... so he could not even tell me a bit what the code did except of the stuff already leaked on the net.