DracIsBack Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 GTIA was way beyond anything at the time: I created some nice digitized images touched up by sprite overlays to enhance resolution. Here's one: ComputerEyes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+thegoldenband Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 This is an interesting and often contentious thread. I had a 5200 as a kid, and started out with Pac-Man, Zaxxon, and Mr. Do's Castle, before picking up a half-dozen other titles some years later. While I enjoyed the games we had up to a point, it was essentially a disappointment. The stock controllers became unusable within weeks, and were certainly stiff and tiring right from the start, which gave us a very bad initial impression. We soon purchased an adapter which had inputs for a 2600 and 5200 controller, letting you use the former for gameplay and the latter for its extra buttons when needed. That definitely helped, but even so, it wasn't long before I went back to the 2600 for most of my gaming. Around the same time, I got to play the ColecoVision on one or two occasions, and really liked what I saw. Graphically, I was extremely impressed -- I think the titles I tried out were the Smurfs, and one of the B.C. titles. The sound seemed better than the 5200 as well. But I didn't have enough playtime back then to give it a full evaluation. It's difficult to pinpoint what exactly fell short for me with the 5200. One thing I notice now is that there's a kind of graphical dinginess that plagues a lot of 5200 titles, and a lot of Atari 8-bit software as well -- a kind of gloomy, dark quality that I think is partly a product of the limited color palette available in certain resolutions (if I understand correctly). The 7800 had much the same problem, IMHO. I've never liked the visual look of a lot of Atari 8-bit stuff, but it's hard to say how much of it is a graphic design issue, and how much is hardware. Some of the screenshots that Jetboot Jack posted look very nice, so it can be overcome, but others exemplify the thing I'm talking about, especially Miner 2049er (or Bounty Bob, whichever it is) and Gremlins. Countermeasure comes to mind as well. Some of this is probably a resolution vs. palette issue, but the CV just seems brighter and crisper to me. I haven't looked firsthand at the respective specs of the sound hardware, but I do know that most CV games also sound a bit better to me as well, which as a musician is a significant issue to me. Of course, the 5200's current reputation is also hurt by the fact that many of the games don't translate well to emulation. Oddly enough, I think I'm more likely to fire up a 5200 game in emulation than a CV game, but that partly reflects the fact that I simply haven't put in the time with the CV, and that one of the major CV emulators (Mugrat) had a major bug until relatively recently that rendered some games unplayable. By the way, I have a hard time believing that 5200 sales figures even approached that of the ColecoVision. At the time, the CV had more mindshare, more press coverage, more visibility, and just seemed to be "around" a lot more. The 5200, by contrast, seemed like a marked man right from the start, and I was the only kid I knew who had one; I assume my parents bought it once it had been reduced in price, since we weren't exactly made of money. Even as a 7-year-old (albeit a 7-year-old who liked to read gaming magazines), I could see that the 5200 almost instantly had the reputation of a turkey -- which the CV did NOT have, though the Adam was notorious. But without actual numbers from the companies themselves, I guess that's just speculation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 (edited) It is nice, but we are talking about game console... now on you picture add a real game mechanics.... Go back to my post - Stuff the CV could NOT do... - you too thegoldenband, those images don't look dingy.... Several of those images use GTIA modes, yes 80X192, hmmm.... sTeVE Edited June 15, 2009 by Jetboot Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atariksi Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 I cannot wait for all the 5200 games that people will create now using your routine... I just hope they don't use 80x192, because frankly that resolution sucks... GTIA was way beyond anything at the time: I created some nice digitized images touched up by sprite overlays to enhance resolution. Here's one: It is nice, but we are talking about game console... now on you picture add a real game mechanics.... I don't see why you couldn't add nice pictures with game elements. Anyway, he was claiming GTIA resolution sucks, but I just wanted to point out it's still useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atariksi Posted June 15, 2009 Share Posted June 15, 2009 GTIA was way beyond anything at the time: I created some nice digitized images touched up by sprite overlays to enhance resolution. Here's one: ComputerEyes? Actually scanned image at 320*240*16 on PC (done with DOS back in 1980s-- it was actually half-tone converted to gray by the software) and then subsampled to 80*240*16 for GTIA mode and then enhanced to 160*240*16 using gray-scale sprites where most useful and then pixel replicated to 320*240*16 and put into JPG format and posted on AtariAge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atariksi Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 ...While I enjoyed the games we had up to a point, it was essentially a disappointment. The stock controllers became unusable within weeks, and were certainly stiff and tiring right from the start, which gave us a very bad initial impression. We soon purchased an adapter which had inputs for a 2600 and 5200 controller, letting you use the former for gameplay and the latter for its extra buttons when needed. That definitely helped, but even so, it wasn't long before I went back to the 2600 for most of my gaming. ... The A5200 Trackball is one of the best controller I have used (for games that allow it) and it still working without any maintenance; yeah other controllers could be better. >Around the same time, I got to play the ColecoVision on one or two occasions, and really liked what I saw. Graphically, I was extremely impressed -- I think the titles I tried out were the Smurfs, and one of the B.C. titles. The sound seemed better than the 5200 as well. But I didn't have enough playtime back then to give it a full evaluation. I recently got a bunch of Colecovision games so I will compare with some A5200 versions and see what the sounds are like to me. >It's difficult to pinpoint what exactly fell short for me with the 5200. One thing I notice now is that there's a kind of graphical dinginess that plagues a lot of 5200 titles, and a lot of Atari 8-bit software as well -- a kind of gloomy, dark quality that I think is partly a product of the limited color palette available in certain resolutions (if I understand correctly). The 7800 had much the same problem, IMHO. Perhaps your connections weren't solid. I haven't noticed any darkness; they seem brighter than some other machines I have tried. Palette actually is an Atari advantage since many games switch color scenes between levels like Boulderdash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarian63 Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 This is an interesting and often contentious thread. I had a 5200 as a kid, and started out with Pac-Man, Zaxxon, and Mr. Do's Castle, before picking up a half-dozen other titles some years later. While I enjoyed the games we had up to a point, it was essentially a disappointment. The stock controllers became unusable within weeks, and were certainly stiff and tiring right from the start, which gave us a very bad initial impression. We soon purchased an adapter which had inputs for a 2600 and 5200 controller, letting you use the former for gameplay and the latter for its extra buttons when needed. That definitely helped, but even so, it wasn't long before I went back to the 2600 for most of my gaming. Around the same time, I got to play the ColecoVision on one or two occasions, and really liked what I saw. Graphically, I was extremely impressed -- I think the titles I tried out were the Smurfs, and one of the B.C. titles. The sound seemed better than the 5200 as well. But I didn't have enough playtime back then to give it a full evaluation. It's difficult to pinpoint what exactly fell short for me with the 5200. One thing I notice now is that there's a kind of graphical dinginess that plagues a lot of 5200 titles, and a lot of Atari 8-bit software as well -- a kind of gloomy, dark quality that I think is partly a product of the limited color palette available in certain resolutions (if I understand correctly). The 7800 had much the same problem, IMHO. I've never liked the visual look of a lot of Atari 8-bit stuff, but it's hard to say how much of it is a graphic design issue, and how much is hardware. Some of the screenshots that Jetboot Jack posted look very nice, so it can be overcome, but others exemplify the thing I'm talking about, especially Miner 2049er (or Bounty Bob, whichever it is) and Gremlins. Countermeasure comes to mind as well. Some of this is probably a resolution vs. palette issue, but the CV just seems brighter and crisper to me. I haven't looked firsthand at the respective specs of the sound hardware, but I do know that most CV games also sound a bit better to me as well, which as a musician is a significant issue to me. Of course, the 5200's current reputation is also hurt by the fact that many of the games don't translate well to emulation. Oddly enough, I think I'm more likely to fire up a 5200 game in emulation than a CV game, but that partly reflects the fact that I simply haven't put in the time with the CV, and that one of the major CV emulators (Mugrat) had a major bug until relatively recently that rendered some games unplayable. By the way, I have a hard time believing that 5200 sales figures even approached that of the ColecoVision. At the time, the CV had more mindshare, more press coverage, more visibility, and just seemed to be "around" a lot more. The 5200, by contrast, seemed like a marked man right from the start, and I was the only kid I knew who had one; I assume my parents bought it once it had been reduced in price, since we weren't exactly made of money. Even as a 7-year-old (albeit a 7-year-old who liked to read gaming magazines), I could see that the 5200 almost instantly had the reputation of a turkey -- which the CV did NOT have, though the Adam was notorious. But without actual numbers from the companies themselves, I guess that's just speculation. Odd, I saw quite the opposite. Very few in my area had CV,the system had mostly second tier titles. I think the controllers were worse on CV as well, really creaky,feeling like they were about to break. I still have one and it still seems like that to me. Not sure what you mean about dark colors, I always thoght 5200/Atari 8 bit were much brighter than CV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Around the same time, I got to play the ColecoVision on one or two occasions, and really liked what I saw. Graphically, I was extremely impressed -- I think the titles I tried out were the Smurfs, and one of the B.C. titles. I remember SMURF really impressing me in a visual sense when I saw it. At the time, I was old enough to not like the subject matter but the game looked cool. One thing I notice now is that there's a kind of graphical dinginess that plagues a lot of 5200 titles, and a lot of Atari 8-bit software as well -- a kind of gloomy, dark quality that I think is partly a product of the limited color palette available in certain resolutions (if I understand correctly). The 7800 had much the same problem, IMHO. Are you thinking of the overall brightness of how the palette is put together? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Again I find that statement "graphical dinginess that plagues a lot of 5200" incomprehensible... Perhaps it is my 8bit rather than pure 5200 background but the GTIA/Antic chipset, IMHO, provides stellar color quality for the time - especially compared to the CV's palette. My own CV's all suffer from the yellow being gre-ish and red being pink-y which I have seen on all PAL systems. I guess as the 5200 artist could pick from many shades of one color there are plenty of times where there are different shades of say red possible whereas on the CV red is red? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcjakeqcool Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 I can't stress how unfortunate it was for the 5200 to be a faliure, the 5200 was awsome, should have been a sucsess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+thegoldenband Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 (edited) All I'm trying to say is that, to my eyes, a lot of games for the CV seem brighter and crisper. I understand that the 5200 offers a much broader palette overall, and that it had capabilities that exceed the CV in some departments (and vice versa). But whether it's an issue of untapped potential or inherent limitation, a lot of 5200 stuff just looks muddy to me. I suspect part of it is what DracIsBack mentioned -- the brightness of the palette itself -- which seems in practice to skew towards darker, earthier colors, vs. the CV's bright, almost cartoonish palette. In the screenshots you've posted, Ballblazer is fairly bright and colorful, but in Montezuma's Revenge, a lot of game screens are dominated by a small number of similar colors. The color palette of Gremlins and Drop Zone are similar -- very heavy on these darkish orange and blue tones that I feel like I see in a lot of 5200 games. I know the Tandy Color Computer pretty well, and color graphics in high-resolution modes on the CoCo are based on red and blue artifact colors; is that what's happening here? Looking at your screenshot of International Karate, there's a kind of grainy/blocky quality to the image, especially in the background. It may be a matter of taste, but I'd rather have fewer colors and a more simplistic depiction, in exchange for no pixellation and smoother contours (by which I suppose I mean "higher resolution", whether that's sprite resolution or overall). Another thing I've noticed in games like Countermeasure and the Xevious prototype (screenshot here) is a tendency to use light-blue text on a dark-blue background (or green, etc.), which I find unappealing. I understand that that's a hardware limitation of the 5200. Since I'm not an expert in the graphics modes available on either system, I can't offer a detailed comparison based on technical specs, nor do I want to get into a long back-and-forth over this (and since I'll be traveling over the next week, I couldn't even if I wanted to). Really, I think a lot of what we might say is summed up well in this article, which offers a fairly detailed comparison of both machines. Edited June 17, 2009 by thegoldenband Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opcode Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Since it isn't 5200 vs. CV anymore (it's more like Atari 8-bit vs CV now), I believe we should add some MSX games to this discussion (also uses TMS9918). Here are some screenshots. All of them offer better resolution than the pathetic 160 (or 80) pixels and 5 colors/scanline the 5200 can do... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atariksi Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Since it isn't 5200 vs. CV anymore (it's more like Atari 8-bit vs CV now), I believe we should add some MSX games to this discussion (also uses TMS9918). Here are some screenshots. All of them offer better resolution than the pathetic 160 (or 80) pixels and 5 colors/scanline the 5200 can do... No, it is 5200 vs. CV. A5200 has the same chips as A800. My pictures can easily be put on A5200 cartridge and many games for A8 also exist on A5200. If I wanted to compare with A8, I'll include the disk I/O, joystick I/O, etc. which will allow me to use "unlimited" memory applications on A8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opcode Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 MSX uses the same TMS9918, same Z80, all games above were released in cartridge format. So... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyace Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Since it isn't 5200 vs. CV anymore (it's more like Atari 8-bit vs CV now), I believe we should add some MSX games to this discussion (also uses TMS9918). Here are some screenshots. All of them offer better resolution than the pathetic 160 (or 80) pixels and 5 colors/scanline the 5200 can do... What games are those opcode? I dont know a lot of the MSX games. Are they all MSX1? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyace Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 MSX uses the same TMS9918, same Z80, all games above were released in cartridge format. So... To be fair - 5200 is 16k ram + 32k rom( non b/s ) and nearly all games are 32k or less - so that compares well with A8 ( 48k - 64k for XL ) CV is 32k rom + 16k vram +1k ram - MSX is rom(cart) + 16kvram + 32k/64k ram So MSX is a big step up from CV in terms of ram for the cpu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wood_jl Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Since it isn't 5200 vs. CV anymore (it's more like Atari 8-bit vs CV now), I believe ...[snip!] So the 5200 is NOT "really" Atari 400 hardware? Is that what you are claiming? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opcode Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 Since it isn't 5200 vs. CV anymore (it's more like Atari 8-bit vs CV now), I believe we should add some MSX games to this discussion (also uses TMS9918). Here are some screenshots. All of them offer better resolution than the pathetic 160 (or 80) pixels and 5 colors/scanline the 5200 can do... What games are those opcode? I dont know a lot of the MSX games. Are they all MSX1? Yes, all MSX1 games. Games are King's Valley II, Gradius 2, Parodius, Gofer no Yabou Episode II and Knightmare III. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApolloBoy Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 (edited) EDIT: Never mind, opcode answered before me. Edited June 17, 2009 by ApolloBoy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opcode Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 MSX uses the same TMS9918, same Z80, all games above were released in cartridge format. So... To be fair - 5200 is 16k ram + 32k rom( non b/s ) and nearly all games are 32k or less - so that compares well with A8 ( 48k - 64k for XL ) CV is 32k rom + 16k vram +1k ram - MSX is rom(cart) + 16kvram + 32k/64k ram So MSX is a big step up from CV in terms of ram for the cpu 48k - 64k of RAM isn't the same as 16k RAM + 32 ROM... So the 5200 is NOT "really" Atari 400 hardware? Is that what you are claiming? If you can post screenshots of games made for the computers and claim they are examples of 5200 games, then I think I can post MSX screenshots and claim that they are examples of what can be done with the CV. Fair enough... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyace Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 MSX uses the same TMS9918, same Z80, all games above were released in cartridge format. So... To be fair - 5200 is 16k ram + 32k rom( non b/s ) and nearly all games are 32k or less - so that compares well with A8 ( 48k - 64k for XL ) CV is 32k rom + 16k vram +1k ram - MSX is rom(cart) + 16kvram + 32k/64k ram So MSX is a big step up from CV in terms of ram for the cpu 48k - 64k of RAM isn't the same as 16k RAM + 32 ROM... For a lot of games 48k is pretty similar to 32k(rom)+16k(ram) when you take Character sets, maps, sprites and code - ( and a lot of Atari games were for A400/A800 - not XL only ). I'd say the 1k work ram is a bigger limit for Colecovision games. But you could put ram in and bankswitch - so all of your screenshots could be reproduced on the CV. Kings Valley 2 is lovely - I think it's the most impressive graphically - the main sprite is really nice. But it does flicker if you throw the knife at the mummy as the main sprite takes 3 h/w sprites. Gradius 2 and Parodious suffer from terrible scrolling - and that's not something that the higher resolution can make up for. (in my opinion ) The gremlins game actually shows a strength - using a high res bitmap ( in 4 colours ) along with the multi colour sprites for the main player it has a lot of detail with no flickering http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...t&id=131697 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opcode Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 But you could put ram in and bankswitch - so all of your screenshots could be reproduced on the CV. The TMS9918 has its own VRAM, it doesn't rely on system RAM, so you don't need any more than 1kB of system RAM to produce the graphics above. Of course system RAM can help with game logic. The gremlins game actually shows a strength - using a high res bitmap ( in 4 colours ) along with the multi colour sprites for the main player it has a lot of detail with no flickering Well, since we have entered the world of personal opinion, I can say that 160 pixels horizontally isn’t and hasn't been "high res" since the 70s after Space Invaders came out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wood_jl Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 Well, since we have entered the world of personal opinion, I can say that 160 pixels horizontally isn’t and hasn't been "high res" since the 70s after Space Invaders came out... Another observation on the world of personal opinion: Coleco fanboys are just as adamant as Commodore fanboys, when it comes to invading ATARIage to diss on Ataris. Amazing that the opposite doesn't happen. Is there no "Coleco Age?" (Why not? No large following like Atari? Why??) Do Atari users not care about Coleco? Both? Speculation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 I wonder how much programming would get down if we all didn't sit here and compare Apples and Oranges. Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarian63 Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 Since it isn't 5200 vs. CV anymore (it's more like Atari 8-bit vs CV now), I believe we should add some MSX games to this discussion (also uses TMS9918). Here are some screenshots. All of them offer better resolution than the pathetic 160 (or 80) pixels and 5 colors/scanline the 5200 can do... MSX was not relevant here in the United States so the point is moot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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