Commodore 64 vs Atari 800 Xl

[TMR]

I'm completly honest when i say that i don't like this type of messy graphics, some of the shots looks awful messy. Why, in the world...create something like this when you can create something that is both clear and colorful?

 

BECAUSE THEY WERE DOING IT IN A HURRY TO MAKE MONEY. We said as much.

[DimensionX]

I Agree, the Megadrive version isn't a very great job. The only thing that's a bit better is the sound and the scolling. Else it's the same game as on ST with a bit different colours.

 

Which is the point Pete and i were making; those games aren't shaped by the "style" and there's no "nuances" between them, it's literally all about how fast the same game can be shovelled from one box to another. As actual games, most of the Bitmap Brothers output is sub par and Xenon 2 in particular is just crap.

 

You can very well see what's missing in the C64 version, gradients. The Spectrum version is quite terrible.

 

And i'll say it again the A8 can't do a better job.

 

I would like to see a remake from Polen of this classic. Even if A8 only use 6 on screen colours it would look much better because of finer nuances. Who knows, maybe we are about to see a version of this game for A8.

[DimensionX]

I'm completly honest when i say that i don't like this type of messy graphics, some of the shots looks awful messy. Why, in the world...create something like this when you can create something that is both clear and colorful?

 

BECAUSE THEY WERE DOING IT IN A HURRY TO MAKE MONEY. We said as much.

 

I agree. They would have done a much better job if they had reworked the whole graphics for C64.

[DimensionX]

If this is what you mean by good C64 graphics?, in that case i haven't a single clue of why it should be so much better then the 8 bit Atari?

 

 

Jeeez. One guy mentions R-Type, says he wonders if something like that can be done on Atari. We have a discussion about it and even state the C64 version is pretty dire. Now it's as if we said Atari can't do this!

 

You really need to remember what's been said and by who in a thread if you're going to use something as the basis of an argument.

 

 

Pete

 

I posted that because one in this thread was a big fan of R-Type and didn't thought that Atari could handle such game. Then he complained at the gradients in A8 games.

 

So it was not aimed for you or TMR.

Edited April 27, 2010 by DimensionX

[TMR]

I would like to see a remake from Polen of this classic. Even if A8 only use 6 on screen colours it would look much better because of finer nuances.

 

No come on, you've been spouting off about how other people's work is a smeary mess so it's time to put your money where your mouth is; you produce a mock up of Xenon for the A8, show everybody how well it handles it. Then when we stop laughing, we'll do things like point out where you went wrong.

 

Who knows, maybe we are about to see a version of this game for A8.

 

Yeah, maybe we are... but i'll lay very good money that it doesn't look much better or worse than the existing C64 version.

[TMR]

I posted that because one in this thread was a big fan of R-Type and didn't thought that Atari could handle such game.

 

So far it hasn't so he was right.

 

Then he complained at the gradients in A8 games.

 

Which is a different point entirely and a gradient won't help someone convert R-Type anyway.

[DimensionX]

I would like to see a remake from Polen of this classic. Even if A8 only use 6 on screen colours it would look much better because of finer nuances.

 

No come on, you've been spouting off about how other people's work is a smeary mess so it's time to put your money where your mouth is; you produce a mock up of Xenon for the A8, show everybody how well it handles it. Then when we stop laughing, we'll do things like point out where you went wrong.

 

Who knows, maybe we are about to see a version of this game for A8.

 

Yeah, maybe we are... but i'll lay very good money that it doesn't look much better or worse than the existing C64 version.

 

The main difference between the machines is that you can choose fine nuances of whatever colour on Atari, something you can't on C64. It's no problem to choose 5 fine nuances of green for exemple thanks to a big palette to choose from. On screen colours is something else. If the ST only had 16 colours in total the games would never looked like that.

 

And even if you only use 5 colours for your game, you can still choose nuances of whatever colour.

Edited April 27, 2010 by DimensionX

[PeteD]

If this is what you mean by good C64 graphics?, in that case i haven't a single clue of why it should be so much better then the 8 bit Atari?

 

 

Jeeez. One guy mentions R-Type, says he wonders if something like that can be done on Atari. We have a discussion about it and even state the C64 version is pretty dire. Now it's as if we said Atari can't do this!

 

You really need to remember what's been said and by who in a thread if you're going to use something as the basis of an argument.

 

 

Pete

 

I posted that because one in this thread was a big fan of R-Type and didn't thought that Atari could handle such game. Then he complained at the gradients in A8 games.

 

So it was not aimed for you or TMR.

 

I'm sorry but it doesn't matter who it's aimed it, it's still a position you're taking.

 

Anyway..

 

If you're going to compare a "clean" looking C64 game and see if it's possible on the Atari you only have to look at Paradroid. 320x res (hires) with multiple colours on screen and 320x res sprites. You just can't do that on the Atari, trust me I've been trying. You've got a choice of 1/2 the x res giving you the possibility of displaying the colours the C64 one does or keep it hires and attempt to re-colour parts of the screen using PMGs with which you don't have the flexibility of the C64s colour RAM so no doubt there would be lots of cases where it wouldn't work (I had a quick check a while ago and decided it really wasn't the way to go).

 

 

Pete

[DimensionX]

If this is what you mean by good C64 graphics?, in that case i haven't a single clue of why it should be so much better then the 8 bit Atari?

 

 

Jeeez. One guy mentions R-Type, says he wonders if something like that can be done on Atari. We have a discussion about it and even state the C64 version is pretty dire. Now it's as if we said Atari can't do this!

 

You really need to remember what's been said and by who in a thread if you're going to use something as the basis of an argument.

 

 

Pete

 

I posted that because one in this thread was a big fan of R-Type and didn't thought that Atari could handle such game. Then he complained at the gradients in A8 games.

 

So it was not aimed for you or TMR.

 

I'm sorry but it doesn't matter who it's aimed it, it's still a position you're taking.

 

Anyway..

 

If you're going to compare a "clean" looking C64 game and see if it's possible on the Atari you only have to look at Paradroid. 320x res (hires) with multiple colours on screen and 320x res sprites. You just can't do that on the Atari, trust me I've been trying. You've got a choice of 1/2 the x res giving you the possibility of displaying the colours the C64 one does or keep it hires and attempt to re-colour parts of the screen using PMGs with which you don't have the flexibility of the C64s colour RAM so no doubt there would be lots of cases where it wouldn't work (I had a quick check a while ago and decided it really wasn't the way to go).

 

 

Pete

 

What i mean by "clean" is pure colours, no dithering and no messy coloring that mixes lot of colours. Clean, like in the older games for C64.

 

Like this...

 

Both colorful and clean.

Edited April 27, 2010 by DimensionX

[PeteD]

 

 

The main difference between the machines is that you can choose fine nuances of whatever colour on Atari, something you can't on C64. It's no problem to choose 5 fine nuances of green for exemple thanks to a big palette to choose from. On screen colours is something else. If the ST only had 16 colours in total the games would never looked like that.

 

And even if you only use 5 colours for your game, you can still choose nuances of whatever colour.

 

There's no denying the bigger range of colours on the Atari, that would be crazy but you can't ignore colours on screen. In a lot of cases it doesn't matter how many colours you've got to choose from when you can only display a very small percentage of them without resorting to CPU usage to add colour and in a lot of cases that's still in a fairly inflexible way. One of the biggest problems is Atari artists DO seem to choose a gradient of the same colour for their game and that seems kind of crazy when you've got all those colours to choose from.

 

The same kind of thing happened in the early 16 bit days. Artists (a lot of who were moving up from the C64) didn't know what to do with all those colours so you see a lot of games with loads of shades of grey and loads of shades of blue and little else.

 

 

Pete

[PeteD]

 

 

What i mean by "clean" is pure colours, no dithering and no messy coloring that mixes lot of colours. Clean, like in the older games for C64.

 

Like this...

 

Both colorful and clean.

 

If that's what you like then that's fine but you shouldn't really say everything else is messy as that's also just your opinion. I'd never tell you you were wrong for liking something like that so why is it so bad some of us prefer the more complex graphics? To me that type of stuff looks VERY early 80s and I like to see things that show how the hardware has advanced or been pushed but I wouldn't say that was wrong in any way.

 

 

Pete

[DimensionX]

 

 

The main difference between the machines is that you can choose fine nuances of whatever colour on Atari, something you can't on C64. It's no problem to choose 5 fine nuances of green for exemple thanks to a big palette to choose from. On screen colours is something else. If the ST only had 16 colours in total the games would never looked like that.

 

And even if you only use 5 colours for your game, you can still choose nuances of whatever colour.

 

There's no denying the bigger range of colours on the Atari, that would be crazy but you can't ignore colours on screen. In a lot of cases it doesn't matter how many colours you've got to choose from when you can only display a very small percentage of them without resorting to CPU usage to add colour and in a lot of cases that's still in a fairly inflexible way. One of the biggest problems is Atari artists DO seem to choose a gradient of the same colour for their game and that seems kind of crazy when you've got all those colours to choose from.

 

The same kind of thing happened in the early 16 bit days. Artists (a lot of who were moving up from the C64) didn't know what to do with all those colours so you see a lot of games with loads of shades of grey and loads of shades of blue and little else.

 

 

Pete

 

On screen colours isn't that importand. The importand is to have a big palette to choose from. Else you can't create fine nuances of colours. Often 4 colours is enough to create a nice spread. (as in Xenon)

[DimensionX]

 

 

What i mean by "clean" is pure colours, no dithering and no messy coloring that mixes lot of colours. Clean, like in the older games for C64.

 

Like this...

 

Both colorful and clean.

 

If that's what you like then that's fine but you shouldn't really say everything else is messy as that's also just your opinion. I'd never tell you you were wrong for liking something like that so why is it so bad some of us prefer the more complex graphics? To me that type of stuff looks VERY early 80s and I like to see things that show how the hardware has advanced or been pushed but I wouldn't say that was wrong in any way.

 

 

Pete

 

Sad enough that's to "simple" for many. Even if it looks good. That's the type of games that C64 was built for and handles without any problems at all.

[PeteD]

 

 

The main difference between the machines is that you can choose fine nuances of whatever colour on Atari, something you can't on C64. It's no problem to choose 5 fine nuances of green for exemple thanks to a big palette to choose from. On screen colours is something else. If the ST only had 16 colours in total the games would never looked like that.

 

And even if you only use 5 colours for your game, you can still choose nuances of whatever colour.

 

There's no denying the bigger range of colours on the Atari, that would be crazy but you can't ignore colours on screen. In a lot of cases it doesn't matter how many colours you've got to choose from when you can only display a very small percentage of them without resorting to CPU usage to add colour and in a lot of cases that's still in a fairly inflexible way. One of the biggest problems is Atari artists DO seem to choose a gradient of the same colour for their game and that seems kind of crazy when you've got all those colours to choose from.

 

The same kind of thing happened in the early 16 bit days. Artists (a lot of who were moving up from the C64) didn't know what to do with all those colours so you see a lot of games with loads of shades of grey and loads of shades of blue and little else.

 

 

Pete

 

On screen colours isn't that importand. The importand is to have a big palette to choose from. Else you can't create fine nuances of colours. Often 4 colours is enough to create a nice spread. (as in Xenon)

 

So Xenon only has 4 colours?

 

Pete

[PeteD]

 

 

What i mean by "clean" is pure colours, no dithering and no messy coloring that mixes lot of colours. Clean, like in the older games for C64.

 

Like this...

 

Both colorful and clean.

 

If that's what you like then that's fine but you shouldn't really say everything else is messy as that's also just your opinion. I'd never tell you you were wrong for liking something like that so why is it so bad some of us prefer the more complex graphics? To me that type of stuff looks VERY early 80s and I like to see things that show how the hardware has advanced or been pushed but I wouldn't say that was wrong in any way.

 

 

Pete

 

Sad enough that's to "simple" for many. Even if it looks good. That's the type of games that C64 was built for and handles without any problems at all.

 

The C64 was built for anything it runs. The only problems displaying graphics on the C64 are do you want more than 8 sprites on screen, or do you want to scroll a whole bitmap screen AND 2 lots of colour data. Both of those are reasonably easily overcome.

 

 

Pete

[DimensionX]

 

 

The main difference between the machines is that you can choose fine nuances of whatever colour on Atari, something you can't on C64. It's no problem to choose 5 fine nuances of green for exemple thanks to a big palette to choose from. On screen colours is something else. If the ST only had 16 colours in total the games would never looked like that.

 

And even if you only use 5 colours for your game, you can still choose nuances of whatever colour.

 

There's no denying the bigger range of colours on the Atari, that would be crazy but you can't ignore colours on screen. In a lot of cases it doesn't matter how many colours you've got to choose from when you can only display a very small percentage of them without resorting to CPU usage to add colour and in a lot of cases that's still in a fairly inflexible way. One of the biggest problems is Atari artists DO seem to choose a gradient of the same colour for their game and that seems kind of crazy when you've got all those colours to choose from.

 

The same kind of thing happened in the early 16 bit days. Artists (a lot of who were moving up from the C64) didn't know what to do with all those colours so you see a lot of games with loads of shades of grey and loads of shades of blue and little else.

 

 

Pete

 

On screen colours isn't that importand. The importand is to have a big palette to choose from. Else you can't create fine nuances of colours. Often 4 colours is enough to create a nice spread. (as in Xenon)

 

So Xenon only has 4 colours?

 

Pete

 

ST could usually afford about three spreads. 4 nuances per colour = 12 colours. The rest went to the status display. The grey in Xenon is almost certain a spread of 4 greys. Then ST uses blue, orange and some more colours in Xenon.

Edited April 27, 2010 by DimensionX

[TMR]

The main difference between the machines is that you can choose fine nuances of whatever colour on Atari, something you can't on C64. It's no problem to choose 5 fine nuances of green for exemple thanks to a big palette to choose from. On screen colours is something else.

 

No, onscreen colours is the whole bloody point because it doesn't matter if you have half a million shades of green with as many stupid bloody "nuances" as you want, it's all but USELESS if you can only get four of those shades onscreen at once. Having lots of shades does not equate to being able to use lots of shades and i'll say it again because i'm a masochist and love repeating myself, the "nuances" you reckon are there aren't - colours tend to be selected based on utility rather than artistic merit.

 

So your mission, should you decide to accept it, is still to demonstrate how right you think yourself to be with a mock-up of Xenon - don't forget that anything you get wrong (like putting too many colours in a single 4x8 pixel cell or having the status bar there or using more than 128 characters for the backgrounds) will be pointed out to you at length. Good luck and this message won't self destruct in five seconds.

[DimensionX]

 

 

What i mean by "clean" is pure colours, no dithering and no messy coloring that mixes lot of colours. Clean, like in the older games for C64.

 

Like this...

 

Both colorful and clean.

 

If that's what you like then that's fine but you shouldn't really say everything else is messy as that's also just your opinion. I'd never tell you you were wrong for liking something like that so why is it so bad some of us prefer the more complex graphics? To me that type of stuff looks VERY early 80s and I like to see things that show how the hardware has advanced or been pushed but I wouldn't say that was wrong in any way.

 

 

Pete

 

Sad enough that's to "simple" for many. Even if it looks good. That's the type of games that C64 was built for and handles without any problems at all.

 

The C64 was built for anything it runs. The only problems displaying graphics on the C64 are do you want more than 8 sprites on screen, or do you want to scroll a whole bitmap screen AND 2 lots of colour data. Both of those are reasonably easily overcome.

 

 

Pete

 

No, C64 was not built for anything it runs, both you and me can mess things up and overload any computer with tasks it doesn't is capable of to handle. Then we'll have to rewrite the code a bit.

Edited April 27, 2010 by DimensionX

[PeteD]

 

 

ST could usually afford about three spreads. 4 nuances per colour = 12 colours. The rest went to the status display. The grey in Xenon is almost certain a spread of 4 greys.

 

So that's 12 colours. Probably really 16 as that's what it can display. The same as the C64. I get what you're saying that you can then display some more shades in those 16 than the C64 for can but it's STILL more colours than the Atari 800 displays as default. It's not always that important to have mutliple shades of the same colour in fact a lot of time it's a total waste. Take a look at that link I posted earlier to the crit on Dan Malone's stuff and look the odd colours he used so you could make strange gradients (not linear shades) that still worked. That's what a decent C64 artist can do. You take a dark grey, maybe a light grey and then using a different coloured mid tone you can make decent looking gradients.

 

 

Pete

[PeteD]

 

 

No, C64 was not built for anything it runs, both you and me can mess things up and overload any computer with tasks it doesn't is capable of to handle. Then we'll have to rewrite the code a bit.

 

My definition of runs is obviously different to yours. I don't mean random crap or impossible code, I'm talking about the 1000s of games/demos/etc that run properly.

 

 

Pete

[DimensionX]

The main difference between the machines is that you can choose fine nuances of whatever colour on Atari, something you can't on C64. It's no problem to choose 5 fine nuances of green for exemple thanks to a big palette to choose from. On screen colours is something else.

 

No, onscreen colours is the whole bloody point because it doesn't matter if you have half a million shades of green with as many stupid bloody "nuances" as you want, it's all but USELESS if you can only get four of those shades onscreen at once. Having lots of shades does not equate to being able to use lots of shades and i'll say it again because i'm a masochist and love repeating myself, the "nuances" you reckon are there aren't - colours tend to be selected based on utility rather than artistic merit.

 

So your mission, should you decide to accept it, is still to demonstrate how right you think yourself to be with a mock-up of Xenon - don't forget that anything you get wrong (like putting too many colours in a single 4x8 pixel cell or having the status bar there or using more than 128 characters for the backgrounds) will be pointed out to you at length. Good luck and this message won't self destruct in five seconds.

 

Why do you think that computers have big palettes? And few on screen colours?

 

Look at the ST for exemple.

 

Now, imagine a ST with only 16 colours in total...

 

Goodby Xenon, you aren't possible.

Edited April 27, 2010 by DimensionX

[DimensionX]

 

 

No, C64 was not built for anything it runs, both you and me can mess things up and overload any computer with tasks it doesn't is capable of to handle. Then we'll have to rewrite the code a bit.

 

My definition of runs is obviously different to yours. I don't mean random crap or impossible code, I'm talking about the 1000s of games/demos/etc that run properly.

 

 

Pete

 

Okey, then i understand what you mean.

[TMR]

ST could usually afford about three spreads. 4 nuances per colour = 12 colours. The rest went to the status display.

 

In the screenshot i was prodding at, it has fifteen colours in the play area alone and a colour count of the entire screen is also fifteen colours so no, the rest didn't go to the status.

 

The grey in Xenon is almost certain a spread of 4 greys.

 

Five, so that's already used your entire colour quotient on the A8 and there are no blue tiles, red bullets, yellow markings...

[DimensionX]

ST could usually afford about three spreads. 4 nuances per colour = 12 colours. The rest went to the status display.

 

In the screenshot i was prodding at, it has fifteen colours in the play area alone and a colour count of the entire screen is also fifteen colours so no, the rest didn't go to the status.

 

The grey in Xenon is almost certain a spread of 4 greys.

 

Five, so that's already used your entire colour quotient on the A8 and there are no blue tiles, red bullets, yellow markings...

 

You will have to make it more monochrome then the ST version, but you can still create a Xenonlike game with some fine nuances.

 

About Xenon

 

Then you have effects of the shots for exemple in Xenon that uses some more colour.And many time is that colour used somewhere else too. It's about to compromise a bit.

Edited April 27, 2010 by DimensionX

[PeteD]

The main difference between the machines is that you can choose fine nuances of whatever colour on Atari, something you can't on C64. It's no problem to choose 5 fine nuances of green for exemple thanks to a big palette to choose from. On screen colours is something else.

 

No, onscreen colours is the whole bloody point because it doesn't matter if you have half a million shades of green with as many stupid bloody "nuances" as you want, it's all but USELESS if you can only get four of those shades onscreen at once. Having lots of shades does not equate to being able to use lots of shades and i'll say it again because i'm a masochist and love repeating myself, the "nuances" you reckon are there aren't - colours tend to be selected based on utility rather than artistic merit.

 

So your mission, should you decide to accept it, is still to demonstrate how right you think yourself to be with a mock-up of Xenon - don't forget that anything you get wrong (like putting too many colours in a single 4x8 pixel cell or having the status bar there or using more than 128 characters for the backgrounds) will be pointed out to you at length. Good luck and this message won't self destruct in five seconds.

 

Why do you think that computers have big palettes? And few on screen colours?

 

Look at the ST for exemple.

 

Now, imagine a ST with only 16 colours in total...

 

Goodby Xenon, you aren't possible.

 

Because if you look at the Amiga which uses the same kind of bitplane display as the ST, it's easy to add more colour depth (as the Amiga did, ST was just dead in the water for not adding more ram = more bitplanes). Why would you design a next gen machine and give it only 16 colours? They were all competing with what was around at the time or what other companies were working on. But that STILL leaves us with the fact the 800 can't display colours as efficiently as the C64 can. It can do 4/5 colours (with restrictions) 4 PMGs in mono with a single colour each or double up the PMGs to give a 4 colour one (thus halving the number available).

 

There's nothing wrong with that but PLEASE stop trying to equate 16 bit machines with 8 bit ones and then only taking into account the bigger palette range but ignoring colours on screen. You can't just have it one way and say the other doesn't matter.

 

 

Pete