Atari 8bit is superior to the ST

[atariksi]

A 48k Atari 800 in 1982 was something like 700-800 in the UK....compared to 325-350 for a C64 on launch month(looking at adverts from Computer and Video Games from 1982) and down to 299 by xmas due to huge volumes being sold by some companies. There were plenty of machines with sprites and half decent sound for half the price or less than a 48k A800 in the UK. Not saying these other machines were better, but they weren't 450 pounds worse! It was pretty much the 400 left to battle it out, and with that horrible keyboard and only 16k of RAM it was a train wreck waiting to happen for Warner.

What others by 1982 had hardware sprites? I can't think of any besides the TI-99/4A outside of actual game consoles.

 

A8 had the sprites even in the A2600 and A800 sprites were better than anything else around when it was released. And sprite multiplexers were used even on A2600.

[andym00]

It's simple really.. ST beats C64 in the colour and resolution stakes..

 

C64 new mode says:

 

Ergo, C64 beats A8, therefore ST is better than A8

 

Next up in the silly argument stakes.. "Why low resolutions are better than high-resolution ones".. Or has that already been done ?

Wow - that's looks incredible. Details on the mode please (or a link).

 

Stephen Anderson

 

Not quite sure of the details of Algorithms latest low CPU overhead mode but I'm dying to know them!

But:

http://noname.c64.or...cid=72769#72817

You know as much as the rest of us now

 

It sounds like it's like his regular really nice hires mode stuff with multicolour sprites as underlays, but making a larger palette though very clever interleaving of colour.. I'm literally wetting myself now to get a binary so I can see it on the real thing!

[PeteD]

 

Ergo, C64 beats A8, therefore ST is better than A8

...

Deceptive stuff aside, C64 loses big with A8 on palette and ST is much closer call.

 

Next up in the silly argument stakes.. "Why low resolutions are better than high-resolution ones".. Or has that already been done ?

 

You need a brain to understand why low resolutions are also important when the CPU can't repaint the high resolution screen as fast as A8 can deal with its lower resolutions. Just trying to find fault-- can't understand simple points because you're full of bias.

 

 

You're just seeing bias to fuel your own ego and it's "Mr Right" side. We're talking about images, palettes and then onto resolution so instead of applying it to the conversation, off it goes on a tangent with a bit of truth in it, yes its less cpu time to draw less info, not the point.

 

 

Pete

[PeteD]

It's simple really.. ST beats C64 in the colour and resolution stakes..

 

C64 new mode says:

 

Ergo, C64 beats A8, therefore ST is better than A8

 

Next up in the silly argument stakes.. "Why low resolutions are better than high-resolution ones".. Or has that already been done ?

Wow - that's looks incredible. Details on the mode please (or a link).

 

Stephen Anderson

 

Not quite sure of the details of Algorithms latest low CPU overhead mode but I'm dying to know them!

But:

http://noname.c64.or...cid=72769#72817

You know as much as the rest of us now

 

It sounds like it's like his regular really nice hires mode stuff with multicolour sprites as underlays, but making a larger palette though very clever interleaving of colour.. I'm literally wetting myself now to get a binary so I can see it on the real thing!

 

"Yes, It does flicker..." always puts me off. I'd much rather have something not fuxing with my eyes and be a bit lower res.

 

Still, looks v.nice.

 

 

Pete

[andym00]

Ergo, C64 beats A8, therefore ST is better than A8

...

Deceptive stuff aside, C64 loses big with A8 on palette and ST is much closer call.

 

 

Going by actual end results on screen rather than airy fairy hand waving, the A8 loses every-time in my book.. It's that simple, even though I've come to love the inards of this bucket of nuts and bolts.. Just so far it hasn't shown anything that can be considered truly remarkable in anyway, whereas the other two repeatedly have..

Doesn't mean I don't believe the old girls not got it in her..

 

At the moment, it's a bit like one of those dissapointing school reports that read along the lines of: "Has potential.. Must try harder.."

 

You need a brain to understand why low resolutions are also important when the CPU can't repaint the high resolution screen as fast as A8 can deal with its lower resolutions. Just trying to find fault-- can't understand simple points because you're full of bias.

 

 

Actually, quite the opposite, no bias at all.. Just the ability to use comon sense instead of digging a deep hole for oneself.. I love all of these machines in case you hadn't noticed.. So no tarring me with the fanboy or the bias feather please..

[andym00]

"Yes, It does flicker..." always puts me off. I'd much rather have something not fuxing with my eyes and be a bit lower res.

 

Still, looks v.nice.

 

I know.. That is a little bit of an unknown but, out of all the people playing with new modes and pushing the hires modes with sprite underlays, Algorithm is the one repeatedly pulling the magic out, and I've got a high confidence that it probably looks pretty damned nice on the real thing..

[oky2000]

A 48k Atari 800 in 1982 was something like 700-800 in the UK....compared to 325-350 for a C64 on launch month(looking at adverts from Computer and Video Games from 1982) and down to 299 by xmas due to huge volumes being sold by some companies. There were plenty of machines with sprites and half decent sound for half the price or less than a 48k A800 in the UK. Not saying these other machines were better, but they weren't 450 pounds worse! It was pretty much the 400 left to battle it out, and with that horrible keyboard and only 16k of RAM it was a train wreck waiting to happen for Warner.

What others by 1982 had hardware sprites? I can't think of any besides the TI-99/4A outside of actual game consoles.

 

A8 had the sprites even in the A2600 and A800 sprites were better than anything else around when it was released. And sprite multiplexers were used even on A2600.

 

Many machines had Sprites by 82/83 including the TI99/4 and 99/4A as well as things like the spectravideo, Memotech and Sord M5 etc. Quite a few machines used a variant of the TI graphics chip with sprites. ALL were significantly cheaper than the 48k 800 too here in the UK = nail gun rapid fire @ atari A8 labelled coffin

[Crazyace]

I would say it's easier to take a RGB image (as most are in modern age) and convert to ST's color space which is also RGB whereas converting to a color image using A8 palette requires some heuristics and manual touching up.

Also the A8 is lacking in reds, which can be a lot more noticable than the 8 shade limitation on the ST.

...

Nope, that's your speculation. Luminance definitely has more impact visually than having a red being off unless for some special cases where image is more biased towards reds which was probably case of the Parrot.

 

Notice I said 'can' - the example of the parrot shows a marked inferiority of the A8 pallette compared to the ST palette. Therefore it's not speculation on my part.

[Heaven/TQA]

have a look here...

 

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=53187&howmanycomments=25&page=3

 

the chunky2planar routine is quite good!

 

oh... and just seen the hip like bump map fx after the starfield...

 

ps. just watched disc 2... great demo I have to admit...

 

pss. how are this transition fx (which whipe the gfx away) done? seen many times on c64 but not on A8... how are these done?

Edited January 4, 2010 by Heaven/TQA

[oky2000]

Ergo, C64 beats A8, therefore ST is better than A8

...

Deceptive stuff aside, C64 loses big with A8 on palette and ST is much closer call.

 

 

Going by actual end results on screen rather than airy fairy hand waving, the A8 loses every-time in my book.. It's that simple, even though I've come to love the inards of this bucket of nuts and bolts.. Just so far it hasn't shown anything that can be considered truly remarkable in anyway, whereas the other two repeatedly have..

Doesn't mean I don't believe the old girls not got it in her..

 

At the moment, it's a bit like one of those dissapointing school reports that read along the lines of: "Has potential.. Must try harder.."

 

You need a brain to understand why low resolutions are also important when the CPU can't repaint the high resolution screen as fast as A8 can deal with its lower resolutions. Just trying to find fault-- can't understand simple points because you're full of bias.

 

 

Actually, quite the opposite, no bias at all.. Just the ability to use comon sense instead of digging a deep hole for oneself.. I love all of these machines in case you hadn't noticed.. So no tarring me with the fanboy or the bias feather please..

 

As far as real world graphics go for 85ish period the ST had the 2nd best palette of any EU/US released machine (not up on Japanese machines), better than PC and better than Mac. Having 16 unnatural shades of this and that primary colour is quite inferior to having any combination and mix of RGB in 8 level steps. The Amiga has the best of both worlds mind.

 

And despite having more useful 'natural' colours in the palette the ST also has 200-400% better resolution than these artificial single colour 16 shades resolutions anyway. And like I said it's never even 8 out of 128 or 256 @ C64 resolutions of 160x200ish..it's usually 4 in the 80s games we are comparing so bid deal. Talk about flogging a dead horse and clinging onto the last nail in the coffin with dear life.

[Crazyace]

It's related. The main reason to even switch color spaces when compressing in MPEG, JPG, etc. is because it's based more on visually appearance rather than what's better or convenient for the monitor and hardware. I have a bunch of hardware here like a video digitizer board for PC/Amiga from 1980s that uses 16bit in another color space to show 24-bit RGB images. It's faster to upload/download to the board, uses less space, and looks like 24-bit images. It's not my opinion that I'm giving edge to A8-- I gave you several reasons already. One of the reasons was that an application that does lighting/ray tracing would already pick the best color and only the luminance would be the major player. TVs already have erroneous chroma when you compare two of them (so they are more tolerable). MPG/JPG trashes chroma over luminance. You are mixing things up with resolution-- that's why you would give edge to ST. If all things are kept same, A8 palette gets the edge over ST's palette. You haven't given a single reason why St gets the edge except for just saying that it lacks in reds. And this is debatable-- whether you would take a hit on the reds or luminance values.

 

I think you're a little confused, MPEG/JPG and PC/Amiga video digitizers don't actually have anything to do with the A8 pallette ( perhaps you need to read up on your research material )

Ray tracing apps just generate pictures - the palette on ST or A8 is only how the final image is displayed.

 

I've said it's my opinion - but please feel free to make some more 'real world' examples of images quantised to A8 and ST palette, and we can compare. ( and I'm still interested in your Kalya image on A8 )

Edited January 4, 2010 by Crazyace

[Heaven/TQA]

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=54155

 

not bad either... it seems that they managed to get the c2p fast enough... I can not see any bad thing in the st palette...

[drac030]

Ok, to clarify (separate points for convenience and clarity):

 

(...)

 

2. ST boots off a harddisk? Sure, because BIOS contains predefined routines to boot off a harddisk (XL/XE doesn't, yet it boots off a harddisk!).

 

3. But, can you use the DMA port to connect to the ST an automatically initializing (= autobooting) device, for which the ST BIOS does not contain predefined routines? An IDE drive, for example? Not unless your controller is a separate computer which emulates SCSI commands which BIOS issues to the DMA port (...)

 

Yes, it is possible to connect an IDE drive to the DMA port without modifying TOS. Just make sure the hard disk driver supports it (available free or commercially available.

 

You miss one bit: the hard disk driver must be booted. So it is either BIOS which actually has to support IDE (in predefined routines, like TOS 2.06), or the disk controller (= "separate computer" I wrote about) which has to emulate SCSI in firmware. Sorry.

[Crazyace]

Just as a comparision I've prepared 3 versions of that C64 picture ( taken from the original image on CSDb rather than the processed C64 one - which does look pretty good )

 

STterm is a non interlaced 60Hz image.

 

PhotoTerm is the interlaced version.

 

A8Term is an A8 GTIA version, ( mono only - there are other people who could convert it to better A8 colour formats )

 

Again it's a pretty easy comparision to make

[Crazyace]

You miss one bit: the hard disk driver must be booted. So it is either BIOS which actually has to support IDE (in predefined routines, like TOS 2.06), or the disk controller (= "separate computer" I wrote about) which has to emulate SCSI in firmware. Sorry.

 

Isn't the Atari hard drive interface some variant of SCSI? How easy would it be to wire a SCSI drive up directly?

[drac030]

Yes, I should have written "to emulate ACSI in firmware". I don't know what are the exact differences between ACSI and SCSI (maybe they're totally different, I don't know).

[Crazyace]

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=54155

 

not bad either... it seems that they managed to get the c2p fast enough... I can not see any bad thing in the st palette...

 

There are some good tutorials somewhere - but the c2p is basically...

 

moveq #0,d0

move.w (a0)+,d0

lsl.l #3,d0

movem.l 0(a1,d0.l),d1/d2

movep.l d1,0(a3)

movep.l d2,1(a3)

 

to transform 4 pixels via a huge table ( 512k in this case )

[PeteD]

I tried everything possible to get some colour into his hair (there really isn't a lot, it's mostly... LUMA! ha!) but doing so either looked stupid because the pre-processing arsed up all the other colours and/or the A8 palette doesn't have the necessary ones to match to the rest of the picture. Still, not too bad, Arnie looks angry though

 

 

 

I'm going to drop in some F/S dithering at some point if I keep converting images because it does help, but on a res this low it just looks very blocky. I'm sure some post-editing by an artist would also improve it but then the same can be said of any converted image on any platform with any palette.

 

 

P.S. before "someone" says they could pick their own colours and make it look better, that's not the point, because as I say, hand done post processing isn't in question and would be altering the image further away from the source just to make it "look" better.

 

 

Pete

Edited January 4, 2010 by PeteD

[Crazyace]

 

The thing is - on a real Atari that is a pretty good image ( and without flickering it's better than almost any C64 image would be, as it's playing to the A8 strengths ), but it's never going to be as good as the ST image , no matter how Atariksi talks up luma and chroma

[Crazyace]

Yes, I should have written "to emulate ACSI in firmware". I don't know what are the exact differences between ACSI and SCSI (maybe they're totally different, I don't know).

 

No problem, I never really thought about the hard drive too much ( it was a bit too expensive, so I tended to do all of my programming on a 2 floppy ST )

[PeteD]

 

The thing is - on a real Atari that is a pretty good image ( and without flickering it's better than almost any C64 image would be, as it's playing to the A8 strengths ), but it's never going to be as good as the ST image , no matter how Atariksi talks up luma and chroma

 

Absolutely. As people may have noticed from an earlier post of mine, I'm not a big fan of interlace and would rather lose some res/colour and have static images. I'd also much rather have hand drawn not "wired" stuff but in these cases of course it's to prove a point. In doing so I can't deny the A8 can do some decent images despite the res because it DOES have a pretty good palette, but that hasn't been argued about I don't think

 

A possible problem with these comparisons is the palette used can have a difference, not only the one I use in my code but also the one used in the emulator (I do match them) but I did use both the suggested "best" PAL ones on the parrot image to attempt to give it a fair chance, and no matter what you do something is going to go wrong because it's a limited size.

 

 

Pete

[Jetboot Jack]

A 48k Atari 800 in 1982 was something like 700-800 in the UK....compared to 325-350 for a C64 on launch month (looking at adverts from Computer and Video Games from 1982) and down to 299 by xmas due to huge volumes being sold by some companies.

 

Not quite true - the 800 was offered by Silica Shop in 1983 at £349 (48k) - and around £100 more the previous year...

 

sTeVE

[dwhyte]

...I don't care if you were the owner of Amiga Corp. Logic is logic. If sun rises in the east...

 

You are correct on that fact, atariksi, that logic is, in fact, logic. However, myself and a few others around here seem to find your logic somewhat ... skewed.

 

You, sir, are an army of one, delusionally convinced of his superiority over the majority. Good day.

Edited January 5, 2010 by dwhyte

[atariksi]

...I don't care if you were the owner of Amiga Corp. Logic is logic. If sun rises in the east...

 

You are correct on that fact, atariksi, that logic is, in fact, logic. However, myself and a few others around here seem to find your logic somewhat ... skewed. You are an army of one convinced of his superiority over the majority...

 

Well, if you can't see the fanboyism and bias of the people I'm arguing with, reread the messages more carefully or some othe replies that are coming. You can easily prove that luminance is preferred over chrominance when quantizing things. And it's not a few, it's the jpg/mpg/etc. industry.

 

Some fanboys saying some things is not logic.

[atariksi]

It's related. The main reason to even switch color spaces when compressing in MPEG, JPG, etc. is because it's based more on visually appearance rather than what's better or convenient for the monitor and hardware. I have a bunch of hardware here like a video digitizer board for PC/Amiga from 1980s that uses 16bit in another color space to show 24-bit RGB images. It's faster to upload/download to the board, uses less space, and looks like 24-bit images. It's not my opinion that I'm giving edge to A8-- I gave you several reasons already. One of the reasons was that an application that does lighting/ray tracing would already pick the best color and only the luminance would be the major player. TVs already have erroneous chroma when you compare two of them (so they are more tolerable). MPG/JPG trashes chroma over luminance. You are mixing things up with resolution-- that's why you would give edge to ST. If all things are kept same, A8 palette gets the edge over ST's palette. You haven't given a single reason why St gets the edge except for just saying that it lacks in reds. And this is debatable-- whether you would take a hit on the reds or luminance values.

 

I think you're a little confused, MPEG/JPG and PC/Amiga video digitizers don't actually have anything to do with the A8 pallette ( perhaps you need to read up on your research material )

Ray tracing apps just generate pictures - the palette on ST or A8 is only how the final image is displayed.

...

You're completely confused. Everytime I give you some example you distort and do something unrelated to the comparison needed or misunderstand it. When I gave you a 16-gray image, you compared it with interlaced one (apples vs. oranges). When I gave you example of Boulderdash, you drew some absurd conclusion that this proves that ST can do A8 games. Then I gave you a resolution enhanced 16-shade image, and you went and did some interlaced job. Then I gave you example of pictures where palette trashes chroma component and you are claiming it's unrelated. Perhaps, you should be the one doing the research. Ray tracing also affects the palette.

 

I've said it's my opinion - but please feel free to make some more 'real world' examples of images quantised to A8 and ST palette, and we can compare. ( and I'm still interested in your Kalya image on A8 )

 

You were suppose to do that but you only went one way and only showed the ST interlaced picture.