Asteroids Deluxe?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

22 hours ago, jefffulton said:

I think he means that it could and should have been much better on the ST, not bashing the ST. 
I have played it from your conversion and I like it. It could have been better, but as it is, it's pretty good.  It's one of the few ST games that looks like will be on the 50 Year Anniversary collection. 

OK. Thread improved lately.  However, I need to say that don't see why in later time people tend to call game adaptations for hard disk 'conversions'.

Basically nothing in games is converted.  Simpler cases are just copying all files from floppy(es) to DIR on hard disk. With possible PATH corrections.

Those without regular files on floppies need usually correction of floppy code in game - to redirect to hard disk, what is combined with cache for faster work.

That's often very hard, because custom floppy code is different, often messy, hard to trace, understand. Then copy protections, TOS version compatibility problems ...  I don't see 'conversion' here - code for floppy access is not converted, it is changed. Would be conversion if rewrite it for different CPU, FDC chip, computer.

They call it 'patch' in Amiga waters, so call some Atari people - but for me it sounds like fixing game's not so good code, as patch it with hard disk code. Well, there is more than it, especially with games using TOS calls. Like TOS in RAM, what solves many things, including TOS version compatibility problems, state saves, exit to Desktop at any moment possible. And even solving cheat(s) may take plenty of time .

So, I went on term adaptation. If it is too long for you, I can live with 'adapt'  ?

 

[oky2000]

On 7/20/2022 at 10:06 PM, Keatah said:

It was time consuming to make a near-pixel-perfect conversion. And they just wanted to get their games out there as fast as possible. While they were still relevant. They had to. They couldn't let things bake for years like MAME does.

The problem Amiga always had was 

 

1. British, and other, computer software publishers had far less respect for their customers than Japanese console game developers. It is the responsibility of the software house getting the license to secure the source data for the conversion not get some clueless no talent art college drop out to do some roper pixel art.

 

2. Any idiot was allowed to develop games for ST/Amiga with no commercial pre-contractual 'test' job to prove they could do the job AND the publishers put out anything no matter how horrible a conversion it was (this last point goes for all 8 and 16bit conversions like NZ Story on the Amstrad or Chase HQ on the C64 etc).

 

ALL my 8bit games were originals, after a couple of duff purchases on ST/Amiga I decided to try ALL games first for free via crack disks. I never bought a duff game ever again.  Rule of thumb, if the Amiga 1000 version doesn't look/move like the Megadrive version AND sound at least as good as the SNES version it is not worthy of the memory of Dave Needle and Jay Miner who made that machine. It is the job of the software publishers and developers not to be clueless/greedy and work on their talents.

 

MAME is nothing to do with this problem, plenty of arcade perfect ports were squeezed onto PC Engine Hu-cards. Lack of respect and lack of talent in the West was always the problem for us computer owners. The licensee is responsible for making sure assets are included in the deal in a suitable format of their choice for developments, people like Ocean/US Gold were blinded by £ signs in their eyes when outbidding all others to sign deals like Street Fighter II. The actual process of making a physical disk to sell to us was an afterthought in the UK. PURE SCUM.

 

Even worse you had many backward steps, from Batman driving/flying 2.5D sections to the horrendous fugly Continental Circus game engine hack that was ST/Amiga Chase HQ that Ocean released after it. I wiped over that Chase HQ crack disk within minutes of booting it up BUT I also happily spent £35 on Shadow of the Beast despite the fact some clueless loser at Amiga Format magazine awarded £28 Deluxe Scrabble 85% and £35 Shadow of the Beast 65%. The entire 16bit computer industry was 95% full of idiots and scum to be honest. So I just gave up and got a PC Engine and bought the odd game for Amiga like It Came from the Desert that only a home computer could do. I didn't even get any crack disks after about 1990, it wasn't even worth the effort ploughing through all those crap games, I had better things to do like play Gradius on my PC E or Thunderforce 3 on my Jap import MD.  

Edited July 22, 2022 by oky2000
didn't trim down the quote specific to just my own comment

[Keatah]

Yes. I never cared much for the 16-bit software landscape. I had seen too many shoddy efforts. I had understood the technical implications and all that, but was thoroughly "confused".. I had a hard time reconciling the literal shit they were publishing with supposedly good hardware like Amiga & ST. It just didn't fit together.

 

I didn't even have the opportunity to play much with WaReZ crackz. They simply didn't exist in my part of town. Not like Apple & Commodore & Atari.

 

By the time NES came around I had pretty much lost hope for videogames. Only made a half-hearted attempt at getting back into them with the SMS. And even that proved to be expensive, for the few games that were my style. That ain't say'n much.

 

Wouldn't get back into games in earnest till the PC and SoundBlaster & fast VGA became realities with the 486-class machines.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

OK, let's look on this 'shit 16-bit games, ports' from technical aspect. I agree that plenty of games was done with minimal effort - just make it work so-so, and publish as soon as possible. Because people needed money, or better said that was main concern for many.

Difference between older arcade machines and Atari ST:  they had 8-bit CPU, maybe not only 1. Plus diverse custom HW for making screen operations faster. And that was often solved not with some custom chip, but with plenty of available chips.  I saw boards of diverse console games - in service, some had hundreds of chips on them. And that leads to one factor what here was not mentioned: price. Surely consoles can cost much more than some home computer, it will come back.

Then, games were programmed in ASM, by people experienced in it. There were teams working on other things - you know graphic, pictures, music, effects ...

Now, 'converting' it to some home computer - that is not easy task, actually converting is not really good term - it needs serious changes - not only new code, new graphic data, sound data, but often new concept, new memory management, then loading sections during game from disk (consoles had all it in ROM) .

What would people talking about shitty ports here say for some ports to Sinclair Spectrum ?  Well, some were pretty well playable - with much less colors, with really simple sound effects (no sound chip) .  It was matter of effort, knowing programming for that machine well ... And users with experience knew what to expect.

Now, Atari ST is far more complex than Sinclair Spectrum. CPU has much more instructions, with much more ways of usage - ergo, it needs much more time to be really good with programming it. Then other HW - like DMA, little flexible video (in Spectrum it was fixed address, only 1 mode) .

Practically almost everything done before 1987 was pretty poor, below machine capability.  Many of them avoided ASM, did it in C . What self means not that it must be bad. But surely is not way for, for instance fast and good 3D .  Dungeon Master was done in C, with better compiler. And it was fast enough for that type of game. Then they used 2 level packing, so it can fit on single sided floppy - now it may sound stupid, but lot of people had such drive only. The price was very long load before game started. How faster it could be if it was written in ASM ? Or better question: how many months later it would appear on market if was done in ASM ?  Yes, everything is compromise. You can't get all good at once.

Do not forget that TOS is done 90% in C. And not so good C compiler (DRI) .

Despite no HW scroll support in STs, it was solved in pure SW, but it needed some years - if remember correct first with smooth and fast scroll appeared around 1989 - like STE ?   Code for it is pretty long, needs plenty of RAM - and that was there.

 

And let's see one of not so popular, but surely important step in 'game industry' - BattleZone. Atari's arcade, and first real 3D game, little sim. It used of course vector (line) 3D for game objects, while background (mountains) just scrolled - some called it 2.5D because that (silly) . According to descriptions it used same CPU as Atari XL (6502), but had some kind of math. processor needed for fast calculations necessary for correct object displaying.  I played it pretty much on arcade console, rather than some fancy graphic beat em up or space invaders like thing .

Atari ST BattleZone: it was released in 1988, hard work was done in East. Eur. (programming, porting) - just write it for those who think that 'converting' some game is simple task (some asked me to 'convert' some known, old games for Atari ST, in 2022 ! Sure, send me 10-20 KEur, and I can think about it ? ) . I was little disappointed how it looks different than original. And was not aware then that it can work in monochrome mode (had no such monitor, there were no emulators yet, nor Internet) . Otherwise, it was pretty much faithful, by some because game logic was done via emulated 6502 CPU code for it.  But, if you want closer to original look, run it in monochrome mode.  Indeed, framerate could be better.  I would call it pretty good port. Published by Atari self.

To the end of this longer post:  why people expecting some very good game ports for ST as something elementary ? Part of it is in above said lot of work, so lot of money investment - then it needs to be sold well.  Those where times were SW started to be bigger money than HW.  If you don't expect big sales of game, will not invest lot of money in it - or in other words, why blaming only 1 side for lower quality conversions ? More people buying org. SW would motivate developers, distributers to do it better.  Things started to look bad especially after 1988 - Amiga 500 had then already good choice of games (unlike in 1987, when was launched) . That's the reason for poor STE extra HW support too - lower sales. 

So, who to blame most for all it ? Maybe Commodore, who stole Amiga design from Atari ?

 

 

Edited July 22, 2022 by ParanoidLittleMan

[Keatah]

57 minutes ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

To the end of this longer post:  why people expecting some very good game ports for ST as something elementary ?

People are conditioned by advertising words like Power, Price, Fast 16-bit performance, lots of RAM. They get the idea it's a supercomputer and can do anything. They don't think about development.

 

When I asked the salesman why my Apple II didn't have better graphics than the arcades, he told me it was a general purpose computer. Can do everything but not very good. Arcades can run one program good, but can't do much else.

 

I learned a lot that day.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I don't think that my point was that Atari ST is not capable for good arcade game port. And that should be clear by reading other parts of post.

My point was that ports self were not as good as could be with that HW in most of cases, especially in early years.

End beside all those big words like Power, 16-bit performance ...  I remember one, present mostly on game boxes:  Revolutionary . Or Best .  Just usual big words.

In any case, comparing Apple II with only monochrome mode with ST is really not good idea when talking about games.

And learning something from salesman ?  Huhahaha ...  Apple II can do everything ?

 

And those who write here bad things about ST (yeah, it goes on) forget something:  prices of good graphic in those years. Had PC good graphic ? No. It was not for everything. It was for business. Little for gaming with 4 colors and like for those reach who had color monitor and graphic card .

ST was one of the firsts, if not first with 3 graphic modes, good for TVs, color palette, with fast enough RAM that screen operations can be fast. Amiga could more, but that costed plenty of money (Amiga 1000 in 1985) .

And if there is computer what could do anything, in 1985 terms - it was right Atari ST. And sales were pretty good. Not because false advertisements. People is not so stupid. And people do think about development. Everyone knew that it will not last long.

[zzip]

14 hours ago, Keatah said:

Yes. I never cared much for the 16-bit software landscape. I had seen too many shoddy efforts. I had understood the technical implications and all that, but was thoroughly "confused".. I had a hard time reconciling the literal shit they were publishing with supposedly good hardware like Amiga & ST. It just didn't fit together.

Back then, screenshots were used heavily to sell games,   screenshots on the back of the box,  and magazines.    When the 16-bit era began, these new Amiga/ST screenshots looked spectacular.   Way above what an 8-bit could do in many cases.    But screenshots don't depict a game in action so I've seen plenty of games that look pretty but don't feel right when you play them.    Gameplay was not prioritized as much as visuals.   Simple as that.

[MrMaddog]

7 hours ago, zzip said:

Back then, screenshots were used heavily to sell games,   screenshots on the back of the box,  and magazines.    When the 16-bit era began, these new Amiga/ST screenshots looked spectacular.   Way above what an 8-bit could do in many cases.    But screenshots don't depict a game in action so I've seen plenty of games that look pretty but don't feel right when you play them.    Gameplay was not prioritized as much as visuals.   Simple as that.

You mean the same screenshots that had the tiny words, "_{Amiga Version Shown}" below?

[zzip]

On 7/22/2022 at 6:43 PM, MrMaddog said:

You mean the same screenshots that had the tiny words, "_{Amiga Version Shown}" below?

Very funny      But recall the Amiga did not take off as fast as the ST, so there were plenty of ST-only games in the early days.   And lots of ST to Amiga ports have identical graphics on both.

[MrMaddog]

6 hours ago, zzip said:

Very funny      But recall the Amiga did not take off as fast as the ST, so there were plenty of ST-only games in the early days.   And lots of ST to Amiga ports have identical graphics on both.

Yeah, and a lot of Amiga owners weren't happy about getting ST ports on machines they spent over $1000 on.  That changed after 1987 w/ the release of both the A500 and Shadow of the Beast...and lots of shoddy ports for the ST.

 

(My persepctive on the Amiga/ST gaming scene was during the early 90's when it was all winding down BTW...)

Edited July 25, 2022 by MrMaddog

[zzip]

10 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

(My persepctive on the Amiga/ST gaming scene was during the early 90's when it was all winding down BTW...)

My impression was that Amiga games were always better, mostly because Amiga owners on the local BBSes wouldn't stop crowing about how much better their system was than mine.

 

But in the 90s when I got a roommate who had an Amiga, I noticed there was very little difference in most games graphically (sound was usually better on Amiga),  and this surprised me.

 

I guess in retrospect it shouldn't though,  from a developer's standpoint, it's cheaper to make a common set of visuals that works equally well on ST/Amiga/Apple IIgs/ and PC EGA/VGA

[Keatah]

As an Amiga owner I was frustrated with most of the games not using the full potential of the machine. Either early on, or later in the game.

 

I would think visuals between ST/Amiga would be easy to manage. But I would imagine throwing in EGA/VGA and especially the IIgs would introduce a lot of differences that would need to be glossed over.

 

I have a couple of IIgs boards and rigs, but I know know nothing of the IIgs side graphics chip. How does it compare against the ST/Amiga and a regular EGA/VGA chipset. I mean what's the speed like? The depth, blitter capabilities, range of colors? Stuff like that.

 

I also couldn't really find an equivalent of Jim Sather's "Understanding the Apple II" for the IIgs, that's be a boon to read. If anyone has suggestions?

[zzip]

14 minutes ago, Keatah said:

I have a couple of IIgs boards and rigs, but I know know nothing of the IIgs side graphics chip. How does it compare against the ST/Amiga and a regular EGA/VGA chipset. I mean what's the speed like? The depth, blitter capabilities, range of colors? Stuff like that.

the IIgs resolution/color specification is very similar to an STe (320x200@16 colors from a palette of 4096,  640x200@4 colors),  speed wise it's worse I suppose because of the CPU,  I've seen lots of screen-tearing in IIgs games.

 

EGA is similar in the resolution/number of colors on screen, but suffers from a much more limited palette.   EGA games usually look worse than the ST/Amiga versions of games because colors are substituted with the nearest approximation in the EGA palette,  unless the game originated in EGA, then ST/Amiga will look identical.   

 

VGA obviously has the most onscreen colors (without tricks) of all of them.   But VGA/EGA cards on the ISA bus aren't great speed-wise.   Here's where VLB/PCI busses really helped PC Gaming.

[Lynxpro]

On 6/30/2022 at 5:59 AM, save2600 said:

 

1987 or not... this looks very much like some kids' bedroom-made public domain or shareware game from any era. Send $1 and a blank disk, and we'll send you back ST Asteroids "Deluxe".  ?

 

What's 'poor' here is the decision to go a different route and take liberties with the design, which turned it into something that hardly resembles what could/should have been an effort in authenticity.  

 

Oh well, as mentioned above... always have your trusty A8 Asteroids or better yet, one of the 7800 versions: 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ttasg7ssYQ

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im6E5Ojh6I4

 

That was my opinion of the ST port of Xevious. That was one of my favorite arcade games. I loved the 7800 version. So I was very upset that I spent good money on the ST port and it was trash, IMHO. Rolling Thunder on the ST was done well in comparison. Of course, it wasn't ever made for the 7800 [the NES version is trash] and the Lynx version wasn't released [I think The Brewing Academy is selling the proto]...

 

Speaking of Asteroids on the ST... there's always Blasteroids.  Mind you, it would need an STe enhanced version to match the audio samples of the arcade original and the Amiga version.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Lynxpro
Blasteroids!

[Lynxpro]

7 hours ago, zzip said:

My impression was that Amiga games were always better, mostly because Amiga owners on the local BBSes wouldn't stop crowing about how much better their system was than mine.

 

But in the 90s when I got a roommate who had an Amiga, I noticed there was very little difference in most games graphically (sound was usually better on Amiga),  and this surprised me.

 

I guess in retrospect it shouldn't though,  from a developer's standpoint, it's cheaper to make a common set of visuals that works equally well on ST/Amiga/Apple IIgs/ and PC EGA/VGA

 

I just re-watched The 8-Bit Guy's video praising how groundbreaking the Amiga 1000 was and then I started laughing at something I didn't know back in the day. The reason why the Workbench GUI was so Cromdamn garish was because it was rendered in 4 colors. In 320x200. And they did that because it ate up too much memory to increase the colors on a system that only shipped out with 256K originally. Ha!

 

Man, if only Atari Corp could've got the AMY working or somehow convinced Yamaha to sell them the YM2151 [Yamaha rejected their overture] coupled with striking a deal with the Atari Games Corp to use their custom graphics chip in their Atari System 1 arcade boards [ahem, Gauntlet], they wouldn't have had anything to crow about. Atari Games' graphics chip did 256 colors on-screen at once out of a 1,024+ color palette [expanded further in the 2nd edition to 4,096] at resolutions higher than the ST's SHIFTER or Amiga's chips and obviously an insane number of sprites in comparison. Alas...

 

There's an Amiga enthusiast who is currently playing with the Atari Games' graphics chip inside of an Amiga. They had a short YouTube video posted a few months ago...

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I don't think that in 1985 Atari developers, sales department wanted to go with some more colors at once (like 256 instead 16) graphic solution. Of course main reason was extra cost of it. It is not big deal to develop such graphic HW logic - but at that level of integration that would cost pretty much. Remember that TOS was in 6 ROM chips in first Atari STs - 'till 1987, when came first ones with more integrated, only 2 chip TOS ROMs.

Of course, because then it was what costed less. 

Other thing is that 256 colors at once means 2x more video RAM at same resolution, so would be 64 KB for 320x200 . And worst: in that case CPU must've have stop cycles, actually lot of them, since whole design is done with RAM bandwith enough for 32 KB video RAM and CPU (shared 1:1 during line draw) . So, when actually more CPU power is needed - for bigger video RAM just opposite would happen - less CPU power.

Sure, some will say now - they should use faster RAM, faster CPU ...     Sure, I would like Atari ST with 64 MHz CPU in 1985 - and I would like it only via some shop window, with indicated price of 10000 bucks.

All this is matter of compromise.  They had in mind average users, average needs, not some audio or lot of colors fanatics.

[youxia]

6 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

the Workbench GUI was so Cromdamn garish

I must say, I've heard quite a few "out there" comparisons in my day, but hearing this - from a presumably ST fan - really wins the  day. People who have never seen what TOS/GEM looks like (or better yet, how it behaves) are welcome to have a gander ?

 

@ParanoidLittleMan: for once we agree...

Edited July 26, 2022 by youxia

[zzip]

9 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

I just re-watched The 8-Bit Guy's video praising how groundbreaking the Amiga 1000 was and then I started laughing at something I didn't know back in the day. The reason why the Workbench GUI was so Cromdamn garish was because it was rendered in 4 colors. In 320x200. And they did that because it ate up too much memory to increase the colors on a system that only shipped out with 256K originally. Ha!

Are you sure Workbench doesn't run at 640x200?   It seems to have the same weird pixel aspect ratio as ST med-res.

 

9 hours ago, Lynxpro said:

Man, if only Atari Corp could've got the AMY working or somehow convinced Yamaha to sell them the YM2151 [Yamaha rejected their overture] coupled with striking a deal with the Atari Games Corp to use their custom graphics chip in their Atari System 1 arcade boards [ahem, Gauntlet], they wouldn't have had anything to crow about. Atari Games' graphics chip did 256 colors on-screen at once out of a 1,024+ color palette [expanded further in the 2nd edition to 4,096] at resolutions higher than the ST's SHIFTER or Amiga's chips and obviously an insane number of sprites in comparison. Alas...

Or even just hardware sprites with independent color palette.   If every cheap 8-bit computer/console could have that, why not ST?   And for sound, I don't know all the options that were available to them, but I find it hard to believe that the Yamaha YM2149 was the best they could come up with.  

 

7 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Other thing is that 256 colors at once means 2x more video RAM at same resolution, so would be 64 KB for 320x200 . And worst: in that case CPU must've have stop cycles, actually lot of them, since whole design is done with RAM bandwith enough for 32 KB video RAM and CPU (shared 1:1 during line draw) . So, when actually more CPU power is needed - for bigger video RAM just opposite would happen - less CPU power.

Maybe 64KB screen RAM was a big ask for 85, but perhaps they could have let the design be more flexible in allowing that in the future?   When the STe came out 4 years later, it was still stuck at 16 colors on screen while VGA was the common PC standard allowing 256.  It took until the Falcon to finally shatter that barrier at the consumer level (TT wasn't really consumer oriented), and that was way too late.

 

3 hours ago, youxia said:

I must say, I've heard quite a few "out there" comparisons in my day, but hearing this - from a presumably ST fan - really wins the  day. People who have never seen what TOS/GEM looks like (or better yet, how it behaves) are welcome to have a gander ?

It doesn't have to be either/or.   Yes Atari chose a hideous neon green as it's default desktop color (I prefer GEM in monochrome, thank you)  yes the default GEM desktop is minimal, and it handles .TOS/.TTP apps horribly.      However,  nothing caused me to appreciate GEM's minimalism (and the fact its in ROM) like trying to use the convoluted Amiga workbench on a single floppy system.   And the default Workbench colors are pretty hideous as well.    The only winner here is the Mac

 

[Keatah]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

Are you sure Workbench doesn't run at 640x200?   It seems to have the same weird pixel aspect ratio as ST med-res.

By default it does. Yes. There's an option in Workbench1.3>Prefs>Preferences to change it to 640x400 interlace. Then you have the flickering.

[Keatah]

This is important.

On 7/22/2022 at 2:17 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Difference between older arcade machines and Atari ST:  they had 8-bit CPU, maybe not only 1. Plus diverse custom HW for making screen operations faster. And that was often solved not with some custom chip, but with plenty of available chips.  I saw boards of diverse console games - in service, some had hundreds of chips on them.

Some people think traditional/vintage arcade cabinets have super-powerful graphics chips in them. They don't. A vector game like Tempest or Tac/Scan is going to have a handful of TTL parts connected to a set of DACs. The DACs whip the beam around and draw the game. It isn't much more than that.

[+Stephen]

48 minutes ago, Keatah said:

This is important.

Some people think traditional/vintage arcade cabinets have super-powerful graphics chips in them. They don't. A vector game like Tempest or Tac/Scan is going to have a handful of TTL parts connected to a set of DACs. The DACs whip the beam around and draw the game. It isn't much more than that.

No, but Tempest and Battlezone had a "math box" which assisted with the vectors.  The stock 6502 couldn't do all the math - see https://6502disassembly.com/va-battlezone/mathbox.html

[Keatah]

Oh yeh. I had automatically considered the mathbox as working in conjunction with the 6502. Then after that it was off to the hardware to be drawn on-screen. A difference of perspective.

 

An example of using standard off the shelf hardware to build what you need.

[zzip]

5 minutes ago, Stephen said:

The stock 6502 couldn't do all the math

If only Atari had a system that could "do the math"...      

[Keatah]

At least they outsourced it.

[prog99]

1 hour ago, Keatah said:

This is important.

Some people think traditional/vintage arcade cabinets have super-powerful graphics chips in them. They don't. A vector game like Tempest or Tac/Scan is going to have a handful of TTL parts connected to a set of DACs. The DACs whip the beam around and draw the game. It isn't much more than that.

Probably true but a year after tempest pole position raised the game substantially. It was a bit of a beast in its day.