Video: Games That Push The Limits of the Atari 7800

[+Defender_2600]

2 minutes ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

I don't think DF is a terrible looking game but it seems to get overlooked (personal preference I suppose)

 

Just don't underestimate 160 mode. High resolution isn't necessarily an advantage when you have few colors on your screen.

 

[+Muddyfunster]

160 mode rocks!

[+Defender_2600]

2 minutes ago, Muddyfunster said:

160 mode rocks!

160 Muddyfunster mode rocks! 😜

[+sramirez2008]

42 minutes ago, Defender_2600 said:

 

Just don't underestimate 160 mode. High resolution isn't necessarily an advantage when you have few colors on your screen.

 

That Doh is beautiful. I’m still looking forward to Arkanoid. 

[+Defender_2600]

44 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

That Doh is beautiful.

 

Thank you. I also really like the animated color changes before he is defeated.

 

An old video but the final version has more colors and a more complete animation:

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Defender_2600

[+sramirez2008]

16 minutes ago, Defender_2600 said:

 

Thank you. I also really like the animated color changes before he is defeated.

 

An old video but the final version has more colors and a more complete animation:

 

Couldn’t agree more about the animation. I loved testing this game and will be more than happy to test again, when Matt is ready. Arkanoid is one of my favorite coin-ops and I may be biased, but IMO this port was coming along really well. 

[zzip]

On 12/10/2022 at 4:29 PM, Shaggy the Atarian said:

I thought that Desert Falcon was also in 320? It certainly doesn't have the wide pixels but maybe I'm crazy or misremembering. I could swear it has a sharper look though

It's 160, but there are some promo screenshots of the game around that are in a higher resolution.

[Shaggy the Atarian]

45 minutes ago, zzip said:

It's 160, but there are some promo screenshots of the game around that are in a higher resolution.

Yeah, I believe Defender and yourself, I was just misremembering as some 7800 games have the small pixel look of 320 on the Sony CRT I have (I also recall DF being a "Super Cartridge" although can't recall what was super about it since it didn't have a Pokey. Extra RAM probably)

[+Defender_2600]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

It's 160, but there are some promo screenshots of the game around that are in a higher resolution.

 

While there may be differences between the promotional images and the final versions of the games, I think you are confusing what an emulator shows you with images showing how the graphics should look on CRT TVs and also consider that they are images printed on old paper absorbent with everything that comes with it. I've seen some pictures you posted earlier and those are not in 320 mode.

 

[zzip]

4 minutes ago, Defender_2600 said:

 

While there may be differences between the promotional images and the final versions of the games, I think you are confusing what an emulator shows you with images showing how the graphics should look on CRT TVs and also consider that they are images printed on old paper absorbent with everything that comes with it. I've seen some pictures you posted earlier and those are not in 320 mode.

 

This is the pic I posted.   I can't say for sure if the resolution is 320,  but it doesn't have the 160 pixel aspect ratio and has more detail than the actual game. Also the text at the bottom is clearly higher than the blocky text 160 mode gives you.  I don't think it's just paper artifacts, most likely they are fake mockups rather than screenshots of the pre-release game.

 

[+Defender_2600]

26 minutes ago, zzip said:

This is the pic I posted.   I can't say for sure if the resolution is 320,  but it doesn't have the 160 pixel aspect ratio and has more detail than the actual game. Also the text at the bottom is clearly higher than the blocky text 160 mode gives you.  I don't think it's just paper artifacts, most likely they are fake mockups rather than screenshots of the pre-release game.

 

 

Impossible to compare every single pixel as the image is completely blurry but as I told you that is real 160 mode graphics and you can still spot the wide pixels. "Dithering" has been used for some areas of the background and this can mislead you. Instead I can confirm that the game uses the 320 mode for the score zone. Maybe later I'll show a comparison with a real CRT.

[zzip]

11 minutes ago, Defender_2600 said:

 

Impossible to compare every single pixel as the image is completely blurry but as I told you that is real 160 mode graphics and you can still spot the wide pixels. "Dithering" has been used for some areas of the background and this can mislead you. Instead I can confirm that the game uses the 320 mode for the score zone. Maybe later I'll show a comparison with a real CRT.

Just look at a closeup of the sphynx.    The magazine version (top) contains much more detail that cannot be explained by dithering/blur/printing artifacts.  I've tried applying all sorts of upscale interpolations and blurs to the real image and it doesn't come close to the detail in the magazine image.   The magazine image is obviously a higher resolution and likely a fake mock-up image of the game.    I'm don't have a perfect 1:1 scan so there will naturally be some stretched pixels, but there also obviously lots of pixes that aren't stretched.

 

 

[+Defender_2600]

41 minutes ago, zzip said:

Just look at a closeup of the sphynx.    The magazine version (top) contains much more detail that cannot be explained by dithering/blur/printing artifacts.  I've tried applying all sorts of upscale interpolations and blurs to the real image and it doesn't come close to the detail in the magazine image.   The magazine image is obviously a higher resolution and likely a fake mock-up image of the game.    I'm don't have a perfect 1:1 scan so there will naturally be some stretched pixels, but there also obviously lots of pixes that aren't stretched.

 

 

 

That's the point, you're working digitally on an old analog print, the interpolation adds color, detail, and it's going to be square pixel detail.

 

Reading your old message, it seems that there was a will to deceive people by promising graphics in 320 resolution. I, on the other hand, think that the difficulty was also to show an image that was not _worse_ than the one shown by a CRT TV, a result that was not easy to achieve with the technology of the time. This need may have led to retouching the image, but continuing to show only screenshots of emulators does not clarify the point.

 

[+Karl G]

On 12/10/2022 at 6:02 PM, Defender_2600 said:

160 Muddyfunster mode rocks! 😜

Indeed. Maybe I can use that mode in my next game. 

[+Defender_2600]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

  I've tried applying all sorts of upscale interpolations and blurs to the real image and it doesn't come close to the detail in the magazine image. 

 

Real image is on real old TV CRT, RF input.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Defender_2600

[+Muddyfunster]

10 minutes ago, Karl G said:

Indeed. Maybe I can use that mode in my next game. 

I'm going to patent that. 160M  

[zzip]

10 minutes ago, Defender_2600 said:

That's the point, you're working digitally on an old analog print, the interpolation adds color, detail, and it's going to be square pixel detail.

yes analog to digital will add noise and degrade the picture quality.  It will not enhance the quality of the original image- not when you blow it up like I did.   There's extra detail that exists in the paws that cannot be the result of added noise, that's extra detail that simply doesn't exist in the real game.

 

16 minutes ago, Defender_2600 said:

Reading your old message, it seems that there was a will to deceive people by promising graphics in 320 resolution.

I don't think they promised a particular resolution target,  but Atari showed off a bunch of game images that looked really spectacular for a home console in 1984.   However when the console finally shipped in 1986, nearly all the games looked worse than the pre-release images that were shown.   For me that was a let down.

Was it deliberately deceptive?  I can't say for sure.   Marketing departments in those days routinely shared fake mock ups screenshots.   Maybe the game was still unfinished so they were sharing what it was intended to look like, it was also hard to photograph a CRT screen and make it look good in print.

[+Defender_2600]

28 minutes ago, zzip said:

yes analog to digital will add noise and degrade the picture quality.  It will not enhance the quality of the original image- not when you blow it up like I did.   There's extra detail that exists in the paws that cannot be the result of added noise, that's extra detail that simply doesn't exist in the real game.

 

 

 It is the real CRT that enhances the image and, subsequently, the photography and printing processes. The only thing really different about that image is the mouth, simply because there are different sprites in the game. If you give me time to reach my pc I can make a comparison, I hate writing with my cell phone.

 

[+Defender_2600]

On 11/12/2021 at 4:54 PM, zzip said:

For the Atari 7800,  here are the promotional screenshots released by Atari in 1984 vs reality.    It might be hard to see in the fuzzy magazine scans, but the promotional images all appear to be higher resolution, use more color shading, less dithering and more detail vs what we actually got.   I always found 7800 games somewhat disappointing and I suppose this is why, it's graphics never quite lived up to the initial promise.

 

So I took some photo of the game displayed on CRT, looking for the light conditions and color saturation that could make me get a result close to that old picture you showed. Certainly I can't replicate the conditions of the time, also because I'm using a latest generation CRT connected via composite video etc, however I got the result that I was attributing to the use of dithering on a real CRT.

 

Now, as I said earlier, I'm not saying that there were never any differences between the promotional images and the final versions of the games, however it seems clear to me that it doesn't make much sense to compare the promotional images with a screenshot obtained from an emulator, and still talk of disappointment by showing the screenshot as if it represents what we actually got. Promotional images can be closer to the actual game than a modern screenshot, just like in the case of Desert Falcon.

 

Honestly, I can't even understand the disappointment about the expectation of spectacular graphics in 1986 when that best-selling masterpiece Super Mario Bros was released in that year, and to call it graphically elementary I think is almost an understatement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Defender_2600

[zzip]

11 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

That does look closer, but it's still clear they aren't the same image,  some of the shading is different,  The angle the Sphynx sits at is a little different, there's no evidence of checkerboard dithering in the promo image, and the thinner lines in the promo image indicates a smaller pixel size.

 

11 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

Honestly, I can't even understand the disappointment about the expectation of spectacular graphics in 1986 when that best-selling masterpiece Super Mario Bros was released in that year, and to call it graphically elementary I think is almost an understatement.

Well I was no fan of the NES.   

But in 84 there was a bunch of fanfare around the new 7800.   They showed a bunch of screens that looked better than any home system at the time.  The 7800 was so good they were prematurely killing off the 5200 in favor of it, and even though 84 was right in the middle of the crash and consoles weren't selling well, Atari seemed confident they could sell a lot of these.

 

So that planted the seed in me that the 7800 was something special.   I owned an Atari 8-bit and coded it for it,  the promise of unlimited multi-color sprites of the 7800 seemed like a dream come true.   

I was also getting tired of the 160-wide pixel look.   Most Atari 5200/8-bit games used this pixel width and it was starting to look dated.  The pixels are too wide, it's difficult to add a lot of detail.   None of the pre-release screenshots had the 160 pixel width look.

 

So when I finally saw a 7800 in action the 160 modes in most games was immediately obvious and the graphics looked downgraded from the prerelease shots.   Some of the games didn't seem like a big step up from 5200/8-bit counterparts,  in fact there's a few that are worse on the 7800, and I won't even get into the sound!

 

Again wasn't an NES fan, but at least it had 256-pixel wide display which didn't have that overstretched pixel look that 160 does.   On paper the 7800 could beat that at 320 pixels, but those modes were tougher to use and underutilized.

 

[+Defender_2600]

On 11/12/2021 at 4:54 PM, zzip said:

For the Atari 7800,  here are the promotional screenshots released by Atari in 1984 vs reality.    It might be hard to see in the fuzzy magazine scans, but the promotional images all appear to be higher resolution, use more color shading, less dithering and more detail vs what we actually got.   I always found 7800 games somewhat disappointing and I suppose this is why, it's graphics never quite lived up to the initial promise.

1 hour ago, zzip said:

That does look closer, but it's still clear they aren't the same image,  some of the shading is different,  The angle the Sphynx sits at is a little different, there's no evidence of checkerboard dithering in the promo image, and the thinner lines in the promo image indicates a smaller pixel size.

 

Oh yeah, it's not the same picture, it's just better.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

So that planted the seed in me that the 7800 was something special.   I owned an Atari 8-bit and coded it for it,  the promise of unlimited multi-color sprites of the 7800 seemed like a dream come true.   

I was also getting tired of the 160-wide pixel look.   Most Atari 5200/8-bit games used this pixel width and it was starting to look dated.  The pixels are too wide, it's difficult to add a lot of detail. 

 

Okay, zzip.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Again wasn't an NES fan, but at least it had 256-pixel wide display which didn't have that overstretched pixel look that 160 does. 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

The pixels are too wide, it's difficult to add a lot of detail.

 

Okay, zzip.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

and I won't even get into the sound!

Okay, zzip. Do not do it.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think now we can go back to "Games That Push The Limits of the Atari 7800".

 

[Shaggy the Atarian]

23 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

 

Impossible to compare every single pixel as the image is completely blurry but as I told you that is real 160 mode graphics and you can still spot the wide pixels. "Dithering" has been used for some areas of the background and this can mislead you. Instead I can confirm that the game uses the 320 mode for the score zone. Maybe later I'll show a comparison with a real CRT.

Ah ok, I knew I wasn't 100% crazy  Just mostly

2 hours ago, zzip said:

But in 84 there was a bunch of fanfare around the new 7800.   They showed a bunch of screens that looked better than any home system at the time.  The 7800 was so good they were prematurely killing off the 5200 in favor of it, and even though 84 was right in the middle of the crash and consoles weren't selling well, Atari seemed confident they could sell a lot of these.

Was Desert Falcon shown off in 1984? I know Atari sat on a bunch of stuff that had been programmed for it around then but I thought that DF being an '87 release that it was started later. Or are you just talking about the games in general?

(I was a kid back then and only 7800 marketing I ever saw was a mention of "Asteroids for the Atari 7800" in a Sears catalog, otherwise I had no clue what the 7800 was then and no one I knew had one)

Edited December 13, 2022 by Shaggy the Atarian

[+Defender_2600]

6 minutes ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

Was Desert Falcon shown off in 1984? I know Atari sat on a bunch of stuff that had been programmed for it around then but I thought that DF being an '87 release that it was started later. Or are you just talking about the games in general?

(I was a kid back then and only 7800 marketing I ever saw was a mention of "Asteroids for the Atari 7800" in a Sears catalog, otherwise I had no clue what the 7800 was then and no one I knew had one)

 

https://archive.org/details/Electronic_Games_Volume_02_Number_14_1984-09_Reese_Communications_US/page/n27/mode/2up

 

[zzip]

1 minute ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

Was Desert Falcon shown off in 1984? I know Atari sat on a bunch of stuff that had been programmed for it around then but I thought that DF being an '87 release that it was started later. Or are you just talking about the games in general?

(I was a kid back then and only 7800 marketing I ever saw was a mention of "Asteroids for the Atari 7800" in a Sears catalog, otherwise I had no clue what the 7800 was then and no one I knew had one)

Yeah, the screenshot of DF was shown in the 1984 preview, but the game was going under the name "Nile Flyer" then.   Some of the games shown in '84 were not released at launch in 86.   Not sure why, maybe they weren't finished?

[Shaggy the Atarian]

Steering the subject back to the original topic, I think he could have spent a little more time on Midnight Mutants. I think that game was a great use of the 7800's sprite capabilities, especially when you get a lot of zombies on the screen (sure, a little slowdown) and they start exploding everywhere; The use of color and then the bosses. Plenty of games of that era didn't have bosses that size and it's pretty cool when they blow up.

 

Should F-18 Hornet get any love or no? I know that frame rate isn't far above slideshow quality but it's still 3D on the system