Bumper Bash Help

[harjon1969]

can anyone tell me what the problem here is---I have played other games with this system and they work fine. Bumper Bash seems to have lines running through it. I was able to capture an example in the pic below. The line starts at the top of the A and runs down through the center bumpers. also when I play the game the ball gets stuck or goes off the screen completely. am I doing something wrong---is there anyway to fix it? Thanks for your help. NEWBIE HERE BUT NOT TO ATARI COLLECTING

[harjon1969]

ok I looked at the screen shot here on atari age and then ne----it looks as if the rights side bumper (blue) is having a nummy spell. that line roles across the screen repeatedly over and over very quickly. Could it be the system I am using? which is a cx-2600A made in Tiwan.

[Eckhard Stolberg]

It's probably the the graphics chip in the console you are using. Some games position the onscreen objects in a way that the programmers manual warns about not to use, because the results might be unpredictable. The vast majority of VCSs still positions the objects in these games in a predictable way anyway, but some consoles have problems with them.

 

I've seen incorrect positioned objects in Kool Aid Man and the Red vs. Blue prototype on one of my 2600 Jrs, but it's the first time I hear about problems with Bumper Bash. Which other games do you have that you could try out on your console to find out if it has problems with anything besides Bumper Bash as well?

 

I don't think there is anything you can do to fix the problem, so to be able to play Bumper Bash you'll probably have to buy another VCS.

 

 

Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg

[harjon1969]

Hey Eckhard,

Thanks for the information. It is odd because I did play some of the games and thought they worked fine. Then I noticed something. If all I have to do is run around a maze as in Lock N Chase I am fine. If I try something like coconuts ---the coconuts go ballistic on me and go everywhere. Then I tried missile command. This game I knew from when I logged in thousands of hours as a kid. I was dumb founded. The little cursor that you use to shoot things with decided it did not want to stay in one place. It to runs across the screen continuously in a straight line. I am thinking that this is a system problem and not a game problem. I just got the system so it is new to me. Thanks for your help.

[Spirantho]

I have a clone like that, I think....

 

When the machine starts up it's fine, but after about 10 minutes or so certain sprites go amok. I *think* it's a timer gone wrong in the TIA part of the chip, but I can't be sure without looking at the source code.

As an example, the bombs in Space Invaders flicker from the correct position to the far left of the screen at times, for no reason. The collision detection works fine, where the bombs are rather than where they should be. Another example is Open Sesame, where the ladder dots jump all over the place at times... very strange. River Raid too...

 

I imagine its the TIA in your console that's stuffed, but that's only an (educated) guess.