2600 better than the 800 ?

[emkay]

I found some videos of recordings from 2600 demos. It's always said the 800 is quite the double 2600.... but, as it seems, some things worked better in the 2600.

Listening to the sounds, they always sound the same, where POKEY often changes the "face" of a sound.

And, we see several FX, I never have seen on the A8.

 

Here some examples:

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=63_nw-z2inQ

 

You can search youtube "trilobit 2600" aswell , to find more of them

Edited December 1, 2010 by emkay

[olavese@online.no]

I found some videos of recordings from 2600 demos. It's always said the 800 is quite the double 2600.... but, as it seems, some things worked better in the 2600.

Listening to the sounds, they always sound the same, where POKEY often changes the "face" of a sound.

And, we see several FX, I never have seen on the A8.

 

Here some examples:

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=63_nw-z2inQ

 

You can search youtube "trilobit 2600" aswell , to find more of them

 

Sorry, not mean to diss the 2600, I love the console, but what exactly haven't you seen the Atari 800 do better? I didn't see any effects not done on Atari 8 bit computers. Have you seen much demos on the Atari 8 bit? Search youtube for Drunken Chessboard, Asskicker and you'll probably get more suggestions soon ...

[emkay]

Sorry, not mean to diss the 2600, I love the console, but what exactly haven't you seen the Atari 800 do better? I didn't see any effects not done on Atari 8 bit computers. Have you seen much demos on the Atari 8 bit? Search youtube for Drunken Chessboard, Asskicker and you'll probably get more suggestions soon ...

 

 

Example: Listen to tricade at 1:50 to the music. Yo hear a sound, I never would dream of , to hear it on the POKEY. Neither with filter usage nor with 16 bit. It seems, it's just the generator "C" playing this on the 2600, steady sounding and note correct. On POKEY it sounds different with every repeating of that part.

[Bryan]

It seems, it's just the generator "C" playing this on the 2600, steady sounding and note correct. On POKEY it sounds different with every repeating of that part.

 

I think you're talking about the way the Pokey channels sub-sample the poly counters, so some frequencies produce different effects depending on the cycle you start on. The 2600 doesn't use its poly counters in a shared manner, so these things don't happen but the pitch resolution is so poor on the 2600 that you have to resort to all kinds of tricks to make a coherent tune.

[Heaven/TQA]

and PWP is master on TIA sounds...

[svenski]

Well I'd never swap an 800 for a 2600 but these demos are impressive.

[emkay]

Other example...

 

In Doctor at 2:55 , a real 128 colour scroller is started and turning into a streching zoomer.

 

 

[emkay]

 

I think you're talking about the way the Pokey channels sub-sample the poly counters, so some frequencies produce different effects depending on the cycle you start on.

 

This is one thing that is not to understand. It doesn't make sense to create an "unhandable" generator. This TIA chip already allows "music" just by the fact that the sounds are stable.

As we know, it is possible to control the start of generators now, but I cannot believe that the designer of POKEY did not take care of a direct control method for this and do this "random" and "brainless" sound thingy?

Really, at the current state of knowledge, TIA already does much better bass sounds already and is the older chip.

[Bryan]

This is one thing that is not to understand. It doesn't make sense to create an "unhandable" generator. This TIA chip already allows "music" just by the fact that the sounds are stable.

 

The multiple poly counters would have taken up a large amount of chip space if they'd been repeated for all 4 channels, so the designers discovered that they could be shared if they were clocked separately and only sampled by the 4 channels at a specified interval. As you've noticed, this method has limitations especially with shorter counters like the 4 and 5 bit ones.

 

There is a way to get values to work every time, and that's to make your sound code run on deterministic cycles, and/or reset Pokey with SKCTL before a sound command to start the counters at cycle 0. It's all very tricky, but it can be made to work and give you more divisors to use.

[Rybags]

As impressive as some of that is given the 2600s capabilities, there's not really anything that the computer couldn't do there, aside of course from some of the sounds, but that's down to differences in the Poly gens and you'd get near identical sounds if you tried for long enough.

 

Entirely possible you could "fudge" the 2600 Playfield by just using VSCROL tricks in Graphics 3.

 

Repeated Players somewhat different story but you could just use Playfield in many cases.

 

Get the 2600 doing APAC with totally independant colours available at 80 or 64x120 pixels and I'd be impressed.

[Heaven/TQA]

the 2600 has some features which GTIA is missing... repeating players... mirrowing... etc...

[GroovyBee]

It's always said the 800 is quite the double 2600.... but, as it seems, some things worked better in the 2600.

 

Double the 2600 but half the 7800

 

[ANTIQ]

Why most of us refuse to take sides.

[svenski]

Why most of us refuse to take sides.

 

Yes, this could become another "digital vs analog" thread

[+Stephen]

It's always said the 800 is quite the double 2600.... but, as it seems, some things worked better in the 2600.

 

Double the 2600 but half the 7800

 

Well, if we allow the 7800's expansion module, then it is fair to allow the VBXE2 on the A8. Not a chance in hell the 7800 is touching that

[sloopy]

hmmm even if you get the heavy sixer, the 800 still has more mass, and weighs a bit more... so i think the 800 would crush the 2600...

 

 

sloopy.

[Divya16]

Well, if we allow the 7800's expansion module, then it is fair to allow the VBXE2 on the A8. Not a chance in hell the 7800 is touching that

 

Even without VBXE, I would pick Atari 800. I never fall for screenshots-- I've seen how "good" the Donkey Kong looked on PC with higher resolution until I played the thing. I played a few games on the 7800 like Joust, Robotron, and few others and Atari 800 versions were still better. I don't know the tech. specs. but maybe there were better coders on the Atari 800 or that they have better hardware resources. But I guess its still good given some Atari 2600 stuff doesn't exist on Atari 800 and 7800 supposedly runs that stuff.

[Rybags]

No Pokey, piddly 4K RAM, back-catalog barely over 150 titles.

And if you did a head to head on all the titles available on both machines, I doubt the 7800 would come in front.

 

Like so many things, Atari totally ballzed the 7800. Almost 5 years earlier, at least they had the brains to put 16K into the 5200.

[emkay]

the 2600 has some features which GTIA is missing... repeating players... mirrowing... etc...

 

 

I guess you mean mirroring? Could you explain that?

[roland p]

Other example...

 

In Doctor at 2:55 , a real 128 colour scroller is started and turning into a streching zoomer.

That screen is probably made with timed backgound color changes?

If the 800's processor can sync to the scanline it could do it too.

 

Ofcourse it's much cooler when you see a 2600 do it

[TwiliteZoner]

I prefer the old fashioned test. Lets compare versions of Pac-Man.

[Bryan]

No Pokey, piddly 4K RAM, back-catalog barely over 150 titles.

And if you did a head to head on all the titles available on both machines, I doubt the 7800 would come in front.

 

Like so many things, Atari totally ballzed the 7800. Almost 5 years earlier, at least they had the brains to put 16K into the 5200.

 

16K would have been too expensive since the 7800 must use SRAM (no refresh mechanism). The 7800 was really meant to address the 5200's lukewarm reception and if Atari had offered any sort of innovation in the 5200 it probably wouldn't exist.

[Marius]

I have to admit: very cool demo's on Atari 2600 indeed.

 

And yes... those BASS tones are goooooood indeed.

 

But I would never trade my Atari 8bit systems for 2600's.

 

I have seen cooler things on a8... and I am really addicted to Pokey chip... even with it's limitations.

 

Marius

[analmux]

Yes, indeed, and in the 80ies the routine for doing pokey polycounter reset (stabilize) was never used, so comparing PIA tunes and classic Pokey tunes makes look pokey inferior. However, it's now anno 2010, thus using the poly reset&offset routines (which aren't really that complicated) makes pokey still superior.

[emkay]

Yes, indeed, and in the 80ies the routine for doing pokey polycounter reset (stabilize) was never used, so comparing PIA tunes and classic Pokey tunes makes look pokey inferior. However, it's now anno 2010, thus using the poly reset&offset routines (which aren't really that complicated) makes pokey still superior.

 

About Reset & offset . Not sure whether it is an RMT or a POKEY problem (but I guess it's a pokey problem). The corrections get loose, the higher the played pitch is.

No prob to make a correction and to play a deep note then. Particular gen "C" (imho the best generator for "volumetric" sounds using one channel) has the largest amount of "unwanted" variations, which makes it useless for melodic stuff. TIA plays those sounds right out of the box.