F*** the 64..

[high voltage]

Sorry I thought you were saying his C64 looks much better.

 

And when I say arcade games I mean of the quality of mid 80s arcade games, which neither the ZX/A8/C64/CPC/MSX managed for a couple of years at best IMO. For example the games like R-Type or Salamander.

 

 

They didn't manage it period. An 8-bit computer never was able to reach arcade quality from mid 80s onwards.

Edited May 5, 2012 by high voltage

[oky2000]

Sorry I thought you were saying his C64 looks much better.

 

And when I say arcade games I mean of the quality of mid 80s arcade games, which neither the ZX/A8/C64/CPC/MSX managed for a couple of years at best IMO. For example the games like R-Type or Salamander.

 

 

They didn't manage it period. An 8-bit computer never was able to reach arcade quality from mid 80s onwards.

 

Not perfect but Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands are far better technically than things like Jet Set Willy before them )

[oky2000]

There were numerous C64 games made in UK where it was mentioned the game/graphics was bad, but the music is ace. They why most companies hired people like Hubbard or Martin Galway. Shitty game, great music....

 

Hmmm but to be fair the same £1.99 Mastertronic games on Spectrum didn't even have that soundtrack like the C64 version

[oky2000]

And when I say arcade games I mean of the quality of mid 80s arcade games, which neither the ZX/A8/C64/CPC/MSX managed for a couple of years at best IMO. For example the games like R-Type or Salamander.

 

So you may realize where it goes? The C64 was a cheap design of it's time, not the "top notch"....

Arcades originally come from the 70s... as the A8 does.

Nah arcades start in the 70s and finished with Sega and Namco in the 90s before being killed off by PS2 and PS3. The cheap design as you put it was enough to make Atari engineers at the 1982 Winter CES show look in amazement and publicly state it was impossible for that proto-type VIC-40 (AKA C64) shown to make any profit at the $595 retail price. These were Atari people saying this to Commodore engineers.

 

I posted some effects heavy SID tunes in your other thread, the ones I already heard are conversions of basic SID tunes which don't even use half the features of the SID (unlike some of the tunes in the videos I posted).

 

Isn't it interesting? It's just a corelated programming of the modulation abilities of the POKEY to get there?

And, well, particular the Hard-Software tunes are really from "SID" .... they just run in some "emulation-environment".

 

Do they sound like SID to you?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5xjrUDaq7Q

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4xgXVzP91o

 

Not exactly, only 1/3 channels sound like the SID "warble" sound but you have to sit and think what does SID sound like. Problem is if you take three tunes, one from Hubbard one from Galway and one from Whittaker they almost sound like they are running on a different computer. I tried to cover the diversity with the 5 videos I posted in your other thread.

 

My only real reference is the Panther/Sanxion and Warhawk tunes I have heard and those three don't even sound as close to SID music as the VIC 20 SID VICIOUS SID emulator playing Rob Hubbard's Commando title music that's my point. The two chips work in a different way, Pokey is not a 12 oscillator phase accumulator design.

 

I don't like the sounding of the A8 versions there.

And still the old argues.... ofcourse SID is a newer chip, built on the available chipdesigns and with better technical environment. That's why SID has it's regions, POKEY cannot go to.

But, as you might have realized, POKEY has several sound generators and they can be switched/overlaid together in different combinations. The biggest flaw with POKEY is still the real bass generator, of which I sometimes think, the creator of POKEY had no idea of capacitive actions in electronic circuits. Same with the creator of GTIA... being not aware of anything outside NTSC...

 

You can't make a Yamaha DX7 sound like a Mini Moog synth, you can do similar sounds but not identical, same principle here. This is why I don't think this is the road people should go down. Ditto for all the ST SID players (Xenon 1 music on ST is nicer than C64 sometimes!) and the C16/Plus4 ones.

 

I think it's best to work around the native features of the chip than emulate another chip, you need 1ghz x86 CPU power to run reSID in an accurate mode on Win VICE C64 emulator. Even then it will never be identical to SID. and that's with 1000x more CPU speed thrown at the reSID sound emulation module.

[potatohead]

Or just go and put a SID in http://www.atariage....nto-atari-xlxe/

 

 

...or one of these, which does sound an awful lot like a SID: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_GTOvkdM5Q (The author of that is insane good, and did it without a multiply instruction!) The chip it's running on, does the video and sound in parallel cores and it runs at a brisk 80Mhz. Linked the video, because I don't think we need a Ghz to do a respectable SID, and because it's got a very nice set of SID tunes encoded in it, with some scrolling commentary. If you don't like to read, put it on "play", and go on about your surfing, which is what I'm doing right now.

 

Anyway, totally agreed. IMHO, POKEY has some very interesting features. We've not really seen 'em put to the test yet. Would much rather hear that, and hear what POKEY sounds like driven hard and feel good about it, than hear POKEY reaching where SID lives, not feeling so good, not that it's bad, but more like it's just not a SID, so why bother?

Edited May 6, 2012 by potatohead

[TMR]

There were numerous C64 games made in UK where it was mentioned the game/graphics was bad, but the music is ace. They why most companies hired people like Hubbard or Martin Galway. Shitty game, great music....

 

 

 

There were crappy games from everywhere though, it's just that the Europeans generally had a way to paper over the cracks a little if a company was feeling brazen or desperate enough to release something cruddy. That didn't stop the American companies chancing it though, have a look at some of the bilge that came out of the US where they didn't have that option, Side Arms or the US version of Bionic Commando wouldn't have been saved by a decent soundtrack either.

[andym00]

Or just go and put a SID in http://www.atariage....nto-atari-xlxe/

...or one of these, which does sound an awful lot like a SID: (The author of that is insane good, and did it without a multiply instruction!) The chip it's running on, does the video and sound in parallel cores and it runs at a brisk 80Mhz. Linked the video, because I don't think we need a Ghz to do a respectable SID, and because it's got a very nice set of SID tunes encoded in it, with some scrolling commentary. If you don't like to read, put it on "play", and go on about your surfing, which is what I'm doing right now.

 

Damn, that's an hour of my life gone as I found myself listening to every song in that.. And it a nice emulation, though it feels like there's much more bass than there should be, and one of the Follin tracks sounded 'unusual' during it's prog rock solo bit, though maybe I've not listened to the original for a while.. But very good nonetheless

 

Very curious who the author of this at

is ? I don't think I've ever stumbled across that version before, and it sounds rather lovely, in a very Wendy Carlos hooked on Bach way..

[emkay]

Not exactly, only 1/3 channels sound like the SID "warble" sound but you have to sit and think what does SID sound like.

 

.... which is simply a result of the "cheap noise" creating. You have to keep in mind that POKEY was the 1st chip.

 

It is not a problem to say "this chip sounds like SID", if it is built to sound like SID. But it isn't. It is just one of the variations, the original 197x POKEY can produce. Actually, If people hadn't slept well back in that time, the title music of "Starraiders" could have been sounding like one of the videos above.... or all the other "testtunes".... years before SID.

 

 

Problem is if you take three tunes, one from Hubbard one from Galway and one from Whittaker they almost sound like they are running on a different computer. I tried to cover the diversity with the 5 videos I posted in your other thread.

 

The tunes are just some "reference" depending on the known sounds and music style...

 

 

 

My only real reference is the Panther/Sanxion and Warhawk tunes I have heard and those three don't even sound as close to SID music as the VIC 20 SID VICIOUS SID emulator playing Rob Hubbard's Commando title music that's my point. The two chips work in a different way, Pokey is not a 12 oscillator phase accumulator design.

 

I don't like the sounding of the A8 versions there.

And still the old argues.... ofcourse SID is a newer chip, built on the available chipdesigns and with better technical environment. That's why SID has it's regions, POKEY cannot go to.

But, as you might have realized, POKEY has several sound generators and they can be switched/overlaid together in different combinations. The biggest flaw with POKEY is still the real bass generator, of which I sometimes think, the creator of POKEY had no idea of capacitive actions in electronic circuits. Same with the creator of GTIA... being not aware of anything outside NTSC...

 

You can't make a Yamaha DX7 sound like a Mini Moog synth, you can do similar sounds but not identical, same principle here. This is why I don't think this is the road people should go down. Ditto for all the ST SID players (Xenon 1 music on ST is nicer than C64 sometimes!) and the C16/Plus4 ones.

 

 

But you can always use some balanced sounds... in volume and frequency range.

 

 

I think it's best to work around the native features of the chip than emulate another chip, you need 1ghz x86 CPU power to run reSID in an accurate mode on Win VICE C64 emulator. Even then it will never be identical to SID. and that's with 1000x more CPU speed thrown at the reSID sound emulation module.

 

The most ridiculous part is that I'm only using the "native features" of POKEY.

And, sorry for being rough, but how can an emulation sound "100%" correct, if the SIDs sound different (from slight variations to real music changing functions) at all.

[oky2000]

That is the issue, the chip is literally a cut down version of a monosynth used by british bands around 1979/80. Jeri Ellsworth once told me the C64 is more complicated to emulate 100% in FPGA than an Amiga 500.

 

It is easy enough to get something "SID like" eg even the compromised SID model implemented in FPGA for 64DTV is OK but if you heard something like Phantom of the Asteroid on a real 64 then even using reSID you will notice very slight errors. Whilst certain things like the hiss of the white noise is instantly recognisable there were so many tricks used via machine code music players that it is hard to give a unique single SID music example.

 

It's a mammoth task for either to sound like the other, sure things can be done though as Amiga has a nice SID player @ 7mhz. I'd rather people worked on new Pokey tunes myself

 

(Specbum is still a crap computer btw)

Edited May 6, 2012 by oky2000

[high voltage]

Sorry I thought you were saying his C64 looks much better.

 

And when I say arcade games I mean of the quality of mid 80s arcade games, which neither the ZX/A8/C64/CPC/MSX managed for a couple of years at best IMO. For example the games like R-Type or Salamander.

 

 

They didn't manage it period. An 8-bit computer never was able to reach arcade quality from mid 80s onwards.

 

Not perfect but Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands are far better technically than things like Jet Set Willy before them )

 

Are you saying FSII on A8 is better technically than Star Raiders ? That's just computer programming getting better.

 

BB and RI didn't reach arcade quality.

Edited May 6, 2012 by high voltage

[high voltage]

One could say A8 is nearer to arcade quality due to Pokey being used in A8 and arcades..

 

SID is ok, bit often sounds like 'stepped on a cat's tail'.

[oky2000]

Sorry I thought you were saying his C64 looks much better.

 

And when I say arcade games I mean of the quality of mid 80s arcade games, which neither the ZX/A8/C64/CPC/MSX managed for a couple of years at best IMO. For example the games like R-Type or Salamander.

 

 

They didn't manage it period. An 8-bit computer never was able to reach arcade quality from mid 80s onwards.

 

Not perfect but Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands are far better technically than things like Jet Set Willy before them )

 

Are you saying FSII on A8 is better technically than Star Raiders ?

 

No I'm saying whilst many people bought Manic Miner type games in early 80s the C64 has a fantastic port of Bubble Bobble coin-op due to better technical use of the hardware which surprised everyone I guess.

 

Those are not mid 80s coin-ops

[oky2000]

One could say A8 is nearer to arcade quality due to Pokey being used in A8 and arcades..

 

SID is ok, bit often sounds like 'stepped on a cat's tail'.

 

What arcades? Not Konami/Capcom/Sega/Irem lol

[José Pereira]

 

 

No I'm saying whilst many people bought Manic Miner type games in early 80s the C64 has a fantastic port of Bubble Bobble coin-op due to better technical use of the hardware which surprised everyone I guess.

 

Those are not mid 80s coin-ops

 

Sorry to disagree with you but the C64 version of Bubble Bobble it's perhaps the possible one... but with lots of sprites going on screen and the need to use soft sprites on the C64 version get turn into colour clash on the ColourMap colour.

Something I post using the same idea behind on A8 some time ago... sadly no-one were interested...

[potatohead]

Or just go and put a SID in http://www.atariage....nto-atari-xlxe/

...or one of these, which does sound an awful lot like a SID: (The author of that is insane good, and did it without a multiply instruction!) The chip it's running on, does the video and sound in parallel cores and it runs at a brisk 80Mhz. Linked the video, because I don't think we need a Ghz to do a respectable SID, and because it's got a very nice set of SID tunes encoded in it, with some scrolling commentary. If you don't like to read, put it on "play", and go on about your surfing, which is what I'm doing right now.

 

Damn, that's an hour of my life gone as I found myself listening to every song in that.. And it a nice emulation, though it feels like there's much more bass than there should be, and one of the Follin tracks sounded 'unusual' during it's prog rock solo bit, though maybe I've not listened to the original for a while.. But very good nonetheless

 

Very curious who the author of this at

is ? I don't think I've ever stumbled across that version before, and it sounds rather lovely, in a very Wendy Carlos hooked on Bach way..

 

Yeah, I like that one too. Notable. I've asked who it is...

[kenjennings]

One could say A8 is nearer to arcade quality due to Pokey being used in A8 and arcades..

 

There's another thread around here about the POKEY's popularity in Atari's arcade systems...

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/187044-use-of-pokeys-in-atari-games-arcade-machines/

 

After a quick trip around the internet I found these are reported to use POKEY:

 

Centipede

Crystal Castles

Tempest

I'Robot,

Major Havoc,

Star Wars and Return of the Jedi,

Super Sprint

Paperboy

for starters.

[Rybags]

Asteroids Deluxe, Road Blasters and Gauntlet among others can be added to the list.

 

Although in the later games it was often only used for sample playback.

[Heaven/TQA]

Those mentioned pokey arcade games which of them use more than sound fx, samples or small jingles? Star wars?

[Stormtrooper of Death]

Concerning using a mouse on an Atari 8bit, i used an original Atari ST mouse with my 8bit Atari 800XL/130XE. it worked nice , no problems at all. Just using the correct driver for DOS 2.5 or Spartados.

 

The Pokey has a higher frequency range as the SID chip. The SID has a lower frequency as the Pokey. simple.

 

Some old Polish demos from the 80s and 90s did achieve some nice Bass-drums. ( I forgot which demos exactly, but anyhow)

[emkay]

 

The Pokey has a higher frequency range as the SID chip. The SID has a lower frequency as the Pokey. simple.

 

 

 

 

SID is limited to 3.5kHz. That's why it sounds that "fat". The side effect of this is that people prefer that "warm" sounds, which is one factor of the succes of the C64.

 

 

 

 

[some old Polish demos from the 80s and 90s did achieve some nice Bass-drums. ( I forgot which demos exactly, but anyhow)

 

 

Digi-Sounds. Due to the "fast" clocked 6502, they got suitable for some pieces of music. Sadly, not for ingame tracks.

 

Really, sometimes I don't get it. The A8 has - for real - 2 Soundchips. And in both cases the same mistake has been done. POKEY has been an "A8 independent chip" and TIA had nice stable basses.... for a perfect mix, the A8 -TIA custom chip ... aka GTIA ... only had to own a generator with basses and a simple high frequency cutting circuit behind it.

 

As it seems, particular "A8-TIA" is the biggest flaw in the A8.... It looks like the A8 had been done to be compatible to the VCS, and close to the release, they put the half baked chip in, not able to fix it. As GTIA has many unused registers (and values in Registers) and illogic memory usage.... not to forget the click generator.... practically useless, as this keyclick could also be done with POKEY.

 

[Lazarus]

SID is limited to 3.5kHz.

3.9 kHz.

[oky2000]

SID is limited to 3.5kHz.

3.9 kHz.

 

I don't get what this means as a playing SID through a spectrum analyser gives over 3x that frequency as the maximum frequency range low to high that's output.

[emkay]

 

 

 

I don't get what this means as a playing SID through a spectrum analyser gives over 3x that frequency as the maximum frequency range low to high that's output.

 

Just look at the produced volume of a wave. Basses are louder than high sounds. The "switching" noise of the pulse would be annoying, without that.

It isn't that the "flank of the filter" gets the waves to 90 degree down. It is a slighly going down. Not sure about the real values, but recognizable volume-fading you get easily at 3db, but it isn't off.

It is somehow compareable with phone quality.

 

 

 

[GroovyBee]

I don't get what this means as a playing SID through a spectrum analyser gives over 3x that frequency as the maximum frequency range low to high that's output.

 

What you see is due to the harmonics present in square waves.

[andym00]

He means purely the fundamental frequency..

The rest of his other post is the usual meaningless & incomprehensible psychobabble..