Atarigmr

Atari was able to show 256 colour pictures already at 1986 thanks to Red Rats Technicolour Dream. Let's be honest. At first i belived that Atari was the best computer for graphics. Then i learned several new things and changed my mind. C64 is better om some things, sprite handling for exemple. So i call it a tie. Both are capable computers in their own rights, but on different things. The same thing with ZX Spectrum. At first i thought it was a quite worthless very limited computer. Then i learned more and Spectrum wasn't so bad after all. Some of the demos i have seen were quite impressive and some of the games was even tastful to look at. You see, i'm not biased at all. Which computer is best? It depends on what you want. These are hires pictures. If you can't see that there must be some kind of problem. Can you post a gif of 256 colour pictures from the A8 to compare?

A8 best for graphics? not in all areas certainly:

Even if both computers just use 7 colours for a game, Atari has so much more rich and vivid colours. C64 can't even come close reproducing the colors found in the Atari versions. So i see no competition at all in the colour area, Atari is superior to both C64 and Spectrum an any other 8 bit computer in that area. Thanks to much bigger pallette to choose from and som special hardware modes. Se my earlier screenshot of the game H.E.R.O for exemple. C64 pales right away in the colour area. I'm not talking "sprites" but "colours". And the quality of them. I have already said in one of my posts above:

No tie, ((sprites moving one at pixel resolution even in MCM) && (8 sprites either in MCM or Hires mode) && (Attributes either in char mode or bitmap mode) && (mix hires chars and MC chars in one mode) &&( 256 chars) && (half colour clock smooth scrolling) &&(16 colour palette)) != (more colours(either 128, 256, 512... 4096) when they cannot be placed freely in a bitmap or char mode). Got it?

A sad thing that we didn't see any older commercial games doing that then? Atari 800 did it all the time. And you say that i'm biased? To make a game look like that on C64 is to dream because Atari has much clearer colours. Not even the C64 demos looks anything like that. You are judging the A8 better just because of still screens or games using those rasterbars, and that subjective parameter of yours "clear colours". Better not mention dreams... there would be possible to produce a huge list of c64 games that it would be utter utopical to think they can be produced for the A8.

Rastercolour bars <> free colour use. The c64 can have reproduce all those spectrum screens even if with different colours and even can have more colour combinations per attribute cell. The A8 can't not even come close. If you want me to say that the A8 has a much bigger palette and can have nice rainbow effects, you have it, I didn't deny it anyway.

The c64 in hires bitmap mode is the best of the three computers colour use wise. The A8 hires mode is completely monochrome unless sprites are used dor some touches of different color here and there(not that freely). The spectrum can only mix in the same 8x8 cell two colours of the same brightness(TMR already adressed this above), the C64 with its 320x200 pixels can used any of two of it's 16 colours in a 8x8 cell. So even comparing the c64 and the spectrum using this mode, the c64 has two advantages, more resolution, 320x200 vs 256,192, and can use more colour combinations per 8x8 cell . Better not compare the c64 and A8 on hires bitmap mode. DimensonX without wanting to be rude, I think or your are completly biased against the c64 or you don't know what you are taking about. Number of Colours in the palette is not all, it's how they can be used. Just in case I feel the need to clarify, I own all these three computers and I am fond of all of them.

There we go again...

Have you guys seen this? : The Oric seems also that it will have an Elite game.

Looking and sounding great!

It looks good, but it doesn't play that good

I am for Stock c64 vs stock 800XL as this is all this huge thread is about (or is it?!).

TMR is right, we shouldn't start with something so ambitious or we'll nver be able to finish anything(this is a hobby don't forget, lowest priority), I think his aim in proposing using an Amstrad CPC game was (as he said) because it would be much easier to convert the graphics as the CPC in mode 0 has a resolution similar to those of the C64 and A8 , albeit the cpc being able to freely use 16 colours in that mode - it would be fun to try to adapt the game to a c64/a8 with the restrictions of each machine, one has a 'vast' palette whilst the other has only 16 colors and a colour ram.

How could I forget about Rex, one of my all time favourites I played on my Timex 2048(speccy clone).

It all depends on the number of objects on screen be they static, seemingly static, the player character or NPCs. The less of one the more of another (at least when keeping it full speed) so if there's a room where you can move lots of objects around but there's nothing but say a door in the foreground then it's easier than if there is a door, some blocks to stand on, some NPCs moving around AND some things to push. The test code I did just used char mode but it would make no difference (apart from more colours possible on screen) to use bitmap apart from the fact that the more colours (even in char mode) you use the trickier it becomes to design the static objects to go in the room because they have to share the same colour ram with the room itself. It wouldn't be a problem if each screen was designed as a bitmap but there isn't the ram for that so they have to be built from the isometric blocks. If it's simple mono or 4 colour it's not so much of a problem. I supposed thinking about it bitmap mode would be better even in 4 colour mode. The test screen I did was pretty sparse (due to my coder graphics lol) and I imagine a complex screen would soon run out of chars to plot the room into. The "engine" I've done isn't really an engine atm, just some test code from when I came back to playing around on C64 and realised some techniques/tricks I'd learned could be used to make iso stuff easier. I really would like to get it all running fully and find the real limits of it, it's even on my usual "coders list of things to do" for when I finish doing the current A8 projects I'm working on. As far as fast compared to speccy/amstrad I think even pushing it to their levels it should be as fast (dare I say faster) than them but that's just guesswork on my part because I haven't looked at how complex those games get. When I get time I'll try to find it and if I can't I'm pretty sure I've got my design document on how it works (I've seen that more recently than the code) so I'll post that, save me typing in a massive explanation of the system Pete Any links to your Atari projects? You could code a remake of HoH as you could use the existent gfx but instead of the z80 translation, your news ideas on using isometric stuff on the c64:D

Pete, The problem with Ritman's isometric like HoH and Batman is that you have the baddies and the main actor and then you can push objects/blocks and some also move like lifts. Does you engine do these things? Are you using bitmap or char mode? It would be cool to have access to that demo of yours. And it would be awesome if you could finish your game as for example speccy/amstrad fans boast that the c64 can't do iso games(fast with no need to alter rooms cause of the number of things moving).

i've made a few notes to myself (basically i went through CPC Game Reviews in a quiet hour earlier today) and Abu Simbel Profanation was on the list of "maybe" titles i ended up with; for the first go, i reckon it needs to be something single screen and action-oriented and we go onwards from there. Now i've written that, i'm slightly worried in that i'm beginning to see this whole thing as ongoing (although i have no idea over what sort of timescale) - after all it works for the Minigame compo. =-) I was thinking about "Abadia del Crimen" a spanish Isometric game but I know that this kind of game is not loved that much and also it uses mode 1 on the CPC AND it would put the A8 ahead of the C64 as it has more cpu grunt. I'd be up for the isometric game. It's always been one of my favourite display methods (although when I had to port a PC game to the PSX where no thought had gone into if the PSX could ever handle it I kind of fell out of love with it a bit lol). If you know what you're doing, CPU can be less of a factor on both machines Pete How would you approach this then? For example Head Over Heels on the c64 had to have some rooms changed because it would run too slow. But I know also that it was a direct translation from the Z80 code... This means that HW sprites were not used etc. How fast would you think it could go implementing your ideas? If this could be done then it would be awesome to port the Isometric Batman game from Ocean that appeared on the Spectrum, CPC and MSX.Perhaps using char mode instead of bitmap? You say

i've made a few notes to myself (basically i went through CPC Game Reviews in a quiet hour earlier today) and Abu Simbel Profanation was on the list of "maybe" titles i ended up with; for the first go, i reckon it needs to be something single screen and action-oriented and we go onwards from there. Now i've written that, i'm slightly worried in that i'm beginning to see this whole thing as ongoing (although i have no idea over what sort of timescale) - after all it works for the Minigame compo. =-) I was thinking about "Abadia del Crimen" a spanish Isometric game but I know that this kind of game is not loved that much and also it uses mode 1 on the CPC AND it would put the A8 ahead of the C64 as it has more cpu grunt.

I propose Perhaps this is too basic?!

Nope check the sales rates. Besides, if Tramiel hadn't bought ATARI, it would habe been the deceased in 1984. Atari 8-bit is still better overall machine than C64. WOW considering the fact that we are talking about who bought who, when and why, that's the crucial argument, Just to underline the "overall machine" bit.

that's better What about having Atari pics? Anyone up the challenge of having these converted to the Atari and 'enhanced'?

GTIA predates the C64 very slightly. (Three guesses why!) Yeah, i know but that wasn't my point entirely; a CTIA-based A8 can't display GTIA images but a stock first PAL issue C64 can show anything from it's side of the fence in this thread. Wait that many years after the release of the C64 and there's the C128 and at least some of the bets are off; one random example there (and this works from C64 mode, there's a demo by Antic if memory serves that uses it) is the ability to force the VIC-II to "forget" the chroma and just send luma to the display, giving eight shades of grey at 320x200. Of course, there are more possibilities and quite a bit of uncharted territory there as well... C128 part in Up the Limits 2 ?

These ones are great.

All of those pictures are in standard 320x200 hires mode.. The first lot are the standard hi-res mode using no additional CPU messing about or FLI or such like.. Just 2 colours per 8x8.. Spectrum mode if you want.. The last 4 are using NUFLI and Hi-Res FLI to increase the colours available per 8x8.... I agree. And I used to call that mode also spectrum mode but actually it is better as we have more resolution and on the speccy the two colors used had to be of the same brightness(2 from the first 8, or 2 from the other 8 ), whilst the c64 can use two from the 16.

This just shows that: More colors != Better. IMO it is the same having 256, 512, or 16M colors and being able to put (say) only 4/5 freely on screen it always will be falling short when comparing to 16 on screen freely.