Atari v Commodore

[Atari v Commodore]

Not at all, I simply stated that (to simplify and not go into un-needed wordiness,) to me, the atari's color advantge, vs. the c64s tile advantge comes out about equal (with a great coder,) and I personally prefer more colors.

 

However, as I said, I don't see that as anything useful or indicative of real hardware power. The a8bit pushing faster, smoother, real-time on-screen 3d fractals, or emulating other computers, i DO see as indicators of superior hardware. IMHO.

 

well, these machines' main application was gaming, and not fractals or demos or emulating other hardware 10-20 times slower. and this is not an imho.

[Atari v Commodore]

I am talking of the original claim: you said a8 could improve on turrican, then you say you would interleave movement. hows that an improvement please? I am also eagerly waiting for your mock up whcih will show it can look like the amiga version

 

It is none. But most games on the C64 are used to it. Simple leaving some functions to have the graphics and sound looking like a game.

All 3D is done with this trickery on the C64. But on the A8 is it not allowed, IF needed?

Actually, I'd not call Turrican or R-type on the Speccy a game then, because of the simple char-movement.

 

I still wonder why all this trick (programming techs. ) are allowed on all machines but the A8?

 

everything is allowed. but you talk about increasing turrican quality on a8, and then you bring up techniques which will actually reduce them, well... thats not allowed

 

to continue refuting the nonsense you listed:

 

- most games on the c64 dont interleave movement.

- most games on both machines are "leaving some functions to have the graphics and sound looking like a game. "

- not all 3d is done with trickery on the c64. or if we agree to call trickery stuff that speeds things up, then a8 uses also trickery in all of its 3d. but even todays pcs.

- nobody said a8 is not allowed to use trickery.

- nobody said trickery is allowed everywhere except a8.

[Atari v Commodore]

I wouldn't single out Turrican for comparison. The fact is that the C64 has many games that use 320 mode in ways the Atari can't. This allows the 64 to have ports of many games primarily developed for 16-bit systems.

 

And, as we know, the Atari has enough colours to have games looking like 16 bit, even if a resolution step lower than the C64.

 

huh ? show me a mock up screenshot of ingame turrican in the a8 looking like the amiga version please .)

 

I neither said that it looks like the AMIGA version, nor do I want to make such mockup...

 

I was pretty sure you dont want to it would be impossible.

[Atari v Commodore]

doesnt sounds as an improvement.

 

Exactly. You're absolutely correct. My words. Wow. I never thought to read this from you.

Now you just can throw at least 50% of the C64 games away, because they use "tricks" like this ....

 

I am talking of the original claim: you said a8 could improve on turrican, then you say you would interleave movement. hows that an improvement please? I am also eagerly waiting for your mock up whcih will show it can look like the amiga version

[Atari v Commodore]

... and pokey doesnt supports samples.

 

pokey can play 4 samples in one time and its not a trick

 

how? was it intended ?

[Atari v Commodore]

GTIA can show graphics without ANTIC and POKEY was build to co work with a 6502, as used in many arcades.

What Miner did was a conclusion of the given. Just to say "he made his "homework".

 

can it display a bitmap or a charscreen without antic? how would pokey "co work" with the 6502 ?

 

and who else as miner worked on both a8 and amiga?

[Atari v Commodore]

Yes - which is why I always say that the Atari has better colours. - The post was about the 320 pixel resolution though which IS an advantage to the C64

 

One has the colours and one has the resolution. That's the fact. So this thread can go 100 years without a conclusion, because the taste makes the base for arguing, not the technical facts.

 

not quite. on the c64 its much easyer to use colors. the a8 must work very hard to display more than 4-5. forget rainbows and static gfx now.

[Atari v Commodore]

320 pixel res is > 160 pixel for sprites ... and can you get colour graphics on individual 320 res pixels?

The resolution is definitely one of the big advantages of the c64 - especially for sprites.

 

 

The problem with the C64's colours is that they are fixed. A picture at 320x240 would look like this one, if the colours were free.... With the Atari you could do at least a 80x240 resoloution with the fitting colours, and yes also with the different hues.

 

and on the c64 it would look like the left one, if it had more colors.

[Atari v Commodore]

Some comparision what they name "Turrican" on other systems:

 

Spectrum

 

Charmode scrolling and charmode movement.... commonly used for fast games on the Atari in Basic...

 

Amstrad

 

Very small gamescreen... coarse scrolling, raw movement, but real 16 of 27 colours.

 

Atari

 

Very small gamescreen... coarse scrolling, raw movement, only 5 colors

[Atari v Commodore]

I wouldn't single out Turrican for comparison. The fact is that the C64 has many games that use 320 mode in ways the Atari can't. This allows the 64 to have ports of many games primarily developed for 16-bit systems.

 

And, as we know, the Atari has enough colours to have games looking like 16 bit, even if a resolution step lower than the C64.

 

huh ? show me a mock up screenshot of ingame turrican in the a8 looking like the amiga version please .)

[Atari v Commodore]

What Turrican? .... Turrican 1? 2? ... maybe there is a Turrican 5 that i ignored. Because the Turrican I played on a C64, haven't nothing extraordinary over the possibilities of Atari. Maybe a lot of work, but there are good way how to improve the overrated C64 version.

 

Yes. And if all CPU power is less, just let's move the enemies interleaved (sneaking to the "Head over Heels" version on the C64)

 

doesnt sounds as an improvement.

[Atari v Commodore]

What Turrican? .... Turrican 1? 2? ... maybe there is a Turrican 5 that i ignored. Because the Turrican I played on a C64, haven't nothing extraordinary over the possibilities of Atari. Maybe a lot of work, but there are good way how to improve the overrated C64 version.

 

so tell me how would you _improve_ turrican given the a8 hardware

[Atari v Commodore]

Have you read the reviews of the "origninal" time then? Nothing against the Amiga version of Turrican, but the C64 game is all but "high standard".

It got 71% only. This means to the mainstream "not worth buying". The C64 version lacks in gameplay and that is the outmost point of a Game. Graphics 80% means to have a nice interactive graphics demo there. And I guess they gave the game a special C64 bonus, because the Amiga graphics - which look clearly better in all cases - got only 82% (should have been a 92% if fairly compared)...

 

lacking gameplay huh ? but when it comes to one screen "shoot stuff" games like "galaxion" then those has great gameplay (read allas' reviews) so biased....

 

I have found turrican when basically i've stopt playing games on the c64. and it kept me going for weeks.

[Atari v Commodore]

22 - DEFENDER

 

But those 21 titles combined do not even surpass the greatness that is Turrican!!

 

from the screenshots alone one can see a8 sports very early 80s titles mostly. I get constantly ammazed how old games the c64 had. and many of those comparisons are based on "better colors" (subjective) "better sfx'" (with the sid on c64? doub it, and subjective again)

 

dont get me started on maniac mansion, zak mckracken, pirates, the shoot em ups, the list is long. c64 gaming is defined by those, and not games like galaxion.

[Atari v Commodore]

There was an "enhanced" C-64 mode on the 128, however unintentional.

 

You can run in 2 MHz mode in the borders. Some software took advantage of it.

 

you can run 2mhz anywhere. only in the display area of the vic you will see garbage. but you can use even the 80column chip in c64 mode.

[Atari v Commodore]

(Although I wouldn't call Oswald's post insulting, just boasting about what the C64 can do. Let's turn the Turrican tables and ask why it hasn't been done already?)

 

because there's not a single coder on the c64 scene who wants to make an emulatoer which runs many times slower as the original machine.

[Atari v Commodore]

I see no reason they couldn't have included a mode that left the MMU at $D500 but was otherwise C64-compatible. Such a mode could have made it easy to have programs that would run on either a C64 or C128, but would benefit from the extra features of the latter.

 

c128 mode is basically a c64 with mmu at d500. the 80column video chip is visible also in c64 mode.

[Atari v Commodore]

The Amiga OCS was Jay Miner & Co.'s baby, and is a follow up of their previous work on the chipset for the A8. Agnus was a further enhancement to ANTIC, Denise was an improved version of GTIA with outputs for RGB video as well as composite, and Paula was an improved POKEY.

 

the antic gtia relation is a different approach compared to agnus/denis. amiga can display gfx without the copper fex... and pokey doesnt supports samples. its quite a stretch to say there's more connection than some vague design principles being similar.

 

who except jay miner was working on both machines?

[Atari v Commodore]

. And the biggest problem the C128 had, was being compatible with the C64. As a result, every company coded software for the C64 and the C128's abilities were rarely used.

 

there were hardly more resources in the c128. you could have 128k ram, or use the 80 column video chip which had ugly colors, no sprites at 2mhz. and roughly thats it.

[Atari v Commodore]

@ Oswald...

 

just in case ppl do not know you... (Albert this is not an attack... )

 

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=70212

 

so... What I personally do not understand... why are you not taking your knowledge & energy and create something? I still don't believe that you don't want to touch the evil...

 

doing demos = creating something imho Sorry, but I rather have sid, sprites, 256 chars, etc than having to fight with the cpu to get more than 5 colors onscreen, softsprites, etc when I will make a game.

[Atari v Commodore]

@ Oswald

if you are really interested regarding the speccy/apple 2 emulator and why Antic is so important:

 

nice stuff, but dont tell me c64 cant emulate those machines .)

[Atari v Commodore]

A simple game for Atari, is a lot of fun for the XEGS users o whenever have the gunlight controls. Instead the C64 version has a bad gfx look, and bored loading times to get the next level or menu. Really this game is not fun with joysticks.

 

hmm, the VICII has support for lightpen... how about gtia?

[Atari v Commodore]

It must be inarguably definitive, since I just scrolled through three pages after it and saw no response at all.

 

Also, in a related note, I was reading that there were spectrum and other emulators for the a8bit? I had no idea anyone ever squeezed emulators out of the old 8bits. Thats right up there wtih 3d as another ultimate 'muscle test.' That would be another good indicator of raw hardware superiority, imho.

 

I have replied to it. at 3d a8 will be always better, but thats just one aspect. everyone knows in what areas is the c64 or a8 better. tho you seem to argue that a8 can do 2d games better which is quite baffling.

[Atari v Commodore]

The main feeling in the US was that technology was the future and you always needed to be upgrading so you didn't get left behind. If you were using an 8-bit computer in the US in 1986, it usually wasn't by choice. I think the UK and Europe took a much more relaxed attitude toward technology.

 

nope its was economy basically. that was what people could afford. look at the UK, speccy being the best selling computer, and UK wasnt as piss poor as the countrys being drowned by the russians in their "communist block".... in hungary the first pcs appeared in the early 90s. I remember using XT's in 90-~91 and thinking how horrible they are... now I am owning "one of those" crap. bleh in hungary c64s were used everywhere, factorys, scientific research, everything, pcs became spread during early mid 90s.

[Atari v Commodore]

only demo version of Space Harrier needs 128K RAM, current cart version needs 64K RAM. (Cart is 1MB though!)

 

 

wow. and a8 people are comparing THAT to a c64 game which is 22 yrs old, and has all levels and everything in 64k....

 

Oswald,

 

With your postings you reached a point far beyond of normal behavior. Don't you see that you start acting like a blind racist? You are projecting -hate- against people. WAKE UP. What's the matter man? Stop acting like pathetic little kid! Back in school I saw students beaten up because of computer wars. Do I need to emphasize parallels to people with a different religion? Is that what you are in the mood for? Do you want to "mix up some of these lame Atari loosers"?

 

I think we once met at the Breakpoint when you guys released the Desert Dreams demo. I know that you can be a party guy, without demonstrating again and again your arrogance against a certain group of people. I was about to visit you guys at the Árok Party in Budapest next year (like our CZ friends did this year). With all your statements here, should I be now afraid to run into a C64 gang which is ready to beat me up somewhere in the corner?? Do you see how ridiculous all this became?

 

sorry but I had to say that. All this is questioning my big passion of oldksool computing and the people in the scene ;-(

 

grtx,

\twh

 

huh, you shouldnt take this so seriously. for me this is just replaying the missing my computer is better than yours times. in hungary everony had a c64 so I didnt have these funny arguments .)

 

and really, I dont use swearwods, etc anything, just arguing like ppl do on any forum. dont exaggerate this beyond belief please.