Jump to content

Wolfram

Banned
  • Content Count

    369
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Wolfram


  1. Tracking back to my first 'are you honest', that means you find the C64 Sentinel title screen more convincing than the G2F version.

    Intresting.

     

    oh... yeah it looks better, tho I'd prefered the original green colors. also it was touched up compared to c64.

     

    now ask the same from the guys coming and telling that from all the shitloads of g2f and c64 pictures they think ALL g2f ones are better.... personally I dont belive them at all.

     

     

    I think SID is a very capable chip with nice features, but like thorfdgb stated: It's not needed for avr. gaming. In fact

    I think the 4th channel of Pokey is an advantage for the avr. game, since it's easier to sacrifice one channel for sound FX.

     

    action biker atari:

    c64:

     

    well I dont know, I rather listen to music which is not horribly mistuned causing almost physical pain. I think thats needed for avr. gaming.

     

    Could it be possible that the 'typical' scenario was supported in respect to the capabilities of the

    most popular machine of that time? Browsing through the A8 catalogue of titles I find much more diversity in respect to the total

    number.

     

    go through the nes/snes library then. the typical game scenario was 2d scrolling background with sprites even in the 16 bit era. and even in the 2600 era. and even on the a8. I wouldnt think thats because of the influence of the c64. c64 has the same diversity you bring up for a8 anyway, probably even wider simply because its having more games.

     

     

    I'm sure you know the techno version of the soundtrack 'Das Boot' (Alex Christensen). This was a very popular title at least here in Germany.

    It contains the voice playback from a ST speech synthesizer. Is the Yamaha chip superior than SID because it made more people screaming & dancing?

    I don't think so...

     

    there are no Yamaha music parties these years. SID has them.


  2. Those Atari pictures look better than the '64 ones.

     

    I cant believe that's what you're really thinking honestly. most of the 64 ones were made by people pixeling since 10-20 years, even living from doing gfx/design. putting technicals aside they are better.

     

     

    Putting artistic qualities aside, the Atari pics each have a different looking palette, practically all the '64 ones look the same.

     

    what a suprise.... so the atari pics look nice because each of them has a different palette. cant believe you're trying to sneak that in :)

     

    technically what we have there is c64 demonstrating the abiltiy to show many many different colored pixels in tight areas. you dont see that on any of the a8 pictures.

     

     

     

    VIC-II runs at 18 MHz? I kinda doubt that. Doesn't matter a lot anyway. Antic runs at 1.8 MHz, but outputs data to GTIA on both edges of the clock.

     

     

    mee too, its more like 8mhz. (8 pixels displayed / 1 clock at ~1 mhz) but I'm just guessing here.


  3. And those look same to you?

     

    the c64 examples were made by the same artist. if that is your problem. c64 gfx can be very diverse.

     

    44355.png

    40585.gif

    2118.gif

    58961.png

    76259.png

    9582.png

    59666.png

     

     

    edit: btw the madonna pic is interlaced, the rest of the 320x looking is true 320x resolution...


  4. Sorry, but those images look like eye-cancer to me. The colors are pretty wrong - kinda like impressionistic art.

     

    sorry, but the same can be said to a8 g2f pictures. but it can be only be said if you take off your bias glasses.

     

     

    I think those images show a pretty severe limitation of the C64 VIC, indeed: Instead of using fixed colors, the VIC engineers should have added an indirection layer where each of the sixteen slots addresses a color register allowing you to define a hue and a luminance of a color from a larger palette.

     

    the engineers could have done A500 quality gfx if wanted (same goes for a8 before you complain). but it was not only about engineering, it was made for a market to compete, it had to be made within certain limits. they had to make compromises. 16 colors is a very good compromise imho. 2 different colors can be stuffed in one byte.

     

    To come back to the argument: This is the matter of the quality of the engineering design: Instead of providing rather obvious and simple flexibility, users are locked into the palette design decision forever. Bad engineering. SID is right the other way around: Very flexible, pretty good engineering.

     

    I think its a much better design for a gfx chip to have as many colors as many it can display without difficulties, vs having 256 colors with 4/16 colored screens.


  5. You know, good graphics produce good feelings. Those colours cause nausea. There is nothing any good there, except you have distorted receptors in your eyes, or else...

     

    lets compare, every 2nd one is a8, rest is c64:

     

    58066.png

    bash-frog_atari_dely.png

    57719.png

    allterrainvehiclesimulator_c64_gonzo.png

    54307.png

    crazylemming_c64_tebe.png

    53729.png

    ccs2_c64_tebe.png

    53087.png

    stislefinal3_atari_powrooz.png

    43065.gif

    recalltitlefinal_atari_powrooz.png

    41581.gif

    pang.theend_pc_tebe.png

    41469.png

    beforeisleep_atari_dely.png

    40476.gif

    rabbit_atari_powrooz.png

    39953.gif

     

     

     

     

    Wolfram always mixes up "Sound" with "Music". YES, it is easy to handle SID for making 3 channel Music.

    But, did anyone hear a clean analog sinewave played by SID, or something higher than 3.5kHz?

    POKEY can produce clean analog waves, which is far superior to the SID sound generators.

     

    thats a lie. proove I do that mixup. looks like infact you mix up sound with music. one sinewave doesnt makes the pokey better, its just a sound. SID has many many features pokey is missing.


  6. He stated that the reasons you gave were not suitable and for that I agreed with him man.

     

    yeah but in most cases, and if you use common sense, people prefer "stuff" which is better. it's an academic refute. dont applies to real world in most cases.

     

    Pokey is better than the AY chip in the Spectrum and Amstrad really so there you have it.

     

    I strongly disagree. the 8 bit freq places very heavy restrictions on the melodies/apreggios, no slides possible, a lot of tones will be mistuned, etc. (you have 2 channels 16 bit freq, or 3 chanel 1 16 bit, 2 8 bit, or 4 channel 8 bit.. ugh)

     

    http://plopbox.net/

     

    filter to YM tunes, and check out the ones made by scavenger.... (oh no pokey listed on this site... hmm.. )


  7. orchestra playing SID music:

    ...

     

    What are you trying to tell: SID can play a score and an orchestra too? SID invented the score?

     

    You still not answered my question: Are you honest?

     

    BTW: Your 'people dancing to SID-vid' is somewhat useless, since the they dancing to something

    which contains 'SID' but was improved with other 'instruments' too...

     

    CU

    Irgendwer

     

    1. dont redefine my statements.

    2. I am honest.. (in what regard?!)

    3. that SID tune has only an extra drummline, 90% of the tune is pure SID.

     

    same party, first part of the vid: SID tune unimproved, only a little bit of mixing, then when changing to 2nd SID tune somewhere before 3:00 some non siddish sounds, then pure SID only again till the end (edit: drums are here added again, but so subtle I didnt noticed):

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVJdZPC2bNE...feature=related

     

    proof:

     

    2nd SID music: http://www.c64.org/HVSC/MUSICIANS/T/Tel_Je.../Dan_Dare_3.sid

    (excuse me but I dont know the name of the 1st one.. have heard the original tho a few times)

     

    when will we see people screaming&rocking to pokey music ?


  8. That your redenation is false; you can't say: sid is better, because people are doing the things you showed me on the youtube movie.

     

    I think its a very valid point. what most people like is usually a good thing, and what most peope dont prefer is usually a not so good thing.

     

    oh, then lets see the features:

     

    - 16 bit freq for 3 channels

    - 4 waveforms + mixed ones

    - Filter lowpass, highpass, bandpass

    - ADSR

    - 16 bit square waveform width registers

    - input of outside signal&can filter it

    - paddles

    - synch/ringmod, etc

     

    hackery:

     

    - possible to play 3 channel 8 bit digi or 2 channel sid + 1 channel 8 bit digi with 2-3 mixed digi channel

    - or 3 channel sid + 1 4 bit digi channel

     

    have fun with your c64.

     

    This is the last word from my side in this discussion, and I regret every character I used for it. It's a waste of time.

     

    Good luck in the rest of your life.

     

    thanks :)


  9. I think wolfram gets too excited sometimes and takes an extra unrelated step in his excitement that's all. The most popular music is not always the best, look at all the Bruce Springstien crap we had to listen to in the 90s ;) haha but there is just far too many facts technically speaking (ADSR,frequency range,variable filtering,and cummulative synchronistation and ring modulation) that do point to the better piece of silicon....the fact that 4 or 5 really talented musicians worked on the SID is just a nice coincidence.

     

    GOD /o\. its not about music, its about the SID, which was (IS!) CAPABLE of making popular music. pokey is not.


  10. You're right. But this fact seem to be a handycap on vertical scrolling games. Well, even when using a Super CPU, always h-scroller games show the "power" of the C64' chipset.

     

     

    emkay has not much idea of what he is talking of. vertical or horizontal scroller doesnt matters, the cpu load is the same. horizontals were prefered because the screen layout matches better for it: you can see further on whats coming up. makes better gameplay. its as simple as that.


  11. sid vs pokey..

     

    show me people going to parties to celebrate pokey music, to dance to pure pokey music:

     

    That people doing stuff like that, does not mean SID is better. *DEEP SIGH*

     

    If 1 million people say something stupid, it STILL is stupid. Do you get that?

     

    If millions of people follow a certain leader, does this mean that this leader is good? History has proven the opposit.

     

    You are using false arguments, to prove you are right. Please stop doing that. Thanks.

     

    oh so there's a lot of dumb people on the c64 side because they go to dedicated SID parties to celebrate SID music. the orchestras playing SID music are dumb aswell. the people using SID as an instrument on its own (various SID midiboxes!) are dumb aswell. the commercial people using SID music in their works are dumb aswell. the SID fan bands playing SID music live are dumb aswell. People remixing SID music are dumb aswell.

     

    and the a8 people are dumb aswell because the pokey is better still they dont do none of these. something they just hold them pack. some misterious force.

     

     

    and let me just ask you, do you listen to pokey music for entertainment? I do. not so often these days, but some years earlier lke every day I put in sid music for hours. that period lasted like 10 years in my life.


  12. can you please correct me in what I've really stated

     

    You've made over generalized statements quite a few times of the C64 being able to do 320x192x16 or 160x192x16, or such. That is considered a BITMAP description and you damn well the c64 works on character(tiles) and associated palettes map, not an unrestricted BITMAP layout. It's *not* the same thing. It's not an Atari ST. If you're going to say the c64 can display 16 colors per frame, then you need acknowledge that the A8 could display its whole palette in a single frame as well.

     

    stop using the straw man.


  13. two bold lies there:

     

    a8 has no better sound&gfx.

     

     

    Yes. Two bold lies in one sentence.

     

    Yeah, once they stop using the single default 160*200 mode w/cell based graphics, and start to do Graphics 1 or graphics 2 or mixing graphics/text/scrolling/overscan/etc., then their 1 Mhz CPU is 1 Khz.

     

    yeah c64 has better gfx, proof:

     

    58066.png

    57719.png

    54307.png

    53729.png

    53087.png

    43065.gif

    41581.gif

    41469.png

    40476.gif

    39953.gif

     

     

    sid vs pokey..

     

    show me people going to parties to celebrate pokey music, to dance to pure pokey music:

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UccfIsAj0uA...feature=related

     

    show me orchestras playing pokey music, show me commercial music artists using pokey music in their works...


  14. straw man argument.

     

    I said a8 couldnt make them at same/better quality.

     

    Yes you said that.

     

    There is a slight difference between what you say, what IS true.

     

    I havent said same originally. my bad.

     

    anyway the thing is there's dozens and dozens and dozens of very good c64 games, the a8 will be not able to do only on lower qual.


  15. @wolfram

     

    The screens you show, do look really fabulous, but I could show you as much as fabulous screenshots as you did.

     

    I wished a few of these popular titles would have been released for atari; but for other reasons (not the power of the system!) these titles were not released for atari 8bit.

     

    You are not right the atari would not be able to do these titles.

     

    straw man argument.

     

    I said a8 couldnt make them at same/better quality.


  16. ...

    This is why I can't believe how similar these machines are overall. Those look much the same, to me.

     

    Well, it was Commodore's intent to try to outdo Atari although they didn't even come close to even tieing it.

     

    indeed, it wasnt close. atari went almost bankrupt, while C= with the c64 became a multi billion dollar company.

     

    Perhaps they never saw the GTIA modes which got phase shifted from the release of the machines, didn't think timers based on integer divisor of color clock mattered, didn't think 4 multifreq DACs at full throttle made much difference with 16K RAM, were color blind regarding palette size making any difference, or thought that CPU speed difference can be made up by having wider sprites.

     

    - gtia modes except the 4 pixel useless ones (for real things, games, applications, other than showing off some gfx) , are roughly a subset of c64 modes.

    - timers are tied to the "color clock" on c64 aswell

    - 4 multifreq DAC's are less useful than a better synth chip, its not useful for a game or some other app to waste most of the cpu on doing sounds.

    - smaller palette helps bring more colors on the screen on 8bit you can store 2x 4bit color.

    - CPU speed difference IS made u by having bigger sprites. thats the biggest advantage of the c64 gfx system. thats why a8 turrican runs on a small screen at 50fps even with only a few sprites.


  17. The main problem of the Atari graphics is the legacy GTIA sprite system (more or less the TIA) and the lack of a second "color RAM". The main problem of the C64 is the lack of flexibility in its graphics system resp. its pretty unorthogonal design.

     

    c64's fixed modes offered just what games needed. A8 gfx system has many things games dont need, but lack a lot of things games would need.


  18. I did say the same earlier in the thread that Atari is overall superior hardware after doing many hardware comparisons (pages 1..114). I don't mind repeating, but you have not shown me that we are having a two-way conversation.

     

    yeah, lets have a look at 'some' c64 games the superior a8 hw wouldnt be able to pull off at better quality

     

    Turrican2C644.GIF

    Enforcer_Animation2.gif

    crea2.gif

    turbo.gif

    7c3c53bee5df086889c1746a5574cf50_m.gif

    Armalyte12.gif

    great-giana-sisters.jpg

    0903a.jpg

    summergames1.jpg

    newcomer2.jpg

    Maniac_Mansion.png

    microprose_soccer.gif

    db-fullsize-13559-world-games-c64-emulator.jpg

    neuromancer-game-c64-2.gif

    RickDangerous2.gif

    xout.gif

    Rainbow_Islands.png

    Grand_Prix_Circuit.ss.gif

    cabal2.gif

    11.PNG

    Vendetta_ingame.gif

    pred.gif

    image007.jpg

    International_Soccer.png

    ddc64-5.gif

    c64_srod.gif

    1_Dizzy--screenshot_large.jpg

    Super_Pipeline_II.gif

    bmx_simulator_screenshot.jpg

    barbarian_2_screenshot.jpg

    flimbos_quest_screenshot.jpg

    ironman_offroad_screenshot.jpg

    first_samuri_screenshot.jpg

    batman_the_caped_crusader_screenshot.jpg

    c64-jZ8z1eWIol9x.gif

    operation_wolf_screenshot.jpg

    Batman.png

    Iron_Lord_ingame.gif

    spikey_the_viking_07.png

    Impossamole_ingame1.gif

    tusker-c642.gif

    caveman_ughlympics-5.gif


  19. i played flying shark very often but do not like Tiger Attack due to the mono sprites...

     

    These screenies highlight something I've always liked about Atari.

     

    The sprites! When used in their most potent form, they are simple, single colored things. If a lot of texture exists in the background, and that means detail and color, having a TOTALLY DIFFERENT set of colors and LUMAS to work with, really makes the active game elements stand out.

     

    :ponder:


  20. I think this should settle things once and for all. :)

     

     

    two bold lies there:

     

    a8 has no better sound&gfx.

     

    then forgetting to mention c64 has more & better games....

     

    marketing at its best....


  21. That's a point of view,.... other point of view I can said is:

    - C64 waste a lot of more CPU when do scrolling on this game

     

    doesnt matter until it can do it 50fps. it can be faster than that. and if we add sprites, c64 will still do 50fps, but a8 will not.

     

     

    - C64 reduce his colors to 9 when mixing hi-res and med-res in this game

     

     

    Instead Atari have:

     

    14 colors

    ...

    16 colors

    ...

    14 color

     

    you are comparing c64's built in mode's max 9 colors (without cpu help) with a8's charmode & changing colors with cpu on the screen.

    without cpu its 5 vs 9 colors.

     

    - Have more cpu for triple parallax scrolling effect

     

    a8 has more cpu for anything. btw while many c64 games are doing parallax, why a8 ones dont? only seen crownland so far.

     

    - Have more color even to simulate transparency effects

     

    yes. more colors and you can do even trasparency with them if you want. c64's 16 color's can do that aswell.

     

    - Real solid colors, not textures to give the appearance of more colors

     

    c64 has real solid colors aswell. and c64 can more of them onscreen. not using dithering for make up for lack of color is a bad thing imho. dithering enhances pictures.

    And if there is in Crownland something you don't like, maybe it could fixedx if you had been on the team development. But that wasn't happen.

     

    ? same you could have done to c64.


  22. Potatohead,

     

     

    >Those various mode screens are ALL you are ever gonna see on the C64. That's it. We've seen Vic II. It's cool beans and all that, but it's done.

     

    there have been countless new modes & tricks invented throughout the years on the c64. you can replicate most of the built in gtia stuff thats missing from the VIC with a lot of discovered tricks.

     

     

    >On Atari, there is interlace coming for better vertical resolution. Better precision on higher color modes. Somebody is doing luma enhancement on a cartridge! Plug it in, and see new stuff! (that's cool)

     

    nice.

     

    >YOOMP! shows strong compute and is a great game. Non retro people see that and want to play it. That's not so true for an 80's shooter.

     

    thats why 80s style shooters are developed in big numbers still for today's platforms? just do a few searches on youtube on how many modern trailblazer / 2d shooter renditions you'll find... its obious which style is favored, and would be played by non retro people.

     

     

    >There is a guy playing videos through the Atari 8 bit, with digitized sound. The machine has enough colors and dead simple I/O options, making that possible. Any full motion video with digitized sound on C64?

     

    the video is played on a standalone c64 interfaced to IDE hdd/cdrom.

     

    >Crownland is very nice and compares favorably to the screenies you've shown. Not 320 resolution, but the rest is there. And there is room for it to improve too. That's the beauty of software driven video systems.

     

    what I've showed is not 320 either (mostly.. its mixed mode screens). I agree on the rest.

     

    >So there it is. The C64 story is told. Peaked. It's all downhill from here! Got any links to counter that?

     

    I dont see you having links proving that. anyway c64 is commercially downhill since 87 or 88. a8 since 84-85?

     

    >The very best of what the Atari machines is still to come! I'm sticking around for the rest of the story, not to just bask in the glory.

     

    oh you mean that. lets see that happen.

     

    >One of the things that makes Atari superior for me is the software driven design. The harder people work, the smarter they get, and the more the machine produces.

     

    thats true for all systems. and for just about anything not just computers.

     

    >Again, I've seen better and better C64 art, but I'm NOT seeing ongoing overall improvements in what is possible, like I do with Atari.

     

    that tells something about the nr of active fans. c64 is improved aswell, but slower in these days, the limits are much closer, because more people worked on reaching them.

     

    >If you like retro experiences, there are more of them and in more variety on Atari than any other retro platform.

     

    like? more games? more people to chat with? more meetings? I dont think so.

×
×
  • Create New...