Allas
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Posts posted by Allas
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There are many Atari fans who recognize that the 64 has strengths that the A8 does notTobad none of them participate here.
Hey, I am here, and I do recognize those things.
320 COLOR resolution without significant artifacting. C64 strength. Probably the biggest one, because it allows for a better aspect ratio and a more modern look. This is brought to us with the nice effort on producing an interlaced-color NTSC signal. Good move then.
SID = makes great chip tunes easy, compared to POKEY. I think it falls short in the area of general effects however. Still, C64 strength.
Color Memory Scheme = Total strength. A lot can be done with 2 colors per character cell. Speccy guys have this too. Strength.
Sprites. When the discussion got goofy, I the Atari fan, posted up the clarification of capabilities after taking some time to look them up, just so it was clear to me and others what the machine does. I have a hard time sorting out if this is the biggest strength, or the color resolution. Probably the sprites tho.
There's your C64 power trifecta, right there. And, if you go back through my posts here, you will see those things recognized as they should be.
Also noted on this thread are the great C64 games produced in the later years. Lots of great gaming there. And the beauty of it is that much of it is to be enjoyed on a great 8 bit machine; namely, the C64. Kick ass man! There is nothing wrong with that.
For me, C64 weaknesses are:
16 colors only. This is a major bummer. If it were not for the 320 resolution, where some dithering can happen, it would be pretty damn stale.
Slower CPU. I like the compute heavy games.
Overall system engineering. The OS, I/O and such are capable of all that needs to be done, but it's a PITA compared to Atari 8 bit stuff, which I think is elegant and I always have. Go up-thread to see why.
Lousy disk system.
Chipset largely exploited. I should explain this one. VIC II and friends have been hammered on with good results. The story is told. ANITC + GTIA haven't been hammered as completely, and that's a numbers game, IMHO. So then, the story is NOT yet told.
IMHO, what is at issue is the overall value those strengths have in the minds of those retro gamers today.
Personally, I like the kind of non-modern style games that really shine on Atari 8 bit. I also like compute heavy games, like Rescue on Fractalus too. Color variety is a big deal to me, as is intensity variety. My own tastes gravitate toward lower resolutions, more colors and a more abstract game experience overall. Atari goes down this road quite a bit farther than the C64 does, and that is exactly why I like Atari. I suspect this is directly related to me playing on a VCS as a kid, and my first computer being an A400.
I love the systems engineering that went into the Atari machines. Lots of good stuff there. Now, if you are just gaming, and you don't care, then this really isn't all that important. However, if you appreciate computing in general, there is a lot to like about how Ataris did things.
Where "POWER" is concerned, the machine with the widest overall set of possible experiences gets the nod from me. That's Atari. Where a C64 really shines, it's the best. Where a C64 is weaker, or just weak, it's NOT POSSIBLE. On the Atari, it generally is possible overall, with degrees of excellence, depending on what the experience is. Also, the systems engineering elements contribute to "POWER" as well.
Atari is the "BEST" then because:
-greater diversity of experiences
-retro capability story untold
-favors very strong color / intensity / abstract presentations
-is faster on raw compute
-has good ports of games I really like
-is associated with AA. (hey, that's a plus as far as I am concerned.)
You forgot something.
One of the good internal design of a C64 that can be appreciated a lot is his Banking memory (4 pages of 4K). And can use all the memory (64K) without losing the ROM registers. This feature helps a lot with more games, is very useful. A 800XL can't beat this internal management, have others features on his design but this is very valuable.
When 130XE came, was equipped with 128K of RAM, present a banking management of 4 pages of 16K. You can tell to the controller 6502 look for the main page, and the ANTIC other page. So, virtually you can stay with 80K simultaneously. In the other way, banking 16K system is better that banking 4K. The extra memory is a powerful feature that the last 8bit model of Atari have, and did a great difference on the productivity. There wasn't worked so much on Gaming software, but have a lot of potential to make the difference.
That's why I think:
130XE > C64 > 800XL
Anyone Happy?
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I have most of them done, just need to correct the indexing pages for them, here is V1, No 1:http://www.atarimuseum.com/ahs_archives/ar...v1n1/index.html
Curt
Curt I also send my thanks and sent you a PM reference this thread.
-Bat
I guess, still youu're busy with the life. But there is any news about?
This magazine really capture the 80's computing in his splendor. What nice pictures!
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i wasn't reffering to the site, i was referring to the books themselvesIs there any valuable information there?
Only I saw DE-REATARI (available on english on atariarchives.org)
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Good conversion!, I really want to do that, the main graphic with 6 colors.
I wan't to look like an anti-commodore person, but...:
Atari ... 10
C64 ... 0
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That's certainly an interesting technique with the alternating between red/green/blue shades per scanline, however the low resolution is a little off-putting when viewed fullscreen... gets a bit like trying to see the rude bits in a typical Japanese porno.
Are there any examples that do a similar thing at 160 resolution? Even though it would be restricted to less shades per line, perhaps it could still create an effective image, particularly if some careful dithering was used.
160 resolution:
no interlaced
interlaced
320 resolution
no interlaced
interlaced
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Congratulations!
Nice advance, it looks fantastic! Well worked char mode.
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Other, no flickering images on Atari with plenty of colors:
Captures directly from emulator, no PAL or NTSC emulations, just the colors as the bitmap shows. No flickering.
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and now you do the same with this picture:
(its not interlaced, true 320x200)Looks fine, but I think Atari can do a better picture. Maybe not on 320x200, but with better colors.
I try to do a fast conversion, it could be enhanced a lot more, because I use basically 4 colors (with the 5th color and sprite overlays will looks perfect).
Off course, the hand of an artist is necessary, not mine. It's enough to catch the idea.
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I think this should settle things once and for all.
For any additional doubt:
So now we're comparing the cheapened cost reduced Atari, the 65XE, that came out 3 years later to the C64.
One of my "favorite" quotes...
"Flight Simulator needs computer power. Only the XE has it". Hahahahahahaha
C64
Atari
Hahahahahahaha.
You did trick! That's not the real screen of Atari Flight simulator. (in this case you need a real machine).
Other way, the Atari version works very fine with fps.
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I think this should settle things once and for all.For any additional doubt:
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TIGER ATTACKThis game have nice graphics. Has a great feature that I didn't see on any C64 vertical shooter: the screen have horizontal scroll too, letting gain some space on screen, the playability increase with this feature, it looks great when you play.
Flying Shark on the c64 does the same thing - lets the screen scroll horizontally, giving the player a bit more room to move. It's also another example of a scrolling shooter that scrolls the colour map. Hard as nails though.
Tiger Attack looks like it's probably an unofficial knock-off of Flying Shark.
Yes, very similar both. I think, at least Tiger Attack could be inspired in this game. A good found with FLYING SHARK, a little reduction on screen size zone but works fine.
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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.Better than no A8 game showing the "power" of the A8 chipset.
There are some good vertical shooters on Atari, I remember these:
HAWKQUEST
Nice graphics, colored sprites as the Atari Style, different stage levels. Enemies hasn't variable movement, so maybe it's a little predecible, but not easy.
THE LAST GUARDIAN
I like this vertical shooter, enemies was multicolored, have different shapes, animations, and have better movement. Good background graphics screen. Visually it's very nice, it's hard to play. The idea is a mixed of vertical shooter with Uridium mission, you have to destroy the giant ship. Include digitized voice.
TIGER ATTACK
This game have nice graphics. Has a great feature that I didn't see on any C64 vertical shooter: the screen have horizontal scroll too, letting gain some space on screen, the playability increase with this feature, it looks great when you play.
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If you figure that the 64 sits right in the middle of the timeline between the A8 and the Amiga, you would expect something either very cheap and about as capable as an 800 or something as expensive as an 800 and much more capable. I think the 64 mostly emphasized price point, but also picked up some nice features.And here is the explanation for why the C64 does some things better but doesn't utterly monkeystomp the A8 in all respects. A machine cheaper than an A8 that is better in just every way would have been possible by 82 but it would have missed that pricing sweet spot. In that time frame, capability wasn't the primary Atari weakness it was price. The 600/800XL rectified that by consolidating a lot of parts into a single board that wasn't overpopulated but that came later than it should have.
Absolutely!! The 800XL is absolutely a copy of C64 cheapness. This is not an insult. The old A800 badly needed a cost cutting revision, with all that heavy metal and many circuit boards.
I think part of the innovation in the Commodore design is pointing the direction that it did need to go. The 800XL is exactly a result of that.
The 600XL kind of dragged the line down, though. I guess you could say the 400 did too. The fact that the Vic 20 was NOT compatible with the C64 (while the A 400/800 were compatible) sounded like a disappointment in the old days. I think it was a strength for the C64 in the later days, though. C64 game developers were not required to cater to 16K models, like the Atari game developers. I would say they did A LOT with that 16K though! Lots of the nice Atari games are 16K cartridges, or images of 16K cartridges. If they had been 48K or 64K cartridges, they might have been even better.
The XL line was a response of Atari 8bit line to reduce costs, but is not a imitation to the C64 strategy. Between 1980 -1982 the computers reduce cost of production on compact designs (technology advances let to do this). Atari XL machines was made with good quality still, I think the XE line reduce drastically the costs, so the final quality was compromised.
I believe Compatibility was a strong point on Atari 8bit line, so few 8bit computers keep the compatibility from their models for many years. But, as you said the low cost of C64 was enough. Without Atari compatibility, maybe XL and XE could run the same luck of C16, Cplus, C128 models.
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I just save this one here, so next time I can show it to the one who says cheap=bad.
(I know this was many days ago - this post)
C'mon!! Why didn't you show the Atari rainbow in 256 colors??? !!!!!!
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Line-up, one of the best, it's freeware you don't need to pay anything for play it.
http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?...VERSION_ID=3001
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Some curiosity... i can't remember nothing now, but... is there a double scrolling shooter (as PANTHER, BLUE MAX) with map color on C64?
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Also, on scrolling shooters where C64 use a multiplexing sprites engine, there is not enough CPU to get the map color with scrolling. Those games reduce his background graphics to 4 colors. Less than 5 colors on Atari.There are enough shooters which prove the opposite. In fact, shooters are the most easy genre when it comes to color RAM scrolling + sprite multiplexers.
Examples:
etc etc etc
Interesting.
Could you please explain, why h-scrollers look mostly superior, but v- scrollers look mostly like crap on the C64 ?
Because there are less cycles to waste on horizontal scroll games.
Finally, I prefer more the vertical scroll shooters.
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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.
Off course, the Atari sprites is there?
Could be do it the MIM scrolling on C64 at 60fps too?
- C64 reduce his colors to 9 when mixing hi-res and med-res in this gameInstead 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.
What the point of "built-mode",... eh?... oh? ok, I understand, because c64 can't gain more colors on screen with CPU, then you want to avoid Atari programmers use little CPU cycle to get more colors on screen.
- Have more cpu for triple parallax scrolling effecta8 has more cpu for anything. btw while many c64 games are doing parallax, why a8 ones dont? only seen crownland so far.
That means you look only few games on Atari. Surely, there are dozen of Parallax scrolling games on Atari (including triple parallax). But that's not the point, the C64 users always want to win for quantity when the quality level fails. Only one example is enough (Crownland), as I take only MIM as the best example on a C64.
- Have more color even to simulate transparency effectsyes. more colors and you can do even trasparency with them if you want. c64's 16 color's can do that aswell.
Yes, but not as impressive and real.
- Real solid colors, not textures to give the appearance of more colorsc64 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.
For sure, MIM with solid colors can't look as good as now.
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.
I like MIM, i wan't to change anything there. But I think the Atari potential is better when you do a detailed job (as on MIM).
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That's a point of view,.... other point of view I can said is:- C64 reduce his colors to 9 when mixing hi-res and med-res in this game
This has something to do with the fact that not all 16 colours could allways be used.
In mayhem you have the two faces of the levels that have to be shown by colours.
But in a fixed palette of 16 colours, you don't find 16 shades of grey or at least some better fitting lumas for the day level
The creater has to chose between light colourfull design and dark grey design. Using all 16 colours would have killed the effect.
Sadly, no one recognized this in Archon, Koronis Rift.
Also, on scrolling shooters where C64 use a multiplexing sprites engine, there is not enough CPU to get the map color with scrolling. Those games reduce his background graphics to 4 colors. Less than 5 colors on Atari.
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c64 could display 16color off the shelfCan you PLEASE stop saying this? It's NOT a 16 color bitmap mode no matter what you say or think. It's a tile based system. It's not the same.
can you please correct me in what I've really stated, and not correcting me in something I havent stated ?
"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position."
I think he misread your post. There is a difference between the "c64 could display 16color off the shelf" and "c64 CAN display 16color off the shelf" (which is not true, otherwise we could say that the Atari can display 256 color off the shelf too )
c64 can display all of its colors without having to help with the cpu. its a very hard fact. a8 is not able to do more than 5 at 160x200, and having to use 80x200 brick resolution to display 16 different color... which are still limited by hue/chrome.
c64 charmode without cpu help:
it just looks better.
c64 gfx modes doesnt need cpu help to make up for the a8, its vice versa. that tells a thing or two about the gfx HW.
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
- 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
- Have more cpu for triple parallax scrolling effect
- Have more color even to simulate transparency effects
- Real solid colors, not textures to give the appearance of more colors
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.
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Atari 5000 th post!!!!
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The A8 is kind of like a wife. The C64 is kind of like a new girlfriend. (Opposite view for some, of course). I'd like to invite "the other side" to come over and try my brand, but that would be like inviting someone to come over and F**K the wife - NOT GONNA HAPPEN!!! (Although - in these modern times - some people might actually like that kind of stuff; go figure!)
Atari wife
C64 girlfriends
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I just save this one here, so next time I can show it to the one who says cheap=bad.Same moron who brought you the crappy c64 came up with that. Certainly the XE chipset was better that the c64,just the quality suffered as it was Jack Tramiel aka mr c64.
talking about crappy, 30 million people picked c64, and 4 million a8s sold all models put together, now how many a8 models there were ? atleast 8. so that makes it 30 000 000 vs 500 000.
the single model c64 outsould single a8 models at a ~60x rate.
and there were plus4, c16, c128, etc etc in the C= 8 bit line, which we havent even counted in yet for an all models vs all models fight. the vic20 alone outsold the entire a8 line aswell.
The best machines, sold only a few millions:
Amiga 1200 1.000.000 units sold
Amiga 500 5.000.000 units sold
I bet today, at least 25.000.000 of those 30.000.000 C64 are on the garbage. That means, the C64 is the most awesome pile of junk no recyclable.
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29868 - 10238 = 19630 cycles free per frame which is more than C64.Yes about 30% more cycles. Not 80% which you imply when you pull out your 1.77 vs 0.985 MHz comparision and by far not the "A8 is 2x faster than C64" which you often said already.
EDIT: 30% when comparing PAL machines. When comparing NTSC machines the difference is 20%.
It's not matter if 30% 20% 15% or 10% better, the point is there are 7000 extra cycles to do more programming. Considering a 160x200 graphic screen on Atari, because still can be optimized to save more cycles.
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Atari Connection Magazine
in Atari 8-Bit Computers
Posted
Thank you very much! I'm sure there are a lot of Atarians waiting next update.