Colecovision graphics

[Seob]

What amazes me is the difference in graphic quality for the colecovision.

I mean games like 2010, activision decathlon, artic adventure look great, but pitstop and venture graphics look simple.

Is it just because these titles where early ports? or because they maintained the original graphics?

[Pixelboy]

It's more a question of artistic talent, in the human sense. In the old days, not all programmers were good graphic artists...

 

EDIT: In the case of Venture, the arcade game looks like the CV version, so the plain graphics are excusable.

Edited September 23, 2008 by Pixelboy

[Dr. Van Thorp]

There was a brief time when most console games were Atari ports, and many computer games were Apple ports, and you could recognize the source at a glance.

[Inky]

What amazes me most about the colecovision/adam graphics is how they got around a bug in the TI video chip that made it to where if two colors were plotted withing 8 pixels in a row, the new plotted points take the color of the original.

 

On the ADAM, if you play the 2010 Text Adventure for the very first time, there's a save game right at the end. All you have to do is turn an engine on, and it comes up with a spectacular graphic of the spaceship against the planet Jupiter

[opcode]

What amazes me most about the colecovision/adam graphics is how they got around a bug in the TI video chip that made it to where if two colors were plotted withing 8 pixels in a row, the new plotted points take the color of the original.

 

That isn't a bug. That's how the TI video chip works.

Most video chips from the time had some kind of limitation. The 5200 video couldn't produce more than 4 colors per scanline in any descent resolution. The NES couldn't have more than 4 colors per character (8x8 pixels), the Intellivision couldn't have more than 2 colors per character, etc. But of course many talented artist could get around those limitations and produce incredible graphics for any of those platforms (ok, maybe not for the Odyssey2).

[Dr. Van Thorp]

What amazes me most about the colecovision/adam graphics is how they got around a bug in the TI video chip that made it to where if two colors were plotted withing 8 pixels in a row, the new plotted points take the color of the original.

 

That isn't a bug. That's how the TI video chip works.

Most video chips from the time had some kind of limitation. The 5200 video couldn't produce more than 4 colors per scanline in any descent resolution. The NES couldn't have more than 4 colors per character (8x8 pixels), the Intellivision couldn't have more than 2 colors per character, etc. But of course many talented artist could get around those limitations and produce incredible graphics for any of those platforms (ok, maybe not for the Odyssey2).

 

The TRS-80 Color Computer had a graphics mode with 40x200 resolution, without any particular limitations on color placement. This mode was sometimes used for colorful splash screens. The CoCo had more reasonable higher resolution modes, but with much more limited color. Any graphics mode, not matter how limited or screwy, had a use.

 

Squeezing usefulness out of limited hardware is a lost art.

Edited September 26, 2008 by Dr. Van Thorp