Atari v Commodore

[Oswald]

>I have asked if do you think A8 can make better shmups than the best of the c64 (for the ~4th time here again). Do you have an answer? answer to the question please. can you?

 

I don't know what a "speccy" is nor an shmups. It doesn't sound like an English word to me. Overall ANTIC is more powerful-- even if you can show some cartoons with 16 colors.

 

thats sums it up pretty nicely: reality denial. when one starts to act like he is stupid to defend its case, there's nothing left to say.

Edited November 23, 2008 by Oswald

[emkay]

have you read the Q? Drop Zone is better than any other 2d scrolling game on the c64 ? You sure?

 

In Gameplay, Controls, and Gamelogic pretty sure.

 

Missing some parallax scrolling and SID Tune, no...

 

You know, a game isn't graphics and sound only. A Demo is ...

[TMR]

have you read the Q? Drop Zone is better than any other 2d scrolling game on the c64 ? You sure?

 

In Gameplay, Controls, and Gamelogic pretty sure.

 

[bzzzzzt] Subjective opinion, overruled. =-)

[GameEngine]

why is turrican literally impossible for the a8? even if I let it go with 5 colors only, its impossible, why oh why ?

 

Atari does have nine colour registers overall so I think it will have at least this much when done.

For me to make it better then c64 version it would be enough to avoid crampiness by using overscan (I like Amiga version much more then ST)

Even if we have fewer enemies it shold not be a problem - it is 2d game so basicaly 4 enemies surround the protagonist.

[Oswald]

have you read the Q? Drop Zone is better than any other 2d scrolling game on the c64 ? You sure?

 

In Gameplay, Controls, and Gamelogic pretty sure.

 

Missing some parallax scrolling and SID Tune, no...

 

You know, a game isn't graphics and sound only. A Demo is ...

 

there are extra up/down dimensions in turrican, a walkable explorable huge landscape (which is part of the game not just a stupid backdrop), there are secret areas, various monsters, end bosses, there is a selection of a lot of upgradeable weapons, you can transform into a wheel, you have big enemy sprites, more than 4 colors, just to mention a few features dropzone doesnt have.

[Fröhn]

For me to make it better then c64 version it would be enough to avoid crampiness by using overscan (I like Amiga version much more then ST)

No version of Turrican uses overscan.

 

Even if we have fewer enemies it shold not be a problem - it is 2d game so basicaly 4 enemies surround the protagonist.

4 enemies are pretty tough to do when the player sprite already eats up all Players and Missiles.

[Tezz]

4 enemies are pretty tough to do when the player sprite already eats up all Players and Missiles.

Multiplexing isn't so tough to be a problem.

 

Also worth pointing out something that doesn't seem to have been mentioned here that there can be a 3rd colour produced with the overlap area of 2 sprites. Often 2 sprites and 2 missiles are enough for the main character. leaving the others still free.

 

Multiplexing the hardware sprites and/or using software sprites in the various methods can achive much of what would be required to make a successful production on the Atari

[TMR]

Multiplexing the hardware sprites and/or using software sprites in the various methods can achive much of what would be required to make a successful production on the Atari

 

Well, "successful" is relative... and subjective too, t'be honest; if you're just making an action game then sure, but if you're converting Turrican it won't be successful unless it manages at least most of the simultaneously moving objects and colours. And of course we're talking "could" again...

[emkay]

have you read the Q? Drop Zone is better than any other 2d scrolling game on the c64 ? You sure?

 

In Gameplay, Controls, and Gamelogic pretty sure.

 

[bzzzzzt] Subjective opinion, overruled. =-)

 

Not subjective.

The subjective part is where the graphics and sound stands. Mostly people get awaken after dropping their pink glasses.

Best example is The Last Ninja series. Horrible gameplay but in everyone's ears and eyes when it comes to "good old c64 times".

[GameEngine]

No version of Turrican uses overscan.

 

Then it must be that ST Turrican's developers were looking at c64 (which is limited to 38 characters if scrolling horizontally iirc).

[emkay]

there are extra up/down dimensions in turrican, a walkable explorable huge landscape (which is part of the game not just a stupid backdrop), there are secret areas, various monsters, end bosses, there is a selection of a lot of upgradeable weapons, you can transform into a wheel, you have big enemy sprites, more than 4 colors, just to mention a few features dropzone doesnt have.

 

Probably my sight of things comes from the direction of firstly playing Turrican 2 on the AMIGA, where Turrican 2 was an outstanding game in graphics, sound, gameplay...

But sometimes I was wondering, why the enemies were so hard triggered in the levels.... Until I played the C64 Turrican (2)... Well, it does all fit together ...:

They had to keep the gamelogic of the original in the AMIGA Version...

 

Most games on the C64 suffered by the CPU speed when it come to the game logic.

[Tezz]

Well, "successful" is relative... and subjective too, t'be honest; if you're just making an action game then sure, but if you're converting Turrican it won't be successful unless it manages at least most of the simultaneously moving objects and colours. And of course we're talking "could" again...

yes that's true. I think in terms of static screen action games (which is where i'm at right now) a lot more can be done for sure and I think techniques should be perfected before advancing to more difficult scrollers such as turrican. Multiplexing the hardware sprites with independent colours for each has been demonstrated in practice already. I'm currently conceiving a graphics kernel to manage control. There's limits with available cycles yes of course but there's more left to achive.

 

EDIT: Although my thoughts are with progressing what's available in static games, the game we're currently working on is actually a side scroller.

Edited November 23, 2008 by Tezz

[Fröhn]

Also worth pointing out something that doesn't seem to have been mentioned here that there can be a 3rd colour produced with the overlap area of 2 sprites. Often 2 sprites and 2 missiles are enough for the main character. leaving the others still free.

C64 sprites are 3 colors already before you start to overlap them.

 

No version of Turrican uses overscan.

Then it must be that ST Turrican's developers were looking at c64 (which is limited to 38 characters if scrolling horizontally iirc).

What are you trying to say? I said: No version uses overscan. In fact, all versions use less than the normal 40 characters area. Amiga for example uses just 304 pixels horizontally (38 characters).

 

EDIT: just looked at the ST version: 288 pixels horizontally (36 characters).

Edited November 23, 2008 by Fröhn

[Tezz]

C64 sprites are 3 colors already before you start to overlap them.

yes they are indeed Out of the box, the c64 can produce a 3 colour player using just 1 of it's 8 available sprites whereas we must use 2 from our 4. C64 sprites are also 12 pixels across by 21 high when in 2 bit depth whereas ours are 8 pixels across by 256 high (which is best thought of as a player strip). repositioning the strip at various points vertically is childs play with the dli, horiz multiplexing is more complex to write for but still possible to do so there is a possible solution to the sprite situation. Edited November 23, 2008 by Tezz

[supercat]

That is not subjective. More colors is definitely a feature people looked at when buying a machine until now when they all are TRUE color. 256 color palette is a superset of your palette (period).

 

The Commodore 64 has a total set of 16 colors, as compared with the Atari's total set of 256. On the other hand, the Commodore has no difficulty displaying all 16 colors on a line in high-res mode whereas the Atari can't do anything like that.

 

The total number of different colors on the Atari works to a huge advantage in games that use vertical color gradients. The ability to display more colors on a line works to a huge advantage on games whose color layouts aren't amenable to such treatment.

 

Too bad there's no way to retroactively add a 16x8 RAM to the C64 to give it the best of both worlds.

[GameEngine]

What are you trying to say? I said: No version uses overscan. In fact, all versions use less than the normal 40 characters area. Amiga for example uses just 304 pixels horizontally (38 characters).

EDIT: just looked at the ST version: 288 pixels horizontally (36 characters).

 

I needed to check as well:

Amiga 38x24

c64 38x20

ST 36x18

So even 32x24 (Atari narrow screen) would give screen area c64 has but again I think this game would benefit plenty if done full screen.

[Heaven/TQA]

re: turrican

 

maybe xxl takes the speccy version...

[Heaven/TQA]

Oh, I was not aware that the C64 is able to produce more than 200 lines? Any samples?

 

at 2:56

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XteNp7QBkso

 

or 0:40

 

 

Oswald... the pic distorter is exactly for what I would use display list manipulation... but question... is this done by so called "techtech" vic trick? or pure software?

[supercat]

Out of the box, the c64 can produce a 3 colour player using just 1 of it's 8 available sprites whereas we must use 2 from our 4.

 

That isn't quite as versatile as it sounds, though, given that two of the three colors must be shared among all multi-color sprites.

 

On the other hand, if I were to do Toyshop Trouble for the 64, I'd probably overlap two hires sprites for each toy and two hires sprites for the player, and then update all the color registers every scan line (use tricks to eliminate the badline in each toy row). That could probably work out pretty well, though I don't know that there'd be enough market for a C64 version to make it worthwhile.

[Tezz]

I don't know that there'd be enough market for a C64 version to make it worthwhile.

I'm not familiar with the game but I think there should be a conciderable market (in retro terms) for a new c64 release as it's one of the biggest retro scene followings of them all.

[emkay]

Also worth pointing out something that doesn't seem to have been mentioned here that there can be a 3rd colour produced with the overlap area of 2 sprites. Often 2 sprites and 2 missiles are enough for the main character. leaving the others still free.

 

2 Ways for impressive graphics:

 

1. Use double scanline mode and open the wohle screen. You will have a resolution of 176x120 with a pixel per clock division of 3:1 compared to the C64.

 

2. Use the small screen in hires, which gives a resolution of 256x200. Here you get a 2:1 (approx.)

 

In both cases PMg can be used for colour enhancing....

 

Way 1 is good for 1st person 3D like shooters

Way 2 is good for Speccy conversions

 

A 3rd way was to build software that was utilizing the A8 hardware directly.... resulting in games like Space Harrier (or even better?)

 

 

I also wonder about the music abilities of pokey and what people would have thought about this tune played in 1979 on an 800.....

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=134733

 

 

.... and programming POKEY turned from passive to active filter control...

 

 

Remember, People always say (and said) the POKEY is not able of playing deep notes. And now the truth showes that the deep notes can be handled fully. Not only playing deep notes, there can be done variations of volume "soundcolour" and so on.

Same thing with the "Pure" Demo, after 30 Years of releasing the first A8, someone made a first coloured 2D Blob animation...

Edited November 23, 2008 by emkay

[TMR]

have you read the Q? Drop Zone is better than any other 2d scrolling game on the c64 ? You sure?

 

In Gameplay, Controls, and Gamelogic pretty sure.

 

[bzzzzzt] Subjective opinion, overruled. =-)

 

Not subjective.

 

Of course it's subjective, it's your subjective opinion of the gameplay, controls and game logic.

[TMR]

Out of the box, the c64 can produce a 3 colour player using just 1 of it's 8 available sprites whereas we must use 2 from our 4.

 

That isn't quite as versatile as it sounds, though, given that two of the three colors must be shared among all multi-color sprites.

 

Then again, the three colours generated by two overlaid players aren't as flexible as they sound either since the third is an OR'd value rather than having a register so you can't actually set it to something unrelated...

 

On the other hand, if I were to do Toyshop Trouble for the 64, I'd probably overlap two hires sprites for each toy and two hires sprites for the player, and then update all the color registers every scan line (use tricks to eliminate the badline in each toy row).

 

Or you could use one multicolour sprite with a high res one overlaid to boost the resolution - i'd advise against trying to split colours every scanline personally, it's not impossible but timing that sort of thing with sprites moving vertically over the top is less easy on the C64 than the Atari machines.

 

That could probably work out pretty well, though I don't know that there'd be enough market for a C64 version to make it worthwhile.

 

Well, if you mean market as in people to buy games i know that my C64 cartridges aren't shifting in hundreds but they're selling about as fast as they can be manufactured (which surprises me somewhat to be honest, i believe Simon Quernhorst had his twenty cartridge run for Shotgate spoken for within a short period of time) and i know that Psytronik are getting a very good reaction from their tape- and now disk-based titles - plus there's Cronosoft chugging along happily and Protovision still distributing and supporting development... and noises on the grapevine about other contenders. If you mean sheer number of possible players, there's quite a few out there from what i can gather; it's not an exact science keeping count of these things but when Joe Gunn was released there was a huge wave of interest over all the Commodore-based message boards and even some of the more general ones.

[TMR]

They had to keep the gamelogic of the original in the AMIGA Version...

 

The game logic for both Turrican and Turrican 2 was originally written on the C64 with the Amiga version following those cues.

[atarian63]

Doesn't work for me, I smashed a few recycled C64's this week, felt really good.

 

Don't worry, I have some perfectly good and working 800XLs which I can do the same to.

 

Garak

I am in the recycling business as an aspect of my company, I have smashed hundreds. I like to use a sledge.

 

Oh well. It's not like there aren't any Atari getting recycled elsewhere you know.

 

Garak

Very true and sad, though I do save many. I did save a few Commodore 128's for someone here in this group, sent out 2-128's and a Vic 20 and Floppy drive for shipping only.