Atari v Commodore

[atariksi]

Finally, I prefer more the vertical scroll shooters.

 

I like both.

 

But, as Shakespeare wrote " A Kingdom for a full A8 supporting scroller game"

 

Shakespeare also stated Rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. Some people didn't understand that either.

[youki]

there is panther and ble max on c64.

 

 

i prefer blue max on a800 , but i prefer panther on c64.

[Fröhn]

Because there are less cycles to waste on horizontal scroll games.

 

Finally, I prefer more the vertical scroll shooters.

Concerning "cycles" it doesn't matter if you scroll vertical or horizontal. I think horizontal shooters were more common because of R-Type spawning a lot of similar games.

[youki]

Some curiosity... i can't remember nothing now, but... is there a double scrolling shooter (as PANTHER, BLUE MAX) with map color on C64?

 

You mean "isometric" scrollers like Zaxxon or Blue Max? Good question.

 

 

super zaxxon on c64 is for me better than the a800 version too

[emkay]

Because there are less cycles to waste on horizontal scroll games.

 

Finally, I prefer more the vertical scroll shooters.

Concerning "cycles" it doesn't matter if you scroll vertical or horizontal. I think horizontal shooters were more common because of R-Type spawning a lot of similar games.

 

There must be some handycap in vertical scrolling on the C64.

Even in Turrican, you see less "graphics" where the screen has to scroll up and down.

But in pure horizontal levels, C64 seems like a "winning" machine.

 

Hm...

Thinking about the fact that a re-using of sprites vertically is not possible, and that horizontal sprites re-using cost CPU power by DMA cycle stealing... this might go the way...

 

On the A8 it takes one command, to scroll the whole screen content up or down. After DLIs were set to multiplex Players and Missiles, it acts itself on the following scanlines. No further software control is needed.

 

Heck. Thinking about a v-scroller . 240 lines high and 32 bytes wide, with full PM multiplexing... good lord.

This would look like a "MAME" Arcade emulated game, at full vbi speed(50/60 fps)

Edited April 24, 2009 by emkay

[oky2000]

c64 could display 16color off the shelf

 

Can 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."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

 

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.

 

Actually I do like Crownland, think it's a good Mario type game. The graphics are nice too (only video on youtube has no sound so dunno about sound)

 

It's not tripple parallax though, it is a forground and a background layer only, the background layer has variable speed scrolling below the cloud layer but there is no overlaid graphics in the background layer between the tree tops and clouds. Mayhem is incredibly fast more like Sonic the Hedgehog and it does have dual parallax layers in places.

 

Both are colourful, does it really matter how? I could equally say the 'sprites' on crownland are a bit too small just as easily mind.

 

But nope, I like Crownland looks ok, will have to hunt this down for a little bit of a session. That was the whole point of this, find me nice games!

 

More please

 

 

 

As for three layer parallax, Beyond Forbidden Forest has three overlaid playfields in parallax and characters moving between all three parallax scrolling overlaid layers...now that was damned impressive for 1986 for a machine with no parallax or dual playfield support.

 

Beyond FF Youtube

 

As for non overlaid parallax Nebulus has a really nice bonus stage with about 10 levels of multiscroll speed parallax (non overlaid, raster type split horizontally)

[Fröhn]

There must be some handycap in vertical scrolling on the C64.

Even in Turrican, you see less "graphics" where the screen has to scroll up and down.

There is no handycap. It's basically the same (copying screen data every 4, 8 or 16 frames).

 

Thinking about the fact that a re-using of sprites vertically is not possible, and that horizontal sprites re-using cost CPU power by DMA cycle stealing... this might go the way...

On C64 it's very easy to re-use sprites vertically. Just set new screen position... done.

 

Heck. Thinking about a v-scroller . 240 lines high and 32 bytes wide, with full PM multiplexing... good lord.

This would look like a "MAME" Arcade emulated game, at full vbi speed(50/60 fps)

Only thing missing would be the sprites.

[emkay]

Only thing missing would be the sprites.

 

 

Nope!

Because in a vertical scroller you can reuse the PMg for adding colours AND moving objects. And it will be correct shown at every scanline.

[oky2000]

Because there are less cycles to waste on horizontal scroll games.

 

Finally, I prefer more the vertical scroll shooters.

Concerning "cycles" it doesn't matter if you scroll vertical or horizontal. I think horizontal shooters were more common because of R-Type spawning a lot of similar games.

 

There must be some handycap in vertical scrolling on the C64.

Even in Turrican, you see less "graphics" where the screen has to scroll up and down.

But in pure horizontal levels, C64 seems like a "winning" machine.

 

Hm...

Thinking about the fact that a re-using of sprites vertically is not possible, and that horizontal sprites re-using cost CPU power by DMA cycle stealing... this might go the way...

 

On the A8 it takes one command, to scroll the whole screen content up or down. After DLIs were set to multiplex Players and Missiles, it acts itself on the following scanlines. No further software control is needed.

 

Heck. Thinking about a v-scroller . 240 lines high and 32 bytes wide, with full PM multiplexing... good lord.

This would look like a "MAME" Arcade emulated game, at full vbi speed(50/60 fps)

 

 

Erm well apart from the VSP scrolling bug which moves the entire screen also just like a Sega console using VIC-II

 

Youtube videos of the following games....

 

SWIV

 

 

 

Tiger Mission

 

Not to mention 8 way scrolling games like Z by Rhinosoft, and of course Commando which is fast and smooth (and the DSE crack has the extra levels from the arcade added which removes the only advantage the A8 version had)

 

When you writing a new Turrican engine btw emkay?

[emkay]

There must be some handycap in vertical scrolling on the C64.

Even in Turrican, you see less "graphics" where the screen has to scroll up and down.

There is no handycap. It's basically the same (copying screen data every 4, 8 or 16 frames).

 

Ah I see, where on the Atari one command is enough, on the C64 you have to copy screen data.

 

Thinking about the fact that a re-using of sprites vertically is not possible, and that horizontal sprites re-using cost CPU power by DMA cycle stealing... this might go the way...

On C64 it's very easy to re-use sprites vertically. Just set new screen position... done.

 

But it cost >additional< DMA cycles.

Edited April 24, 2009 by emkay

[Heaven/TQA]

Jesus, guys... sit together...create a virtual group over the net and DO CODING... and not wasting in energy bashing each other... I fully appreciate "academic" discussions but not the emotional stuff...

[Jetboot Jack]

Ya know, every-time I see Mayhem, Manic Mansion or LN II - these arguments melt away for me...

 

Fact is for SOME types of games the A8 is very superior to the C64, Rescue on Fractalus, or Yoomp for instance.

 

For other types of games the C64 is very superior to the A8, Mayhem or Armalyte are clear examples.

 

What is clear is there are a lot of daft theorists and precious few practical do-ers on the A8 - people should DEMONSTRATE not pontificate, if you can't show the qualities you rattle on about shut up I say, it's really boring!

 

As to static art, I see the artists being FAR more important than the technology, and if G2F needs CPU time, sprites and more, who cares if the picture is great! I do find C64 art often samey, because of the limited palette, BUT there are more artists on the C64 that sure are good draftsmen!

 

sTeVE, who still loves his little Atari...

[emkay]

Erm well apart from the VSP scrolling bug which moves the entire screen also just like a Sega console using VIC-II

 

Youtube videos of the following games....

 

SWIV

 

 

 

Tiger Mission

 

Not to mention 8 way scrolling games like Z by Rhinosoft, and of course Commando which is fast and smooth (and the DSE crack has the extra levels from the arcade added which removes the only advantage the A8 version had)

 

When you writing a new Turrican engine btw emkay?

 

 

I'm not going to code anything

 

But, really, all those vertical shooters look odd!

[oky2000]

With a several year advantage, and the rapid state of change in computing, C64 coming up a TIE in the best, very generous, case, isn't getting it done....

And it doesn't come close to tieing. As you agreed before, marketing is a field by itself nothing to do with inferior/superior technology. The fact is C64 selling more means worse for the people in general since they are saturating the marketing with an inferior product and thus gave people less of a chance to get the best computing had to offer.

Calling the c64 an 'inferior product' while labelling the Atari 'the best computing had to offer' is a pretty steep claim. (Just to be clear, you are talking about the Atari, right?). Perhaps you'll tell me you have proved this many times over in this thread?

 

And while you might argue that "marketing is a field by itself nothing to do with inferior/superior technology", when it comes to marketing technological products, you can bet the various technological strengths of those products are on the table to some degree at least - maybe they'll be distorted by the marketing, maybe many details will go over the consumers' heads, but the consumers are sure to have some interest in what they're getting for the money, and the marketers won't ignore that. In my case, I was all set to get a vic-20 (thanks to some guy at school trying to sell me his one) until I read some guff about the c64's 'arcade-like' sprites.

 

Mind you, I'd agree that the Atari doesn't come in a tie with the c64. It's good to see that we can agree on some things. (Warning: This is a light-hearted joke!)

 

As long as you don't resort to name calling and take back all your name calling, I'll reply to my factual claim: "The fact is C64 selling more means worse for the people in general since they are saturating the marketing with an inferior product and thus gave people less of a chance to get the best computing had to offer."

 

Interesting, trying to sneak in a fake win just by writing your machine is superior in the sentence. lol that's classic seriously. Inferior in what way? This thread is far from over..

 

In 1982...less memory, slower unmodifiable tape loaders, less sophisticate soundchip, less sophisticated sprites.

 

It's far from proven with a few comments about theoretically using x y z combination of features to do some kind of graphics sound routine. As we have still not got a single piece of coding that looks as impressive as my Enforcer II level 2 youtube video OR a demonstration of a rendition of the most difficult sound for any sound chip to replicate (electric guitar) without going out of tune or using samples I can't really let that dumb ass comment slip by sorry

[oky2000]

Erm well apart from the VSP scrolling bug which moves the entire screen also just like a Sega console using VIC-II

 

Youtube videos of the following games....

 

SWIV

 

 

 

Tiger Mission

 

Not to mention 8 way scrolling games like Z by Rhinosoft, and of course Commando which is fast and smooth (and the DSE crack has the extra levels from the arcade added which removes the only advantage the A8 version had)

 

When you writing a new Turrican engine btw emkay?

 

 

I'm not going to code anything

 

But, really, all those vertical shooters look odd!

 

So we're stuck with the inferior A8 Turrican engine damn

 

And I suggest you see a doctor if they look odd too, they certainly look a lot more like arcade games than Screaming Wings did on the A8 haha. To be honest I was half expecting you to make an effort and mention Warhawk, which is similar on both really...ho hum better not distract you any more from theorising some more Amiga/MAME levels of vertical scrolling shmup game development you will never be implementing hey.

[oky2000]

Donkey Kong on the C64 is disappointing, because I feel the system is capable of more. There were 2 versions in my torrent of thousands of games. (WHY??? Somebody give the background on this!!) The one that appeated older was terrible! The one called DK87 was much better, but not as good as A8. I know it is not the machines. The A8 version of Donkey Kong is a work of art and should be a textbook example of how to do it right.

 

The Atarisoft conversions (on both machines) are pretty pathetic, the '87 version is a UK production from Ocean licenced from Nintendo and is the closest to the arcade. If you are saying the output of a man who didn't even like Donkey Kong let alone play it enough to replicate it is 'perfect' then what you like is NOT Donkey Kong at all but some bastardisation.

 

Forgive me (and the rest of the world with a brain) for laughing at more of your pathetic ramblings to suggest that that person at Atarisoft is MORE of a game designing genius than Shigero Miyamoto The animation and gameplay is laughable, there is no fluidity to the character movements, it's like a computer listing you type in from a magazine pretendin to be Donkey Kong (on both machines).

 

The most accurate conversion of Donkey Kong on 8bits is on the Coco 3 or Amstrad/C64 version released in 87 by Ocean UK. If you don't like those versions it's not actually Donkey Kong you like my little man

 

LOL this is pure comedy gold.

[Heaven/TQA]

Erm well apart from the VSP scrolling bug which moves the entire screen also just like a Sega console using VIC-II

 

Youtube videos of the following games....

 

SWIV

 

 

 

Tiger Mission

 

Not to mention 8 way scrolling games like Z by Rhinosoft, and of course Commando which is fast and smooth (and the DSE crack has the extra levels from the arcade added which removes the only advantage the A8 version had)

 

When you writing a new Turrican engine btw emkay?

 

 

I'm not going to code anything

 

But, really, all those vertical shooters look odd!

 

So we're stuck with the inferior A8 Turrican engine damn

 

And I suggest you see a doctor if they look odd too, they certainly look a lot more like arcade games than Screaming Wings did on the A8 haha. To be honest I was half expecting you to make an effort and mention Warhawk, which is similar on both really...ho hum better not distract you any more from theorising some more Amiga/MAME levels of vertical scrolling shmup game development you will never be implementing hey.

 

i have to admit that I am on emkay's side... the examples do not kick my ass when watching... strange... IO, Armalyte, Delta etc are far more advanced imho...

[+wood_jl]

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??? !!!!!!

[atarian63]

With a several year advantage, and the rapid state of change in computing, C64 coming up a TIE in the best, very generous, case, isn't getting it done....

And it doesn't come close to tieing. As you agreed before, marketing is a field by itself nothing to do with inferior/superior technology. The fact is C64 selling more means worse for the people in general since they are saturating the marketing with an inferior product and thus gave people less of a chance to get the best computing had to offer.

Calling the c64 an 'inferior product' while labelling the Atari 'the best computing had to offer' is a pretty steep claim. (Just to be clear, you are talking about the Atari, right?). Perhaps you'll tell me you have proved this many times over in this thread?

 

And while you might argue that "marketing is a field by itself nothing to do with inferior/superior technology", when it comes to marketing technological products, you can bet the various technological strengths of those products are on the table to some degree at least - maybe they'll be distorted by the marketing, maybe many details will go over the consumers' heads, but the consumers are sure to have some interest in what they're getting for the money, and the marketers won't ignore that. In my case, I was all set to get a vic-20 (thanks to some guy at school trying to sell me his one) until I read some guff about the c64's 'arcade-like' sprites.

 

Mind you, I'd agree that the Atari doesn't come in a tie with the c64. It's good to see that we can agree on some things. (Warning: This is a light-hearted joke!)

 

As long as you don't resort to name calling and take back all your name calling, I'll reply to my factual claim: "The fact is C64 selling more means worse for the people in general since they are saturating the marketing with an inferior product and thus gave people less of a chance to get the best computing had to offer."

 

Interesting, trying to sneak in a fake win just by writing your machine is superior in the sentence. lol that's classic seriously. Inferior in what way? This thread is far from over..

 

In 1982...less memory, slower unmodifiable tape loaders, less sophisticate soundchip, less sophisticated sprites.

 

It's far from proven with a few comments about theoretically using x y z combination of features to do some kind of graphics sound routine. As we have still not got a single piece of coding that looks as impressive as my Enforcer II level 2 youtube video OR a demonstration of a rendition of the most difficult sound for any sound chip to replicate (electric guitar) without going out of tune or using samples I can't really let that dumb ass comment slip by sorry

1982 hmm c64 no software. Most people used a disk drive in 1982 so who cares about tape. C64 disk drives in 1982, slow ass Vic drives. Irritating non arcade sound chip. Pokey sound was prominent in the arcade in 1982.

Just can't let the reality of 1982 go by without a laugh!

[atarian63]

Looks like the thread has been reset and we're back to the old arguments again. I still say a direct comparison of hardware features misses the point:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

 

Moore's law can work for you two ways. You can buy the same amount of power in the future for less money or you can get more power for the same money. Well actually it doesn't say that. It says that transistor counts for a given amount of $ double every two years.

 

For the most part, I believe the C-64 went more in the direction of equivalent power for less money than stupendous power for the same amount of money. The 400/800 were very expensive in 1979 dollars when they came out. What Tramiel was trying to accomplish was to put a reasonable amount of performance within reach of even lower middle class families and by 1982 that was possible.

 

Look at netbooks right now. They are more or less equivalent to machines from 4 or 5 years ago but are priced to sell.

so.. 1982 c64 was "Power without the Price"?

 

I agree with you, just seemed an opportunity to have a funny!

[+wood_jl]

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.

 

I know the C64 sold much more. But are you sure it's numbers like that? 30 million to 4 million? To single out one model of A8 to compare with overall C64 sales does not matter. What matters only is TOTAL sales. If they had sold 8 versions of C64 I would count them all as the same in a comparison.

 

Also, they did NOT have a single model C64!!! What about the 64C!! HA!! NOT a single model!!! Personally, I think the 64C is UGLY and prefer the round one.

 

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 Plus 4 and C16 were pretty much failures, were they not? I *seriously* doubt they sold in any significant numbers at all.

 

I like the Vic 20 as I have fond memories because friend had it. But it was no where near C64 popularity, not even close. I know it still sold well, but I have a hard time believing it outsold the ENTIRE A8 line. Come on, you sure about this?

[atarian63]

Looks like the thread has been reset and we're back to the old arguments again. I still say a direct comparison of hardware features misses the point:

 

lets compare what software is available then... c64 wins again. hands down.

For the window of 83-85 I already give the 64 the gaming advantage. I'm not blind to what it can do. Its popularity means a large software library and it has a more active scene to this day. What is it you're looking for here? For everyone to denounce the A8? Are you looking to piss off even the 64 "sympathizers" here?

 

If so, I can write a simple bot to generate anti-Atari responses and then you can go on vacation.

C64 didn't start really taking off till after the crash, really 1984. before that it was an also along with TI and others. Locally COCO had a bigger following and so did TI in 83.

Atariski has really been great and patient here. More than most would be I imagine.

Maybe Lemon64 would enjoy your point of view.

 

Also what does"what are you looking for here" mean. Most people here are Atari enthusiasts. Would you expect something else on an Atari site or are you just trolling?

[+SpiceWare]

Also, they did NOT have a single model C64!!! What about the 64C!! HA!! NOT a single model!!!

Unlike the Atari, which changed the hardware specs (CTIA to GTIA, different slots, different RAM, different joystick ports, etc), Commodore just repackaged the C64's hardware into a new shell to make the 64C look like the 128. So for the case of this discussion, they're the same computer.

[+wood_jl]

Re: Won't be able to get this stuff.

 

Man, ain't that the truth? I've been saving for at least the SIO2PC deal, if not the SIO2SD. (probably the latter) Right now is a good time for 8bitters. Best enjoy it because it's probably the peak. Who knows though? That peak may go a while...

 

DEFINITELY get the SIO2PC first, and may I suggest the more-expensive ($50) USB version over the serial ($30) version.

 

My old laptop computer was essentially slow garbage, and wouldn't bring anything if I wanted to sell it. Well, it's mint condition because I don't thrash my computers - but we all know how worthless 10 year old laptops are. But it's 10 years old and doesn't have RS-232!! I had been wanting SIO2PC for a long time, but I lacked the skills to build the original Nick Kennedy version myself. I got busy going back to school and working, and didn't follow the A8 developments for some time. When I "got back into it" a couple of years ago, I was astounded and thrilled! The USB SIO2PC is the most remarkable peripheral I have ever seen for ANY computer, PERIOD. The old laptop has suddenly become a valuable member of my computer equipment again. It's pretty much an Atari peripheral now. I like being able to have 8 "drives" on the Atari - each a disk image selected with a single mouse click.

 

The "Atari Peripheral Emulator" software is incredibly intuitive and extremely easy to use. Who the hell needs 8 drives? I normally don't, but you can put 8 of your favorite disc images in there - one in each slot - and "swap" them in any way you want, without having to dig through directories, etc. What I mean is, if there are 8 disc images I really like to use a lot, I have them selected as D1 through D8 and then just swap D1 with whichever I want at the moment and it becomes the new D1. I never have to search for anything! I know this is old news for everyone here, but just want to put out the opinion on how badass SIO2PC is. It's so much cheaper than SIOSD, too. So if I had neither, I'd get SIO2PC. Now, I really like SIO2SD and I hope Loether (sp??) keeps making them. My trouble is, I just blew the wad on a bunch of Commodore stuff!!! Oh my god, I hope I don't get burned at the stake!!!

[Irgendwer]

...

the examples do not kick my ass when watching... strange...

...

 

Here too - especially the sound/music in 'Slap Flight' or 'Terracresta' is very anaemic: The remaining two channels

when there is need for a sound effect are a joke and would led me in turning speakers off.

 

CU

Irgendwer

Edited April 24, 2009 by Irgendwer