Atari v Commodore

[atariksi]

And I don't want to say anything else at the risk of starting a flame war.

Isn't that what the past 200 someodd pages has been? What differences does it make now. This war ain't going anywhere, as is always the case, might as well start another that isn't going to end up anywhere either.

 

It wasn't a flame war up to page 114 (a little here and there), but after page 114 (when this thread took a vacation for a few weeks), some confused people decided to DEFEND the C64 (with vulgarity/personal attacks/etc.) rather than argue truthfully.

[Bryan]

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.

[Bryan]

wrong. people wouldnt have bought the a8 anyway at that prize. thats why they got a c64 and not an a8.

 

Apple sold a lot of less capable machines at an even higher price. Atari's approach was wrong- pure and simple.

 

Could someone explain, why Apple always could sell crap for high prizes?

Even today they sell a worse PC with a sucking OS and people buy that stuff. Beeing cool, beeing elite, for having this crap.

 

Another phenomenon is the Digital Rights Management.

Everyone is blaming Microsoft for it, though Win 7 will be the 1st OS supporting it directly.

Apple uses it in Ipods for years now and spreaded it "all over the world" .... but the blamers go very low.

 

Heck, I even wouldn't consider bying an Iphone, because it has the rotten Apple on it.

 

Apple should cut down on modifying English vocabulary (at least in useage) with all this iThis and iThat. I thought iMac meant intel Mac. Pretty soon Congress may have to pass a law iCanned-- stop Apple from biasing the English dictionary toward words beginning with "i". It's not even capitalized properly. It sounds like "I run". Do you see Joe run?

 

I thought 'i' was originally shorthand for internet, not "I" as in "me." Just like 'e' is is short for "electronic."

[atariksi]

I am basing it on unbiased observation. It's crap in comparison to Atari 800/XL/XE machines that I have. None of the Ataris have broken down for me over many years. C64, used only a few times, broke down. It's not an attack but a true statement.

 

You are right, but the samples are not representative.

 

It's not just me who has evidence this a cheaper (lower quality) machine. I also had some PETs and they never stopped working and that stuff was heavy duty and prior to C64. You have to buy some hardware to protect your 6526 (CIA) chips:

 

http://www.oldsoftware.com/6526.html

 

You can see some parts yourself-- open up the machine and there's the aluminum foil shielding, some white "glue" on some of the chips, etc. Heck, I can even repair the "Out of Memory" error on this particular C64 machine as most of the chips are non-socketed.

[atariksi]

There are many games on Atari that use the hardware collision detection. You are exaggerating by saying "countless".

 

Exaggerating? So the tens of thousands of 2D games since the NES in '83 to 2D nowadays on XBOX live and PSN is exaggerating?

...

I never discussed about XBOX, PSN, NES, or other game consoles; I never had them and still don't have any intention of getting any. If you don't have good enough hardware collision detection (pixel-based), you are forced to use bounding box method. I am talking about Atari/C64 and I stated Atari has many games that use hardware collision.

 

>>The point of saying "GOOD" games to those that use software bounding boxes is subjective.

 

> No. Take for instances a platform game. If the main character gets even just one pixel to collide with another sprite, and you base your hit detection on that, that will make for some really poor gameplay and great frustration.

 

There are games that can't use pixel-based collision detection; but having the pixel-based collision detection in hardware is still a good thing since software bounding box is an easy software algorithm. Recursive bounding boxes may require hardware as that uses up more CPU time.

 

...

>The TG16, the SNES, quite a few arcade system too. All had pixel accurate hardware collision detection and guess what? It wasn't used.

 

If it's not used that much that doesn't mean it's useless. Highly accurate timers like HPET on newer PCs are hardly used, but they are there for people that can utilize them. Most OSes/applications still use PIT to be compatible with most PCs and also for portability. Many games are also ported platform to platform so if they used the 60-bits collision detection on Atari, the game play would be affected on say C64 or Apple.

 

>>They may be good for you and not good for me. If you don't want to take my word for it, ask some other people here familiar with Atari game internals whether they use hardware collision.

 

> I don't need to. I do classic 2D game development myself and understand game engine designs. I have no doubt very simple and old games like Tank or Centipede can lend themselves to pixel accurate collision, but I was under the impression that Atari 8bit computer dev community was moving to a more capable game design than that.

 

It's not more capable; it depends on the game. And calling games that use software bounding boxes as "GOOD" is subjective. I prefer those games that do exact pixel-based collision detection. Many Atari sprites (8-pixel wide) have irregular shapes requiring pixel-perfect collision detection.

 

Even if you don't own a C64, by siding with a C64 view..

> Oh man... It's not a c64 view or thing. It's a game thing and it has nothing to do with c64.

 

You are writing in a C64/Atari thread; you need to state explicitly you are also talking other platforms to make it clear. And even so, it's still subjective.

[jvas]

I am basing it on unbiased observation. It's crap in comparison to Atari 800/XL/XE machines that I have. None of the Ataris have broken down for me over many years. C64, used only a few times, broke down. It's not an attack but a true statement.

 

You are right, but the samples are not representative.

 

It's not just me who has evidence this a cheaper (lower quality) machine. I also had some PETs and they never stopped working and that stuff was heavy duty and prior to C64. You have to buy some hardware to protect your 6526 (CIA) chips:

 

http://www.oldsoftware.com/6526.html

 

You can see some parts yourself-- open up the machine and there's the aluminum foil shielding, some white "glue" on some of the chips, etc. Heck, I can even repair the "Out of Memory" error on this particular C64 machine as most of the chips are non-socketed.

 

OKOK, I had only problem with your reasoning:

 

1. You told your observations

2. You conclude that C64 is crap (I mean low quality)

3. You told that your conclusion is based on unbiased observation

[atariksi]

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

 

Well, they don't use the latest technology on all later productions. Some engineers are smarter than others. Some marketeers are better than others. Some engineering departments don't spend as much investment/time on some of the features as other features. Etc.

[atariksi]

I am basing it on unbiased observation. It's crap in comparison to Atari 800/XL/XE machines that I have. None of the Ataris have broken down for me over many years. C64, used only a few times, broke down. It's not an attack but a true statement.

 

You are right, but the samples are not representative.

 

It's not just me who has evidence this a cheaper (lower quality) machine. I also had some PETs and they never stopped working and that stuff was heavy duty and prior to C64. You have to buy some hardware to protect your 6526 (CIA) chips:

 

http://www.oldsoftware.com/6526.html

 

You can see some parts yourself-- open up the machine and there's the aluminum foil shielding, some white "glue" on some of the chips, etc. Heck, I can even repair the "Out of Memory" error on this particular C64 machine as most of the chips are non-socketed.

 

OKOK, I had only problem with your reasoning:

 

1. You told your observations

2. You conclude that C64 is crap (I mean low quality)

3. You told that your conclusion is based on unbiased observation

 

Okay, that word should be "can't" not "can". I can't even repair 'Out of Memory' error due to non-socketed chips (too much soldering/desoldering).

 

My conclusion is based on the 4 C64 machines I have (none work currently). Yeah, I can't experience all the C64s on the planet but have to rely on reports from others. If it was a logically proveable point, I wouldn't have to rely on other people's reports.

[atariksi]

None of the two computers can display their full palette in any resolution without restrictions.

That's not 100% true because the C64 can display all of it's 16 colors at 80x200 resolution without restrictions.

 

You mind giving the algorithm to do that so people know what it takes and what restrictions it has. And then I'll give you a customized mode that does better on Atari.

[jvas]

I am basing it on unbiased observation. It's crap in comparison to Atari 800/XL/XE machines that I have. None of the Ataris have broken down for me over many years. C64, used only a few times, broke down. It's not an attack but a true statement.

 

You are right, but the samples are not representative.

 

It's not just me who has evidence this a cheaper (lower quality) machine. I also had some PETs and they never stopped working and that stuff was heavy duty and prior to C64. You have to buy some hardware to protect your 6526 (CIA) chips:

 

http://www.oldsoftware.com/6526.html

 

You can see some parts yourself-- open up the machine and there's the aluminum foil shielding, some white "glue" on some of the chips, etc. Heck, I can even repair the "Out of Memory" error on this particular C64 machine as most of the chips are non-socketed.

 

OKOK, I had only problem with your reasoning:

 

1. You told your observations

2. You conclude that C64 is crap (I mean low quality)

3. You told that your conclusion is based on unbiased observation

 

Okay, that word should be "can't" not "can". I can't even repair 'Out of Memory' error due to non-socketed chips (too much soldering/desoldering).

 

My conclusion is based on the 4 C64 machines I have (none work currently). Yeah, I can't experience all the C64s on the planet but have to rely on reports from others. If it was a logically proveable point, I wouldn't have to rely on other people's reports.

 

You are right, but no information was provided about the percentage of the faults, which I think more important than absolute numbers.

Edited April 24, 2009 by jvas

[atariksi]

That's exactly what I was writing before....

 

This eye cancer pic looks better ...

It should be mentioned that this is all crappy emulation palettes which have nothing to do with how things look on the real thing. Same for A8 emulators btw.

 

It doesn't help that people want to display C64 imagery on Atari 800 (porting over). It's like taking an image in a paint program and reducing it to a 16-color palette and then expanding it to a 256 color palette and given Atari's different method of doing color depth, the upper bound of the best you get on Atari will be the SAME as C64. Faulty logic then to claim C64 has better graphics. How about taking some imagery originally using Atari's coloring methods (and perhaps overscanned) and porting it to C64?

[potatohead]

Here Wolfram...

 

The door is open man! I'll even step aside and hold it open for you:

 

Game on man. All those potential C64 users are right there, waiting for you to get the word out.

 

Lemme know when you've had enough!

 

..and that's not a closer. It is just the state of things. Put out as much effort as you want to. Clearly, if there was significant potential to change minds up and prove Atari isn't the better of the two machines, very significant ground would have been made long before you arrived. It's not like it hasn't been tried regularly over time, and in many venues, not just this one.

 

 

not giving away an inch in this argument, prooves nothing about the a8. it does only say things about you.

I think you are being told to move along and stop being a troll.

 

That is it exactly!

 

Wolfram, bring some new stuff to the table. Not doing so, while slamming around in the thread IS trolling.

 

Here's a starter for you. Let's see how it plays out!

 

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.

 

We've not yet seen the limits on A8. 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)

 

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. C64 does GREAT 80's shooters, BTW. But, they are just shooters. On the C64 side, BTW that networked game was sweet. Need to see more of that.

 

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?

 

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.

 

On Atari most things are possible.

 

POKEY is being investigated now too. It's a bitch compared to SID. But, lots of things are possible! Looks to me, with a better tracker, the Atari music scene really has a lot to offer.

 

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

 

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.

 

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

 

Right now is a great time to own an Atari machine!

 

See? That's not so hard is it Wolfram? That's advocacy pure and simple, which is what a -vs- thread does best. I didn't have to hammer anybody to do it either.

 

What's gonna happen with that is some people will go and try Atari machines, and those of us already here will enjoy the support! Maybe it's just ONE person. That's cool. Hope they have a good time, maybe buy something from the store, or a home brewer publishing stuff.

 

Will they think Atari is the best? Hope so, but probably not. We like what we like, and a whole lot of that comes down to what impressed on us as kids. Works just like music does. I know that's why I like 160 pixel resolution. It feels right, because that resolution and how the colors appear are those things I was looking at long ago in front of the tube. That is what retro IS.

 

The underlying theme to my post is that ALL retro needs new comers as much as it needs those people doing stuff right now. Trolling and hammering on people just turns them off, and that turn off could be one more person checking out because it's time to move on.

 

Consider that this thread has got a few people firing up their C64 machines for a play. That's cool man! I don't understand the rest of it. Does your ego really need to hear "C64 IS THE BEST! SAY IT!"?

[Wolfram]

Apple targeted schools! Duh. Just one more wrong badram.

 

& businessmen. Visicalc does ring a bell I guess ?

businessmen bought a pc. wrong again badram.

 

when pc didnt exist? yeah. I can imagine.. btw better stop the name callings, it denies atariski's statements that its done by c64 fans.

[Wolfram]

he sure loves Wiki, tries to use it to make up for a lack of experience.

 

 

I guess you agree that a few post earler Blyan used it for that reason to...

[Wolfram]

And I don't want to say anything else at the risk of starting a flame war.

Isn't that what the past 200 someodd pages has been? What differences does it make now. This war ain't going anywhere, as is always the case, might as well start another that isn't going to end up anywhere either.

 

It wasn't a flame war up to page 114 (a little here and there), but after page 114 (when this thread took a vacation for a few weeks), some confused people decided to DEFEND the C64 (with vulgarity/personal attacks/etc.) rather than argue truthfully.

 

I can see atarian doing that right now & seen no c64 people doing that.

[emkay]

c64

 

a8

 

 

all the same. you can have so much difference between different type CRTs and slightly different settings.

 

Interesting argumentation again.

The A8 picture is a remake of the C64's picture. So why may it look so close?

 

 

You'd better have a look at this one. Not perfect at all, just kept in a "CPU usage" style which easily could be used in "actiongames". Which means a DLI every 8 scanlines and simple overlay, no special GPRIOR mixing.

 

The skin is based on 6 different shades of one colour. It is neither using interlace, nor using a 80x192 mode...

Edited April 24, 2009 by emkay

[Wolfram]

Well, they don't use the latest technology on all later productions.

 

 

let me remind you to the XE series. were the a8 chips like 7-8 years old by then, with very little changes?

[potatohead]

Because they are BAD ASS chips.

[Wolfram]

It doesn't help that people want to display C64 imagery on Atari 800 (porting over).

 

I wonder why

[Allas]

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.

Edited April 24, 2009 by Allas

[Irgendwer]

...

which grass/road color is more realistis ?

 

I think you intentionally don't ask which version has at least the higher resolution and better looking trees...

 

BTW:

Please decide, since you mentioned the G2F demo directory already, you must have taken this image also into account

when stating:

 

check the g2f gallery, all pictures look like bad c64 pictures with the palette changed.

 

- are you honest?

 

CU

Irgendwer

[emkay]

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.

[Allas]

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.

Edited April 24, 2009 by Allas

[Wolfram]

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.

[Bryan]

Because of Atari's CHEAP ASS leader.

fixed that for you. :D