Commodore 64 vs Atari 800 Xl

[popmilo]

6 hours ago, Mercenary said:

You wrote, "It's same as saying "Sam's journey is better than anything on atari, so c64 is better machine" isn't it ?!
No, because difference with the games I mentioned is that they're games that shift graphics around in a way that pushes 8-bit systems to their limits. 

Sorry in advance for the blasphemy that I'm going to write right now

In my humble opinion Archer Maclean was not exactly experienced in coding when he did Dropzone... To me it looks like he tried using same code on c64 that he wrote for A8 (aimed at all it's strengths).

I've looked at c64 version in debugger and this is how it looks like:

He literally used one hw sprite for player. So it's not pushing c64 to it's limits for sure. Not even 1/8 of it's potential

Where did he use c64 biggest strength (hw sprites) ?
For statusbar... ufff....

 

The whole point of c64 was using gfx+sound chips that take away burden from cpu. While A8 had to draw each byte of all the "bobs" on screen using cpu, c64 could move 24x21 hw sprites around screen with only couple asm instructions.

Games like Armalyte show how you can fill screen with enemies, bullets, stars, explosions even with that lazy 1mhz cpu.

 

If you want to see c64 pushed to max, only way is to look at later games at end of 80s, start of 90s...

Katakis, Turrican 2, Mayhem in Monsterland...

Not to mentione something from last couple years like Zeta Wing:

 

I would just say, try playing some games from c64 top 100 list on lemon or similar, check out new games being published these days on Itch, you might be pleasantly surprised

 

On the other hand if you really wanna stick to Atari games, wait till Monday when new games will be available to download from Abbuc compo, including some games of mine

Cheers!

 

[Mercenary]

1 hour ago, popmilo said:

Sorry in advance for the blasphemy that I'm going to write right now

In my humble opinion Archer Maclean was not exactly experienced in coding when he did Dropzone... To me it looks like he tried using same code on c64 that he wrote for A8 (aimed at all it's strengths).

I've looked at c64 version in debugger and this is how it looks like:

He literally used one hw sprite for player. So it's not pushing c64 to it's limits for sure. Not even 1/8 of it's potential

Where did he use c64 biggest strength (hw sprites) ?
For statusbar... ufff....

 

The whole point of c64 was using gfx+sound chips that take away burden from cpu. While A8 had to draw each byte of all the "bobs" on screen using cpu, c64 could move 24x21 hw sprites around screen with only couple asm instructions.

Games like Armalyte show how you can fill screen with enemies, bullets, stars, explosions even with that lazy 1mhz cpu.

 

If you want to see c64 pushed to max, only way is to look at later games at end of 80s, start of 90s...

Katakis, Turrican 2, Mayhem in Monsterland...

Not to mentione something from last couple years like Zeta Wing:

 

I would just say, try playing some games from c64 top 100 list on lemon or similar, check out new games being published these days on Itch, you might be pleasantly surprised

 

On the other hand if you really wanna stick to Atari games, wait till Monday when new games will be available to download from Abbuc compo, including some games of mine

Cheers!

 

I have the C64 core on MiSTer FPGA, I genuinely think was the most overrated of the 8-bit computers (for reasons previously mentioned), especially baring in mind the Atari XL/XE.

Edited October 28, 2023 by Mercenary

[zzip]

On 10/27/2023 at 10:55 PM, Mercenary said:

Elektro Glide is a good example of how great the Atari was in comparison to the C64. Not only how much better it looks overall, but also the sound. 

I never liked the SID sound chip. It's often nasal and farty sounding when doing music, and the sound effects generally aren't up there with POKEY either.

The C64s colour palette always looked dull compared to the vibrant colour pallete of the Atari as well. 

I remember taking all my A8/C64 "flippy" disks to a C64-owning friend BITD to try them out.   At the time, I was impressed by Elektraglide on C64 it seemed so much better than my Atari.   SID was producing sounds that I'd never heard from Pokey.  But I think it was a case of "grass is always greener..     When I compare them side by side now,  it looks better on Atari and plays better I think

 

I do think Pokey is probably better when it comes to sound effects, but for music it has this harsh quality I don't care for.   But even though SID impressed me back then, these days it sounds generic and dated.   So IDK maybe Pokey wins on SFX, SID wins on music?

 

I also used to think the C64 had a brighter, more colorful palette,  but one problem was so many Atari games chose to use a dull muddy palette for whatever reason.   When a game is allowed to be colorful it will blow away what the C64 can do.

 

In the end it depends on the game..   some play to the strengths of the Atari others to the C64, and that's the platform the game will look and play the best on.

[Lostdragon]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

I remember taking all my A8/C64 "flippy" disks to a C64-owning friend BITD to try them out.   At the time, I was impressed by Elektraglide on C64 it seemed so much better than my Atari.   SID was producing sounds that I'd never heard from Pokey.  But I think it was a case of "grass is always greener..     When I compare them side by side now,  it looks better on Atari and plays better I think

 

I do think Pokey is probably better when it comes to sound effects, but for music it has this harsh quality I don't care for.   But even though SID impressed me back then, these days it sounds generic and dated.   So IDK maybe Pokey wins on SFX, SID wins on music?

 

I also used to think the C64 had a brighter, more colorful palette,  but one problem was so many Atari games chose to use a dull muddy palette for whatever reason.   When a game is allowed to be colorful it will blow away what the C64 can do.

 

In the end it depends on the game..   some play to the strengths of the Atari others to the C64, and that's the platform the game will look and play the best on.

As an 800 XL owner at the time, I could never quite fathom why, with so many colours to choose from, developers often went with a muddy palette or simply used poor choices. 

 

The ball on the Arkanoid Conversion for example, I found hard to spit on some levels, due to background colour choices.. 

 

Are there technical reasons behind this in any instances? 

[Mercenary]

On 10/30/2023 at 2:53 PM, zzip said:

I remember taking all my A8/C64 "flippy" disks to a C64-owning friend BITD to try them out.   At the time, I was impressed by Elektraglide on C64 it seemed so much better than my Atari.   SID was producing sounds that I'd never heard from Pokey.  But I think it was a case of "grass is always greener..     When I compare them side by side now,  it looks better on Atari and plays better I think

 

I do think Pokey is probably better when it comes to sound effects, but for music it has this harsh quality I don't care for.   But even though SID impressed me back then, these days it sounds generic and dated.   So IDK maybe Pokey wins on SFX, SID wins on music?

 

I also used to think the C64 had a brighter, more colorful palette,  but one problem was so many Atari games chose to use a dull muddy palette for whatever reason.   When a game is allowed to be colorful it will blow away what the C64 can do.

 

In the end it depends on the game..   some play to the strengths of the Atari others to the C64, and that's the platform the game will look and play the best on.

There's no engine sound on the C64 version of Elektra Glide, due to the C64 having three channels. It takes a lot away from the game after being used to the Atari version.

A lot of the time though, it's down to how games on either system were programmed.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Mercenary

[eddhell]

Speaking of SID sounds, does anyone remember the AXEL F theme song demo where two C64's were synchronized to play full left and right channels?  Or the "Flesh for Fantasy" sample demo that sounded like real guitars?  Or how about S.A.M. speech synthesis?  And I think there was some MIDI control capabilities also....for what we had back then I thought the SID was great.  Maybe not geared so much for sound effects, but I felt a lot of the music was amazing for that era.