Enhanced graphics on 7800?

[etschuetz]

The reason for the Topic in the form of a question is to bring up a vague memory of mine. I recall back in the early 90's when my family was buying up ANYTHING Atari at yardsales and such. We would even buy the catalogs and promotional materials (my loving mother sold everything on a yardsale when I was in the Marines back in 95).

 

Anyway, I recall in a flyer, or catalog that had 7800 games in it along with late 80's 2600 games describing how some 2600 games were designed to "take advantage of the 7800 power" to provide enhanced graphics. One of those such titles was Super Football. However, I have played this game on the 2600 and the 7800. The game looks the same between the two.

 

Now, the question lies is whether or not I made a mistake in regards to what I read back then, or did it mean something else. I recall that after reading that, I wanted a 7800 so bad to make my old 2600 games look better. Wondering which of these classics were designed to "take advantage of the new hardware". Today, however, I believe that it may have been printed, but was a marketing ploy by Atari to encourage 7800 sales.

 

Anyone else remember this?

[GroovyBee]

When the 7800's NTSC BIOS detects that it has a 2600 cart plugged into the system it disables MARIA (the 7800 video chip) and then calls the 2600 cart's reset vector. I remember reading a forum posting about "dual boot" 2600/7800 carts on here.

 

EDIT: The discussion is here :-

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...t&p=1014204

Edited June 27, 2009 by GroovyBee

[DracIsBack]

Don't remember that, but I remember being confused as a consumer about this initially. I had a 2600 and Winter Games. When the 2600 died, I bought a 7800. I assumed that my WINTER GAMES would have better graphics when plugged into the 7800.

 

My logic.

 

- My cart said right on it "for the 2600 and 7800": http://www.atariage.com/2600/carts/c_WinterGames_front.jpg

 

- Winter Games was advertised on the 7800 system box and the graphics shown were the same as the ones shown here: http://www.atariage.com/box_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=714

 

Naively, I assumed that the game would look like this on a 2600:

http://www.atariage.com/2600/screenshots/s_WinterGames_5.png but transform to what I saw on the 7800 box when plugged into that machine.

 

 

Nope. The version I had which was marked as "for the 2600 and 7800" was different than the one I got later marked as "for the 7800".

 

Talk about consumer confusion

Edited June 27, 2009 by DracIsBack

[Video]

I seem to remember seeing those adds where some carts were touted as having "enhanced graphics on the 7800" Later I just figured they meant if you bought the 7800 exclusive version of the game, though that was rather confusing.

 

I figure the carts labled 2600/7800 were marked to show they worked in either system, not as a display of them doing anything special otherwise. KungFu Master comes to mind, as some Activision games spacifically, wouldn't fit in some 7800's

 

After reading that post, it sounds like even a 2600 game may not work on the 7800 if it's bigger than 4k? That sounds a bit strange to me, but maybe someone was meaning in 7800 mode.

 

Anyhow, Nice Idea, but in practice, I've never seen relevant displays of a game working better when used on a newer system (with the exception of a few Gameboy games, that got an advantage when played on the Gameboy Color, ZeldaDX for instance)

[etschuetz]

When the 7800's NTSC BIOS detects that it has a 2600 cart plugged into the system it disables MARIA (the 7800 video chip) and then calls the 2600 cart's reset vector. I remember reading a forum posting about "dual boot" 2600/7800 carts on here.

 

EDIT: The discussion is here :-

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...t&p=1014204

 

I understand the concept here, but what I am shooting at here is in the catalogs you would get that showcased new games would say something on the lines of showcasing improved graphics when used on the 7800. The game was released as a 2600 cart, however. As the example I gave was Atari 2600's Super Football. I have searched the Catalogs, but maybe it was the actual Manual. I assume the html scans here on AA have all the text that would have been in the actual print manual, but I failed to find it.

 

I am willing to chalk this up to youthful wishful thinking that the backwards compatibility would have enhanced the graphics of the game somehow. Wouldn't be the first time an over eager kid's imagination got the best of him/her.

[DracIsBack]

I figure the carts labled 2600/7800 were marked to show they worked in either system, not as a display of them doing anything special otherwise.

 

I think part of why I was confused was because of Tetris on the Tandy Co Co computers. My friend plugged it into his CoCo 2 and it looked one way. Another plugged the same cart into a CoCo3 and the graphics looked quite a bit better.

[carmel_andrews]

Speaking of 'enhanced graphics' does there exist on the 7800, advanced graphics programming techiques like Gtiabug, hip, tip, cin, apac (and rybags interlace mode) on the A8

[mos6507]

I think the closest we've seen to a game that sits between the 2600 and the 7800 is the rerelease of Save Mary that Video61 did, which uses the dev cart memory layout.

[GroovyBee]

Speaking of 'enhanced graphics' does there exist on the 7800, advanced graphics programming techiques like Gtiabug, hip, tip, cin, apac (and rybags interlace mode) on the A8

You don't access to that many I/O registers in MARIA. Graphics are handled under DMA with the Display List List and Display Lists, its mainly colour palette registers and housekeeping like configuring DMA, detecting vertical sync and waiting for horizontal blank.

 

I've seen it fail in "interesting" ways tho . I'm not sure they are exploitable features by way of making a game out of them. The big hinderence to graphical effects is also the fact that the internal RIOT timers can't trigger an interrupt.

[EricBall]

Just to summarize:

 

1. A 24 pin (4K) cartidge in an unmodified NTSC 7800 will result in the BIOS locking the system into 2600 mode because the RAM test will fail due to cart ROM shadowing. Dual-boot 2600/7800 carts are therefore impossible.

2. All 7800 graphics are generated by MARIA so all games are limitted to just the standard 6 graphics modes. However, the graphics mode can be updated on the fly which might be used to split the screen into 160 & 320 horizontal bands, intermix 4 color and 13 color sprites, or use different palettes for different horizontal bands.

[oky2000]

Definitely the same for me too, I got my first 7800 in the 90s not at launch so I was old enough not to remember wrongly, and the Atari blurb did indeed seem to indicate that a 2600 game plugged into a 7800 would be better graphically.

 

Because I also remember wondering why do all my 2600 games look the same? (well worse because my 7800 had terrible RF output compared to my 2600 six switcher I'd had for over a decade and a half.

[+Mitch]

Dual-boot 2600/7800 carts are therefore impossible.

 

I believe a 7800 cart can be programmed to force itself into 2600 mode. Seems like the 7800 diag cart does that. I don't think that would be useful in general though.

 

Mitch

[GroovyBee]

I believe a 7800 cart can be programmed to force itself into 2600 mode. Seems like the 7800 diag cart does that. I don't think that would be useful in general though.

Correct. Providing the 7800 cart is encrypted correctly it can choose to run in 7800 or 2600 mode.

[EricBall]

I believe a 7800 cart can be programmed to force itself into 2600 mode. Seems like the 7800 diag cart does that. I don't think that would be useful in general though.

Correct. Providing the 7800 cart is encrypted correctly it can choose to run in 7800 or 2600 mode.

Yes, that is certainly true. However, I can't think of any reason to do this instead of just putting the game in a 2600 cart. It's not like the 7880->2600 game will have any advantages over the 2600 cart game once it's forced the 7800 into 2600 mode. I suppose it could alternate between the two (assuming it could keep the memory maps straight), but again I can't think of any reason to do this.

[gdement]

I believe a 7800 cart can be programmed to force itself into 2600 mode. Seems like the 7800 diag cart does that. I don't think that would be useful in general though.

Correct. Providing the 7800 cart is encrypted correctly it can choose to run in 7800 or 2600 mode.

Yes, that is certainly true. However, I can't think of any reason to do this instead of just putting the game in a 2600 cart. It's not like the 7880->2600 game will have any advantages over the 2600 cart game once it's forced the 7800 into 2600 mode. I suppose it could alternate between the two (assuming it could keep the memory maps straight), but again I can't think of any reason to do this.

It would be useful for a multicart.

[mcjakeqcool]

7800 ruled, could have easly competed with the NES and SMS, had it been marketed properly, and had it had a sufficient libary of 3rd party titles.