A8 Vs CPC (Amstrad/Schneider)

[sack-c0s]

(Deleted - did something really stupid and replied to myself)

Edited July 22, 2010 by sack-c0s

[Rybags]

The more pressing issue is that shadow of the beast is a rubbish game that just looks nice.

 

For sure it is.

 

What would really impress me is if someone actually did a home version of Rygar on any 8 or 16 bit system that didn't totally suck.

[The_Laird]

The more pressing issue is that shadow of the beast is a rubbish game that just looks nice.

 

For sure it is.

 

What would really impress me is if someone actually did a home version of Rygar on any 8 or 16 bit system that didn't totally suck.

 

I personally think the Lynx version is really good

[emkay]

It wouldn't be too much trouble putting enemies on that.

All you need is to maintain a table with the scroll offsets and adjust as the soft-sprite crosses each region.

 

Of course, that'd eat into your rendering time a fair bit, so maybe it should be "enemy".

 

 

Fair bit?

 

The scrolling never can be used at a higher framerate than the objects move.

 

If all objects get drawn at 10 frames per second, the scrolling can only move on in those 10 fps. If you try to move the scrolling faster, the objects start to "jitter". The demo seems to speed up to 50 fps in some ranges.

Just imagine "all the parallax" at a max of 10 fps.

[oky2000]

It wouldn't be too much trouble putting enemies on that.

All you need is to maintain a table with the scroll offsets and adjust as the soft-sprite crosses each region.

 

Of course, that'd eat into your rendering time a fair bit, so maybe it should be "enemy".

 

 

Fair bit?

 

The scrolling never can be used at a higher framerate than the objects move.

 

If all objects get drawn at 10 frames per second, the scrolling can only move on in those 10 fps. If you try to move the scrolling faster, the objects start to "jitter". The demo seems to speed up to 50 fps in some ranges.

Just imagine "all the parallax" at a max of 10 fps.

 

I have had this SotB demo scroller explained to me, technically the pre-calculated graphics take up ALL 128k of the memory and use ALL IRQs so there is nothing left and this is all you can do.

 

CPC was OK for non arcade games, but the fact the sound is ouput from the small speaker inside the computer and not the monitor (or TV with the huge modulator the size of a brick) is unforgivable.

 

The simple truth is 99% of the time a 3.5mhz Z80 ia not fast enough to do software sprites AND scroll the screen horizontally in 16 colours at 160x200 unlike the C64/A8.

 

Also I have a CPC464 and an original copy of Chase HQ and it runs 20% slower on a real machine than the youtube longplay videos on a speeded up emulator....sorry to burst the bubble with reality.

[Heaven/TQA]

yeah... I watched some games on youtube but they sucked in terms of quality... maybe the iso-games like head over heals etc are good or in theory stuff like winter games where you do not scroll. but as it seems the video ram is too big compared to the 3,5 mhz z80... so it is not like on ST where you have a 68000 8mhz handling the scrolling and having 512/1mb ram for preshifting data.

 

not sure how the screen ram is organised on cpc... if it works like on A8 (antic e standard) then soft sprites would need all the damned masking and the z80 can not handle words? (ok... it has 16 bit registers but aren't they pared 8bit registers and not handled in 1 cylce?)....

 

so I am not convinced yet but RPGs, 3d stuff or static games must be looking good but action games...well a8/c64 can handle them better... and maybe the cpc suffers the same issue like we with mediocre c64 conversions... getting speccy games over and put some overlay to it, well...

[analmux]

Well, I still think this is an impressive piece of software:

 

 

Some real parallax, used in a working game engine.

[analmux]

...however, this game "Prehistorik" only works on the CPC+ models. These were upgrades of the standard model. It allows scrolling, larger palette, sample DMA channels.

[drac030]

z80 can not handle words? (ok... it has 16 bit registers but aren't they pared 8bit registers and not handled in 1 cylce?)

 

1 cycle? Kidding? The fastest Z80 instruction takes 4 cycles, and an average instruction around 7. Block moves are ~20 cycles per byte transferred etc.

[emkay]

This game, the Atari can never reach ... in gfx detail

 

 

 

 

 

[Heaven/TQA]

Hehe... The Intro really reassembles Karateka. But The sound is Weak... Even for a Yamaha Chip.

[youki]

Prince of persion and Karateka have been done by the same guy , originally on Apple 2.

 

Lot of fan of Bomb Jack prefers the CPC version at other conversion.

 

 

Personnaly i prefer the C64 one , but i'm not a Bomb Jack purist.

 

The Recent Atari version is cool , but i think it requires 320k ? (not sure).

[Heaven/TQA]

Yeah, you definitly see the handwriting of the same guy even years between these two games...

[+skr]

The Recent Atari version is cool , but i think it requires 320k ? (not sure).

 

Yes. But there is a cartridge version with integrated memory extension which also saves the highscore. :-)

[youki]

Yes. But there is a cartridge version with integrated memory extension which also saves the highscore. :-)

 

ok, but the game still need really 320k ??.

 

I'm more impressed by the C64 conversion than the A8 in that case.

 

Even the arcade version of Bomb Jack does not need 320k...

[MaPa]

Yes. But there is a cartridge version with integrated memory extension which also saves the highscore. :-)

 

ok, but the game still need really 320k ??.

 

 

The cartridge version works on standard Atari with 64kB RAM.

[+skr]

Yes. But there is a cartridge version with integrated memory extension which also saves the highscore. :-)

 

ok, but the game still need really 320k ??.

 

I'm more impressed by the C64 conversion than the A8 in that case.

 

Even the arcade version of Bomb Jack does not need 320k...

 

Yes, the game itself needs 320k. As far as I understand that is, because the Atari doesn´t have sprites and they are somehow simulated using RAM.

If they could make BJ run with 64k, that would really be impressive.

 

But anyway for me Bomb Jake is one of the greatest games on the Atari 8 Bit, even if it needs more RAM than a stock 8 Bit Atari ever had.

[youki]

*post deleted* i didn't notice the answer for skr.

Edited July 23, 2010 by youki

[youki]

Yes. But there is a cartridge version with integrated memory extension which also saves the highscore. :-)

 

ok, but the game still need really 320k ??.

 

I'm more impressed by the C64 conversion than the A8 in that case.

 

Even the arcade version of Bomb Jack does not need 320k...

 

Yes, the game itself needs 320k. As far as I understand that is, because the Atari doesn´t have sprites and they are somehow simulated using RAM.

If they could make BJ run with 64k, that would really be impressive.

 

But anyway for me Bomb Jake is one of the greatest games on the Atari 8 Bit, even if it needs more RAM than a stock 8 Bit Atari ever had.

 

the CPC does not have sprite too. And it does not need so much memory. And the fact to have hardware sprite or not does not change so much the memory you need. You always have to store the image of the sprites somewhere. What you need if you have no hardware it is a sofware sprite routine but it does not justify 320k.

 

Bonb Jake on A8 is very good , no question about that. i just would be impressed if it does not needed so much memory , where competitor machine like C64 and CPC provide very good version with 5 times less memory. Why do not put the arcade machine hardware in a cartridge and put it in a Atari . And say "look the perfect arcade port". That's "easy"...

[oky2000]

...however, this game "Prehistorik" only works on the CPC+ models. These were upgrades of the standard model. It allows scrolling, larger palette, sample DMA channels.

 

They cost a lot because you had to buy a bespoke colour monitor and I don't remember Amstrad selling a TV modulator for the plus range and they changed the video port too it wasn't possible to use the standard CPC modulator.

 

The games are standard Amstrad GX4000 console cartridges, only Burning Rubber is different, as it has BASIC on the cartridge packed in with the 464+ version specifically.

 

Then again at least they DID update the machine, unlike Atari who hardly improved the original 400/800 chipset in reality and Commodore who never released the completed 1990 C64DX/C65 final prototypes with 256 colours, blitter and 6 channel SID setup.

 

Get Dexter 1 and 2 are awesome looking isometric games true, CPC Prince of Persia is also suited to the low number of software sprites/no scrolling. Sorcery also looks great again because it is flip screen scrolling.

 

I can't remember the name but there is one vertically scrolling shooter on the CPC which is good, they use the same sort of trick as the ST and Acorn Electron/BBC to shift the screen vertically in a pseudo hardware scroll type routine. Nemesis/Salamander etc are horrible though...but then they are pathetic on the Spectrum too and it has nothing to do with the pixel artists or musicians talent in the CPC's case

[Heaven/TQA]

what do you mean in ST manner scrolling? to skip gfx in 256 byte lines like the shifter does while missing the low byte of the screen adress register?

[TMR]

I can't remember the name but there is one vertically scrolling shooter on the CPC which is good, they use the same sort of trick as the ST and Acorn Electron/BBC to shift the screen vertically in a pseudo hardware scroll type routine.

 

Paul "Spindizzy" Shirley's

is probably the one you're thinking of, but there's

as well and a handful of titles like

,

, Fres Attack (runs at 640x200 resolution),

or Killer Cobra using the same technique for horizontal scrolling although they more often than not are running at 25FPS rather than flat out.

 

what do you mean in ST manner scrolling? to skip gfx in 256 byte lines like the shifter does while missing the low byte of the screen adress register?

 

It's similar yes, using the ability to repoint the address that the CTRC looks at for the start of the screen. The only limitations (after it being a bit of a bugger to time, apparently) is that only the first 64K of RAM can be seen by the CTRC hardware and, whilst the vertical shift can be fine tuned to single pixel steps, the horizontal is limited to stepping through RAM in four colour clock jumps, the equivalent of ignoring the smooth scroll and incrementing the LMS address on the A8; Killer Cobra just goes bonkers and shifts at that speed (so it's a bit hard to play without any practise) but Star Sabre gets around it to a degree by using two buffers where the backgrounds are offset by a couple of pixels and a 25FPS refresh rate.

[Tickled_Pink]

The CPC has some really nice advantages. Particular the real colours (4 in 320x200 , 16 in 160x200 ) and the crystal sharp display.

640x200 for hires is something the XL series clearly missed. High Data transfers..... fun machine in it's way.

 

But the Locomotive Basic was horrible (not good for learning to write Basic Programs) , scroll registers and other stuff was missed for a good homecomputer....

 

I never heard of that machine that much-- I guess it wasn't that popular in USA. From what I read, the higher resolutions cost it since you needed to get a special monitor for it instead of using a TV. And monitors were expensive back in the 1980s.

The monitor shipped with the system. You could either get a greenscreen or colour monitor IIRC.

 

Only ever met one person who had one. Then again, I only ever knew two people who had the C64 and one with a BBC Micro. All the rest had speccies or Ataris.

[emkay]

Those real 16 colours (out of 27) has it's real advantages.

 

 

People who played this game back in the days, may have never missed "scrolling & sprites"...

 

 

Edited July 23, 2010 by emkay

[Divya16]

 

The attractive point of the CPC line was that they were self-contained systems with only one power plug (the main unit was powered through a PSU built into the monitor) and were sold as ready-to-go systems, while a C=64, Atari XL and Spaeccy were sold "naked" without any mass storage device or monitor - the full price of the CPC was relatively cheap in comparison to a C=64 with 1541 or an 800XL with 1050 drive - and the CPC didn't occupy the family TV set (many European households AFAIK only had one TV set back in the middle 1980s) when in use.

 

Why is that an attractive point? That makes it harder to take around with you since you have to drag the expensive monitor around whereas Atari/C64 plug into any home and can also use cartridges (no disk drive to drag around either).

 

Er - I can hardly remember how often I took my XL out of my parents' house in the 1980s, but I am sure it wasn't more than once or twice, and I needed the disk drive, because all the pirated games were on disk (as a pupil, the only games I could afford as originals were budget releases by Mastertronic, Firebird etc. for DM 9.99 and MAD for DM 14.99 each - those great titles from the early 1980s weren't even available in stores any more, it had all gone C=64 and - later - Sega Master System and NES there).

 

So, computers back then were stationary products much more than today (where even large tower cases get dragged around to gaming meetings/conventions) and most of them were bought by parents, not by the users (I may be an exception, as my parents always were against me getting a computer, I had to work as a paperboy and save the money to buy all my hardware myself). One would usually only carry the cassettes or disks around to exchange them at school or by mail.

 

Thorsten

 

I guess we had many friends here in USA where we took machines into each other's homes to have contests and it's good to use standard devices with standard ports (i.e., TVs). Most of the software I bought for Atari was cartridge-- disk drive was like $399. Believe me, they (CPC) would have used a TV if they weren't trying to impress people with their 640*200 mode.