Opinion of the 7800 vs 8bit

[atariksi]

I haven't played Food Fight on both systems, but Joust and Robotron are a win for Atari 400/800. Robotron is too slow and easier on 7800. Joust looks terrible (when unpaused) on the 7800 and sloppy in collision detection. I guess that's what he was trying to get to with better playability.

What makes joust better? It looks and sounds great on the 7800 (many of the sounds are closer to the arcade -very nice use of TIA there, not surprising given it's pretty competitive with POKEY for SFX -can even do things POKEY can't- and especially since those Willaims 6809 board arcade games only ever used 1 channel sound; the graphics definitely are more like the Arcade too).

I don't want to compare with arcade-- just comparing A8 vs. 7800 right off the bat we see: Joust on 7800 has flying eggs (no gravity), the birds look terrible motion as they are too congested compared to A8 where they still look like birds, and collisions on A8 are superior maybe because they are using a graphics mode (not redefined fonts).

 

You also seem to ignore the difficulty settings on Robotron... the higher difficulties push it up close to the arcade level of harsh difficulty and the game is far closer to the arcade without the heavily cut-down and stretched-out sprite (soft sprites I think) of the 5200/A8 version. (way less going on on-screen because of that) Again, the sound is also fairly competitive if not ahead in some areas. (again, the circumstances favor TIA due to only 1 sound channel being needed)

No, both have difficulty settings. The graphics on the A8 are clear whereas on A7800 its harder to distinguish various enemy robots and humans. The sounds are also better on A8 and objects are bigger on A8 which makes them easier to distinguish. The robots when they attack are faster in motion on A8. The whole play is slower and screen looks like a mess once you get used to playing on A8.

 

Regarding Ms. Pac-man, I have seen those portable TV type games and their not so good either. But once you get used to playing A8 version, the A7800 version seems to be off and irregular. And it's not just 3 games; those just happen to be the ones being discussed currently. Once we agree that A8 versions are superior, we can move on to others.

[GroovyBee]

You should really read the thread before commenting.

 

You really should understand the 7800 at a technical level before commenting .

 

Their sound chip is from Atari 2600 if you care to note. Their graphics chip is crippled due to less RAM and has same amount of colors as Atari 800.

 

Graphics crippled eh?

 

You can do an APAC like display (169 colours) at an effective resolution of 126 x 80 (X x Y) on a stock 7800 machine. With additional RAM on cart that increases to 160x80 which is twice the x resolution than the A8 can do.

 

The 7800 can place a 13 colour sprite on top of any 4 colour backgrounds or other sprites anywhere on screen. The 7800 can mix and match 13 colour graphics and 4 colour graphics in any way the programmer imagines given the limits of RAM or the bandwidth of MARIA. The 7800 can display 25 colours horizontally per scan line without programmer tricks.

 

In 320A mode (1BPP) MARIA can display its graphics using 8 palettes thus allowing 9 unique colours per scan line to be achieved without programmer tricks.

 

In 320B mode (2BPP) MARIA can display its graphics in 4 colours using 2 palettes thus allowing 7 unique colours per scan line to be achieved without programmer tricks.

 

Their I/O system and OS is bare bones. Etc. Etc.

 

The 7800 doesn't have an OS. It has a BIOS which is used to identify the cart type 2600/7800 and on NTSC machines it puts up a logo and checks the cart signature. The BIOS is switched out of the memory map to allow games to boot.

 

So you aren't sure whether they are different or better, but its just your opinion anyway as lacking a frame buffer and RAM restricts the system to the games getting ported from A8.

 

You've obviously missed the port of Tempest to the 7800 that I did from the BBC micro computer. Tempest usess a frame buffer which is constructed in cart RAM.

[potatohead]

If you say "A7800 has more and is smoother" that's the same as saying that version if better. You implied it rather than state is explicitly.

 

Is this all you do, forcingtheissueksi?

 

For the record, when somebody assigns some attribute to what they experience, that is absolutely NOT implied "better" Quit fucking with people like that. I honestly don't see why you are allowed to pollute what is otherwise a fairly nice community. Seriously, are you just morbid in some way? Do tell.

 

"BETTER" Requires a qualifier to be put into any meaningful context. Now, given your last epic, I would have thought you picked up on that by now wenttoschoollearnednothingksi. What gives here?

 

"SMOOTHER" is simply "SMOOTHER". Whether or not that's "BETTER" depends on the weighting given to attributes, and I hate to break it to you caughtinadressksi, but YOUR weighting is not universally considered THE authoritative weighting. We are all big kids here, able to think for ourselves you know.

[José Pereira]

I think he's stating in general and technically that the Atari 7800 sucks in all respects except where you need tons of sprites and computation time isn't that big of an issue.

 

So you have this on A8 (image from Atarimania) :-

 

 

And this on the 7800 :-

 

 

Hmmm....

 

Hi, and do you have this at Youtube?

José Pereira.

[tep392]

Once we agree that A8 versions are superior, we can move on to others.

 

You'll never get everyone to agree on which is "better" because it's too subjective. You can argue the technical points until you're blue in the face, but in the end, all that matters is which one YOU enjoy playing. Some will prefer the 7800, some the A8, some the NES, and so on.

 

These arguments of which is "better" are really just for people who like arguing. Jut my 2 cents.

 

Perry

Edited January 24, 2011 by tep392

[GroovyBee]

Hi, and do you have this at Youtube?

 

Sorry, I don't do youtube.

[potatohead]

RE: Have both?

 

Absolutely! IMHO, the 7800 has some nice attributes. I would get the expansion, and kick back a bit. Lots of potential in the graphics department that's not been fully exploited yet. Just look at what groovybee has done so far. That's what I want to do. IMHO, the 7800 is going to shine nicely over time with that add-on really making it more practical to fully exploit MARIA.

 

RE: Atari 800 ROBOTRON. I hate it. Hate it big. 160 pixels hurts the game, and there aren't enough colors to differentiate all the enemies properly. Need at least 6-8 to really do the game justice. Enemy movement is overly fast, sub-pixel motion was not used to preserve the scale of the game. http://www.playfire.com/a/game/robotron-2084/videos/68780 It's a good game, but deffo not the "better" version to me.

 

Frankly, I like the Apple ][ version better. It has the color space in hi-res, and enemy movement had a better balance.

 

7800 version is very nice by comparison. Recommended. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqUZMYh2lkA Deffo a reason to have both machines.

 

This is one game where having a bitmap with more than 4 colors, or lots of sprites with more than 4 colors really matters.

 

Even the PC has good overall performance on this.

Clearly some newer hardware, showing resolution and color being important in this game. Edited January 24, 2011 by potatohead

[Mirage]

 

Well, as long as you don't behave like an envious snake, I don't mind your posts.

 

Maybe an arrangement could be made to put everyone on this entire site into atariksi/Divya16-post-preview mode, so you can approve only those posts that are deemed "correct" and "non-envious" to you.

[GroovyBee]

Maybe an arrangement could be made to put everyone on this entire site into atariksi/Divya16-post-preview mode, so you can approve only those posts that are deemed "correct" and "non-envious" to you.

 

I think a great many would like it better the other way.

[ATARI7800fan]

What are your guys opinion of jaybird3rd. I am thinking of getting a computer he is selling. It is a Atari 600XL, I've got an extra boxed unit that's in great shape and includes 64K of RAM (via an internal upgrade that I added).He is asking 45 dollars plus shipping. Is that a fair price. What is his reputation.

[Mirage]

What are your guys opinion of jaybird3rd. I am thinking of getting a computer he is selling. It is a Atari 600XL, I've got an extra boxed unit that's in great shape and includes 64K of RAM (via an internal upgrade that I added).He is asking 45 dollars plus shipping. Is that a fair price. What is his reputation.

 

Just posting this question in one appropriate thread would have been sufficient. You could also check his feedback in the Feedback Forum.

[Tenorman]

What are your guys opinion of jaybird3rd. I am thinking of getting a computer he is selling. It is a Atari 600XL, I've got an extra boxed unit that's in great shape and includes 64K of RAM (via an internal upgrade that I added).He is asking 45 dollars plus shipping. Is that a fair price. What is his reputation.

 

I bought a 130XE from him a few months back. Good guy to deal with. The price he is asking is probably fair considering it's been upgraded to 64K and is boxed.

[Tubular Gearhead]

You should really read the thread before commenting.

 

You really should understand the 7800 at a technical level before commenting .

 

Their sound chip is from Atari 2600 if you care to note. Their graphics chip is crippled due to less RAM and has same amount of colors as Atari 800.

 

Graphics crippled eh?

 

You can do an APAC like display (169 colours) at an effective resolution of 126 x 80 (X x Y) on a stock 7800 machine. With additional RAM on cart that increases to 160x80 which is twice the x resolution than the A8 can do.

 

The 7800 can place a 13 colour sprite on top of any 4 colour backgrounds or other sprites anywhere on screen. The 7800 can mix and match 13 colour graphics and 4 colour graphics in any way the programmer imagines given the limits of RAM or the bandwidth of MARIA. The 7800 can display 25 colours horizontally per scan line without programmer tricks.

 

In 320A mode (1BPP) MARIA can display its graphics using 8 palettes thus allowing 9 unique colours per scan line to be achieved without programmer tricks.

 

In 320B mode (2BPP) MARIA can display its graphics in 4 colours using 2 palettes thus allowing 7 unique colours per scan line to be achieved without programmer tricks.

 

Their I/O system and OS is bare bones. Etc. Etc.

 

The 7800 doesn't have an OS. It has a BIOS which is used to identify the cart type 2600/7800 and on NTSC machines it puts up a logo and checks the cart signature. The BIOS is switched out of the memory map to allow games to boot.

 

So you aren't sure whether they are different or better, but its just your opinion anyway as lacking a frame buffer and RAM restricts the system to the games getting ported from A8.

 

You've obviously missed the port of Tempest to the 7800 that I did from the BBC micro computer. Tempest usess a frame buffer which is constructed in cart RAM.

 

Groovybee- I am glad you are around to champion for the 7800. It has been the "redheaded stepchild" Atari, and generally missunderstood for far too long.

 

The A8's have always been my favorite 8-bit machines to play games on, but the 7800 has some great possibliities that were never exploited until now- and there will be more suprises in the future. So anyway, I just wanted to publicly say that I am very happy you are doing so much for the 7800, so that we will have more examples to show off it's capablilities... I for one, am very excited about the 7800 scene.

[potatohead]

I'll second that. The 7800 is a really interesting machine. We've not seen what it can really do yet.

[atariksi]

Once we agree that A8 versions are superior, we can move on to others.

 

You'll never get everyone to agree on which is "better" because it's too subjective. You can argue the technical points until you're blue in the face, but in the end, all that matters is which one YOU enjoy playing. Some will prefer the 7800, some the A8, some the NES, and so on.

 

These arguments of which is "better" are really just for people who like arguing. Jut my 2 cents.

 

Perry

 

There are objective things as well as subjective things in the games. It's objective that Donkey Kong on Atari 800 has superior sounds than on Atari 7800 amongst other things. You can say which color scheme you prefer is subjective but not things that make the game superior to play. Robotron, taking the example being discussed, requires graphics to be more clearly discernible as the action is fast.

[potatohead]

Actually you can consider what makes the game superior to play subjective. There are different skill sets, expectations, game experiences (retro, modern, arcade, various machines), controllers, etc...

 

Unless you qualify "better", this discussion isn't different from the other locked one in any material way.

 

If you are going to say, "you can't", be prepared to support it properly. Some of us don't appreciate your constant stirring up shit like this.

[Cebus Capucinis]

Oh God, please don't bust out the "formula" again, donttalktopotatoheadski!

[potatohead]

LOL!!

 

Well, I have absolutely no intention of going 1K posts on this. Rather liked the thread otherwise!

 

He didn't technically ask for it here, so it's gotta be lower key. I have standards.

[GroovyBee]

@Tubular Gearhead, potatohead

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence. The 7800 was never pushed all that hard back in the day. Its a real shame that the best on the console has to come 20+ years past its prime .

[Mirage]

@Tubular Gearhead, potatohead

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence. The 7800 was never pushed all that hard back in the day. Its a real shame that the best on the console has to come 20+ years past its prime .

 

Totally agree also. It has a lot of potential, and only now with all the recent developments have I warmed up to the 7800 again. More Atari love is never a bad thing.

[DracIsBack]

Yeah - this is starting to get into the realm of arguing over whether or not shit is brown ...

 

Some people like to argue just for the saKe of arguing!

[tep392]

Once we agree that A8 versions are superior, we can move on to others.

 

You'll never get everyone to agree on which is "better" because it's too subjective. You can argue the technical points until you're blue in the face, but in the end, all that matters is which one YOU enjoy playing. Some will prefer the 7800, some the A8, some the NES, and so on.

 

These arguments of which is "better" are really just for people who like arguing. Jut my 2 cents.

 

Perry

 

There are objective things as well as subjective things in the games. It's objective that Donkey Kong on Atari 800 has superior sounds than on Atari 7800 amongst other things. You can say which color scheme you prefer is subjective but not things that make the game superior to play. Robotron, taking the example being discussed, requires graphics to be more clearly discernible as the action is fast.

 

Yet some people on this board will argue that sound isn't important. Still subjective as to whether it makes the game "better". I suppose you can objectively compare sprite size in Robotron if you assume all other factors like screen size, seating distance, visual accuity are the same. But wether or not that makes the game "better" for any individual is still a matter of opinion. I still say debating whether or not one game port is better than another is a pointless waste of time. Thats all I have left to say on the matter.

 

See ya

 

Perry

[atariksi]

Once we agree that A8 versions are superior, we can move on to others.

 

You'll never get everyone to agree on which is "better" because it's too subjective. You can argue the technical points until you're blue in the face, but in the end, all that matters is which one YOU enjoy playing. Some will prefer the 7800, some the A8, some the NES, and so on.

 

These arguments of which is "better" are really just for people who like arguing. Jut my 2 cents.

 

Perry

 

There are objective things as well as subjective things in the games. It's objective that Donkey Kong on Atari 800 has superior sounds than on Atari 7800 amongst other things. You can say which color scheme you prefer is subjective but not things that make the game superior to play. Robotron, taking the example being discussed, requires graphics to be more clearly discernible as the action is fast.

 

Yet some people on this board will argue that sound isn't important. Still subjective as to whether it makes the game "better". I suppose you can objectively compare sprite size in Robotron if you assume all other factors like screen size, seating distance, visual accuity are the same. But wether or not that makes the game "better" for any individual is still a matter of opinion. I still say debating whether or not one game port is better than another is a pointless waste of time. Thats all I have left to say on the matter.

 

See ya

 

Perry

 

You can argue that the moon is made of green cheese but it remains a fact that sound helps improve gaming in general. You can find some games where sound doesn't make a difference, but the example of Donkey Kong is quite clear. I'm not trying to argue over any subjective points. I think for Donkey Kong, if the sound is repulsive, it would be better to not have sound. However, usually the sounds fit the game very well and it's a matter of which provides the higher quality sound. Similarly, for the graphics of Robotron.

[atariksi]

You should really read the thread before commenting.

 

You really should understand the 7800 at a technical level before commenting .

Technical details weren't being discussed; that's where kool-kitty was mistaken. Although, to determine which machine is superior, you can compare the hardware, the 7800 didn't really take advantage of its graphics capability in their games as Atari 800 didn't either.

 

Graphics crippled eh?

 

You can do an APAC like display (169 colours) at an effective resolution of 126 x 80 (X x Y) on a stock 7800 machine. With additional RAM on cart that increases to 160x80 which is twice the x resolution than the A8 can do.

APAC isn't as useful as noninterlaced modes. And amongst interlaced modes, the gray-scale interlacing is much more important as it has less flicker. I'm sure you can interlace an overscanned A8 GTIA modes as well with more than 169 colors and visual resolution of 176*240 and not need any RAM add-ons. I wrote one program that does every pixel is different color without using interlace which is impossible on A7800.

 

Cartridge hardware add-ons can be added to atari 800 as well.

 

The 7800 can place a 13 colour sprite on top of any 4 colour backgrounds or other sprites anywhere on screen. The 7800 can mix and match 13 colour graphics and 4 colour graphics in any way the programmer imagines given the limits of RAM or the bandwidth of MARIA. The 7800 can display 25 colours horizontally per scan line without programmer tricks.

I already granted you the sprites as that was the strong point, but you do lack a r/w frame buffer which restricts doing even simple games like Qix. But A8 sprites can be used as overlays/underlays by doing GPRIOR mode 0 and 4X zoom and you can get 41 colors/scanline at 160*240 w/o interlace.

 

In 320A mode (1BPP) MARIA can display its graphics using 8 palettes thus allowing 9 unique colours per scan line to be achieved without programmer tricks.

 

In 320B mode (2BPP) MARIA can display its graphics in 4 colours using 2 palettes thus allowing 7 unique colours per scan line to be achieved without programmer tricks.

 

Earlier Ataris were targetted for TVs color clock resolution so there's more tricks with ANTIC/GTIA at 160 modes than A7800 has. Although you can do the GPRIOR and overlay/underlay/artifacting tricks in 320+ mode, most games are just fine at 160+ mode. Lacking a frame buffer and ability of 6502 to move high res. graphics does cripple the Maria chip.

 

Their I/O system and OS is bare bones. Etc. Etc.

 

The 7800 doesn't have an OS. It has a BIOS which is used to identify the cart type 2600/7800 and on NTSC machines it puts up a logo and checks the cart signature. The BIOS is switched out of the memory map to allow games to boot.

Yeah, so that BIOS is a bare minimum OS compared to A8 so Koolkitty's comment about "better technology" is unfounded and false as overall A8 has more hardware advantages over A7800.

 

You've obviously missed the port of Tempest to the 7800 that I did from the BBC micro computer. Tempest usess a frame buffer which is constructed in cart RAM.

 

You're selling a RAM expansion with your game just like you would if Qix was implemented.

[atariksi]

Yeah - this is starting to get into the realm of arguing over whether or not shit is brown ...

 

Some people like to argue just for the saKe of arguing!

 

As far as I remember, you always make this unfounded statement in every discussion I have taken part that you have been involed as well. Give link as to where that point is being made.