How powerful was the Creativision?

[JamesD]

The AY supports a greater frequency range and has more features for different sounds than the SN chip. That doesn't guarantee you'll get better results.

[Jakandsig]

Ahh finally a fully informative Creativision page. This is great stuff.

[Mobsie]

Yes, come to http://www.madrigaldesign.it/forum/

and look on what games we are working. Take a look at our extended Basic. The CV time is just at the beginning!

Edited December 28, 2013 by Mobsie

[Austin]

Yes, come to http://www.madrigaldesign.it/forum/

 

Be careful what you wish for.

[Mobsie]

i don`t understand what you mean.

[Austin]

i don`t understand what you mean.

 

It's ok. Based on who posted above you, a few others here will.

[Mobsie]

Wow what an intelligent statement!

I find the Troll, where is my Price?

[microprocessor]

 

that's the opposite in Fact 6502 have less instructions.

 

The Creativision was quite powerfull for its time. It is extremely similar to the colecovision but with a 6502. But no comparable to a 7800 .

 

 

Having programmed both processors i can tell you that a 3.5Mhz z80 is faster than a 6502 @1Mhz. All depends on situations but you can get from 30% to 200% more (!) on a z80.

A common mistake is that z80 is faster because of higher clock. That's not true. the z80 need a faster clock and is designed to have a faster clock. In other words, having a 6502 @1Mhz is quite usual like having a z80 @ 3.5Mhz. Where the z80 gains speed is related to the architecture. the ability to perform limited 16 operations, the register oriented approach (that is nowadays the better approach), some block search operations make the difference. Plus the less limited ability to address the entire range of 64KBytes.

So, one can think the creativision was not more powered than coleco. But to have a full idea we need to take others aspects into consideration.

Take for example the c64: the c64 processor is a 6502 alike cpu, running @ 1Mhz is a very slow CPU if we look only at pure computational power. But this CPU is coupled with a very (for the time) advanced hw both in gfx and sound. So it can make things that are simply *not possible* in others machines like coleco, msx, speccy etc.

To summarize: The hardware features on gfx and sound weight a lot and it's not only a pure comparison of cpu type and clock speed.

Is the creativision cpu clocked @2mhz faster than a 3.5mhz z80? Probably yes, in a wide range of situations.

Is the creativision more powerfull than coleco in the average? probably yes due to the 2Mhz cpu, ma this is not a key factor, because the weakness of coleco is not the cpu. It's the VDP.

The main limits of TMS video chip are:

- Lack of hw scroll

- Very slow (in mode I and II) vram access, not only because of the need to set VRAM address, but also for the low bandwidth imposed by VDP/DRAM

- Limited sprites capabilities, (the scanline limit)

So you can have even a Intel i7 processor instead of a 6502 or z80, but if you talk with vdp the speed of a blit move is rougly the same. you need to wait 8us between a vram I/O and the next. (Un active area)

What can do a 6502@2Mhz to solve the vdp limits? a little to nothing.

To better understand, let's take a look of Sega SG-1000 hw: it's basically the same of coleco. Same CPU, VDP, SOUND capabilities, but simply changing the VDP with a more advanced one, make a true difference in Sega master system model. (go on you tube and take a look on SMS games)

[DracIsBack]

"Powerful" is kind of a generic catch all term, but it was a lot closer to the machines that followed it (NES, SMS, 7800) than the consoles like the 2600, Odyssey 2 and Intellivision. In my opinion, the biggest things that would have prevented it from competing in the post crash era were its limited color palette and the lack of hardware assisted scrolling.

 

Homebrewers have done some pretty cool stuff with it!

[+Psionic]

Stone Age: Pengo, more or less

Does anyone in the CreatiVision collector scene own the box for this game? I've looked around, but can't find a scan of it anywhere.

 

Curiously, VTech ported this game to the 2600, intending to release it under their TechnoVision brand...

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/67442-stone-age-cce/?do=findComment&comment=2894451

[carlsson]

Not sure. Me neither haven't seen any box but I forwarded your question to the others.

[+Psionic]

Not sure. Me neither haven't seen any box but I forwarded your question to the others.

I would've just asked myself, but I don't feel like joining that site just to ask one question. If you find anyone who has the box or any other information about that game, please let me know. Tak.

[MADrigal]

No boxes of Stone Age for CreatiVision surfaced yet.

 

A friend of mine knows a guy who owns the boxed game, but never sent me the pictures so far. How sad.

Edited January 10, 2014 by MADrigal