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STe 4096 color game + 8bit Digital sound


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Hi Guys, we at RPC-Games have both an Amiga 500+HD and Atari 1040 STe + 30Mb Megafile.

 

We ran a few comparisons on both machines, both sound and graphics.

 

We know the Amiga 500 has many graphics modes and in standard mode 320x256 PAL maximum

colours is 64, that's 32 real colours and 1 shade of the 32 colours but still 64 colours.

Games are quite impressive but most of them only used the 320x200 32 colour mode.

 

We ran a few games on the 1040 STe and wasn't impressed. 16 colours on screen only except for some

which had raster interrupts to create more colours for the backgrounds.

 

Then we ran a graphics test and the Amiga has HAM mode. 4096 colours on screen at once.

We loaded a few high quality pics and very nice indeed, except for the interlaced screens.

Their was a little flicker there but that's what interlaced screens are.

 

Then we ran a few 4096 colour pics on the 1040 STe and yes, very impressed. Obviously picture programmers

used some kind of screen mixing to get all the 4096 colours on screen at once but overall very impressive.

 

Sound test and we couldn't really her any difference. Both use 4 channel .MOD Tracker programs and really

sounded the same played through a HI-FI system, not monitor speakers.

 

Anyway, what I'm asking is this: Is their any games for the STe that use 4096 colour screens and digital sounds.

 

Most of the games we have is for the ST and they are pretty basic when comes to sound. Atari could have put in

a better sound chip, but anyway if you know of any games for the STe that uses 4096 colour pics + digital sound

please let me know.

 

Thanks guys

 

Steve

RPC-Games!

 

 

 

 

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Leavin terramis uses tricks to up the color count. Just not during in game action though. It also "shows"that chip tunes on the ST(E) don't have to be that bad at all. Enchanted lands is another one that uses tricks to get more colors (just not 4096). Basicly, check the whole Thalion / Eclipse library of games for the in general more technical advanced games on the ST/STE.

 

As for 4096 colors in game action I don't think you'll find any.. or maybe some puzzle game as those modes are or used to be (there has been some new developments in the demoscene lately) not very usable for action games and from what I understand they do eat up some CPU time.

 

As for the sound, in theory the STE can produce better quality sound then the Amiga, but it costs quite a lot of CPU time as the 68000 has to do all the calcultaions that are needed for playing mods.

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I'm not aware of any games on the Amiga OCS that use 4096 colors in-game. I think the maximum anyone's hit is possibly around 512 colors -- with a few sitting in the 200-ish range (see Vital Light).

 

So I wouldn't expect the Ste to be cranking out 4096 in-game colors. HAM on the Amiga is pretty much just for still images, and I'm guessing that'd be the case for 4096-color images on the STe as well.

 

A 1MB Amiga 500 and an Atari 1040 STe are a pretty close match. The A500 has the advantage of a 32-color mode +EHB and the STe has enhanced joystick ports and MIDI included.

 

Currently, I'm running both systems at the same time.

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The problem is those modes on the ST use ginormous of CPU time, right?

depend how much time do you want to change palette in one scanline.

if you change it 3 times than you will get 48 colors per scanline but CPU will be almost left without any free cycles.

 

some of ST games change palette once per screen to have separate 16 colors for action and for game menu/statistic... (like in Thalions AmberStar).

 

Here you have comparison of Obsession pinball game on STe vs Amiga 500:

STe have 64 colors for pinball table and Amiga 128!

 

For Amiga 500 I know that "Universe" use around 256 colors (http://www.mobygames.com/game/universe)

Edited by calimero
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4096 colors are achieved with heavy CPU usage and very accurate timing. Normal screen on STE is still with 16 colors. only palette is bigger/finer.

 

It would be interesting to compare video playback. I saw few Amiga recordings, and most was not good quality, + was done with higher models.

That needs of course fast mass storage.

http://atari.8bitchip.info/movpst.php

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The Blitter just moves stuff around in RAM (and can do some time-saving operations on the blocks of graphics that it works on). Apparently a blitter can move raw data around and isn't just restricted to graphics data.

 

Graphics modes and palettes are assigned separately.

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As for the sound, in theory the STE can produce better quality sound then the Amiga, but it costs quite a lot of CPU time as the 68000 has to do all the calcultaions that are needed for playing mods.

 

Guess that would've been a good argument to push for 68881 - or 68882 - math co-processors to be added to the STe. There is a MOD player for the Falcon [which obviously came out years later] that will use a 68882 - if detected - to assist with the DSP's playback. Granted, most of us ST owners said - considering how long it took the STe to arrive - that Atari Corp should've packed it with a 16Mhz 68000 standard - if not a 68010 or 68020 - a 32 color mode or better to match the Amiga, and an 8MB or better expansion capability. The lack of GDOS included in TOS was also a gripe, as well as the lack of true multitasking [which was delayed because of Atari Corp's insistence on pre-emptive multitasking which the 68000 lacked and then Atari Corp abandoned plans to use the 68020 which could've delivered it].

 

Perhaps negotiations with Sega over marketing the Genesis delayed the STe's development.

 

It would be nice if there were hacks done to port the Amiga graphics/sound of various games over to the STe/TT/Falcon.

 

It's a shame Atari Corp didn't push for developers to support the Enhanced Controller Ports and to push for use of MIDI for network gaming post-MIDI Maze.

Edited by Lynxpro
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I kinda doubt the better sound than Amiga thing. If plugging the register with CPU then ST could do it faster but Amiga can do it something like 56 K/sec which is plenty and in hardware.

Plus it's got 4 channels and the volume trick can be used to give 14 bit effective resolution by combining the channel pairs.

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Considering DMA audio by STE: it is used in many later games, for instance Magic Boy. Audio quality self is certainly very close - both are 8-bit.

But Amiga's 4 independent channel system is much better for games.. On the other side, it eats much more RAM, so no wonder that % of games needing min 1MB RAM is bigger on Amiga.

 

Nobody mentioned HW scrolling in STE, and it is used in later games too. Furthermore, some people updates old games with it today :)

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RAM use for audio will depend if it's straight up samples or waveforms - plus Amiga has the advantage of variable sampling rate.

More channels doesn't necessarily mean more memory needed - you can equally use a given sample for all 4 voices or just one.

There is the limiting factor of chip-RAM though - ST RAM tends to be available for anything where Amiga has the limitation for Agnus but it does mean the remaining RAM has no DMA steals.

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Hi Guys, I'm starting to understand more on the Ste now. Thanks for that.

 

Does the Ste have an 8 channel tracker like the Amiga? The Amiga has Octamed Pro which can play 8 samples at once

but you can hear the drop in sound quality. I'm guessing 2 samples are mixed together on one channel in a sample buffer

and then played out through one of the sound channels, that's why theirs 4 left channels and 4 right channels.

 

Steve

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There are trackers for the ST(e) that can use more than 8 channels. Great for just playing/creating music but for in game music (unless it's a non CPU intensive game) it's not very usefull.

Here you will find most trackers available. Hextracker is the newest thing and can do 16 channels on STE. .

 

http://dhs.nu/files.php?t=digieditor

Great list but it doesn't state which of the Falcon .mod players have the ability to use a 68882 if installed...

 

My bad. It's FalcAMP and obviously for MP3 playback. A 68882 will improve performance by 150% according to the software's homepage.

 

I wonder how many games would actually improve performance by adding FPU support. Some have said in the past titles like Starglider.

Edited by Lynxpro
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