Lynxpro Posted June 16, 2018 Share Posted June 16, 2018 I think most Atari 8-bit owners/fans felt this way back in the 80's. I know I did. But I also knew back then the 8-bit could do it all as good or better, if given half a chance, as titles made for the Atari first, like the Lucasfilm games, Alternate Reality The City, Synapse greats like Encounter. I knew back then it was due to a small user base compared to other platforms, ad in rampant piracy and the few games we did get in the second half of the 80's were quick and careless ports much of the time. But the wait was worth it for all the SUPERIOR versions of the games being released for it now. And I don't give a damn about arguments like "well the C64 can do it in 64K and Atari needs extended memory"...so? "Or, development had no dead-lines so they can be better," true or not, I've now got the better version and that's all that matters. I'm glad I have a computer where the community DOES upgrade and support upgrades. Just proof my computer is superior because it is upgradeable. Have fun with your "superior" SID chip and extra sprites C64 fans, I'd rather have fun with my DUAL Pokey stereo upgrade. And yes, I'm aware there are other sound options besides SID for the C64 now too. I could go on and on with the different aspects. The Atari just happens to be superior in ways I prefer, and the C64 superior in ways that I don't care as much about, or not superior enough for me to care too much (like SID vs. POKEY argument). It fits like a glove for me. Even all the tricks we can use for more colorful graphics, I'm an artist, and for my kind of graphics, the Atari is the superior medium (like Rastaconverter Pictures and HIP/TIP modes). I really like the C64 too, and think it's great too, the next best thing to an 8-bit Atari. Now in the 16-bit world, I'll take an Amiga over ST any day of the week. But ST is great too, it's just a reverse of the C64 vs. 800/XL/XE arguments along company lines. Jay Miner's computer just win in both cases IMHO. Maybe the current A8 and C64 modding communities should share info more for the benefit of both. There are C64 enthusiasts adding features to existing games too. There's a couple of websites I stumbled upon dedicated to supporting 4-Joystick Port adapters. I don't think Dual SID support is as common in the modern homebrews as Dual POKEY is on A8 although they have stuff like the C64 Reloaded mobo that does offer Dual SID. Very few C64 games support that Yamaha sound chip cartridge Commodore produced; if I recall, the chip is related to the Yamaha chip used in the AdLib PC audio cards. It's too bad there aren't working AMYs out there or a plentiful supply of Quad POKEYs. And it seems like A8 does a much better job supporting 128K RAM - and higher - versus the C64 folks. [they forget about the C128 like they forget about Dre]. As for the comment about the Amiga vs. the ST, I'll take GEM over WorkBench any day, and GEM on the ST rules because of A8 folks like Landon Dyer. Amigans also tend to forget about the STe, and they conveniently forget about the Falcon030. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted June 16, 2018 Share Posted June 16, 2018 I'm only surprised nobody yet mentioned StunRunner. That game would work just fine with the visual style of SCR (e.g. wireframe + occasional flatshading when crossing horizon). In theory, could you port over some of the 6502 code from the Lynx version? Assuming the gaming logic doesn't require a 6502 clocked higher than 1.79Mhz or any of the Lynx's blitter and FPU abilities. Obviously, the Lynx's graphics and sound couldn't be used and would have to use the C64 stuff or native stuff. Hmmm...that made me think of the hypothetical process of porting A8 and/or C64 titles [or even PC Engine ones] to the Lynx. I guess the Lynx platform needs its own Cyrano Jones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted June 16, 2018 Share Posted June 16, 2018 In theory, could you port over some of the 6502 code from the Lynx version? Assuming the gaming logic doesn't require a 6502 clocked higher than 1.79Mhz or any of the Lynx's blitter and FPU abilities. Obviously, the Lynx's graphics and sound couldn't be used and would have to use the C64 stuff or native stuff. Other than logic for menus and H.U.D. (which is not much help, compared to the amount of the engine work), no - not really. The collision detection, input, camera, shooting and AI, it all has to be tightly coupled with the engine (some things are faster in world-space, some in clip-space, some can be somewhat approximated into a simple integer range), you can't have several layers of indirection/translation (e.g. due to mixing 2 different engines) on 1.79 MHz CPU or the performance goes down the drain. I take it you're a Lynx fan ? I just checked out this YT vid for Lynx's StunRunner : The Outdoor levels are only about 30 scanlines, so that's easily 12-15 fps on A800 in that polycount. The Tunnel, however, is fullscreen and has 7 layers of 12 quads - that would definitely have to be approximated in some other way to avoid dips to <5 fps. Perhaps the tunnel would only be wireframe, not really flatshaded. Hell, even on Jaguar, I initially dropped down to mere 30 fps, when I was testing StunRunner's tunnel sections (though, granted, that was in 768x200). And even Arcade has visible framedrops in tunnels.... I just got an idea - Tunnels could have simply lower resolution, on A800 - it's easy to flip to a different display list. Tunnels could run at 80x48, and outdoor could run at 160x96. Halving the number of scanlines would drastically improve the framerate, due to high fixed cost of traversing each scanline (within the flatshader)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miker Posted June 16, 2018 Share Posted June 16, 2018 The Atari POKEY sounds harsh because the POKEY is fk'n Metal, and Metal comes from Hell! Sorry, had to slip in some Jack Black/Tenacious D there, which is still on-topic considering Jack Black was the kid in the Pitfall tv commercials. If this is your opinion then apparently POKEY is not for you. But thankfully some other guys claim otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted June 16, 2018 Share Posted June 16, 2018 The Atari POKEY sounds harsh because the POKEY is fk'n Metal, and Metal comes from Hell! Sorry, had to slip in some Jack Black/Tenacious D there, which is still on-topic considering Jack Black was the kid in the Pitfall tv commercials. If you say so. But, yes, people trim POKEY to sound like "Metal" while there is a basic metallic sound produced by POKEY. And while they were happy , doing so, the rest of POKEY music is not really "finishable". But I'm really happy with the latest results, using the available software... To mention that I used the "non-linear" Mixing active in Altirra. So the real thing even sounds better. But the linear mixing in any other POKEY emulation is also wrong. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted June 16, 2018 Share Posted June 16, 2018 EmKay should make all of these into demo compo disks for enjoyment and study... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 (edited) Maybe the current A8 and C64 modding communities should share info more for the benefit of both. There are C64 enthusiasts adding features to existing games too. There's a couple of websites I stumbled upon dedicated to supporting 4-Joystick Port adapters. I don't think Dual SID support is as common in the modern homebrews as Dual POKEY is on A8 although they have stuff like the C64 Reloaded mobo that does offer Dual SID. Very few C64 games support that Yamaha sound chip cartridge Commodore produced; if I recall, the chip is related to the Yamaha chip used in the AdLib PC audio cards. It's too bad there aren't working AMYs out there or a plentiful supply of Quad POKEYs. And it seems like A8 does a much better job supporting 128K RAM - and higher - versus the C64 folks. [they forget about the C128 like they forget about Dre]. As for the comment about the Amiga vs. the ST, I'll take GEM over WorkBench any day, and GEM on the ST rules because of A8 folks like Landon Dyer. Amigans also tend to forget about the STe, and they conveniently forget about the Falcon030. I intend to get involved in the C64 community, as soon as I get one again. As far as the C128 and it's extra memory, I have always been under the impression that could be used only by the CP/M side of the computer, and in C64 mode it is still restricted to 64K. Is this not true? I'd certainly be more excited about the C64 if it extended memory was possible, even if little used. I mean, being a hardware guy, there's always a way to give any 6502 machine more extended memory with bank-switching of some type, but has anyone ever done it for the C64? Do pre-made or DIY guides exist to do such an upgrade? I've owned every model of ST, STe, Mega STe and also the Falcon, The Amiga I owned was a 2000, with a major memory upgrade and an 030 expansion board,etc., basically fully loaded. They are great computers and I agree, Gem is better than Workbench, but I'm a Jay Miner fan, so if I had to choose, (not including the Falcon) I'd choose Amiga over ST if I decided to own one again. Edited June 17, 2018 by Gunstar 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 TT030, Amiga, and Falcon030, anything less is close to a felony ... well sort of... a modded STe avoids being a misdemeanor ... all stf fm and mega's needed the memory upped and the sound mods as well as the graphics updates... Anyhow back the the best and most solid machines I ever owned the Atari 8 bits... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 In theory, could you port over some of the 6502 code from the Lynx version? Assuming the gaming logic doesn't require a 6502 clocked higher than 1.79Mhz or any of the Lynx's blitter and FPU abilities. Obviously, the Lynx's graphics and sound couldn't be used and would have to use the C64 stuff or native stuff. Hmmm...that made me think of the hypothetical process of porting A8 and/or C64 titles [or even PC Engine ones] to the Lynx. I guess the Lynx platform needs its own Cyrano Jones. As done some a8 to lynx work... not having looked into the code yet but I might say it would be easier than thought. But lynx is 64k not 128k. But if ram is used to load menu etc thats easy on lynx as the cart is a big hdd. Sprite hardware can be used to Blitt the car. Line drawing needs to be adapted to nibble mode and not 4 col bitmap. Not sure if SC uses char mode for fast filling etc. FPU of course in maths. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 As done some a8 to lynx work... not having looked into the code yet but I might say it would be easier than thought. Well, the Lynx already has Stunrunner Not sure if SC uses char mode for fast filling etc. The tunnel portion looks to be char mode - it only has few variations. FPU of course in maths. Lynx's CoProcessor is really nice - free parallel 16-bit multiply and div, like on Pentium ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 Yeah used the FPU for my 3D routines on my lynx demos... why not parallel is ok but blocks blitting sprites but helps preparing rot matrix and edge tables 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 So, in your experience, is the lynx's fpu real-time enough to stop using precomputed tables for mul/div? I wasn't able to quickly find the latency of lynx's FPU, so unsure how long it takes for div/mul - which is kinda important... In other words - is the StunRunner there truly real-time computed, without such tables ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 Sure. Faster imho than with fastmul even you have 4mhz 6502 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 (edited) I never understood the hype about Test Drive. It had pretty pictures of fast cars but the "game" ......seriously....it felt like 1 or 2 frames per second....the grapihics were lousy on any system and IMHO it was Unplayable.I agree the game was mostly not good. I think the hype was mostly because it had the alure of actual brand name cars. And in the BC lower mainland (Canada), it was cool because my dad told me it was modeled after the sea to sky highway to squamish & whistler... I have no way to confirm that.... But here's a lousy old slideshow of the highway, almost the same frame rate as the game. you can draw the parellels. The sea to sky highway was largely the same until it was finally twinned for the 2010 olympics. https://youtu.be/JzoauPdsndM It ranks very high on various most dangerous highway lists. Perfect video game inspiration! Edited June 17, 2018 by Nezgar 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 The sea to sky highway was largely the same until it was finally twinned for the 2010 olympics. It ranks very high on various most dangerous highway lists. Nice piece of road! But what exactly is dangerous there?!? I watched the whole vid, and except the middle broken section, it looks comfortably driveable in the range of 130-180 km/h. Though, I suspect the traffic these days will be mighty worse than in '60s, so one could probably fully enjoy such drive only around 3-4 am... Perfect video game inspiration! More like a great weekend drive! As a game, not even ST could pull it off in a reasonable quality. Jaguar just might... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 The way, Test Drive works, it could be done with up to 50(60) fps on the Atari... in high resolution, where the faster updates would take their needed place and get visible on the screen. Depending on some objects with a lower resolution, 20fps would do fine. Most of the graphics could be solved with just vertical arrangements (just x pos. calculation) of the PM Graphics. Also, hires character mode would be fast enough to show moving objects. The Amiga version really could have been at 50(60) fps, if the coders used the hardware righteous, and not that lame ST to Amiga conversions... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 (edited) Nice piece of road! But what exactly is dangerous there?!? I watched the whole vid, and except the middle broken section, it looks comfortably driveable in the range of 130-180 km/h. Though, I suspect the traffic these days will be mighty worse than in '60s, so one could probably fully enjoy such drive only around 3-4 am... Yeah, low visibility of oncoming traffic when passing on the curves is probably the main problem. I personally despised driving it at night, and in Vancouver it rains a lot which really strains the eyes at night. Easy to go too fast on some tight turns, I almost hit the side barriers one time going too fast on one corner... and yes too much traffic as years went on, so more people taking risks to pass slower vehicles. Edited June 17, 2018 by Nezgar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 Yeah, low visibility of oncoming traffic when passing on the curves is probably the main problem. I personally despised driving it at night, and in Vancouver it rains a lot which really strains the eyes at night. Easy to go too fast on some tight turns, I almost hit the side barriers one time going too fast on one corner... and yes too much traffic as years went on, so more people taking risks to pass slower vehicles. Driving this every day, especially tired at night&rain is quite drastic -in my country we have lots and lots of places like this - with basically identical terrain, where road is high above the river, but right into the rock. Also a highly likely place to be involved in a 200 km.h crash, even if you're driving just 50 kmh... It would, like you say, make for a great driving game, with permadeath and a proper physics model (not just simple arcade physics), where you could drive off the cliff... The way, Test Drive works, it could be done with up to 50(60) fps on the Atari... in high resolution, where the faster updates would take their needed place and get visible on the screen. Depending on some objects with a lower resolution, 20fps would do fine. Most of the graphics could be solved with just vertical arrangements (just x pos. calculation) of the PM Graphics. Also, hires character mode would be fast enough to show moving objects. 60 fps for TestDrive ? You couldn't update full screen at that framerate, so only small portions would be updated - which is only possible when you go forward and don't go left/right - so perhaps for 1-2 seconds, as the game constantly changes elevation, throws curves. But yes, with 1 MB of extended RAM, you could have all charsets prerendered for all combinatinos, and just keep switching banks at run-time. Not on 64 or 128 KB, for sure... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted June 18, 2018 Share Posted June 18, 2018 60 fps for TestDrive ? You couldn't update full screen at that framerate, so only small portions would be updated - which is only possible when you go forward and don't go left/right - so perhaps for 1-2 seconds, as the game constantly changes elevation, throws curves. But yes, with 1 MB of extended RAM, you could have all charsets prerendered for all combinatinos, and just keep switching banks at run-time. Not on 64 or 128 KB, for sure... One charset for hires and one charset for color mode should be enough Changing the content of some chars will solve most details and variations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandyFemrite Posted September 25, 2018 Share Posted September 25, 2018 Would love to see this on the Jaguar. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted September 25, 2018 Share Posted September 25, 2018 Would love to see this on the Jaguar. Hello Randy! It must be 15 years now since I've seen you around the Atari scene! Welcome back! Do you still have a Battlesphere license plate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miker Posted September 25, 2018 Share Posted September 25, 2018 IMHO it's in the works. See Jaguar section @ AtariAge forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted September 25, 2018 Share Posted September 25, 2018 Would love to see this on the Jaguar. Wow - welcome back. It's been ported to the Jaguar (from the ST). There was recently a high score competition for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandyFemrite Posted September 25, 2018 Share Posted September 25, 2018 Yes, but not on my car anymore. Now it reads “ERIKSDAD” 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
popmilo Posted September 28, 2018 Share Posted September 28, 2018 As far as the C128 and it's extra memory, I have always been under the impression that could be used only by the CP/M side of the computer, and in C64 mode it is still restricted to 64K. Is this not true? I'd certainly be more excited about the C64 if it extended memory was possible, even if little used. I mean, being a hardware guy, there's always a way to give any 6502 machine more extended memory with bank-switching of some type, but has anyone ever done it for the C64? Do pre-made or DIY guides exist to do such an upgrade? Think I remember well that my brother used extra ram in c128 to put Turbo loader, proffi assembler and other usefull stuff in kind of Ram-disk in upper 64Kb of c128. All this from c64 mode. It would even survive reset. So we loaded turbo+stuff into memory and didn't turn off computer for days Think it all works using MMU register that is visible in c64 mode too and some lower part of memory that is visible in all configurations. For c64, the only memory upgrade that is kind of standard is REU series. https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/REU 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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