Legacy versus ARM-based 2600 Game Development

[+Random Terrain]

11 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

If cheating is not the right term, what would be the right one?

 

I'm pretty sure it's shipoopi.

 

youtu.be/LOz2TSbmmhw

 

[+Andrew Davie]

9 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

If cheating is not the right term, what would be the right one?

I wasn't gonna comment on this thing... again... but yeah, "cheating" has implicit moral judgement written all over it. It's not the right word.

Personally I think the "problem" is making comparisons between games that use completely different technologies. Such comparisons are unfair and counter-productive. So, to me, it's nothing to do with the people writing the games on whatever platform they choose. It's all about people comparing (or more particular, judging) things that shouldn't be compared at all. It's like a 100 m race, where one guy is on a bicycle and the other is using a motorbike. The motorbike wins, and someone says "yeah, the motorbike guy is a better 100 m rider".  Someone else says "but... he cheated... he had a motor!".  And the point is that neither the guy on the bicycle or the motorbike are to "blame" here. It's the guy making the judgement that the motorbike guy is "better".  And it's the guy who says "but the motorbike guy cheated!".  It's actually those two guys who are the problem.

These days I refuse to participate in the process, which I think is detrimental, and that's all I have to say about that.

[+Karl G]

17 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

If cheating is not the right term, what would be the right one?

There's no term that encompasses everything. I believe @Octavio Pinho Bokel was just saying that games in a competition should be marked with not just the ROM size, but any hardware-assistance used to create them (e.g. Game Name 32K CDFJ+). I believe entries were marked as such in previous years. I definitely agree that the word "cheating" should not be brought into the discussion in any way, as it is inaccurate and disrespectful of the work of developers.

[+Andrew Davie]

1 minute ago, Karl G said:

There's no term that encompasses everything. I believe @Octavio Pinho Bokel was just saying that games in a competition should be marked with not just the ROM size, but any hardware-assistance used to create them (e.g. Game Name 32K CDFJ+). 

In my analogy, a competition is just those two guys trying to decide who's the best at 100 m and announcing a "winner".

 

[+splendidnut]

18 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said:

These days I refuse to participate in the process, which I think is detrimental, and that's all I have to say about that.

100% agree.

 

Time arguing would be better spent developing instead.

 

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I think this is all a matter of perspective.

 

E.g. the demo scene is very strict here. When coding for the 2600, even SC-RAM is considered cheating (see BANG demo). But the demo scene is all about competition.

 

For games this is different. By far the most of the customers definitely do not care. This has been expressed multiple times. So from the customer perspective, there is no cheating, because there is no competition.

 

However, some developers might thing different here if/when they are competing with other developers (for feedback, fame, sales...). And when it comes to awards, there definitely is competition. There the technology used can make a huge difference. And then a competition becomes completely unbalanced when different technologies are used. Especially because by far the most voters are customers, who do not care. That's the same in the demo scene. And that's why the demo scene is so strict.

 

I don't think there is a solution to it when it comes to awards. You would have to have an useless inflation of categories to make it fair. And I don't care if we call the use of extended technologies cheating or whatever. But IMO it needs a (neutral) name.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

27 minutes ago, Karl G said:

I believe @Octavio Pinho Bokel was just saying that games in a competition should be marked with not just the ROM size, but any hardware-assistance used to create them (e.g. Game Name 32K CDFJ+). 

That won't help much, as most people do not understand these details and their advantages. You would have to be a developer who knows them very well. Even many developers do not fall into this category.

 

It think "size" is a category anyone can understand. Everything beyond is probably too complicated. I once was more strict here, but I have learned that one can only expect so much from non-developers.

[+Andrew Davie]

12 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

But IMO it needs a (neutral) name.

The German language may have a similar idiom, or you may already be familiar with this English one... "comparing apples to oranges".

[+Andrew Davie]

[kisrael]

Yeah. It's all about proper categorization. And transparency. I might agree that "cheating" is weirdly loaded, but some of these things are such different styles of achievement (and to an outsider all look like "well just runs on an atari) that sometimes it's good to discuss how we should draw lines and do leaguing, so to speak.

 

Relevant: here's GTA 5 on a Gameboy

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/01/random-heres-gta-v-being-played-on-a-game-boy-yes-really

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

3 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said:

The German language may have a similar idiom, or you may already be familiar with this English one... "comparing apples to oranges".

Yes, apples and pears  is used over here.

 

And idea would be to give each game a technology rating. E.g. a 4K game, no extra RAM and no co-processor gets 100%. The same with doubled ROM space gets 141% (using square root of 2 here), doubled ROM with doubled RAM (SC-RAM) gets 182%. An effectively four times faster co-processor would double the rating. And so on. And then, to make things a bit simpler to understand, we could define ranges and put the games into these ranges. Then we would have class A, B, C... technology games. That's something everyone would understand.

 

But probably that's just overly complex thinking.  

[Albert]

8 minutes ago, kisrael said:

Relevant: here's GTA 5 on a Gameboy

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/01/random-heres-gta-v-being-played-on-a-game-boy-yes-really

I don't see how that's relevant at all.  He's streaming video to the Gameboy and simply using it for inputs.  It's just a dumb terminal at that point.

 

 ..Al

[Mr SQL]

4 hours ago, Octavio Pinho Bokel said:

After all this this discussion, my humble conclusion is:

I think most of us work with Atari games because is something that for some reason we enjoying doing, being because we consider an art, a challenge, because of the community or for reasons we cannot explain rationally...

It is impossible to everybody agree where a line should be draw, if DPC+ is considering "cheating", if should be another category on ZPH, etc...

The Silly Venture Retro Atari Art Contest answers this question by excluding any modern code and hardware requirements as modern art.

 

4 hours ago, Octavio Pinho Bokel said:

To give another example, my game is 4KB, but somebody might say am cheating by using git version control, Stella to run and debug the game, and having access to the internet and the community. Is there even a line?

We had version control in the 80's and access to the community online via email and forums and used Tron programs to find bugs, it was pretty similar. 

 

The demo scene is all about cheating the old hardware by coding to push the old hardware. We can't cheat and trick out the old hardware to the same degree without using the old hardware, so legacy development setups may have advantages over modern.

 

[Albert]

8 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

And idea would be to give each game a technology rating. E.g. a 4K game, no extra RAM and no co-processor gets 100%. The same with doubled ROM space gets 141% (using square root of 2 here), doubled ROM with doubled RAM (SC-RAM) gets 182%. An effectively four times faster co-processor would double the rating. And so on. And then, to make things a bit simpler to understand, we could define ranges and put the games into these ranges. Then we would have class A, B, C... technology games. That's something everyone would understand.

That sounds complicated to me.

 

 ..Al

[Thomas Jentzsch]

4 minutes ago, Albert said:

That sounds complicated to me.

The calculation, yes. These would be done by people who know the details.

 

But the result is a simple number or char. What's complicated there? E.g. we have energy efficiency categories ranging from A to F in the EU. Or a so called Nutri-Score from A to E for food. Very easy to understand. 

[+Andrew Davie]

8 minutes ago, Albert said:

That sounds complicated to me.

 

 ..Al

And some - well me -- would refuse to participate anyway.  How about we let WATA give games ratings not just for packaging, scratches, shrink wrap etc., but also for playability.  And put 'em in an inaccessible plastic case so we can all look at 'em and marvel at what great games and how playable they are.  90%!!! (puts box back on shelf)

[Thomas Jentzsch]

13 minutes ago, Albert said:

It's just a dumb terminal at that point.

Using a modern backend server -> class Z technology.  

[Thomas Jentzsch]

4 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said:

And some - well me -- would refuse to participate anyway.

Just like today. Makes no difference then.  

[+Karl G]

There are already 10 categories for Atari 2600 games as it is. I don't think multiplying that by 4 (or whatever number) would be remotely feasible.

 

However, I think the awards are still valuable even if they can't be made to be perfect by allowing for apples to apples comparisons of technology used. They are a review and celebration of that year's achievements in the homebrew community. Being declared the winner in a particular category is not the only beneficial outcome of the process. The homebrew awards can be imperfect, but still valuable for our community.

[Octavio Pinho Bokel]

1 hour ago, Karl G said:

There's no term that encompasses everything. I believe @Octavio Pinho Bokel was just saying that games in a competition should be marked with not just the ROM size, but any hardware-assistance used to create them (e.g. Game Name 32K CDFJ+).

I used the word "cheated" in quotes as a reference to the beginning of the thread. It is exciting new barriers being broken and explore new possibilities, and to be sincere, I have great admiration for what is being done. What I said in a very short summary:

You do you, everything is fine! Categorising is a very hard work and impossible to get a consensus, and I could not care less. I just think information and transparency is nice and helps to better appreciate this art form in particular!

 

21 minutes ago, Karl G said:

However, I think the awards are still valuable even if they can't be made to be perfect by allowing for apples to apples comparisons of technology used. They are a review and celebration of that year's achievements in the homebrew community. Being declared the winner in a particular category is not the only beneficial outcome of the process. The homebrew awards can be imperfect, but still valuable for our community.

Agreed! For me it could even be just one category if all details are given. No award will ever be perfect, since art is always subjective, most of the time you will not agree with an outcome. Considering that, I think ZPH is as good as it can be and their work is amazing! We should be grateful that people actually care about our work

Edited January 31, 2022 by Octavio Pinho Bokel

[kisrael]

2 hours ago, Albert said:

I don't see how that's relevant at all.  He's streaming video to the Gameboy and simply using it for inputs.  It's just a dumb terminal at that point.

Right. That's what this whole conversation is about! Atari 2600 offers certain more challenges to becoming a dumb terminal, but if we have some hackers putting entire movies like Star Wars into a cart? Maybe something that physically fits into a cart can't do GTA5 but certainly one of the GTA3 series, given that it plays easily on cheap mobile devices now. 

 

We are very close to a hypothetical tech that merges Star Wars cart "display whatever image you want, the atari is a dumb terminal" and "hey even small cheap hardware (that fits in a cart) can run GTA3" and we are asking, is there an ability to recognize that (astounding!) hardware achievement against an (also astounding but in different ways!) vanilla 4K ROM that bleeds every last cycle and breaks new ground on the 2600? 

 

It's absolutely a spectrum of achievement. Shades of gray. No one is "cheating" because the hardware and software hackers are playing different metagames, but we don't have the common framework to keep each to its lane and then compare games against their reasonable peers. 

[+Gemintronic]

Can barely make heads or tails of this topic.  But, since this is the Internet, I'll chip in anyway!

 

In my mind there is:

* Generic bank switching and SARA RAM

* Co-processor Enhanced where some or most of the game loop is in an on cart CPU

 

Just two categories in my mind.  Each technically challenging in their own way.

 

I personally don't care which looks better.  I care about ease of development and manufacturing.

[Keatah]

As an end-user consumer, whatever fits in the slot is a-ok. Provided it isn't a pass-through device.

[+batari]

Isn't "cheating" basically defined as breaking rules, breaching a contract or failing to honor a commitment? Of these, the only one that applies here is "breaking rules."

 

Of course, when there are defined rules (such as in the demo scene) then yes, using an ARM would be breaking those rules. Outside of that, are there really any defined rules, and who makes them? I think there not only aren't any rules, there isn't even a general consensus as to what the rules should be.

 

I found some attempts to define rules are (from strict to permissive):

1. You can't use hardware that wasn't actually used in an actual cartridge during the commercial life of the console.
2. You can use hardware that wasn't used in an actual cartridge, but you can't use hardware that wasn't physically available within the commercial life of the console.
3. You can use hardware that wasn't physically available, but you can't use hardware that wasn't economically reproducible within the commercial life of the console.
4. You can use hardware that wasn't economically reproducible, but you can't use hardware that wasn't theoretically reproducible within the commercial life of the console.
5. You can use any hardware you like, but you can't use the console merely as a video driver for the hardware.
6. You can use the console merely as a video driver for the hardware, as long as it's not merely using the console as a bitmapped/raster "video card."
7. You can use the hardware as a bitmapped/raster "video card" but you can't use any hardware that bypasses console hardware and goes directly to video output.
8. You can do anything you want as long as it plugs into the console and produces video through the actual cabling of the console.
9. You don't even need a console, it can be emulator only, it just needs to have a similar feel to the original console.

So unless most agree on a specific, general rule, there is no way to say ARM use is "cheating," is there?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

22 minutes ago, batari said:

Isn't "cheating" basically defined as breaking rules, breaching a contract or failing to honor a commitment? Of these, the only one that applies here is "breaking rules."

I think we already agreed that "cheating" is not the right term here.

Quote

Of course, when there are defined rules (such as in the demo scene) then yes, using an ARM would be breaking those rules. Outside of that, are there really any defined rules, and who makes them? I think there not only aren't any rules, there isn't even a general consensus as to what the rules should be.

 

I found some attempts to define rules are (from strict to permissive):

1. You can't use hardware that wasn't actually used in an actual cartridge during the commercial life of the console.
2. You can use hardware that wasn't used in an actual cartridge, but you can't use hardware that wasn't physically available within the commercial life of the console.
3. You can use hardware that wasn't physically available, but you can't use hardware that wasn't economically reproducible within the commercial life of the console.
4. You can use hardware that wasn't economically reproducible, but you can't use hardware that wasn't theoretically reproducible within the commercial life of the console.
5. You can use any hardware you like, but you can't use the console merely as a video driver for the hardware.
6. You can use the console merely as a video driver for the hardware, as long as it's not merely using the console as a bitmapped/raster "video card."
7. You can use the hardware as a bitmapped/raster "video card" but you can't use any hardware that bypasses console hardware and goes directly to video output.
8. You can do anything you want as long as it plugs into the console and produces video through the actual cabling of the console.
9. You don't even need a console, it can be emulator only, it just needs to have a similar feel to the original console.

So unless most agree on a specific, general rule, there is no way to say ARM use is "cheating," is there?

I suppose everyone has his own rule when the line is crossed here. Maybe even one that's not listed. 

 

But your list nicely shows the problem. As soon as you go beyond 1. you go into arbitrary territory. Many are drawing the line around 4 or 5. But that's as arbitrary as drawing the line at 2 or somewhere even beyond 9. 

 

So, by which non-arbitrary rule is a game following rule 9 not a legit Atari 2600 game?