Legacy versus ARM-based 2600 Game Development

[+batari]

1 minute ago, RevEng said:

Fair observation. Arbitrary is perhaps too strong a word, but choosing "hobby friendly" physical release in the age of rom downloads and flash carts isn't anywhere near the requirement end of the scale either. It's a constraint that doesn't need to exist and isn't universal, but rather selected.

My own personal "why bother messing around with it" point in this hobby is this "new age" you are talking about. If we get to the point of nothing but digital releases and releasing a games a cart is no longer a thing, that's about the time when I am done. Fortunately, I think there is still a lot of air in that balloon, though.

[RevEng]

I feel the same too - if I can't have a cart up on my shelf as an end-trophy, or if nobody wants to play the old way, then I won't bother - but lots of devs and players seem to be interested in that direction. I guess we all have our lines that others don't agree with.

[kisrael]

Interesting data point... I was reading "Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon" and they mentioned

Quote

In 1983, Electronic Games magazine awarded GCC's Atari 2600 version of Ms. Pac-Man the Videogame of the Year award for console games with less than 16K of memory

So that caught my eye in terms of this convo...
http://www.digitpress.com/library/magazines/electronic_games/electronic_games_jan84.pdf is the magazine in question, it's a division for "Videogame of the Year" and "Best Videogame Audio/Visual Effects" and in practice seems to split Atari from Colecovision.

So at least for some things, even back in the day they were thinking about achievements based on arbitrary techie limitations that you wouldn't expect non-techies to be aware of.

(The divisions are a little weird. Miner 2049er was so dominant they made up a new category for it ("Electronic Game of the Year"). Then there's "Videogame Division" (console), "Computer Game Division" and then a combined "Videogame Computer Game Division" with some different awards, and then "Coin-Op Games Division" (arcade) and "Stand-Alone Game Division" (handheld/tabletop))

[bigmessowires]

With apologies for resurrecting an old thread... In the 5th Annual Homebrew Awards discussion, I suggested that the existing categories weren't an apples-to-apples comparison, because games using drastically different eras of technology were lumped into the same category. I was politely asked not to talk about it there because the topic was controversial and had already been covered - presumably a reference to this thread.

 

Having read all the posts since the 4th Annual awards, I didn't see any controversy over the idea that "legacy" games should be treated differently from "modern" games somehow. Yes there were plenty of different ideas about how exactly to define those terms, and whether more award categories were needed, or a technology rating to accompany the ROM size descriptions, or something else. But the basic idea did not seem controversial. In the absence of consensus after the 4th awards, it seems that ZPH chose not to change anything regarding this issue for this year's 5th awards. But since ZPH administers the awards, I'd propose they just pick whatever solution they feel is best for comparing games using similar degrees of technology assistance, under the premise that any solution is better than nothing. Too late for this year, but an idea to consider for 2024.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 hour ago, bigmessowires said:

Having read all the posts since the 4th Annual awards...

Please read all posts in this thread.

 

And then search for the numerous previous threads about the same topic.

Edited February 7, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+splendidnut]

5 hours ago, bigmessowires said:

But since ZPH administers the awards, I'd propose they just pick whatever solution they feel is best for comparing games using similar degrees of technology assistance, under the premise that any solution is better than nothing.

That's what HAS already been done, hence, the 4k category.... which you seem to disagree with.

 

[bigmessowires]

On 2/7/2023 at 12:10 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Please read all posts in this thread.

 

And then search for the numerous previous threads about the same topic.

I don't want to be difficult, but I spent quite a while searching through both Google and Atari Age's search function, and this is the only relevant thread I found with specific discussion of potential changes to the Homebrew Awards categories, to help address this issue. If I've missed others then I apologize. I think it was your recent suggestion to include a "technology rating", which sounds helpful to me.

 

On 2/7/2023 at 3:28 AM, splendidnut said:

That's what HAS already been done, hence, the 4k category.... which you seem to disagree with.

Yes the 4K category is a nod in this direction. A 4K ROM probably doesn't use coprocessor technology (unless I'm wrong?), but an 8K or 16K ROM maybe would or wouldn't... so the ROM size criteria doesn't seem like it solves the problem well.

 

TL;DNR - I'm personally interested in seeing what kinds of games people have been able to make without the use of coprocessor technology. Right now I don't think there's any easy way for me to find those, since there's no separate category for them, and the info isn't part of the game descriptions either. I would appreciate a way to find these games and judge them against each other. That is all.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

15 minutes ago, bigmessowires said:

TL;DNR - I'm personally interested in seeing what kinds of games people have been able to make without the use of coprocessor technology. Right now I don't think there's any easy way for me to find those, since there's no separate category for them, and the info isn't part of the game descriptions either. I would appreciate a way to find these games and judge them against each other. That is all.

Again, ask Stella (ALT+L). Anything DPC+ and CDF(J)(+) is using the ARM copro.

[+splendidnut]

9 minutes ago, bigmessowires said:

TL;DNR - I'm personally interested in seeing what kinds of games people have been able to make without the use of coprocessor technology. Right now I don't think there's any easy way for me to find those, since there's no separate category for them, and the info isn't part of the game descriptions either. I would appreciate a way to find these games and judge them against each other. That is all.

The majority of games are made without co-processer technology.  VERY few people actually use the ARM stuff (DPC+/CDFJ).  The ARM stuff is relatively easy to identify as the majority are 32kb ROMs (a few are bigger than that).

 

Alt-L in Stella will tell you what scheme a game uses.

 

[+splendidnut]

19 minutes ago, bigmessowires said:

A 4K ROM probably doesn't use coprocessor technology (unless I'm wrong?), but an 8K or 16K ROM maybe would or wouldn't... so the ROM size criteria doesn't seem like it solves the problem well.

From my own personal experience, ROM size makes a BIG difference.  Please don't discount that.

[+splendidnut]

IN response to @bigmessowires 's comment in this post:

 

If you want a good apples to apples comparison between ARM / no-ARM:

 

 

 

Two EXCELLENT games, both 32kb.  One of them uses DPC+ / ARM.... the other does not.

Edited February 9, 2023 by splendidnut
Added link to original topic of discussion triggering this response

[+splendidnut]

27 minutes ago, bigmessowires said:

I don't want to be difficult, but I spent quite a while searching through both Google and Atari Age's search function, and this is the only relevant thread I found with specific discussion of potential changes to the Homebrew Awards categories, to help address this issue. If I've missed others then I apologize.

You might might want to read thru the first award show (2018) post-discussion:

[+Pat Brady]

2 hours ago, splendidnut said:

From my own personal experience, ROM size makes a BIG difference.  Please don't discount that.

 

2 hours ago, splendidnut said:

If you want a good apples to apples comparison between ARM / no-ARM:

(Mappy and Aardvark)

Two EXCELLENT games, both 32kb.  One of them uses DPC+ / ARM.... the other does not.

There are also excellent games in 16K and less.

 

Reading these two posts back-to-back, in a context where nobody is proposing to remove ROM size information, it seems like you are suggesting that an ARM processor does not make a big difference. From your other posts, I don't think that's what you believe, but I can't find any other way to read this sequence.

 

[+Andrew Davie]

3 hours ago, bigmessowires said:

TL;DNR - I'm personally interested in seeing what kinds of games people have been able to make without the use of coprocessor technology. Right now I don't think there's any easy way for me to find those, since there's no separate category for them, and the info isn't part of the game descriptions either. I would appreciate a way to find these games and judge them against each other. That is all.

 

For an interesting comparison on the differences between ARM-enabled and not, in the "same game" perhaps if you look at YouTube videos of Boulder Dash -- essentially the same game/concept.  The ARM allows you to do a lot, lot of extra pushing of the TIA.  Don't forget the extra power having extra RAM gives you, too.

 

32K ARM-enabled:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIfdXMwiuoI

16K, not ARM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Ge6G9sT9E

 

 

[+MrZarniwoop]

3 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said:

32K ARM-enabled:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIfdXMwiuoI

Shockingly good. It has a liveliness that makes it wonderful.

[+splendidnut]

23 minutes ago, Pat Brady said:

Reading these two posts back-to-back, in a context where nobody is proposing to remove ROM size information, it seems like you are suggesting that an ARM processor does not make a big difference. From your other posts, I don't think that's what you believe, but I can't find any other way to read this sequence.

I separated out the posts because they are supposed to be read as separate thoughts.   I guess I'll have to figure out a better way to separate them.

 

ADDENDUM:  Added link to provide context to the "apples to apples" comparison.

[Mr SQL]

I like both demos, I think the important difference to be aware of is that only the smaller one can run on classic hardware.

 

Here is an Arkanoid Super Atari game that adds PETSCII board patterns and the prg for the Commodore 64. 

arkanoidairheadb.prg

 

This enhanced Atari game is a phat binary.

The soft TIA and RIOT emulation can be removed from the 32k prg and the remaining 6K binary will still run on classic Atari hardware.

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

10 hours ago, splendidnut said:

Two EXCELLENT games, both 32kb.  One of them uses DPC+ / ARM.... the other does not.

Thanks for the compliment. Aardvark is really pushing the 6507 to its limits. The main game kernels, which you can see in that screenshot, are within the most complex ones I have ever written. 

Edited February 9, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch