Jump to content
IGNORED

Atari v Commodore


stevelanc

Recommended Posts

After all, the MOS designers looked at the Atari when they designed the VICII chip

 

Not this again. :roll: Sorry, but they already had the original VIC I to look at for improvement.

 

 

Doesn't work for me, I smashed a few recycled C64's this week, felt really good. ;)

 

Don't worry, I have some perfectly good and working 800XLs which I can do the same to. :ponder:

 

Garak

I am in the recycling business as an aspect of my company, I have smashed hundreds. I like to use a sledge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Doesn't work for me, I smashed a few recycled C64's this week, felt really good. ;)

 

Don't worry, I have some perfectly good and working 800XLs which I can do the same to. :ponder:

 

Garak

I am in the recycling business as an aspect of my company, I have smashed hundreds. I like to use a sledge.

 

Oh well. It's not like there aren't any Atari getting recycled elsewhere you know. ;)

 

Garak

Edited by Garak
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Doesn't work for me, I smashed a few recycled C64's this week, felt really good. ;)

 

Don't worry, I have some perfectly good and working 800XLs which I can do the same to. :ponder:

 

Garak

I am in the recycling business as an aspect of my company, I have smashed hundreds. I like to use a sledge.

 

Oh well. It's not like there aren't any Atari getting recycled elsewhere you know. ;)

 

Garak

 

I would not support purposely smashing either of the machines if someone else can put them to good use. I respect the creativity of both C64 and Atari coders given the limitations of their machines so I do not want to get into a negative sort of emotional debate. It's just a good way to learn or remind of each others machines capabilities once in a while to have a debate (like a pop quiz). When I stated the pictures are cartoonish on C64, it's not a negative comment. It's what the palette lends itself to. Atarians have also produced cartoons on their machines.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 - ATTACK OF THE MUTANT CAMELS

 

post-6191-1227414340_thumb.png post-6191-1227414352_thumb.png

Atari Screenshots

 

Personally, I don't like this game on any version. But, it's a good and simple example how Atari can manage a successful action game with help of DLI and fine scroll programming (it seems Jeff forgot to enhanced the scrolling on C64 version). One color register changing along the screen do the magic, and again as is usual every level manage different combination colors thanks to the 128 palette available.

 

post-6191-1227414382_thumb.png post-6191-1227414393_thumb.png

C64 screenshots

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"they start posting cartoon pictures in their restricted 160*200*16 mode"

 

any non cartoonish pictures here?

 

http://g2f.atari8.info/gallery.html

 

most of them uses less than 16 colors. and are poor c64 rippoffs, eventho these are the best examples of what antic can do in 160x200, thing is c64 can put up more colors even in 320x200 than antic in 160x200. its pretty bold from an atarian to call c64's gfx modes "restricted". restricted is when you have no color memory, and have to change regs on the fly and use pmgs for extra colors (wtf was jay miner thinking?)

 

Both Atari and C64 mode 160*200*16 is restricted. A non-restricted mode would be 160*200*16 where any arbitrary color can be at any point. Doesn't making your 160*200 and 320*200 less restricted require CPU overhead? I would say that c64 rippoffs would be worse than getting a higher color content and porting it to Atari. Better to have original applications targetted to the Atari machine taking into account how the colors work. That way even with 5 colors/scanline at 160*200 one can at least take advantage of faster repainting and less memory usage and for static imagery use tricks like mid-screen color changes/interlace/overlapping pmgs/priorities/etc. Sometimes tricks are better than a high bandwidth requiring more memory usage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would not support purposely smashing either of the machines if someone else can put them to good use.

 

Neither do I. :) I was just having some fun with your comment. ;)

 

I wouldn't hurt the two 800XL computers I have, I intend to use them next to my Commodores when I get things more situated with room to do so.

 

I respect the creativity of both C64 and Atari coders given the limitations of their machines so I do not want to get into a negative sort of emotional debate. It's just a good way to learn or remind of each others machines capabilities once in a while to have a debate (like a pop quiz).

 

I completely agree with this. That's the good part of discussions like these.

 

When I stated the pictures are cartoonish on C64, it's not a negative comment. It's what the palette lends itself to. Atarians have also produced cartoons on their machines.

 

True... but that's usually the C64 palette being used in a non-thought out way. A lot of games (especially newer ones) and many Scene productions use the palette in quite a non-cartoonish way.

 

My other point from a previous post was that the myth still seems to be spread that Commodore engineers borrowed lots of ideas from the Atari chipset for the VIC-II. However, the VIC-II was a natural step up of the VIC-I in the VIC-20.

 

Garak

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I respect the creativity of both C64 and Atari coders given the limitations of their machines so I do not want to get into a negative sort of emotional debate. It's just a good way to learn or remind of each others machines capabilities once in a while to have a debate (like a pop quiz).

 

Exactly my sentiments. It's not 1983 any more, people...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let's see what was proved recently:

 

c64 - we can display most c64 pictures (thanks to g2f) and play SID tunes

 

ZX Spectrum (speccy) - isometric games like Knight Lore possible

 

NES - Mario like game (even better see Crownland) done

 

Apple II - we have working emulator of the machine

 

On top of this we have selection of games and demos which are unmatched by any other 8 bitter (Yoomp!, Numen).

 

It becomes more and more obvious that we need to start to compare Atari with micros more powerfull then C64 and other popular 8 bitters to challenge our developers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i take it you think the height will be an issue...? Can't see why...

 

Oh, I was not aware that the C64 is able to produce more than 200 lines? Any samples?

 

If the Atari users are so satisfied with their machine, why do they feel the need to start threads like this in the first place?

 

I think it's a kind of compensating a trauma: Having a machine with so nice capabilities, but watch an other platform is better supported because of better marketing (at least here in germany). Increasing number of users led to bigger offer of software titles and so on...

 

This 'trauma' could also be the reason why Atari developers today still focus on games and not on demos: Just to show "here - we can do this too, and even better".

 

After all these years I still think the machines are head-to-head. When it comes to a particular feature, you just cannot compare e.g. better waveforms with more channels. It's a ridiculous comparison, like trying to find out which car is best: sports car or pick-up.

 

CU

Irgendwer

Edited by Irgendwer
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

stop blabbling, show me a 2d scrolling game on the a8 which is better than any other c64 one. why there's none ? why is turrican literally impossible for the a8? even if I let it go with 5 colors only, its impossible, why oh why ? with a BETTER gfx chip, a machine which is better overall it should be possible, innit ?

 

Drop Zone ofcourse. The game has no need of tricking around with enemies that are shown or not shown. You see the whole level and the computer is calculating all. The programmer just has to set the camera position for showing the level content. And it is clearly better than the C64 version. Not to mention the nicely balanced colours that got lost in the C64 version.

 

Turrican, for example, is triggering enemies wherever it can, to save cpu time. That's why many people don't like the game itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After all, the MOS designers looked at the Atari when they designed the VICII chip

 

Not this again. :roll: Sorry, but they already had the original VIC I to look at for improvement.

 

Garak

 

The designers stated that they looked at the Atari sprite system ( and the TI 99 as well ) - as the VIC I had no sprites anything would have been an improvement.

I took it as a given that they also looked at the VIC I when designing the sequel :) - the seperate colour memory was already a feature for that chip.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now for PAL you need a 4.43 MHz color carrier, but since Atari didn't want to go far away from the 1.79 MHz, they didn't divide 4.43 MHz by 2, but by 2.5 to get 1.77 MHz. This is why you can't do artefacting anymore on PAL Ataris (2.5 color clocks per lores pixel, not exactly 2) and also the scrolling doesnt shift exactly 2 color clocks but 2.5...

Give a link to source of your information.

The source of that information is my brain, I know quite a lot of stuff about TV signals and also 8 bit machines. For example the PAL color carrier frequency is a result of 283.75 color clocks which are desired on a normal PAL rasterline multiplied by the line frequency of 15625 Hz, then added 25 Hz to avoid some interferences:

 

283.75 * 15625 + 25 = 4.43361875 MHz (Link)

 

Usually that frequency is generated from a four times faster clock (where it is easier to get different 90° phase shifts etc): 17.734475 MHz

 

17.734475 MHz / 4 = color carrier

17.734475 MHz / 10 = CPU clock (1.77 MHz) (Link)

17.734475 MHz / 10 * 4 = pixel clock (7.09 MHz)

 

For C64 it's similar:

 

17.734475 MHz / 4 = color carrier

17.734475 MHz / 18 = CPU clock (0.985 MHz)

17.734475 MHz / 18 * 8 = pixel clock (7.88 MHz)

 

I don't accept random searches of internet as all containing correct information or taking Atari/C64 to the limit.

Dude, I searched ONE TIME the bus speed of the SIO, why do you now make up that all I do is use google?

 

You can't have two unique colors on consecutive pixels in NTSC at 3.58Mhz.

No you can't have that, but that doesn't limit scrolling to "color clocks". If you have 4 hires pixels of the same color next to each other, you can still move them by 1 pixel and have no artefacting etc because it's the frequency which counts. The closer you get to those 4.43 MHz the more from the luma signal will get through the filter of the chroma carrier. It's all about frequencies and analog filters, and that's why the pixels themselves do not matter: They can be at any X-position, as long as the color carrier will not phase shift with them. Ofcourse switching from one color to another at a pixel doesn't work perfectly, that's why all those old PAL computers (Atari, C64, VIC20 etc) have fuzzy edges on colors when they meet different chromas.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Atarians feel that his 128/256 palette color looks better.

 

That's a subjective opinion, apparently we're trying to avoid those! =-)

 

That is not subjective. More colors is definitely a feature people looked at when buying a machine

 

A feature yes, but it wasn't a global thing and not everybody considered it as important as how those colours were use otherwise nothing else would have sold.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know what a "speccy" is nor an shmups. It doesn't sound like an English word to me.

 

Speccy: an affectionate contraction of the Sinclair Spectrum name, an early 8-bit that, whilst simple in design (essentially a Z80A strapped to a display buffer), managed to be the best-selling 8-bit machine in the UK during the 1980s and was popular in Russia well after the 16- and even 32-bit hardware took hold because it was built pretty much from stock parts and could be easily cloned.

 

Shmup: another contraction, this time of "shoot 'em up", coined again during the 1980s and popularised in particular by Newsfield magazines Crash and Zzap! 64 as a shorthand for just about anything where object A shoots at object B.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, I was not aware that the C64 is able to produce more than 200 lines? Any samples?

 

Not to hand with still but there are several demos doing the same and if you look at Delta or Wizball they both keep their status panels in the upper and lower borders to get about the same height. In this particular case, the hair at the top of the picture can happily be rendered as hardware sprites and plonked into the upper border.

 

This 'trauma' could also be the reason why Atari developers today still focus on games and not on demos: Just to show "here - we can do this too, and even better".

 

That sort of backfires as a motive though surely... taking Bomb Jack as an example, it's saying "we can do this better... but only if we have 320K" so it's hardly an even playing field since the C64 version was a single file on tape; if a new version were produced now using all the knowledge gained since the original was released, a RAM expansion and bitmapped backgrounds, it'd be significantly better than the existing port from Elite.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Both Atari and C64 mode 160*200*16 is restricted. A non-restricted mode would be 160*200*16 where any arbitrary color can be at any point. Doesn't making your 160*200 and 320*200 less restricted require CPU overhead? I would say that c64 rippoffs would be worse than getting a higher color content and porting it to Atari. Better to have original applications targetted to the Atari machine taking into account how the colors work. That way even with 5 colors/scanline at 160*200 one can at least take advantage of faster repainting and less memory usage and for static imagery use tricks like mid-screen color changes/interlace/overlapping pmgs/priorities/etc. Sometimes tricks are better than a high bandwidth requiring more memory usage.

 

...and the Atari is much more restricted than the C64 at 160*200*16. Returning to the original question of the topic, as far as games go, the vast majority of games are going to look better on the C64 because it can have more colours and resolution per scan line than the Atari, and it has much better and more useful sprites. Sure, you can compensate for some of these limitations on the Atari with interrupts and CPU (which C64 also can do of course), but you can't do them ALL at the same time - CPU and interrupts waste so many more cycles compared to the video chip DMA.

 

Crownland is probably the best looking platformer so far on the Atari. But it is specially designed for the Atari and limited to a few enemies. Other well known platform games won't work as well as a C64 version could easily be, or won't be as colourful, (or both!) - however skilled the programmer. We shouldn't compare to poorly programmed C64 games either. (I do love my Atari and I'd love someone to prove me wrong, but I don't see it happening).

Edited by Sheddy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Crownland is probably the best looking platformer so far on the Atari. But it is specially designed for the Atari and limited to a few enemies.

 

In Crownland some small logical mistakes still keep the "maximum" away. The stars really could be done in charset animation with underlayed player, instead of full Player-animation. The count of objects (moving & static) could be doubled imho.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sheddy. Other well known platform games won't work as well as a C64 version could easily be, or won't be as colourful, (or both!) ... (I do love my Atari and I'd love someone to prove me wrong, but I don't see it happening
Yea, it's def not easy to reproduce that's for sure :) but I hasten to add that there is plenty more that can be achived without a doubt on the Atari. Crownland is a step in the right direction, the first of a new generation finally pushing things outside of the box as you are too with your exceptional project Chris.

 

I wish there were more coders active on the Atari scene. We need less talk and more action.

 

Now that bj is complete, we have been working on a new game project, many months of work ahead but watch this space.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That sort of backfires as a motive though surely... taking Bomb Jack as an example, it's saying "we can do this better... but only if we have 320K" so it's hardly an even playing field since the C64 version was a single file on tape; if a new version were produced now using all the knowledge gained since the original was released, a RAM expansion and bitmapped backgrounds, it'd be significantly better than the existing port from Elite.

 

Could be, but this is the problem with 'could'. At last it counts what is done (hmm - isn't this the argument from the C64 biased people?).

But even if you respect the 'this only runs on enhanced machines' rule you can find a lot

of today productions which are more colourful on standard Ataris than a C64 could ever be - even my game 'ECKN' uses 19 colours in the in-game screen (without interlacing!). Of course this game would also work on the C64 with less colours, but it would be different. Just to show you the other way round: Rampage - its the 'same' game, but it does not match very well to the specifications of the Atari. So I still think head-to-head...

Irgendwer

post-7778-1227445313_thumb.png

post-7778-1227445331_thumb.png

Edited by Irgendwer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sheddy. Other well known platform games won't work as well as a C64 version could easily be, or won't be as colourful, (or both!) ... (I do love my Atari and I'd love someone to prove me wrong, but I don't see it happening
Yea, it's def not easy to reproduce that's for sure :) but I hasten to add that there is plenty more that can be achived without a doubt on the Atari. Crownland is a step in the right direction, the first of a new generation finally pushing things outside of the box as you are too with your exceptional project Chris.

 

I wish there were more coders active on the Atari scene. We need less talk and more action.

 

Now that bj is complete, we have been working on a new game project, many months of work ahead but watch this space.

 

I think what you have done with Bomb Jack is amazing, but it does just have static screens and is an easy game for the C64 to do (and could be polished a lot more on the C64 as well, as TMR says)

 

I hope you and Emkay are right about Crownland being just the start, and am already looking forward to your next project!

Edited by Sheddy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

To the other points previously in the thread..

 

I didn't really want to engage in this recurring topic as it's pointless but just to address the valid point of comparing the new game productions against the original commercial games from other platforms, the same thing crossed my mind too when I saw that youTube video previously a while back posted on Kaz's site. It's definately not fair to compare a commercially produced title which was made to a deadline against ones made later by enthusiasts who can spend as long as they like perfecting it (as well as using more resources). I suppose you could argue that they are professionals being paid and should be the elite etc but the whole point of a commercial software company is about turnover and getting the game to market as soon as possible so not all games produced were created to the full potential of the machine. With that said however it makes sense to have a standard set by the company otherwise future releases by them would be immediately derided as another poor production. There were of course exceptional commercial programmers who always set a high standard such as Archer Maclean amongst others.

 

I guess that video was created by an enthousiastic Atarian happy to show off the platform after so many years of suffering "that game isn't available because it can't be done" dirision, because at last some of the popular games are now available and they can show them off.

Edited by Tezz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think what you have done with Bomb Jack is amazing, but it does just have static screens and is an easy game for the C64 to do (and could be polished a lot more on the C64 as well, as TMR says)
Yes absolutely. Bombjack could be done much better on the C64. It looks like quite a rushed title

 

EDIT: I mean much better than it's previous Elite production

Edited by Tezz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

stop blabbling, show me a 2d scrolling game on the a8 which is better than any other c64 one. why there's none ? why is turrican literally impossible for the a8? even if I let it go with 5 colors only, its impossible, why oh why ? with a BETTER gfx chip, a machine which is better overall it should be possible, innit ?

 

Drop Zone ofcourse. The game has no need of tricking around with enemies that are shown or not shown. You see the whole level and the computer is calculating all. The programmer just has to set the camera position for showing the level content. And it is clearly better than the C64 version. Not to mention the nicely balanced colours that got lost in the C64 version.

 

Turrican, for example, is triggering enemies wherever it can, to save cpu time. That's why many people don't like the game itself.

 

 

have you read the Q? Drop Zone is better than any other 2d scrolling game on the c64 ? You sure?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Could be, but this is the problem with 'could'. At last it counts what is done (hmm - isn't this the argument from the C64 biased people?).

 

Yes, i was deliberately turning the "could" argument around to demonstrate how subjective it is.

 

But even if you respect the 'this only runs on enhanced machines' rule you can find a lot of today productions which are more colourful on standard Ataris than a C64 could ever be

 

And if we're allowing enhancements, i'll put forward a SuperCPU-equipped C64 running Rescue On Fractalus much faster than the Atari 8-bit can do it or Metal Dust, a game that shunts around more data per frame than a lot of 16-bit titles managed and has a digitised in-game soundtrack... that's the problem, as soon as you move away from stock machines (and the SuperCPU merely plugs into the cartridge port of a C64, it's far closer to stock than soldering a RAM expansion into the Atari) the boundaries change significantly and all bets are off so comparisons between a game that requires an expansion on one machine and doesn't on the other are never going to work.

 

even my game 'ECKN' uses 19 colours in the in-game screen (without interlacing!). Of course this game would also work on the C64 with less colours, but it would be different.

 

Well, to be totally honest the game wouldn't lose anything at all since most of those colours are in the face... that's far different to, for example, Zybex or Draconus only having 50% of the resolution on the Atari or Fractalus running slower on the C64. If it were me converting it, i'd say trade the colours in the face off against resolution, go down to about five colours and halve the width of the pixels.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...