Heaven/TQA Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 0:13ff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 Yeah, because the A8 community is so welcoming when people turn up asking for information... =-) (It's DeeKay by the way...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted April 18, 2012 Author Share Posted April 18, 2012 Shut up but honestly. I found it quite interesting that the 16 color palette seems to be choosen wisely Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 Yes, much better than brown + 15 shades of pink. If the 64 had 16 indirect colors using a color/lum scheme like the Atari, it would have looked absolutely incredible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted April 18, 2012 Author Share Posted April 18, 2012 and I know why Crest will never touch A8... not much $d0xx trickery available Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 Many such exploits are to get it to do stuff the A8 can by default anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 and I know why Crest will never touch A8... not much $d0xx trickery available Crossbow is constantly finding stuff that nobody else even knew about so who knows... but he's already done some C64DTV demos and that's essentially a C64 with indirect colour registers and an A8-style 256 colour palette... (Screen grab slightly mangled 'cos it's grabbed from a real C64DTV v1 - VICE doesn't support the original model right now.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 isn't the logo on the video in P1 somewhat analogous of a certain former computer company we all know and love (albeit a slightly mod'd version of said logo) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 Many such exploits are to get it to do stuff the A8 can by default anyway. # You say that, but to be honest there's not a lot of demos I've seen on the A8 that actually exploit what it really could do from the point of bending the display seriously out of shape Either that, or everyone tried it all in 1970s and it's considered old hat by now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 Well, the shape you get is overscan available by default so yes, the box of tricks was open and old hat by the mid 1980s, and most of the software graphics trickery was around by the 90s. What's considered "impressive" on one machine isn't necessarily the case on the other - half the point of demos is showing stuff that it was thought the machine wasn't able to do. Maybe we'll get some people exploiting the 480i capability and doing PMG stuff in the top/bottom outside the 240 scanline area, that would be groundbreaking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 I didn't mean quite literally the screen dimensions, but to me as someone that dallies with the A8 and understand how it works I don't quite see that it really has been pushed to it's limits at all.. It appears that most of the A8 stuff relies upon the CPU grunt in most cases and the out of the box features for stuff that's mostly a bit meh, rather than actually really properly bending the hardware out of shape and doing something that seems to all intents and purposes utterly impossible at first glance.. Which is perhaps how I should have said it first time around Point being mainly, I've not seen anything on the A8 that's stopped me in my tracks and made me question how on earth that is even possible.. Which is a fairly common experience on the side with less light Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted April 18, 2012 Author Share Posted April 18, 2012 well... depends... - HIP/TIP/RIP - Your own POKEY stuff - Rybags 480i - VSCROL trick (that is really "dark light" comparable to VIC trick) hmm... what else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 I've no idea what else, but I'm always hoping that some DL trickery is going to make some fantastic textured, scaled and shaded vertically textured things, which the A8 can do with it's eyes shut (which the 64 busts a nut trying to do) and looks spectacular, and has rather big game implications as well on the A8 (not on the c64 because it's unworkable), but I've not seen one yet I can't understand why not.. Beyond it being a major pain in the arse to arrange in memory Maybe it was all done in the 70s, 5 minutes after the A8 came out and I've just not looked back far enough.. But the stuff you mention isn't really machine cleverness is it.. The graphics modes are just a by product of the display system (most of) us use.. My sound stuff is nothing more than a simple bit of bit shuffling that's not machine specific at all.. The interlace stuff is cool for sure, but what to do with it when the A8 favourite pastime is to do everything at a lower resolution anyway ? And the VSCROLL stuff.. Sure, but it doesn't need to be used as much as on the 64 before you've got so many other ways of doing things.. lol, this is coming out negative, wasn't meant to be Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 There's still plenty of unexplored territory. Dynamic DList stuff is something that's kind of lacking. Just look at the FLOP 55 intro as one example of what's possible. Another largely unexplored option is putting lots more colour into a picture by using narrow DMA mode and using the extra cycles to do multiple colour changes per scanline and/or reuse PM objects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 I think the most unexplored area is Pokey. It can create very complex bit sequences and finding what sounds good (and how to make it play the same way twice) is often a brute-force exercise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted April 18, 2012 Author Share Posted April 18, 2012 (edited) well... having plenty of sprites onscreen is not any achievment? ok. Pete's IRQ chain for the mass display of PMs is maybe but again. is this not out of the box? same like dynamic DLIST stuff... Andy... your mentioned scaling... you know that I have that on my list since I played SNES Axelay first level but without DMA sprite flickering Edited April 18, 2012 by Heaven/TQA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted April 18, 2012 Author Share Posted April 18, 2012 I think Koronis Rift like or Rescue of Fractalus like stuff is unexplored or PRIOR 0 stuff? Remembered that when Deekay mentioned the VIC sprite priority thing to EOR out stuff automaticly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted April 18, 2012 Author Share Posted April 18, 2012 Andy... DLIST stuff is not hard to do... even I had done this 1996... watch http://www.atarimania.com/demo-atari-400-800-xl-xe-carpe-demo_13399.html the rubber pic part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 Lots of sprites is out of the box Granted on the 64, you pay a high price in the form of losing lots of cycles if you have all 8 on each line, but lots of sprites on the screen isn't impressive really, unless they're doing something different.. Looking back, when Rhaa Lovely II arrived with a full layer of hires sprites overlaying a screen, it was mind-popping because it hadn't been done before, at least not as elegantly as that.. But just covering the screen in sprites isn't pushing the machine.. You know what it's like on the 64, most of those demos are running kernels more akin to a 2600 display kernel, where as that's not the case with most A8 stuff is it ? As for rubber pictures, that's a great example, it's the standard example of being able to change the screen on any raster line.. Yet it can do so much more, stuff that really would make you go "how?" What I'd love to see from the A8 is the vertical textured rotators like in Edge of Disgrace, Deux Ex Machina and also some later demos that escape me right now, but did it better than those 2 I still think those would make for a great game, with a bunch of platform you scroll up and down, with the platform surface part of each layer being displayed in perspective, especially in something like Goat'Up or something like that, and it's something only the A8 could really pull off And it's exactly that kind of scanline deviancy that I haven't seen on the A8, yet it's something it should do very very very well and at 50hz, and without Lego sized pixels anywhere in sight The A8 could do that effect, full screen, and with more colours way better than the 64 can and with oodles of time left for other things.. You've got a machine that can horizontally split sprites, change the screen to be anywhere at a moments notice, more colours than you can shake a big box of crayons at, and much much more.. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted April 18, 2012 Author Share Posted April 18, 2012 definitly need to set up my SNES... this fx is out of the box... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 very well and at 50hz, and without Lego sized pixels anywhere in sight Lego sized graphics got more dedicated to C64 games... Not sure where you see "lego sized" pixels. Here an Example of lego sized pixel... even full screen tearing included http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cceA9ZMtxaM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 Oh well, it was nice whilst it lasted... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilmenit Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 Another largely unexplored option is putting lots more colour into a picture by using narrow DMA mode and using the extra cycles to do multiple colour changes per scanline and/or reuse PM objects. Let's start to explore it then Pics are still with some bugs, the project is in beta stage. RastaConverterDemo.zip 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenjennings Posted April 19, 2012 Share Posted April 19, 2012 After watching the entire video I learned that the idea I've been toying with of adding a C64 to my collection is wasted time and money. (Probably will add a 1200XL to the "museum" now.) The Commodore machine came out several years after the Ataris, but the hardware features rate little better than the older generation BEFORE the Atari. If it weren't for the sprites the C64 would have barely usable graphics. I also learned that some C64 demo coders can't do anything unless someone else writes an editor/utility for them. We're pretty *bleeping* spoiled with huge palettes, graphics modes that can reference any memory line by line, character sets only limited by 1K boundaries, etc. We get so much stuff for free that the C64 coders have to hack a beam racing kernel to fake. And ilmenit's pictures look cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted April 19, 2012 Share Posted April 19, 2012 After watching the entire video I learned that the idea I've been toying with of adding a C64 to my collection is wasted time and money. (Probably will add a 1200XL to the "museum" now.) The Commodore machine came out several years after the Ataris, but the hardware features rate little better than the older generation BEFORE the Atari. If it weren't for the sprites the C64 would have barely usable graphics. I also learned that some C64 demo coders can't do anything unless someone else writes an editor/utility for them. We're pretty *bleeping* spoiled with huge palettes, graphics modes that can reference any memory line by line, character sets only limited by 1K boundaries, etc. We get so much stuff for free that the C64 coders have to hack a beam racing kernel to fake. And ilmenit's pictures look cool. The C64 aimed more like a young blonde girl. Nice looking due to colourful makeup, and a good singing voice, but with reduced brain activities. So everyone wants her, likes her, wants to help her.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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