Was the C64 good or bad for the games industry?

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

a stand alone cheap tape deck, which few had to spare for a kid's bedroom computer full time in reality, is far less reliable for loading than a dedicate fixed spec datasette etc.

In a typical household in '82 you were already going to be borrowing the household TV to get any video game time, so also borrowing the cheap portable cassette player wasn't really a big deal. And, whilst it probably shouldn't have been the case, it was usually a lot more reliable (not to mention faster) than the datasette for the C64.

Originally Posted by TCD

If you'd told me in the mid to late 80s that the C64 was considered an expensive machine I don't know how I would have reacted. It might have been different in 1982/83, but in 1984 the C64 was very common here. Even the disk drive was something that almost everybody who owned a C64 had (can't remember if I knew somebody who didn't honestly). For me personally it is quite interesting (and in a way a bit shocking) to read that people didn't have the money to buy one.

By the latter half of the 80's, sure. Although by then the Spectrum and Amstrad machines were shipping with 128K of RAM as standard (and quite possibly a disk drive). And the expensive machines were the ST and Amiga.

Don't remember anyone having a CBM disk drive though, they were eye wateringly expensive (more even than the C64) and still loaded at a snails pace. Here in the UK it was very much more of a tape-based market if you were on an 8-bit machine, with the possible exception of the Amstrad market where disks were a bit more commonplace in your typical game store.

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Isn't this marketing decision ? - accordingly to Wikipedia 1541 was actually cheaper - 400$ and C64 500$
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commod...r#Introduction
I can imagine different marketing strategies for Europe and for USA.

In 1986 the 1541 was already a bit cheaper here than the C64 itself.

[Megalomaniac]

So that's just under 1000DM for C64+1541 in 1986, was that about £350? How much were the (as you knew it) Schneider CPC 6128 and Atari ST in Germany at that time for comparison? In the UK they were a lot less (if you need to buy a TV to use with the C64) and not much more than C64+1541, respectively. Did any home users choose the PC for more than four times as much though?

You certainly weren't getting the very best out of the C64 if you only had a tape deck, especially later on. Things like Maniac Mansion, Wasteland, Defender of the Crown and Space Rogue were disk-only, things like Little Computer People had a lot of features missing, and some games like Super Cycle had horrible loaders on cassette (and no high-score table I believe?). On C64 cassette only there wasn't that much beyond action games, in truth. Hence why C64 games carried on selling in the UK on cassette after they did on disk, indeed. Those examples are all US-developed of course, which is perhaps the clue as to why, though.

I still don't think that 3D comparison video is very representative of the overall picture, by the way.

[Retro-Nerd]

CPC computer were usually sold with a monitor. Prices are from the same German magazin. (Happy Computer 01/86)

So that's just under 1000DM for C64+1541 in 1986, was that about £350?

If the exchange rates i found are accurate it was around 315£.

[Megalomaniac]

Okay, that makes a 664 with a colour monitor about 600DM / 60% more than a C64 with 1541. I guess you could get a decent TV to use with the C64 for a lot less than 600DM? That probably makes the C64 the more competitive option, especially if you're mostly using it for games.

So that's the ST without a disk drive, which I'm guessing was about 2-300DM / 20-30% extra? I guess the ST became even more competitive when the 520STFM launched in late 1986.

[CCCP alert]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

In a typical household in '82 you were already going to be borrowing the household TV to get any video game time, so also borrowing the cheap portable cassette player wasn't really a big deal. And, whilst it probably shouldn't have been the case, it was usually a lot more reliable (not to mention faster) than the datasette for the C64.



By the latter half of the 80's, sure. Although by then the Spectrum and Amstrad machines were shipping with 128K of RAM as standard (and quite possibly a disk drive). And the expensive machines were the ST and Amiga.

Don't remember anyone having a CBM disk drive though, they were eye wateringly expensive (more even than the C64) and still loaded at a snails pace. Here in the UK it was very much more of a tape-based market if you were on an 8-bit machine, with the possible exception of the Amstrad market where disks were a bit more commonplace in your typical game store.

Yeah coz EVRYBODY had a mono shitty tape deck and not a stand alone record player for musical use LOL of course they did. If you think a Boots £20 tape deck and nail varnish on the volume control nob for marking the 'right position' vs an Atari XC or C= C2N was more reliable then well you are the nob lol GTFO with your clueless nostalgia and bullshit fake facts. I'm sure there is a Dictaphone joke somewhere..........

As for loading at a snails pace, C64 Elite loads in under 90 seconds on disk (about 50kb), Crazy Comets/Revenge of the Mutant Camels in 60-70 seconds on tape lolol. Amstrad Ikari Warriors on tape takes 11 minutes with the built in turbo loader lol. Perhaps you should watch more bustin myths YT vids from an expert and less dumb patreon pricks/wikipedia wankers with their emulation only and fact devoid fanboy rubbish?

Only poor people used a computer laying on the carpet on the 'big TV' all the time for years so who cares, poor people can't afford anything more than the cheapest option, rubber 16k (then 48k Speccy when 16k was discontinued and 48k price reduced to 16k price) so their choices were made for them.

A coloir portable 14" TV for £99.99 was everywhere in the entire 80s, it's 1/3 of the total cost of a bedroom computer setup based on a 1983 48k Speccy an expert using discount catalogue/mail order prices from Argos bothered to make a video for you with facts, PAY ATTENTION!.

Most 8bit computers were bought by parents instead of a console like the VCS etc for the extra cost for 'education' and this is not sitting on the carpet bullshit, that is 100% VCS territory. If you don't like that YT channel fine, stop jerking out bullshit facts though please.

By May 87 there was only 3 non idiotic choices, Plus2 for the poor, a C64 for arcade style 50hz gaming and world class sound chip with a tape deck OR a £300 520STFM disk based system. If you bought anything else in early 87 other than an A1000 like me then.....well............

@"expensive ST option" after spouting some more rubbish about how popular the 6128 was...lol you tit the 520STFM was £299.99 by early Spring 87. A 520STFM disk based gaming set up for not much more than a C64 bundle with tape deck, the 6128 was a bad choice too at £299-349.99 for colour monitor option at this time, most CPC games are 64k but ALL 520ST games are 512k so a better option for users and the sound chip may be more or less identical but the ST doesn't use some low rent 2cm budget speaker inside a shit designed case to output it's sound even if an Amstrad RF modulator add on is used.

The Spectrum was the only 8bit that had 128k model as it's biggest seller because the 48k model has no sound chip and the 128 no joystick port still and thanks to Amstrad the Plus/2 was dirt cheap for 128k. C128 was a failure d yet it outsold ALL CPC variants ever sold by a whopping 50% more alone lol

@everyone
Great, you didn't have a C64, keep opinions and emotions away from factual discussions about costs and reality of non choice due to budget for the poorest people in the west. of course you wont so lets descend into shitty fanboy type bullshit, more fun vids....

[ Show youtube player ]

don't give me that 'we used a hi fi" if you had a hi fi in your bedroom you should have bought an ST for £100 more lol

if you had a hi fi in the early 80s maybe if you heard these songs back then you may have spent your computer budget better too

[ Show youtube player ]

It's all about the lulz....no life changing facts are ever absorbed on these forums

[clebin]

Quite the charmer.

[AestheticDebris]

Yes, most people had access to crappy 80s tape decks for music - it's why most 80's home computers used one. And yes, in the early 80s, having access to a second TV was a luxury - this was literally the justification for Amstrad including a monitor with the 464 (a decision which, as you rightly say, hurt them by 1987 when an ST that could be plugged into a telly ended up being the cheaper option).

I'm not sure why you're quoting the best choices in 1987, since by about late 84 the C64 price had dropped massively (mostly to compete with the Spectrum) and so obviously the market looked very different.

For tape speeds, we don't need to make weird comparisons between entirely different software because we have the actual numbers:

The C64 had a standard loading speed of 300 baud.
The Atari A8 had a loading speed of 600 baud.
The Speccy had a loading speed of around 1400 baud (0's and 1s are different length pulses so it varies)
The CPC had two speeds, 1000 baud by default and 2000 baud for "fast" loading.

So yes, the C64 was slower by default (and quite considerably so). The various machines obviously all used software methods for accelerating loaders but equally developers often didn't care that much - users would happily sit through pointless loading screens so expending more loading time by encrypting data to try and prevent piracy was prevalent.

For disks, the C64 does something in the region of 3000 baud by default. The 3" disks used in the Speccy/CPC are around 100,000 baud. There was literally a cottage industry in providing acceleration for CBM disks and pretending they weren't slow is just disingenuous at this point.

Maybe don't get information from quite so many biased YouTube "debunking" videos?

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

As for loading at a snails pace, C64 Elite loads in under 90 seconds on disk (about 50kb), Crazy Comets/Revenge of the Mutant Camels in 60-70 seconds on tape lolol.

I have a Commodore 1530 tape deck, and whatever the games i load (original ones), it's very slow.

Next below, you describe games like Ikari Warriors that are using standard Amstrad loader (Commando use the same....). For such big games, it was not appropriate.

Amstrad Ikari Warriors on tape takes 11 minutes with the built in turbo loader lol.

Built in standard loader, slow load. Turbo loaders on Amstrad CPC range between 2000 and 3500 bauds.

By May 87 there was only 3 non idiotic choices, Plus2 for the poor, a C64 for arcade style 50hz gaming and world class sound chip with a tape deck OR a £300 520STFM disk based system. If you bought anything else in early 87 other than an A1000 like me then.....well............

The c64 was a toy, sold without monitor, and very expensive for what it was.
For the price of a C64 with monitor, you got a 6128 with color monitor, a LEP-10 tape deck, a DMP 2000 printer.

This is why in my country the C64 died as soon as the Amstrad CPC got into the shops. Commodore France was thrown into bankruptcy by Amstrad France (Marion Vannier, the woman behind Amstrad France just hang Commodore on a post with a rope , and Commodore were saved on the edge thanks the Amiga.

@"expensive ST option" after spouting some more rubbish about how popular the 6128 was...lol you tit the 520STFM was £299.99 by early Spring 87. A 520STFM disk based gaming set up for not much more than a C64 bundle with tape deck, the 6128 was a bad choice too at £299-349.99 for colour monitor option at this time, most CPC games are 64k but ALL 520ST games are 512k so a better option for users and the sound chip may be more or less identical but the ST doesn't use some low rent 2cm budget speaker inside a shit designed case to output it's sound even if an Amstrad RF modulator add on is used.

The CPC has a difference over the ST : it is stereo, and the ST is mono, like the C64. Next, the CPC offers great stereo if using a scart + stereo connector. The small speaker doesn't give the CPC justice

The Spectrum was the only 8bit that had 128k model as it's biggest seller because the 48k model has no sound chip and the 128 no joystick port still and thanks to Amstrad the Plus/2 was dirt cheap for 128k. C128 was a failure d yet it outsold ALL CPC variants ever sold by a whopping 50% more alone lol

The Spectrum selling this much will remains a mystery. it's the weakest machine, with the least colors. The only reason was the low income of people living in UK, making it an affordable machine.

@everyone
Great, you didn't have a C64, keep opinions and emotions away from factual discussions about costs and reality of non choice due to budget for the poorest people in the west. of course you wont so lets descend into shitty fanboy type bullshit, more fun vids....

the fact is that the c64 was a toy, and sold as such. this is why it sold in so many units all over the world. The Amstrad CPC was sold only in IT shops and family commercial centers IT store department back in the day as a computer.

The C64 for what it is is overated. Good to listen to electro music, but regarding games, there are a lot a garbage for few very good games, and the 50fps ability of this computer is not a solution or an enhancement for every game out there, it even deserve the C64 is some cases.

Games are bigger in size on the CPC than on the C64, and the CPC has way faster loading devices (floppy disk running at 300RPM, faster tape deck + faster loader systems).

That's the worst C64 default. The CPC has much more great games vs bad games. Going from the CPC to the C64 is very difficult, not the other way around.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Yes, most people had access to crappy 80s tape decks for music - it's why most 80's home computers used one. And yes, in the early 80s, having access to a second TV was a luxury - this was literally the justification for Amstrad including a monitor with the 464 (a decision which, as you rightly say, hurt them by 1987 when an ST that could be plugged into a telly ended up being the cheaper option).

I'm not sure why you're quoting the best choices in 1987, since by about late 84 the C64 price had dropped massively (mostly to compete with the Spectrum) and so obviously the market looked very different.

For tape speeds, we don't need to make weird comparisons between entirely different software because we have the actual numbers:

The C64 had a standard loading speed of 300 baud.
The Atari A8 had a loading speed of 600 baud.
The Speccy had a loading speed of around 1400 baud (0's and 1s are different length pulses so it varies)
The CPC had two speeds, 1000 baud by default and 2000 baud for "fast" loading.

So yes, the C64 was slower by default (and quite considerably so). The various machines obviously all used software methods for accelerating loaders but equally developers often didn't care that much - users would happily sit through pointless loading screens so expending more loading time by encrypting data to try and prevent piracy was prevalent.

For disks, the C64 does something in the region of 3000 baud by default. The 3" disks used in the Speccy/CPC are around 100,000 baud. There was literally a cottage industry in providing acceleration for CBM disks and pretending they weren't slow is just disingenuous at this point.

Maybe don't get information from quite so many biased YouTube "debunking" videos?

The Amstrad CPC had 2 basic speed included in rom : 1000 and 2000 bauds.

However, there was no problem to program your own loader with a speed going from 2500 to 4000 baud.

Bad Cat from Rainbow Arts CPC tape version has been mastered with blocks recorded at 3500 bauds.

Impossamole from Gremlin use the Gremlin loader 2, with micro blocks recorded at 2500 bauds.

[Aegis]

Apparently the 8-bit wars never actually ended

I was around when the Spectrum launched and nothing could touch it for the price - yes, it was a quirky little beast and couldn't do much without some expansions (especially if you had the 16k model) but without the Spectrum we wouldn't have Sabre Wulf and Atic Atac and Knight Lore and well, Rare. Like the C64, its ubiquity meant that bedroom coders could make real money making games for a living - and that spurred an incredibly creative British games industry.

The C64 was prohibitively expensive until Tramiel decided he wanted to challenge Sinclair's market dominance - but once Commodore started slashing the price of the C64, I got one as did many of my friends at the time - I couldn't afford a floppy drive though until nearly the end of the 8-bit era. Unfortunately CBM's cost-cutting mentality bit them on the ass as the 1541 had to be essentially another computer (there's a 6502 in there).

I think the Spectrum helped kickstart the fledgling UK game dev scene into a fully-blown industry but it's limitations (particularly RAM and storage but also GFX and audio) held it back - the C64 on the other hand, when paired with a FDD was far more capable.

I never really got exposed to the Amstrad(s) - it seemed like a lesser knock-off of the C64 with price/bundles being it's only real USP - of course, everyone's first computer is their first love so I'm sure there's people here that remember it fondly

[Dunny]

As I said, if the C64 had been cheap on launch in the UK, I don't think the Speccy would have gained the following it did - or at least not to the same extent. And the games industry would probably have looked very different today too.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

The Amstrad CPC had 2 basic speed included in rom : 1000 and 2000 bauds.

However, there was no problem to program your own loader with a speed going from 2500 to 4000 baud.

I know, which is why I said that all machines gained software based "turbo loaders" of some sort. I'm not sure it's easy to quantify them though as it requires analysis of the code and they often incorporated protection mechanisms (which might mean more data is loaded than is strictly necessary).

Originally Posted by Dunny

As I said, if the C64 had been cheap on launch in the UK, I don't think the Speccy would have gained the following it did - or at least not to the same extent. And the games industry would probably have looked very different today too.

I suspect small changes in pricing, time to market, better advertising etc and any one of a multitude of machines could have captured the market. There's probably a parallel universe out there in which the Dragon 32 wasn't a really bad choice.

[Megalomaniac]

It's not easy to debate with someone who cherry-picks examples and ignores any suggestions of titles to compare which might clash with their preconceptions. I suspect a few comments in this thread may have been written by someone who was, as we say, tired and emotional at the time, judging by the time and the language?

The notion of the C64's tape loading being faster than the Amstrad doesn't appear accurate in like-for-like cases where both versions use turbo loaders, or where both versions don't? How long did Elite take to load on Amstrad disk, or Ikari Warriors on C64 cassette? I assume Amstrad Ikari is 11 minutes on a CPC6128 from tape, where the entire game is being loaded in one go, meaning 128k of data (plus the loading screen and protection scheme) rather than merely 64k plus those?

I've certainly known people who had bad experience of unreliable C2N tape decks in contrast to their previous Spectrum - maybe there was the odd relatively dud one out there? No doubt more tricks had to be done to speed up the tape deck when the natural speed was so far behind Atari, Spectrum and CPC - especially as some games had been designed for disks originally? Not sure about the relative disk drive speeds or reliabilities of the C64 versus the CPC and Spectrum though?

Remember that a cassette based Spectrum, or a disk based ST, was giving you the best those systems had to offer, whereas a cassette based C64 was missing some games and losing the full experience for some others (mostly on the adventure / RPG / strategy side admittedly, but some action games too, I mentioned Super Cycle as one). With that in mind, the 1541 costing much the same as the C64 itself has to be considered as a flaw.

STFMs cost £400 until much later than May 1987, a quick browse through Atari ST User issues on Atarimania finds A500s advertised before you could get an STFM for £300. That said, the STFM was still great value at £400 compared to the A1000, or early Macs or contemporary PCs. At £300 versus a £500 A500 you could still make a case for it. Even when both were £400 but the ST came with piles of games, the initial saving on your games budget surely couldn't be entirely overlooked.

As for 2/5D and 3D, in most cases the Spectrum and Amstrad do outperform the C64, though by nowhere near as much as the raw clock speeds imply, and as seen in the given examples of course clever C64 coding (or lazy or inept Z80 coding) could change that.

Also, I'm unconvinced by this notion that a 50fps game is automatically better than the same thing at 25fps, or even slower in some cases. If things move ultrafast, you sometimes don't get enough time to adjust to approaching enemies, especially if the sprites are extravagantly big. Certainly, if a game is 50fps you have to consider that this will automatically increase difficulty, and make sure the game is balanced around this.

I have to ponder - is it also all too easy to wrap an unoriginal, lazily designed game around a fast game engine, and get away with it. Say what you like about the Spectrum (and indeed the BBC / Electron, which produced far more great games and great programmers than their modest sales suggest that it should have), but bad designers tended to be found out pretty quickly, with no fancy technical features to hide behind. Look at a company like Thalamus for example - all their games averaging at least 6 on Lemon64, but often a bit too hard, usually unoriginal (beyond Hunter's Moon, Snare and Creatures), and its noticeable that few of their coders achieved anything on later systems. Don't get me wrong, a great company in their time, but maybe not one that really led anywhere for later?

[Retro-Nerd]

And you still can't be more wrong. We're running in circles now. As always when it comes to comparisons like this.

[TEG]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

In a typical household in '82 you were already going to be borrowing the household TV to get any video game time, so also borrowing the cheap portable cassette player wasn't really a big deal. And, whilst it probably shouldn't have been the case, it was usually a lot more reliable (not to mention faster) than the datasette for the C64.

What ! Not in my experience ! I had a lot of problems with previous computers due to head misalignment. I was happy with the C64 precisely because I was able to read tapes coming from friends without problem.

The other point being that not all cassette players had a counter.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

The notion of the C64's tape loading being faster than the Amstrad doesn't appear accurate in like-for-like cases where both versions use turbo loaders, or where both versions don't?

It's not only accurate, it's also completely false.

The facts :

-The C64 games are "light" compared to those existing on the Amstrad CPC (bigger program and data).

-The Amstrad CPC on the tape side is exactly like the Amiga with Paula :
It can loads faster the program than the C64 (You can have my word on that, i have preserved on my own more than 2200 commercial tapes for Amstrad CPC, i saw _EVERY_ custom loaders/Schemes existing on this computer).

-The C64 can only load data through its own loaders, which are way less complicated and interesting than those existing on the Amstrad CPC, where the protection makers went to town.

The only game i know that share a loader system between CPC/C64/Spectrum are the trivial pursuit games. And the data loading system is made simpler to be used on C64.

-You cannot accelerate the tape loading or the disk loading on the C64 when using original games, as it breaks completely the protection systems. It only works on cracked games !

-The real difference appreciable on the C64 when you come from the CPC are the music, tailored for the SID chip, and that are different from the CPC/ZX version most of the time, and also the graphics mixing between 16 colors and the equivalent of the CPC mode 1 (320x200) (ex: Bart simpsons vs space mutants, which i have appreciated on the C64 and that lacks on the CPC with the mode 0 16 colors they used, that's an example among some others).

-How long did Elite take to load on Amstrad disk, or Ikari Warriors on C64 cassette?

Elite loads in 30 seconds on Amstrad CPC (Disk version).

For Ikari Warriors C64 it takes 6 minutes. But how normal it is, since it uses a faster loader called Cyberload (like Deliverance from Hewson)......

If i take a C64 game using standard "turbo blocks" and compare it with a CPC game using the gremlin loader 2 or 3, i could also stand the same : "damn, it's fugly slow on the C64".

On the fastest loaders, the CPC ones are faster than the C64 ones (it loads more data than the C64 faster).

I assume Amstrad Ikari is 11 minutes on a CPC6128 from tape, where the entire game is being loaded in one go, meaning 128k of data (plus the loading screen and protection scheme) rather than merely 64k plus those?

Ikari Warriors is a 64K game, not 128K, and it uses the normal loading speed offered by the Amstrad CPC rom. It has NO protection scheme at all, compared to the C64 version that use the Cyberload system, that is a copy protection and offers a faster loading.

I've certainly known people who had bad experience of unreliable C2N tape decks in contrast to their previous Spectrum - maybe there was the odd relatively dud one out there?

From my experience, the C64 tape deck is slow enough and the schemes simple enough to allow a certain reliability on loading.

The Spectrum is an awful shit for loading tapes..... a bit worse than the CPC with its sound and noise coming from the tape loading mixing (hint here : simply put the sound variator to mute while any game loads).

No doubt more tricks had to be done to speed up the tape deck when the natural speed was so far behind Atari, Spectrum and CPC - especially as some games had been designed for disks originally?

The games were designed most of the time for tape support.

The CPC 464 tape deck motor speed can be as i explained above controled.
That's why you can have 1000,2000,3000,4000 bauds with it.

Not sure about the relative disk drive speeds or reliabilities of the C64 versus the CPC and Spectrum though?

The CPC use a 3" drive spinning at 300rpm. No drive on the C64 beat that.
I don't speak about the 1581 for the C64 which is very rare and than almost no one possess (3.5" drive).
The CPC offers a fast loading from floppy disk out of the box, and on the original software.

The C64 allows very fast loading thanks to special roms that speed up fast the loading, but only on cracked games, it fucks any original game (i tried with Stormlord on my C64).

Remember that a cassette based Spectrum, or a disk based ST, was giving you the best those systems had to offer, whereas a cassette based C64 was missing some games and losing the full experience for some others (mostly on the adventure / RPG / strategy side admittedly, but some action games too, I mentioned Super Cycle as one).

The Spectrum use most of the same the CPC uses. That's why they both share the same Tape preservation format : TZX for ZX and CDT for CPC.

With that in mind, the 1541 costing much the same as the C64 itself has to be considered as a flaw.

Very expensive, and very slow.

STFMs cost £400 until much later than May 1987, a quick browse through Atari ST User issues on Atarimania finds A500s advertised before you could get an STFM for £300. That said, the STFM was still great value at £400 compared to the A1000, or early Macs or contemporary PCs. At £300 versus a £500 A500 you could still make a case for it. Even when both were £400 but the ST came with piles of games, the initial saving on your games budget surely couldn't be entirely overlooked.

The CPC and the ST looks like a lot, at the difference that the CPC can do scrolling more easily than the ST.....

As for 2/5D and 3D, in most cases the Spectrum and Amstrad do outperform the C64, though by nowhere near as much as the raw clock speeds imply, and as seen in the given examples of course clever C64 coding (or lazy or inept Z80 coding) could change that.

The games looks simplified in many cases on the C64. Sprites poor in colors, graphics bizarrely drawn, etc.... All this to take less space on the media they were stored on, and keep always the 64K barrier.

Also, I'm unconvinced by this notion that a 50fps game is automatically better than the same thing at 25fps, or even slower in some cases.

Fully agree. I was very displeased when i played on barbarian from Palace for the first time on my C64, as of course, i wanted to have the music of Richard Joseph (RIP mate), and when i pressed the key, i got the music, but then the game just fuckin' slowed down to a crawl. I was not happy with the unjustified slowness of the CPC version, but damn, what a deception !
And the nail in the coffin : when you shop off the head of your opponent, then game that was playing slow then pass in 50fps mode when the green goblin grip him and drag him out of the screen. "What is that fuckin' joke ? "

If things move ultrafast, you sometimes don't get enough time to adjust to approaching enemies, especially if the sprites are extravagantly big. Certainly, if a game is 50fps you have to consider that this will automatically increase difficulty, and make sure the game is balanced around this.

The C64 is unable to move big or gigantic sprites. if you want that, you need to go on the CPC or the Spectrum.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

The Spectrum is an awful shit for loading tapes..... a bit worse than the CPC with its sound and noise coming from the tape loading mixing (hint here : simply put the sound variator to mute while any game loads).

Easier said than done, at least on an original Spectrum. The sound came out of the internal speaker and that had no volume control. You could redirect output via the mic socket, but loading wasn't reliable if you left both leads connected (later in the 80s I got a fancy WHSmith branded datacorder which handled this in a nicer way as well as allowing you to boost game audio volume).

The later 128K machines did at least direct all audio through the TV, allowing you to mute whilst loading.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

The CPC 464 tape deck motor speed can be as i explained above controled.
That's why you can have 1000,2000,3000,4000 bauds with it.

No it can't, that isn't how turbo loading works. The tape motor always runs at the same speed, but since writing data is done entirely in software the lengths of pulses can be controlled. Shorter pulses means faster loading/saving, albeit at the risk of potentially less reliable data storage (though 2000 baud was pretty reliable on all but the most over-recorded cassettes).

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

The C64 is unable to move big or gigantic sprites. if you want that, you need to go on the CPC or the Spectrum.

Again, not really a fair comment. There are plenty of examples of C64 games moving big sprites around.

The advantage machines like the Spectrum and Amstrad had was that, working purely with drawing to a bitmap, you could be much more flexible in what you wanted. Need a bunch of 16*24 pixel sprites? No problem. Trying they same on the C64 and you'd have to shave lines off to fit the hardware constraints. It's that kind of flexibility the lead to the Amiga being built around Bobs rather than having a ton of fixed size sprites.

Of course the big advantage of hardware sprites is being able to move them around a lot faster than drawing frames (especially when you start having masked backgrounds etc)

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Easier said than done, at least on an original Spectrum. The sound came out of the internal speaker and that had no volume control. You could redirect output via the mic socket, but loading wasn't reliable if you left both leads connected (later in the 80s I got a fancy WHSmith branded datacorder which handled this in a nicer way as well as allowing you to boost game audio volume).

The later 128K machines did at least direct all audio through the TV, allowing you to mute whilst loading.

You're all mad. Why on earth would you want to mute that? It was musical!

Not like the C64 with its SID tunes during loading, of course, but dammit all one of the most popular of all the tools and utilities I have made has been the one that converts a Spectrum screen memory dump to an mpeg file with the sound and visuals authentically replicated.

Most of us can tell what's being loaded by the sound it makes.

[Aegis]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

The C64 allows very fast loading thanks to special roms that speed up fast the loading, but only on cracked games, it fucks any original game (i tried with Stormlord on my C64).

This simply isn't true - JiffyDOS has got excellent compatibility with copy-protected software - does it work with every game? Likely not - but it's worked with everything I run on my C64 (the only time I disable it is when I want to use the tape drive as the JiffyDOS wedge excludes the tape commands because of size constraints).

Originally Posted by JiffyDOS Manual

We designed JiffyDOS to be fast.-.but not at the expense of compatibility. As a result, JiffyDOS will load and operate with virtually all software of every type (including copyprotected commercial programs). This includes programs that cannot be loaded by other speedup products such as cartridges, software-based “turbo” loaders, and other hardwarebased systems. In addition, JiffyDOS is compatible with programs that utilize their own fast-access routines (such as GEOS) and will work with the non-standard file formats created by programs such as the VORPAL utility kit.