Amiga scene desperately needs two things.

[britelite]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Back when I had access to A8 and C64 emulators, I compared my favourite Atari games with their C64 counterparts, and I was surprised how much more sluggish and non-smooth the C64 versions were.

Have you tried them on real hardware?

Example games were Blue Max, Bruce Lee, Warhawk, Boulder Dash, Defender, Zybex, and quite a few others.

You naming 6 games YOU feel ran better (on an emulator) doesn't contradict what he said. He said "many games", not "all games", and he's correct.

[nobody]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Rubbish.

Back when I had access to A8 and C64 emulators, I compared my favourite Atari games with their C64 counterparts, and I was surprised how much more sluggish and non-smooth the C64 versions were. Example games were Blue Max, Bruce Lee, Warhawk, Boulder Dash, Defender, Zybex, and quite a few others. The Atari versions felt 100% smoother and much more like an arcade experience. The C64 versions may have sometimes have had more detailed graphics (with the hi-res characters and sprites) but I actually like the simpler, more colourful look of the A8.

Bad luck for you, as I run c64 on a CRT TV and 90% of the games run smooth as butter

[malko]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Nothing on the C64 looks date or horrible, with a decent graphics artist and time [...]

Retro-Nerd, you touched the point !
I can add that even with a single sheet of paper and a pen (result in black & white) it's possible to draw something great if you are talented enough (I'm not so continue practising ).
(the original picture is too big, I have downsized it (original here) - the image has been drawn by Tsukaja Hojo).

[Foebane]

I didn't say the Atari was better, but when you're talking about two separate pieces of hardware that utilise hardware scrolling and sprites, and are designed for CRT TVs and thus use vertical blank interrupts, then they'd be EQUAL.

I am simply calling the guy out for his saying the C64 was better at gaming performance, when they're really very much the same. The scrolling and sprites are more finer and versatile, that's all.

Have you tried them on real hardware?

I HAD an Atari 800XL, so yes. I saw the C64 at a neighbour's house and it reminded me of the Atari.

Fair enough about "many games".

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by malko

Retro-Nerd, you touched the point !

Yes, yes, those titles are lovely

Wonderboy / Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon (much better than the totally different Amiga *rubbish* version) are other good examples from memory

[Retro-Nerd]

http://c64pixels.com/main.php?g2_vie.../%20Multicolor

Non Interlace Multi-Color Mode (the ones they usually used for C64 title pics).

And if you check how brilliant Sam's Journey looks ingame then you would really need an outstanding artist to draw something that pushes the Amiga to its limit too. Would love to see it though one day, for Amiga homebrew games.

[ Show youtube player ]

[malko]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

http://c64pixels.com/main.php?g2_vie.../%20Multicolor

Thank you for the link. Some gfx are really amazing .
From time to time, I like browsing some sites also (among others: this one (colour cycling) or this one) .

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

And if you check how brilliant Sam's Journey looks ingame then you would really need an outstanding artist to draw something that pushes the Amiga to its limit too. Would love to see it though one day, for Amiga homebrew games.

The team behind this game seems more "professional" than "homebrew". Maybe some talented people from EAB joining their talents could vie with them ?

[Retro-Nerd]

It took more than 3 years (on/off) to complete Sam's Journey. Except Wayne and Magnus (Scourge of the Underkind) there is probably nobody willing to sacrifice that amount of spare time. Understandable.

Yes, Knights of Bytes are more than the typical homebrew coder. They just wanted to create the beste possible C64 platformer ever, 8-15 hours of pure gameplay.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

It took more than 3 years (on/off) to complete Sam's Journey. Except Wayne and Magnus (Scourge of the Underkind) there is probably nobody willing to sacrifice that amount of spare time.

Agree here Retro, absolute mission... Wayne's graphics skills / pixel art / work as a talented illustrator are beyond most humans' capabilities

For people that don't know, check out here

That's only half the story when creating games though; you know that my friend.

...but there are various other members doing their absolute best

• Galahad
• earok
• Tsak
• Amigajay
• alpine9000
• nobody
• Lemming880
• Master484
• leathered (may he rest in peace and be remembered)
• blah / blah / blah

Exciting times for our beloved Amiga

[Retro-Nerd]

...but there are various other members doing their absolute best

But graphics are the most critical part. People moan when Amiga homebrew games doesn't look like Turrican 2 or Lionheart stuff. EAB has enough good coder or music artists for sure. Maybe graphic artists too, but nothing really brillliant except SotU showed up yet. Well, Dan wanted to do something.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

But graphics are the most critical part. People moan when Amiga homebrew games doesn't look like Turrican 2 or Lionheart stuff. EAB has enough good coder or music artists for sure. Maybe graphic artists too, but nothing really brillliant expect SotU yet.

Yes, graphics are very important and there is most definitely a shortage of people who have Wayne's talent

Naturally...

You can't teach creativity; some are born with it / others not

[saimon69]

We also have Koyot1222 that has a special talent for pixel art - and that said by me that i did art school and have also a past of graphic artist is a full endorsement

[DamienD]

Yup, going off memory above... many others I've forgotten, sorry

Point is; the last 2 years have been pretty damn good for the Amiga scene!!!

[Foebane]

I wonder if some Amiga developers wrote little programs to create their graphics, to make them look better and speed up the development time?

I developed the game Brainbow, and I used my programming abilities not only to write the game code itself but to process the graphics for the play area, as shown here: [ Show youtube player ]

I used AMOS back then, and even being BASIC, it still wasn't easy sometimes, but I was also writing fractal landscape routines at the time, and I got bump-mapping and shading down pat, at least in the sense of making a surface appear to be lit in one direction and to give a 3D look. I was even able to use EHB to implement shadows over the hills and mountains. Sadly I don't have those programs anymore, but I did write similar stuff for the PC. I hope to share it sometime.

Anyway, if I recall correctly, I drew the rudimentary graphics for the play area in DPaint, then wrote the routine to simply apply the bump-mapping over that image, and even add the right colours wherever they were needed, based on the colour of the original pixels. I think the results worked quite well, even if my parents weren't initially convinced I'd done it all. Oh well, that's the life of a bedroom coder, I guess.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Foebane

I am simply calling the guy out for his saying the C64 was better at gaming performance, when they're really very much the same. The scrolling and sprites are more finer and versatile, that's all.

I think you misunderstood my point. I was contradicting the generalised point that the C64 was a far better games machine than the Atari. Having used both machines extensively (real hardware, and not just seeing one at a friend's house) it's easy for me to see that the differences are less clear cut. Both machines have their advantages and limitations, and different games deal with these in different ways, resulting in many games playing better on one or the other, and many games looking better on one or the other.

[Foebane]

I DO apologise, Daedalus, I misread the rest of your post previously.

(I really must stop jumping down people's throats)

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Foebane

(I really must stop jumping down people's throats)

[RiotRetroGaming]

I never saw an accelerator before until my father bought a blizzard back in the day... And to be honest I've not been too interested.
I was too young, was writing music with OctaMED and was a games player on a stock A500+.

I think if I were to get one today it would have to be an 060, anything below wouldn't make sense and I'm not interested.
The 8Mb fast ram seemed perfect on the TF328, fitted budget and allowed me to offload all my games from my unreliable floppies (thanks wepl/WHDLoad & Plasmab/TF328) and enjoy the Amiga a bit more.

If I had enough to buy an 030 or 040 I think I'd hold on a bit more and wait for the big one. I know for a fact that I'd get frustrated if I saw demos not running right or games not playing well & then I'd love to see MagiC64 playing full speed... which to be honest would justify holding off buying anything less.

I'm still holding out

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by donnie

I feel the amiga scene is hampered by two major bottlenecks.

1. A cheap and easy to use sd/usb-cartridge for amiga 500 expansion side port. With cf-hdd and usb/sd slot for file transfer.

Something that you can just plug in and download some games and play. Like every other machine out there.

2. A cheap and good version of the cd32 controller. This to encourage future games to be made with more than 2 buttons.

Unfortunately, none of these two things will make more people code games for the classic Amigas.

[nobody]

Yes you need some kind of commercial life, example 1.000 copies for a good game. Meaning really good. Not turrican 2 but good.

40.000$ is a good motive.