Amstrad CPC 464 - 30 years old this month

[Thorham]

You gotta love the crappy keyboard layouts on those early 80s machines

[invent]

Good memories, it was chosen over the C64. The first thing we played on it was some educational software... Animal, vegetable, and mineral.

Fond memories of games like Feud, the covenant, Galivan, Rana Rama, Army Moves, Crafton and Zunk, Movie, Gliderider, Heartland, Fruity Frank, Jet Set Willy and many more.

[dlfrsilver]

the CPC has an excellent keyboard

[Hodor]

This computer was never into my favourites. In fact, during my youth I always thought that it was a step behind others like MSX or C64.

Many years later, fortunately, I´ve changed my mind

[Neil79]

Originally Posted by Hodor

This computer was never into my favourites. In fact, during my youth I always thought that it was a step behind others like MSX or C64.

Many years later, fortunately, I´ve changed my mind

I changed a C64 fanboy's mind the other day...

Play the R-Type homebrew version on the CPC and see what it can really do

[BarryB]

I've never used one or knew anyone who had one, it was Oric 1 > Speccy > C64 > ST > Amiga and PC for me. Strangely, the ST is the only machine I no longer have.

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by Neil79

I changed a C64 fanboy's mind the other day...

Play the R-Type homebrew version on the CPC and see what it can really do

i never go by what the software was back then,even back then.
alot of the software houses were porting from the spectrum for a quick release alot of the time.
i used to have to stay away from movie tie ins etc that had to be released on all platforms,utter rubbish most of the time.
some of the time,if a piece of software is made for the system from the beginning its not all that bad.although i cant say that for amsoft titles i think that was quantity over quality.

[hansel75]

Originally Posted by Neil79

I changed a C64 fanboy's mind the other day...

Play the R-Type homebrew version on the CPC and see what it can really do

Not to rain on your parade mate or knock the 464, as i liked the machine as well when using my mates as a kid.

But apart from the nice colour in this R-Type remake, it's terribly jerky and only looks to be running at about 4fps.

The large space ship on stage 3 moves in chunky jumps rather then scrolls across the screen.

It doesn't look a patch on the best C64 shooters like Armalyte, Delta etc with there 50fps refresh, and at least R-type on C64 was much smoother.

The 464 has it's place but there are some areas where it simply can't compete with the C64, especially games with lots of sprites and smooth scrolling.

[Neil79]

You must've played a dodgy emulator or on the 464 as it's fine on my CPC 6128, even the C64 person enjoyed playing it.

[dlfrsilver]

in fact the problem lays in emulators. You need a real CPC to get the scroll running correctly. The CPC CRTC is a very complex piece of hardware, and it's not emulated perfectly with the perfect timings.

The game runs at 25fps if i remember well. And sorry, but many games like batman the movie are really dull on C64 and spectrum, while it is awesome on CPC. The C64 is an old computer compared to the CPC, even with it having games with 50fps scroll and synthetizer sound. Look at Robocop, it's way better on CPC than C64 (it uses the batman the movie engine), and look : The CPC was programmed on Atari ST at Ocean Software, even its graphics were done on ST.

Many games with lots of sprites are rubbish on c64 (the main processor is really too slow, even if you have hardware assistance). The CPC has a stronger processor, an hardware cathodic ray controller which allow hardware scroll (some games use it, like super cauldron and Prehistorik II, as well as Warhawk, on which it's a vertical scroll), and other delicatessies. In many ways, the ST even have some limitations that the CPC doesn't have. In overall, the CPC is the most "powerfull" 8 bit computer, because it has many features of the 16 bits machines. We had some conversions that either the spectrum or the C64 would have dreamed of from the ST or the Amiga, thanks to the 16 colors ability in mode 0.

when i pick a game like Turrican I or even II, the game is a 16 bits conversion, not an 8 bits conversion from the C64. This is why i say that we had on CPC games that where 16 bits look a like. I made the maps for both games (hi Codetapper ), and those have the size of the ones on amiga and ST. Not counting they are both in mode 0, they use hardware scrolling (thanks to the CRTC), and have an excellent playability.

Just to say that having games with 50 fps scroll and synth music are not enough for people to say that a computer is above everything. The C64 has been killed in France by the CPC, with no efforts. why ? Because the CPC was an overall best choice. In term of coding, in term of palette color, in term of business abilities, in term of peripherals, in term of utilities, and in term of games. The C64 was an over-hyped console with a keyboard, no monitor. Compare this with the success the amiga had in france, and it says it all : the amiga has all what people loved in the CPC, plus the color palette the C64 never had, and digital sound. We are like that : we french either want a balanced computer, or the best deal you can find. the Amiga was the best deal hence its success here

Just my 2cts

[Neil79]

Neil79 clicks "Like" on dlfrsilver's post

[s2325]

And you can mistake Batman Forever with Atari ST or Amiga scene production [ Show youtube player ]

[Neil79]

My fav Amstrad demo is this one [ Show youtube player ]

[hansel75]

Well for every technically good cpc game that scrolled smoothly etc, there where probably 10x C64 games that were just as good!

The only aspect i would regard the cpc to be better then the c64 in is it's colour palette, but in saying that the cpc colours can look very garish at times.

And at least 99% of C64 games used full colour, a lot of cpc games where in monochrome like the spectrum versions, yes the cpc could of done colour in those games if the coders tried hard, but they didn't and a lot of the time took the easy way out with monochrome.

And for every impressive cpc demo there where probably 20x times more on the C64 that shined as well!

The 'overall' quality and quantity of the cpc range of games and demos simply cannot be compared to the huge amount of quality C64 releases.

Sure the cpc might do more when put into the right hands, but these 'technically better then c64 examples' are really only a couple of examples in the overall scheme of things.

There so many games on the cpc that used flick screen, or most had slow jerky scrolling, and the games that scrolled and moved as smoothly as the c64 versions were rare.
And a lot of cpc games had very basic sound that sucked compared to the c64 versions, sure there are examples where the cpc can do good sound but a lot of games sucked sound wise.

Yes the cpc was more capable then what some of the old coders did with it, but it just seemed so much easier to do the same thing on a C64, without having to wait 30yrs for some clever coders to comes along and make an amazing looking cpc product.

Then there is the fact that some of these cpc examples that have been mentioned require a cpc with 128k ram vs the 64k on the C64.

And keep in mind when using an example like the R-type remake on the cpc, if comparing it to the c64 version there is a 20+ year difference in release dates, of course the cpc remake is going to look nicer.

And to my knowledge the cpc was a more expensive computer then the c64 was as well so in theory "it should of been better".

This has been discussed before, but it's always a fun topic, i just hope i didn't start a cpc vs 64 war again

I do have to ask this question though, if the cpc is so much superior to the c64, then why did a lot of it's games look jerky and slow compared to the c64 versions.

Sure the cpc has a faster cpu which is good for 3d wireframe games, but it lacked the custom chips to offload the workload from the cpu that the c64 has.

Just have a good look at the amount of sprites and stuff that's happening in a game like Armalyte on the C64 all as smooth as butter, i haven't seen anything on the cpc that impressive in a shooter.

And only one has to look at some of the stages in the Turrican games to see how impressive the c64 really was, the shooting stages in turrican 2 with there multi direction parallax scrolls and impressive sprites all running ultra smooth, plus it's quality colour and tunes, well enough said there.

How many games on the cpc used parallax scrolling, no where as many as the c64 had i bet!

And if i should mention audio quality, i don't think there is much contest there when it comes to the Sid chip in which everything else sucked at the time!

The way i see it is the cpc vs the c64 is like comparing the st to the amiga!

And as for the cpc dominating in France this is one small country, the C64 dominated the rest of the world and was alive and kicking well into the 90's.

In the 80's and 90's here in Australia i only knew one person who owned a cpc 464, yet i knew dozens of c64 owners over there lifetimes!

There is a reason why the C64 was and still is the worlds biggest selling computer!

And saying "Just to say that having games with 50 fps scroll and synth music" on the C64 like it was meaningless back in the 80's seems silly.

Why wouldn't you want a smooth 50fps scroll in most of your games and awesome synth sounds, every game that came out in the 80's on any format could of benefited from these aspects.

Also gameplay comes into account here to, the smoother the game the more playable it should be.

You can say the cps is technically better then the c64 from a handful of selected examples, but just go back and look at the last 30yrs worth of software in general for both systems and i think the c64 simply outshines the cpc in virtually every way!

Edit- Sorry for the novel

[Neil79]

Originally Posted by hansel75

I do have to ask this question though, if the cpc is so much superior to the c64, then why did a lot of it's games look jerky and slow compared to the c64 versions.

Because of lazy developers with shoddy speccy ports that didn't use the CPC to it's full potential! Developers are still doing it today with console ports to PC

[hansel75]

Originally Posted by Neil79

Because of lazy developers with shoddy speccy ports that didn't use the CPC to it's full potential! Developers are still doing it today with console ports to PC

Well if in theory the cpc is technically better then the c64, the software said otherwise and provided the superior 8bit experience with technically better looking and smoother games in general!

[Neil79]

Originally Posted by hansel75

Well if in theory the cpc is technically better then the c64, the software said otherwise and provided the superior 8bit experience with technically better looking and smoother games in general!

The sid chip was far better than the Amstrad that's for sure!

Even each model of the C64 differed in sid's
[ Show youtube player ]

[hansel75]

8bit wars never get old, lol

Edit- Now if the cpc 464 have had a vic and sid chip added to it, then it might be a different story.
Also i am a die hard Commodore fan so please don't take it personally, i just love a friendly retro war that's all lol

[Mad-Matt]

Back then, the cpc was portrayed as nothing more than a glorified spectrum with an extra colour mode. It would be quite rare for a cpc game to upstage a c64 game, but it ultimately came down to how much the developer cared as there were some outright lazy ports across all the platforms. Even the spectrum could shine if the developer cared enough.

Once games like rtype,turrican,turbo outrun, anything from thalamous were seen running on c64, It was pretty obvious which 8bit platform to move onto from a spectrum. The cpc just wasnt going to cut it. I'm pretty sure any spectrum/cpc owner would have been envious of what was being put out on c64 towards the end of its life.

[Neil79]

Originally Posted by hansel75

8bit wars never get old, lol

Edit- Now if the cpc 464 have had a vic and sid chip added to it, then it might be a different story.
Also i am a die hard Commodore fan so please don't take it personally, i just love a friendly retro war that's all lol

I'm fine with it, nothing like a bit of back and forth 8bit discussions..

As for me I'm a huge CPC fan, but I like all the 8-bit machines even the ZX