CPC Thread !!!

[s2325]

fake Amiga emulator for Amstrad CPC: [ Show youtube player ]

[SkulleateR]

Is there any CPC Emulator out there for Amiga OS4 ?????

Allready tried "Arnold" from os4depot but all I get is a black screen ?

[s2325]

Maybe you need also system .rom files.

[SkulleateR]

copied that from my win machine ... also I got no error on CLI showing any missing files ...

[roondar]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Here is the follow-up for Batman Vuelve : Batman Forever Demo on amstrad CPC old (c64 bashing hehehe, take this in ya face !!!)

http://retropower.eu/CPCInAJar/index...ISC&large=true

Heh, you know my feeling about the C64 but that demo is indeed all sorts of awesome.

In fact the only negative is the rather silly C64 bashing going on

[dlfrsilver]

Well, yes the CPC is really talented for demos (but not only). The CPC had back in the day the same problem as the amiga : because coders were focused on other machines, it was lacking proper and correct support.

The CPC can do hardware scrolls natively, a thing that the ST doesn't do naturally at all, i still don't understand to that day the fact that some people loved the ST in England, while the CPC was not and had this image of a crap machine, when it had really a good potential, without minimizing its weakness.

The Amiga suffered the same problem, until the ST got out of the map, our machine had to cope with half bastardized engines, ST compatibles !

Because even if the game companies were there to make money, honestly, the coders were most of the time passionate people, with a passion for a specific machine.

This let to stupidities the best example to me is the Crack Down from US Gold.
8 or 9 months to make the ST version (including some "fight" with sega about the access to the assets on the sega system 24, a lot of time lost for that, and next fighting to make such a big game running and working on ST, just to see what ? the coder spent 3 months to make the amiga version, remove some graphics, and finally botched up completely the game master, hence the correcting brought by my colleagues in the IPF.

In the same vein, Forgotten worlds from the same team lacks on computers 1 level.
Why ? Simply because the ST just could not fork out the egyptian level, full of huge sprites !

How many software massacred due to this ?

If this can explain a bit the way i think.....

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by RetroMan

Ok, here it is, as Akira wished

And that's been a while! The CPC is a machine I always wanted to love because it seemed interesting, especially after watching that Batman Forever demo. I had a GX4000 for about 5 months now, and after trying every game I could, both of the Plus and regular types, I gave up. It's really just pretty awful. I had a 6128 before that but only used it to watch Batman Forever and I also went out of my way to modify that one with some pretty sweet stuff, and then sold it.

To make matters worse, Relentless looks all choppy on my GX4000. Does it scroll using interlacing or something? It's really odd and impossible to watch. Not that it's such a great game anyway, gets tedious it seems ,but it looked really cool on Youtube videos.

And here ends my sad journey with Amstrad CPCs, after all these years of trying to give it a chance. At least as a games unit, it's really poor. The graphics are sub-par (and usually look like Spectrum shovelware not taking any advantage of the improved palette), the sound is horrid, and although the Plus line looks like it could have had a bunch of cool stuff running on it, it was sadly not taken advantage of much and died a quick death.
I feel like most of the CPC love is nostalgia-driven and I don't share this nostalgia since I didn't grow up with one, so it's time to focus on something else. You can't judge a platform, sadly, on its potential. You have to enjoy it with the things that ARE actually out there and not the "things that could have been made".

[Retro-Nerd]

And if they could have been made, they would. The CPC can't handle action games as a fact. Well not for Denis, but that's OK.

[roondar]

I'd say that is false. Obviously the CPC can handle action games at good framerates (see Edge Grinder).
The question is just how much stuff you can show before losing too many frames a second for it to be playable.

I'm convinced the ZX-Spectrum, Amstrad (especially since it turns out to be able to trick hardware scrolling), etc can all do 50Hz action games. They'll just have less stuff moving on screen compared to the ones on systems with more hardware support.

Oh and I am definitely a C64 fan and never owned an Amstrad so it's not a fanboy speaking here

[Retro-Nerd]

Not this discussion again. Edge Grinder is a 1-Level score shooter with limited action on screen and it runs only in 25 fps. No, the CPC can't handle full 50fps with proper action. All the homebrew examples are only proof of concept which doesn't mean they are good. Just can't remember this 50fps CPC shooter atm, but it looked like an A2600 game.

[roondar]

Meh, I'd call Jet Set Willy an action game and it runs at 50Hz :P

Anyway, I'm not going to discus it - fact is you could program a 50Hz action game on pretty much any system. The fact you'll have to (potentially seriously) compromise to make it happen doesn't change that.

And just as obviously you won't get anywhere near the same result as on a machine with hardware support.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Just can't remember this 50fps CPC shooter atm, but it looked like an A2600 game.

It's the one I mentioned above, Relentless:
[ Show youtube player ]

Only in my GX4000, it scrolled like shit, for whatever reason. Leading me to believe it relies on some trick that might not be compatible with Plus models.

OK let's say it can't handle action games, but then there aren't really any games that are platform-exclusive and worth anyone's time. I really did give this a try for many years, it's time to give up.

[tomcat666]

Akira, you are not the only one. I had high hopes too. Had two 6128's and one 464. On one 6128 I did a 3.5" drive replacement just so I would be able to transfer stuff more conveniently. The 464 had ram enhancement, 5.25" drive, Eprom board and whatnot. Played every game that was mentioned as "good" on cpc plus hundreds more. Watched the demos... basically tried to like the machine and the stuff on it, but it just wasn't to be. There were no really good games, nothing that was better than stuff on C64 or even ZX... it was just poor. And I really wanted to like it too. In the end the Bat-Man demo is the only good thing on the CPC and even that gets old quickly and I like most top C64 more ... much more. Of the games the isometric 3d adventures have two more colours than ZX Spectrum versions so that has to count for something, but it really doesn't since they are poorly (randomly?) chosen... I still like those better on ZX. So I came to the same conclusion as you... it just is NOT worth it and I sold the lot (for quite a good sum of money too ).

[Amiga1992]

Yah I am hoping to make some money back on this kit, I even bought the C4CPC cartridge for it, which is a brilliant piece of hardware, but even though it's just not gonna save the platform.
The 6128 I had I updated with a 3.5" drive too, as well as an internal picoPSU modification! It was a great machine, but pretty useless

[Anubis]

Retrogamer used to (they still might, but not reading it for a while now) make comparison test and decide what version was 'better' among same level computers/consoles, and IIRC only once I saw CPC version be better...

Mostly had to do with bad scrolling and/of poorly made ports...

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Anubis

Retrogamer used to (they still might, but not reading it for a while now) make comparison test and decide what version was 'better' among same level computers/consoles, and IIRC only once I saw CPC version be better...

Mostly had to do with bad scrolling and poorly made ports...

Yes, because they had to make the ports most of the time on multiple platforms. If the deadline is 9 months, how do you want to fork out a correct CPC version back in the day, if the coder spent already 6 months on the C64 version ? Only a 3 months joke just to disgust the users ? I'm sorry, but when you're professional, you do the job correctly and from A to Z.

Let me guess why the development was longer on the C64/spectrum.... because it's not so easy at all to make a tons of tricks, effects even in hardware on this and this machines That's the reason !

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Let me guess why the development was longer on the C64/spectrum.... because it's not so easy at all to make a tons of tricks, effects even in hardware on this and this machines That's the reason !

Or maybe, just maybe also because nobody gave a fuck about the CPC. After all, it was mainly a "thing" in France, and a little in Spain. That's a pretty small market compared to the C64 which had world wide reach. I think it was "good enough" that you got any games for CPC at all.

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by Akira

Or maybe, just maybe also because nobody gave a fuck about the CPC. After all, it was mainly a "thing" in France, and a little in Spain. That's a pretty small market compared to the C64 which had world wide reach. I think it was "good enough" that you got any games for CPC at all.

Only reason they were like that - money... like anyone cared about games and quality - there was more money to be made elsewhere... same thing killed Amiga... and some greedy company is killing Amiga community with kickstart rights, while for example Atari released their TOS images to public.

I really am master of getting off topic...

[Amiga1992]

And what exactly is wrong with making games for a living? I don't get this mentality. Games are a business and people wanting to make money is perfectly alright. Some cared about the product they made too. Otherwise, we would have never seen any good games on any platform. Yet, we do. The fact remains that the CPC was not a great platform and to make matters worse it also had a small userbase. Not a good combination.

(That has nothing to do with shitheads like Cloanto leeching off IP and fucking the Amiga community in the ear. Which is also not related to Commodore, since Commodore does not exist since forever. I'm also a master of bitching about Cloanto )

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Akira

Or maybe, just maybe also because nobody gave a fuck about the CPC. After all, it was mainly a "thing" in France, and a little in Spain. That's a pretty small market compared to the C64 which had world wide reach. I think it was "good enough" that you got any games for CPC at all.

It's not that they gave a fuck, it's mostly than you can't properly make a game in three months.

the CPC market was 3 millions of machines (sold). The english choosed to make c64 and spectrum ports on CPC, when it was in fact the machine with the most potential, and the latest coming on the market.

The french, and finally the english people at a moment just stopped to underuse the CPC, and finally did the right thing : using the 16 bits assets of their games to convert more accurately than from the 8 bits like the C64 and spectrum, which brought nothing more to the story.

The french companies understood quite rapidly that it was a nonsense to convert from the older 8 bits, and that the CPC could have 16 bits like games thanks to the amiga and atari ST, meaning more 0 with good colors and correct animations, or mode 1 graphics, accurate to the 16 bits version (ex: Iron Lord, one of the jewels of this machine.).

I remember also when the CPC was 1 or 2 years old, the english coders got the extremely regrettable idea to make ports from the C64 assets on CPC.

Those games are the most ugliest the earth ever carried, horrible schemes of colors that even a blind person would not dare to make. The CPC really give all its flavors when the assets were ported from superior machines, and not from oldest and oldish machines.

Stormlord graphics for CPC were done on an atari ST, hence the splendid color palette, as exolon, as Turrican 2, and countless others games.

You see, if i want to get perfect graphics from shinobi, i won't use the c64 graphics. I would use instead the Amiga assets, otherwise the result would awful.

PS : talking about Shinobi, i have found the way to extract all the graphics for sprites used on the sega system 16 A/B hehe