Amstrad CPC, much better than I thought it would be!

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

I'm shocked that you really believe what you're writting here. If you haven't got access to a cheap machine to play games the CPC was maybe an alternative for your French guys at that time.

The C64 was sold in every hypermarkets here when the CPC hit the shelves.

And we all know the story : the c64 has been murdered by the CPC

It's not even a story of price. Most people and parents just tought :

"- the sound is great, but i won't be such a high price for a toy and what's this color scheme ? Were they smokin' weed or something ?"

The thing became so embarrassing for sellers in IT hypermarkets that those were sending back to Commodore France all their computers, as so many machines were sold (the proportions were epic!) and they could not sold not even a quarter of the units they sold for CPC.

But honestly, they were arcades too in France. So you could compare these games with the lousy ports.

Absolutely. Arcade were big in the eighties in France, you're right on this matter. But the C64 never matched what we wanted to have.

We wanted colorful games with vivid colors, like the kind of palettes used on the Amiga or CPC.

TMNT 2 for instance is really a great port considering the difficulty of the conversion. Same for Shadow Dancer.

We loved the coin-op (my god, oh many coins i used in the arcade machine during my holidays in international/french campsites !

And we were eagerly awaiting for the conversion on CPC. As usual Dave Semmens did a great job

The C64 version is horrible not because the computer is not able, it's horrible because the C64 use this special palette, totally unsuited for most games because coin-ops and amiga or ST use vivid palettes, as a result, it's complicated to get the real deal.

Why in hell would anybody want to collect these garbage, they are unplayable and a better in nostalgia. The CPC has a few good games which are playable but surely nothing you mentioned here the last few days.

All the games i mentioned are regarded as classics. I don't know where you got it that those were garbage. On C64 yes unfortunately, but not on CPC, they sold very well

For action games: As i said before. Smooth scrolling (at least running stable in 25 fps) and good responsive controls. These are the basics and the CPC couldn't handle it for action games.

We don't need 25fps on 8 bit computer. since those computers had low power to animate the game, it's useless.

It was never build for action games. Also the CPC never had anything with similiar quality like Mansion Mansion, Last Ninja II, Bard's Tale, Ultima, Wizball, Hawkeye, Armalyte, IO, Epyx Games Serie, Project Firestorm, Neuromancer etc.

Maniac Mansion is horrible (even on amiga). Last Ninja II is a crap conversion typically the kind of game the CPC could have given the C64 a run for its money, alas, the conversion team were speccy lovers, who prefered to make running a speccy emulator on the CPC.

Bard's Tale I on CPC is absolute rubbish. Why ? It's a C64 port, with crap graphics and awful colors. This is one of the example i gave earlier, when the CPC got awful ports of the C64 assets. They should have been shot for that.

The Turrican ports are laughable at best (Julian Eggebrecht was more than dissapointed).

Certainly not. this game has been a great success on CPC, rainbow arts sold a lot of them, it's a gem and a very sought for game by most collectors.

Same applies to Turrican 2.

Julian being disappointed ? Ahah You bet !

"Oh no, the game is better looking on the CPC than on the C64 eeekkkk "
"How dare you?? Just you wait, dirtying the c64 like that !"

Nonense. Probably too expensive for the French market. And the C64 doesn't fit with the SECAM norm on French TVs. So you needed surely some kind of converter that worsend the signal even more.

Not nonsense. The C64 was way too expensive for what it could do. The CPC allowed to do overall more thing than the C64 for half the price, a color monitor and a printer. This has been the nail in the coffin for the C64 in our country.

If you give the choice to people to choose between a Toy called computer as complicated as expensive the C64 price here was around 10000 francs with a colour monitor in 1983 (without the datasette and i don't even talk about the floppy disk drive, with it, the computer price raise to 12000 francs) and a CPC 6128 which costed 10000 francs with a color screen, a printer and the Amx mouse and a lightpen !

Just guess what they would choose ?

Further more, even with the fastload fitted, a C64 can't go faster than a mere 464 for loading games.

A 464 for tape games can go as far as 6500 bauds in speed. It's not theorical, i have tested games crunched and encoded in tapes at this speed.

the main floppy drive for a C64 is also notoriously slow. A CPC disk drive runs faster too than this one and never costed so much.

The (my) c64 fits very well with the secam norm since the french models got an electronic card for that made by PROCEP. But since it's oldish crap, i'm not using this, i'm using the standard RGB output with a scart cable. I don't need at all any expensive converter, it works right out of the box.

[Retro-Nerd]

The C64 version is horrible not because the computer is not able, it's horrible because the C64 use this special palette

Colors/chosen color palettes doesn't make bad games. Otherwise tons of early Mega Drive, PC-Engine, NES and even some SNES game classics were crap.

Further more, even with the fastload fitted, a C64 can't go faster than a mere 464 for loading games.

A 464 for tape games can go as far as 6500 bauds in speed. It's not theorical, i have tested games crunched and encoded in tapes at this speed.

Never bought unreliable tapes. I had a C64+Floppy with hardware speeder (Speed Dos) and most of the cracks and a lot of original disk games had software fastloader too. And they can load very fast, but i know that your C64 knowledge is very limited.

If you give the choice to people to choose between a Toy called computer as complicated as expensive the C64 price here was around 10000 francs with a colour monitor in 1983 (without the datasette and i don't even talk about the floppy disk drive, with it, the computer price raise to 12000 francs) and a CPC 6128 which costed 10000 francs with a color screen, a printer and the Amx mouse and a lightpen !

Wow, this was 1985 much more expensive than the initial sales price for a C64+monitor+datasette in Germany 1983. Probably 50%+

Same applies to Turrican 2.

They sold 15000-20000 copies and it was big flop money-wise. Rainbow Arts and Factor 5 said that over 20 years ago.

We don't need 25fps on 8 bit computer. since those computers had low power to animate the game, it's useless.

A lot of C64 games scrolls in 25 fps or even 50 fps. That makes them smooth, just like a lot of the Atari 8bit games. And there is enough CPU time (due to the hardware scrolling) to create smooth animations too. But if you only played the crappy arcade ports... The CPC has to calculate/render everything in software with CPU power, the C64 not. That's why the most actions games runs in jerky 7-15 frames with a tiny viewable display.

But since it's oldish crap, i'm not using this, i'm using the standard RGB output with a scart cable. I don't need at all any expensive converter, it works right out of the box.

A C64 can't output a RGB signal. If you use a scart cable it's the inferior composite signal, unless your TV supports S-Video via Scart (mostly Scart-2 on European TVs).

[Raislin77it]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Wow, this was 1985 much more expensive than the initial sales price for a C64+monitor+datasette in Germany 1983. Probably 50%+

i don't know in germany or france, but you wants to lol ?

i have buyed the sole c64 floppy drive for the price of 270.000 lire, almost at the time the cost of a c64+datassette .
here in italy, and it was circa the 1989/90, my neighborhood at the time for the a500 has spended circa 600.000 lire so my first computer costed (c64+datasette+floppy) more than an amiga 500+500kb of the upgrade LOL !!

good time despite everything, this is my first computer , the first basic programs etc etc, but some time the prices didn't make sense

[dlfrsilver]

@Raistlin77it : Yes, you see, it's such a stupidity to be cornered to pay an 8 bit computer a price superior to a 16 bits glory like the Amiga 500. It's typical commodore fail attitude. All this for a toy for kids.

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Colors/chosen color palettes doesn't make bad games. Otherwise tons of early Mega Drive, PC-Engine, NES and even some SNES game classics were crap.

Well, some games on these consoles are not appaling at all. This because of the choice of colors.

In another case, i never liked the NES color scheme. I prefer the colors of most megadrive, snes, pc engine games.

Never bought unreliable tapes. I had a C64+Floppy with hardware speeder (Speed Dos) and most of the cracks and a lot of original disk games had software fastloader too. And they can load very fast, but i know that your C64 knowledge is very limited.

The C64 even with fastloader either on tape or disk never reach the speed a 464 can reach on tape nor a 6128 with disk drive.

The standard speed for the CPC is 1000 and 2000 bauds. I know a few games (commercial) using 3500 bauds for loading.

With fastloader, tape loading on C64 doesn't even reach 2500 bauds.

Wow, this was 1985 much more expensive than the initial sales price for a C64+monitor+datasette in Germany 1983. Probably 50%+

The price was high mostly because the computer was not selling. It's a commercial rule : when a computer solds well, the manufacturer can lower the price. When it doesn't, in order to not lose too much money, the price is high.

They sold 15000-20000 copies and it was big flop money-wise. Rainbow Arts and Factor 5 said that over 20 years ago.

You're talking about a specific machine or the sales number for all the plateforms ?

A lot of C64 games scrolls in 25 fps or even 50 fps. That makes them smooth, just like a lot of the Atari 8bit games. And there is enough CPU time (due to the hardware scrolling) to create smooth animations too. But if you only played the crappy arcade ports...

when i look at Shadow Dancer on my C64, the main sprite is ridiculous, the playability horrible (not kidding, just give it a go, and you'll see the utter mess it is). Only the introduction is correct on this version. The game is a huge fail.

The worst : it has a 50fps scroll. Ahah. What's the point ?

The CPC has to calculate/render everything in software with CPU power, the C64 not. That's why the most actions games runs in jerky 7-15 frames with a tiny viewable display.

Yes the CPC mostly use software engines. Just pick Super Cauldron, it uses awesomish germanico teutonic soft routines, and the game is just very smooth, butter smooth and the screen size is perfectly correct.

Coders didn't spent enough time on the CPC. And you have the result in many cases.

Just look at the case of Crack Down by Us gold. The coder just spent and lost its time many month on the ST version, just to churn out the Amiga in 3 months, intro cutted, outro removed, and a mastering error.

You see what i mean ? You were talking about Last Ninja 2, it's a speccy emulator running on a CPC ;

You see Barbarian from Palace ? It's basically a C64 emulator running on the CPC, hence the useless slowness of the game.

The coder forced the CPC to convert on the fly the C64 assets (yes ! the C64 assets, they didn't even bother to convert them from the start in CPC format !! ), from mode 1 to mode 0.

Do you have any idea of the processing power lost just to fork out C64 garbage ?

The CPC on this matter suffered exactly the same thing as the Amiga, games emulated or forked by idiots for the sake of money.

Look at Wonderboy from Activision, i would like to break the neck of the sick bast*rd who ported the game from the c64. Every coding bullshit were used and done on this game :

- The rubbish palette ported up to its pants from the c64 to the CPC
- the use of multimode in a way that even the most retarded coder would not use

You see ? Such a game could had a mode 0 game with a good scrolling and the original arcade music (same chip).

Instead of this, a massacre coming from the C64, an emulator of the C64 version.

So go on, you can say that the games are crap, we know where they were coming from !

A C64 can't output a RGB signal. If you use a scart cable it's the inferior composite signal, unless your TV supports S-Video via Scart (mostly Scart-2 on European TVs).

I use the lumafix replacement, and the display is enhanced, but also because i changed all the capacitors on mine. Incredible how those are killing the display. But even with this, i'm very carefull about the games i buy for my C64. It's easy to have bad surprises.

[Retro-Nerd]

The C64 even with fastloader either on tape or disk never reach the speed a 464 can reach on tape nor a 6128 with disk drive

You should stop here because you actually have no knowledge about C64 hardware and the expansions at all. Please, before others destroy every line you wrote.

You're talking about a specific machine or the sales number for all the plateforms ?

European sales for the Amiga version. The best and most popular version. The C64 game less than that. You can now imagine how many Spectrum and CPC copies were sold. btw: The ST version of Turrican 1 sold less than 1000 copies.

when i look at Shadow Dancer on my C64, the main sprite is ridiculous, the playability horrible (not kidding, just give it a go, and you'll see the utter mess it is). Only the introduction is correct on this version. The game is a huge fail.

The worst : it has a 50fps scroll. Ahah. What's the point ?

Again? The orginal Shadow Dancer was a best a mediocre game in the arcades. The ports are all awful, not matter which system. Only the Mega Drive exclusive was a decent follow up for Super Shinobi/Revenge of Shinobi series.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

You should stop here because you actually have no knowledge about C64 hardware and the expansions at all. Please, before others destroy every line you wrote.

I'm talking of a regular C64 with fast load cartridge, not a super soupped-up C64 which is doing the coffee and cleaning the kitchen.

I know the numbers for the CPC, and i know that the C64 can't mesure up with it in these areas.

a CPC tape drive in standard can load at the very high speed of 6500 bauds.

This information is not known because nobody outside me has tested up to such a speed.

I load the main program of Turrican II for CPC 464 in 1mn05 in RAM, and i need 30 seconds to load the level 1.

Basically Turrican II main loader is around 50kb, the level 1 alone is 30kb.

So my 464 forks out 80kb of data in less than 2mns of loading.

Is a C64 able to do that ? Nope. Even with the fast load cart.

The CPC original speedlocked version needs 5-7 minutes to load the title screen, the main program and the level 1.

European sales for the Amiga version. The best and most popular version. The C64 game less than that. You can now imagine how many Spectrum and CPC copies were sold. btw: The ST version of Turrican 1 sold less than 1000 copies.

Turrican I and II are not rare games on CPC. i see very often copies for sale.

Again? The original Shadow Dancer was a best a mediocre game in the arcades.

Many people just won't agree with you here. It's a very pleasant game to play. I own the arcade PCB, and while it's still not the game of the year, it's always a real pleasure to kick the baddies asses in it

The ports are all awful, not matter which system.

It's hard/awfull to play it on C64, but it's a joy to play on Amiga, ST, CPC.

Only the Mega Drive exclusive was a decent follow up for Super Shinobi/Revenge of Shinobi series.

You compared orange and apples, the megadrive version is completely different, and is way too long. The gameplay of this game relies on the shortness of the levels.

Even with invulnerability or infinite lifes, SD megadrive is boring, because it's too long to finish.

[Retro-Nerd]

You should read what a C64 can do, no matter if it's a cartridge, a rom replacement or software loader. I can load the complete 64kB in under 5 seconds with a hardware speeder like Prologic Dos. The normal cartridges (Action Replay etc). loads 64KB PRG files in 10-15 seconds. And i've don't mentioned modern devices yet, e.g. the EasyFlash.

https://translate.google.com/transla...-text=&act=url

a CPC tape drive in standard can load at the very high speed of 6500 bauds.

According zu C64-Wiki SuperTape D2 loads with 3600/7200 bauds.

[idrougge]

To me, a tiny screen is a perfect game-killer. It made the C64 look bad, it made the Speccy look worse, and it really hurts the CPC since it can easily overscan but most games underscan instead.

[Retro-Nerd]

I load the main program of Turrican II for CPC 464 in 1mn05 in RAM, and i need 30 seconds to load the level 1.

Just tested the C64 disk version. Original, no additional hardware/software speeder. I takes 1m50s into level 1-1 (complete loading time). So what, the CPC version is 15 seconds faster? I don't care because i can load it in no time with my EasyFlash Cartridge.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

You should read what a C64 can do, no matter if it's a cartridge, a rom replacement or software loader. I can load the complete 64kB in under 5 seconds with a hardware speeder like Prologic Dos. The normal cartridges (Action Replay etc). loads 64KB PRG files in 10-15 seconds. And i've don't mentioned modern devices yet, e.g. the EasyFlash.

https://translate.google.com/transla...-text=&act=url

Schön !

According zu C64-Wiki SuperTape D2 loads with 3600/7200 bauds.

Wow ! Impressive indeed, it's just a little bit faster than the 464 tape speed on custom normal block ! Quite nice for a C64 disk scheme ahah !

little info : Bad Cat from Rainbow Arts for CPC 464 on tape is running as fast as the SuperTape D2 scheme on disk, so i agree then, it's fast indeed for a C64 .

(For information : A simple 464 can load normal blocks at 6000 bauds without any additional hardware lol!). You just need to code in basic the tape saver with the wanted speed .

Of course if i pick a 6128, it basically is faster a CPC disk drive is once again faster.

PS : i don't need easy flash cartridge on CPC to make the games loading faster. And i was talking about the cracked version encoded in 6500 bauds not the original tape speedlocked.

I'm talking about the tape version, not the disk version

[Retro-Nerd]

Yes, and a 1581 (3,5") loads even faster than a CPC disk drive. Well, only cracked single part games. It's not compatible with multipart games (due to the copy protections and fastloader). Was a big Commodore flop.

i don't need easy flash cartridge on CPC to make the games loading faster

It's no fastloader. The patched multi part-/multi disk games loads as fast as a commercial bought cartridge game (so no actual loading times). I bet you would want one for your CPC too.

[amilo3438]

OT

Obviously too preoccupied with CPC battle so no one noticed that the new Steem SEE 3.8.0 came out today! (a milestone in STF / STE emulation)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/steemsse/

OT END

[hansel75]

While chase hq is quite good on the CPC and horrific on the C64, it's a rare example as most games are always smoother and more playable on the C64, every system had there fair share of dud conversions.

Maybe we should compare some other racers, here is turbo outrun on C64 and CPC- [ Show youtube player ]
The C64 versions graphics and sound are superb and shows that the C64 was capable of fast and reasonably smooth racers, while the CPC version is extremely poor and looks to run at about 3fps.

Other smooth/good looking C64 racers include- Buggy boy, Chase HQ 2, Lotus, Outrun Europa, Pitstop 2, Power drift, Stunt car racer, Super Cycle, Turbo charge and many others.

I also agree with Retro-Nerd about a lot of CPC games running in postage stamp sized displays, it sux.
Also even if some conversions look closer to the original on CPC, there movement lets it down with jerky scrolling and sprites which then affects playability.

And as i have mentioned before, the palette on the CPC is very garish and bright, while it might be ok for fantasy types games, it is not suitable for realistic shades in other genres.
You can't do earthy shades of green and brown on CPC for that realistic look, a lot of games look like your on acid while playing on CPC.

And turrican 2 has been mentioned, personally i think the C64 versions shits all over the CPC version from a great height, with the CPC once again being to jerky.
CPC- [ Show youtube player ]
C64- [ Show youtube player ]

For quick reference points to compare the 2 versions, check the CPC version at 4mins and the C64 version at 17mins for similiar scenes.
Also if you check both versions at around 50mins this will show the difference between the shoot em up stages, the C64 is glorious with 50fps multi parallax scrolling backgrounds, smooth moving sprites and awesome music and sfx and is very playable.

The CPC versions just looks embarrassingly jerky/poor and looks to be running at about 5-10fps, and it has no parallax scrolling or music with only basic white noises for sfx, and again it runs in a postage stamp sized screen.
Also the C64 version is closer to the 16bit versions here with it's use of colour, Turrican himself on the C64 is grey and red just like the 16bit versions, while on the CPC he is green?
So the argument that CPC games were closer to there 16bit versions with there use of colour is not correct either.

Also with this hardware scrolling that the CPC is apparently able to do, that still does not do anything for the lack of hardware sprites, with most CPC games having jerky software sprite movement.
And in the end, games are always more playable when there smoother, a CPC game that runs at 5-10fps is never going to be as playable as a C64 game running at 25-50fps, it doesn't matter that people think the CPC versions looks better, gameplay is most important in the end. This has been the case since day 1 of videogames and it still important now, higher framerates always make a game better and more playable no matter how good or bad the game looks.

As for sales percentages of the 8bit machine, no one can dispute how dominant the C64 was over the other 8bit machines across the world.
France may of preferred the CPC, but in the rest of the world this was simply not the case and the C64 went on to become the No.1 selling computer of all time by a massive margin!
Also it appears the French preferred the garish/fluorescent colour schemes and lower framerates of the CPC in which i find very odd!
Especially when compared to the smoother and more playable C64 games with there more realistic/earthy colours, and the sid chip was just the icing on the cake for us C64 users!

I have said this before somewhere but will say it again, i look at the C64 vs CPC464 the same way as i look at the Amiga vs ST, the CPC and ST may of had slightly faster cpu's in them, but in the long run the custom video and audio chips that the C64 and Amiga's had gave them a huge advantage as they didn't have to rely on the cpu for everything.
This is why the C64 and Amiga ended up dominating and outlasting there competitors across the world.

There is also the subject of the amount of software available for each system back then, the C64 had the massive benefit that it wasn't just popular in europe and uk, it also had major support from the usa in which the amstrads and spectrums lacked. The usa were responsible for a lot of C64 disk based games that had more sophistication and depth, this added nicely to the flood of uk C64 games that were already coming out as well.

Also here in australia both commodore machines dominated in the 80's and early 90's, spectrums were almost non existent here and cpc's were rare.
I only ever knew one person with a cpc464 with green monitor(and he envied me with my c64, just saying), where is i knew 10 other people while growing up that had C64 and amiga's.
Same with the ST, amiga's were far more popular here and ST owners were rare from my experiences.

[S0ulA55a551n]

I am a CPC fan but not as deluded to think that it was a better games machines the the C64, despite what people think about colours etc.

However as I have said several times, computer are not just about games , and in the non games arena I think the CPC was much much better than the C64

And if we take the + versions into account they pi55 all over the C64 for games power as well , butt hey game out so much later so not a fair comparison

[hansel75]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

However as I have said several times, computer are not just about games , and in the non games arena I think the CPC was much much better than the C64

What other non gaming software is better on CPC464?

The C64 was well catered for in application software, some of the best can be found here- http://www.haddewig.de/nogames64/

In the usa the C64 was taken more seriously and there was business software to cover those needs as well.
There is also great Gfx and music programs, solid word processors, Geos etc!

Then we can add the demo scene, in which just like the amiga was for 16bits, the C64 was the dominant 8bit format for demos with the most impressive releases in general.
But really, in the 80's when we were just kids/teens, did anyone seriously use there 8bit computers for anything serious, i would imagine most people would of been gaming on them 99% of the time, i know i was

I don't dislike the CPC or Spectrums, they have there place. But some people in here are blind+deaf if they can't see that the C64 was the best 8bit machine overall out of the three of them, especially for gaming!

Edit- Back to gaming related topic, this site has some good comparisons of games on various formats, the C64 gets lots of wins while the Cpc only scrapes in a few wins. - http://retro-sanctuary.com/Comparisons%20Main.html

[SyX]

First, i am not going to say that CPC is better than computer X; because under specific circumstances even a zx80 can beat an x68000 :P

Then i should add that as usually happens with every system, the best games are the exclusive ones for that system.

In the case of the CPC, the most part of those games are out of the radar in an "UK centric" view of the 8 bits computer games history; or because they are budget games or mainly because they came from France, that means all the nice adventures are out the reach if you don't know French; and the rest of games are very different of the usual UK games, in my opinion a lot of those games are crazy and funny at the same time (Birdie, Billy La Banlieue, La Formule, Robbbot, Sapiens, ...).

Oh, that you don't like adventures or crazy games, well that is your problem, i love them and i like the CPC because is different. No, it's not a excuse for less technique games, not every game needs to be a demo fx and go to 50Hz; and looking the "TOP 40 Games" in Lemon64 aside of 3 or 4 games, the rest are not "demo fx/50 hz" games, they are fun and very playable games, because that it's the really important thing in a game.

Neither of those games appear in the typical game comparatives, where always are games that exist for the 3 systems (c64, cpc and zx) and the cpc versions are super lazy direct zx ports.

You can see "amazing techniques" as the GFXs are converted in real time from zx format to cpc (R-Type, Pacmania, Last Ninja, ...) in the moment of drawing in a hidden buffer using the zx spectrum screen format (using the same zx sprite routines xDDDD) that is later dumped to the real video ram in cpc format (sometimes they don't skip the attribute printing xDDDD), instead of using a double buffer that only takes 4 lines of code and save the dump of 12 KBs every time the screen is updated.

The 12 KBs is because they are using an speccy screen size (stamp size screen of 256x192 pixels in medium res or 128x192 pixels in low res), the usual justification was that saves 4 KBs of RAM; but the real one is saving an artist and not redraw all the GFXs for CPC screen size (320x200 in med or 160x200 in low) and not writing exclusive CPC print routiner for sprites and tiles, that it would be a lot faster.

Sometimes they are not even hardware resizing the screen to the speccy size and even if the screen is 320x200, they are only drawing in 256x192, the rest remains black and the 4 KBs excuse doesn't exist anymore :P

You have games as Pacmania where in their copy & paste of their zx code, they forgot to "update" the call to use the PSG and one of the SFXs is played using the ZX code that is outing bytes to the beeper i/o port, it's only a miracle that the CPC doesn't crash because that i/o port in the cpc can go to any hardware device.

Or games as Last Ninja where they simulate the zx beeper using one AY channel and that is the only sound that you get during the game.

Other fun trivia, in the zx spectrum you can not use the Z80 interrupt mode 1; in that mode when you receive one interrupt the PC goes to $0038, that in zx is the ROM. Instead it's used the mode 2 that means you need to create a 257 bytes table in ram for redirect the interrupt jump to another ram place. In CPC you have ram in $0038, because that you need to make that double jump and save 257 bytes of ram, that can be used for an sprite mask table for example; but as you can imagine the usual speccy port use that slower and wasteful interrupt handler routine.

And we are not going to speak about the zx only has one interrupt by frame and the cpc has 6, that is very useful for using similar to racing the beam sprite techniques, splitting the game screen in a few zones that you only updates after its interrupt happened...

Games like Bionic Commando are not more than a zx emulator running in the poor cpc.

Those games are so BAD coded that it would be similar to convert an Acorn Electron game to C64 using exclusively the C64 bitmap mode and one sid channel for simulating 1 bit DAC, and that is all, no tiles, no sprites (neither sprite multiplexing), no rasters interrupts, no cia, no sid, no nothing!!!

And there is a big difference between make a game in 3 months for reaching the deadline, that making a CPC version in one evening by pasting a routine for dumping the screen from the zx vram address to the cpc one (it's well documented that the record of a spanish company in making zx2cpc port was 5 minutes after finishing the zx one). In this forum, everybody and his dog can see a bad ST port, but they can not see a bad zx one xDDDD

Originally Posted by tomcat666

";; The effect relies on the reaction of the monitor to the horizontal sync from
;; the CRTC so it is only guaranteed to work properly on a real Amstrad CPC
;; with an Amstrad monitor."

I know a lot of people that use non-Amstrad monitors on their CPC's (myself included), so this scrolling doesn't work for me and those people. Useless...

Funny thing, my C64 (and any classic computer) can not make an horizontal smooth scroll in any of my tft/led/flat TVs, that means C64 can not make smooth scroll because is not working in my TVs?!?!?!?

Sorry, but this is so wrong is not fun, this "smooth" hardware scroll technique works in every cpc attached to a CRT (CPC monitor or tv using scart or rgb input), and we should not give a shit about anything is not the CPC monitor, because every CPC was sold with its monitor (Green or Colour), but we tested this a lot and worked in every CRT TV we can get, and for example, i prefer to use my CPC in a Sony Black Trinitron by scart.

And for people speaking about the cpc can not scroll, there is a few games showing the scroll capabilities of the CPC. There is old games as Ultima Ratio, Prohibition, Titan, Mission Genocide, TLL, Killer Cobra, Skate Ball, ... and modern games, for example i love the Axelay's ones as Relentless, and he has converted a few C64 games to cpc and nobody can say those versions are slow/have bad scroll/small screen/(write your favourite cpc joke here)/...

Making good cpc games requires time, dedication and a design that uses the strong points of the CPC (64 sprites simultaneously or tile animation is not a good idea :P), that is all and Orion Prime is a fantastic demonstration of this.

But at the end of the day, old people can not change his mind any more, and i could make a much better conversion of Cobra or Uridium or another classic C64/ZX game and we would continue reading the same "blocky graphics", "too vivid colours", "not smooth", ... there is not way of changing that opinion, but it looks that a lot of guys would sell their soul before to say there is a good cpc game :P

[Korodny]

Originally Posted by hansel75

What other non gaming software is better on CPC464?

The CPC can display 80x25 characters on screen, compared to the C64's 40x25. It has a Centronics printer port and decent drive speeds, for which C64 users would have to buy additional hardware. Also, it's BASIC was said to be way better than Commodore's crappy offering. So yes, in theory it might have been better suited for "non gaming software". But given the ridiculously big selection of C64 software - even back in 1985 when the CPC664 hit the market - I don't think it mattered much for everyday use.

The simple fact is that Commodore concentrated on the British and German markets for various reasons and pretty much ignored France initially (it's detailed in Brian Bagnall's excellent book), which gave the competition a window of opportunity for a few years. The CPC's strength in the French market is the result of that, not of any imagined or actual technical merits the machine had.

dfrsilver obvisously grew up with a CPC, so he's very nostalgic about it - just like we are, about our first computers. We're just lucky our computers didn't suck as much

[Retro-Nerd]

Bad ports are one thing. Every system had them. There still enough CPC exclusive games you can compare to similar C64 games. And the conclusion is still valid. Sure, the CPC had some nice games, even good Arcade ports like Bomb Jack or Arkanoid 2. But fast scrolling, action paced games? Nope, the CPC can't handle it properly. Despite the fact the computer lacks hires sprites or a decent sound chip.

The big CPC advantage was the fast CPU, so the isometric/vector games runs smoother as the C64 counterparts.

[hansel75]

Originally Posted by Korodny

We're just lucky our computers didn't suck as much

LMAO!

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

The big CPC advantage was the fast CPU, so the isometric/vector games runs smoother as the C64 counterparts.

Yes i agree with you there as well, the Cpc/Spectrum did have that 1 advantage.
But it wasn't always the case- [ Show youtube player ]

[Retro-Nerd]

Stunt Car Racer is technically a masterpiece. Just like Mercenary. Some guys knew how to push the hardware to the limit.