14 July 2024, 15:28 | #121 |
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I wonder if people would prefer a 160x256 super lores screen mode on OCS Amigas if it had 4096 colors all at once? Or maybe 16.8 million all at once on AGA Amigas? Would that beat all standard Amiga graphics in your opinion?
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15 July 2024, 00:03 | #122 |
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In a way is what was happening with the chunky screens on AGA
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15 July 2024, 10:11 | #123 | ||
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Secondly, the CPC does have some options to help move the screen around. It can hardware scroll the display continuously in character sized chunks (that is 8*8 pixels in 320*200 mode or 4*8 pixels in 160*200 mode). The 6845 CRTC, which controls display timing and address generation is also incredibly flexible and can be persuaded to do a lot of things that shouldn't necessarily be possible. Things like Mission Genocide or TLL show what could be done when you got clever with the hardware. And Pinball Magic is probably the pinnacle of pulling off clever display tricks. But all too often back in the day it was just the spectrum code hastily converted over with, at best, minimal changes (fancier games actually bothering to redraw graphics). |
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15 July 2024, 17:04 | #124 |
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The ability to move the screen by hardware in coarse chunks (8x8 or 4x8) is actually quite useful. The C64 needs to use VIC-II trickery to be able to do that and most commercial games for it (barring a few in the 1990s) did not use such methods. Partially because it was not widely known it was possible at the time and partially because using it for horizontal scrolling can make some C64s unstable.
Most scrolling C64 games did use the smooth scroll registers for pixel precise scrolling (which, interestingly, operated at 1 hires pixel increments irrespective of screen mode), but used the CPU for coarse/character scrolling. This was very CPU intensive, though it could be spread over several frames, which made it much less of an issue if you used properly written code. However, that does not work for the colour RAM scroll as that can't be double buffered. Colour RAM needs to be updated all at once*, which often meant that coders chose to only do partial colour RAM scrolling. Nowadays tricks like VSP/AGSP scrolling are used a lot more often and methods of making C64s that can't handle the trick run stable though HW fixes have been created. *) Technically you can kind of spread it over two frames by doing the top half in frame one and the bottom half in frame two, but that still takes considerable CPU time. Last edited by roondar; 15 July 2024 at 17:10. |
15 July 2024, 18:34 | #125 |
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There's not enough bandwidth on an OCS Amiga for a 160 12-bit mode, and even if there were I don't think it would be popular with games since you also need to factor in the memory bandwidth it takes to fill such a screen. With AGA you can have effectively 320x256 @ 18-bits (like saimon69 mentions) with HAM8, but I've really only seen it used for static images since just displaying the frame takes up so much bandwidth and updating it is grueling.
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15 July 2024, 20:31 | #126 |
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'Bad lines' isn't a technically accurate way of describing the CPC's processor method, but it does accurately convey that the 4Mhz clock speed isn't an accurate measure of its speed. Can you really completely erase the issue with natively-written code (i.e. not Spectrum-ported)? Are there any examples of processor-heavy games (e.g. isometric or other 3D, where the C64 generally loses out to both Amstrad and Spectrum) which demonstrate running faster than the Spectrum can?
As for scrolling, Mission Genocide is indeed impressive, Xyphoes Fantasy even more so, I'd add the newer Pinball Dreams and CPC Soccer, neither of which I'd expect the C64 to be able to match, for looks or scrolling. Still, it's telling that even most of the great homebrew or French games on the CPC don't use scrolling, it's not easy to get right. Pixel art, on the other hand, the Amstrad's true 160x200x16 and varied vibrant palette probably makes it the best 8-bit. I think Zak's 160x256 4096 colours (12-bit) might be a rhetorical "taking the colours-over-resolution debate to an extreme" argument. I doubt people used to 8-bit or even ST games would really appreciate how many colours 4096 was, and I doubt many artists would have been able to leap straight from 16 or 32 up to 4096 and make any kind of practical use of them. Besides, such screens would take up over 50kb, I'm not sure even an Amiga could scroll that smoothly at 50fps with much going on the screen? |
15 July 2024, 20:53 | #127 | |
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Best 8 bit palette goes to Plus/4 line of computers. Last edited by tomcat666; 15 July 2024 at 21:29. |
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16 July 2024, 00:56 | #128 | |
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It's a 3 bit per R,G,B palette(3x3x3)=27 colours, and therefore equally spaced, same as Amigas 16 bit per R,G,B palette(16x16x16)=4096 colours. So I don't consider it over saturated unless you consider the Amiga having the same issue? The CPC is colourful so games with somber colours don't work on the platform, but games requiring a colourful artistic style are best. In terms of palette it is one of the best balanced 8 bits(plus 4 is great until it moves) Last edited by lmimmfn; 16 July 2024 at 05:34. |
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16 July 2024, 08:58 | #129 | |
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There are plenty of games where you can see the Amstrad copes at least as well as the Spectrum with just raw CPU power. Head Over Heels runs pretty much identically, despite a more colourful display. RoboCop and Batman the Movie play at the same speed despite running in 16 colour mode and not using hardware tricks to scroll. Of course there are other differences that can account for some of the performance changes. It's a lot easier to mask or mirror sprites in the Amstrad 16 colour mode than the mono bitmap of the Spectrum. Being clever at using hardware coding and working around the specifics of a machine really makes the difference on 8-bit hardware though. I remember having a long conversation with TMR about Head over Heels C64 where we both becane convinced the compromises to that game could've been avoided if the sprites had been used more. It would've required software masking, which wasn't common and perhaps an overlooked technique amongst C64 coders, but there was definitely room for improvement there. |
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16 July 2024, 09:04 | #130 |
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It's nice, though not dissimilar from the SAM Coupé's slightly larger 128 colour palette. The PC Engine (if that counts as 8-bit) had a better 512 colour palette and the Amstrad Plus machines (which are definitely 8-bit) pretty much win hands down with 4096 colours to play with (and are perhaps the best demonstration of how increasing colours can drastically help a low resolution display).
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16 July 2024, 11:38 | #131 |
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Anything after the 16-32bit generation of Micros in 87 like £300 520STFM to £650 Archimedes A305 etc is not worth mentioning really IMO. 8bit after 86 is a budget option (PCE is 16bit mobo with an 8bit CPU doing bus mastering BTW).
Speccy has 1 screen mode, CPC has 3 (only 1 worth using for arcade games) GTIA not CTIA based Atari 400/800 about 15 (but only about 3 or 4 worth using) etc etc. The point is it is down to the artist to decide which of 3/5 C64 screen modes to use that are char based (multicolor/high res/extended background colour mode) and high res/multicolor bitmap modes which have a super awkward layout making them really only useful for flip screen/static screen games....which is what Kris/Chris Lancater used for 64 Manic Miner so it replicates the ZX version which changes two colours per charblock 8x8 pixel area via ZX attrib RAM. Using games is a bad idea to rate machines though, getting the max out of ZX/BBC/CPC is not that difficult, getting the most out of Atari and 64 needs a lot of technical skill as well as artistic talent by the graphics artist, time for game developments back then was very limited too and not much experimentation time. C64 Gauntlet done with a game engine like that of Garrison would look awesome. Still, Law of the West requires an ST in 1985 at the very least to improve the visuals of the 64, nothing 8bit on sale before the ST can, so even static screen games are not better technically on the Amstrad necessarily. It's an artistic choice what size pixels you use, char or bitmap mode. Waaaaaaaaaaay too many CPC arcade style games used the shitty 4 colour mode lol which looks a lot more crappy for CPC Salamander vs 64 multicolor game engine even in screenshots never mind when it moves. Using mode 1 on CPC was a bigger sickness than using multicolor mode on a C64. |
16 July 2024, 12:12 | #132 |
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"[For] Pixel art... the Amstrad's true 160x200x16 and varied vibrant palette probably makes it the best 8-bit." was probably oversimplistic - as mentioned it doesn't fare as well for sombre graphics, and a few later machines released after the 8-bit heyday (including the Amstrad Plus line) do beat it on brighter graphics too. The Plus 4 is impressive though. Still, not that many great C64 games are fully reliant on sombre graphics. The Amiga has visually stunning games using both sombre and vibrant colour schemes, the SNES and Megadrive mostly vibrant as the target audience was younger.
The assertion that it was easier to get the most out of the CPC than the C64 isn't supported by the range of software for both - in its commercial heyday the CPC was swamped by lazy Spectrum ports (which usually ran worse than the Spectrum version), yet a lot of homebrew titles now demonstrate what was possible - including decent scrolling in many cases. Salamander is a Spectrum port that was slated by the CPC press, hardly a representative example of the capabilities of both systems. Why not use e.g. Robocop, WEC Le Mans or Trantor instead? Likewise, the CPC probably couldn't match Law of the West's pixel art, but could the C64 match the look of Get Dexter or La Abadia Del Crimen, or homebrew efforts like Operation Alexandria or The Key? CPC Gauntlet V C64 Garrison is an interesting comparison, which perhaps sums up the relative differences between the two systems - better sprites in the former, nice backdrops in the latter. Better scrolling on Garrison, but character movement looks a bit too 'slidey' somehow. Head Over Heels is one I thought of where the Amstrad version is best of the 8-bits, the C64 wasn't naturally suited to isometric games so it took some effort or compromise to do them well. Conversely, are there any good examples of sprites being used in isometric C64 games? Last edited by Megalomaniac; 16 July 2024 at 12:29. |
16 July 2024, 23:35 | #133 | ||
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ZX Spectrum Amstrad CPC And here it is on the C64. Oh wait... But the C64 did get some other isometric games. Here's what Colin Porch said about his port of Head Over Heels:- Quote:
CPC |
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18 July 2024, 07:26 | #134 |
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Yeah, the isometric games do look better on CPC. Unfortunetly what they usually did is choose random 3 colours for each room, most of the hires iso games did that (if not all) so it looks cheap and not really thought out. It is still better than single colour, but not by much because of this random crap.
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Yesterday, 15:14 | #135 |
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Please don't enjoy this C64 demo with its crappy resolution:
[ Show youtube player ]
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Today, 00:49 | #136 | |
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Today’s developers can afford to mandate »good« CRTCs since they cost a penny but that wasn’t an option in the CPC’s heyday. |
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Today, 01:07 | #137 |
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To answer the original question, yes, the C64 graphics looked rather bad once the NES (and Master System) came out. Whilst the C64 made a convincing trade-off of resolution for colour compared to the Spectrum, the consoles showed that that trade-off wasn’t really necessary.
That also made the Atari 7800, which was intended to compete with the NES and Sega, look much older and primitive than its year of release would make you expect. |
Today, 08:13 | #138 | |
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Bandwidth was limited and chips were expensive. If you wanted more colors, something else would have to go. |
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