Crappy C64 screen resolution

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by roondar

And before anyone starts: no, the C64 fans are not doing this to any greater degree than any other group.

I will take that cue: yes, they absolutely are This very thread is a case in point.

It's true of course that every tribe has its fanatical members, but I must admit that after spending nearly a decade perusing all the major microcomputer forums my observation is that on balance its the C64 peoples who are the most unyielding ones. My rough "ferocity ranking" would probably go something like this: C64-A8-CPC-MSX-ZX.

I guess it has to do with some psychology going along the lines of being a part of the most succesful group on one end and the biggest underdog (ZX) on the other, and things in between - or maybe not - but the fact remains. Yes, yes, I know, it's not really a fact but a ~subjective opinion~, but if we were about to reduce every discussion to this fairly tedious denominator then nothing could be ever said about anything.

Anyway, nearly every exchange I have ever seen which talks about some perceived C64 weak spot, goes along these lines:

-So, about these muddy colours, whats up with that?
-Ahh, you are so wrong, the C64 colour palette is supposed to be realistic, after all the world around us is full of shades of brown, red, and sickly green, isn't it?
-Not really...in fact the other microcom...
-Their colours are unrealistic AND garish! And anyway JUST LOOK AT THIS DEMO/GAME!
-Uhhh..nevermind then. But the BASIC - it's widely recognised as not the best one out there
-Nonsense, who would care about BASIC when you should only write in machine code?
-Well, it's called BASIC to ease people into programming...
-Yes, once you realize you need to be peeking and poking everything you will be reading code asap!
-Hmph. About the resolution, bit on the low side, no?
-Never happened and if it did nobody cared about it.
-But...
-Will you JUST LOOK AT THIS GAME/DEMO?
-Arrgh. 3D games? Isometric games? Slow floppies? Anything?
-C64 SOLD 20 MIL AND IS THE BEST MICRO EVER
/thread

And that's not even mentioning some really toxic and hateful stuff I've seen enraged C64 fans say. To reiterate; of course the same happens in every tribal group, the point here being it really does seem to affect the C64 one the most, with the bigger percentage of zealots vs open minded members, who would be willing to conceded at least some points and not treat everything as a popularity contest.

Sure, you can try to turn it around and accuse me of the very tribalism/zealotry itself but it'd really be a knee-jerk reaction. Admittedly, I am originally a Sinclair fan, but that's not really saying much since I wasn't a particularly religious one back then, and certainly I'm not one now. Having access to emus and real hardware in the last decade or so made me love all the old computers/consoles pretty much equally.

And there's also this:

Originally Posted by dreadnought

[...]
All in all, if there was only one machine I could take to a desert island, the heart would say "ZX Spectrum" but the brain "C64", and it would be a right choice.

[CCCP alert]

VIC II and GTIA/Antic combo is too complex for most fanboys to ever grasp I guess.

[tomcat666]

I went ZX 48k -> C64 -> Amiga 500 so I pretty much got the best of it through the years. It was a natural progression here, a few friends did the same and with each machine the games got better. But there were still games that were better on machines left behind, as was mentioned many times in this thread. Still love them all to bits and they are still all three on my desk, albeit in different incarnations.
Later on I also got CPC 464 and Atari 800XL (and a few others like MSX, ...) both have cartridges and expansions so I could try out all the latest and greatest games on them too. I can't say I am sorry I didn't get one of these back then, would definitely be a different experience, worse in my opinion, looking back. But today it is nice to see some of the games that shine on them, both CPC and Atari 8bit have quite a few, most of them are recent though.

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

VIC II and GTIA/Antic combo is too complex for most fanboys to ever grasp I guess.

Now that I think about it, why did nobody ever invent a Commodore 64 expansion card that adds the GTIA and ANTIC?

[roondar]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I will take that cue: yes, they absolutely are This very thread is a case in point.

No, it really isn't. And I'll leave it at that, no good will come of me discussing this with you.

[Zak]

So you guys are not strong at reading and don't understand why I posted this thread, so first of all take this quotation from post #1

Originally Posted by Zak

not questioning that the C64 was overall one of the best machines ever

And I said "machines" without limiting it to 8-bit, it's surely a great invention of mankind and this is not what this thread is about. It's about this:

Originally Posted by Zak

I always wondered why they didn't produce the games in 320x200, which the machine is capable of?

And there is no proof done in my opinion that this would *ALWAYS* look worse than the 160x200, especially considering that there should be types of games being very suitable for the limitations of this screen mode, but still it was unused. That's what I was asking for. Just read the post #1 again, it's not fake quotations.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Zak

And there is no proof done in my opinion that this would *ALWAYS* look worse than the 160x200, especially considering that there should be types of games being very suitable for the limitations of this screen mode, but still it was unused. That's what I was asking for. Just read the post #1 again, it's not fake quotations.

But, again, there are plenty of examples in this thread of where it is used, so the very premise of the question is wrong. And I think it's questionable whether there are many games "suitable for the limitations", since it's real.strength is for things like text (and given you can mix high and low Res characters on the screen on the C64 it's still not necessary to sacrifice).

On the whole artists tended to prefer colour density (i.e. the amount of unique colours you could pack into a space) over pure pixel resolution. And that's what tends to come through when you look at C64 games in general.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Zak

So you guys are not strong at reading and don't understand why I posted this thread, so first of all take this quotation from post #1

I can understand the confusion here, but my last posts were not actually about the starting post or even premise of this thread. It rather was about what the thread (despite you not intending this) has turned into.

[Zak]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

But, again, there are plenty of examples in this thread of where it is used, so the very premise of the question is wrong.

Sorry and maybe I'm not strong at reading, too, so could you make a summary of all the examples with C64 games that used high resolution (and not Spectrum 128k or Amstrad CPC or something). I really don't find them anymore. Giving me the post number would do already. Not being sarcastic, I really didn't find the plenty examples.

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

And I think it's questionable whether there are many games "suitable for the limitations", since it's real.strength is for things like text (and given you can mix high and low Res characters on the screen on the C64 it's still not necessary to sacrifice).

On the whole artists tended to prefer colour density (i.e. the amount of unique colours you could pack into a space) over pure pixel resolution. And that's what tends to come through when you look at C64 games in general.

So what about games with maps, board games, games that have less use of color, and so on, they still where mostly produced in low resolution.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Zak

Sorry and maybe I'm not strong at reading, too, so could you make a summary of all the examples with C64 games that used high resolution (and not Spectrum 128k or Amstrad CPC or something). I really don't find them anymore. Giving me the post number would do already. Not being sarcastic, I really didn't find the plenty examples.

14, 19 and 20 on the first page all have videos of high res C64 games. Various others are mentioned throughout, Law of the West, Head Over Heels along with those that mix and match resolutions like Batman or RoboCop.

Originally Posted by Zak

So what about games with maps, board games, games that have less use of color, and so on, they still where mostly produced in low resolution.

Maps tend to need a few colours to look good (sea, land, objects etc). Board games are pretty rare on computer and tended to not be much fun, but Pictionary, Monopoly and Scrabble are also all examples of high res games.

"Games that have less use of colour" is a harder thing to define. The C64's biggest weak spot is scrolling the colour map and so a lot of games used less overall colours to avoid having to do so, but still took advantage of being able to pack colours tightly together in low res in ways the high res modes wouldn't allow.

[saimo]

Originally Posted by Zak

Sorry and maybe I'm not strong at reading, too, so could you make a summary of all the examples with C64 games that used high resolution (and not Spectrum 128k or Amstrad CPC or something). I really don't find them anymore.

Did you try at all? Also, just head over to Lemon64 and have a look. You'll find quite a few, especially in non-action categories (eg. RPG) and ZX Spectrum ports. And, yes, it will take time - but since you're so eager...
That said, here are other examples (beyond those I already mentioned) off the top of my mind: Joust, Saboteur, Wizard of Wor, Star Crash, Time of Silence, Falklands 82, L'Abbaye des Morts, Lala Prologue, Manic Miner, Arac, Platman Worlds, Sidney Hunter, Tenebra Macabre, Tony: Montezuma's Gold, VVVVVV, You Have to Win the Game.

[Megalomaniac]

As far as some past C64 owners being less willing to honestly appraise their system and its rivals than many other 8-bit owners, it may just be my perception, but I'll point to the lengthy anti-Spectrum rant on recent pages, and the "people who don't fully appreciate the C64 are stupid idiots" type rant after the "no, C64 fans are not like that" comment. Had this thread been called "crappy Spectrum colour clash" or "crappy Amstrad scrolling" I suspect most past owners and fans of those systems would have at least partially conceded the point (though in both cases there are examples, mostly recent homebrew, that show that we may overestimate the extent of the issue - as there are in this thread with high-resolution C64 games that still look and play well).

I wonder, though, if it was artists who preferred colour density over pure pixel resolution, or was it C64 players who preferred it? Were C64 owners generally willing to sacrifice colour for conversions of Spectrum games, or did they just dismiss them as Spectrum ports that didn't make use of their system? From browsing Lemon64, the use of high-res but less colour doesn't seem to put people off with newer titles, but with older ones you do see murmurings of unhappiness. Did things like (e.g.) Head Over Heels sell as well on the C64 as it did on the Spectrum or Amstrad, despite much less direct competition from other isometric games? Or did C64 owners usually buy things like Uridium and Paradroid (or perhaps Wasteland and Ultima, if they had a disk drive)?

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

As far as some past C64 owners being less willing to honestly appraise their system and its rivals than many other 8-bit owners, it may just be my perception, but I'll point to the lengthy anti-Spectrum rant on recent pages, and the "people who don't fully appreciate the C64 are stupid idiots" type rant after the "no, C64 fans are not like that" comment.

It is just your perception. The reverse (i.e. anti-C64 posts and 'rants') is happening in this very thread just as much, if not more.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by roondar

It is just your perception. The reverse (i.e. anti-C64 posts and 'rants') is happening in this very thread just as much, if not more.

The problem is also that the thread title and first post doesn't exactly promote a healthy and supportive discussion if we are honest.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by TCD

The problem is also that the thread title and first post doesn't exactly promote a healthy and supportive discussion if we are honest.

This is very true, though the OP has repeatedly explained why he did that and what he actually meant and I would hope we can read past that thread title for the discussion itself now. I think what's important here from my side is that I am not saying that there have not been any posts by C64 fans which were in bad taste/rants/other systems suck style (because there clearly were such posts).

Rather, my last few posts have been me just trying to point out that it's clearly not just the 'C64 side' that has made such posts here (or indeed in any thread that has a 'vs' tint to it), but rather that all 'sides' do the exact same thing. Which is very clear in this thread.

[saimo]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Had this thread been called "crappy Spectrum colour clash" or "crappy Amstrad scrolling" I suspect most past owners and fans of those systems would have at least partially conceded the point

You're indirectly saying that C64 fans should have "at least partially conceded the point" (that the C64 resolution is crappy): well, the fact is that the C64 resolution is not crappy at all (higher than the ZX Spectrum's and the NES', and on par with the Amstrad CPC, except for its 640x200 2 color mode), so there's nothing to concede. Plus, the OP affirms that hires was never used by C64 games, which is just plain false - nothing to concede there, too. Busting those myths is no fanaticism.
It is fanaticism not to acknowlege that openly or to reply with the usual "yes, but [subjective/groundless/laughable counterpoint]".

Side note: I'm no blind fan of anything, I shiver when I hear national anthems (including and especially the one of the country I was born in) and I despair when I see people voting just based on their "side" or beat/kill one other for a f*ing football game and so on...
And I shiver equally when I read bull*it like the one that abounds in this thread (too much to address entirely).

[TCD]

Originally Posted by roondar

This is very true, though the OP has repeatedly explained why he did that and what he actually meant and I would hope we can read past that thread title for the discussion itself now. I think what's important here from my side is that I am not saying that there have not been any posts by C64 fans which were in bad taste/rants/other systems suck style (because there clearly were such posts).

Rather, my last few posts have been me just trying to point out that it's clearly not just the 'C64 side' that has made such posts here (or indeed in any thread that has a 'vs' tint to it), but rather that all 'sides' do the exact same thing. Which is very clear in this thread.

I read you There's some posts in which people clearly 'take a side' and while there are some that are very C64-sided the majority of said posts isn't pro-C64.

[Cris1997XX]

Wow, what's all this hate for Commodore 64 fans? I mean, I guess they can act a bit overzealous...and arrogant...and fanboyish...but they still aren't THAT bad

[lmimmfn]

I'd just like a conversation re the OP post% sure comparisons with other systems which is fun, but no need for "C64 is the absolute best 8bit computer" nonsense.

In the same way that we in the Amiga community concede that 3D games on PC with VGA and a good CPU were better(I.e. we accept that Amiga couldn't be the best at everything)

[Megalomaniac]

From a quick read through, I can't see anything as hostilely anti-C64 or pro-another system (to the exclusion of everything else) as the examples I've referenced, but still.

The OP wasn't actually saying that the C64's potential screen resolution was crappy, it was a title tactic to attract attention to the thread (rightly or wrongly). More precisely, as he's tried to explain, he was asking why so many games used the 160x200 mode when others with a higher resolution (but with other limitations - everything involves some compromises with every 8-bit computer or console, hence why they've all got things they couldn't easily do). "It wasn't as obvious on the TVs of the day" was a good point raised by several. Lots of "Game X shows what the high res modes can do", some of them very good examples - though I wonder if they got enough appreciation at the time?

What I meant was more that (for example) Spectrum owners would concede that a lot of games have colour clash (or monochrome to work around it) and that it's a problem sometimes. Likewise Amstrad owners, regarding the scrolling in some games, or the compromise of making a game flick-screen instead - this doesn't mean there aren't colourful yet clash-free Spectrum games, and Amstrad games with good fast smooth scrolling. As with high-res C64 games, many of these Spec/Ams achievements are later homebrew titles, perhaps making use of development tools not available back then, or by programmers with more time to put care and attention in than US Gold or Activision might've allowed its teams? Is it not fair to also recognise that some C64 (and sometimes Amstrad, especially if lazily ported from the Spectrum) games suffer in some people's eyes for the visuals being relatively blocky, and that other modes were perhaps under-utilised?

You can of course widen this to other non-graphics perceived strengths and weaknesses of each system - and certainly go beyond just the UK 'big three' of the 80s. None was best at (or even good at) everything, but they all had areas where they were best. The C64 is a really capable system with some wonderful games, I can see why it was the longest-living 8-bit system, and the most successful globally by some distance, but it's reasonable to ask why some modes got more attention and coverage than others.