Atari ST Indoctrination

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Compare their later stuff with their earlier stuff, night and day.

I didn't like Mercs, but it was far better effort than their earlier stuff

Mercs was okay, but the same year they made Alien Storm. Let's say some of their later stuff was better than their earlier stuff.

[RichL]

I seem to remember Operation Wolf on the ST being just as good as the Amiga.

Maybe old age makes that memory hazy.

[OmaOhneBH]

Never liked the soundchip of the ST, sounds awkward to me, but at least the ST had one. BITD I wished the Amiga had an additional sound generating chip like let's call it Sid Next or something like that instead of 4-channel sample playback only. Ok, but we got that software-wise, Future Composer and so on...

[fxgogo]

We got a STFM after our C64. The graphics was a wonderful upgrade but the audio was not. I had seen what the Amiga was capable of but my folks did not want to spend the extra cash. I eventually got my Amiga four years later ( wow that seems like such a long time to wait). We had many great times playing the ST and those memories are just as cherished as my Amiga memories. Technical features do not equate to better experiences. Nintendo as masters at doing more with less.

[Tigerskunk]

My favorite games that I played over the first years on my Amiga were usually developed on the ST, with a very few exceptions.

Bard's Tale, Dungeon Master, Carrier Command, Starglider 1&2, Elite, Xenon 1&2, Guild of Thieves, and many others.

Scrolling action games were usually bad on both system until the arrival of Turrican.

So, until 1990 I could have been happy with an ST as well, I guess.

That said, there is no contest that the OCS Amiga was a much better hardware.
It's just that I am not a fan of letting the perfect be the enemy of good things...

[RichL]

Originally Posted by fxgogo

We got a STFM after our C64. The graphics was a wonderful upgrade but the audio was not. I had seen what the Amiga was capable of but my folks did not want to spend the extra cash. I eventually got my Amiga four years later ( wow that seems like such a long time to wait). We had many great times playing the ST and those memories are just as cherished as my Amiga memories. Technical features do not equate to better experiences. Nintendo as masters at doing more with less.

Sounds exactly like my story

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I didn't like Mercs, but it was far better effort than their earlier stuff

They did Mercs? I overlooked that one while checking HOL. Yeah I guess they finally figured it out with that one.

Strider 2 was also okay technically I guess, but that didn't stop it from being a hot mess gameplay-wise

[khph_re]

Originally Posted by fxgogo

We got a STFM after our C64. The graphics was a wonderful upgrade but the audio was not. .

The ST was the first machine I used as an actual computer, probably as it was GUI based, prior to that my C64 and Speccy were glorified consoles. I used Neochrome on ST, seeing Deluxe paint and Photon Paint on the Amiga blew my tiny teenage mind.

But having sold my C64, I missed the C64 SID a lot, I used to play the B.I.G demo on ST, just to get my Rob Hubbard fix.

[masteries]

Originally Posted by idrougge

I don’t think the STe was a particularly great machine.

Yes, its a great machine and a pleasure to program for it:


[ Show youtube player ]


There are undocumented blitter modes that lets the usage of single span 256 pixels wide blitter based sprites.




As well undocumented STE shifter multiple playfield capabilities,
sprite clipping is automatically handled:


[ Show youtube player ]




There is a primitive? undocumented way of overlap one playfield over another one, with a limit of 48 upper and 48 lower overlapping pixels (the huge middle graphics are blitter rendering without clever cleaning, clear only the right traces).

As well, blue lines are not graphical based, no blitter based, these are custom characters graphically overlapped, automatically, by the STE shifter, that is not exaclty the same as ST shifter (Shifter is the responsible to create the image from the framebuffer data, as well its the playfields manager)


[ Show youtube player ]


More automatically rendered character based graphics (a similar concept of hardware sprites?), but the full screen can be filled with these graphical based characters;
here all shoots are performed in this way, no CPU time and no blitter time required to render them; only suitable for Atari STE. Plus two playfields with relative movement between them:

[ Show youtube player ]









As well the larger chip RAM memory lets the usage of many memory intensive tricks,





Digital audio hardware is much better than digital audio capabilities than Megadrive/Genesis, this last one is very hard to program without DMA audio capabilities,





=>All these features are being taken into account in the development of second mission of Metal Slug port...
more and better than first mission,


Really is not better or worse than others, all these machines have different strong points.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TCD

None at all? No. Much less? Likely. So it seems a bit like it's quantity over quality with the ST around and vice versa without it.

Exactly.

Some landmark games produced specifically for (or enhanced for) the Amiga:-

Defender of the Crown (1986)

The final game was a landmark in video game production values. As game designer Bob Lindstrom recalls, "The shock of seeing Defender for the first time was one of those experiences that changed the gaming stakes for all of us."

Compared to other video games of the time, Defender of the Crown established a new level of quality. IBM had Kings Quest by Sierra On-Line, a decent but primitive adventure game. The Macintosh had games like Checkers or Backgammon, or board games like Risk. Defender of the Crown had richer graphics than any computer, console, or even arcade game could boast in 1986. It was a revelation.

The Pawn (1986)

In the December 1986 edition of Computer Gaming World, Roy Wagner stated that The Pawn "shows how well something can be done for the Amiga when one KNOWS the machine".

Marble Madness (1986)

Compute! writers called the Amiga version's graphics and gameplay "arcade-quality". Reviewing for Computer Gaming World, Roy Wagner stated that the Amiga version was superior to the arcade original. Bruce Webster of BYTE wrote that the graphics of the Amiga version of Marble Madness in December 1986 "are really amazing"... he stated that it "is definitely worth having if you own an Amiga". Bill Herd recalled that the Amiga version was so popular at Commodore International that employees stole the required memory expansion from colleagues' computers to run the game.

The Faery Tale Adventure (1987)

The initial version was produced for the Amiga 1000 and featured the largest game world to that date... with over 17,000 screens...

A review in Computer Gaming World described the game's user interface as natural and simple, while still being an impressive and playable game... In 1996 Computer Gaming World ranked it as the 63rd best game of all time, calling it "Real time adventure at its Amiga best."

Dungeon Master (1988)

Originally, Dungeon Master was started with the name Crystal Dragon coded in Pascal, and targeted the Apple II platform... It was finished... in 1987 for the Atari ST first. A slightly updated Amiga version was released the following year, which was the first video game to use 3D sound effects.

Shadow of the Beast 1989

The original version was released for the Amiga, and was later ported to many other systems. The game was known for its graphics, with many colours on screen and up to twelve levels of parallax scrolling backdrops, and for its atmospheric score composed by David Whittaker that used high-quality instrument samples...

Edmondson and Howarth described it as their "most ambitious project to date", and stated that they wanted the game to push both the Amiga and Atari ST to their technical limits. To achieve this, the Amiga version was written first, so that they would take advantage of all of the computer's advanced hardware capabilities.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by masteries

Yes, its a great machine and a pleasure to program for it:

As well undocumented STE shifter multiple playfield capabilities,
sprite clipping is automatically handled:

There is a primitive? undocumented way of overlap one playfield over another one, with a limit of 48 upper and 48 lower overlapping pixels (the huge middle graphics are blitter rendering without clever cleaning, clear only the right traces).

That's quite interesting and a very neat trick/result. Though a 96 pixel vertical size split in two segments of 48 pixels does make it much more limited than a 'true' Dual Playfield mode. You can see in the video you show of R-Type level 1 that the game slows down a lot when the foreground and background have graphics that exceed this 48 pixel limit (and that is without any enemies), so it's clearly something that needs careful use to not exceed the Blitter limits. I have no doubts that careful use can create a very convincing effect though

Still, awesome stuff nonetheless. I love code that exceeds HW 'limits' using clever trickery

As well, blue lines are not graphical based, no blitter based, these are custom characters graphically overlapped, automatically, by the STE shifter, that is not exaclty the same as ST shifter (Shifter is the responsible to create the image from the framebuffer data, as well its the playfields manager)

More automatically rendered character based graphics (a similar concept of hardware sprites?), but the full screen can be filled with these graphical based characters;
here all shoots are performed in this way, no CPU time and no blitter time required to render them; only suitable for Atari STE.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by rendered character based graphics. Does the ST/STE support a character mode that it actually tile based (such that you only need to update a single value in memory to get a character/tile to appear) and are you using that in combination with standard bitplane GFX to generate the bullet GFX?

Because that would be quite cool (though obviously also somewhat limiting considering that tile based GFX is generally limited to coarse movement).

Or is it something else?
And on a side note, if it really is character mode overlapping bitmap mode, wouldn't that necessitate that the shifter uses more DMA accesses to memory to handle both at the same time?

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Exactly.
The Pawn (1986)

Dungeon Master (1988)

Not to take anything away from the Amiga, but giving the Amiga version of a game some sample sound effects instead of Yamaha Chip Tune ones and then call it a day was basically the norm back then. No idea what's "landmark" about that.

Using The Pawn with lots of coverage in magazines about how ST NeoChrome was being used for creating those beautiful images and especially Dungeon Master as examples for "Amiga landmark titles" is strange. You almost can't get more "STish" than with those two.

I happily give you the other ones, though.

Fact is, though, that in the first years of the Amiga's existence, there were vastly more STs around. So it's not far off to assume, that most games were produced with the ST in mind, and releasing a port for those few Amigas around was just some afterthought.

These things changed around late 89 / early 90, though.

[tolkien]

Atari st < a500
Falcon < a1200

End of history.

[roondar]

Hardware wise I wouldn't agree the A1200 is better than the Falcon. The Falcon has some very nice stuff in it that the Amiga could've really benefited from.

[Estrayk]

Originally Posted by tolkien

Atari st < a500
Falcon < a1200

End of history.

Atari ST < A500
Atari STe <= A500
Falcon > A1200

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Estrayk

Atari ST < A500
Atari STe <= A500
Falcon > A1200

Go team realists

[gimbal]

Reality < personal opinion.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Reality < personal opinion.

Which is the whole point of posting this thread on an Amiga forum. The word 'Indoctrination' is completely neutral for sure

[Megalomaniac]

It's easy to forget that the ST launched 2 years before the A500, and was significantly cheaper for a couple of years after that (especially once you consider the plethora of games Atari chucked in with it for ages). But yea, it's a pity that Amiga development was held back by companies trying to fit in with the ST as well. Once stuff like Hybris, Datastorm, Shadow of the Beast and Sword of Sodan came along there was little excuse to claim that the ST was a match (though a couple of those were iffy for gameplay). It did have a slightly quicker clock speed that was marginally better for 3D games, but that's about it. For pure action games it was probably closer to the C64 than the Amiga.

The STe was pretty close to the A500's specs, but it launched too late to get enough support - Sleepwalker was pretty much the one STe exclusive that any 'big' company did for it, and that was probably just so every version could be launched together for Comic Relief. And that hard drive bug it launched with, and Atari's "just use our official hard drives with it" response was inexcusable.

ST Cannon Fodder is an embarrassment, I can't believe one ST mag rated it in the 90s.

[BigD]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

It's easy to forget that the ST launched 2 years before the A500, and was significantly cheaper for a couple of years after that (especially once you consider the plethora of games Atari chucked in with it for ages)....

ST Cannon Fodder is an embarrassment, I can't believe one ST mag rated it in the 90s.

Yes, the sound on Lemmings 2 on the ST was the last straw for me and scrolling was generally an issue hence the Cannon Fodder problem! The ST was good price/performance for its time but a worse machine. The Falcon competed again but it was too late.