Atari ST games with smooth scrolling - how?

[Tigerskunk]

My feeling was, that 3D games, RPGs, graphics adventures (like Indi 3) and sim type games felt like "next gen" back then, while "arcadish" games were already running quite well on the C64 and others.

I was definitely more interested in these new slower types of games than action games.
And like I said, these worked quite well on the ST.

[Megalomaniac]

True to a point, but all those game styles did exist on the 8-bits as well, although as anything 3D was better on the Spectrum than the C64 and most US-style adventures and RPGs were dependent on disks (where only the C64 had a big enough market for disk-only games), there was no 8-bit system that could do justice to all those styles. Dungeon Master was probably the big game-changer there, as no 8-bit machine could do that. Populous too, though that did get a Master System port later, oddly.

As for why the ST, CPC and MSX and others could all do vertical scrolling even if they couldn't do horizontal scrolling, I always assumed it was to make word processing and operating in the BASIC environment more comfortable. Horizontal scrolling had few potential uses outside games.

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by Marce

I never understood why the atari st games suffer of scrolling problems where the atari 800 8 bits realesed earlier didn't have such issues

even the zs spectrum games scroll fine
another computer with scrolling issues is the amstrad cpc , Id say is the worst one

The early Atari computers like that Atari 800 etc all had hardware scrolling, the ST did not have hardware scrolling(except for vertical scrolling which is more a display property)

The Spectrum does not have hardware scrolling, it's effectively a 2 colour display with an additional 1 bit per 8x8 character for colour so even without hardware the z80 has no problem processing the display for scrolling.

The Amstrad CPC has hardware scrolling but it is only possible to scroll in 2 pixels for mode 0(16 colour mode where res is 160x209), 4 for mode 1(res is 320x200 4 colours) and 8 for mode 2. Vertical scrolling is supported same as for the ST The main issue with the CPC is crap spectrum ports and crap programmers which wouldn't use the hardware properly.
Take a look at Savage on the CPC for impressive gfx and sideways scrolling or Mission Genocide for vertical scrolling, newer releases of Pinball Dreams, Alcon 2020 or Ffor horizontal scrolling Rtype remake on the CPC.

It's a totally very easy to HW scrolling on the CPC in assembly, it's just a few lines of code, but devs were too lazy, even full overseas screen can be created on the xpc with 2 lines of basic code, how many games had that?
Such an underused machine.

[Keops/Equinox]

The ST has no hardware support for vertical scrolling.

However, because the screen address has to be a multiple of 256 and because each line is 160 bytes (320 pixels in 4 bitplanes), you can basically set the screen address to a multiple of 8 lines. With that trick you can simulate a vertical scrolling but it's basically unusable for a game, it's way too fast, it makes the entire screen scroll entirely in half a second.

It's good for demos though

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

crap programmers ....devs were too lazy

Says a guy with ~40 years of hindsight, who most likely has never actually worked as a young programmer in a budding industry, with tight deadlines and limited resources.



Seriously, of all the modern misguided tropes about retro gaming/computing this one is really pathetic.

[TEG]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Says a guy with ~40 years of hindsight, who most likely has never actually worked as a young programmer in a budding industry, with tight deadlines and limited resources.

Seriously, of all the modern misguided tropes about retro gaming/computing this one is really pathetic.

And I would add, coding a real game with all interactions and branches and "parallel" chunks running in the code it implies. Not just some asm instructions running alone, free of surrounding constraints.

[Megalomaniac]

When you look deeper into the story behind almost any big-name bad game, you'll usually find someone above the programmer who's to blame in some way - either for imposing unachievable deadlines, imposing expectations that were unrealistic for the hardware, or insisting that the code be easily portable, rather than necessarily making the best use of the system. Amstrad owners probably suffered more from lazy Spectrum ports than Amiga owners did from lazy ST ports.

Sounds like I was wrong about the scrolling.

[redblade]

The New Zealand Story had a smaller play area (As it had to be a 8 way scroller) but it still would have been acceptable for most game players at the time.

There were single screen games though at the time, Solomons Key, Suko Ban, Bubble Bobble, Point and click adventrues. Vertical scrollers: Rainbow Islands, Ikari Warriors, Commando, The Jackel, Marble Madness and lots of other arcade shoot em ups that I can't think off.

[Retro1234]

Just looked at NZS and its pretty smooth and yes even has the vertical score panel.

[rothers]

Originally Posted by Marce

another computer with scrolling issues is the amstrad cpc , Id say is the worst one

Which is a shame as it has hardware scrolling. Hardly anything uses it though, as most of its games were just quick spectrum ports. (and Amstrad had a habit of changing hardware specs on different revisions which made using the hardware scrolling a bit of a nightmare).

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Says a guy with ~40 years of hindsight, who most likely has never actually worked as a young programmer in a budding industry, with tight deadlines and limited resources.



Seriously, of all the modern misguided tropes about retro gaming/computing this one is really pathetic.

Actually I started programming on the CPC when I was a kid and have been programming professionally for over 24 years, so I don't really get why you make assumptions other than hoping they will land.

It was obvious to everyone back in the day when a port was lazy and obvious which companies produced crap versions for specific machines, e.g. Domarks ports on the CPC were horrendous.

[Keops/Equinox]

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

It was obvious to everyone back in the day when a port was lazy and obvious which companies produced crap versions for specific machines, e.g. Domarks ports on the CPC were horrendous.

Still, the "lazy devs" argument is getting old and ridiculous, and it actually shows a basic lack of knowledge of the VG industry and its constraints.

It's very hard to have your game make more money than it costs, so you have to work with that in mind. Sure, some of those games could have been made in 1 year instead of 6 months, they would have looked and played better, but then they would have cost much more money to make than they generated.

Do you work for free? Probably not and gamedevs don't either, they have to make sure they can pay the bills at the end of the month.

Until very recently, when videogames became mainstream enough to generate a lot of cash, salaries in the VG industry were notoriously low, especially when you consider the number of hours worked each week. I know more than on person who worked 7 days a week back in the days to deliver a game on those 8/16 bits machines, for a salary that was far from being exciting. But hey, "you are make making games, that's so cool, so you can't complain, salary doesn't matter in your case!"

So no, gamedevs are not lazy and they are not doing lazy ports, they work(ed) with the insane constraints of the VG industry, where creativity is not an exact science and were you never know how good or bad your game will do.

And it's still true nowadays, we all work super hard on our games, usually not counting work hours, sometimes working during week-ends, with no guarantee that the game will perform properly, because that's how the entertainment industry works.

[TCD]

About the point that Keops just made: The recent presentation by the Oliver twins is quite interesting as to how you can make a living by creating games that sold for £1.99 [ Show youtube player ]

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by Keops/Equinox

Still, the "lazy devs" argument is getting old and ridiculous, and it actually shows a basic lack of knowledge of the VG industry and its constraints.

It's very hard to have your game make more money than it costs, so you have to work with that in mind. Sure, some of those games could have been made in 1 year instead of 6 months, they would have looked and played better, but then they would have cost much more money to make than they generated.

Do you work for free? Probably not and gamedevs don't either, they have to make sure they can pay the bills at the end of the month.

Until very recently, when videogames became mainstream enough to generate a lot of cash, salaries in the VG industry were notoriously low, especially when you consider the number of hours worked each week. I know more than on person who worked 7 days a week back in the days to deliver a game on those 8/16 bits machines, for a salary that was far from being exciting. But hey, "you are make making games, that's so cool, so you can't complain, salary doesn't matter in your case!"

So no, gamedevs are not lazy and are not doing lazy ports, they work(ed) with the insane constraints of the VG industry, where creativity is not an exact science and were you never know how good or bad your game will do.

And it's still true nowadays, we all work super hard on our games, usually not counting work hours, sometimes working during week-ends, with no guarantee that the game will perform properly, because that's what an industry revolving around creativity implies, the same way the movie industry works.

There's a huge difference between game development nowadays vs in the 80s. Today's games are largely produced by teams with 100s of people vs in the 80s where a game might have a programmer, gfx artist and someone for sound. A port on a specific machine being good or bad(when there is a good port on another 8 or 16 bit micro) was largely down to the skills of that programmer on the target hardware.

Most games on the CPC were largely Speccy ports with software scrolling which made them a lot slower than the Speccy port because the Z80 is clocked slower on the CPC vs the speccy and the display on the CPC is 16K vs less than 8K on the Spectrum.

Not using the CPCs hardware registers(described in the CPCs official Firmware doc) was just lazy, it's akin to a C64 port using software scroll instead of its hardware scroll.

[Keops/Equinox]

Never mind, keep parroting the "lazy dev" thing while ignoring what I wrote above about game devs working 7 days a week back in the 80s to deliver a game while getting very low salaries. In the 80s, one programmer was indeed doing everything on the tech side, you said it yourself, and sometimes graphics and audio as well. That's exactly why they had to pick their battles, they could not do everything the right way and perfectly alone, they had to focus on a limited number of things/features to keep the development time viable.

Like someone said above, it's very easy to be judgmental in hindsight, 40 years later, pointing out that things could have been done a better way.

You should try to make a game, all by yourself, release it and come back to tell us how it went and how laziness treated you and if that game allowed you to pay the bills during the months of development it took.

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by Keops/Equinox

Never mind, keep parroting the "lazy dev" thing while ignoring what I wrote above about game devs working 7 days a week back in the 80s to deliver a game while getting very low salaries. In the 80s, one programmer was indeed doing everything on the tech side, you said it yourself, and sometimes graphics and audio as well. That's exactly why they had to pick their battles, they could not do everything the right way and perfectly alone, they had to focus on a limited number of things/features to keep the development time viable.

Like someone said above, it's very easy to be judgmental in hindsight, 40 years later, pointing out that things could have been done a better way.

You should try to make a game, all by yourself, release it and come back to tell us how it went and how laziness treated you and if that game allowed you to pay the bills during the months of development it took.

Ok, sure, I will keep "parroting" as you say.

[Megalomaniac]

How long would it take to properly convert a Spectrum game to the Amstrad, by redrawing all the graphics from scratch and amending the code to use the hardware scrolling? From a purely economic perspective it's understandable why a lot of developers didn't bother, especially for licensed stuff and conversions where you wanted every format released at once. If you'll sell 80% as many copies by putting half the time into it, what do you expect the bean counters (for whom video games are probably a money making exercise rather than a passion or hobby) to prefer? The same logic probably explains lazy ports from ST to Amiga as well, alas.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

From a purely economic perspective it's understandable why a lot of developers didn't bother, especially for licensed stuff and conversions where you wanted every format released at once.

That's pretty much the point that the Oliver twins make. You'd code/design for the weakest platform and then just touch it up a bit if you had the time for the other platforms.

[Marce]

the amstrad cpc have hardware scrolling? eh?
which amstrad game use such feature then the horizontal scroll is smooth ?

[Coagulus]

Originally Posted by Marce

the amstrad cpc have hardware scrolling? eh?
which amstrad game use such feature then the horizontal scroll is smooth ?

Only one I had when I had my CPC was Ghosts'n'Goblins but apart from the scrolling which blew me away it was a poor version.