Atari ST games with smooth scrolling - how?

[Retro1234]

Smooth scrolling - How was this done on the ST looking at "Back to the future 2" (not 3 !!!) and I know I've seen a few other games. There full screen no vertical border score thing on screen.

Turricun
CarVup

Basically how on a standard ST without any hardware scrolling?

[Gorf]

This article explains some of the tricks used on the ST to archive smooth scrolling:

https://codetapper.com/atari-st/st-games/st-anarchy/

[Tigerskunk]

Well, it seems you first off need to have some kind of Defender clone (which Goldrunner, Return to Genesis and Starray basically are) for scrolling to work on the ST..

[Jobbo]

Better yet there are details about Turrican 2.
https://codetapper.com/atari-st/st-games/st-turrican-2/

It seems to boil down to clever brute force copies with some preshifting for bobs.

Some games like Speedball 2 would use a repeating pattern for most of the background. That made it faster to blast on to the screen if the pattern would fit in registers.

There was also sync scrolling but I think only Enchanted Land used that effectively. And even then it’s a push scroll page flip deal while in game.

[Megalomaniac]

Interesting article from Codetapper there. Wayne Smithson also did the excellent ST version of Blood Money, so he must have had talent.

Tigerskunk may only be slightly exaggerating - clearly the trick was far too memory-hungry to be used in anything more complex than game styles which pre-dated the 16 bit machines, you probably couldn't do something like Apidya or Project X with smooth scrolling on the ST. I guess the scrolling would have to be single-directional too?

I know Goldrunner scrolls smoothly, but to be impressed by it you need to find Spectrum games to be too colourful for you. Return to Genesis does scroll quite well.

[kremiso]

as a difference example, Captain Dynamo had a good up/down scrolling (without a left/right one btw, due the type of game)

[Estrayk]

Here there're a presentation about Sync Scrolling on Atari ST
[ Show youtube player ]

[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

[Retro1234]

I guess it just took more effort but is possible. I wonder if games like BTTF2 and Turrican etc use the same method when port to Amiga or were updated to use the Amigas Hardware scrolling. If one the Above methods is used on the Amiga does this free up more resources or is just so CPU heavy makes no scence?

I always think of games like Robocop with borders all round the playfield copying large parts of the screen and slow and jerky of ST ports.

[Tigerskunk]

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

Because the Atari 8 Bits had very capable custom chips for its time (released in 1979), designed by Jay Miner.
These are actually the predecessor of the Amiga, and if you have coded on a Atari 400/800(XL/XE), you will notice a lot of similarities with the Amiga chipset.

And this chipset does hardware scrolling (even on a per line basis, if wanted. Implemented easily with Display List Interrupts, which is kind of the daddy of the Amiga's Copper Lists).

The ST is an assortment of hastily thrown together off the shelf parts plus some glue logic. So no hardware scrolling there.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Marce

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

I guess you haven't tried MSX games then.

In any case, I think that the importance of smooth scrolling is one of the things which is vastly exaggerated nowadays. It's often being made as the be all end all of hardware capabilities, when in fact I don't recall caring about it that much back in the day at all.

Sure, it could be glaringly jarring in some cases, especially of arcade ports, but there were so many other fun games to play I just stuck with them and wrote off the disappointing attempts as a part of the lesser-hardware reality.

[Megalomaniac]

I'm not sure how big a deal the scrolling issues were to ST or CPC owners back-in-the-day. Maybe it's not obvious how bad the scrolling in (for example) ST Cannon Fodder or Robocod is until you've played smoother scrolling versions on other systems.

However, almost all great action games from the pre-Playstation eras have scrolling, most often horizontally, so if a system can't do that smoothly (or requires tricks which are memory-hungry or impose screen size limitations, as seems to be the case here) it will have always limited a machine's potential

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

However, almost all great action games from the pre-Playstation eras have scrolling, most often horizontally, so if a system can't do that smoothly (or requires tricks which are memory-hungry or impose screen size limitations, as seems to be the case here) it will have always limited a machine's potential

I was mainly talking about the 80s, since CPC, Spectrum and A8 were mentioned, and where there are countless great single or flip screen action games - or games which manage at least some passable fascimile of scrolling.


The other thing is, especially in ST's case, that action games were just a fraction of games which were really popular on microcomputers. It's another thing which is quite distorted in modern times, where for some reason it's the 2D action games that get most attention. But you didn't need smooth hardware scrolling to enjoy Sim City, The Pawn, DotC or Starglider.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

It's another thing which is quite distorted in modern times, where for some reason it's the 2D action games that get most attention. But you didn't need smooth hardware scrolling to enjoy Sim City, The Pawn, DotC or Starglider.

That's really really true.
Most games that interested me back then were exactly of that category, and were usually as good if not better on the ST.

[Megalomaniac]

True, although Defender of the Crown was better on the ST because the Amiga version was a rush job, not because the ST was more suited to the game style. Besides, the 4 highest rated games on Lemon Amiga are the two Monkey Island games, Dune II and The Settlers, with Civ and F1GP in the top 10 too. Maybe it's because nowadays we've got slower reflexes, more patience and emulated specs with hard drives and acccelerators, but personally those games excited me as much as action games back then.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

It's another thing which is quite distorted in modern times, where for some reason it's the 2D action games that get most attention. But you didn't need smooth hardware scrolling to enjoy Sim City, The Pawn, DotC or Starglider.

Yeah good point. It is judged by today's standards. You get a retro styled game, it's usually a fast paced 2D action game. Truth be told the slower games were my favorites on the Amiga. Dungeon crawlers, strategy games, puzzle games, point & click adventures. Platformers and the like were more the fun side games I would play in between.

But I have said it before and I'll say it again: there is another bad development of late. The need to shame. Its fun to talk about games and especially how bad some of them are (which also has a productive side since people successfully improve on bad games), but there is this added layer of picking off games to drag names of people, platforms and companies through the mud which is so unnecessary. We should be celebrating our past, not retroactively hating on it.

[TCD]

Heh, 'today's standards' I could compare games (as in all kinds of) between Amiga, MegaDrive, SNES, ST and PC in the early 90s and there were games better suited to a certain hardware (shoot 'em ups were 'better' on the MegaDrive, platformer 'better' on the SNES etc). I played Civ on the Amiga, but once you play it on a PC it's hard to argue that the Amiga version is 'better'. Pretty much the same for RPGs.

I quite enjoy(ed) playing 'smooth scrolling' platformers and those were for the most part more fun on the Amiga. Playing Duke Nukem 1 & 2, Commander Keen or Jill of the Jungle on PC still isn't as much fun as playing Turrican 1 & 2 or Ruff 'n' Tumble on the Amiga. That hasn't changed in almost 30 years.

[Amigan123]

Enchanted land also had some impressive parallax scrolling

[Marce]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I guess you haven't tried MSX games then.

In any case, I think that the importance of smooth scrolling is one of the things which is vastly exaggerated nowadays. It's often being made as the be all end all of hardware capabilities, when in fact I don't recall caring about it that much back in the day at all.

Sure, it could be glaringly jarring in some cases, especially of arcade ports, but there were so many other fun games to play I just stuck with them and wrote off the disappointing attempts as a part of the lesser-hardware reality.

yes the old msx was another junk for horizontal platform games
but the msx 2 was updated and horizontal platformers scroll very fine

it happens you did not care very much because in the era there was not much need of hardware scrolling due most of games were of static screens, ie donkey kong, pacman, popeye, gyruss, manic miner, etc
but in 1985 started to appear in mass the horizontal platformers
basically , the game ghos'tn goblins revolutionize everything

another interesting point about this is that the problem is always the horizontal scrolling, because the vertical scrolling in the msx , amstrad cpc, atari st ,works very fine , I could never understand this well

[Retro1234]

I do agree looking at Robocop 1 it looks horrible, but there are quite a few people it seems on the net who remember it with fond memories.

Just curious about scrolling on the ST I think both the Amiga and the ST could of had higher quality ports, not just the Amiga.