Aren't there any english Amstrad CPC users left? Just lately evry Amstard CPC demo or user is french or polish or something. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with foreingers who are still into it, it just seems like no-one in england seems to be doing anything with it and it's a bit of a shame to let it get forgotten here.
Looking back at these posts, its plain to see the hate towards the CPC. The C64 bunnies wouldn't bother posting unless they considered the CPC a threat. But why, it was over twenty years ago? I say we should celebrate the limitations of the CPC, it shaped us, and the programmers that got the best out of the machine, should be awarded medals for their remarkable results. In the right hands the CPC can really sing. Just needs a bit of time and tender loving care to reveal what is possible.
Looking back at these posts, its plain to see the hate towards the CPC. The C64 bunnies wouldn't bother posting unless they considered the CPC a threat. But why, it was over twenty years ago? I say we should celebrate the limitations of the CPC, it shaped us, and the programmers that got the best out of the machine, should be awarded medals for their remarkable results. In the right hands the CPC can really sing. Just needs a bit of time and tender loving care to reveal what is possible.
Looking back at these posts, its plain to see the hate towards the CPC. The C64 bunnies wouldn't bother posting unless they considered the CPC a threat. But why, it was over twenty years ago? I say we should celebrate the limitations of the CPC, it shaped us, and the programmers that got the best out of the machine, should be awarded medals for their remarkable results. In the right hands the CPC can really sing. Just needs a bit of time and tender loving care to reveal what is possible.
Yeah this isn't as good as the C64 version one of the main reasons why, is that the way it scrolls only when two thirds of the way to the edge of the screen make it really hard not to keep running into enemies. Technically the game is really very impressive, but the C64 version is the original you know...
Don't forget that it also lacked a character mode which is essential for fast tile-based graphics in games like this. When the C64 had to modify 1000 bytes, the Amstrad had to modify 16000 to achieve the same.
It's not as black and white as you're suggesting... otherwise the Amstrad CPC wouldn't have been able to have done games the likes of Mr Heli, Astro Marine Corps and Savage. And let's not forget Chase HQ, Wec-le-mans and Continental Circus. You shouldn't quote CPC hardware, as the C64 had enough problems of its own, especially with the low powered CPU, ill colour palette, flickery sprites and below par 3D performance.
I nearly forgot Beach Volleyball and Silk Worm... the problem is the C64 runs out of sprites - The 8 sprites on C64 are definitely not enough for anything involving many characters, and on NES, constructing anything large enough eats up lots of sprites. The problem is solved (though not in very programmer-friendly way) by using raster interrupts:
Large objects without flicker are easy to do on C64. Just make sure you don't exceed the 8 sprites per rasterline limit. Example: xamDCuEg088 (at 5:30).
Once the sprite has been drawn, you change the sprite pointers in memory, and the system thinks it hasn't yet drawn the sprite on this scanline and starts over again. This often works pretty well, but it sometimes gets a bit out of hand, particularly in quickly written and hastily produced games.
All a games programmer has to do is make sure that not more than 8 sprites are on the same scanline. Many games on C64 do that, for example IO or Armalyte. But that are just the games which use sprite multiplexing. You can easily limit yourself to 8 sprites like the most C64 games do.
Concerning NES: NES also has a sprite limit of 8 per scanline, but while on C64 usually an enemy or player is built from 1 sprite, NES has much smaller sprites and usually needs 4-6 sprites per object.
Dude... you're just repeating what i've already stated. Here it is in plain English; In some C64 games you get flicker with the sprites, for the same reason you get bad scrolling or slow gameplay. It's all down to the programmer at the end of the day, sure there are limits... but in most cases the only reason the Amstrad didn't excel, was down to crap programmers, tight budgets and probably the fact that it was the third machine in terms of sales. It's a capable machine believe it or not.
The scrolling alone was a far too big task for the CPC's Z80. The CPU is about ~2.5 times as fast as the C64 CPU, but it has to move 16 times the data to achieve the same scrolling playfield. A better programmer cannot compensate that. The result is what you see: low framerates and small game display areas, or no scrolling at all. Has nothing to do with tight game budgets or similar.
My friend, you need to take a look at Xyphoes Fantasy by Silmarils, Mission Genocide, Fres Attack, Savage, Shinobi, Continental Circus, Robocop, Star Sabre, Prince of Persia, Afterburner, Barbarian, Trantor, Chase HQ, Batman, Get Dexter 1, 2 and many many more... nothing slow about them.
From the games you mentioned all have pretty jerky scrolling compared to 50 fps scrolling on C64. The only exception is Mission Genocide which is using a scroll trick for vertical 50 fps smooth scroll. I think there was another game using the same trick but atm I can't remember it's name.
I think you'll find Fres Attack is running at 50fps... and the other game your thinking about is WarHawk. Yes, Misson Genocide is using a trick called 'Rotovision' Paul Shirley used it in this game, but he wasn't the first. I can't believe you think Star Sabre is jerky??? Anyway, the majority of those games I've listed, apart from Barbarian are better than the C64 equivelent.
Aren't there any english Amstrad CPC users left? Just lately evry Amstard CPC demo or user is french or polish or something. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with foreingers who are still into it, it just seems like no-one in england seems to be doing anything with it and it's a bit of a shame to let it get forgotten here.
CoolDudeClem 1 year ago
@CoolDudeClem I still get out my Cpc every now and then :)
andyukmonkey 1 year ago
These amstrad games where my first :)
TheCohagen 1 year ago
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Looking back at these posts, its plain to see the hate towards the CPC. The C64 bunnies wouldn't bother posting unless they considered the CPC a threat. But why, it was over twenty years ago? I say we should celebrate the limitations of the CPC, it shaped us, and the programmers that got the best out of the machine, should be awarded medals for their remarkable results. In the right hands the CPC can really sing. Just needs a bit of time and tender loving care to reveal what is possible.
ukmarkh 1 year ago
Looking back at these posts, its plain to see the hate towards the CPC. The C64 bunnies wouldn't bother posting unless they considered the CPC a threat. But why, it was over twenty years ago? I say we should celebrate the limitations of the CPC, it shaped us, and the programmers that got the best out of the machine, should be awarded medals for their remarkable results. In the right hands the CPC can really sing. Just needs a bit of time and tender loving care to reveal what is possible.
ukmarkh 1 year ago 2
Looking back at these posts, its plain to see the hate towards the CPC. The C64 bunnies wouldn't bother posting unless they considered the CPC a threat. But why, it was over twenty years ago? I say we should celebrate the limitations of the CPC, it shaped us, and the programmers that got the best out of the machine, should be awarded medals for their remarkable results. In the right hands the CPC can really sing. Just needs a bit of time and tender loving care to reveal what is possible.
ukmarkh 1 year ago 2
Yeah this isn't as good as the C64 version one of the main reasons why, is that the way it scrolls only when two thirds of the way to the edge of the screen make it really hard not to keep running into enemies. Technically the game is really very impressive, but the C64 version is the original you know...
andyukmonkey 1 year ago
Wow, this conversion looks and sounds terrible. What the hell happened to the colours? A green turrican?! Play the C64 version instead.
Toggle64 2 years ago
what DSSILVER? you think cpc version 's better than c64 version???
AH hah ah ah
ok better colors, but animation ZERO
corgan59 2 years ago
Turrican 2 CPC is a 16 bits port. The program on CPC is even bigger to handle than the c64 one.
CPC version is 715kb crunched on a 178kb double sided disk. code source is 4000kb :D
also, the graphics are the best on 8 bits, the scrolling is really neat. Overall best 8 bits version.
dlfrsilver 2 years ago
The amsrad had better graphics than the C64 surprisingly but worse sound...
retronostalgic 2 years ago
Look at a game like Astro Marine Corps, it make big use of Tiles ! :D
C64 has horrible GFX. What's the point of having speed if it looks horrible ?
dlfrsilver 3 years ago
graphics aren't everything.
Although you're right c64 game often have awful looking graphics.
andyukmonkey 3 years ago
Don't forget that it also lacked a character mode which is essential for fast tile-based graphics in games like this. When the C64 had to modify 1000 bytes, the Amstrad had to modify 16000 to achieve the same.
Jawattdenn 3 years ago 5
It's not as black and white as you're suggesting... otherwise the Amstrad CPC wouldn't have been able to have done games the likes of Mr Heli, Astro Marine Corps and Savage. And let's not forget Chase HQ, Wec-le-mans and Continental Circus. You shouldn't quote CPC hardware, as the C64 had enough problems of its own, especially with the low powered CPU, ill colour palette, flickery sprites and below par 3D performance.
ukmarkh 2 years ago
Flickering sprites on C64? You are mixing up NES sprites with C64 sprites.
Jawattdenn 2 years ago 2
Are you taking the piss... lol
have you never played Commando on the C64!
ukmarkh 2 years ago
I nearly forgot Beach Volleyball and Silk Worm... the problem is the C64 runs out of sprites - The 8 sprites on C64 are definitely not enough for anything involving many characters, and on NES, constructing anything large enough eats up lots of sprites. The problem is solved (though not in very programmer-friendly way) by using raster interrupts:
ukmarkh 2 years ago
Large objects without flicker are easy to do on C64. Just make sure you don't exceed the 8 sprites per rasterline limit. Example: xamDCuEg088 (at 5:30).
Jawattdenn 2 years ago
Once the sprite has been drawn, you change the sprite pointers in memory, and the system thinks it hasn't yet drawn the sprite on this scanline and starts over again. This often works pretty well, but it sometimes gets a bit out of hand, particularly in quickly written and hastily produced games.
ukmarkh 2 years ago
All a games programmer has to do is make sure that not more than 8 sprites are on the same scanline. Many games on C64 do that, for example IO or Armalyte. But that are just the games which use sprite multiplexing. You can easily limit yourself to 8 sprites like the most C64 games do.
Concerning NES: NES also has a sprite limit of 8 per scanline, but while on C64 usually an enemy or player is built from 1 sprite, NES has much smaller sprites and usually needs 4-6 sprites per object.
Jawattdenn 2 years ago
Dude... you're just repeating what i've already stated. Here it is in plain English; In some C64 games you get flicker with the sprites, for the same reason you get bad scrolling or slow gameplay. It's all down to the programmer at the end of the day, sure there are limits... but in most cases the only reason the Amstrad didn't excel, was down to crap programmers, tight budgets and probably the fact that it was the third machine in terms of sales. It's a capable machine believe it or not.
ukmarkh 2 years ago
The scrolling alone was a far too big task for the CPC's Z80. The CPU is about ~2.5 times as fast as the C64 CPU, but it has to move 16 times the data to achieve the same scrolling playfield. A better programmer cannot compensate that. The result is what you see: low framerates and small game display areas, or no scrolling at all. Has nothing to do with tight game budgets or similar.
Jawattdenn 2 years ago
My friend, you need to take a look at Xyphoes Fantasy by Silmarils, Mission Genocide, Fres Attack, Savage, Shinobi, Continental Circus, Robocop, Star Sabre, Prince of Persia, Afterburner, Barbarian, Trantor, Chase HQ, Batman, Get Dexter 1, 2 and many many more... nothing slow about them.
ukmarkh 2 years ago
From the games you mentioned all have pretty jerky scrolling compared to 50 fps scrolling on C64. The only exception is Mission Genocide which is using a scroll trick for vertical 50 fps smooth scroll. I think there was another game using the same trick but atm I can't remember it's name.
Jawattdenn 2 years ago
I think you'll find Fres Attack is running at 50fps... and the other game your thinking about is WarHawk. Yes, Misson Genocide is using a trick called 'Rotovision' Paul Shirley used it in this game, but he wasn't the first. I can't believe you think Star Sabre is jerky??? Anyway, the majority of those games I've listed, apart from Barbarian are better than the C64 equivelent.
ukmarkh 2 years ago
This was a port of a game designed specifically to play on the c64.
When you consider the Amstrads limitations it really is a quite remarkable port.
andyukmonkey 3 years ago
fell apart at the seems, looked good on the attract screen, in game graphics, noooooo. The c64 is still the best 8bit version. end off.
bazfanv2 3 years ago 3
The cpc was a better machine than the C64. Thats why it cost more. End of.
iris030380 3 years ago