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Best cpc game

Started by steve, 02:42, 26 September 10

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sigh

The scrolling on the X-Contra demo is shocking! Really nice! I also love the scrolling on Star Sabre 128k; that looks incredibly smooth. Though both these games are 128k, are the programmers  using the extra 64k just for the scrolling, to achieve such smoothness? I've been reading up on the CPC 128k quite a bit and also the Commodore 128k which was also an under used machine.

I love Gryzor, Renegade and Target Renegade being my most played games. I don't mind the flick screen scrolling although push screen would of been nicer for Gryzor as compromise, just so you can see what's coming ahead before getting hit by a stray bullet. Chase HQ and Continental Circuit was also on my rotation.

Mission Genocide - my sister pretty much memorized every enemy pattern in that game. Great scrolling in that too. Shame there isn't a dedicated one fits all scrolling engine on the cpc.

fano

Quote from: sigh on 15:47, 19 December 10I've been reading up on the CPC 128k quite a bit and also the Commodore 128k which was also an under used machine.
Sadly that's true , 6128 has been under used.Like other computers , extra memory can be used to get more contents or a little speed boost.
About StarSabre , it exists a 64K version , 128K adds more contents.Xcontra is designed to run only on 128K machine.Theses 2 games use hardware scrolling and double buffer that's why they are fast.Axelay will say more about this but Star Sabre use shifted buffers to get byte scrolling (CRTC can do only 2 bytes scrolling.
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sigh

I was looking at the 64k version of Star Sabre posted on youtube; I don't know whether it was the movie quality, but that version didn't seem as smooth as the 128K version also on youtube.

I also remember being bowled over at the artwork and graphics of Purple Saturn Day. I haven't seen it for a long time though....

Gryzor

Purple Saturn Day was quite ahead in its concept and aesthetics... not a terribly great game though, if I recall correctly!

MacDeath

QuotePurple Saturn Day was quite ahead in its concept and aesthetics... not a terribly great game though, if I recall correctly!
Who cares, the graphics were awesome, 16bit like...

Gryzor

Well, true. Back then sometimes you'd be just awed by the graphics and forget to check the game out :D And indeed PSD was one of those games...

TMR

Quote from: sigh on 15:47, 19 December 10
...and also the Commodore 128k which was also an under used machine.

The 40 column side of things is pretty much identical to the C64 for game development unless the 2MHz mode is being turned on and off during the upper and lower borders and, whilst the 80 column VDC is interesting and has some possibilities, it's also a bottleneck since it's RAM isn't directly available to the CPU.

fano

Quote from: Gryzor on 20:01, 19 December 10Well, true. Back then sometimes you'd be just awed by the graphics and forget to check the game out :D And indeed PSD was one of those games...
I liked a lot this game.I think it is like other ERE games , they own something "special" that pleases to some not to others.
"NOP" is the perfect program : short , fast and (known) bug free

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AMSDOS

128k was perhaps more widely used on the serious programs and people can use CP/M Plus when they have 128k. Probably what a lot of people don't realise is a number of games for CP/M Plus were made available (commercially) for the PCW as well as a 6128, the ones I've seen are of a Graphical Adventure nature, this is perhaps where the 128k came to an advantage and in that sense makes the 6128 a low-end computer to the PCW!  ;D  (I say low-end cause the thing up from a 6128 is a 8256!  ??? ), though I guess a 6128 would manage it just fine.

In AMSDOS not many 128k games to my knowledge, though a number of games which would run on a 64k system included a theme tune if you had the extra 64k, Shinobi is an example of that, I think The Untouchables maybe as well, not totally sure though!
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Quote from: fano on 22:15, 19 December 10
I liked a lot this game.I think it is like other ERE games , they own something "special" that pleases to some not to others.

PSD was awesome.  The graphics in Orion Prime reminded me of it a bit.

ukmarkh

PSD must have been like looking at a stunning picture back in its day! 

Xyphoe

I do own Purple Saturn Day, I remember being very impressed by the graphics and how everything was programmed and done ... however as a game didn't grab me that much. Maybe I didn't give it enough time, I'll probably have a blast of it over Xmas and maybe do a YT vid :)

Axelay

Quote from: sigh on 18:34, 19 December 10
I was looking at the 64k version of Star Sabre posted on youtube; I don't know whether it was the movie quality, but that version didn't seem as smooth as the 128K version also on youtube.

Both the 64k & 128k versions run at 25 fps, so any differences you see are just the video.  They both use two screens as mentioned by fano, the 128k version primarily uses the extra RAM for additional content - sound, graphics and variety.  Only a small amount was used for faster/larger code, as the original 64k version ran out of memory long before there was a problem with CPU time, so there was already spare CPU time available for most of the additions in the 128k game.

sigh

Quote from: Axelay on 05:03, 21 December 10

Both the 64k & 128k versions run at 25 fps, so any differences you see are just the video.  They both use two screens as mentioned by fano, the 128k version primarily uses the extra RAM for additional content - sound, graphics and variety.  Only a small amount was used for faster/larger code, as the original 64k version ran out of memory long before there was a problem with CPU time, so there was already spare CPU time available for most of the additions in the 128k game.

Incredible to get it looking that smooth on the CPC. A job very well done indeed!

Nich

Quote from: redbox on 17:10, 20 December 10
PSD was awesome.  The graphics in Orion Prime reminded me of it a bit.
I agree that it has some amazing graphics, but the events are a mixed bag. The "Ring Pursuit" is superb - but does anyone know how to play the "Time Jump" event? I don't get it at all! :'(

Targhan

Shoot the "stars" to collect energy, and after a few tries it will teleport you back in time :) . Never went past the "eye" though.
PSD is an awesome game, too bad it's too easy to beat the computer.
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Gryzor

@Xyphoe: yup! That would make a nice vid, since it's not a particularly well-known game!

steve

Is there any software that could not be ported to the spectrum because it used features of the CPC/+ that the spectrum could not emulate, and still run at the same speed?, or was ported from the spectrum and is much better because it uses CPC hardware?

arnoldemu

Quote from: steve on 11:58, 23 December 10
Is there any software that could not be ported to the spectrum because it used features of the CPC/+ that the spectrum could not emulate, and still run at the same speed?, or was ported from the spectrum and is much better because it uses CPC hardware?
I don't fully understand your questions.

Porting from CPC to Spectrum is possible, but the problems are:
1. fixed smaller screen size on spectrum (so if the cpc game used more screen area, you would need to redesign for spectrum).
2. colours to spectrum (you would need to adjust your sprites, possibly modify them so they have an outline and are more visible on the spectrum, also if you remove colour completely, then you may need to modify the sprites to distinguish them - more if the colour from the original was important. Now you would need to add a pattern or something to make them visible).
3. You would need to check for the AY chip before using it, and as a fall back possibly have beeper sound.
4. anything which used hardware scrolling on the cpc, or cpc+ hardware sprites, or required colours close together would need to be rethought, and then the scrolling would not be as fast on spectrum because it would have to be done using software.

Porting from Spectrum to CPC:
1. much easier to do, but you often end up with less colour on CPC, best to recolour graphics
2. You may end up running out of ram on the cpc. The spectrum gfx often take less ram to store than cpc versions.

Does any of this help?
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steve

Thank you for your reply arnoldemu, Since there has been some comment that most software was spectrum ports, this thread was intended to find software that made use of the CPC's own hardware.

Although programs could be ported to the spectrum, I was hoping to find software that used the CPC's hardware in such a way that the spectrum port would be significantly slower, thus proving we were right all those years ago that the CPC is the superior machine "....and here's the software to prove it".

fano

It is very difficult to reply to your question without sinking in fanboyism but i'll try  ;)

If we except speecy ports , in theory portage of nearly all games from CPC to Spectrum is possible for 64K game.For graphics (the bottleneck of the CPC in terms of speed), Spectrum is a simplier machine (you manipulate half ammount of data to display graphics) , for the same process it would be faster, in theory.
Note for titles that makes great usage of 16 colors mode (especially full page graphics) or higher resolutions than spectrum is able to give , that would be not be impossible but that would be a graphic slaughter  :'(
About specific titles for Plus range , it would be possible to adapt them but they would be inferior in terms of graphics and speed.

That was for general , for games in particular , i'd say games that are already beautifull and that own a correct speed like Zap'n'Ball , PSD and so on, you'll always get an inferior Spectrum version.

In the reverse order , as Speccy ports were not a great demonstration of CPC habilities (they just showed how of to make easy money for software compagnies), trying to emulate the Spectrum graphics capabilities on a CPC always gave a bad result.
"NOP" is the perfect program : short , fast and (known) bug free

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fano

Quote from: steve on 13:06, 23 December 10Although programs could be ported to the spectrum, I was hoping to find software that used the CPC's hardware in such a way that the spectrum port would be significantly slower, thus proving we were right all those years ago that the CPC is the superior machine "....and here's the software to prove it".
There is nothing to prove , Spectrum like C64 and CPC are differents and each one is better in a domain in particular.Everything else is fanboyism  :angel:
"NOP" is the perfect program : short , fast and (known) bug free

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steve

"Fanboyism", isn't that why we are here?

Good point about graphics speed, does more colours or higher resolution compensate for the slower speed?

One day, when I'm feeling lucky, I might try the 6mhz hack.

fano

Quote from: steve on 13:17, 23 December 10
"Fanboyism", isn't that why we are here?
Not totaly false but as long that does not become stupid (mine is bigger than yours !).I am tired of thoses long flamewars between fans and to be honnest there are good and bad things on each machine (For example , i prefer AY sound but there are amazing sounds on SID or on Speccy buzzer !)

Quote from: steve on 13:17, 23 December 10Good point about graphics speed, does more colours or higher resolution compensate for the slower speed?
I'd say on CPC unlike Spectrum , we have choice between speed or graphics and sometimes we got speed and graphics  :)
"NOP" is the perfect program : short , fast and (known) bug free

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redbox

Quote from: fano on 13:37, 23 December 10
I'd say on CPC unlike Spectrum , we have choice between speed or graphics and sometimes we got speed and graphics  :)

I still think this is the downfall of the CPC - the graphics can look amazing, but 16kb is a lot for the Z80 to cope with  :(

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