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#1
General Discussion - Introductions / Re: C64 Vs Speccy: Which one d...
Last post by eto - Today at 17:49Quote from: cwpab on Today at 16:11I find it a bit odd that here in Spain, none of my friends as a kid had a C64... but one had an MSX.MSX was popular in the Netherlands. Philips produced several models over the years.
I don't think the MSX sales were very good in Europe or USA, right?
#2
While I had done some BASIC programming on the CPC, my next machine (Atari ST) is the one where I sank my teeth into assembly programming, which I started when I was 16.
On the ST, a lot of things are reasonably easy when it comes to graphics: there's a lot of RAM so that double or even triple buffering is affordable, the framebuffer layout is friendly to quite a few operations, the CPU is fast enough to copy the whole size of the screen 50 times a second. Of course, there isn't enough margin to be sloppy, especially on baseline machines without a blitter. With a little bit of teenage hubris, though, it did feel like many programmers of commercial games were leaving quite some capabilities on the table, making me feel that I could often have done better.
As emulation now allows me to go back to the CPC, my first love, and as I'm writing assembly for it, I'm gaining a lot of respect for the game programmers of the time. There isn't enough RAM to use a double buffer without sacrificing a lot of features, let alone a triple buffer, especially for games that have to be loaded from tape. The framebuffer layout isn't that fun (I'm finding mode 1 especially painful). Copying large amounts of data is so slow that any naive implementation is just about guaranteed to have slow frame rates. Any half-decent game must have needed some optimizations, and the top games seem to have been written by wizards.
I am not getting discouraged, but I've got to reset my expectations about what it takes to get something that looks good on the CPC, and I tip my hat to those who put themselves through that exercise, either back then or more recently. Well done, folks!
On the ST, a lot of things are reasonably easy when it comes to graphics: there's a lot of RAM so that double or even triple buffering is affordable, the framebuffer layout is friendly to quite a few operations, the CPU is fast enough to copy the whole size of the screen 50 times a second. Of course, there isn't enough margin to be sloppy, especially on baseline machines without a blitter. With a little bit of teenage hubris, though, it did feel like many programmers of commercial games were leaving quite some capabilities on the table, making me feel that I could often have done better.
As emulation now allows me to go back to the CPC, my first love, and as I'm writing assembly for it, I'm gaining a lot of respect for the game programmers of the time. There isn't enough RAM to use a double buffer without sacrificing a lot of features, let alone a triple buffer, especially for games that have to be loaded from tape. The framebuffer layout isn't that fun (I'm finding mode 1 especially painful). Copying large amounts of data is so slow that any naive implementation is just about guaranteed to have slow frame rates. Any half-decent game must have needed some optimizations, and the top games seem to have been written by wizards.
I am not getting discouraged, but I've got to reset my expectations about what it takes to get something that looks good on the CPC, and I tip my hat to those who put themselves through that exercise, either back then or more recently. Well done, folks!
#3
Minor update, will take some times for new surprises incoming
http://www.roudoudou.com/ACE-DL/
Code Select
- True Drive LED management
- FDC Shadow polling management
- FDC Long HUT bug emulation
- FDC HUT cutoff for Seek/Calibrate/Illegal
- Reset emulator when draging new ROM to Dandanator
- Ludicrous timings adjustments in FDC polling according to electronic measures
- Ludicrous timings adjustments according to drive models for Ready loss with motor ON
- bugfix right-click on HUD buttons (wont trigger anymore vertically above)
- bugfix drive conflicts between A and B
- bugfix breakpoints on FDC Scan
http://www.roudoudou.com/ACE-DL/
#5
minimal update
https://github.com/EdouardBERGE/rasm/releases/tag/v2.2.3
HFE not protected as default
and RAM configuration default for snapshots
https://github.com/EdouardBERGE/rasm/releases/tag/v2.2.3
HFE not protected as default
and RAM configuration default for snapshots
#6
General Discussion - Introductions / Re: C64 Vs Speccy: Which one d...
Last post by dodogildo - Today at 16:42Quote from: cwpab on Today at 16:11I don't think the MSX sales were very good in Europe or USA, right?Wikipedia reports 9m MSX sold worldwide, 7m in Japan alone. Leaving 2m for US, EU and rest of the world..
#7
General Discussion - Introductions / Re: C64 Vs Speccy: Which one d...
Last post by CraigsBar - Today at 16:38Of those 2 it has to be the C64 all the way. It's just more of a computer games machine. Although I never had either back in the day I was a CPC guy so why would I?
I had the best machine that I used for all my college and university assignments.... And oh let me play pang.
I do not believe that either the C64 or speccy have a real 80 column display so are pretty useless for serious use. The C64. Excels at sprite driven games. The speccy excels at..... Erm..... propping a door open? 😉
So yeah of the 2 options it's a C64 for me. Unless you allow the Sam coupe and C128 in as further developments on the C64 and speccy platforms, in which case Sam Coupe wins it by miles.
I had the best machine that I used for all my college and university assignments.... And oh let me play pang.
I do not believe that either the C64 or speccy have a real 80 column display so are pretty useless for serious use. The C64. Excels at sprite driven games. The speccy excels at..... Erm..... propping a door open? 😉
So yeah of the 2 options it's a C64 for me. Unless you allow the Sam coupe and C128 in as further developments on the C64 and speccy platforms, in which case Sam Coupe wins it by miles.
#8
C
General Discussion - Introductions / Re: C64 Vs Speccy: Which one d...
Last post by cwpab - Today at 16:11I find it a bit odd that here in Spain, none of my friends as a kid had a C64... but one had an MSX.
I don't think the MSX sales were very good in Europe or USA, right?
I don't think the MSX sales were very good in Europe or USA, right?
#9
Quote from: eto on Today at 15:27No, other DOS or OS can be used. (Of course using the native software will not change a thing to the better.)Quote from: GUNHED on Today at 02:15also to be able to put 50% more data on an disc.but that then also requires AMSDOS to use more sectors per track, right? What settings do you use then, that it can write a full track?
If you want to stay with the native OS then I would suggest to use ParaDOS and change format parameters in that.
Also CP/M allows to adapt disc formats in an easy way.
#10
General Discussion - Introductions / Re: C64 Vs Speccy: Which one d...
Last post by ago - Today at 15:33Quote from: cwpab on Today at 11:22The 64 is winning here because people are more technical, but I suspect the ZX Spectrum would win among regular CPC users.I never liked Spectrum games. The only game I liked to play on Spectrum was "Pang", and it was because I couldn't do it on my CPC. I cannot even play them on emulators. Sure, I could enjoy some of them, but I just don't like Spectrum games at all.
Because seriously, guys, don't you feel an emotional attachment to the Speccy games because of the simliarity with CPC mode 1 games? But running at their original faster speed! (and with color clash).
I mean, I know it's not possible that everyone has its CPC broken due do disk drive belt at 12 and then "recovers" it thanks to a Speccy emulator when he's 17 because somehow the CPC emulator arrived many months later to me, but... Don't you feel anything when you run the original Saboteur 1 and 2 and Matchday 2?
Then look at Last Ninja trilogy for example, or many other c64 games. It is not a matter of nostalgia, because I never played on a C64 as a kid, they are just good games on a good enough system.
My alternative system of choice would have been MSX2 anyway, as playing with my uncle's MSX2 was the reason I wanted a computer, but my parents (luckily) were addressed by the shop-assistant to get a CPC6128 instead (that was in 1989).