Speccy vs CPC - battle of the Ages

[Gryzor]

Guys, a bit off-topic, but I didn't want to open a new thread; the article needs some nice cleaning-up. Remember, these are the *articles*, not the discussion pages, so they should be kep at as serious and objective as possible. Phrases like "let the butthurt begin" just make us sound like adolescent fanboys.

Please (contributors), try to edit those phrases out and tone down the sentiment. Or I could do it.

[MacDeath]

Done.

[Gryzor]

Hehehehe thanks

[MaV]

C64 demoscene got a bit annoyed by Batman demo...
Mostly because of the spinning batsymbol...

Ah, that explains a lot. Thanks for that.

Rhino hinted at it, but I didn't have any idea where to look.

MaV

[Gryzor]

Anyone else seen that c64 joke of a spinning Batman logo on YT?

[MacDeath]

As I told a few post earlier, they tried their best, but to be honest, when SD and sprites are not needed/usefull... CPC can be more powerfull there.


Ok, 128K version, they shouldtry on a C128 perhaps...

C64 had to cheat with the Hardwired sprites to get bigger pictures (full screen) while CPC "just" need more RAM and actually have a real fullscreen.

Also, Hardwired sprites are heavily needed to display in "Hi-Res" with more colours than a speccy.
Hence the low res... which, in soft, only enable 4 colours per character.

And by the way, CPC version is awesomly faster...

Pic related.

PS : A starWar themed demo could be sweet...

@Gryzor :

If this is supposed to be an answer to the CPC version then it's a joke   - lame colors, very aliased edges, not as smooth... If it was just an   experiment then ok.

Yes, it is more a try than a finished product...
Nice Troll though...

[sigh]

Was it possible for the speccy to also use split rasters? I've been reading on this a little but not really up to speed. I've noticed that games like "Striker In The Crypts Of Trogan" manages to display 5 colours in the game area in mode 1.

[andycadley]

Was it possible for the speccy to also use split rasters? I've been reading on this a little but not really up to speed. I've noticed that games like "Striker In The Crypts Of Trogan" manages to display 5 colours in the game area in mode 1.

It can't do raster in the sense the CPC can since it doesn't have a palettized display, though you can do something similar by quickly changing the values of the attribute ram but it's rather cpu intensive to get the timing right.

Things like Stryker are far more simple though, since it's not doing anything clever at all. The spectrums display allows you to use any 2 colours (well not strictly any, they must have the same BRIGHT value) in each character cell of the display with no restriction on the total number of colours in the display. This gives you the potential to display much more colour than Mode 1 on the CPC, albeit with much greater restrictions on how those colours can be used.

[robcfg]

Anyway, the hardware is only a part of the equation, how you use it is also very important.


I think that the difference between a 6128 and a +3 would be the display management, and that's far better on the CPC. But credit where it's due, there are people capable of doing very nice things on Spectrum too:

[MacDeath]

"Large" plasmas are a typical Speccydemo feature...

32x24 is the actual colour resolution on speccy, yet a few tricks enable to get this slightly superior...
Of course with ditherings inside the characters, there is a possibility to get this resolution better.

On the other hand, a CPC in Mode0 may do better stuff with an artificial 160x100 resolution (1x2 "pixels"= square pixels...).
But this is also far Heavier...


Character attributes is something like a cross between vertical and horizontal "raster" matrix...
  Not that a bad system but just imagine CPC had such an attribute grid with its Mode1...
  4 colours per characters... with a choice from a few pre-set palettes...
  Would be even heavier, yet quite usefull too...
 

This is where Thomsons 2nd generation MO6/TO8 are good, they have an extra Attributed mode compared to a CPC/Plus.

But still a far heavier attribute mode than on speccy ... the same as MSX actually (attributes are 8x1 pixels instead of 8x8... and you can display 16 colours per screen...)

[arnoldemu]

I modified the Speccy port page.

I added a machine comparison section.

I modified the reasons a little.

I mentioned the slowness and less colours.

So now there is some more reasoning to the argument.

I plan to add info about how quick it is to convert, and the consequence.

and then explain the anger because they didn't use the machines capabilities as they could have.

The examples are good to show what the result was, what they did and what they could have done.

EDIT: I am updating the consequences with the choices that can be made on Spectrum, what the result for the CPC is, and what they should do on CPC. I will also move the bits about techniques into this section, so people can understand what was done when a conversion was made.

At the end I think should be a list of games and comparisons. I'm taking the info that MacDeath wrote and moving it around to give more technical detail... the argument is the same.

[MacDeath]

Nice edit...

But telling speccy can display 16 colours, while true, is not completely accurate...the official display is 8 colours, and you have to trick a little bit to have the 16 colours, which are actually 15 because speccy has only 15 colours (yet 16 inks).

Also when you tell that CPC can display more colours thx to rester, you shuld tell that tthe limitation is still 4 colours per raster zone... hence the Speccy cannot be really that well emulated.

Concerning souinds... Some videos on youtube seems to display that the ZX speccy tunes were sometimes actually Higher pitch, While CPC is a lot into basses...
So they may have ported the tunes directly and unaltered...sometimes.

[andycadley]

I don't think you can really say it's a 'trick' to display 15 colours on the Spectrum. Each attribute square contains a BRIGHT bit which selects whether to use the ordinary 8 colours or the brighter versions (which is really only 7 extra since BRIGHT black is still black). It's a completely designed in feature of the hardware and is entirely accesible even from things like BASIC (via the stunningly well named BRIGHT command). The attribute also contains a FLASH bit, which periodically alternates INK and PAPER colours within the attribute square without CPU intervention.
It does place an additional limitation on the use of colour, since it means you can't mix dark and bright colours in the same attribute square.

[Gryzor]

Well, it's been always the case that when a machine uses variations of luminance it is mentioned as having x colours (+y variations), not x+y colors...

[Gryzor]

I did some light editing (couple of spelling mistakes, 15 colours instead of 16, added a speccy screen to show how clash works). Was thinking of putting a little banner ont he wiki's homepage. This banner could include one or two pics showing the result of speccy porting; which one(s) would you suggest, that sticks out of the crowd?

Now the article is really getting somewhere

[sigh]

I did some light editing (couple of spelling mistakes, 15 colours instead of 16, added a speccy screen to show how clash works). Was thinking of putting a little banner ont he wiki's homepage. This banner could include one or two pics showing the result of speccy porting; which one(s) would you suggest, that sticks out of the crowd?

Now the article is really getting somewhere

Maybe R-type and Enduro racer?

[arnoldemu]

I don't think you can really say it's a 'trick' to display 15 colours on the Spectrum. Each attribute square contains a BRIGHT bit which selects whether to use the ordinary 8 colours or the brighter versions (which is really only 7 extra since BRIGHT black is still black). It's a completely designed in feature of the hardware and is entirely accesible even from things like BASIC (via the stunningly well named BRIGHT command). The attribute also contains a FLASH bit, which periodically alternates INK and PAPER colours within the attribute square without CPU intervention.
It does place an additional limitation on the use of colour, since it means you can't mix dark and bright colours in the same attribute square.

@andy: Ok, I didn't mention about flash I don't think, but I think I mentioned about bright.
Ok I did know there are really 15 visible colours

@others:
I think to add to this article we need a picture of the spectrums palette colours and the cpc's, for a side by side comparison.

also we need a picture from a game like chuckie egg, where the main sprite colours take priority and change the background.

we also need a link to beeper sound, and manic miner staccato sound.
but also a link to Mister Beep's music would also be good to show what the beeper can do.

I am happy others like the changes I am doing, I am trying to give a good comparison and try to explain more, showing examples of poor cpc games resulting from this is perfectly good, because people can understand it better now.

I think after reading the finished article (not complete yet), they'll see the screens, compare spectrum and amstrad version and then understand we could have had more colour.

[arnoldemu]

Maybe R-type and Enduro racer?

R-type is a classic that shows char based movement.
Enduro Racer is good for showing lack of colour, and sprites mixing with each other.

I think we should include Myth and show it as an example of a spectrum game that is acceptable.

[andycadley]

Mister Beep's stuff is pretty clever, though as a traditionalist I still don't think anything is quite as impressive as Tim Follin's music in Chronos.

[Gryzor]

For a banner I guess that indeed a side-by-side screenshot of the speccy and the new version would be perfect

[sigh]

R-type is a classic that shows char based movement.
Enduro Racer is good for showing lack of colour, and sprites mixing with each other.

I think we should include Myth and show it as an example of a spectrum game that is acceptable.

How about including something like Chase HQ, seeing as that was allegedly 100% speccy code, with redone graphics? This could show an example of an excellent conversion.

[Gryzor]

How about including something like Chase HQ, seeing as that was allegedly 100% speccy code, with redone graphics? This could show an example of an excellent conversion.

Yes, but this would be good for the article; for a banner you'd need to show the mess that is, and how it could be.

[Gryzor]

Right, it's official. Check the main page

[MacDeath]

Let the crusade begins...

Purge the unclean.
Destroy the Heretech.
Cleanse the unpure speccy.


When I saw the new banner I almost jizzed in my pants.

I think to add to this article we need a picture of the spectrums palette colours and the cpc's, for a side by side comparison.

I will, but I have a busy week theses days... but I will do this kind of comparison pics.

Also perhaps a few stuff to show the difference between 1bpp graphic and 3-4colours mode1...(ditherings...) from notorious exemples.

[arnoldemu]

When I saw the new banner I almost jizzed in my pants.
I will, but I have a busy week theses days... but I will do this kind of comparison pics.

For the first, just do a picture with a square of each colour side by side.
Then you can see the colours for each system.

Then we could also do a comparison to show which cpc colours match which spectrum ones so you can see the Amstrad can do a good job of showing the spectrum's colours.

Also perhaps a few stuff to show the difference between 1bpp graphic and 3-4colours mode1...(ditherings...) from notorious exemples.

Yes this would be good for the graphics section which I haven't altered yet.

In the comparisons: I added some more info about joystick port, which market they were built for, the tv/monitor and loading system. I want the comparison to be fairly comprehensive, even though some of it doesn't relate to speccy port, but it gives the reader a better idea of both systems.