CPC / CPC PLUS mod

[cpc4eva]

just curious...

been spending time reading articles on the later CPC game releases before it all ended and am amazed at the gameplay and GFX the machines produced for some of these games.

thats commercial releases and public domain.

my curiosity is wondering just how difficult would it be to MOD the original cpc / cpc plus models so that they may produce the games on a level of an Atari ST / Amiga or better ?

[||C|-|E||]

IMHO it would be very difficult without significant changes in the architecture of the machines, particularly in the case of the normal CPC. With a not modded Plus you can obtain something that is much closer to what you would like to achieve but still. Of course, it would be easier to achieve something very cool if we are talking about point and click adventures and slow paced RPGs. If we are talking of text adventure games, then I would say that is possible to obtain something of superb quality with the hardware we currently have, but there is no framework able to use it.

[MacDeath]

As said : depends what sort of games.

RPGs or non action-real time games may actually just need a lot of RAM.
the non scrolling action-RPG games that were typically Computer games can be quite good on an Amstrad.

The likes of :
Barbarian 1&2, Targhan, Backto the golden edge (sort of), Night hunter, Switchblade.
Or games like Iron Lord, Pirates! (the CPC port was a bit poor actually, still a great game), Defender of the crown...  perhaps too.


Some CPC games like back to the golden age really feel like an Atari ST game in 4 colours... or CGA game with somewhat better colours.

same with Night hunter.
Mostly the only difference is that they stripped a bit of tiles or features here and there... and the sampled sounds as well.

But a CPC with 256k or 320k of RAM may quite easily get the same amount of graphics as the ST version and play somewhat as well I guess.

Would be that different than most CGA games actually.











With its very superior palette, PLUS could get the same palette as ST version with those Mode0 pixels and the result may be quite impressive.
Mode0 is really better when screen is properly "320x200" instead of "256x192"...

Also a game like barbarian actually looked somewhat better on CPC than ST... sort of.












Fact is that many of those games were tuned down by C64 graphics (or speccy) instead of ST or CGA versions graphics, lack of RAM was also an issue and the graphical port from 320x200x16 into 160x200x16 was often rushed and would miss attention to details like proper re-ditherings.



BAT :



ditherings from 16bit versions become horizontal lines because most of time they would just divide the horizontal resolution by two, eating half the pixels.
But they still re-designed many details in this case, just that to redo proper dithered zones here and there can take huge amount of work that was rarely done.
Palette conversion was also often not possible or not properly done that well, but on a PLUS this would quite be a non issue.



Iron Lord :
Iron Lord by UBISoft

this one is funny because CGA and CPC version had two different strategies :

CGA : forced palette with quite different hues.

CPC : they went for  "Monocolour" 4 shades palettes... somewhat.

As a result the details and lightings are quite differently done, also Less RAM on CPC means some parts were a bit simplified as well.

CGA would actually look a bit better on many parts, but CPC would be actually more detaileds on some parts because it has a whole 4 colours gradiant, not radically different colours such as bright red and bright green...

IMO they failed to get enough contrast with use of pastel or white for lighter hue.. still a nice effort.

[remax]

Le professeur MacDeath a toujours quelque chose à dire

[fgbrain]

add a proper blitter card on PLUS with 576KB RAM and you have a great hardware to compete with 16bit games! (see Atari VBXE)

[cpc4eva]

amazing image comparisons Professor MacDeath many thanks   

IMHO it would be very difficult without significant changes in the architecture of the machines, particularly in the case of the normal CPC. With a not modded Plus you can obtain something that is much closer to what you would like to achieve but still. Of course, it would be easier to achieve something very cool if we are talking about point and click adventures and slow paced RPGs. If we are talking of text adventure games, then I would say that is possible to obtain something of superb quality with the hardware we currently have, but there is no framework able to use it.

was referring to any type of gaming styles....

are you meaning something like cpc telera as a framework or a completely new tool ?

add a proper blitter card on PLUS with 576KB RAM and you have a great hardware to compete with 16bit games! (see Atari VBXE)

Would a stock blitter card work or you we need to mod that as well ?

[MacDeath]

the PLUS could have worked well if the hardsprites were actually a second layer of video, with same modes as background, but also with added attributes or custom palettes for each sprites, same as NES... with sprites pointing at RAM , management for the extra RAM, 128k, each sprites 32 mode1 pixels equivalents... multiplexable.

But well... just extra RAM can produce great RPGs.


Also as I always tell... 16bit games often had CPC spec like version (graphic wise) in the CGA ports.

 

(mode0 is fine too)

[||C|-|E||]

@cpc4eva
I was talking about something specific to develop some type of games, like SCUMM or PAWS, but able to use all the modern expansions. That would be really great. As MacDeath is pointing, there is not technical reason to stop us of making an awesome RPG, point an click adventure or text adventure in Mode 1 or 0. In case of it being in Mode 1, it could look considerably better than the usual CGA games .