Oh did I just get a rare one?

[Neil79]

Hard words, but very true!

Such a wise CPC guru 

[TFM]

Yes. He is. 

[Puresox]

No.  I will never be 'grateful' for Speccy ports.   Every game that gets released to a system is in a way promoting that machine.  All Spectrum ports did was give the impression that the CPC was barely any better than a Spectrum (or even worse in some cases like R-Type where it had even less colour and was sluggish) when in fact it was capable of so much more.   Thanatos may have been a quality Spectrum port but a true CPC version could have looked so much more beautiful and be another game to sway the decision of a potential computer buyer who was trying to decide between the three 8-bit systems.    To say we should be grateful it came out the way it did just feels to me like starving without any food and being offered stale bread rather than a big steak dinner.

Unfortunately money rules , Idealism doesn't. Companies are never going to think well we like the machine we will invest in a software creator to try and capture that niche market, There were not enough programmers on the Amstrad who could get the best out of the machine. It's all to do with numbers I should imagine . the probability that you would rake in from a title would be far higher for Spectrum and C64. same goes for MSX. Plenty of ability in that machine but the European market was insignificant , the only sensible solution is ports. I don't like it but that's life.
If you had more programmers who had taken to the machine , sending in there programming efforts , they would surely say  wow that kids got talent  we could  sell his work  well . But there wasn't that pool of programmers to utilise.

[Puresox]

Also Software house were/are not Benevolent. It is up to Amstrad to sell it self , which they did/did not with Amsoft!

[TFM]

That's pretty short eyed. If games have better quality, then they will sell better and people tend more to buy one (at least more often), because they get something for their money. But if one gets disappointed by wasting money for crap games, then this person will hardly invest into buying games in future.


A good strategy for well business is to sell good thing for a fair price. And also keep the advertisements running. But selling out cheap crap is short eyed and against all logic.

[MacDeath]

could be interesting to check how graphics are stored/coded on CPC RAM...

are they in 1bpp then converted ?
1bpp graphics + 1bpp mask ?
Actually in native CPC 2bpp (I don't think)


according to this we may know if easily converted into Mode0 or not...

1bpp graphics + 1bpp mask can actually enable proper CPC conversion (2bpp for equivalent number of pixels/screen surface) but need to hack the sprites routines.

Also gotta check if passing into Mode0 could enable to get rid of raster/palette change routine and actually gain some CPU time (or not?) as raster/interrupt/mode/palette changes were not always well synched/timed.

And as usual, a proper hack would imply to make use of 128K RAM ideally.



Thanatos has quite less attributes clashes but graphics still have a speccy/non Amstrad  1bpp feel... quite like Saboteur.


checked :
could see bpp (mode) graphics, in various bytes wideness...
couldn't find masks though.


seems some part of the world would use more raster zones than others...


when you come to cavern, the dragons is masked in black while other parts, we have darkblue instead of Black

Also mask is not always pixel wises... and not all graphics are actually masked (just foreground sprites I guess.)

[Puresox]

That's pretty short eyed. If games have better quality, then they will sell better and people tend more to buy one (at least more often), because they get something for their money. But if one gets disappointed by wasting money for crap games, then this person will hardly invest into buying games in future.


A good strategy for well business is to sell good thing for a fair price. And also keep the advertisements running. But selling out cheap crap is short eyed and against all logic.

I'll agree to differ ,I  Just think that , the energy input to a project ,just doesn't add up finacially, they are hoping to build a new market ,by developing a very good quality game. Now if it is great and convinces a few more people to buy the Amstrad. Then that's all fine and dandy , and might encourage a few more sales in future releases. But the company has invested lots of money on the chance that it might build a bigger market. On the other hand , you have a massive market base for the C64 and Spectrum , there are plenty of quality programmers that are skilled on those systems. Because there are more programmers to choose from the price is more competitive, there are loads of great mags to offer good publicity Everything is on a plate. Unfortunately the Amstrad was too late on the market. To grab the market. I think the CPC did pretty darn well considering everything . Had Amsoft got there act together and produced a few more killer Apps. Then the confidence in the machine may have made more of an impact. Anyway just my pov.

[TFM]

The market was there, CPC sold millions.


Programmers: There were plenty, but got payed like Shi** [nb]That's what hasn't changed.[/nb]

[zeropolis79]

Neil - you COULD try copying the files to a new disc, formatting the original and then copying the files back.. It should be childs-play, Durell and Elite discs are normally unprotected.