My 8-bit computer was a Spectrum +2, late in its life. I enjoyed it, a fantastic education on a machine which produced dozens of genuinely innovative and original games, many of which I got to experience. Still, I was jealous of C64 or Amstrad screenshots on the box, more often than not. My suspicion is that the Amstrad may actually be the most powerful of the main 8-bits, but it was often a bit under-supported by developers, especially the big UK companies. All too often, you just got lazily converted Spectrum code, usually meaning slower performance than the Spectrum version regardless of whether the graphics were improved or not (I don't think there was actually any performance benefit to only using limited colours per 8x8 block, as the Spectrum dictated). The perception of the Amstrad struggling to scroll smoothly, in particular, is one that really lingers, though I suspect that, in certain circumstances, it is possible.
With that in mind, which games are the best proof that the Amstrad could match or exceed the Spectrum for performance, as well as exceed it for audiovisual quality? Not only 2D action games, but also isometric or full 3D, or maybe adventures with static graphics? I only speak English to any functional level though, so bear that in mind.
I have a few ideas what people might say, but I'm interested to see what you come up with.
Quote from: MartinJSUK on 15:34, 16 September 24(I don't think there was actually any performance benefit to only using limited colours per 8x8 block, as the Spectrum dictated).
There is an enormous performance benefit to this. An entire 8*8 pixel grid, including the colour information can be updated by just writing 9 bytes to RAM. The equivalent on the CPC requires writing 16 bytes which is almost double the amount of effort.
But to the question at hand, if we're talking about games from back into he day: Head Over Heels, Get Dexter, RoboCop and Batman the Movie would be high on my list.
If you're looking at more recent productions the things like R-Type 128K and Pinball Dreams would probably top the list.
Definitely Rick Dangerous II.
Cybernoid II:
ZX Spectrum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPXNGxxm_ao
Amstrad CPC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn1V_D3Am0k
Both versions are great and probably try to use the maximum power of their respective platforms, so you're not comparing apples to oranges. But you can clearly see that the CPC version is more advanced: it has the same speed, the same amount of cool animations, and all this even with double the screen RAM size, and the graphics and colors are so much better.
Quote from: Prodatron on 20:52, 16 September 24it has the same speed, the same amount of cool animations, and all this even with double the screen RAM size, and the graphics and colors are so much better
Interesting.. I think the Speccy version looks better. On the CPC, the screen width was obviously reduced to support a decent frame rate, making the big mode 0 pixels and thereby the sprites look even chunkier.
Quote from: BSC on 21:25, 16 September 24Quote from: Prodatron on 20:52, 16 September 24it has the same speed, the same amount of cool animations, and all this even with double the screen RAM size, and the graphics and colors are so much better
Interesting.. I think the Speccy version looks better. On the CPC, the screen width was obviously reduced to support a decent frame rate, making the big mode 0 pixels and thereby the sprites look even chunkier.
I'm not sure that's for frame rate. I've a sneaking suspicion it might be to allow the CPC and Spectrum versions to share the same data structures and (probably) code.
Quote from: andycadley on 21:29, 16 September 24I'm not sure that's for frame rate. I've a sneaking suspicion it might be to allow the CPC and Spectrum versions to share the same data structures and (probably) code.
Yes, both screens look like they were made up of 32 tiles per row, so they could keep/share the level design at least. With the added bonus of a 20% smaller frame-buffer. But we are digressing.
I would have shown Sorcery+ and I think that Ultimate's isometric games like Knight Lore or Alien 8 looked better on the CPC. Crafton & Xunk would also be on my list. Donkey Kong was awesome. Gryzor, Renegade, Everyone's a Wally (:D) .. I just had a look at https://www.cpcgamereviews.com/ - in hindsight, a lot of CPC games looked cute.
Operation Wolf
Show everything, every game which is no Spectrum port. This way you have good chances to have a good game. :)
Arkanoid on ZX Spectrum vs. the Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC provides a much better resolution for the graphics with more colors on screen.
Even the audio is better on the Amstrad CPC, but it's not due to a technical improvement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXUUjmi0W6c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d98jdcuXKT4
Quotewhich games are the best proof that the Amstrad could match or exceed the Spectrum for performance, as well as exceed it for audiovisual quality?
Audio quality should actually be much better on the ZX Spectrum, on par with the Atari ST.
About the "performance", my immediate thoughts are Prehistorik 2 and Pinball Dreams, both featuring smooth 50hz scrolling with colorful graphics.
I did back in the day show some of my games to a Spectrum owning mate:
Gryzor
Op Wolf
Chase HQ
Batman The Movie
Robocop
He was highly impressed, except he had a 128k Speccy, probably a +2, so he had speech in games whereas I only had a CPC 464 which wouldn't have such luxuries.
Its only recently that I discovered that the 128k versions of Amstrad games were much more polished with speech etc.
Savage
After not playing it for years I lately realised again what a nice game it is.
Graphically impressing.
I think one-to-one comparisons work best. R-Type 128K came to mind as it blows the Speccy version (and the original CPC version) (and I love both) out of the water.
21st century games tend to show off the CPC's capabilities to the greatest extent, as you might expect.
Relentless, Super Edge Grinder, Imperial Mahjong, Orion Prime, The Abduction of Oscar Z, Red Sunset, Alcon 2020, Pinball Dreams as mentioned are all technically and visually impressive games.
Running in a 32 character-wide screen mode rather than 40 has several advantages when coding for the CPC. It doesn't have to follow the Spectrum though; 32x32 is ideal.
Sorry, I did specifically mean that I didn't think there was any performance benefit to Amstrad games retaining the limited colour placement of the Spectrum, rather than redrawing the graphics to use all 16 (or 4 in Mode 1) colours at once.
I think Cybernoid II probably typifies how Spectrum and Amstrad games were jointly developed, in this case the Amstrad version is much more colourful but perhaps less 'clean' in its visual look, a slightly smaller screen window but no apparent speed loss. Both great, and I've always loved the methodical design of the Cybernoid series, almost like a shoot 'em up version of Manic Miner with the way you have to find 'safe spots' to reach for the keyboard to swap your weapons.
Easter Egg's R-Type isn't a direct comparison with the commercial one as its 128k only, but definitely shows what can be done - the scrolling is pretty smooth, though again the window is a bit small, and R-Type isn't the fastest-paced game by its nature. Probably beats the ST version, as well as all official 8-bit computer ones (the Master System one looks great though). Love the music test, not something we're used to on 8-bit computers.
Isometrics are an interesting one - Get Dexter / Crafton et Xunk looks like a great game, I think using Mode 0 whereas most conversions from the Spectrum are Mode 1. If used well, the sheer variety of the 27-colour palette can make Mode 1 feel like more than 4 colours per screen when they're changed on each screen (even if it effectively means Sabreman changing clothes every few minutes, alongside the changing into a wolf). Objectively Knight Lore is better on the Amstrad because of the music, but there's a charm to the footsteps on the Spectrum version that I just can't un-feel, if you see what I mean. Amstrad Head Over Heels probably edges it over the Spectrum though. What about scrolling isometric games? Great Escape is certainly better on the Spectrum.
I expected a lot of Ocean / Imagine, and the recent Pinball Dreams (I don't think the C64 could match that, probably not the ST either). Is it generally the French and Spanish games that are the most impressive of all though?
By the way, not a game, but since we mentioned Pinball dreams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E8AC1uoZCA
If I had to show games from back then, for isometrics I would have shown La AbadÃa del Crimen, Bactron or Mad Mix Game 2 for sure. Then some other games like Tiger Heli, After the war, Rick Dangerous 1 & 2, Panzas Kick Boxing, Prohibition, Rainbow Islands, Target Renegade, Bob Morane Space, X-out, Capitan Trueno, Mundial de futbol, Fres Fighter, North & South, Ramparts, Chase HQ and even tho is slow is a great port UN Squadron, I've played it to death!
PD... Almost forgot Trantor!
Ooh Tractor!
How about Prince of Persia?
Yes, I think the CPC got the best version of Head Over Heels. And even though the graphics weren't enhanced in any way, I really like the way Starquake looks with a slightly larger palette. Jack The Nipper also looks best on the CPC I think.
Other Spectrum ports like Commando and Chase HQ were arguably improved.
I used to think Arkanoid on the CPC was pretty good, but you can't angle the ball properly, it has terrible slowdown and it seems to be the only version of Arkanoid where the bricks cast no shadow. Which is a bit of a shame, because the CPC is very well-suited to vertical arcade games, which was established early on with the likes of Moon Cresta and Donkey Kong. Other than the BBC, the other 8 bits can't cope with vertical resolutions so well and they have to resort to things like adding vertical scrolling to Pac Man. I don't think you could ever do a satisfactory version of Bomb Jack on the C64 because the screen is just the wrong shape.
The CPC can make the screen any dimensions you want; whatever will fit on the monitor. Full overscan games like Megablasters are worth mentioning.
Imho the most impressive game would be Alcon 2020 but you can only run it from cartridge/rom
Very nice graphics had MGT
Quote from: MartinJSUK on 10:28, 17 September 24Is it generally the French and Spanish games that are the most impressive of all though?
I think that's related to how the machine was perceived in the different markets: The CPC was a top player in the UK, France, Spain and Germany, so most of the productions came from one of these countries.
In Germany the CPC was more seen as a semi-professional computer which led to a lot of "serious" software and hardware but there was no game company that focused on the CPC.
UK was probably the biggest producer of games for the CPC. However probably the vast majority of games were only "ported" to the CPC and usually in the cheapest possible way with minimal effort. It was usually only a straight conversion of graphics with minimal adaptions of the code (drawing routines). The screen size got limited to 256x192 which resulted in the typical small screen window and more often than not was the code only barely adapted to the CPC - sometimes even so crazy that the Speccy sprites were converted in code during run-time to the CPCs format - they didn't even bother to prepare that data. Some game developers surprisingly managed to port the Speccy "fart" sound to the CPC... quite an "accomplishment". And even the Oliver twins who developed ON the CPC developed their games with the Speccy as a target platform in mind. All of that led to too many games that look and behave worse on the CPC than on the Speccy. Both a blessing and a curse: if the base architecture of CPC wouldn't have been so similar to the Speccy we wouldn't have received so many games - but we also wouldn't have gotten so many crappy ports.
In France and Spain it was different: the CPC was the leading 8bit platform and the Speccy was far behind. So the games were not developed for the Speccy or with the limitations of the Speccy in mind. They developed FOR the CPC and wanted to get the most out of it.
Even today I have the impression that this did not really change over time. The most active and creative communities are still in Spain and in France.
Quote from: eto on 12:36, 18 September 24Some game developers surprisingly managed to port the Speccy "fart" sound to the CPC... quite an "accomplishment".
The best description of Speccy ports ever! :laugh:
My initial sarky response would be Super Wonder Boy In Monster Land, just because we could finish the game without it crashing
(For context, the CPC version was a Speccy port with less bugs, the Speccy version wasn't completable, as the dragon was indestructable... they fixed it using the CPC code)
R-Type (Easter Egg)
Turrican 1 and 2
Rick Dangerous 128
X-Out
Pinball Dreams
Fire Tyre (Just to show what we can show off on 64k alone without needing twice that amount)
Other than that, I can't think of anything else that hasn't already been mentioned.
Quote from: eto on 12:36, 18 September 24Imho the most impressive game would be Alcon 2020 but you can only run it from cartridge/rom
Very nice graphics had MGT
Quote from: MartinJSUK on 10:28, 17 September 24Is it generally the French and Spanish games that are the most impressive of all though?
I think that's related to how the machine was perceived in the different markets: The CPC was a top player in the UK, France, Spain and Germany, so most of the productions came from one of these countries.
In Germany the CPC was more seen as a semi-professional computer which led to a lot of "serious" software and hardware but there was no game company that focused on the CPC.
UK was probably the biggest producer of games for the CPC. However probably the vast majority of games were only "ported" to the CPC and usually in the cheapest possible way with minimal effort. It was usually only a straight conversion of graphics with minimal adaptions of the code (drawing routines). The screen size got limited to 256x192 which resulted in the typical small screen window and more often than not was the code only barely adapted to the CPC - sometimes even so crazy that the Speccy sprites were converted in code during run-time to the CPCs format - they didn't even bother to prepare that data. Some game developers surprisingly managed to port the Speccy "fart" sound to the CPC... quite an "accomplishment". And even the Oliver twins who developed ON the CPC developed their games with the Speccy as a target platform in mind. All of that led to too many games that look and behave worse on the CPC than on the Speccy. Both a blessing and a curse: if the base architecture of CPC wouldn't have been so similar to the Speccy we wouldn't have received so many games - but we also wouldn't have gotten so many crappy ports.
In France and Spain it was different: the CPC was the leading 8bit platform and the Speccy was far behind. So the games were not developed for the Speccy or with the limitations of the Speccy in mind. They developed FOR the CPC and wanted to get the most out of it.
Even today I have the impression that this did not really change over time. The most active and creative communities are still in Spain and in France.
This is roughly how I perceive it. The CPC and its games never outsold the Spectrum in the UK, probably because the Spectrum had a two-year headstart, so from a commercial perspective it made sense to use the same code for both. Unfortunate for Amstrad owners in the UK and beyond, and probably frustrating for Amstrad coders who wish they'd had an extra month or two to really push the system, but commercially understandable. The same of course happened with the Amiga mainly getting ST ports making no use of the Blitter and Copper early in its life in the UK and France (in contrast with the USA and much of mainland Europe, where the Amiga was quickly bigger than the ST) The CPC and Spectrum having different screen modes, whereas the Amiga could do the 320x200x16 colours of the ST, often made it worse. The difference is that the Amiga remained successful after the ST started to die out, so the balance changed eventually, whereas with the Amstrad it didn't - if anything, British publishers seemed to get lazier with the Amstrad later on, from the 1991-or-later UK games I've seen.
How easy was it to get some of the French and Spanish games (especially those with no Spectrum or C64 versions) in the UK BITD? Were things like Panza, Capitan Trueno and Bactron published or widely imported into the UK?
North&South
That's only one level, but the work we did with GurneyH and e-dredon on Wonderboy Remake is IMHO far better than what a Spectrum can do : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An2o7iDoptI&ab_channel=SabermanRetroNews
Quote from: BSC on 15:52, 18 September 24Quote from: Gryzor on 17:41, 17 September 24Ooh Tractor!
The last fieldplower.
He's my friend and a whole lot more...
(Stop lying to yourself, you're so singing that tune and you know it!)
Which games would you show a Spectrum person to show the Amstrad's power?
Answer: None, their tears from crying at the thoughts of what they missed out on all these years could cause short circuits in the CPC and damage it.
Bryce.
I once heard The Speccy fan say that ZX has a higher resolution and that it is better than 16 colors at 160x200.
Quote from: McArti0 on 20:24, 19 September 24I once heard The Speccy fan say that ZX has a higher resolution and that it is better than 16 colors at 160x200.
If World Of Spectrum forums have taught me anything, it's that Speccy fanboys are happy to poison themselves to death drinking their own kool-aid after failing to fall on their own swords...
... multiple times! :laugh:
I've played a few of these on emulation, alongside the Spectrum version in a few cases, and a theme is building up. Graphics usually win on the CPC, likewise sound when compared to the 48k Spectrum (though I had a +2, so was used to the same music as the CPC on most later full-price games, and the odd snatch of speech as mentioned). Choppy scrolling (or push-scrolling instead of smooth) and small screen windows are frequent CPC issues though. Compare (e.g.) Rainbow Islands or Turrican to their Spectrum versions and both become more playable on the Spectrum as a result. CPC Gryzor's push-scroll takes some adjusting to, though I think it's a better game than the Spectrum one. Mundial de Futbol is another with screen size and scrolling issues, but it seems really good otherwise. Even most of the top rated homebrew games don't seem to use scrolling, so it's obviously a perceived weakness.
Very impressed technically with Bactron (especially that music) and After the War (though the small screen area and large sprites can be problematic).
On the more negative side, what possessed CPC Game Reviews to give Amstrad Rodland 9/10? It's not just the horrendous slowness, but also the botched game mechanics (the rod is too short, hitting enemies with an enemy on the rod doesn't stun them, the EXTRA letters cycle in the wrong order...).
Quote from: MartinJSUK on 12:46, 22 September 24Even most of the top rated homebrew games don't seem to use scrolling
Really? What top-rated homebrew are you looking at?
Off the top of my head, there are nice examples of smooth hardware scrolling in Super Edge Grinder, Relentless, Corsair, Red Sunset, Alcon 2020, Pinball Dreams, The Abduction of Oscar Z, Hyper Drive. And some pretty fast software scrolling in Sub Hunter, Scramble, Star Sabre, The Adventures Of Timothy Gunn and more.
Also plenty of games like Galactic Tomb, Invasion of the Zombie Monsters etc. where the software scrolling is a bit more obviously choppy but certainly not being avoided. I think homebrew coders enjoy the challenge.
The CPC has an easier time with smooth vertical motion than horizontal, both with scrolling and with sprites. It's easier to move things sideways by whole bytes, which translates to either two or four pixels. So you will quite often see games where the horizontal motion is a little choppy.
hummm thinking about classic ones : Fred ; Oh Mummy ; Prohibition ; Bactron ; SuperCauldron
And I would add to our little brothers that finally Spectrum were Amstrad machines ;) (I like 3" fdd computers: PCW, CPC , +3 )(nowadays mines have 3,5" fdd ha ha ha ha but returning some units to 3" 8) )
And actually I am loving the new enhanced 8bit XXI century life : PCWcolor ; CPRclassic CPC ; CPC+/GX new releases ; ZX +3 soft from tape to disk ; spec256 ; MSX3 (msxVR) ; FPGAs ; ZX next ; habisoft's PCW16 ports ; Mega65 ;) and I love their people: YOU!! :-*
Other than Pinball Dreams I'd missed those examples, some of them are really impressive. Most look to be pretty well-designed games too. A lot of great music, especially Galactic Tomb - people probably overestimate the C64's advantage here. What a shame these games weren't made during the machine's heyday.
The CPC can clearly do constant-speed scrolling, excellently in vertical and more than well enough horizontally. The software scroll, especially when it's multi-directional, is a bit more awkward - luckily Galactic Tomb and Zombie Monsters seem to have been designed around this, there aren't any points where you're encountering enemies or difficult jumps during the slightly clunky scrolling. With e.g. Turrican there are moments where the choppy scroll does put the player at a disadvantage.
What would people suggest as smooth-scrolling isometric 3D games? CPC Marble Madness has no scrolling, Spindizzy is designed around being flip-screen, and The Great Escape is much jumpier than on the Spectrum
it's almost as if, if compiling a Top 100 of Amstrad games, you'd come up with three lists:
- The brilliant Spectrum games that aren't too technically dependent or were converted well
- The conversions from arcade / C64 / 16-bit where some effort was made, and where the design wasn't too reliant on the things the CPC wasn't great on
- Technically stunning Amstrad exclusives where the gameplay has been well enough designed to show these qualities off
...And combine the three.
8-way scrolling in hardware is a tough one because you have to update two edges of the screen instead of one. That doesn't matter in software, but the CPC can't fill the screen as fast as the Spectrum, so software scrolls tend to use a smaller window, or else utilise tricks like Sub Hunter which is taking advantage of the repeating tiles to force registers through the stack to get the maximum fill rate, or Scramble which is only updating walls at the edges. (For another creative approach, check out Vector Vaults).
Hardware scroll can be to-the-pixel vertically, and it doesn't matter if it's continuous or not, and this used to be something of a secret having been used in only one game in the 80s (Mission Genocide) but is now well-known and used all the time. Scrolling in both directions is a bit harder than only one. Horizontal scrolling is easier if it is continuous because then you can use the double-buffer to shift every other frame by half a byte and make it twice as smooth. Scrolling two separate windows is possible if it's a horizontal split.
The 30 Year Megademo has a nice 4 way hardware scroll that you can control, in full overscan with a second scrolling window at the bottom. I just loaded it up to check and it uses a per-pixel scroll vertically and a push scroll horizontally and is probably about as good as it gets on the non-Plus hardware. Per-pixel horizontal scrolling has been demonstrated but at the cost of most CPU time.
The now sadly-discontinued remake of Wonderboy which exists as a short demo gives a pretty realistic impression of what can be achieved in an actual game I think. Not quite perfectly smooth motion but not terrible either; there are also sections on the hills with limited diagonal scrolling.
There is something to be said I think for avoiding scrolling and trying to hit 50fps with your sprites instead. Very few games manage to hit 50fps with scrolling; Relentless is one that does, Pinball Dreams is another. (OTOH I don't think any Spectrum games manage a 50hz scroll; Cobra doesn't really count! You could probably get there with something like Defender I suppose?)
In general, the Spectrum should be faster with software scrolls but the CPC can outperform it in certain circumstances where hardware tricks allow.
There are some other scrolling isometric games besides The Great Escape, Spectrum ports like Gunfright and H.A.T.E., not particularly good examples though and H.A.T.E. especially runs much too slow compared to the Spectrum. But no reason why you couldn't... check out the Isometrikum demo by Vanity.
Oh, I think Corsair manages 50fps too, with the restriction that sprites can't cross in front of the background. And the aforementioned Mission Genocide.
The CPC can't really manage scrolling as well as tile-based hardware like the Sega Master System, but within certain limitations you can almost pretend like it can. 50fps with scrolling and sprites is quite tight though.
Quote from: Anthony Flack on 23:03, 22 September 24Quote from: MartinJSUK on 12:46, 22 September 24Even most of the top rated homebrew games don't seem to use scrolling
And some pretty fast software scrolling in Sub Hunter, Scramble, Star Sabre, The Adventures Of Timothy Gunn and more.
Star Sabre uses hardware.
Quote from: Anthony Flack on 06:53, 25 September 24Hardware scroll can be to-the-pixel vertically, and it doesn't matter if it's continuous or not, and this used to be something of a secret having been used in only one game in the 80s (Mission Genocide)
There was also Warhawk, and later Axys, which was apparently a type-in.
Thanks, I did wonder if I had all of those 100% right.
@MartinJSUK Have you tried 3D Grand Prix?
Barbarian, Arkanoid, DonkeyKong... any proper nonspeccyport, most modern homebrew games.
I think in this day & age all the 8 bits from 40 years ago are being pushed to the limits with new programming techniques, Its brilliant but a stand out game for me on cpc would be the recent Booty remake, Great sprites, speed of characters on screen & an amazing musical tune.
Second attempt...
MartinJSUK (https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=6095) Have you tried 3D Grand Prix?
Sorry, yes. 3D Grand Prix is technically impressive for such an early game (not to mention for an Amsoft game). However, and it may be an emulation issue, I'm finding the controls really sticky - once you start running wide it seems impossible to slow down and steer, or even change gear down, until you're already on to the grass. And I've always hated that trait of some early racers where contact with another car sees you slow to a standstill and them continue unabated (especially when you're racing for position rather than against the clock). From the Amstrad racers I've tried my favourite is probably Super Cycle, its not as insultingly easy as the otherwise-superb C64 version, though its a shame you can't change the livery and leathers like you can on the C64 (probably a legacy of reusing the Spectrum code?). WEC Le Mans and Chase HQ are impressive, but the noticeable slowness compared to the Spectrum versions does cloy with me.