How come British Computer developers did not embrace Sprite features?

[ivarf]

A bit off-topic, but I see that Cliff Lawson stayed with Alan Sugar until 2011. He started in 1984, so that's 26-27 years. A long Amstrad career...
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/cliff-lawson-86471b2a

[sigh]

The chips in the MSX use RAM that isn't directly accessible by the main CPU, so you avoid the contention problem but make it harder (and slower) to make changes to the display (which is one of the reasons a lot of MSX games play like slow versions of Speccy game)

The slow games were mostly from the spectrum ports. The games made with the MSX specs in mind (Aleste, Space Manbow, Ikari Warriors etc) play fast and smooth.
Would love to get my hands on one of these.

[Puresox]

The issue about STunt Car Racer , I imagine it was designed for the C64 then converted to Speccy, Amstrad? I can't see why it should be faster on the C64.


Amstrad games designed with the Amstrad in mind could run fast and smooth . When it was converted from Speccy designed games that is where it suffered . Just like the MSX .

[fano]

The issue about STunt Car Racer , I imagine it was designed for the C64 then converted to Speccy, Amstrad? I can't see why it should be faster on the C64.

Clearly because it has been well designed on C64 , drawing road is 2 bits per pixel so half of the data amount for a CPC and they seem to have used hardware sprites for the car.



Btw, you're right, on any machine rendering engine needs to be designed especially for target if you want to get  the best possible result.If the game design fits perfectly with machine limitations, that's better too.

[VincentGR]

on any machine rendering engine needs to be designed especially for target if you want to get  the best possible result.If the game design fits perfectly with machine limitations, that's better too.

True. Same happened to all machines back then and for the 3D games on 16bit era.
Most of them are ports from the ST and Amiga runs at lower speeds due -1MHz.
They could use the blitter for line drawing and filling.

[ivarf]

The issue about STunt Car Racer , I imagine it was designed for the C64 then converted to Speccy, Amstrad? I can't see why it should be faster on the C64.


Amstrad games designed with the Amstrad in mind could run fast and smooth . When it was converted from Speccy designed games that is where it suffered . Just like the MSX .

I think the C64 version was coded by Geoff Crammond himself. He knew the processor well from all his BBC games. Maybe he made an original and much faster BBC version that never got published? The BBC was 2 MHz, the C64 only 1 MHz