Amiga, Commodore and creativity

[piydek]

This was a very fun little game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHcoemBuUZ0

When played between two human players it was a lot of fun.

 

[Wolfus]

Anyway, the comment That Unkillable cat made is completely dumb. Basically, beyond A500's supreme reign over anything in its time, you've had A1200 with fucking 14MHz 68020 wiping 386DX/40MHz ass in anything except for 3D games like Doom, Descent, Wing commander /Tie fighter etc when they started coming out. All the games shown in that video are 2D. Processing power has nothing to do with those games looking and sounding great on Amiga and shitty on PC

 

[made]

Pretty much. PCs and Amigas were never comparable. Amiga had a bunch of custom chips optimized for 2D gfx that let programmers do all kinds of crazy tricks, rather than relying on brute CPU power to do all the work. It's not that textured 3D was impossible even on a standard A500 as scene demos prove, it just took a lot more effort and know-how so wasn't really feasible for mainstream games.

Imagine if the A1200 had come out in '92 with a breakthrough 3D-focused chipset instead of the minor upgrade AGA was, with Doom as its exclusive launch title. Things would have gone differently, let me tell you that.

 

[CorpseZeb]

Different? Yes. Better? Dunno. Amiga was closed system comparing to PC just like console today. And what games we have for console, what progress we can see...? In the “old days” upgrading your PC gives you immediately boots of performance in many, many games (e.g 386 to 486 in Doom, 486 to Pentium in Quake etc), and this type of things, may stimulate progress, may stimulate new ways of making games.

Amiga was a great system, but I think open PC architecture works better in the grand scheme of things, because game developers can build their engines for “next generation” (e.g next gfx systems, next processors) not for “lowest common denominator” (e.g basic model of Amiga/Atari ST... etc).

 

[Luzur]

my guess is if Commodore had survived it would have done it the same way as Apple.

 

[made]

Different? Yes. Better? Dunno. Amiga was closed system comparing to PC just like console today. And what games we have for console, what progress we can see...? In the “old days” upgrading your PC gives you immediately boots of performance in many, many games (e.g 386 to 486 in Doom, 486 to Pentium in Quake etc), and this type of things, may stimulate progress, may stimulate new ways of making games.

Not sure I follow you there m8. There were plenty of 3rd party manufactures offering various expansion cards for the Amiga - memory cards, turbo-, gfx-, sound-cards - even long after C= went bankrupt. Upgrading my RAM from 0,5 to 1MB or CPU from 020 to 030 gave me immediate performance boots in many games. The Amiga did have a lot in common with consoles (it was meant to be one, initially), mainly the specialized chipset and ease of use, just that it was also full-blown computer on top of that.

 

[CorpseZeb]

Not sure I follow you there m8. There were plenty of 3rd party manufactures offering various expansion cards for the Amiga - memory cards, turbo-, gfx-, sound-cards - even long after C= went bankrupt. Upgrading my RAM from 0,5 to 1MB or CPU from 020 to 030 gave me immediate performance boots in many games. The Amiga did have a lot in common with consoles (it was meant to be one, initially), mainly the specialized chipset and ease of use, just that it was also full-blown computer on top of that.

Yes, of course (I had myself an A500 with a590 and some fast ram onboard) but game developers always tends to use “lowest common machine” as their primary target.

Also, even with 060 onboard, in case of 3D games gfx hardware becomes the limiting factor.

Generally, I was talking more about “innovative factor” (or "genre revolution factor") of closed systems like Amiga or Atari (or console) versus open system like PC.

 

[deus101]

Why do you call Amiga and Atari closed systems?

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Don't get me started about the PC in the 90's...

The upgrade machine was in full flight then. A new game came out? Need to upgrade your machine. Origin farted? Upgrade needed.

The amount of buggy games also increased exponentially.

While there was still imagination in the games industry back then, the decline had hit full force. The first wave was upon us, with the RPG market nearly finished due to incredibly poor games being released, and the next 'Three Dee' shooter as the all important release. Things didn't pick up again until the late 90's, and that really was a pale imitation of the late 80's.

Power? Yes, the PC had that, so long as you could afford 6 monthly upgrades and/or wait until next gen tech came out to properly play many of the latest releases. Most of the power was all wasted on graphics anyway though, so nothing much was gained, even after you spent a grand or so upgrading.

I remember creating a super computer in '99. Pentium 800, Geforce256 GPU, so on and so on...cost me a fortune. Pity it was outdated 6 months later. 2k+ quid down the gurgler.

 

[CorpseZeb]

Why do you call Amiga and Atari closed systems?

Because, there was well defined “base system” - vanilla a500/a1200/Atari ST. How many games exploit new hardware of Atari STE series? Very few, because “base model” was vanilla, non-blitter, non-DMA sound Atari ST.

In PC world there was more “cloud of a most common configuration” (cga/ega/286/386/blaster/speaker etc) than one, well defined based model. And you can safety bet on upgrade willingness of PC owners.

Don't get me started about the PC in the 90's...

The upgrade machine was in full flight then. A new game came out? Need to upgrade your machine. Origin farted? Upgrade needed.

… but what if that upgrade madness stimulate games progress...? What if, lack of it results in today stagnation?

 

[Mortmal]

Amiga wasnt a so closed system, you had many professional aplications, video chipset, and well some models of amiga were in the same box as pcs, amiga 2000 for example.
Of course the pc is evolutive and you can just upgrade parts right , well thats what you believe, once you want to upgrade the cpu you pretty much had to change the motherboard each time, and the video card oh and the memory.
A gaming pc back then in the 90's was costing the equvialent of 2000, 3000 euros of today easily, that just to play the latest origin games, i was shoving that just to play ultima 7 , my last ultima was ulitma 6 on amiga,it was requiring too much disk swapping. It was a little less expensive in USA, but in europe we were paying almost the double for hardware. Make me laugh people crying about consoles prices today.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

… but what if that upgrade madness stimulate games progress...? What if, lack of it results in today stagnation?

But it didn't. All it did was further the race for graphics and upgrading. There was much more creativity on platforms like the C64 and Amiga than there has been in over 15 years. Today, money is the only thing that matters. 'Games progress' is dead in the water today.

Tell me how the upgrade madness has stimulated games progress.

 

[CorpseZeb]

Wolfstein loved 386. Doom loved 486. Quake loved Pentium. Quake 2 loved Voodoo. Unreal 1 loved S3TC. Crysis loved shaders. With each upgrade you get more technological love from your computer.

Generally, I was thinking about atmosphere, climate, about developing games which work ok'ish on today systems, but will work really good on tomorrow hardware. This kind of situation encourages, I think, new way of developing game technology. Case in point – Crysis 2 build on Cryengine 3 – which is in many ways inferior to earlier Cryengine 1 (Crysis 1) and 2 (Crysis Wars). Care to imagine, how Crysis 2 would be look/work, if will be developed to sustain today PC standards, not a six year old console technology? I'm not taking about high-res textures and few of DX11 effects, but about an engine build from the ground around today and tomorrow tech. New technology loves upgrades...

 

[Luzur]

i would rather the whole thing went slower so i wouldnt have to buy a new PC every year just to see the next Tech demo/game wannabe.

do coders/dev these days even have time to experience and learn the whole system before its on to the next one? back in the day Amiga/C64 coders had time to really master the systems and its limitations an create marvels.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Wolfstein loved 386. Doom loved 486. Quake loved Pentium. Quake 2 loved Voodoo. Unreal 1 loved S3TC. Crysis loved shaders. With each upgrade you get more technological love from your computer.

Generally, I was thinking about atmosphere, climate, about developing games which work ok'ish on today systems, but will work really good on tomorrow hardware. This kind of situation encourages, I think, new way of developing game technology. Case in point – Crysis 2 build on Cryengine 3 – which is in many ways inferior to earlier Cryengine 1 (Crysis 1) and 2 (Crysis Wars). Care to imagine, how Crysis 2 would be look/work, if will be developed to sustain today PC standards, not a six year old console technology? I'm not taking about high-res textures and few of DX11 effects, but about an engine build from the ground around today and tomorrow tech. New technology loves upgrades...

'Run down the corridor...shoot shoot shoot...run down the corridor...etc etc".

'Oh man! You know that Wolfenstein game? Guess what?! I just spent 5k on a fully upgraded computer, and now I can play a game that is virtually the same but has more polygons! YEEEEAAAAHHH!!!'

Yes indeed. Truly a great leap for mankind.

As for Crysis (insert number), what would be different if there had only been a PC only version? Would it be even shorter perhaps? Oh, there might be a few more polygons, a few more swishes from the palm trees in the wind. An extra wave or two... Race you to the future!

 

[Wyrmlord]

I didn't know you felt that way about shooters, Blackadder.

Colour me surprised.

 

[CorpseZeb]

Yes indeed. Truly a great leap for mankind.

Potential of engine=!game (for example look at Crysis...). Besides, how many excellent games was build based on, say, Quake engine? Half-life 1 (Quake 1) and Anachronox (Quake 2) comes to mind.

Ps. Come on... from Wolfie to Quakie... we can see definite progress...

Ps2. Crysis 2 (console) looks very similar to Crysis 1 (PC), which is technical achievements worth of it's own record, if we remember about console limitations - it's basically five year old PC tech running very well on limited hardware. Now, what can be done, without these limitations? Aside of pure graphics side of game, I'm thinking about much bigger levels, better physics, better A.I – in one word – just more potential. Potential...

Ps3. Speaking about potential. If you ever wonder why Stalker series had "real" A.I wondering about their business over all map and Fallout 3 had only small "cell" contains some monster and NPC interactions, then you know why... (F3/Oblivion map/world consist of these "cells" due to memory and processor power constrain) .

do coders/dev these days even have time to experience and learn the whole system before its on to the next one?

Yes, they do, I believe. For example, look at console engines in context of their spec tech. On PC side of story, DirectX environment allows you to produce your code dreams comfortably (especially newer DirectX 10+ frees you from doing many “unified” things like “the same type of lighting in many games, the same type of texture effects”). But then again, if your target is DirectX 9 (console and PC XP) then you must forget about new way of doing things...

 

[Luzur]

cant let this one slip into the void, so here goes!

a new SD device for C64 is out.

The C64SD is a interface Plug & Play that emulates the Commodore floppy drive. You just need an SD (secure digital) where you uploaded my package of games or other.

Turn on your Commodore and LOAD your favorite games, rekindle your memories …..

buy it here:

http://www.manosoft.it/?p=1&lang=en

and in other news today:

PETSD, a SD storage medium for Commodore PET models is in the works.

http://home.germany.net/nils.eilers/petsd/

also:

BioTerror! is out for your PET 2001-8.

BioTerror! is a turn-based strategy simulation in which you manage resource units to quarantine cities, research a cure, and eradicate infections. The game was written in 2011 for a 1977 Commodore PET 2001-8. This computer only had 8kb of RAM and 40 columns on a colorless screen.

http://greatnorthweb.com/bioterror!/

+ a load of other new games for 2011:

http://commodore64.se/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5509

 

[Wolfus]

Nice! I wont buy it but I like it very much!

 

[asper]

Holy shit, thanks for the heads up! This thread will never die...!

 

[Trash]

The only real difference was in the game industry. Back then it was a niche hobby for nerds by nerds. Now it is a multi billion dollar industry. Shit chances, yo.

 

[Haba]

The only real difference was in the game industry. Back then it was a niche hobby for nerds by nerds. Now it is a multi billion dollar industry. Shit chances, yo.

Lies!

It isn't just the games industry that has changed, the whole world has. We're living in the GRIMDARK now.

 

[Trash]

Grow a perspective.

 

[Wyrmlord]

The only real difference was in the game industry. Back then it was a niche hobby for nerds by nerds. Now it is a multi billion dollar industry. Shit chances, yo.

I thought it was more of a cycle.

In the early 1980s, gaming supposedly became a heavily commercialised hobby, and then the Atari bust happened. And then gaming supposedly became super niche. And then it supposedly started coming back to commercialised, mass hobby, top-down nature after 1995 or 1996. And then in 2000, after the dotcom bubble bust, the largest demographic of gamers became unemployed, so we saw slightly more niche games during 2000-2002.

 

[Haba]

Grow a perspective.

Do you want me to list the radical changes we've seen in the past 20 years?

Gaming industry has changed, IT industry has changed, working cultures have changed. The world has changed a lot.

The games of 80's and 90's are products of their own era. UFO: Enemy Unknown would never be made today, in the world of spy satellites, Internet and Wikileaks (instead of X-Files).

As the world has changed, a generation of gaming pioneers have grown up with their audience. And for some odd reason, no new generations have show up to replace them (been to demo parties lately?). Instead we still hold the old gurus in spotlight like movie stars, ignoring the fact that their brightest creations were made almost twenty years ago.

Of course the change of the game industry has had it's part to play, but it is silly to claim that it is the only reason. Heck, as an example - we had much more active indie game development industry around here during late 90's - back then the latest beta builds were shipped out on floppies as interwebs was too expensive and organized.

* Perspective hits Trash critically on ass and leg, "It is heavan!" he whimpers.