Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bpa!cbmvax!jesup
From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Mario Bothers
Message-ID: <13393@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 24 Jul 90 02:37:43 GMT
References: <2767@awdprime.UUCP> <64280@sgi.sgi.com> <2779@awdprime.UUCP> <9926@brazos.Rice.edu> <2794@awdprime.UUCP> <13282@cbmvax.commodore.com> <00939DE3.241BB8C0@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU>
Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax (Randell Jesup)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 36

In article <00939DE3.241BB8C0@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU> sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney) writes:
>>>I don't have any specifics, but in talking with a person or two who's actually
>>worked on these things over the years, it's evident that they can be pretty 
>>sophisticated as compared with your average Nintendo box.  I've heard of 6809 
>>or 68000 machines with dedicated sprite engines and machines with dualing 
>>68000s.  There are also some machines out there with Amiga 500 motherboards 
>>in them, which could obviously simplify at least the Amiga home version of 
>>the game.
...
>Oh? WHich machines? ;-) I've never heard of Commodore OEMing their motherboards
>to game companies...

	They do exist, Commodore does sell A500 boards to manufacturers (there
are a few around here somewhere).

	Some people have stated that on the Amiga, Mac, etc more games are
being written in C, are semi-portable, etc.  This is true.  However, there
continues a sizeable fraction of the market, particularily in shoot-em-ups and
"flight" simulators, where every refresh per second, or extra moving object, is
a major point.  There are some people that get AMAZING frame rates (15-20+/sec)
for a 3-d hidden-solid-polygon flight-simulator on a 512K 68000 Amiga using
pure asm.  For that sort of program, performance is a major design and selling
point.  Now, I don't suggest everyone do this, but in that market, with the
competition and volume of sales to amortize the costs, for that type of
program it works financially.  

	Another point is that as a platform (whether it be Nintendo or a PC)
ages and becomes better known, the standards for a game (especially a video
game) go up.  This can lead to escalation to the point where the only way
to squeeze out the performance needed is in highly arcane asm (the C64 and
other 8-bitters started halfway down that path).

-- 
Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering.
{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com  BIX: rjesup  
Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!"