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From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: EA Screws ST Owners Again
Message-ID: <30249@sun.uucp>
Date: Wed, 7-Oct-87 14:23:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.30249
Posted: Wed Oct  7 14:23:26 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 10-Oct-87 08:51:50 EDT
References: <228@stag.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 41
Keywords: Marble Madness
Summary: Graphics chips help quite a bit

In article <228@stag.UUCP> trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey ) flames:
> Today we got in Marble Madness for the ST. I think I can keep this to a short
> low tech analysis, starting with 5  words...What a piece of trash. Very poor
> graphics (not close to what can be done on the ST), buggy play (the ball
> 'tracking' is slightly out of phase with the screen), and poor animation
> (ball doesn't even disappear when going behind small projections...) ...
>                                                             ... I played
> Marble Madness on the Amiga before I got rid of it (the Amiga) and there
> is no reason that the graphics couldn't have been even better and smoother
> on the ST...(or the 8 bit Atari for that matter)...

Well, sorry to rain on your parade Todd, but there really is a reason why
the graphics are 'better and smoother' on the Amiga. It's those custom 
chips that are taking care of 50% of the game mechanics. As more people 
design programs that use them efficiently there will be more programs (games
especially) that you *cannot* port to other architectures, *and* retain
satisfactory 'look and feel'. Take something as simple 'Mouse Trap', a 
Donkey Kong Jr type game available for most machines. On the Amiga the 
'characters' move smoothly by, the background Obscures some of them and 
not others, and the music plays continuously (unless you deselect it) in 
the background. Thats because the mouse and the other objects are sprites 
and blitter objects, the screen is in 'dual playfield' mode that allows 
two 8 color screens to be overlayed on top of each other with the foreground 
screen using '0' for transparent. These take care of half the stuff you 
have to deal with when writing this game. The Amiga was originally planned 
to be the ultimate killer game machine, it's no suprise that it handles 
games quite nicely. As you mention above it could have been done better
on the 8bit Atari, and your right, but thats because the 8 bit has graphics
hardware too! The original authors of MM thought that it couldn't be done
on *any* micro because of the stuff in the original coin-op (like a yamaha
synthesizer chip, math and graphics accellerators etc).

The bottom line is you can flame EA all you want, they consistently do
stupid things, but I draw the line at this "there's no reason ..." stuff.
There *is* a reason, Amiga owners paid extra for it, and as developers
use 'the Amiga difference' they don't feel as cheated as they once did.


--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.