8-bit system q's

[Volcanon]

I don't know much aside from NES and Master System so indulge me.

1) Colecovision, from what I've seen, is pretty comparable to NES, with most games being pretty much one-screen arcade ports. Did Coleco ever have games with even things like scrolling or whatnot? What are good non-arcade-ports-that-can-be-played-on-the-NES games for colecovision?

2) The same question for MSX and any other 8-bit system out not made by sega, apple, ibm, or nintendo.

3) The atari 5600 or whatever it was, which was kinda comparable to the NES, it is worth looking at, at all? Any good exclusive games there?

4) Can somebody explain how scrolling works? I would assume the game is reading data as then putting it on the screen as you scroll right/left/up/down, but then again you have mario brothers, where if you jump over the flag with game genie you usually end up in an endless path, but the background keeps moving (you see the green hill over and over). Does that just mean there is a set background of green hill + clouds for every world that uses that tileset? I guess that would save on precious data. Why do games like SMB3, which has diagonal scrolling as well (kirby's adventure too), often have artifacts and distortions on the extreme edges of the screen? Is that just a side-effect of whatever mapper was used for scrolling?

[Jorpho]

1) Colecovision, from what I've seen, is pretty comparable to NES, with most games being pretty much one-screen arcade ports. Did Coleco ever have games with even things like scrolling or whatnot?There were some games with scrolling, such as Defender or Victory. It's been said that the Coleco hardware couldn't handle scrolling very well, but Victory always looked okay to me.

What are good non-arcade-ports-that-can-be-played-on-the-NES games for colecovision?Buh?

2) The same question for MSX and any other 8-bit system out not made by sega, apple, ibm, or nintendo.
The MSX was supported for a long, long time - certainly much longer than the Colecovision. I have little doubt you can find any kind of game you can think of for the MSX - though it is true that the MSX versions of Contra and Castlevania had no scrolling.

3) The atari 5600 or whatever it was, which was kinda comparable to the NES, it is worth looking at, at all? Any good exclusive games there?That would be the 5200. Now that you know what it's called, you can search this board for the dozens of other threads that discuss whether the 5200 was worthwhile.

4) Can somebody explain how scrolling works? I would assume the game is reading data as then putting it on the screen as you scroll right/left/up/down, but then again you have mario brothers, where if you jump over the flag with game genie you usually end up in an endless path, but the background keeps moving (you see the green hill over and over). Does that just mean there is a set background of green hill + clouds for every world that uses that tileset? I guess that would save on precious data.
Sure, how else would you do it?

Why do games like SMB3, which has diagonal scrolling as well (kirby's adventure too), often have artifacts and distortions on the extreme edges of the screen? Is that just a side-effect of whatever mapper was used for scrolling?No idea about that one.

[j_factor]

The NES hardware had scrolling built-in, while the Colecovision did not. Colecovision games that scrolled had to do it entirely in programming, which is why many of them are choppy. However, Defender is well-done for the system, and B.C.'s Quest for Tires is another good example.

I believe the NES hardware scrolling only goes four ways, so diagonal scrolling has to be done in a special way. I know Genesis and SNES have 8-way scrolling; not sure about Master System.

[Rob2600]

I don't know much aside from NES and Master System so indulge me.

1) Colecovision, from what I've seen, is pretty comparable to NES, with most games being pretty much one-screen arcade ports. Did Coleco ever have games with even things like scrolling or whatnot? What are good non-arcade-ports-that-can-be-played-on-the-NES games for colecovision?

A couple of ColecoVision games with scrolling come to mind: Zaxxon and Looping. Zaxxon looked good, but I wouldn't say the Coleco Vision is comparable to the NES. It was impressive in 1982 though.


3) The atari 5600 or whatever it was, which was kinda comparable to the NES, it is worth looking at, at all? Any good exclusive games there?

As Jorpho pointed out, it's the Atari 5200. Like the ColecoVision, it was impressive in 1982. From what I understand, the Atari 5200 could display more colors than the ColecoVision, but the ColecoVision output higher resolution graphics.

Looking at games like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Castlevania, and Mega Man, the NES surpassed them both a few years later.

[Jorpho]

I neglected to mention that the Colecovision version of Spy Hunter (which did have scrolling, even though it was vertical) is sometimes regarded as superior to the NES version.

[ccovell]

I believe the NES hardware scrolling only goes four ways, so diagonal scrolling has to be done in a special way. I know Genesis and SNES have 8-way scrolling; not sure about Master System.

The way all four above systems handle scrolling is identical: you write the scroll value for the horizontal & vertical scrolling in the system's registers, then every so often you update either a new line or a new row of tiles in the tilemap. The "quality" of your scrolling & ease of diagonal scrolling is affected by how large the system's tilemap is. The Gen and SNES have quite large tilemaps, while the NES and SMS have relatively smaller ones, meaning that when the tilemap is being updated with new tiles, these might sometimes be seen on-screen.

What you see in SMB3 is a result of the NES' unique limitation that tiles can be set for 8x8 regions, but the tile colours can only be set for 16x16 regions.

[tom]

According to Game Over, the NES couldn't do that much and needed a lot of special chips developed later (I guess they went into carts), MMC, MMC3, MMC 5

[Rob2600]

According to Game Over, the NES couldn't do that much and needed a lot of special chips developed later (I guess they went into carts), MMC, MMC3, MMC 5

Yes, that is how the Famicom/NES was designed.

[tomaitheous]

According to Game Over, the NES couldn't do that much and needed a lot of special chips developed later (I guess they went into carts), MMC, MMC3, MMC 5

Really they're just memory mappers in general, with a few chip exceptions. And I don't think I've ever seen a game that has more than one mapper. Mappers are such a comfortable fit for the FC/NES, that I wouldn't be surprised that the system was developed with this in mind back in '82. Video memory for the graphics processor being on the cart instead of on the system was such a great asset and advantage for the NES/FC architecture.

[jb143]

Can somebody explain how scrolling works? I would assume the game is reading data as then putting it on the screen as you scroll right/left/up/down, but then again you have mario brothers, where if you jump over the flag with game genie you usually end up in an endless path, but the background keeps moving (you see the green hill over and over). Does that just mean there is a set background of green hill + clouds for every world that uses that tileset? I guess that would save on precious data. Why do games like SMB3, which has diagonal scrolling as well (kirby's adventure too), often have artifacts and distortions on the extreme edges of the screen? Is that just a side-effect of whatever mapper was used for scrolling?

I can't really speak for the NES directly but I have developed for the gameboy and the PC both before and after dedicated video cards/DirectX.

In general there are 2 ways to accomplish this. The easiest is in hardware. If your video memory is larger than your screen then you just change what section of memory is drawn to the screen and move it around pixel by pixel(the scroll Y and Y registers someone else mentioned). Think of it like this. Take a piece of graph paper and draw a 50x50 box. This is your video memory. Now fill it with game tiles to make your background. Now take another sheet and cut out a 20X20 hole. This will be your screen. If you slide the background under the screen you get scrolling. Now as you scroll right, the program replaces the tiles on the left side of memory with the next row of what should be after the farthest right tiles. This way, when your screen reaches the edge of memory, it is placed back at the left. Does that make sense? I may not have explained it too well.

If you want to see this in action then load up an emulator that lets you see the entire background map. You should see new lines of tiles appear on the opposite edge than you are moving.

Doing it in software is similar but your working with tiles or pixels at the edge of the screen so there might be a noticeable flicker.

[tomaitheous]

Why do games like SMB3, which has diagonal scrolling as well (kirby's adventure too), often have artifacts and distortions on the extreme edges of the screen? Is that just a side-effect of whatever mapper was used for scrolling?

Yes. The NES has support for 512x480 tilemap, but most mappers only offer half of that. Some are fixed at 512x240 or 240x512, and some allow the programmer to change it on the fly. The tilemap (the virtual screen) is made up of 4 sections. Each section is the size of the output screen/res. The output res is 256x240. So it looks like this:

0 | 1
-----
2 | 3

But the stock NES only has room(vram) for two 'screens' in the virtual map. Some mappers are able to give the NES video processor the additional vram needed to use all 4 sections, though I'm not familiar with which ones.

Since the NES assigns colors/palettes every 16x16 block of the virtual map, you'll see some 'artifacting' when scrolling verticall for a 512x240 map. This is because the NES is not clipping the display to hide the changes to the map at the top and bottom *and* because the virtual map *wraps* around the screen - both vertically and horizontally. Games update vertical or horizontal strips of the the virtual map as the game scrolls. Most of the artifacting is hidden in the overscan area. If the NES had a larger virtual map, then updates could be farther out from the edge of the screen, hiding those changes. Or if the NES had a 8x8 palette assignment grid (which MMC5 allows, i.e. hacks).

It can be a bit confusing, but yes - a mapper can effect artifacts being shown onscreen while scrolling.

[Ze_ro]

Can somebody explain how scrolling works?
You might want to read this (http://www.aarongiles.com/?p=211) and this (http://www.aarongiles.com/?p=212). It's Aaron Giles (one of the main contributors to MAME) describing how most 80's arcade game video hardware works. Many consoles use a similar method for similar reasons, though some do their own thing (horizontal scrolling on an Atari 2600 is especially nasty).

--Zero

[Jorpho]

There's also a blurb here (http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/1643) on John Carmack's revolutionary scrolling engine used in Commander Keen (before which smooth scrolling on the PC largely hadn't been done).

[Greg2600]

Volcanon, if you are looking for superior quality of game, graphics, hardware, sound, and control, I would stick with the NES and SMS. There were very few games (IMO) released for Colecovision, Atari 5200 or Atari 7800 (The other 8 bit system) that rivaled the NES or SMS. Not to mention most of the arcade favorites can be played on MAME themselves, or through the compilation games released for systems, starting with Genesis and SNES and up through today.

Plus, while the 7800 is very durable and has decent controls, the library is small, and its nowhere near as good looking or sounding as the NES. Especially after 25 years, the 5200 controllers are very faulty, in terms of requiring repair. The CV consoles themselves have a multitude of common hardware failures after so many years.

I would advise you to download emulators and yes, the roms too, and play several before you commit to buying anything.

The 7800 is a nice little system, because you can get them at a low price, ditto for the games. I myself am in the process of acquiring these early 80's consoles, and games, because I want to give them a shot. If I don't like them, I'll just resell them, no skin off my back.

[ApolloBoy]

Volcanon, if you are looking for superior quality of game, graphics, hardware, sound, and control, I would stick with the NES and SMS. There were very few games (IMO) released for Colecovision, Atari 5200 or Atari 7800 (The other 8 bit system) that rivaled the NES or SMS. Not to mention most of the arcade favorites can be played on MAME themselves, or through the compilation games released for systems, starting with Genesis and SNES and up through today.

I have to say though, if you don't at least pick up a 2600, you're really missing out on a lot of great games. Of course there aren't a whole lot of games for those systems that would rival similar games on the NES or SMS, but I most certainly wouldn't rule out getting pre-NES systems. Why limit yourself like that?

[Jorpho]

Of course there aren't a whole lot of games for those systems that would rival similar games on the NES or SMS, but I most certainly wouldn't rule out getting pre-NES systems. Why limit yourself like that?

To save time and money, perhaps?

[j_factor]

Or to save space. I don't own any abject failures like the Jaguar or anything, and I still have consoles coming out the wazoo (yes, that is where they come out). I may get rid of my pre-NES stuff just to thin out the herd.

[Greg2600]

I assumed he already had a 2600. Which is quite the assumption, but I feel you aren't a "classic collector" without a 2600. Then again, you could play every 2600 game on a 7800, right?

[j_factor]

Almost every. The 7800 tends to not like the Supercharger and I believe most Tigervision games don't work, but then again most of them suck.

[The Manimal]

I noticed recently that the 7800 lacks the color/b&w switch. Weren't there some 2600 games that used this?

[The Manimal]

Also....that I get much poorer PQ on my 7800 compared to my 6-switch VCS. I don't know exactly why, but colors aren't as good and there's a lot more video interference. I wonder if it's because the RF prong is shorter on the 7800 cable compared to that on the VCS? For those with both, take a look - it doesn't stick out as far. I really wanted to consolidate on this pairing, but the lack of color/b&w switch and lesser PQ (for me at least) keep the VCS around.

[Thrillo]

My understanding is that the reason why MSX (and CV) games had such notoriously poor scrolling was due to how the background layer works.
The background layer is basically made up of large-sized tiles, whose contents are defined by the game. The tiles are made up of an 8x8 (or so) area, and you can't scroll less than one tile at a time, which means that the background ultimately can only move 8 pixels at a time. The reason why this was done was to cut down on video memory requirements for the hardware. Games could get around this, but the best games simply dealed with it and focused on other issues to make the game better.
The ZX Spectrum took this to another level with an additional video layer solely for colors, which had large "tiles", weird pallete issues, and other crazy limitations all done in the name of saving ram chips. That's why Speccy games have such bizarre coloring.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[ccovell]

My understanding is that the reason why MSX (and CV) games had such notoriously poor scrolling was due to how the background layer works.
The background layer is basically made up of large-sized tiles, whose contents are defined by the game. The tiles are made up of an 8x8 (or so) area, and you can't scroll less than one tile at a time, which means that the background ultimately can only move 8 pixels at a time. The reason why this was done was to cut down on video memory requirements for the hardware.
I don't think the memory requirements are that much higher for scrolling. It only adds a bit of timer & counter hardware in the graphics decoder, if one is to believe this description of Galaxian's video hardware: http://aarongiles.com/?p=212

This also applies pretty closely to a lot of consoles and how their hardware works. A lot of [Japanese] home PCs were clearly just not designed for scrolling games, as the designers were either incompetent or deemed scrolling functions not necessary.


The ZX Spectrum took this to another level with an additional video layer solely for colors, which had large "tiles", weird pallete issues, and other crazy limitations all done in the name of saving ram chips. That's why Speccy games have such bizarre coloring.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

You're right in this regard, but systems like the MSX, NES, SNES, Genesis, etc all had some restrictions in the number of colours per 8x8 or 16x16 tile. It's just that the Speccy could have one background colour and only 1 pen colour per tile, as well as lacking sprites, so for any moving graphics, colour clash was inevitable.

[Jorpho]

You're right in this regard, but systems like the MSX, NES, SNES, Genesis, etc all had some restrictions in the number of colours per 8x8 or 16x16 tile. It's just that the Speccy could have one background colour and only 1 pen colour per tile, as well as lacking sprites, so for any moving graphics, colour clash was inevitable.
What was the technical term for "color clash" ? I found it on Wikipedia one day.

[ccovell]

attribute clash?

[Jorpho]

Right, that's it. A pretty nifty article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute_clash

[Greg2600]

Also....that I get much poorer PQ on my 7800 compared to my 6-switch VCS. I don't know exactly why, but colors aren't as good and there's a lot more video interference. I wonder if it's because the RF prong is shorter on the 7800 cable compared to that on the VCS? For those with both, take a look - it doesn't stick out as far. I really wanted to consolidate on this pairing, but the lack of color/b&w switch and lesser PQ (for me at least) keep the VCS around.
Why would you want to play a game in Black and White? I think only the earliest 2600 games used that switch, like Combat. I just got a 7800 last week, and it didn't have an RF cable, so I used one from a Colecovision. The picture was much better than the 2600. Odds are the RF cables on these systems could use replacing, after all these years. The 2600 on 7800 looked clearer, but otherwise the same. I love the 7800's Pro Line stick, but the buttons are not as nice as the 2600 for rapid fire. All of the old Atari systems are pretty inexpensive to collect for, compared to later consoles. And unlike the Intellivision or Colecovision, they are exceptionally well made and durable. I still use our original 2600. I also got a 5200 this week, and I've found it neat and interesting, although the Stick and Buttons are both way too slow to respond to movements/pressing. It's cool, but again, I was always an Atari fan.

[ApolloBoy]

Why would you want to play a game in Black and White? I think only the earliest 2600 games used that switch, like Combat.

Several 2600 games like Space Shuttle and Starmaster use the B/W switch for in-game functions.

[Yukio]

Most of the home computer game system had games that were similar to the ones on ColecoVision. For example, the SEGA SG-1000 and even the Japanese computers that were compatible with the Microsoft MSX standard used the same Video processor.

The Nintendo Family Computer use another type of video, since the 8-bit processor is different the Video memory could feature some nice tricks.

Since most of the game engines are pretty much generic, this could explain the poor performance on most home computer games ...

On the other hand, optimized games could be amazing when pre-programed for use on specific hardware for some tasks !!!