That's awesome! I'll be trying this out for sure thanks for the heads up.

It's impressive more or less like the Wolfeinstein 3D demo port that was done for the Genesis/Mega Drive game console. Game concepts that probably could have sold a lot if released in their times.

386SX wrote on 2021-12-21, 08:53:

It's impressive more or less like the Wolfeinstein 3D demo port that was done for the Genesis/Mega Drive game console. Game concepts that probably could have sold a lot if released in their times.

How many people had 256K RAM expansions for the C64? How could it have sold "a lot"?

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-21, 08:54:

386SX wrote on 2021-12-21, 08:53:

It's impressive more or less like the Wolfeinstein 3D demo port that was done for the Genesis/Mega Drive game console. Game concepts that probably could have sold a lot if released in their times.

How many people had 256K RAM expansions for the C64? How could it have sold "a lot"?

That's true ok, I don't remember how much ram expansions costed back in those last C64 years (let's imagine a 1992 release) but still people bought the 32X expansion for the Genesis console so just like that it could have happened. 😉
Anyway I meant as a sort of "last release" for the computer/console. Sometimes impressive results were released at the end of some game console. I think for example to Quake for the Saturn or even GTA V for the X360. When I see what might have been possible on such low end hw with much optimization, it's impressive to even see that running beside their costs.

This thing has a 1 MHz CPU right?

Considering the 6510 cpu @ 1Mhz (beside the huge ram expansion requirement) it's impressive. The game was an high optimized Master System/Game Gear Z80 based official port for the older consoles probably pushed that hardware to some limits. And that's why it's impressive to see that running more than other games could imho.
Anyway it's not the first time impressive things has been coded for the C64. The tech demos seen in the previous decades sometimes did very impressive things, like 3D basic enviroments other times even using the complex C64 floppy disk hw to offload some task from the computer if I remember correctly. Last C64 games also were quite impressive using all sort of code tricks and even hw bugs to surpass some limits.

386SX wrote on 2021-12-21, 10:07:

Considering the 6510 cpu @ 1Mhz (beside the huge ram expansion requirement) it's impressive. The game was an high optimized Master System/Game Gear Z80 based official port for the older consoles probably pushed that hardware to some limits. And that's why it's impressive to see that running more than other games could imho.
Anyway it's not the first time impressive things has been coded for the C64. The tech demos seen in the previous decades sometimes did very impressive things, like 3D basic enviroments other times even using the complex C64 floppy disk hw to offload some task from the computer if I remember correctly. Last C64 games also were quite impressive using all sort of code tricks and even hw bugs to surpass some limits.

You're right though. Even though this requires a large slab of additional memory there are many recent titles for vintage platforms that really push the limits. If I had seen anything like this Sonic game back in 83-84 on the C64 I would have been mowing a lot of lawns to earn an imaginary 256K RAM expansion board. Memory was expensive in those days.

Examples that come to mind, but so many more:

'Pac-Man' 4K and 8K versions for the 2600 (the 8K version was what we were all hoping for back in the day)
'Realms of Quest V' for the VIC-20 (requires 32K RAM expansion)
'Defender of the Crown' and 'Intellivania' for the Intellivision
'Eye of the Beholder' for the Commodore 64 (not released yet, but incredible what's been done already)
'Travel Through Time Volume 1: Northern Lights' for the ZX Spectrum 128K (I'm not even sure how they pulled this one off on a such a limited system. Pure magic of course.)

The indie scene is way more interesting imo and is so strong these days I've purchased maybe only one or two triple A titles over the last decade.

liqmat wrote on 2021-12-21, 16:03:

You're right though. Even though this requires a large slab of additional memory there are many recent titles for vintage platfo […]
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386SX wrote on 2021-12-21, 10:07:

Considering the 6510 cpu @ 1Mhz (beside the huge ram expansion requirement) it's impressive. The game was an high optimized Master System/Game Gear Z80 based official port for the older consoles probably pushed that hardware to some limits. And that's why it's impressive to see that running more than other games could imho.
Anyway it's not the first time impressive things has been coded for the C64. The tech demos seen in the previous decades sometimes did very impressive things, like 3D basic enviroments other times even using the complex C64 floppy disk hw to offload some task from the computer if I remember correctly. Last C64 games also were quite impressive using all sort of code tricks and even hw bugs to surpass some limits.

You're right though. Even though this requires a large slab of additional memory there are many recent titles for vintage platforms that really push the limits. If I had seen anything like this Sonic game back in 83-84 on the C64 I would have been mowing a lot of lawns to earn an imaginary 256K RAM expansion board. Memory was expensive in those days.

Examples that come to mind, but so many more:

Pac-Man 4K and 8K versions for the 2600 (the 8K version was what we were all hoping for back in the day)
Realms of Quest V for the VIC-20 (requires 32K RAM expansion)
Defender of the Crown and Intellivania for the Intellivision
Eye of the Beholder for the Commodore 64 (not released yet, but incredible what's been done already)

The indie scene is way more interesting imo and is so strong these days I've purchased maybe only one or two triple A titles over the last decade.

A similar feeling I had to see as mentioned the Wolf3D demo ported to the Mega Drive, quite more similar to the original PC version compared to the still impressive SNES one. Obviously the Motorola 68000 was quite powerful to do that with some limitations but anyway they never did an official version considering they did that and Doom for most consoles. I'm always impressed by how much some engineers or coders driven by retro games passion can do almost impossible things even probably for the same old best coders. Some C64 tech demos make the old original games looks like ancient previous generation console games for both video and audio effects. Obviously a demo is not a game but still show what might have been possible. Imho what permit these results is also much free time invested where instead I suppose official games did have short time to be coded and reading the game credits mostly few developers only. Sometimes complex games like Doom ported to some not great consoles/results was probably often caused imho by these times and/or costs limitations even on hardware that could have done much more than it did. Many 2D old game console had interesting hardware but mostly not interesting titles.

I know that the low CPU speed is compensated for by a dedicated sprite engine, which means that the CPU doesn't have to waste cycles moving things around the screen. This was one of the great strengths of the C64 as a games machine.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-21, 08:54:

386SX wrote on 2021-12-21, 08:53:

It's impressive more or less like the Wolfeinstein 3D demo port that was done for the Genesis/Mega Drive game console. Game concepts that probably could have sold a lot if released in their times.

How many people had 256K RAM expansions for the C64? How could it have sold "a lot"?

The GEOS people / power users used RAM expansions (256KB, 512KB, etc) quite often. Some GEOS packages for C64/C128 even shipped with them.
However, these were GEORAM modules, not REUs.

REUs from mighty Commodore itself did support DMA and High/Low addressing schemes.
Memory could be accessed without CPU interaction, thus.
The NeoRAM or GEORAM expansion modules were much simpler, by comparison.
They merely did blend in fragments of a few hundred Bytes or so.
Anyway, it worked fine for GEOS, a real OS.

There also used to be other memory extensions, like the fine Pagefox DTP module (program+32KB RAM)..
Unfortunately, they weren't as well known as the official stuff from mighty CBM..

*Personally*, I think, that it is difficult to judge here.
The C64 was a popular computer that was meant to be affordable by all kinds of people.
And in 1982, its specs were acceptable for home users.
So it wasn't necessarily intended to be "good" but was cheaply made, rushed through production, got many revisions etc.

That's also why the C16 failed, btw. It was aimed by Commodore at the low-end market and was made possible thanks to the advancements in IC miniaturization, which reduced chip count and production costs (=profit maximizing).
Unfortunately, the users, at the time, wanted a more, not a less capable machine.

Or in other words, in its time, it (the C64) had the same status in pop culture as Windows 95 would have had ten years later.

Another insanely cool title released for the C64 today. Truly a great C64 Christmas. Been waiting for this one. Interesting history as well.

https://csdb.dk/release/?id=212252

Background: https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/scramble-2010/

Uh, didn't a Game Gear have 8kB CPU RAM and 16kB Video RAM??? That is kinda less than 64kB... unless the 256kB is required to load the 2 disks to what is essentially a cartridge in RAM. But since C-64 also had a cartridge system, can't it be blown to one and run on a 64kB 64??

Maybe… I think the assets have to be loaded in RAM because the disk drive is way to slow for that. A ROM cartridge can achieve much faster speeds.

For what I've seen it looks like the ported game ask if to load it entirely into the REU memory (or not) at the boot and if decided to it will ask for both the disks game loading, instead if not it will start anyway with the first floppy. I suppose but I might be wrong that the first part of the game can run with the first floppy until some point. Anyway it's really impressive and I'd like to know more about how much it could run without the REU or what would be the limitations (slower speed only?).

About the Master System and Game Gear both had a Z80 variant @ 4Mhz with a dedicated and capable VDP video chip, a custom evolution of the TMS9918 IC @ 10Mhz and I remember in its time, compared to the obviously older computer C64, was quite a next generation gaming platform and I suppose the game/rom port was faster than any C64 disks or tape loading so I imagine the only way that amount of data (it was indeed a very fast game for its times) loading could be done only with the REU. From my memories the first Sonic game ported officially to their old SMS/GG console at least in the PAL 50Hz mode, slowed down its frame rate when there were too much things going on; for what I've seen the C64 port had to loose some effects compared to the original beside still very close even with the background animations; I am really impressed by the result.

I wish this had a version for a stock c128

Even if the disk has to load mid level :0