In those times of high MRC activity....

ページ 3/4
1 | 2 | | 4

By MäSäXi

Paragon (1884)

MäSäXi さんの画像

06-04-2008, 12:56

1) Since the eighties I have wished the same as every MSX owner: MORE visible sprites per row. MSX should have at least MSX2´s eight per row. Thought even 8 is not enough to make flickery free game when making games with many big sprite-characters in same row, like Deathwish 3. Surely most companies liked to port games from Spectrum as MSX didn´t have more than just 4 sprites per row. I think sprites could still be monochrome (thought C64´s multicolour sprites with halved resolution would be nice to haveWink) and 32 16x16 sprites are enough as long as it is possible to show more than just 4 sprites per row. But I understand that in the end of the seventies TMS´ 4 sprites per row were really enough for ANYTHING! Smile

2) I think screen 2 IS enough to make wonderful looking games as long as we can have more than 4 sprites per row. But anyway it would be nice to have one more screenmode, which has more colours at cost of resolution, like Amstrad and Commodore 64 have. But when thinking more "serious" use of MSX, not just gaming, instead of more colours, MSX should have had monochrome 80 column screenmode like Spectravideo SVI-738 X´Press has. People who were buying computers for business use, didn´t do anything with MSX´s poor 40 column text mode and bought better machine instead.

By PingPong

Prophet (4093)

PingPong さんの画像

06-04-2008, 13:49

As i see, sprites enhancements are the most desired feature:
What i'm asking myself is: the msx engineers used tms when creating msx1: there wasn't another commercial chip available in those days with a great sprite handling?
Why texas instruments never create a successor for TMS?

(Please do not see the Commodore VIC-II: who created it said that the sprites idea in VIC was taken from TMS)
Anyone knows about this issues?

By [D-Tail]

Ascended (8263)

[D-Tail] さんの画像

06-04-2008, 13:54

2) I think screen 2 IS enough to make wonderful looking games as long as we can have more than 4 sprites per row. But anyway it would be nice to have one more screenmode, which has more colours at cost of resolution, like Amstrad and Commodore 64 have. But when thinking more "serious" use of MSX, not just gaming, instead of more colours, MSX should have had monochrome 80 column screenmode like Spectravideo SVI-738 X´Press has. People who were buying computers for business use, didn´t do anything with MSX´s poor 40 column text mode and bought better machine instead.I tend to agree to this, but instead of many more sprites on a row, add that nice multicolor OR attribute thing and a palette. In other words, screen 4 Tongue

By MäSäXi

Paragon (1884)

MäSäXi さんの画像

07-04-2008, 08:57

2) I think screen 2 IS enough to make wonderful looking games as long as we can have more than 4 sprites per row. But anyway it would be nice to have one more screenmode, which has more colours at cost of resolution, like Amstrad and Commodore 64 have. But when thinking more "serious" use of MSX, not just gaming, instead of more colours, MSX should have had monochrome 80 column screenmode like Spectravideo SVI-738 X´Press has. People who were buying computers for business use, didn´t do anything with MSX´s poor 40 column text mode and bought better machine instead.

I tend to agree to this, but instead of many more sprites on a row, add that nice multicolor OR attribute thing and a palette. In other words, screen 4 Tongue

D-tail, are you talking about sprites or about screen mode things? (I am sorry, cannot remember all MSX2 charasteristics properly...Wink)

By MäSäXi

Paragon (1884)

MäSäXi さんの画像

07-04-2008, 09:15

As i see, sprites enhancements are the most desired feature:
What i'm asking myself is: the msx engineers used tms when creating msx1: there wasn't another commercial chip available in those days with a great sprite handling?
Why texas instruments never create a successor for TMS?

(Please do not see the Commodore VIC-II: who created it said that the sprites idea in VIC was taken from TMS)
Anyone knows about this issues?

One possible reason why texas instruments never created a successor for TMS could be their engineers and/or bosses may have thought their product is good enough already! Maybe not, but it´s possible! Smile Or maybe they didn´t care too much about what they were doing after creating TMS?

Could we have here "complete" list of commercial chips of those days which can handle sprites?

MSX and samelike computers had TMS.

Commodore (64) had VIC-II.

Atari had.. oh, sorry cannot remember surely it´s name anymore.. I think player-missile graphics were controlled by Antic & CTIA chips? anyway, at least Atari´s computers (was it 600 or 800 which had sprites) had player - missile graphics. Missiles are bit strange but very intesting thingies... as they are ONLY 2 PIXELS WIDE!!!! but they are hundreds of pixels tall!!!! (taller than Y coordinates, so part of missile is hided all the time!!) Missiles can prove easy way to make vertical scrolling!

Videogames also had sprites or sprite like things.

Philips Videopac G7000 (Odyssey2) was very interesting machine as it had 4 sprites + ability to use it´s ROM characters just like flicker free sprites!!! Imagine you could use MSX´s characters (alphabets, numbers etc..) just like sprites!!!!!

By jltursan

Prophet (2619)

jltursan さんの画像

07-04-2008, 11:25

Some history facts of contemporary VDPs:

- The Atari Chipset was designed by Jay Miner about 1977-1978, the Atari 400 was launched in 1979. It was the prototype of the future Amiga chipset.
- The 6560 VIC-I chip was created in 1978; but not used until 1980 in the VIC-20.
- Texas developed the TMS9918 during 1978, launching the TI-99/4 in 1979. The A revision, the one present in MSX computers, was finished during 1980. The TI-99/4A was launched one year after.

I'm not counting the other popular CRT controllers as the Motorola's 6847 (Tandy) or 6845 (Acorn, Amstrad).

Keeping in mind all of that and all the TMS9918 drawbacks, I believe that it's a really good VDP for its time (1980). Of course in 1982 was aging badly... Sad

One possible reason why texas instruments never created a successor for TMS could be their engineers and/or bosses may have thought their product is good enough already! Maybe not, but it´s possible! Or maybe they didn´t care too much about what they were doing after creating TMS?

I really believe that Texas dumped all their computer investments after the crack of its TI-99/4A production line. Although more VDPs came out of the brains of TI engineers (the TMS3556 for example), there was no more interest on create their own computers.

By SLotman

Paragon (1242)

SLotman さんの画像

07-04-2008, 13:27

You see, MSX could use the SMS VDP, which - although not suitable for a computer (but suitable for a videogame) has very nice sprites and even split screen by hardware! That technology was available when MSX1 was launched, but unfortunaly we were presented with msx1 vdp Sad

I think the main reason a VDP with faster VRAM access and more sprites wasnt used was just that: MSX wasnt ment to be a video-game, but a computer! Wink

By MäSäXi

Paragon (1884)

MäSäXi さんの画像

07-04-2008, 19:53

Well known main reason is that better VDPs cost more money = LESS PROFIT! And it´s well known fact japanese wanted to make ChEaP computer for EVERYONE!!!! And to make cheap computer for everyone, you must carefully select parts to prevent overpricing. If they had selected more pricey parts to MSX, resulting computer would have been costed MORE and that means less people have possibility to buy MSX = BAD for Nishi´s world conquering ideas!

Someone may say, if japanese just had used SMS or MSX2 technology for MSX and mass produced it enough, prices could have been low enough, but then you forget the fact that MSX was mass produced computer already! And it took about TWO YEARS to mass produce enough MSXs to sell them to Europe and USA, and still they were NOT the cheapest computers around when they arrived to Europe!!!! Not even japanese used OLD seventies technology for MSX to cut manufacturing prices.... now imagine how much MSX would have costed if japanese had used modern technology?

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6923)

ARTRAG さんの画像

07-04-2008, 20:05

If Japanese just had used SMS or MSX2 technology for MSX in 1980,
now, in 2008, we would have jet MSX computers (maybe MSX8) instead
of Playstations and Xboxes.

Commercially, TMS VDP and low (and hard to locate) RAM killed the MSX1.
(SW tended to use less resources to widen the possible user base)
The average MSX1 was outdated wrt competitors already in 1982.
(C64 had better graphic, due to scrolling and to the default 64Kram,
sorry, I'm just honest).

MSX2 arrived too late and with too few improvements to allow MSX win
its battle.
(no HW scrolling, only 3,5MHz...)

By PingPong

Prophet (4093)

PingPong さんの画像

07-04-2008, 21:18

If Japanese just had used SMS or MSX2 technology for MSX in 1980,
now, in 2008, we would have jet MSX computers (maybe MSX8) instead
of Playstations and Xboxes.

Commercially, TMS VDP and low (and hard to locate) RAM killed the MSX1.
(SW tended to use less resources to widen the possible user base)
The average MSX1 was outdated wrt competitors already in 1982.

I agree.
the msx killer was the poor msx1 VDP.

And it's not a question of cheapness. Often a question on how to do things. take two examples:

a) the VIC-II provided better sprites with a less bandwith requirements. the trick? just put the sat table into the chip itself.
b) the VIC-II provided better multicolor mode with reduced color spill even using less vram due to the better arrangement of data than the VDP.

ページ 3/4
1 | 2 | | 4