Got me a new toy.

[Buleste]

Amstrad CPC464 arrived today! All ready to be played with. Woohoo!!!

[Harrison]

Nice. I have fond memories as it's my first computer. Did you get a monitor with it?

Try Gryzor as it's got some of the best graphics of any 8bit version. And I understand it enjoyed a bit of a demoscene too towards the end.

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[Demon Cleaner]

With floppy or dataset?

[Buleste]

464.
Bought a SCART lead and power supply and it looks sweet.
Modded so that it has a DIN for external Cassette drive so I can plug in my TZXDuino with motor control.
Bubble Bobble 4 CPC which is closer to the original arcade version is awesome. Love it.

[Demon Cleaner]

In Luxembourg they sold them under the name Schneider, not Amstrad. Anyway, I always thought it was the biggest crap, only 1 single friend I knew had one, with monochrome screen, so when we played games, I got cancer in my eyes when I compared it to my C64.

The best way to play arcade games is arcade, thus MAME ;) Not ANY version comes close.

[Kin Hell]

WOW! - my bro had one of those....

After a night of racing, (can't remember the name), my eyes felt like they were bleeding for 48 hours after & the sound was buzzing over & over & over..... :blink:

I think it was like a managed game where you had to come into the pits & do "racing pit's things" to win the race. The field of view was looking down from above, ish, ...maybe....It's a long time ago......

[Demon Cleaner]

Forgot to mention the horrible sound, nothing compared to a far superior SID.

Wasn't the game Pitstop?

[Kin Hell]

Not entirly sure DC. I've had a look around Google & found nada. :huh2:

Not listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amstrad_CPC_games

[Demon Cleaner]

I remember Pitstop II on the C64 https://www.c64-wiki.de/wiki/Pitstop_II, but that one didn't come out for the CPC. Was a great game at the time, especially with 2 players.

[J T]

I always thought it was the biggest crap, only 1 single friend I knew had one, with monochrome screen, so when we played games, I got cancer in my eyes when I compared it to my C64.

:lol:

Please, DC, stop being so subtle and tell us what you really think.

[Demon Cleaner]

:mecry: it's the truth.

[Harrison]

My first computer was an Amstrad CPC464. And I loved it!

It had far better graphics and colour palette than the C64, if you had the proper colour monitor of course, and not the budget greenscreen. That was really design for word processing only.

Graphically one of my favourites was Gryzor, which i think was onr of the best looking versions, but it did use flip screen rather than sideways scrolling due it it being harder to code on the CPC.

The sound chip was identical to the Acorn BBC I think as it has 3 channels plus noise. No other 8bit system could match SID, which was always the superior thing the C64 had, but I always thought the C64 colour palette was very limited, muted and muddy and the graphics always looked blocky. Still had some great games though.

What gave the CPC a bad rep was how close its basic language was to the ZX Spectrum. This meant a lot of games were just ported Speccy games. They didn't utilise the CPC at all and just looked like Speccy games with single colour sprites and no colour clash. But when games were actually coded for the CPC they looked great.

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[Teho]

Most C64 games used a graphics mode that had bigger pixels but then allowed for up to four colours in each colour cell, whereas other 8-bit computers only allowed two. That's the reason C64 games tend to look blockier. It does have a mode with smaller pixels with only two colours per cell, but hardly anyone used it. Most devs preferred the freedom of using more colours where they wanted while avoiding the colour clash or monochrome looking graphics of other platforms. I agree with you on the palette though, the C64's choice of colours weren't too pretty.

I expect you know what colour cells are, I don't think I can explain them easily. But The 8-bit Guy has an excellent video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfh0ytz8S0k) which makes it easy to understand how they worked and why old-school graphics were the way they were. I highly recommend watching if one is interested.

[Buleste]

I have to say for me palette of the CPC is a little too purple/pink for me in many instances but in other games it's spot on. The C64 can also be too purple/brown. However when it comes to games that were released on all formats the CPC is the uncle who wears the loud shirts, a fact which I quite like.

I hate that MSX and CPC owners had to put up with straight Spectrum ports just because they shared the same CPU and soundchip (in the later models of Spectrum). Very lazy production.