MagerValp wrote:
P> CPC was also able to do HW scrolling, but not many games used it. Well, it can move the base of the bitmap screen, which shifts the screen by 2 pixels at a time (if you're using 160x200), but can it do single pixel scrolling?
Not until the CPC+, which basically fixed all the problems with the CPC by adding smooth scrolling and hardware sprites amongst other things.
Sure, just like the C64 can overcome the bitmap addressing using tables, but the complete lack of a character/tile based video modes is a huge drawback for action games. The CPC has to set 16000 bytes to redraw the whole screen, which is a lot more than the C64's 2000.
Yeah, a lot of the CPCs top games aren't scrollers, but flip screen, and especially isometric which worked well with the bitmapped display. It meant the CPC had some great graphics applications like Advanced OCP Art Studio, and great loading screens, heh. Then the game area would be shrunk down so they could update it at 25fps or so. Shame really, the CPC did have smooth vertical scroll, but hardly any games that could have benefitted from it used it.
Graham