Games using polygons

[siccoyote]

Would the Vic-20 be able to do games featuring polygons like Castle Master, Total Eclipse & Driller?
Would the 1.108Mhz 8502 processor be faster to do this than the 0.985 MHz 8510

Are there any examples of games like this?

[Mayhem]

[Mike]

A few pro and cons of VIC-20 compared to C64 for these kind of games:


[+] a PAL VIC-20 is slightly faster than NTSC C64 and VIC-20, with PAL C64 the slowest of the lot. Small advantage in math (translate/rotate/project),

[+] VIC-20 has a smaller bitmap (160x192 vs. 320x200). It's cleared faster, and in general there's less work to do for the graphics routines,

[+] the VIC-20 bitmap can be arranged for a much more nicely addressing scheme. The C64 bitmap addressing scheme is just a PITA for line routines, etc.

[-] the VIC chip can't hold two bitmaps (i.e. two times 160x192, with one as shadow buffer) and switch between them with a simple change of a register for flicker free redraw. You need a fast copy routine for transferring the shadow buffer into the visible screen buffer.

[-] less memory available on the VIC-20 in general. The C64 can use a full 64K RAM, VIC-20 is limited to 40K RAM in total (if we exclude non-standard usage of the I/O area as RAM, and also disregard any banked RAM expansion). Can be alleviated a bit with overlay methods, but ...


That being said I think a port of, say, ELITE, is entirely possible. Just no one thus far has bothered to take a stab at it (... and I have other projects cooking, so don't ask ...)


Edit: http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... 8&start=34 ...

[ral-clan]

I belive the "Black Hole" for the VIC-20 is polygon based:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngMCrA-abvw