Game:

Elite (1984)

Duration: 1:54

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35

Thought I would run all three versions of Commodore 8 bit Elite side by side to see the speed difference. If you fast forward to 1:10 approx you can see the 128 and Plus 4 versions in sync and then you can watch that after catching up to the Plus 4 version the 128 version overtakes it again :)

The first thing you notice is that when there is not much to draw and the complexity of the wireframe object is not too high the speed is pretty much the same on all three. The C64 however has a terrible bitmap mode (this is because it is essentially a psuedo bitmap mode that hacks together access the character based screen) and is very awkward to write to due to it being layed out as 8 pixel high columns of eight rows and then repeat rinse (see how it is basically mapping out the char blocks!!).

The 128 version (which you load after typing GO 64 on your 128 to put it in C64 mode first btw) is the fastest and is using brute force of the 2mhz CPU. Every scan line above position 1,1 and below point 320,200 on the C64 screen invokes a screen blank to enable the CPU to run at 2mhz to do the maths for the vectors. It STILL has to use the awkward VIC-II bitmap mode as it is not written for 80-column VDC mode of the 128 or native 128 mode.

Second fastest is the Plus 4 version (this is the 2nd version by Csory) and this surprises me as the Plus 4 not only has a faster CPU than the C64 as standard but also has a much better bitmap memory layout more akin to the Amstrad and Sinclair rivals. I'm surprised the Plus 4 isn't the fastest so there must still be a lot more optimization possible.

The difference between the Plus 4 and 128 in C64 mode version is slight and only really shows up when there is a lot more complex wireframe object to draw. The 128 uses brute force to overcome the VIC-II bitmap mode limitations, the Plus 4 uses the faster CPU too but on a different bitmap screen memory map of course.

C64 version is pretty much unplayable in the heat of the battle if you ask me, I'm not sure Penn or Rignall would have given it a Gold Medal like Bob Wade did all by himself at ZZAP Towers when he reviewed it alone. The lack of speed affects gameplay drastically making control of the ship in battles a real problem....and for that reason it can only be considered a good effort but a pointless machine today to play it on when other more suitable (to wireframe bitmap games) computers are available for peanuts on ebay.

Would be great to see it on the Atari 8 bit computers, I don't know how far progress has got with that port from the C64 version that was being worked on years ago.

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