Thanks for putting this together, I can't decide if it was more of an enjoyable or infuriating watch.😛 I'll summarise the 53 minutes. Each match is either : - Both versions just as fast, play just as well, but CPC graphics wipe the floor with the Spectrum : IT'S A DRAW, people (because "good job given Spectrum limitations") ! 🤣 - CPC version has the TINIEST hint of being slower (no matter how much better it looks or sounds), or has the misfortune of being a Speccy port : SPECTRUM WINS ! 😂 I mean the leniency is almost comically one-sided ! It's almost as if graphics have no weight at all. With the same reasoning you could claim the Atari ST is the same or better as the Amiga (its 68K is clocked slightly higher and some games are ports), but thankfully no Brit in their right mind would say that. So why do you guys never seem to be able to take off the nostalgia goggles when it comes to the ZX Spectrum ? It's a mystery to me, and it makes me want to send you Specsavers vouchers. 😄 Particularly egregious examples : Arkanoid (Spectrum looks like an Atari 2600 era breakout, Amstrad like a proper arcade conversion), Operation Wolf (same gameplay/speed, but Spectrum is monochrome, Amstrad almost looks like a 16-bit port), Rainbow Islands (same gameplay/speed, but Spectrum has MONOCHROME RAINBOWS FFS ! 😂) So yeah, I don't know, are you worried to tell it like it is to Spectrum viewers ? I just don't get it !
Well, I read your reply and whilst reading it, I couldn’t stop chuckling inwardly. The thing with Arkanoid is that it’s not as optimised as the Speccy code IMPO. Yes there’s slowdown at certain points when the screen gets quite hectic on the Speccy, but on the Amstrad it’s there in abundance. This doesn’t make it a bad game, but just ruins the immersive factor a little. Yes it looks beautiful, and yes I wanted it to win, but these little niggles do grate the more you play. I personally enjoyed playing both conversions and couldn’t really pull them apart as they both play a good game, despite limitations. I will always choose gameplay over graphics and believe great graphics don’t always make a great game. Operation Wolf is brilliant on both computers, there’s nothing in it, the Amstrad has more colour, but uses a lower resolution, the Speccy is more detailed because of its fixed resolution. I personally can’t pull either apart and separate them. The Amstrad version of Rainbow islands is very colourful, a great game, but it does suffer slightly from choppy movement and a flickering main sprite, plus it’s ever so slightly slower. Once again, the Speccy has the detail and slightly more speed, but lacks the wonderful 16 colour of the Amstrad. But when it comes down to it, they both play brilliantly and the Speccy I believe pushes the envelope more considering it’s obvious limitations. The Amstrad port whilst great, feels as though they could have done a smoother scroll, especially when you consider how good the Amstrad can do vertical scrolling. But when it comes down to it, they both play a blinder. I doubt we will ever see eye to eye on this, so we will probably have to agree to disagree. But I do love the Amstrad and don’t believe I’m biased in the slightest either way.
"Rainbow Islands (same gameplay/speed, but Spectrum has MONOCHROME RAINBOWS FFS !". I never played Rainbow Islands on my Spectrum, but I've seen screenshots and it never occurred to me that the rainbows were monochrome. I love my Speccy but the CPC version wins hands down there. :-)
@@Retrohertz yeah, I get that, CPC version is slightly slower, main character has sprite flicker, but both good arcade conversions considering the limitations. I always say, what the Amstrad lacked in detail it made up for in colour. What the spectrum lacked in colour, it made up for it in graphical detail. But the important ingredient is there for both, playability 👍🏻
The colour resolution of the Spectrum is very low. It can only do colour in a resolution of 32*24 blocks. So you have this medium monochrome graphics combined with a really low colour resolution. An I missing something? Is the Spectrum really this bad?
Depends on the games that were chosen, CPC could've won if more games that were written on it first had been used, like Spindizzy maybe? A lot of the best CPC games were French and weren't released on the speccy, like Get Dexter and one if my absolute favourite games, Vera Cruz. Having said all that I think the CPC definitely edged some of the games you've put down as a draw though. Excellent video though so keep them coming!
All highly subjective. I love that we all have different opinions. In fact someone commented on a different video about me missing a game I’d never played before, I played it and loved it. So swings and roundabouts 😉👍🏻
Rainbow islands and Chase HQ on the Amstrad wiped the floor with the Spectrum, even Dan Dare was far superior. Very frustrating to see the Spectrum take draws with these games.
I didn’t think the Amstrad version is superior in play, but I guess it all comes down to opinions. The thing to take away from this is that a draw is not a loss.
I think it's incredible to see that the playground arguments are still going on in 2021. ;-) I have loads of Spectrums. I never had a CPC but was always curious. I played on one recently, and I was blown away. Both are amazing 8 bit machines.
i must admit i sold my +3 for a 6128... but I always felt even with increased color palette and better sound, the speccy had more detailed graphics and played better.. only had the 6128 for about 6 months anyway then got an ST.
I personally believe it was down to the programmer and time allocated as the Amstrad mode 1 and 2 could easily compete on detail and provide just as many colours in these higher res modes. The Speccy has lot's of limitations when compared to the Amstrad, but the Amstrad has a heavier 16k screen (There are lot's of benefits for this) to move around and where the CPC can push 2bpp, the Speccy could push graphics around at 1bpp. There's an excellent article from CPCWIKI that explains things really well. www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php?title=Speccy_Port&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop
Yes, in general, despite the lack of colors on the Speccy, most of the time, i feels it just beat the Amstrad....speed > mashed up colors anyday, It's like playing games at higher fps with low details or low fps with higher details. Frame rates always win. Both of them use the same Z80 CPU at roughly the same speed, while the CPC have a lot more colors to move about in memory and the Speccy just have to move less bits and bytes around. It's simple maths.
@@ClassicReplay the CPC 16k screen was mostly a problem for the english coders, not the french, spanish or german coders. All those fucked up games on the CPC we got because the coders (english) never cared because they tought the spectrum was better than the CPC (when it's the opposite...)
@@ClassicReplay Ce Spectrum beat CPC on some ugly Speccy ports that don't use the power of CPC. But excepted that, I don't see a lot of better games on Spectrum. This video is... hum... funny.
Went the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge the other day. I had the opportunity to play Chase HQ on the CPC and I was blown away by what was achieved there. It was just as fluid as the Spectrum, the resolution seemed about the same (often the CPC resolution was lower when colour was used) and the controls were tight. A simply amazing achievement compared to the Atari ST and Amiga which had a very shoddy conversion.
It runs at a slightly slower frame rate when compared to the ZX Spectrum, plus resolution is 256×192 pixels on the ZX Spectrum, and the Amstrad in Mode 0 runs at 160x200, so lower res, but you get that wonderful 16 colour look and feel. I will always favour the CPC version because it’s the one I grew up with, but the ZX Spectrum version is highly playable. What happened to the C64 version 🙃
the amstrad cpc was clearly better than zx spectrum on the gfx side. It didn't have colour clash and easily emulate the zx monochrome display mode. This comparison is just a LITTLE BIASED to make the zx win. But reality is different
@@ClassicReplay Please don't lie to us. You are clearly a ZX biased people. the amstrad cpc is way better than zx spectrum hw under a lot of tech aspects. your comparison is not objective and is flavoring at all the zx spectrum as anyone judging with objectivity can see, even without tech knowledge. I've used to code for zx, msx, amstrad (the latter little) and c64 and i know what i mean. for example, on the amstrad cpc, you can cleverly get hw scrolling, on zx there is no way to get this.
@@gasparinizuzzurro6306 Are you kidding? 🤣 I’m Amstrad through and through. The comparison is on the games, not the hardware. Which results do you disagree with? On a different day with another random selection of games the Amstrad might win. Amstrad CPC has the same CPU as ZX Spectrum and 16Kb video memory. Essentially, Amstrad CPC has a similar fillrate and twice as large screen. Thus, any code trying to work with video memory as originally designed for ZX Spectrum is going to be automatically delayed by a factor of 16Kb/6.75Kb. The demo-scenes today for Amstrad CPC shows that some of the fillrate issues can be addressed by getting help from the video chip. I believe that, for example, people can generate repeated scanlines, so that only half or quarter of scanlines would need to be actually updated. This would tilt the fillrate balance into somewhat more tolerable situation. But a demo is not a game. The other issue the Amstrad faces is with two, four or eight pixels per byte, the Spectrum can do this in 1 pixel per byte. Games ported from Spectrum to Amstrad often suffered because the software scroll (redraw or memcopy) took longer on the Amstrad. But even Renegade and Target Renegade use ZX Spectrum code. Pete Wiseman, regarding Scramble clone 'Killer Cobra': There were some well known hardware registers that you could use to offset the screen and scroll it one 4-pixel block at a time but that produced scrolling that was just miles too fast for this type of game... Anyway, the technique published in Amstrad Action revealed a second hardware register that nudged the screen horizontally to the right by 2 pixels. I think it was some kind of screen centering register that wasn't documented but if you used this in conjunction with the hyperspeed 4-pixel scroll, you could slow the scrolling down to something more playable. To do that you would scroll the screen left by 4 pixels but also nudge it right by 2, effectively scrolling left 2 pixels. Then the next frame you could just nudge the screen centering register back to it's normal position scrolling left 2 pixels again. Then repeat and you'd end up with a 2 pixel scroll which although is probably twice as fast as arcade games like Scramble and Super Cobra, it's playable ... and silky smooth as it uses hardly any CPU.
@@ClassicReplay Well, it is not exactly as you wrote. It is true that the zx spectrum vram is 6144+768 bytes in lenght (you forgot the attributes area) vs 16000 bytes on CPC. But is was also true that the CRTC hw was more advanced and allowed hw scroll even if not designed with this feature in mind. Plus the z80 is slightly faster on CPC when dealing with video memory because the wait states imposed to the cpu were lighter than the ULA ones. On the other hand, the zx spectrum cpu could ran at full speed when dealing with addresses outside the first 16K memory bank while cpc cpu suffered of those slowdowns always. the cpc amstrad was rated like a 3.3Mhz unthrottled z80. Of course if you code cpc like zx you get the worse of both. This is basically the same that happened with zx->msx ports, they were coded as if they were on zx. this bad pratice even interested (but in a with a very small factor even the zx->c64 ports. However, due to extremely different hw (CPU/Video/Sournd), coders were forced to a full rewrite of zx titles limiting this kind of problem). Talking about demos, to have an idea of what you can achieve with clever CRTC register manipulation you can see this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HwN9PrsbVMg.html That is simply IMPOSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE on zx spectrum with the same quality.
@@jda4887 show me where I’m being biased then? I selected thirty five games at random from 100 and compared them. Which aspect in particular made you think “biased”.
What?? Only a CPC fanboy would say that 😊! I'd say that was pretty fair. If you want some solid Amstrad bias LawnboysPost1975 (great channel) is the place to go!
@@ClassicReplay I honeslty thought that you were jokingly put some draws when the clear winner is the CPC (not all the games but arkanoid, barbarian ? really ?) . Since you re serious about this, i don't think there is much more to say as i strongly disagree with the conclusions.
Gryzor: You say the Spectrum version is mediocre and about the Amstrad version "doesn't get much better than this, almost arcade perfect" . Your conclusion - a draw...
I haven’t watched it back, but I’m 99.9% sure the Amstrad won that round 🤔 I also say, “it did a decent job of emulating the arcade original.” Plus I mentioned that “die hard Speccy fans will still love it and enjoy the challenge.” And I also said “a little bit mediocre”. Then later went on to cite “it is still highly fun”. The first end of level boss was a let down, but the scroll is good, it does get better as you progress. On the first level the mountain range is missing, the trees few and far between and the sprites merge in a little bit too much for my liking. The sprites lack the usual high detail I’m used to seeing in a Speccy game. it is still very playable and for the large part, that’s what counts at the end of the day. But it was a narrow victory ✌🏼
"It looks a bit dated by 80s standards, but so do you". Brilliant. You know damn well that most of your viewers will be in, or approaching, their 40s. ;-)
I believe that what you show from the Spectrum is from a real Spectrums output on a TV. On the other hand the Amstrads output is taken from an emulator. No wonder the Amstrad games look blockier. Why not show how good the Amstrad looks on the real Amstrad monitor. It has RGB and its resolution makes the shading look really good. What you show for the Spectrum is just fuzzy and unsharp. That is probably true to what most Spectrum users had back in the day. So if you compared both systems on what screens people used, it would be fairer. On the other hand, I know even the Spctrum can look better with better cables and monitors. But that was not what Spectrum users had
I applied a screen filter to the Speccy, which gives the impression of a glass screen. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you, but I thought it looked quite authentic. I played about with other screen filters for the Amstrad, but I remember most Amstrad games being bright with colour and being pixelated and slightly blocky, so I didn’t apply a screen filter as it took something away from the wonderful colours. For me that was its charm. You’re right though, it’s a capture from an emulator.
As an ex games designer from that period a big problem was time, or lack of especially for the Amstrad versions. Now for the French and Spanish markets where the Amstrad was very popular it was the lead machine for many games and so the quality was on another level. As for this comparison, it was a bit Speccy focused as for most of these it was the lead Z80 development platform and so the Amstrad versions suffered a lot. Straight code dumping didnt take into account the specific trickery you could do with the Amstrad including smooth multi directional scrolling, smooth parallax scrolling, split mode screens etc. My only real picky on these comparisons was Head Over Heels, was great on the speccy but gameplay even better on the Amstrad, higher res and more colours and better sound.
I regularly play both systems, and when a draw is not an option I find the Amstrad wins most of the time. The games are simply more colorful, and more fun. The only exception is when it's a port in which case the Amstrad usually comes off worse. It would be interesting to know your final score if you HAD to choose a winner each time?
Those games were randomly chosen from a box by my daughter. The box totaled around 100 games. Where the ZX Spectrum won or came up with a draw, it was mostly because there was less lag on the controls or it simply played better. But I think the Amstrad held its own and did really well. I don’t understand your comment though “when a draw is not an option”.
I have both systems set up with the one TV, so if I want to play Operation Wolf say, for an extended amount of time, I have to choose. That's what I mean by "when a draw is not an option"
@@ClassicReplay Batman the movie, Gryzor, Chase HQ, Avenger, Robocop, Renegade, Target Renegade, etc most titles are better on CPC. You have good graphics, good scroll and good playability.
@@dlfrsilver Batman the movie is the same game, with better use of colour on the Amstrad. Avenger, same game, Robocop, ZX has more detail and better end of level boss fights. But I still like the look and feel of the CPC version, plus I personally feel it’s more difficult. Gryzor is better on the Amstrad, ChaseHQ is probably a draw, Renegade a draw, but better graphics, colours on the CPC, Target Renegade good on CPC, but ZX Spectrum version has the edge and 128k version even better. What games in the video do you disagree with?
@@ClassicReplay the Renegade series are tons better on Amstrad CPC. Chase HQ is better because it has colors/scroll/playability. Robocop is also better, again, colors/scrolls/playability/digit voices. It's not hard, the CPC is better than the Spectrum.
It’s all highly subjective, for me personally it comes down to which game plays the best, not looks the best. I’ve no idea why you think Renegade is tons better on the Amstrad, what the Spectrum lacks in colour, it more than makes up for in detail and speed. On the games where the Spectrum won, it was the better version. I enjoyed doing the video, in the end It was actually a close run thing, no bias as I grew up owning a CPC. I could easily accuse you of a similar bias. For me personally, there’s nearly almost more to games than colour, the Gameboy proved this. When the Amstrad was programmed with the machines strengths in mind, I personally feel it was hard to beat, there’s quite a few examples where this is true. But the same is also true of the ZX Spectrum and C64. Even the MSX has surprised me. Robocop has speech on the ZX Spectrum 128k, so not sure what that’s about, ChaseHQ on the Speccy has music, slightly better collision detection, and runs slightly faster. I still love the CPC version though as it was a Herculean effort and looks great. But if you can be more specific about the video and where you believe I’ve been biased, exact timing in the video, I will look into and respond.
What matters is that 1) Amstrad eat Sinclair for breakfast (in 1986) so they became one. 2) Both outclass the Commodore 64. Just because they are cooler, and no boring brown box with the fugliest pain-in-the-arse BASIC ever conceived and the most horrendous colour palette ever invented. No SID's can't fix this for the C64.
You've got to be kidding me! Green Beret was one of the most frustrating and annoying games I ever had on my CPC, it was a terrible conversion. And that half arsed scrolling was an absolute joke. I'm still annoyed that the speccy won this contest though 🤣
People that have actually played Amstrads Green Beret are sitting om both sides of the fence. Some hate it, others see that it is decent game although what could have been could have been a lot better.
The spectrum had more realistic shading/detail (less colours) and the Amstrad CPC is bright and cartoony (sweet shop of colours), like a NES or SNES. The CPC colours burns my eyes. So guess which I prefer - the spectrum. Probably why the Gameboy was OK too - shades of green, no colour.
But shame the Sinclair computers name died out only a few years later. Should have kept the name going as a games machine. And Amstrad as home PC or business machines.
The Amstrad CPC did have a better video chip and a slightly faster CPU, but the Spectrums all round screen mode of 256x192 with 15 colours without the need to resort to double width pixels was good enough for the time. The real bug bear of both machines from a gaming point if view was neither supported hardware sprites or scrolling.
Yep - Spectrum often had the gameplay edge with games, due to smoothness, speed and higher resolution. Many Amstrad versions looked fantastic, but several were un-optimised Spectrum ports. Games that came to the Amstrad before the Spectrum, or with no spectrum version to port from, did very well. Shinobi, Prince of Persia and the version of Double Dragon that's ported from the Atari ST are all great on the Amstrad.
Not always true, but I get your point. Look at Savage, Speccy code, or anything Perry or Bruty. I remember one of them saying or another CPC programmer, You can take Speccy code from a game and optimise it to work for the CPC. You can’t take a CPC game code and do it the other way around. That says it all for me
@@ClassicReplay Each to their own, but Spectrum ports are garbage by default in my opinion. Just generally a bad idea unless there's absolutely no alternative, such as with the recent Jet Pac port, that wouldn't otherwise happen.
@@TechRyze Spectrum ports where the coder haven't used enough time optimizing the game for the Amstrad CPC MIGHT be bad, but even some of the quick ports were good
Spectrum goes with some advantage, its filtered image is seen as in a crt TV and Amstrad does not see its image filtered, Amstrad looks like in an lcd TV, noticing its pilxeles a lot. That's not fair.
Exactly how you see it is exactly what it looked like on a CPC colour screen. The image was crystal clear, those screens were brilliant. The Speccy would have looked like this as well as most signals were through RF
Nope, when it’s a draw, points are evenly distributed. Both machines performed admirably. A win is just that, the gold medal. Overall on this occasion the ZX Spectrum won more rounds and so wins outright. On this occasion 🍭
IBack then I had a Spectrum 48k, followed by a 464. The 464 was definitely the better PC, but only if the programmers made the effort to make it properly. A lot of games were just straight ports from the Spectrum. I'd say the most extreme example where a CPC game is better than the Spectrum version is Sorcery. Having said that, I still play a small number of games for both computers (and the Commodore 64) via emulation.
Yes, my background is very similar to yours, I didn’t own a Spectrum, my cousin did and we played the life out of it until I received my CPC in 1984/85. There’s lots of examples where the CPC looks and plays amazing, but today I have all three, Speccy, C64 and Amstrad. I even have the Atari 800XL and MSX. Great times and even better memories. Please subscribe and share this video with friends and likeminded people 👍🏻
Not if you’re comparing games, plus the ZX Spectrum received several upgrades. Then there’s the similar architecture and the fact that they’re both 8bit.
@@ClassicReplay Well, fair point! I just mean that a ZX Spectrum hitting the shelves in 1984 would probaby have had better tech specs than the 1982 rubber-keyed wonder. But it's very nice to see that you go into details of gameplay and looks when deciding about the outcome of the duels. Even though the odd Amstad supporter does not really agree, you have your good reasons and you take some time to explain them properly.
@@ClassicReplay Careful with the game number ( 1700 ). I think that comes from Wiki and is inaccurate to say the least. For example CPC Reviews has over 2,000 game reviews and is not complete with many games still to be covered
@@ClassicReplay For some reason my reply was removed. Sorry. But that statement is incorrect. Check out CPC Reviews and you will find the vast majority are commercial releases. Very few are modern games. CPC Reviews ( which is not a complete database ) was originally for commercial games only. UK, Spain ( 500 plus releases ) and France ( mostly not available on Spectrum and C64. UBISOFT for example were prolific ). When you add those up it will be WAY more than 1,700 plus. Try researching your average 8bit micro release. There will be an Amstrad version. CPC Power has in excess of 18,000 software releases including commercial, PD, type in, applications and modern homebrew. The real figure will fall between 1,700 and 18,000 plus. I would estimate substantially more than 1,700 which is highly inaccurate
How could I, they both play identical. They both look good 😊 The Amstrad CPC version suffers ever so slightly with occasional slowdown, but nitpicking really. Both are excellent conversions. A fantastic achievement for the time. A draw is not a bad thing, they both win!
Spectrum was a more "balanced" machine than the CPC. The latter was stuffed by the combination of a large video area and lack of hardware acceleration. If you're going to have a machine where the CPU does everything then you have to streamline what the processor has to do. The C64 has them both licked of course - but only where it can use its acceleration hardware. In fast 3D titles, in particular car racers, it falls on its arse - its slow processor (at 1MHz it is half the effective speed of the Z80) holding it back. However, it's a games machine first and a computer a distant second, and for the most part CBM got it right. The Amstrad is the weakest of the three machines in my view for games, this reason. Neither it, nor the Spectrum was built as a games machine. The ZX got away with it because it had a massive head-start, was cheap and had the streamlined hardware. The CPC, really what was the point. By the time it came out it was hopelessly out of date. It did nothing that the C64 and BBC couldn't do, and really was sold as a piece of soulless consumer electronics to lazy parents as the "mug's eyeful" alongside the cheap, tacky stereos, cut-price word processors and double-deck Funai VCRs. Within a year of its release, there was nothing to recommend it over an Atari ST. By the time Sugar bought the rights to the Spectrum they were both relics, with little to recommend either other than the cheap, quick turnaround of games for them.
You really come out like a Spectrum fanboy. People that knows a little about the CPC knows that you are wrong. No extra hardware-features? I wish you could see Pinball Dreams running om a real CPC. Then, with a pure soul you wouldn't be able to repeat what you wrote about C64 or Spectrum supperiority
@@ivarfiske1913 Erm, no. Pinball Dreams simply takes advantage of a hardware quirk on the CPC that allows the top of the video buffer to be defined in software. It allows smooth (vertical-only) "scrolling", but only of the complete frame. This specific title is able to take advantage of this because very little actually changes from frame to frame. There is a very good reason this "feature" is not used on CPC games outside this title. It is, of course, a *very* clever piece of coding. Try doing the same thing on a game with a lot of moving sprites, and it would descend into a flickering mess very quickly.
If this video doesn’t change your mind you’re just trolling Amstrad CPC New Games #amstradcpc #amstrad #amstradcpc464 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uOKHf4SsBHQ.html
It certainly wasn’t my intention, I’m just starting out with editing and stuff. It was only once I posted the video I noticed as it was really tiring to make.
My cousin had the 48k, my mate the C64 and I had the CPC, in fact I didn’t know anyone else that had one until a few years later and then we swapped games like crazy. I later purchased a Speccy +3 and still have it. He also introduced me to a car boot that sold games for next to nothing if you know what I mean 😉
@@ClassicReplay upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Zx-colors.png Dan Dare III ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JLcrTNKwKfs.html
