Games that were better on PC than on Amiga :-o

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Well, games state 16 colours, and if you play for instance Prince of Persia, Xenon 2 or other games supporting vga, these are all in 16 colours.
But I have to admit it's a bit confusing, they're not clear about it (on purpose)
I got some magazines wich state that the Super VGA starts with a palette of 4096 colours (not mentioning the amount of colours displayed), where normal VGA has a palette of 512 colours. SVGA was there already in 1989 or so.
If I know it correctly, Commodore already had the technology to achieve the same gfx back then, but for some reason they did not come up with it.

[bertilsson]

mikeymike wrote:
...
UFO Enemy Unknown sucked on the Amiga.  Memory leaks, lack of colours, and it really wasn't meant to run on stock Amigas... the music is quite nice though :-)  Admittedly I play the AGA Amiga version under emulation because I can't play the PC version for two reasons:  One, Windows 2000, and two, even if you run it in DOS, on a 1.5GHz processor it goes a little too fast :-)

A bit late answer and off topic... but anyway
X-COM Collectors Edition works fine on my computer (Win XP on an AMD XP2000+ with a cheap radeon card) without any fixes what so ever except cpu-slower . In fact the fixes caused the problems they were supposed to avoid.

And perhaps a bit more on the topic, I've found the amiga version unplayable because of the delays added to everything. Raiding an UFO shouldn't have to take all day and in the PC version it doesn't :-)

[FastRobPlus]

VGA is 640x480 w/16 colors or 320x200 w/256 colors
MCGA is 320x200 w/256 colors
Tandy is 16 colors in all modes.
As tandy was popular in the early DOS era, many games limited themselves to 16 colors.

[Darrin]

bertilsson wrote:
A bit late answer and off topic... but anyway
X-COM Collectors Edition works fine on my computer (Win XP on an AMD XP2000+ with a cheap radeon card) without any fixes what so ever except cpu-slower . In fact the fixes caused the problems they were supposed to avoid.

I use UFO and TFTD off the Collectors Edition on my Athlon XP2600 desktop and 2500 laptop running XP Home (Radeon in both).  I do get the occasional crash on UFO (rare).  Also, there's no need for any "slow-mo" prgram if you set the prefernces in the game right (there are speed controls for scolling, movement and firing - turn them all down).  What I like best is that both of these games do a full install on the PC (the older CD version still required the CD) so I can slaughter a few aliens on my laptop while I travel.

I'd love to see an updated version of this game (and I don't mean a Quake type shooter - just nicer graphics at a higher resolution, different faces on the soldiers, animation while they're waiting for orders (twitching, scratching, looking around), etc).

[Wibbly]

LMAO!

Ok, it's fair to say from '93 on especially with the arrival of doom, the PC soundly thrashes anything that happened on the Amiga thereafter. AGA for me at least, really wasn't the big improvement in graphics that I'd hoped for. There were plenty of AGA versions of games I already had, that really didn't look a whole lot different. There were a few AGA titles that looked excellent, but it was hardly a revolutionary jump, just an evolutionary step. A very small one at that. I remember thinking at the time that considering how much my A1200 cost, I might have been better off with A PC (I didn't go A1200 until '93, and although a 486 PC was twice the money, you did get a VGA monitor, a hard drive and better sound and graphics capability)

I would LOVE for a new Amiga to come out so that I can stop paying Bill for crappier and crappier OS's that get more and more expensive.
Truth is, the AmigaOne is just WAY too expensive. There's no way in hell I'm paying that sort of money for an 800Mhz PPC machine running a terribly outdated Radeon 7500. For what I'd pay for an AmigaOne, I could get Athlon 64 FX53, Geforce 6800 and soundly pee all over it. Sad but true.

Therefore, I don't think we'll ever see Amiga showing the competition how to do things again, EVER.
I spent more turning an A1200 into something that could JUST run Quake than I did building a PC that could run anything I could throw at it. But I did it for the love, and for the nostalgia, and just to see with my own eyes, an Amiga playing something that looked like it came out of the nineties. Amiga is a great hobby, but it's days of being a serious computer are well and truly over. Has been that way for a decade.

[Hammer]

VGA is 320x200 (16 colours) and SVGA starts from 320x240 (256 colours).

VGA @ 320x200 has the capability to display 256 colours e.g. IBM PS/2 Model 55SX.

[Hammer]

I got some magazines wich state that the Super VGA starts with a palette of 4096 colours

VGA has the capability to display 256(8bit) colors @ resolutions of 360x480** with palette of 262144 colors (18bit).

**VGA's Mode_X; modification to IBM's mode 13h.

Reference.
http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/tutorials/67/1/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VGA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_X

Without mass storage device; Amiga titles can’t maximize Amiga’s graphical capabilities. This is illustrated well via CDTV titles vs Amiga 500/600 titles.  

[purKKi]

I would LOVE for a new Amiga to come out so that I can stop paying Bill for crappier and crappier OS's that get more and more expensive.

That is true... what is the difference? I mean these new Amiga systems or even Mac, they are much like PC in a way.

The main difference is the OS and I must say that the biggest problem with PC is Microsoft. New Windows systems are more and more crap like you said.

I have always loved PC because you can control things, know what is going on and upgrade the things you want etc. - now with these new MS operating systems things are totally diffent and you don`t know what the heck is going on behind Windows!

Still I use Windows XP. Why?

-Linux: no programs that I need. (I am studying graphical design).

-Mac OS: Just hate Mac. Expensive, terrible "design style" keyboard & mouse, used a lot G5 with OS X and it crashes much more than XP and jams a lot for a while... and the interface is crap if you ask me.

-New Amigas: very expensive and not too much software. I would be just browsing the Internet and listening mp3s, having to use my PC for other software...

But I love classic Amiga: yes, great hobby and it is just great to play those fantastic old games. Best 2D games you can find! The new games are not my cup of tea except some good strategy games like Hearts of Iron.

[FastRobPlus]

>>I would LOVE for a new Amiga to come out so that I can stop paying Bill for crappier and crappier OS's that get more and more expensive.

[color=0000FF]XP is good.  DX9.1 is very, very, good.  Shame that companies like nVidia continue to release hamstrung mainstream cards that can't take advantage of DX's features at a decent framerate.  It forces developers to write games that are around 1-2 years in the visual past.[/color]


>>Therefore, I don't think we'll ever see Amiga showing the competition how to do things again, EVER.

[color=0000FF]Don't forget 3D0 did excatly this in the early 1990s.  Nobody seemed to want an alternative to the PC or the cheapie game console...[/color]

>>Amiga is a great hobby, but it's days of being a serious computer are well and truly over. Has been that way for a decade.

[color=0000FF]But at least it's still a great hobby![/color]

[Hammer]

Don't forget 3D0 did excatly this in the early 1990s.

One problem with 3DO in battling the PC; is PC’s constantly adapting, evolving and assimilating nature. 1992 and beyond the rise PC gaming is accelerating e.g.
Wing Commander series, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D,  Raise of Triads, X-Wing, Tie Fighter, TFX, F16 Falcon series, F15 Strike Engle III, Grand Prix 1 and 2, Indy Car series,  Need for Speed series and 'etc'.

Then comes Pentium (P5) class games (1995 and beyond) e.g. Flight Unlimited (one of the first detailed texture mapped flight simulator for mainstream), Quake and ‘etc’.

It’s too bad that the initial PPC601’s processor power is wasted on emulating 68K transition phase. This transition phase practically killed off most 68K PC vendors.

While X86 world concentrate on just producing titles that maximizes the Pentium class processors.    

Then comes 3DFX era i.e. kickstarts serious** 3D acceleration in games. Then this leads to the rise of NVIDIA  and rebirth of ATI.

**Not like half hearted attempts from S3’s Virge ("The 3D decelerator" – ID (recalling)).  

The doctrine that underpins PC's evolution is Moore’s law and HW cloning competition with "doing one better than the other guy" attitude e.g. AMD vs Intel or ATI vs NVIDIA.

Players; such as AMD, Intel, ATI, NVIDIA, Linux X86 (mostly for new markets) and Microsoft basically underpins the X86 homeworld.

ATI, NVIDIA and Microsoft underpins XNA initiative in their next battle with Sony.

[Cyberus]

This thread is interesting, because the other day I was thinking of building a lil 486 system, to play the old games I used to play around a friend's house back in the early nineties, like x-wing, day of the tentacle, etc

And I was wondering how the same games compare like for like. The ones I'd be most interested in hearing your views on as to which version to get are:

Adventure games - Indy, Monkey, etc
Worms
Dune II
Syndicate
Settlers
Other god games

Regards

[purKKi]

This thread is interesting, because the other day I was thinking of building a lil 486 system

Build a Pentium (166/200Mhz) system and you can also play a little bit more advanced games: 486 era megagames that vere even too much for 486/66Mhz run smooth then. You can also use PCI-cards.

Get also a sound card that has wavetable abilities: General Midi and Roland emolation... or even a real Roland card with Soundblaster for efects! Now you can enjoy quality midi music - not those terrible Adlib FM-tunes.

I have an old Pentium 133Mhz Laptop with cd-rom. Not use too much but great for retro gaming and it also spares some space for my Amiga & old console collection.

[aasmund]

I would LOVE for a new Amiga to come out so that I can stop paying Bill for crappier and crappier OS's that get more and more expensive.

Paying? :-D
I would pay for a modern AOS rather winXP for free.

But on topic; Amiga can handle that you press,,many buttons on the keyboard, but still the pc can only handle 3.
Shouldent that be a great advantage for amiga? especaly on flight simulators.

Sorry for my bad english in this post :s

Edit: I agree that XP is good, easy and stable. BUT with evry version of OS ms makes you need better hardware, and it could be more responsive, something I do not find it to be, and I have a modern system. But thats my personal subjective meaning...And I`l stop typing now.  
 

[Wibbly]

Ok, so I didn't specify in detail about Microsoft Os's. I use Windows XP professional, and will concede that it is by far the most stable of their Os's. When I say crappier and crappier, I mean bloated with more and more programs in the background that you have no clue as to their purpose, and the ever more "Easier to use than ever" thing which in reality means that people who know how to use their computers, have to dig through more and more unecessary things just to reach the same parts they did in an earlier release.

I use XP, because if I want to play games, I don't really have an alternative. Linux is getting more and more support, but this is still seldom available on a disc, and is usually in the form of patches from the internet.

Don't get me wrong though, I don't dislike my PC. For a start, with WinUAE, it is far more Amiga than my real Amiga is, because I can have 1600x1200 RTG screenmodes and an 040 CPU that is insanely fast (faster than my 200Mhz PPC Amiga board), and best of all, I can remove all these "add ons" at the click of a button instead of having to rake out the old A500, or consider a second A1200 without any mods.
WinUAE emulates every game I ever had on my Amiga without batting an eyelid, and when I tire of them, I can quit it and play UT2004 or listen to mp3s of music I created in my home studio without having to move anything but my fingers and eyes.

Btw, I had a 3DO. I for one would have bought that M2 add-on for it in favour of a ps1 if it had ever materialized. Half of 3DO's problem was bs advertising I feel. I remember seeing screenshots of "3DO" games which looked nothing like what I'd seen on my 3DO. I remember seeing "Demos" of M2 hardware, which blows away stuff that I'm doing now on my Geforce FX 5950 AMD 3200 1024Mb PC. I was obviously unable to be disappointed, as M2 didn't materialize before I "needed" a playstation, and wasn't likely to anytime soon after. I DO however remember playing an M2 hardware arcade machine, and thinking "Doesn't look a whole lot better than my PlayStation"
I don't think 3DO's problems had anything to do with people not wanting an alternative to PC or cheapie consoles. Let's not forget the first titles on 3DO. They were horrendous. I almost sent mine back. If Road Rash hadn't come out, closely followed by Need for Speed, I would certainly have tried to get my money back.

Finally, the guy who wants to make a 486. Why? If you have one, fine. If not, don't waste your money. If you don't already have a PC, build one. Use DosEMU if you REALLY have to play the older games. I use DosEMU, because I was never able to run Dungeon Master 2 on my PC, because my hardware was too advanced. Now 9 years on from that, I can play it perfectly (and this is how all my rambling is relevant to this post, Dungeon Master 2 is slightly better scenery wise on the PC than it's Amiga counterpart, but most of the monsters on the Amiga version are better than PC).

I've bored you all haven't I? You all hate me now

[FastRobPlus]

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>>I use XP, because if I want to play games, I don't really have an alternative. Linux is getting more and more support, but this is still seldom available on a disc, and is usually in the form of patches from the internet.
--------------------------------------------

DirectX is the real power behind modern PC games.  I for one am glad that MS runs that show.  I don't fondly remember the open-ended days of MS-DOS/DR-DOS when the sound card/video card/gameport card manufacturers all compteted to make thier own gaming standard the dominant one.  I remember that VGA was becoming common begining around 1988, but game developers would not embrace it becuase they weren't sure if MCGA or VGA would win out. Many games were stuck with CGA and EGA for a few more years!

Now if only there was some kind of dedicated box that could run DirectX apps *without* the need for Windows XP, or any of the other non-gaming stuff they put in personal computers.  I dunno, some kind of DirectX Box.  An "X-Box" you might call it.

Oh... Never mind.

[DonnyEMU]

Okay just what exactly is bloat? and programs running in the background? Do you mean processes? If you are complaining about that kinda thing or "services" that run in the background, you obviously never used Linux or any Unix variants..

Sure processes and services do run in the background on *nix style systems they are called daemons there.. It's a normal part of modern operating systems and it dates back to mainframe days. The footprint of the modern OS has grown (even BeOS has this stuff going on)..

I don't think I'd want to use XP if it just was what could boot off a floppy.. It has a different approach and different design goals.

If you don't like windows you don't have to run it, same goes from BeOS, Linux, etc.. There are alternatives. The Amiga is a nice one, but if you add a webserver, virtual memory, messenger service, ftp, etc. to the AmigaOS it would get pretty big too..