whdload vs. WinUAE for classic Amiga Games

[Motormouth]

What is the most convenient setup for classical amiga gaming?

Whdload on a 030+ classic amiga with a large hard drive?

WinUAE with the games converted to adfs, separate configurations for an Amiga 500, and an Amiga 1200 specifically for games?

Or a stock Amiga 500 and amiga floppies?


One other question, does whdload work with WinUAE? Is this a relevant question given WinUAE's flexible configurations?

 :insane:

[coldfish]

Ive tried all the above options, and settled on WinUAE;
+because I use a PC every day, I might as well run emulation on that machine.  And it's nice to have a virtual Amiga on my laptop.
+its free (*and legal if you have real KS roms and Disks kicking around).
+compatability is very good and constantly improving.
+HD image compat', so yes Whdload/installers work
+convenience, different Amiga hardware configs at the click of a button.
+use a real Amiga HD with it.
+its free*!
+more power than any of my real Amigas and better specs, (I never owned a real Picasso gfx card).
+AIAB, a highend OS3.9 install virtual Amiga which puts my old 3.1 A1200 to shame.
+its free*!!!
-not "real".

Classic gaming with my A1200 '030;
+a few games ran faster and better than the old A500 eg Syndicate, Fronteer, Cannon Fodder ect.
+novelty of having a whole lot of older A500 stuff working on a newer more powerful -real- Amiga.
+an Amiga with a HD is awesome if all you've ever known was an A500 with floppies.
-upgrading the A1200 to '030 meant some older floppy games stopped working unless under Whdload.
-Whdload = still some compatability issues.
-installing with half-dead floppies sucks arse when the installer crashes on the last floppy of a 12-disk install.
-takes up space.
-using an A1200 feels horribly slow and clumsy at times.
-hardware is very costly for what it is.

An A500 with floppies;
+authentic!
-slow!
-while it's the "real" -real- thing, why torture yourself?  Most floppies have probably reached the end of their usable life, so there's always the chance of data loss/corruption.  -an A500 and floppies take up a lot of space.
-floppy drive reliability?
-ADF conversion to Amiga disks can be time consuming and awkward.

[Minuous]

I use WinUAE+OS3.9+WHDLoad, it's the ultimate :-)

You can have the games arranged in folders like any other Workbench apps, with nice icons, you still have your WB, exit back to Workbench instantly to choose another game or app, etc.

It is a shame though that there are still hundreds of games not supported by WHDLoad yet, you use WinUAE+KS1.3+ADFs for those...

[orange]

I'd go for WHDLoad,A1200, '030.  its real and good enough for most games. You can easily connect proper Amiga joystick and mouse for that 'authentic' feeling. (there are some USB joystick for winuae, don't know how good they are). Also most PC keyboard cant handle multiple simultaneous keypress.

forget about floppies on A500, they are just too slow,

OTOH the most important advantage of using WinUAE is that it runs on standard PC monitor. (but at the same time its a feature that spoils that 'retro  feeling' most of all)

[keropi]

IMHO: real A1200 + 030 + fastram + scandoubler + HD... nothing beats it...

[Speelgoedmannetje]

orange wrote:
Also most PC keyboard cant handle multiple simultaneous keypress.

Bollocks. I use pc keyboard for beat 'em ups BECAUSE I can use multiple buttons at the same time (physically beseen you're right, but in fact one can program around that and that makes the keyboards especially suitable for beat 'em ups). Something I can't do with ordinary joypads/sticks because I'm not that atheltic with my fingers.

[Roondar]

What I've noted most in the WinUAE vs Real Amiga comparisoms I did was that the Real Thing (TM) does scroll much smoother.

An Amiga connected to a Amiga monitor or TV scrolls in sync as it should. Somehow WinUAE never manages that*. I didn't actually think about this until quite recently when I noticed how incredibly smooth Shadow of the Beast ran on my A600.

*) That includes when I run NTSC software on a 60Hz screen with Vertical Sync and no lost frames according to WinUAE.

Then I started testing (with a variety of WinUAE settings and yes, on a fast PC with a good GFX card) and found that pretty much all of the smooth scrolling games out there perform better on a real Amiga in that department.

The other thing is that a real digital joystick outperforms a PC joypad/joystick every time for use with an Amiga game. (Mice are a different story offcourse)

Lastly, using a small(ish) TV ironically gives you a 'better' picture than using a high end monitor. (This is offcourse due to the low resolution of the Amiga display which will end up looking more blocky on a monitor than on a small TV)

So, concluding:

Yes, WinUAE is surely faster and more convenient than using a real Amiga (with or without HD).

No, WinUAE does not give the same smoothness for scrolling and missing digital joysticks sucks. Not too mention it always looks more blocky than on a TV  ;-)

(And somehow, even on my PIV 3.2Ghz there are still Amiga programs -mostly those that really bang the hardware- that struggle to reach A500 speeds in WinUAE)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Roondar wrote:
What I've noted most in the WinUAE vs Real Amiga comparisoms I did was that the Real Thing (TM) does scroll much smoother.

An Amiga connected to a Amiga monitor or TV scrolls in sync as it should. Somehow WinUAE never manages that*. I didn't actually think about this until quite recently when I noticed how incredibly smooth Shadow of the Beast ran on my A600.

*) That includes when I run NTSC software on a 60Hz screen with Vertical Sync and no lost frames according to WinUAE.

Then I started testing (with a variety of WinUAE settings and yes, on a fast PC with a good GFX card) and found that pretty much all of the smooth scrolling games out there perform better on a real Amiga in that department.

The other thing is that a real digital joystick outperforms a PC joypad/joystick every time for use with an Amiga game. (Mice are a different story offcourse)

Lastly, using a small(ish) TV ironically gives you a 'better' picture than using a high end monitor. (This is offcourse due to the low resolution of the Amiga display which will end up looking more blocky on a monitor than on a small TV)

So, concluding:

Yes, WinUAE is surely faster and more convenient than using a real Amiga (with or without HD).

No, WinUAE does not give the same smoothness for scrolling and missing digital joysticks sucks. Not too mention it always looks more blocky than on a TV  ;-)

(And somehow, even on my PIV 3.2Ghz there are still Amiga programs -mostly those that really bang the hardware- that struggle to reach A500 speeds in WinUAE)

Also, I think the colours are much more crisp than on a PC.

[MrZammler]

I'll take a real miggy over uae, anytime...

[rare_j]

Two reasons why you might choose WinUAE or WinUAEX over the real thing:

1) Confugurable controls. You can set your joypad up so you've got 1 button as turbofire, one button as regular fire, and one button as button2. You can even have a button to jump if you like. Try that on a real Amiga.

2) Savestates. Fancy finishing TurricanII in one sitting?

[Roondar]

rare_j wrote:
Two reasons why you might choose WinUAE or WinUAEX over the real thing:

1) Confugurable controls. You can set your joypad up so you've got 1 button as turbofire, one button as regular fire, and one button as button2. You can even have a button to jump if you like. Try that on a real Amiga.

2) Savestates. Fancy finishing TurricanII in one sitting?

Back in the day there where plenty of joysticks that had configurable autofire and multiple buttons. I'll agree that finding one that lets you map 'up' to a seperate button will be tough, but then again the digital joystick is inherently a better fit for most Amiga games then a joypad or analog joystick will be.

The savestates thing is more interesting. For action games it can be handy (but there is a caveat*) but RPGs/Puzzles/etc usually had savegame support.

*) Most arcade games have a runtime of about 20-30 minutes, tops if played 'properly'. With savestates you cannot lose so you'll reach the end of your games much sooner. Takes away some of the challenge  ;-)

Not too mention that Turrican II is not exactly a game that takes hours to finish  :lol:

[rare_j]

Roondar wrote:
Back in the day there where plenty of joysticks that had configurable autofire and multiple buttons.

The problem is finding one of these magic sticks these days  for my real miggy :-(
Any recommendations?

[Motormouth]

Wow you have all been very helpful.

I am going to try using whdload on WinUAE. ;-)

I have attempted using the demo version of whdload on my A3000 with A3640 and 16 meg fast ram, and a voodoo 3/prometheus.  I find this set up to work with mixed results.  I assume this is due to the 68040 emulating some of the commands of earlier generations of 680x0.

Every game I have attempted using on WinUAE version 1.2 (not a very exhaustive list so far) has worked with stock a500 with KS 1.3 and 1 meg chip ram and 2 meg fast ram configuration.

I don't have any aga games so have not tried a1200 configurations (in my opinion the golden age of amigas was over in north america before aga computers came out, this of course is not so true in europe and is a discussion for another thread)

By the way what is WinUAEX?

[countzero]

Motormouth wrote:

By the way what is WinUAEX?

WinUAE for X-Box

[coldfish]

Roondar wrote:

So, concluding:

Yes, WinUAE is surely faster and more convenient than using a real Amiga (with or without HD).

No, WinUAE does not give the same smoothness for scrolling and missing digital joysticks sucks. Not too mention it always looks more blocky than on a TV  ;-)

(And somehow, even on my PIV 3.2Ghz there are still Amiga programs -mostly those that really bang the hardware- that struggle to reach A500 speeds in WinUAE)

Ahh, godblessya, I think the scrolling problems have more to do with the faster (lower persistence) PC display device than emulation, I run WinUAE through a HTPC & SDTV setup, it's just like the old days.

I use a Sidewinder digital pad which is just as good if not better than the old Sega-MS pad I used with my A1200.

The HTPC is a Duron @1Ghz, it does a fine job of emulating an A500, I think you should check your settings/configs if your having speed issues with a P4 @ 3.2Ghz?  Or prhaps try an older, faster, (less accurate) version, Im running 0.8.8r8 and 0.9.91.0.