Recomend some games for SAM460?

[eliyahu]

Hi everyone, this morning I went onto the amigakit website and have bought myself a SAM460 basic system!

I am a huge gaming fan and would like to know which games you recommend (please don't say os4 depot or something like that)

I am aware of BOH, word me up xxl, Alinearis 2, super workbench games, crossfire 2

Also which old amiga games do you know that work with the SAM eg heretic 2, wipeout 2097...

there are tons of games out there that will run happily on your SAM460. i have a few on my SAM440 that i play on occasion and enjoy. among them are:

alephone (engine for marathon series of FPS games)
amichess
aquaria
armagetron advanced
asteriodsTR
blackbox
BOH
bubbelsche deluxe
cube
descent
doom 2 (via prboomGL engine)
enigma (clone of the oxyd series of games)
freespace
frotz
giana's return
giddy
heretic
hexen 2
lincity NG
neverball/neverputt
project SMC
quake
quake 2
simutrans
soliton
sqrxz
sqrxz 2
supertux
the lord of the rings
battle of wesnoth
zaz
zelda OLB

i also use classic games via @ChrisH's excellent RunInUAE, such as turrican (1, 2, and 3), lotus turbo challenge, rick dangerous, etc.

a few of the games listed above are commercial, but i would say some of the best are BOH, freespace, quake 2, battle of wesnoth, and especially aquaria. much of the 'native' OS4 games tend to be ports from other platforms thanks to the availability of SDL -- as pointed out by @jorkany. but then again they play just as well on our amiga NG machines as our PCs, so why not?

let us know when you get your SAM, and if you need any help, just ask!

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

Well, the deal is done! I pulled the trigger on a new SAM460EX COMPLETE SYSTEM too!
And, I GOT THE LAST ONE! With all the upgrades and goodies!

I also got the FastATA 1200 MK-IV IDE Interface for my A1200 and the Competition Pro Joystick for the Sam.

CAN"T WAIT!!!!
 
I'm glad for this post too - time to go get some software and games for the SAM!

congrats on your purchase! :cool:

i hope you enjoy it as much as i have my own little SAM440.  be sure to let us know your thoughts, both good and bad, when you get it and start playing around.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

Emulation for OS4 looks like a winner too! Maybe I can retire a couple of old Miggys! Also, didn't I see someone load Windows under emulation on an OS4 machine? I'd love to be able to play all my old DOS/WIN VGA games on it too! (no flame please!) :roflmao:

it depends on how old your game titles are. folks have used DOSbox successfully to install older versions of windows, like windows 95 or windows 98, but on our SAMs it is mostly useful for older DOS games from the 1980s and 1990s. i use it on my SAM440, and it works well for all of the old text and platform games from 'the old days.' you might ask on AWN or amigans.net for feedback since there are (far) more OS4 users on those boards.
 

@eliyahu.... how hard was it to setup emulation on yours? Is it very finicky?

not at all. in fact all i needed was my amiga forever CD for the ROMs (although you don't need that since they are available elsewhere) and the installer for RunInUAE, which sets up everything for you. afterwards i simply double-click on an ADF file or any WHDload game, and away it goes.  of course if you want to run UAE manually, you can, and there are nice GUIs available for all of the configuration options, but i find RunInUAE is easier to work with.

of course if you're talking about stuff other than games, you don't need UAE at all since most classic software that you used to use in conjunction with workbench works 'out of the box' without setting anything up at all -- and tends to be much, much faster than anything using UAE since the version of UAE for the NG systems (like OS4 and MOS) doesn't have a JIT compiler in the runtime.

if you run into any issues, just open a thread on the fora. we SAM owners tend to be a nice bunch of folks and always want to help out a new user.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

Why are people recommending 3D games like Quake 3 or PrBoomGL for a Sam460?  They won't run unless a Radeon 9250 is installed, and as far as I am aware no Sam460s ship with that graphics card (yeah, I know it's kinda daft, if only the PCI slot wasn't taken up by a SATA card).

Side note:  "Software 3D" games like Quake 1, Payback or Freespace should work.   But anything using Warp3D or MiniGL won't, at least until AmigaOS4.2.

that's an excellent point, chris.  neither the onboard video -- the SM502 -- nor any of the radeon HD cards currently have working 3D drivers at this time. if one wants to use anything that requires miniGL, one might want to use an older, PCI-based graphics card like the radeon 9250 in the interim.

thanks for reminding the thread of this. i had forgotten (well, since i don't have the newer 460).

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

how effective do you think the graphics card will be without 3d driver support? I hope a download for it will be available.
At the moment it seems like I could have saved money with an older one and been able to use more software with it!

well, 'it depends.'

the 2D performance of the PCIe-based radeon HD cards is terrific on the SAM460, far and away the most performant 2D graphics of any OS4 system to date. so if you're not terribly interested in 3D FPS-style games, go with this option. otherwise you can use a radeon 9250 in the PCI slot. it's not nearly as quick as the PCIe cards, but it does have 3D support, so quake3 and the like can be played.

3D drivers for the radeon HD cards are 'coming soon' and should be discussed in greater detail at amiwest three weeks from now. but both the radeon HD cards and the older 9250 are so cheap, if you want, you could always buy 'em both.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

P.s.as the conversation has turned a bit towards hardware can anyone tell me if I can use a ps/2 keyboard with the SAM460 as opposed to a USB one?

AFAIK, not without third-party hardware, no.

-- eliyahu