Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Gaming => Topic started by: sdyates on September 11, 2006, 08:30:18 PM
-
I understand what AGA is and how it is better than ECS.
There, that being said, are there enough AGA games and are they good enough to justify getting an A1200?
Plus, most of the a1200s I find are PAL based. Does anyone know a good place to get them in NTSC. Paying in C$ or US$ is much better than Euros and pounds ;)
-
If you just want upgrade for AGA games I think it's not really worth the trouble...
Especially since you have a 2000 and 3000!
-
I suppose the question really is, "are there any AGA games you want to play, which do not have acceptable ECS equivalents?". And if there are, do you want to play them badly enough to buy an A1200 on which to play them?
--
moto
-
That's just it, never seen any AGA games.
Is it just the colour depth that is better in these games, or are they played in a higher resolution?
I guess what I am looking for here is testimonials.
-
I've not come across an AGA game that ran at a higher resolution than its ECS counterpart. Remember that most of the games were written to be playable on the domestic TV-set.
However... if you can get an A1200 for a box of beer or a nice bouquet of flowers (or just at a tempting price) there's nothing to loose. Afterall there's loads of ways you can still run the old games on it and it gives access to nice upgrades.
For me, Pinball Illusions was a reason to start bidding on an A4000T a few years ago (actually, that's 6 years ago)... which I won. :-)
-
sydates,
of course you must get an A1200 or A4000
some idiots here says no cause Im sure they haven't one but
OCS and ECS games run at 300x200 NTSC or 320x256 PAL and 16 or 32 colours..depends of the authors of the game
AGA games mostly run at identical resolution but at 256 colours and of course the chipset have more chip memory for special effects like coloured scrolls and paralax
some AGA games are exclusives like Aladdin or Lion king or Road kill,Alien breed 3d,and many others (doesn't exists an ECS version)
and some AGA games have the clone for ECS chipset..which of course ECS version have less colours and effects like Trolls,Soccer kid,Zool 1 & 2,Fire and ice,Bubble and Squeak
and for the PAL and NTSC problem that you think...don't worry cause all A1200 are multinorm PAL/NTSC automatic
however some A1200 boot by default on NTSC and others by default on PAL
and of course all games are compatibles
bye, Laser
-
Yep, I reckon its worth getting an A1200 (at the right price). Its so easy to expand if you want to add things to it, and it probably already does what you want. IDE, PCMCIA, clockport interfaces mean you can make what you want. :-D
-
Sigh... allow this "idiot" to explain. As my sig states I have an A4000, which is, my DEAR Laser, an AGA machine.
It's just my OPINION that getting a 1200 solely for playing a very few games that require AGA is a bit silly. There are really very few games that run on a vanilla 1200 that don't run on 500. Most AGA games even have OCS/ECS versions that are almost the same except for graphics with fewer colours.
And Laser, you really need to learn some manners. Is this the way you talk to family and friends too?
"Hey idiot! Pass me drink!!"
-
@sdyates
A few AGA only games that spring to mind are Bloodnet, RoadKill, Banshee, James Pond 3, Guardian and Slamtitlt pinball. Also most the FPS games that appeared were AGA only. I'm sure you can find quite a few more if you look.
Most AGA versions simply featured more colours than their ECS counterparts. Some of the pinball games featured a high res view so you could see more of the table and super Skidmarks also had a high res mode.
As for wether it's worth getting an A1200, then that depends on how cheap you can get one. Also if your OCS/ECS amiga doesn't have a hardrive it is a lot easier to add one to an A1200.
If you add a hardrive you can use WHDload and JST to install and run your games from hard drive. You can probably find installers for all of your existing games and most legal download sites have HD installed availble along side ADF versions.
Also with an hard drive you can easily write the legal ADF games back to floppy too.
If you like the idea of running games from hard drive you will need some extra fastram too.
-
Super Stardust & Kid Chaos!
Must Buy!
-
@sdyates
I can let you answer your own question:
What is your favorite Video Game in the whole world? (no matter the system)
ok now.......imagine that game was only on the Amiga 1200............would you pay $185 for a plain NTSC A1200?
Ok now.......I got one word for you: SLAM TILT....Nuff Said!
.............ok all joking aside........seriosly...Slam Tilt Pinball is a darn fine game and really worth getting an A1200 alone for.....especially if you turn it into an arcade machine or simply play with friends........that increases the fun 10 fold!
oh boy.......wait till you try SUPER StarDust...if you thought StarDust for ECS looked good..try this!
Now that also said............really...no kidding..an A1200 comes with 2mb Chip and a 68020..........so immediately after pulling it out of the box.........you will have utter enjoyment in the Speed of the OS and other applications compared to a 7mhz machine...especially if your machine is an A500 or A2000.
ontop of that....the A1200 is at the top of Amiga's to own if you could only have one Amiga.
also ECS compatibility is absolutely close to no problem at all. Just get WHDload and you got yourself an ECS and AGA Amiga all in one.
there probably like 3 games in existence that you cant run on an A1200.....that said....you can probably get the game to run with Degrader or some other tool.
Also....very Important: DO NOT get a PAL Amiga if your in USA. unless you love Black and White alot.
Some people dont understand that you probably wont be getting a gfx card or will be using a VGA monitor, which means you will be using a TV or RGB monitor..........and trust me.......there is hardly any monitors in USA made by Commodore that Run PAL correctly (I have had almost all of them).....yes they will display it in color..but you will still see some lines cut off..........unless you get a Philips TV or a Magnavox RGB monitor that was made for Amiga. Its possible one model of the Commodore Monitors can do this too..and thats because it was made by Philips.
You will be running alot of games in PAL unfortunately....because some absolutely require PAL or will not work such as:
Most Team17 Games
All ClickBOOM games
SlamTilt
Pinball Illusions
......... those alone are enought to tick me off.
ECS machines are still awesome........but you will never ever go back to them if you try AGA.....not even to the Sadly overhyped A3000.
-
It's just my OPINION that getting a 1200 solely for playing a very few games that require AGA is a bit silly.
Well, the real question is wether he already has an OCS/ECS amiga. If not, then i dont see the point in getting a older one as a standard a1200 is usually not much more expensive than a a500. You can also play most old ocs/ecs games in the a1200 with the usage of whdload and at the same time you can also play the newer aga games.
-
Leirbag28: ClickBOOM's Quake and Napalm both have screenmode requestors and are retargettable!
Hey those rotating 3D tunnels in Super Stardust will still amaze - they even scroll horizontally if I remember correct!
What I'm curious about though is Workbench compatibility. I always thought Workbench 3.0 and above needed AGA for things like Mode Promotion and No Flicker?
-
@Hyperspeed: IIRC 'No Flicker' screenmodes require AGA, for sure,
Can't remember about Mode Promotion...seem to recall an
option for it under WB3.1
-Edit- Just ckecked my OS3.1 Workbench book....
Both Mode Promotion and NoFlicker modes require AGA
As for getting a 1200 just for games...I probably couldn't justify
it, though there are many good games for AGA, as mentioned.
If you can add a CD-Rom, then it gets better, IMHO. I installed
James Pond 3 from my CD using WHDLoad...very cool
A1200's are nice, with 'Degraders' you can run far more games
than on an ECS machine....
If you start getting into other areas, graphics, demos, etc. you
will really value AGA...
I don't actually own any ECS machines anymore....
2x1200, 1x1200T/060, 1xA4000/040, 1xCD32...
-
Although you mentioned AGA for games, if you look beyond the games and like the demo scene than you should definitely get it!
-
Flashlab wrote:
"Hey idiot! Pass me drink!!"
:)
I can totally see where Flaslab is coming from, although I think its worth bearing in mind the following:
Given the existence of WHDLoad, IMHO about the most compatible Amiga you can get for games is a 1200, with a hard drive, and an 030 ideally with access to a CD.
Also AGA versions are generally the preferred version of a game - but not always!
There are some very good AGA only games, the ones that come to mind are:
Alien Breed 3D
Aladdin
Banshee
Guardian
James Pond 3
Subwar 2050
Star Crusader
T-Zero
TFX
Xtreme Racing
and IMHO you would not want to go near the ECS version of UFO and Wing Commander which are both close to profound on AGA/CD32. :)
-
Hi,
get an A1200 and an A1000 for old non natively compatible OCS games and demos ;-).
The A1200 got a nice PCMCIA port quite good to transfert back ADF to floppy :-D
-
If you just want to play Amiga-games and already have an A500, you're not missing a lot by not having an A1200.
-
@Hyperspeed
ClickBOOM's Quake and Napalm both have screenmode requestors and are retargettable!
As far as I recall it, Napalm will behave rather bad if you run it in NTSC as far as I can remember. Why? Because the game is designed for PAL, 640*512 (and 320*256). I might be wrong here, since it was a couple of months ago I started it the last time, but as far as I can remember anything related to NTSC will do this game bad. Can't promise it, as of now, though. Have to check it out first.
@Laser
however some A1200 boot by default on NTSC and others by default on PAL, and of course all games are compatibles
I'd say that 90% or more of the games designed for the Amiga was designed with PAL in mind. And, I can ensure you that running games designed for PAL under NTSC isn't really always such a pleasant experience.
Many games might look like they have been designed for NTSC since quite often only the top 200 pixels have been used for displaying the graphics, but this can be due to many others reasons than the game being NTSC compatible (they might have wanted to have less graphics on screen at once to increase performance, they might have ported the game from an NTSC machine and not bothered about adapting the graphics to make full use of the PAL screen, it might just look like NTSC but when running under NTSC some parts of the screen will be cropped and so on and so on).
I have been playing around quite much with running PAL Amiga games in NTSC 60Hz... and, the result have been nothing but disappointing. Graphical glitches, modules being played sounding really bad due to running too fast and/or having samples that will be cut since the music has been designed for being played in 50Hz, some title screens / loading screens being in pure PAL while the playing field being in NTSC which makes for a 'cut' experience. Every now and then things works rather excellent, but more often than not it doesn't. So, to say "and of course all games are compatibles" is just plain wrong.
But, yes, there are quite some US releases to be found out there... but, looking at the entire software library for the Amiga, they are clearly not in majority.
@leirbag28
.............ok all joking aside........seriosly...Slam Tilt Pinball is a darn fine game and really worth getting an A1200 alone for.....especially if you turn it into an arcade machine or simply play with friends........that increases the fun 10 fold!
I tend to agree. Slam Tilt Pinball is, according to me, the absolutely best 2D Pinball Game ever created for any system... and, if you are serious about playing the game and can't stand the DOS port, well, then you have got no other choice than getting hold of an PAL AGA Amiga.
Other AGA games that I really would not like to be without:
* Aladdin AGA (although it doesn't have perfect scroll)
* All New World Of Lemmings AGA
Brian The Lion AGA
Civilization AGA
James Pond AGA / CD32
* Gunbee F-99 AGA
Ishar: Legend Of The Fortress
Ishar 2: Messengers Of Doom
Ishar 3: The Seven Gates Of Infinity AGA
Simon The Sorcerer AGA / CD32
* Super Stardust AGA / CD32
UFO: Enemy Unknown AGA
* XTreme Racing AGA
* = Only for AGA machines
All in all, no, there's not really that many AGA titles that really makes me go hysterical... but, I would never like to be without AGA since what most AGA titles, that also exists in OCS/ECS form, has to offer is somewhat prettier graphics... and also because of the AGA exclusives.
And, of course, I could never do withouth being able to run Brilliance 2 in 256 colours. Ever.
:lol:
-
I read in an other post that sdyates has a 3000 and his signature says he also has an upgraded 2000. You can make perfect WHDLoad machines from those.
He will has to miss on some great AGA titles (and demos but that's not really my thing) mentioned here, but are these enough to justify getting a 1200? Bear in mind that to comfortably use WHDLoad he would also need an accelerator in the 1200 too...
-
@Flashlab
Well, if he finds it justified or not is for him to decide. Personally, I would never part with AGA and the least I can do is to try and explain why.
:-)
The fact that the A1200 he is looking for should be a NTSC one complicates things somewhat, and makes the whole affair quite a more expensive one than if being able to settle with a PAL A1200 (my latest A1200 + Blizzard 1230 MKIV + 16MB RAM + 30GB 2.5" IDE HD + 3C589D PCMCIA, which I assembled a couple of months ago, was not really more than €150 in the end, and while I can consider myself somewhat lucky, it didn't take me more than 3 days of active searching to find what I was looking for).
So, in the end I would say that it all comes down to what kind of deal he can find and what he wants to do with the machine in itself.
-
Total Chaos AGA is the worlds best strategy game,
and it needs an expanded AGA amiga.
There is your reason.
-
I appreciate allt he comments. You guys have given me a lot to think about. I think its just a matter of time before I get an A1200.
I actually have a magnavox, but its ready for the junk heap :( served me well it did.
I guess the only other consideration is the power conversion. If both are switchable, I should focus on the NTSC version --> multisyncs over here for some reason have never heard of PAL. For me, I'd rather run PAL as it has more lines :)
I will keep my eyes open for an a1200 -- but if any one feels generous and wants to let one go for a real sweet price, I am willing to upgrade ;)
Oh, and the A3000 is a great machine with the ECS the only downfall. The speed is good. It's great as a work station. I am contemplating a prometheus board as per Amigakit.
Thanks again all.
-
If he has a RGB monitor, he should get a PAL 50 Hz A1200 and do the 60 Hz resistor trick (on aminet) :-) then he will have a PAL+RGB 60 Hz machine :rtfm:
-
but what about the 120 power connector we use in north america -- don't I need a different power adapter as well to use a PAL version?
CLS2086 wrote:
If he has a RGB monitor, he should get a PAL 50 Hz A1200 and do the 60 Hz resistor trick (on aminet) :-) then he will have a PAL+RGB 60 Hz machine :rtfm:
-
Hi,
I dont know a lot about the power suplies that you use in the US, but I think that several of my PSU have a marking that says "50/60 Hz... 125~230 Volts"
...so they work anywhere on the world.
Anyone on the US can verify this ?
The connector to the mains outlet itself should not be a problem, you only need to buy one for the US on a hardware store (maybe 1 or 2 US $?) and screwdriver & scissors...
[Hope that helps, and please correct me if I'm wrong.]
Regards.
-
You might wish to obtain a marrow-bone so that you can re-enact the early days of human discovery ...
IMO as someone who has had about 8 NEW 1200s in the past and has remaining now only A500 & CD32, there were in fact absolutely no reasons to buy A1200 FOR GAMING as all of the good-bad-great games were Amiga A500 (even pre A500+) programmes.
Fortunately I still have many boxes filled with air/my original Amiga game discs/my original Mag demo versions, BUT for about £29 the best Amiga (sadly) is the Cloanto Amiga Forever collection of CD-DVDs which will play etc on most post Win95 PC versions.
ALL of my HD Amigas crashed, whereas NONE of my 4 PCs since 1996 has ever crashed - facts is facts - PCs are reality/cheap, although I was/am in love with theory/too many that I have owned Amigas.
IMO all of the current PC etc games are rubbish, and I feel that best value/best games are via Cloanto Amiga emulator ...
-
Ditto for Amiga Forever!!!
-
if you are used to an a3000 with a vga monitor you will be dissapointed with an a1200 with anything but a large tv, or a scandoubler. there is a reason paople are always looking for them here.
i had a full a1200 setup with an nec3d monitor and i sold it to get my 3000. now i have a video card too and there is no looking back (ok there is some looking back, it was an amiga after all)
of course if i had my way (the old lady isnt reading this) i would have kept the 1200 and gotten a 600, 500, 4000 and maybe even a 100 and 2000 as well :-D
-
Anyone recommending an emulator over a real Amiga is gonna get electrodes attached to their nipples and 10,000 volts!
:griping:
Hey, the A3000's scandoubler/flicker-fixer... is it 8/8/8 on all guns? My EZ-VGA on the A1200 only gives me 16-Bit colour as opposed to 18-Bit AGA capability.
True, a big box Amiga - particularly with a GFX card is going to be nicer than a stock AGA system. Why not have both I say!
:-D
-
it is ecs chipset so 12 bit 4/4/4
-
I am actually in the middle of turning my A3000 in to a power machine. I just picked up a cybervision 64 and now just need an accelerator: My A3000 will just be for professional stuff.
There are lot of good points and I think I should get one just for nostalgia and then pick up a few games, but first I must get an 060 card.
My A500 is perfect for games right now ;)
Flashlab wrote:
I read in an other post that sdyates has a 3000 and his signature says he also has an upgraded 2000. You can make perfect WHDLoad machines from those.
He will has to miss on some great AGA titles (and demos but that's not really my thing) mentioned here, but are these enough to justify getting a 1200? Bear in mind that to comfortably use WHDLoad he would also need an accelerator in the 1200 too...
-
YES Get a A1200!! I recently got one for $20. AGA games rock the boat.