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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: CoreAmigaFan on August 27, 2010, 09:20:51 PM
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Hi all,
Do games from the amiga 500, the amiga 1200 all work on an amiga 2000-4000?
Back in the early days I've never owned one of these higher models. Just went up to the amiga 1200 and stopped there. So now I'd like to know what is the wiser decision. Buy a 1200 or buy a 4000 with bigger hard drive, ram, speed and such.
Cheers :)
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Welcome here,
A500 - A2000 = almost identical (if the ROM is the same and if A2000 without any expansion & cpu card): if the game has been correctly programmed, then yes it should work correctly.
A1200 - A4000 = AGA system...I don't know if the games are worked on both...but I have not seen video games specific to the Amiga 4000!!!
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As VingtTrois said, the main difference in Amiga games is the chipset they require. Most games are designed for OCS systems, while others are either enhanced for AGA or written specifically and only for AGA Amigas. You will sometimes see mention of ECS, but this was only a slight enhancement over OCS which adds more screenmodes to Workbench but wasn't ever used by games.
OCS (Original Chip-Set) Amigas include:
A1000
A2000
A500
A1500
A2500
CDTV
ECS (Enhanced Chip-Set) Amigas include:
A500+
A3000
A600
A3000T
AGA (Advanced Graphics Architecture) Amigas include:
A1200
A4000
CD32
A4000T
Sometimes games will also require a specific Kickstart ROM, CPU, or a certain amount of RAM to run. Thankfully all Amigas can be upgraded to Kickstart 3.1, the latest ROM revision, and can also make use of ROM-switcher hardware so they can keep their original Kickstart (for compatibility or nostalgia) as well as use the best. A1000s don't have a Kickstart ROM, and need to read the Kickstart from a floppy disk unless they have been hacked/modified. You can also get accelerator cards which offer faster CPUs and more RAM for all Amigas (although some of these are as rare as hens' teeth!).
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As VingtTrois says, the A500, A500+, A600 and A2000 are all 68000 machines in standard form and are for most of the time almost 100% compatible.
A slight exception is the A500+ and the A600 which both have Kickstart 2.0 as standard and about 85% of games are compatible. But it can take 2 roms (using a switcher) or use Relokick and becomes 100% compatible.
The A3000 is 68030 and kickstart 2.0, so it may not be as compatible as the other models.
The A1200 and A4000 are AGA as VingtTrois said and Kickstart 3.X, so they are even less compatible than the older Amiga's. The A4000 for some reason is even less compatible for games than the A1200. Again Relokick helps in both these machines.
If you want a "big box" Amiga like the A4000, you can always install WHDLoad which installs almost any Amiga games to your HD and patches them for compatibility with newer faster Amiga's.
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As VingTrois said, "Welcome here."
1200 can do most of what you need, I'd suggest getting it WHDLoad capable. The cheapest '030 card with RAM is good enough, and you could even get away with less. 4000s are a pain, too many of them have leaked batteries, but one would work about as well as the other.
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The A4000 and 1200 will play almost all the games. 1200 and 4000 use th AGA chipset, but some of the older games such as shadow of the beast will only play on an a500, 2000 or 2500 because they require the OCS (original chipset) and AGA will start the game but it will freeze shortly after start up. A few games I know will not work on and AGA(A4000 or 1200) or ECS (A3000) is Shadow of the beast and Defender of the crown. If you have an A500 and A4000 to say you will be pretty much covered. Also to note Amiga CD32 games will work on an Amiga computer, but requires the AGA chipset.
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for game playing other than some of the msot hardcore FPSs, a 1200 with an 030 card and a bit of extra ram is all you need.
For a big box machine, get a 3000 or 4000.
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Cammy
You made a mistake there. Amiga 2000s can have ECS chipset as well. Most of the Amiga 2000HD had 2.x roms and ECS afaik
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The A4000 and 1200 will play almost all the games. 1200 and 4000 use th AGA chipset, but some of the older games such as shadow of the beast will only play on an a500, 2000 or 2500 because they require the OCS (original chipset) and AGA will start the game but it will freeze shortly after start up. A few games I know will not work on and AGA(A4000 or 1200) or ECS (A3000) is Shadow of the beast and Defender of the crown. If you have an A500 and A4000 to say you will be pretty much covered. Also to note Amiga CD32 games will work on an Amiga computer, but requires the AGA chipset.
All these games and practically any game WILL WORK on the A4000/A1200 if you have WHDLoad installed. An A1200 is pretty cheap to buy and all you really need is a cheap 2.5" laptop hard drive and maybe a 68030 accelerator.
You don't need an A4000 unless you want to use RTG graphics etc..
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Back in the day, I always wanted an A4000, because i wanted to run "serious software" which really needed a graphics card but couldn't afford it for a long time. So I spent a lot of money and time souping up an A1200, and pushing the A1200 to its limits with accelerators, more ram, CD rom, big hard drives, and a ton of software patches to eek every last bit of performance from it. Nowdays, the type of software that needs an RTG amiga is cheaper, better and faster on a PC, so I only run native chipset software on Amiga, stuff like DPaint, Brilliance.Scala, Amigavision and the odd game. And to do that an A1200 with as little as just a 4meg ram expansion will do.
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All these games and practically any game WILL WORK on the A4000/A1200 if you have WHDLoad installed. An A1200 is pretty cheap to buy and all you really need is a cheap 2.5" laptop hard drive and maybe a 68030 accelerator.
You don't need an A4000 unless you want to use RTG graphics etc..
IMO Whdload is indespensible in any Amiga set up. I registered it and i think its brilliant, especially when coupled with an A1200, compact flash card and at least 4 meg ram. A perfect amiga "console" if there ever was one!
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Cammy
You made a mistake there. Amiga 2000s can have ECS chipset as well. Most of the Amiga 2000HD had 2.x roms and ECS afaik
Yep. My first A2000 (B2000) was OCS and when it died I replaced it with an ECS A1500 (peel off the sticker to make it an A2000).
My current A2000 is an ECS model.
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IMO Whdload is indespensible in any Amiga set up. I registered it and i think its brilliant, especially when coupled with an A1200, compact flash card and at least 4 meg ram. A perfect amiga "console" if there ever was one!
Agreed. Registered my copy as well, it's great to support software that has been around for this long and is still supported!
I would like to add to your setup an IndivisionAGA or comparable solution. That way you can use your TFT / monitor setup at home and skip the added desk-filler.
My setup is a A4000D - one because I was never able to afford one "back in the days"... two because I like to play with it with things like DENEB (USB card) and RTG.
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Just do what lots of us have done... get one of each. :-)
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Hi Guys,
Thanks for all the information you've given me!
Only two games that don't seem to work on the A4000. That ain't too big of a deal.
But as Dougal stated :
The A1200 and A4000 are AGA as VingtTrois said and Kickstart 3.X, so they are even less compatible than the older Amiga's. The A4000 for some reason is even less compatible for games than the A1200. Again Relokick helps in both these machines.
If you want a "big box" Amiga like the A4000, you can always install WHDLoad which installs almost any Amiga games to your HD and patches them for compatibility with newer faster Amiga's.
That contradicts what amigakid stated.
Me confused now.
I did gather that using WDload solves most of these issues.
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Cammy
You made a mistake there. Amiga 2000s can have ECS chipset as well. Most of the Amiga 2000HD had 2.x roms and ECS afaik
I made no mistake. The Amiga 2000 came out in 1986, and so was delivered with OCS until 1991 when the final revision was released with ECS and Kickstart 2.0. Since MOST A2000s were released between 1986 and 1991, not IN 1991, I was not incorrect in stating the A2000 was an OCS machine. I am aware I omitted it from the ECS list, simply to avoid redundancy and because the differences between OCS and ECS are of no consequence to games therefore hardly relevant to this topic.
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Hi Guys,
Thanks for all the information you've given me!
Only two games that don't seem to work on the A4000. That ain't too big of a deal.
But as Dougal stated :
The A1200 and A4000 are AGA as VingtTrois said and Kickstart 3.X, so they are even less compatible than the older Amiga's. The A4000 for some reason is even less compatible for games than the A1200. Again Relokick helps in both these machines.
If you want a "big box" Amiga like the A4000, you can always install WHDLoad which installs almost any Amiga games to your HD and patches them for compatibility with newer faster Amiga's.
That contradicts what amigakid stated.
Me confused now.
I did gather that using WDload solves most of these issues.
All i can say is that i have never encountered any problems with games not being compatible once i have installed them using WHDLoad on my A4000T. The only thing i can recall not running was the Jesus on E's demo on it. Same with the A1200 (Though Jesus on E's worked fine on that).
I have loads of old 1987-1995 games installed and they all run with no problems using WHDLoad. You will want to register WHDLoad or else besides the nag you will encounter some games that dont run on an unregistered version of it.
Having said that, loading games from floppy (like you would on a stock A500) is a totally different story with the A4000 having quite a lot of compatibility problems, even more than an A1200. But WHDload solves all that.
Another thing to note is that WHDLoad may have some problems when being used on a non accelerated A500/A600/A2000/A1000 as quite a few installs require a 68020 processor and/or 2MB chip ram.
So i can conclude that if you intend to use an Amiga just for running games from floppy disk and not HD then an A500 is your best option followed by the A600 and A1200 in that order.
If you want to use WHDLoad for installing games and running them of HD then you want minimum an A1200 with a hard drive. An accelerator and some extra ram will be nice. Or you can opt for an A4000. Both have AGA which means modern games will run.
Another option for WHDLoad would be an accelerated A500/+ or A600, but accelerators for those machines are pretty rare and expensive especially for the A600 and you still won't have AGA which means no compatibility for newer AGA games. Same goes for the A3000 which is powerful enough but no AGA.
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@CoreAmigaFan (http://www.amiga.org/forums/member.php?u=8086)
My advice is to get an A1200 or A4000. But whichever you get, get 32MB or 64MB or 128MB ram for it.
I personally own an A3000 and an A1200 and I gave away my A4000. My A1200+FlickerFixer is waaaay better than my A3000.
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@CoreAmigaFan (http://www.amiga.org/forums/member.php?u=8086)
My advice is to get an A1200 or A4000. But whichever you get, get 32MB or 64MB or 128MB ram for it.
I personally own an A3000 and an A1200 and I gave away my A4000. My A1200+FlickerFixer is waaaay better than my A3000.
Agreed! An A1200 (Cheap) + HD or IDE2CF (Cheap) + Extra Ram and/or Accelerator (Reasonable price) = An excellent WHDLoad machine.
A flickerfixer/Scan doubler will be nice but not necessary
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I made no mistake. The Amiga 2000 came out in 1986, and so was delivered with OCS until 1991 when the final revision was released with ECS and Kickstart 2.0. Since MOST A2000s were released between 1986 and 1991, not IN 1991, I was not incorrect in stating the A2000 was an OCS machine. I am aware I omitted it from the ECS list, simply to avoid redundancy and because the differences between OCS and ECS are of no consequence to games therefore hardly relevant to this topic.
You tell 'em girl! lol
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Just do what lots of us have done... get one of each. :-)
Only one of each?
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I made no mistake.
I am aware I omitted it from the ECS list.
:p
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An intentional omission is not a mistake. Do we really need to keep going off-topic here, or will this be an endless cycle of accusations and explanations?
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As VingtTrois said. "To err is human to forgive is divine" Or maybe that was someone else.
In any case Cammy made a mistake as did Magnetic. Both were irrelevant to the context of the Q. We're here to help each other, and are all adults.Get over it. Move on. Or I’ll dob on ya
ECS A2000s were much rarer than OCS being released over a much smaller period.
As for A1500s they were nonexistent outside of the UK, and maybe Europe?
So there!
The only game incompatibility I’ve come across for this range of machines is for the non AGA machines from Kickstart version to kickstart version. EG: 1.2-1.3 and 1.3 – 2.x and of course AGA v non AGA. Sometimes some games don’t like more that 512k but these were rare and written by silly little people who smelt funny and made soft “kunigget” sounds under their breath. (very mature)
Avagoodweekend
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Hi Guys,
Thanks for all the information you've given me!
Only two games that don't seem to work on the A4000. That ain't too big of a deal.
But as Dougal stated :
The A1200 and A4000 are AGA as VingtTrois said and Kickstart 3.X, so they are even less compatible than the older Amiga's. The A4000 for some reason is even less compatible for games than the A1200. Again Relokick helps in both these machines.
If you want a "big box" Amiga like the A4000, you can always install WHDLoad which installs almost any Amiga games to your HD and patches them for compatibility with newer faster Amiga's.
That contradicts what amigakid stated.
Me confused now.
I did gather that using WDload solves most of these issues.
WHDLoad is a godsend for Amiga gamers. The A1200 seems to be the best all around machine to choose. Depending on where you're located, you might want to pick up an A1000 for the really old games. That way you're covered from OS 1.2/1.3 through 3.1. Around here they go really cheap.