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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: HopperJF on June 09, 2004, 01:55:16 PM
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I have both these machines, but I only want to play classic games, I.E. games made in the amigas gaming heyday around 1987 - 1997.
What is the best Amiga for the job out of the 500 and 1200, without modifying anything?
Thanks
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There were very few genuine AGA games released, so the A500 would be the obvious choice for a gamer. An A1200 has lots of incompability issues with older games, albeit some can be fixed using degraders, WHDLoad and so on. If you want to use your 1200 for gaming you would most likely have to expand somewhat.
If you just want to break your joystick, use the A500. It's the far most compatible.
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I just remembered I have a horrible yellow A600 as well, will that do a similar job to the A500?
It is more compatible then my nice white A1200 right?
Hmmm.
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HopperJF wrote:
I just remembered I have a horrible yellow A600 as well, will that do a similar job to the A500?
It is more compatible then my nice white A1200 right?
Hmmm.
The 600 uses kickstart 2.06 and no fast ram which is incompatible with a lot of older games. If you put the kickstart roms from your 500 into your 600 it will be a bit more compatible, as the processor and a lot of others are identical, but the 500 is the gaming machine for older games. A 500+ is not as suited as a regular 500.
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Greetings,
@HopperJF
My first Amiga was an A600. I exchanged it with an A500 cause I'm interested with the ROM2 and I was scared with it because of SMC(surface mounted chips). Unlike the A500, you only need a skill in soldering and electronics. Later, I did and me and my A500 were close partners since. Until I added my A1200 in 2000.
A500 is slow but VERY compatible with older games, easy to maintain.
A1200 double the speed, but incompatible with earlier games. But you can count on the A1200 in some DTP(prowrite) and Graphics(Dpaint/AGA) programs.
Good day to all Amigans! :-D
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I have an A3000 and as much as this is a "classic" Amiga for the most part, I still have a really hard time playing older games (which I love ...) on the 3000. I am fairly adept at using degrader applications like TUDE and WHDLoad, but, I find that the games even "feel" different than they would on an older Amiga.
In light of that, I set out a while ago to build the ultimate Amiga game box. So, I threw an Amiga 2000 together, got a 1.3 ROM for it and a GVP SCSI/030 card. I can use the GVP tools to reboot the Amiga with the card completely disabled and basically play every game ever made for OCS and ECS Amiga's.
Long story short, I wouldn't even bother with the A600 (I once owned one of these and had many issues with running games on it ...) and I would use the A500. Everything will run on it as long as it doesn't require AGA, which few games do anyways.
Sorry for the long post, felt like babbling ... :-)
Hope this helps,
- Mike
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@Morley
The A500+ and the A600 are the same.........so saying "A 500+ is not as suited as a regular 500." doesnt make sence
The best A500 to get is one with the Kickstart 1.2 ROM as there are some games that wont work with 1.3 such as Alien Syndrome from SEGA and Fire and Brimstone and some others.
I have an A1200 with WHDLoad though and its the best.....no disk swapping and no long loading. I have 160 games on my A600 as well...all HD installed using JST or WHDLoad
but the best in my opinion is a CD32 with an SX32 Pro, becasue you can play most games on this: A500 games, A1200 games, CDTV games, and CD32 games.........along with audio CD's Karoake CD's and of course the games.
Doesnt get any better because you can even play DOOM and Gloom, Breathless, AlienBreed 3D 2, Genetic Species, NemacIV, Heretic, Myst, T-ZER0, Capital punishment, SuperStreetFighter 2 Turbo, Fightin Spirit, and one of the best game ever made for the Amiga........SLAM TILT! baby!!!
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leirbag28 wrote:
The A500+ and the A600 are the same.........so saying "A 500+ is not as suited as a regular 500." doesnt make sence
Er, yes it does. There are many incompatibilities (with games at least) between the A500 and A500+. A lot of old games work only on the A500. What doesn't make sense about that?
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@that_punk_guy
If I am not mistaken, the A500 has the ECS just like the A600...........so adding and extra megabyte will make it ChipRAM and not fast. Although the A500+ probably came with Kickstart 1.3 ROM? so maybe that alone might make it more compatible out of the box.
I think its handy to own an A500 with KS 1.2 just to test the games. I have one and might be selling it.
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The A500+ and the A600 are the same.........so saying "A 500+ is not as suited as a regular 500." doesnt make sence
ehrmm...I'm not sure what you mean here. I think it makes perfect sense. The 500+ is kickstart 2.x and 1MB chip. (nearly 600 as you stated out.)A "normal" 500 is kick1.3 or kick1.2, with 512k chip and eventually 512k fast, and this would be the gamers choice if you only want to play most games and not modify/expand the machine, which the original poster did'nt want to do.
-EDIT-
stupid typo's
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@Morley
Morley i am a complete idiot.........I totally misunderstood what you wrote and I just noticed it right now. You are correct in saying that an A500+ is not suited as a regular A500. You know I am not even sure what I understood from that at first. hmmmmm hahaha sorry about that! same to That_Punk_Guy
I think I thought that you were saying that the A500+ is the same as an A500, which made me question that if that is the case, then why isn't the A600 like the A500?, because the A500+ and A600 are almost the same. :-)
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:-P
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My first Amiga was a 600, I think that is my choice. I had no problems running any games.. certainly nowhere near as much as I do with the A1200.
The A500 hmmm well... mine was 1.3, I have 2 actually. One is dead, and the working one is hidden away where I can't find it..
A1200... beautiful machine, like new condition with the exception of a bit of damage on the "A1200" badge. Not compatible enough, and the time it takes to get to the disk prompt is too long.
A500 WOULD be my ideal choice, but there is no way I can set it up here.
I have no room for an A500, at the moment the A1200 sits fairly comfortably on top of my TV, but an A500 with 520 modulator would be really unsafe.. so A600.
However, I dont really want to set up my A600 as it is...
Why? Because its YELLOW and looks really bad :-(
I realised that I have 2 Amiga 500s, one of which is dead, and the one that works I cannot seem to find.
Earlier I found an A600, which might be ideal.. it has the compatibility with more games than my A1200 AND fits nicely on top of the TV.. the A500 probably wouldnt fit due to my setup.
Yes, it seems the A600 would be ideal, but the way it looks is putting me off.
Does anyone have any suggestions as a solution for yellowed cases?
I dont particularly want people to see my A600 like it is now:
(http://img53.photobucket.com/albums/v162/Mike_5DOS/My_A600_a.jpg)
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Morley wrote:
HopperJF wrote:
I just remembered I have a horrible yellow A600 as well, will that do a similar job to the A500?
It is more compatible then my nice white A1200 right?
Hmmm.
The 600 uses kickstart 2.06 and no fast ram which is incompatible with a lot of older games. If you put the kickstart roms from your 500 into your 600 it will be a bit more compatible, as the processor and a lot of others are identical, but the 500 is the gaming machine for older games. A 500+ is not as suited as a regular 500.
My A600 has 2.05 ROMs, is that much different? :-?
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My A600 has 2.05 ROMs, is that much different?
No, no, not at all. I'm probably just mixing numbers. The A600 has kick2.05, you're right.
If you don't want to use an A500 with a modulator out off the back, which is quite "wobbly", get a RGB->SCART-TV cable and connect it directly. The picture will also be better.
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Oh, and BTW, nothing can clean a yellowed case. It is caused by a chemical reaction in the plastic done by the suns UV-rays. Either paint it white or get a new one. If you're "lucky" it's only tar on your computer (from cigarette smoke etc.), but most probably it ain't.
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I think the old owner was a heavy smoker, is it still impossible to clean if it is only tar?
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@HopperJF
Not to make you feel bad or anything, but that is quite the most UGLIEST A600 I have ever seen!
That said. How about you spray paint it? even the keys on the keyboard. I can send you white letters with black backrounds so that you can put them on the keys after wards...........I have 3 A600 and I am definitely going to paint it. First a light spray of Primer..........then FLAT balck..............and then lastly a coat of Clear Matte spray (makes it look semi shiny but not too shiny) then i will place all the letters back on the keys with the special key stickers I have. Then I am going to add internal Neon lights. God willing I will be able to acomplish all this..............cuz I never have time.
Oh yeah, forgot to add..if you want fast Ram, just get an Apple Newton PCMCIA Memory card of 1 meg or 2. then get a ROM swapper that lets you have KS 1.3 and 2.0 or 3.1 andd thats the end of the story..........or if you have 2 megs chip, there is a software that lets you turn 1 meg of it into fastRam. It is on the CD32 network CD is all I know
If you have a Harddrive.then forget everything I said and get WHDLOAD..it is the BEST!!!!!! I have sword of Sodan, Shadow of the Beast 1, 2 and 3, Turrican 1, 2 and 3, ProjectX, Parasol Stars, Bubble Bobble and a hundred more games than run perfectly on my A600 and A1200 thanks to WHDLoad. get it!
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HopperJF wrote:
I think the old owner was a heavy smoker, is it still impossible to clean if it is only tar?
Try with any strong household detergent. Tar is not really that hard to get off. But from the picture you posted I think your 600 is permanently tanned :-(
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@Morley & co.
Yes it is a really bad looking A600, hence me wanting to make it look better before I set it up in my room.
The A1200 I have on the other hand is in perfect like new condition, but thats because I've had it since it was more or less brand new.
The A600 was second hand when I got it, you can imagine how gutted I felt when I got it out of the box :-(
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Try with any strong household detergent. Tar is not really that hard to get off. But from the picture you posted I think your 600 is permanently tanned :-(
Just to keep everything politically correct, at least here in the states, I would like to refer to his A600 as "pigmentation challenged"
;-)
- Mike
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Regarding game compatibility, I have hundreds of WHDLoad and JST games on my A1200 and A600 and the compatibility is very good. The A1200 is a bit better, because of the 020 allowing you to exit back to workbench on some installs. I haven't gotten around to trying all of my disk games yet because I'm spoiled by HD installs.
As for chip ram only, the stock A500 has chip only. I remember using degrader to turn off fast RAM for some old games that didn't expect it. So, I don't think that is the core problem.
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An older Amiga 500, with 512K of Chip memory and 512K of Fast memory would be best for games. A lot of the classic Amiga games expect to find the start of Fast memory at the same memory location that is being used by the second 512K of Chip memory in the newer 1-Meg Chip memory Amigas. So many of these cool games will not work. Get yourself an older Amiga 500, 2000, or 1000 computer for games. Make sure that it only has 512K of Chip memory. You could add a switch with 5 wires to a newer Amiga 500's motherboard to turn off the extra 512K of Chip memory. Then all of the older really cool Amiga games will work. I did this to my Amiga 500 Tower of Power. It works great. I throw the switch up and I have 1-meg Chip ram, down and I have 512K of Chip ram. Email me and I can tell you how to do it. :-)