Common amiga knowledge that's wrong

[desiv]

Why it's wrong: Sure, the 68000 with 1 meg of RAM wasn't cutting it in 94 anymore. But then, we had 68060 processor cards, RTG video cards, loads of RAM etc available.
It's a travesty that virtual no games ever took advantage of this equipment but that's a shortfall of the developers, not the machine itself.

True, but most Amiga owners were people with an Amiga 500.  There were no graphics upgrades for the Amiga 500 (OK, I had a HAM-E at the time and I know people who had a DCTV, but not for games really).

My option to upgrade (given financial options) was to get an Amiga 1200.
I spent more on the move from 500 to 1200 (including selling my 500 at the time), than my friends were spending on their Diamond video cards for their PCs.  

Now, that being said, I preferred the games on the Amiga to the games on the PCs at the time.  I played DOOM, but actually Jazz Jackrabbit was my favorite PC action game.  But I wouldn't have traded my Amiga for anything gamewise.  I thought it was enough power for me for games.  I remember being amazed by the power of Fighter Duel Pro; a hi-res flight sim on my Amiga..

Personally, I don't know anyone (not that I've asked them all :-) who sold their Amiga to play Doom.

I moved from Amiga to PC because I started working on PCs (Foxbase mostly, and general PC support at the time).  There weren't a lot of people asking for custom databases for their Amigas.

 I still personally think the Amiga died because Commodore were greedy, and didn't market properly.  

However, its possible that the market at the time was only going to accept 2 paths.  MS and "the other" and Apple had the school market.  Video (Amiga) and Music (ST) were too much of a niche to hold a market of their own.  And as for games, PCs got good enough (not better yet, but good enough) to take some of that, and the consoles were cheap/good enough to take the low end.

Just some thoughts..

desiv

[desiv]

I think this is wrong. Publishers publish games to make money. To maximize profit, code to the lowest common denominator. Even when the A1200 was at its peak, a lot of software was still produced to be compatible with the A500.

While there's something to this, it doesn't always hold out.

You didn't (and don't) see PC developers develop games for the lowest common denominator.  You see them develop games for the smallest minority that has high end machines.

However, in that case, they are looking at selling their games at a premium to the high end gamers.  Knowing that over time, the other users will upgrade and eventually buy their games for $20 or so..

I do that with PC games.  My PC is terribly outdated.  At the time when Neverwinter Nights came out, I probably could have run it, but really really badly.  And I doubt I would have paid new retail price.  A bit later, I finally get a new (inexpensive, but decent) video card.  Now(er.. the "Now" that was when I bought it :-), Neverwinter Nights is $20 and runs pretty good.  (The native Linux version is still running fine on that same machine).

That couldn't have happened on the Amiga the same way.  Yes, a game could have been written (some were) that ran, but just barely on an unexpanded Amiga, but much better on an expanded one.  However, I paid about $40 for my PC video card.  Let's say $100 even for comparison.(I am cheap even..)  Now, for the Amiga to run the game better, it would either need an RTG card (not really an option for most, but) at MUCH more than $100 (no idea how much those cost at the time??) or an accelerator with RAM, and those were $300 up.

The LCD (lowest common denominator) is only in play because the upgrade options were too expensive for the Amiga.

Fact is, non-LCD did work for the 1M ram upgrade.  Developers did start making games that required more than 512K on the Amiga.  When games started coming out requiring 1M, people did buy upgrades to their Amigas to play them.  However, an upgrade to 1M was relatively cheap (cost of a new video card today).  Upgrade beyond that was the problem.

desiv

[desiv]

but let's say you bought a 500 and a PC in 88 or 89. By 96, how many times would you have replaced your PC by then?
Odds are at least once, propably twice. If you were a hardcore gamer, maybe three times or more.

OK, let's see..  I got a new PC around 2000..  AMD Athlon 2000/ATI All-in-Wonder 128 Pro.  512M RAM.

Around 2002, the MB died, got a new one.  Same other stuff..
Around 2003/4, got a $40 NVidia card.  
Around 2005, went to 1G RAM, dual boot Linux.  :-)
Around 2007, friend gave me his NVidia card since he upgraded.
Around 2009, got a 19" Widescreen LCD.

Still my main machine..  :-)

OK, I'm not a hardcore gamer, obviously..  :roflmao:
I'm probably not the target audience here...

desiv

p.s.  I would upgrade the RAM to 2G, but the motherboard will only take 1G.  ;-)

[desiv]

I won't speculate on what killed Commodore the company.  BUT I have to tell you that for my friends and I who had Amiga 500s at the time, DOOM was definitely the thing that made us (I had about 7 friends with Amiga 500s) switch from playing on the old 500s to the PC.  Before that, the PC was just a boring work box.  DOOM and all the 3D games that followed were the reason that I bought tons of video boards, CPUs and RAM for my PC and why my Amiga sat in the closet until last year.   Just telling you what happened from my perspective (in my early 20s at the time), because I lived it.

Yeah, I just don't get that.  (Not denying it)

I mean, I liked Doom.  It was fun.  That type of game is fun.  I think Redneck Rampage is my favorite, followed by Duke Nukem 3D.  :-)

But, I'd play Doom for a bit, then move on to Gobliiins or Jazz Jackrabbit or Commander Keen...

I just don't get how the rest of the planet (it seemed) decided that all games had to be FPS from that point on...  :confused::confused:

Different crowds, not being a hardcore gamer.  I knew several people with Amiga's, and they all moved to PCs, but for them it was all about business software.  We liked games, but we liked getting paid more.. :lol:

However, it was the same result..  

desiv

[desiv]

I killed my first set of WB disks 'just turning it off'.

No idea what was going on, but I shut 'er down just as I simultaneously noted the drive activity light was on.  Booted back up and...NDOS:

It was months before I had a functional set of disks again

This was the beauty of putting the on/off switch on the PSU!

When you wanted to shutdown your Amiga 500/1200, you have to reach way to the back of the desk or bend down to the floor to get to the PSU.
By the time you do, all the applications have finished.

If you thought you were smart and put everything on a power strip so you can just reach over and kill it, well then it's your own fault!

:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:

To be honest, that can always happen with any computer, and it's always a good idea to wait, but I can't remember that happening to me...
I think I was in the habit of always waiting for drive activity lights tho.
I even remember on the DOS side when we had to use the PARK command.  :-)

I'd say it's pretty rare on the Amiga, but possible..

desiv

[desiv]

Doom didn't kill the Amiga, Wolfenstein did... Released in '92, it showed where computer graphics were going.

Of course, that's why all the game devs started making Wolf 3D clones..

Except, they didn't..  The market follows success, and Wolf 3D was a moderate success and had some moderate followings.
So did Myst released a bit after that (and 7th Guest a bit before, I believe).  All were possible directions at the time..

The market isn't looking for the "next great technology", as Wolf 3D was. (or so people think and the world followed..)
The market is looking for the last huge success, as Doom was.

Doom took it to another level that the market jumped all over.

That said, I still think the Amiga was dying for "bad business" reasons before that.  It just lined up like that.  By the time the doom-alikes were gaining steam, Commodore was already dying, not because..

IMHO..

desiv

[desiv]

Actually most games did not have any HD installer even if it came on 10 floppies.

Oh?  :confused:
Which 10 floppy game was that?  

I know Dragon's Lair (which was an early many floppy game) had 6 disks and couldn't be installed on a HD.  (Wasn't there something about installing it onto a bernoulli(sp?) disk or something?)
However, by the time Escape from Singe's Castle came out, more people had HDs and that let you install it AND Dragon's Lair to your HD.   (And multitasked btw.. nice bit of code there..)

The largest game I remember was Willy Beamish, and it definitely let you install to HD.

desiv

[desiv]

CDROM or CD-Players cheap in 93? No way dude. I couldn't afford that crap back then. I worked two months at taco bell to get my single speed CDROM/ sb pro combo. Thems were the days. Two years years earlier 1mb 32 pin sims cost $100 a piece. I like the hardware prices today.

True, I can't remember how much it cost, but I remember my first 1x CDROM.
I remember I played a lot of Gobliiins with that.  :-)
Also, later, I played a lot of 7th Guest.  Loved the puzzles, although my 1X never synced audio quite right, but it was close enough. :-)

I still maintain, it wasn't CDRoms or Doom that killed the Amiga, it was Commodore.

Runequester's numbers show that the number of games was still increasing until CBM called it quits..

Now, you can argue what might have happened had a strong Commodore been around to battle the Doom variants.  
Would the world have been happy with better 2D games?
Would some type of cheaper accessory/AAA chipset allowed the Amiga line to keep up?
Would people have just ponied up more money to upgrade Amigas to play 3D type games (as Mac users with Marathon and the like)?

Who knows...

desiv

[desiv]

To be honest, it's just not my kind of game. I didn't get anything out of Half Life or Unreal Tournament, they were just samey to me. Clearly lots of people like FPSes, and that's cool, I just wish there was more variety in game genres.

Same here, although there are a few out there, they are just hard to find.

There's a company in the U.K. called Introversion.  "The last of the bedroom programmers."  :-)

I like their games quite a lot.  (And it doesn't hurt that they have Linux ports for almost all of them. :-)

I remember seeing something about a Playstation game (mind just went blank on the name) where it was all B/W.  Line drawn character walking on a line, and there were things in the line as you walked (like loops, bumps, etc) that you had to get over/under/though whatever.  I believe that the game play was based on the music, and you could even use your own CD music..  (Still blank, sorry)..
Had a Vectrexxy look to it..  

I thought it was very original sounding..

Never made it to the States I believe..  

Not that I have/had a Playstation, but that's not the point. :-)

Aha!!  Vib Ribbon!!  Looked great.  Very creative..
We didn't get it..  We got lots more FPS games tho..  

desiv

[desiv]

Okay. This proves my point that opinions can be wrong.

Half-Life, a game that completely revolutionised storytelling in videogames with an extremely strong singleplayer.

Unreal Tournament. A multiplayer game.

"samey". Yeah, they have a lot in common. Loads in fact. I always thought it was a bit uncanny how they both needed electricity in your house to work. And they needed computers too! Thats just not creative!

:confused:

Think you phrased that a bit off....

Just because they aren't the same doesn't mean that he couldn't have thought they were..

Opinions aren't wrong.  They are opinions.

They can be based on misconceptions, but that doesn't mean they are wrong.

Also, he said they were similar.
Let's see..
Half Life..  First person.. Walking around shooting..
Unreal..    First person..  Walking around shooting..

Actually, I think I agree with his (wrong) opinion.

I'm just saying..  :-)

desiv

[desiv]

You misunderstand me, or are else you are just trying to annoy me. It's simple:

No, we understand you.  We just disagree with you. :lol:

desiv

[desiv]

Common knowledge: A1200 should have come with a hard drive, and CBM should have made publishers use it...

And it's true.

:confused:
Um..  It did come with a HD.  Everyone I know who bought a 1200 got one with a HD.
Yes, you could buy one without.  You could buy a PC at the time without if you wanted.

Maybe overseas, it was different, but I didn't see an Amiga 1200 without a HD over here..

desiv