I'm Back in the Scene!

[ScottJClifford]

Well after not using a real Amiga for years (probably not since 2000) I decided to bite the bullet and get back into the scene. I purchased a Amiga 4000 that I had shipped from Germany... only to find that the voltage was diff. (I really should have known!) SO after waiting a month for the 4000 to arrive and not being able to use it... you can imagine how I felt. This however did not deter me... I hopped on Ebay and spent more of my hard earned cash on a Amiga 4000T... Ok heres the deal guys. There is no way I want to go back to using RGB monitors... I really want to hook this up to my LCD. In the A4000 from Germany there is a Piccaso II video card and also a Arxon Scan Doubler.... please tell me once I put this into the 4000T I will be able to enjoy all those old classic games! (I understand there are some incompatibilities regarding AGA and OCS stuff, but thats ok) I figure since this is the last Amiga produced I want to see how far I can push it regarding upgrades (not sure about those PPC boards though) Any suggestions? Thanks guys! I've been reading your posts for years.. I finally bit the bullet and joined! :python:

[amigadave]

If your goal was to just play old Amiga games, you could have chosen cheaper alternatives, but that is water under the bridge (or over the dam and down the drain).

The PicassoII card will allow you to run Workbench at higher resolutions and more colors on your LCD display, but won't help with 99% of the Amiga games you want to play.  I am not familiar with the Arxon Scan Doubler, but it should allow you to display all of the 15kHz display modes doubled to 31kHz so you can see them on your LCD monitor.  Both items should work just as well in your A4000T as they did in the A4000 desktop computer.  The PicassoII has a pass-through port, so you should be able to feed the scan doubled RGB output into the PicassoII and use a single monitor solution to see all the display modes you want on your Amiga.

Welcome back and enjoy the ride.

[Orkin]

@ScottJClifford
 
I know the feeling! I had a 4000D sitting in my basement for a long time and after lurking for awhile, I finally felt the urge a couple months ago to get it up and working. I got a 4000T off of Ebay and have a pretty nice 2000 system on the way as well.
 
I don't have an RGB monitor either, and I've noticed some issues hooking my 4000T up to my LCD monitor (although, strangely, not my 4000D). I'm curious to see the answers to your questions, though, since I'm going through some of the same stuff right now.

[VingtTrois]

@ScottJClifford: welcome here!

...The PicassoII card will allow you to run Workbench...but won't help with 99% of the Amiga games you want to play...

Do you know a game that is working on PICASSO II?  :p

[spirantho]

OS-legal games are likely to benefit greatly from a Picasso II.... there's not many but there are some. Like Colonization, for instance.

[zipper]

Never did count how many - but here you can check the RTG column: http://obligement.free.fr/articles/listejeuxamiga.php

[amigakit]

Welcome!

[Khephren]

Smack me for a dullard, but doesn't an LCD TV take a standard PAL/NTSC (re game signal) as standard? mine does. All it takes to play games from my A4000T is a scart cable (or you could use a TV modulator). With a VGA cable hooked up to the picasso and plugged into the TV VGA port, it should auto swith as swell.

oh...and welcome back!

[Matt_H]

Smack me for a dullard, but doesn't an LCD TV take a standard PAL/NTSC (re game signal) as standard? mine does. All it takes to play games from my A4000T is a scart cable (or you could use a TV modulator). With a VGA cable hooked up to the picasso and plugged into the TV VGA port, it should auto swith as swell.

oh...and welcome back!

There's no SCART in the US, unfortunately. Would make things a lot easier if there was! A TV modulator will reduce signal quality, but one of amigamaniac's new S-Video adapters should be a lot better than the old Commodore A520 boxes.

@ ScottJClifford

Welcome back! It sounds like you've got everything you need, hardware wise, to get going. Something to keep in mind, though, is that a lot of LCD monitors won't sync to 50Hz horizontal - that's a problem for PAL games.

[ScottJClifford]

Thanks guys!