English Amiga Board - View Single Post - How many NTSC games are avialable for the Amiga??...

paranoid · 08 May 2009, 21:43

I'm from the US so figured I'd chime in. Yes, early A500s were NTSC only because they had the old Agnus (I think old PAL 500s were PAL-only, as an aside). The later 500s (and 2000s) had the 1 meg Fat Agnus. By default, they were 512 chip/512 fast and NTSC, but one could use Palboot, which would change the screenmode and reboot. This, however, was not 100% compatible.

Close to the 68000 chip were a couple traces on the motherboard that you could wire up a couple of switches to. I had mine poking out of the expansion port on the left so I could have it hardware boot PAL/NTSC and 512 chip/1 meg chip. I do believe, for all intents and purposes, it was a PAL Amiga. The only game that ever gave me trouble was Robocop 3, as far as trying to get the right combination (but I think that was an unusually picky game to begin with).

There should be a way, with a Fat Agnus (1 meg) in a PAL Amiga, to boot into NTSC or perhaps add a switch. It would make sense anyway, though this is a guess.

A Fat Agnus can be installed to replace the 512 chip, too; a friend of mine had an old 2000 and did this. I don't think you can do this with a 1000 though.

In the US, we had problems with PAL games because sometimes the bottom was cut off. The music would also be off (faster I think..). A lot of groups would put out NTSC 'fixes' as well, so an NTSC game you spot these days, may not originally be NTSC, so you have to be on the look-out for that. But it would be advantageous to run an NTSC game on an NTSC Amiga because of the music (the screen wouldn't be an issue, since a PAL screen is bigger).

Having said all that, with my 1084, I almost always ran my Amiga in PAL mode. Even Workbench, bit of flicker, but the screen space was nice.

08 May 2009, 21:43	#20
paranoid Phone Zen Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Banned Age: 52 Posts: 234	I'm from the US so figured I'd chime in. Yes, early A500s were NTSC only because they had the old Agnus (I think old PAL 500s were PAL-only, as an aside). The later 500s (and 2000s) had the 1 meg Fat Agnus. By default, they were 512 chip/512 fast and NTSC, but one could use Palboot, which would change the screenmode and reboot. This, however, was not 100% compatible. Close to the 68000 chip were a couple traces on the motherboard that you could wire up a couple of switches to. I had mine poking out of the expansion port on the left so I could have it hardware boot PAL/NTSC and 512 chip/1 meg chip. I do believe, for all intents and purposes, it was a PAL Amiga. The only game that ever gave me trouble was Robocop 3, as far as trying to get the right combination (but I think that was an unusually picky game to begin with). There should be a way, with a Fat Agnus (1 meg) in a PAL Amiga, to boot into NTSC or perhaps add a switch. It would make sense anyway, though this is a guess. A Fat Agnus can be installed to replace the 512 chip, too; a friend of mine had an old 2000 and did this. I don't think you can do this with a 1000 though. In the US, we had problems with PAL games because sometimes the bottom was cut off. The music would also be off (faster I think..). A lot of groups would put out NTSC 'fixes' as well, so an NTSC game you spot these days, may not originally be NTSC, so you have to be on the look-out for that. But it would be advantageous to run an NTSC game on an NTSC Amiga because of the music (the screen wouldn't be an issue, since a PAL screen is bigger). Having said all that, with my 1084, I almost always ran my Amiga in PAL mode. Even Workbench, bit of flicker, but the screen space was nice.