New amiga games... A500 OCS/ECS or A1200 AGA ?

[DanScott]

What would be the preferred format for any new amiga games?

A500 (512k / 1 Meg)

or

A1200 (base machine unexpanded)

[Amigajay]

I think a 1mb OCS machine would be a good target, that way most classic Amiga's inc the A1200 and CD32 with support could play the game too.
Of course depends of what type of game and the type of hardware that would suit it better, of course you being a amiga dev know whats prob best!

[Arnie]

I think it should work on both regardless of AGA.
Can AGA be added as an extra for A1200 users?

[DanScott]

Of course, if it will work on A500, it will work on A1200 and anything above too Will make sure of that

However, what I plan to do, could possibly push the A500 right to the limit... and the methods involved would actually be much much simpler on the A1200, giving a lot more scope for some more impressive stuff.

I don't know.. perhaps an A500 version followed by an A1200 enhanced version

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Of course depends of what type of game and the type of hardware that would suit it better, of course you being a amiga dev know whats prob best!

Just want to get an idea of the potential market currently

Of course, an A1200 AGA game would be fantastic to do... The quality of nearly all the AGA games I have seen have not been too great. The A1200 is certainly capable of recreating almost 100% accurately nearly anything you would see on Genesis / SNES / Coin-Op, around the early 1990's. Especially if you design around the hardware constraints of the machine.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by DanScott

Of course, if it will work on A500, it will work on A1200 and anything above too Will make sure of that

However, what I plan to do, could possibly push the A500 right to the limit... and the methods involved would actually be much much simpler on the A1200, giving a lot more scope for some more impressive stuff.

I don't know.. perhaps an A500 version followed by an A1200 enhanced version

For sure, people are always impressed when the A500 is pushed to the limit, even more so than the A1200 imo, but i agree it would be better having an OCS version followed by an enhanced AGA version afterwards, sounds very good to me

[Retro-Nerd]

I would rather like to see an AGA game pushing the A1200 to the limit. Something like Ruff'n Tumble with more details and full 50fps. Or a Turrican/Lionheart Killer.

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

I would rather like to see an AGA game pushing the A1200 to the limit. Something like Ruff'n Tumble with more details and full 50fps. Or a Turrican/Lionheart Killer.

It's totally do-able

[Retro-Nerd]

Argh, don't tease me. I would die for a Ruff'n Tumble AGA port without the "sea sickness" due to the low frames/fast scrolling.

[JudasEZT]

A500 with 1meg

[vulture]

I suppose I agree that an A500 version followed by an A1200 enhanced one would be ideal. However, if I had to choose just one, I'd love to see something that pushes the A1200's boundaries, which is such a rarity.

[eXeler0]

Personally I feel the A500 has already been pushed to the limit much more than A1200 so I'd prefer an AGA game, but it's obvious that if you're after the bigger crowd an 1MB OCS game will please the most ppl even if the only difference in AGA version would be 256 color gfx.
Which way do you prefer it as a developer? Downgrading or "pimping up" 😆

[DanScott]

I don't necessarily think that pimping up an A500 game to use 256 colours is the way to go to make a good A1200 game. You have to start blitting 8 bitplanes, and the blitter is actually not a great deal faster on A1200

I think a better use would be making best use of the extra wide hardware sprites, and having 2 x 16 colour playfields. It makes scrolling and bob plotting so much easier.

Obviously, a game will need to be designed around what the hardware can do for best usage

[Amigajay]

True, i don't think there is too many AGA games that actually use 256 colours on screen, bar static adventure games, because as you say the actual chipset in the A1200 was only a pretty minor upgrade in that regard and most developers just stuck another playfield in to make it look prettier i.e Zool etc but it still wasn't 256 colours.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by DanScott

I don't necessarily think that pimping up an A500 game to use 256 colours is the way to go to make a good A1200 game.

Granted, I think the CD32 software library proved this already :-)

But regarding OCS vs AGA, you won't get a unanimous decision from these forums, you should probably decide this from your own experience and based on what *you* want most :-)

[BarryB]

Just make it run on all chipsets! If it detects AGA then utilise the extra RAM for more sounds, graphics and if accelerator with fast ram detected then use that, simples!

[ajk]

There are already a lot of impressive games for the A500 spec, but few if any for the A1200, so I'd rather see one of those made

[Nobby_UK]

A500 (OCS/ECS) but must be 1200 (AGA) compatible

If 1200 (AGA) only, then go expanded.

[brett71]

While my first choice would be something A500-compatible as a baseline (and therefore should be A1200 compatible too), if you were going to make something AGA, then push THAT hardware to the limit, take full advantage of the capabilities, anticipate people having accellerators, 32+ MB of memory, stuff like that. Make something that looks absolutely stunning. I don't remember seeing much back in the day for the AGA machines that wasn't a modest improvement over the ECS equivalent. Even those of us who are just using WinUAE could handle that.

[Reido]

Originally Posted by DanScott

However, what I plan to do, could possibly push the A500 right to the limit... and the methods involved would actually be much much simpler on the A1200, giving a lot more scope for some more impressive stuff.

New game?!?! Yay!

Good luck and looking forward to it.