Amiga A500 - Just how good was it?

[ZEUSDAZ]

Personally for me I feel the Amiga A500 was the crown jewel of computer gaming machines, it sold megaloads of units, it has a gigantic game library and it produced some of the best demo's and cracktro's ever seen, it really was a wonderful machine and magical time owning one back in the late 80's (I still have mine ).


My question however is just how good was this machine, could it really produce vertually arcade perfect conversions depending on the game.
We've had some cracking conversions on it such as Operation Thunderbolt, Rainbow Islands, Rodland, Ghosts 'n goblins, Pang just to name a few but what about all the dreadful conversions we were given (many at the hands of U.S.Gold), could they have been converted better with the hardware the A500 had to offer epsecially with 1 meg memory?!


I personally would like to see if the Amiga could convert the likes of Street Fighter 1, Double Dragon and Outrun but could the A500 get close?! I'm sure it could certainly get closer than the crud we were given.

[gimbal]

I mean, the Outrun thread has already proven that dreadful conversions could definitely have been done better. Still not 50fps perfect and nowhere near the amount of onscreen sprites or sprites the same size, but at least decently playable.

[chip]

And now a very professional comment : Amiga 500 rulez !

[Agilent]

Originally Posted by chip

And now a very professional comment : Amiga 500 rulez !

Well said!!

[bohemist]

It was and still is an amazing computer, I haven't owned one, but I cherished the opportunities when I could play games on it when visiting friends and relatives who owned an A500.

[Amigajay]

Bloomin good

[005AGIMA]

it still is an amazing machine. Sometimes revisiting old things isn't a good idea, but now that I have my hands on an A500 again, I'm astonished at how it holds up. And mine (as was back in the day) is stock other than a 512k upgrade.

The games are fluid and fun, and I've not even got back into the production side of things yet.

Show me a games console from the late 80's/early 90's that allow you to make your own graphics, music, sound, animations, games.

Long live the A500 indeed!

[Tigerskunk]

It's a very capable machine.
You can create games on it that look like contemporary arcade games.

It's just not very suited for 1:1 arcade conversions for games that used parallax.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by Steril707

It's just not very suited for 1:1 arcade conversions for games that used parallax.

Or ones that didn't, either. The sprite capabilities just aren't good enough.

[chip]

Perhaps thread question should add "and how good is nowadays" ?

Indeed my feeling is that is much better nowadays with emulation that in the past with real hardware

[Marchie]

Originally Posted by gimbal

I mean, the Outrun thread has already proven that dreadful conversions could definitely have been done better. Still not 50fps perfect and nowhere near the amount of onscreen sprites or sprites the same size, but at least decently playable.

I think this sums it up well, arcade-perfect 50fps no, but good-looking, fun, playable conversions of arcades games of the day were definitely possible.


But why make arcade conversion the gold standard? There were loads of strategy games and other mouse-based games that were never going to work on a console, and, as also said above, you could also make your own graphics, program your own games, render 3D, play demos. For any money there wasn't a machine that could do all of that in the mid-late 80's.


Long live the A500!

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by Marchie

I think this sums it up well, arcade-perfect 50fps no, but good-looking, fun, playable conversions of arcades games of the day were definitely possible.


But why make arcade conversion the gold standard? There were loads of strategy games and other mouse-based games that were never going to work on a console, and, as also said above, you could also make your own graphics, program your own games, render 3D, play demos. For any money there wasn't a machine that could do all of that in the mid-late 80's.


Long live the A500!

THIS

Most of the flight sims I loved on my A500 were simply not possible on a console and nothing close emerged during that time. To match (or sadly, better) the Amiga on that front you had to spend big and go PC.

[spiff]

Originally Posted by Marchie

But why make arcade conversion the gold standard?

QFT Outrun is a friggin 2 parallel cpu sprite scaler system. The video board alone has more CPU and "memory" than an a1200. Saturn was the first port that didn't sacrifice at least one of the layers, resolution and frame rate.

Even SEGAs internal dev teams, with access to source code did the regular road scroller + animated sprites instead of scaling on console before that. It's a good compromise for what systems could do at the time, but its not scaling.

Amiga 500 rulez!!

[Gordon]

While the 600 was my first Amiga, it would never have happened if it wasn’t for the 500 my cousins had that I wanted to play every week and made me beg my parents for one. Incredible machine that helped shaped my life

[skyzoo73]

The games mentioned in the first post are definitely very good arcade conversions, made with skill and passion and unequivocally demonstrate that the Amiga 500 programmed in the right way could be a great game machine and return a great fidelity to the originals. On the other hand, u.s.gold made a series of mediocre conversions, partly because they were developed simultaneously with the versions for Atari ST, partly for the reduced development times, and the teams not particularly gifted. What I would like to see today would be more conversions done well than old titles, certainly not the most demanding in terms of hardware, at least the contemporaries of the Amiga 500 could now be done very well, and I am sure that most people would be impressed of what can be achieved with this great machine. However, I see that even now, unfortunately, those who today are committed to making new games or game conversions tend to do everything alone, without relying on teamwork, which in my opinion is the main problem in development. Having professional pixel artists and good musicians at your disposal is what would make the difference between a good and a fantastic game and in the case of arcade conversions, faithful to the original as much as possible. Another problem, in my opinion, is that many develop for AGA, relying on the greater capabilities of these machines, snubbing the old OCS, perhaps because they cannot produce enough optimized code that takes full advantage of the characteristics of the original chipset as well. I am convinced that in the coming months we will have some surprises on this front and thanks to Pixelglass and BitBeamCannon we will be able to see the Amiga 500 properly exploited, and this will surely mark a turning point in the Amiga community.

[chip]

Yes, i don't think considering arcade conversions quality is so important

What about "original" Amiga 500 games (masterpieces) like Superfrog or Ruff'N'Tumble then ?

I think these native games should be considered instead as a point of reference of what Amiga 500 can do !

[skyzoo73]

Originally Posted by chip

Yes, i don't think considering arcade conversions quality is so important

What about "original" Amiga 500 games (masterpieces) like Superfrog or Ruff'N'Tumble then ?

I think these native games should be considered instead as a point of reference of what Amiga 500 can do !

The original games developed on Amiga are undoubtedly attractive, they stood out for the use of Amiga's own custom chips, or for the original gameplay, which was unmatched on titles of other platforms. And that's why Amiga is a success, together with the propensity for creativity in various areas. But there is also no doubt that the sector most penalized (by incapable developers) was precisely that of arcade conversions, and that is why it would be nice to have done well to make up for that lack.

[BullyDog]

I got the Commodore 64 when the price went down to $200. That was somewhere in the 80s. I loved that machine that I wanted the Amiga 500 to continue on. I'm afraid I didn't have the budget for it. They were really expensive then and that's just barebone. The drives and others were extra.

Now that I have Damien's fantastic Amiga console I thought WOW! Fun games but what about Basic programming? I did a lot on my C64 and I sold a game to Compute! magazine.

That was cool.

Any chance of Amiga Basic programming books on the EAB file server. Also will the emulator let me treat it as a real thing?

Thanks.

[Minuous]

It was a good machine, except for the form factor. Why did it have to be so bloody huge!?

[Cobe]

Originally Posted by Minuous

It was a good machine, except for the form factor. Why did it have to be so bloody huge!?

Today when I see it I think the same but back than I havent.