Getting back into Amiga - What way to go?

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

I played the Citadel game back in the day (awful experience unless the size of a postage stamp which of course is to small) and also on the PC (I have the PC port) and I think it's great.


I thought the videos on youtube looked fairly good to me (of Doom on the 500). Perhaps not.
Doom isn't the be all and end all for me, but I initially figured that the new accelerators roided the A500 up into that category. At least to the point of being able to play the A1200 games. I guess I got that wrong too.
For me I want to be able to play it all. All the 500 stuff and 1200 stuff. I'd kinda like to play the 1200 stuff as I never got a chance to back in the day. So why don't you get a A1200 then? Well because I over estimated those recent accelerators to hit the market in the last few years.
I might have to think about getting a 1200 now, which still works out more expensive after I bag an accelerator.

It obviously depends what you are after but it sounds like you'd be better off with an A1200. You have to remember the bus is very slow in the A500/A600 so plugging in a fast accelerator still won't allow you to play the more demanding stuff (esp. 3D ports).

[d4rk3lf]

I agreed with Nova Coder.
Since you want to play everything, and have a limited budget, you can start just with plain A1200, and with CF card as HD (really really cheap), and with that setup, you can play almost all Amiga games.
Then, after you save some money, you can purchase some accelerator that will run Doom, or whatever.

[rabidgerry]

After thinking about this for a long time, (and I nearly decided to go down the Amiga 1200 route and save up for the bits gradually as suggested) I have decided to forget about Doom and the 3d FPS games on offer and all that stuff and just focus on the classic Amiga 500 and try and bag one of those and then upgrade so I can enjoy the classic games in an enhanced way. BTW can Gloom deluxe run on a 500? Just curious, not essential, literally just asking about this, I have WINUAE after all if I really need to play those games.

I can live without Doom, I guess it was a novelty for me seeing something like that run on the A500. Plus on investigation I have stumbled upon so many more games I never got to play when I had a 500 back in the day so this is enough.

So I was initially going for the Wicher 500i, but these go out of stock way to quick (some came out last week for example and are out of stock already), but now I’ve settled on getting the HC508. Has anyone any experience using this accelerator?

Also a really inexperienced user question here, do I require multiple kickstarts for running certain game? I don’t understand this exactly. I know people seem to want the ability to switch to different kickstarts, why is this? And how could I do that with an HC508?

Thanks for all help and advice offered btw, it’s much appreciated.

[zipper]

Gloom DL - yes - but you need a 020 processor, ECS chipset and 2 MB memory minimum. It runs fine on my A500T/ Blizzard 2060/ PicassoIV...

[d4rk3lf]

I still think that A1200 is best for you.
Are you sure that A500 + accelerator is cheaper then A1200 with CF cable?
I am not sure, but I think it's similar price (or A1200 is even cheaper), and with A1200, you are really not limited with anything Amiga related.
As far as I know, Gloom can't be played on A500 (someone, correct me if I am wrong).

The only reason I see you get A500, is the reason I got it.
You see, when I bought it few years a go, I had the money to easily buy A1200 (and save me a lots of trouble playing games (before I got ACA500+ accelerator)), but the thing is I already had A1200 in the late 90's, and A500 was my long waited wish (in the early 90's), so I had to feel that gap.
Other then that, A1200 is a better choice in every other aspect.
Why would you limit yourself if they are similar price (A1200 with cf cable VS A500 with accelerator)?

About kickstart... I don't think you need to switch. I am using 3.1 Workbench for almost a year, and haven't had any problem with Whload games. If some game don't work (witch is very rare), I just download other Whdload version of that game, and it works.
The only game I installed is Dune 2, because Whdload version worked, but it was too slow.

[rabidgerry]

Well what I am seeing if I could get an Amiga 500 for around £100. I could perhaps nail one for just under that if I am lucky. Then the accelerator I am looking at would cost about £130 so that's £230 say. Where as A1200 seems to vary from £150 - £200 and even more than this. And then the accelerator s for this are like the same cost as a machine. So say it works out about £400. Jeez I just can't part with that kind cash for an obsolete computer when I could buy a of for the same money lightyears more advanced. The price of Amigas I think has jumped up because I remember A500 - A1200 going for around £50-£100 about ten years ago. Just check out the prices on eBay, they are pretty insane some of them.

[d4rk3lf]

Yeah, but the real question is:
What did you get better with Amiga 500 with accelerator opposing to just vanilla A1200 with cable for CF card?
According to prices you mentioned, for a price for A500 and accelerator, you can (probably) even buy some additional ram for 1200.

What I want to say:
You don't need accelerator for A1200 to run stuff from CF card, so you don't need to buy one, and therefore you save a lots of money, and you will be able to play more games then A500 with accelerator.
From the other side, A500 must have accelerator to run the games from CF card (well, there is a few options without accelerator, but I wouldn't recommend them, because you'll get very complex with setup).

So... again...
first A1200 with CF card, and maybe some additional RAM (if you can afford it... if not.. skip the RAM for now).
Then in a year or 2, when you save some money, you can buy some of the A1200 accelerator.

[rabidgerry]

I guess this would mean waiting..................

It could be a while then before I can amass the funds to splash out on an Amiga 1200.

Where as I could get the A500 a lot sooner.

How does the the A1200 play all the A500 games?

Also do I need something that allows me to switch kickstarts? I don't really understand this fully I think.

[d4rk3lf]

I understood that you have a budget for A500 + accelerator (as you say, approximately £230).
So, that's why I said: try to get A1200 with cable for CF card for start (as you said A1200 is £150 + cables £20-£30... so in total, no more then £200), and you will have machine that you can play all games (AGA also), and much more options for expansions in the years to come.

If you only have a budget for stock A500, how would you transfer games without accelerator? Alternatively, you can get a cheap gotek drive (but then again, what's the fun without workbench)?

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

How does the the A1200 play all the A500 games?

I don't have A1200, but from what I heard, every single WhdLoad game is patched to work on AGA machine. No compatibility issues now at all.
I guess you might run to some homemade demo or game, that nobody cared to patch, so it don't work, but (for me) that is really not important. Every, and even low popular games should be patched to work.
So, no worries about it.
----------

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't insist on anything... it's your call
Just wanted to give you pros and cons of both machines, so you don't regret later why you didn't get A1200.

[rabidgerry]

What about the kickstarts?

Well I was going to buy a computer first, then get the accelerator card, so I planning on doing it in parts.

Technically I could go way over my budget, but I'm not willing to for the sake of sensibility.

A1200 on ebay are going for scary money, I perhaps might find it hard to even grab one for £150, take a look for yourself. So really I was looking to spend in separate amounts of money. I was hoping to buy A500 for as cheap as possible (without getting a wreck) before keeping the big money for the accelerator. A500 to me look like they could be grabbed between 50-60 to 150-180. I was hoping to get one in around £100 or a bit less which could be done if you are as good on ebay as I am. A1200 I just don't think I could nail for anything less than £150 and that might even be hard to do. So I'm looking at potentially £200 just for the machine and no fancy extra stuff.

I like the idea of the 1200 but I might be waiting a lot longer to get it up to where I would like. If I save extra for it I would be prepared to pay for the 1200 machine, but then the extras on top looks even more insanely priced. I don't know now, very confused.

[d4rk3lf]

Don't get desperate.
You're in similar position as I was few years a go.

Yes, the prices go way up these few years (I guess, it's because of increased popularity of vintage computers, and because we now have so many accelerators to easily just plug and play).
My case:
I bought A500 few years a go (I think 2015), on Ebay for a $100 + $40 (shipment cost, because I am not in EU). And when I got it, I couldn't do anything with it, until I ordered ACA 500+ card last year.
(meanwhile, I used Winuae to play with Workbench and games)
That's approximately:
Amiga 500 - $140
Aca 500+ - £130 (+shipping (don't remember how much it was))
2 Joysticks - $20
2 CF card, + cable for PC - $40
So, all in all, I think I gave more then £250 for all this, maybe even £300.

It's well worthed money, if you ask me. I installed it in my kitchen, and play it very often, and I also like to paint a little in Deluxe Paint.
------------------

I don't know how to help you about ebay, and stuff. I don't buy often there at all, and have no experience. I just ordered A500, when I got some funds on my PP, and that's all.
Apart from Ebay, try to look often in Marketplace on this forum, and marketplace on other Amiga forums. I guess, once in a while, someone wants to quickly sells some Amiga's.
Try looking in your neighborhood. Ask people that you know that had them, when you were kid. Maybe someone had one in a garage. and willing to sell you cheaply.
Or maybe some computer vintage shop nearby you, if something like that exist. Small Adds on computer magazines... don't know.

I hope someone here will give you some tips (if, even on PM).

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

Also do I need something that allows me to switch kickstarts? I don't really understand this fully I think.

Don't know anything about switching kickstarts.
You just install classic Workbench 3,1 on any system (A500 with accelerator, or A1200), and install Whdload, and that's it.
All should work. At least, it works for me.

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

I guess this would mean waiting..................

No need to wait at all.
Install Winuae on your PC or Mac - now, and make a HD directory, install workbench, install whdload, and try to setup all system for playing, as if you already have real Amiga and CF card.
There's a lots of youtube tutorials on this.

I remember I forgot so much about all that stuff, that I was complete beginner (and I still am, for many stuff), but it was very fun to learn all that again.

[d4rk3lf]

P.S.
Ok, here is one very alternative solution, but very cheap:
[ Show youtube player ]

You won't get to play with the real hardware, but if that's not bothering you, it's maybe the perfect solution.
And you can have Amiga in your pocket.

[Honey Badger]

Not to suggest it's necessarily the best path, but the choice I made & quite happy with it ...

picked up an Amiga 600 - largely for sake of the PCMCIA & IDE capabilities & that A1200 models I found cost considerably more than I was willing to pay ... and for the stuff I run on it, haven't encountered any issues

and just to note : also have WinUAE for handling whatever Amiga applications I want & to experiment with customizing the settings

but, probably all things considered, if using actual hardware exclusively, Amiga 1200 is likely the way to go

[Marchie]

Welcome back to Amigaland rabidgerry!

The cheapest way to upgrade your A500 that I know if is to get 8mb RAM + IDE off Amibay at 80 euro it will run pretty much anything short of AGA (you're just expanding, not accelerating, but I really don't know what you get game-wise from accelerating an A500 - correct me if I'm wrong people, but I have found very few games that play any better on an accelerated 500).

1200's are awesome, by the time you buy one and expand it though your spending Vampire levels of money (and Vampire's are awesome too BTW, you should seriously think about it).

EDIT: Oh, and mod the 500 for 1meg chip mem...

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Marchie

correct me if I'm wrong people, but I have found very few games that play any better on an accelerated 500).

You are pretty much correct (if you ignore doom type of games)
However, for me, there are some important games that runs better with acceleration (and they are not doom clones).
Wing Commander
Frontier
Dune 2
Gunship 2000
F/18 Interceptor

I also play Civilization, and I guess, with more Mhz you wait less for turn to be calculated.
I am planing on playing Amberstar, and one other 3D rpg (I can't remember name right now), Birds of Pray, Stunt Car Racer... etc...

[Marchie]

F/18 Interceptor runs faster for you?

I ran it on my Vampired A2000 and found it to be virtually the same (or at least nowhere near the difference I would expect going from 7Mhz to over 100).

Frontier is a classic accelerator-friendly game. I'm going to track down Gunship 2000 and give that a try too...

[d4rk3lf]

I just tested it for you, on my ACA 500+.
I tried 14Mhz, then I tried 42 Mhz.
It's definitely 4 times faster on 42Mhz, however, the problem is, the whole game plays faster, s it took me 4 times less to reach the famous red bridge (to fly under it... of course! ).

I usually play it on 14Mhz (Aca500+ default), and I see now, it's definitely best speed for that game 14 to 21Mhz...
7Mhz would be too slow.

It's same with Wing Commander on Aca.
I usually keep it 14-21 Mhz, because if I go too fast, it brakes the feel of explosions, when you shoot down the kilrathi. On higher speed, it felt like you destroy a toy, and not a spaceship.

[Marchie]

I'll have to run a side-by-side now: stock vs 14Mhz 020 vs Vamp....wish me luck.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

I agreed with Nova Coder.
Since you want to play everything, and have a limited budget, you can start just with plain A1200, and with CF card as HD (really really cheap), and with that setup, you can play almost all Amiga games.
Then, after you save some money, you can purchase some accelerator that will run Doom, or whatever.

Well I'm back!! And I nearly gave up on the idea. But I took your advice (well only because the opportunity presented itself) and bagged an Amiga 1200. I have not received it yet. I paid £165 and got a mouse, an extra floppy drive, rgb cables and the power supply. What I know is, it works according to the seller and saw a photo of it at the disk load screen displaying kickstart rom 3.00. The seller could not test disks apparently so fingers crossed it actually can load games. I feel it was a risky gamble buying this, still kind of nervous about getting back into it all again. I have melted my own mind reading about the upgrades for the machine over the weekend and now I'm more informed a bit, but still quite daunted. I have no disks test when it arrives so I will have to nail something cheap this week so when I get the computer I can test at least loading a game.

Now! The route I feel I wish to take is, CF card, WHD load and an accelerator. I see there are dam all accelerators for sale at the moment. I cannot afford the £500 blizzard 1260 on ebay right now, and I probably would not pay that either. I'm hoping to get something more along the lines of the ACA-1231/42 or ACA-1233n or something similar, but I see no one has them for sale. I may have to wait for this.

In the mean time I was thinking 8mb fast ram in the trap door may be? However It sounds futile also as there are issues with pcmcia (not that I even know what that would be used for on the 1200?? Is that for the CF card for WHD load?)

Well watch this space and I will keep you posted.

[crazyc]

Generally Pcmcia is used for
A) networking
B) cf cards but not as boot drives, rather for transferring files from pc to amiga etc
C) some ram expansions that are slower and not great.

As a starting configuration see my second a1200 in my signature. Plays most games except doom stuff.

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