Whats the best Amiga to get?

paulnography · 13 February 2018, 17:28

Hey folks

I used to be a massive Amiga gamer back in the day, as I'm sure most people here have been. Since then I'd sold my Amiga to move on to the 'next big thing', sadly selling my beloved Amiga 500 with it's extra 1 Meg upgrade and all the games I'd bought over the years.

Over the last 8 or so years I've been rebuying loads of Amiga games from Ebay to build up my collection again, but have never gotten around to getting an Amiga to play them on. So I'm after a little bit of advice.

I'm likely only to be playing games on it rather than anything too heavy like coding, music or artwork (I have my Mac for that). But what would be the best Amiga to get to run the games I've been re-collecting for. I mainly have Amiga 500 games (some require the meg upgrade), and a few A1200 games. Is there an Amiga that can handle both in terms of compatibility as I've heard the A1200 does't play all 500 games, and obviously vise versa.

Thanks!

E-Penguin · 13 February 2018, 17:35

Sell your house and get both!

The A500s are cheaper. *Most* games were written for the A500 + 512k expansion configuration. There's WinUAE for AGA-only games.

paulnography · 13 February 2018, 17:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

Sell your house and get both!

The A500s are cheaper. *Most* games were written for the A500 + 512k expansion configuration. There's WinUAE for AGA-only games.

To be fair I'd really like to re-buy a CD32 too. i have a few games for that I've managed to get hold of again, but they're so expensive these days! But it would take away the worry of an A1200. What about something like an A4000? Not worth it for gaming?

alexh · 13 February 2018, 18:15

For gaming an A500 + 512K FASTRAM upgrade + Gotek Floppy Disk Emulator + FlashFloppy firmware.

Or WinUAE + GSync / Freesync monitor

ajk · 13 February 2018, 18:31

The A1200 is the overall best system for games. There is no way to play AGA games on an A500, but the A1200 can run practically all A500 games. Yes, there are some incompatibilities but WHDLoad and other patches can take care of them.

For best results you'll want a hard drive (which can be a more modern solid state option like a CompactFlash or SD card) and at least a little bit of extra RAM or a low-to-middle end accelerator. But there is no need to go overboard and you can add things over time, as needed.

Or, if you don't care about AGA or multi-floppy adventures and things like that at all, an A500 with a Gotek drive will indeed serve you very well.

An A4000 would of course do the all same things but unless you are very lucky, it will be a far more costly option.

adolfo.pa · 13 February 2018, 19:57

I've gone through a very similar situation, so my experience may be useful. The only difference is that I still had my old Amiga 500 around and could still experience the marvels of floppy swapping and slow disk access ;-).

At first, I wanted to get an A1200 or a standalone Vampire (at the time I believed its release was imminent) because I considered my A500 extremely underpowered for anything other than playing floppy games, and I wanted to use it for programming also.

So, I kept looking for an A1200 for a couple of months, trying to find a reasonably cheap one (good luck with that), hoping at the same time that the standalone Vampire would be magically released. Anyway, in the end I got tired of waiting, and was also wary of some of the problems with stock A1200 (faulty caps that need replacements, need of an accel. card to make it decent enough for non-gaming uses, etc.).

So after all this waiting, I finally got an ACA500+ for my old A500 this christmas, and man I'm happy :-) I can play almost all non AGA games with WHDLoad, it is more than fast enough for my purposes (my ACA is overclocked to 42MHz), and basically I can do everything I wanted to do with it and more.

So, as a fellow newcomer, my recommendation would be to get a cheap A500 and one of the many accelerators available (ACA, Witcher or Terrible Fire). Even if you finally get an A1200 in the future, I'm pretty sure you'll thoroughly enjoy it in the meantime; I've been using it for less than two months, and the investement (around 150€) has more than paid back :-)

Btw, sorry for such a long post :-)

Zak · 13 February 2018, 20:42

I have an (unfortunately damaged) A1200 as my best gaming rig. It has a Kickstart switch, I can switch to Kickstart 1.3, play all the floppy games there. It has an accelerator, so I can watch demos. It has a hard disk, so I can play WHDload. It even has a CD-Rom drive where I get my ADF's from. It is easily transportable which an A4000 isn't and has color composite video output, which the A500 hasn't.

It was the best thing ever until my friend dropped it on the stairway.

Mrz · 13 February 2018, 21:19

this question it has been done miles of times
the best Amiga for games is by far the A1200 or the A4000 /030 cpu

the Amiga 500 + ACA 500 plus is not a bad option but you miss all the exclusive AGA games which some of them are fantastic ie Onescapee,Aladdin,Slam tilt,skeleton krew,watch tower,james pond 3, lemmings 3,alien breed 3d2 ,genetic species etc

Daedalus · 13 February 2018, 21:28

For me personally I couldn't imagine being limited to an A500 for gaming. Most of the games I enjoyed were either AGA only, AGA enhanced, or simply benefitted from the extra CPU power. I remember once trying to play Birds of Prey on a friend's A500 and just giving up since it was just too slow to be enjoyable. A stock A1200 was just about playable, and an '030 made it great fun.

adolfo.pa · 13 February 2018, 21:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zak

It was the best thing ever until my friend dropped it on the stairway.

If that had happened to me, he would had fallen down through the stairs too ;-)

Amiga1992 · 13 February 2018, 22:03

The OP has the "issue"that he wants to play the originals he bought/. So in his case, I'd stick to the A500.

toples50 · 13 February 2018, 22:16

I think A3000,the best overall Amiga ever.

d4rk3lf · 13 February 2018, 22:39

Here's my humble opinion.

If you want cheap, get Amiga 600 with CF card as HD. Amiga 600 is basically the same as Amiga 500, but it connects to cf card (and regular hd's) MUCH easier (and cheaper), then A500.
I'd always prefer A600 with CF, over the A500 + Gotek (where's the fun, without Workbench?). But it's a matter of taste, I guess.

Now, if you're like me, and you really want to buy only A500, and nothing else then A500, then get one. When I bought my A500, I could easily buy A1200, and spare myself a lots of trouble. But I wanted A500, not A1200, no 4000, no 600, just A500.

But since you opened this thread, then you're (hopefully) not like me.

If you can get A1200, it's of course, even much better then A600.

Here's cool youtube clip about buying Amiga, a little bit obsolete maybe (since, lots of A500 accelerators came out), but cool to watch, anyway.
[ Show youtube player ]

indigolemon · 13 February 2018, 22:40

Actually, the only correct answer is one of each

zipper · 13 February 2018, 22:45

A500, towerized with Blizzard 2060 and Picasso IV. OCS/ECS + RTG games -who cares about AGA...Ok, a cheap A1200 as backup...

DamienD · 13 February 2018, 23:26

If you are intent on spending loads of cash and trying to source real Amiga models then...

....otherwise, just use WinUAE

You can do a lot more there with zero additional cost

chip · 14 February 2018, 05:04

Since many Amiga games you bought are for A500, surely you should get one of those

But for the other models, take it simple and use WinUAE .... it's free and works great

jPV · 14 February 2018, 08:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akira

The OP has the "issue"that he wants to play the originals he bought/. So in his case, I'd stick to the A500.

He also said that he has some A1200 games, and there probably are WHDLoad installers for his A500 games. After all, WHDLoad is made just for that: installing your _original_ games to HD and patching them to work on newer machines.

So, vote for A1200 from me.

Foebane · 14 February 2018, 09:13

Can an Amiga 4000/060 play plain ol' 500 demos? If so, then the solution is obvious: get the very, very best.

Mrz · 14 February 2018, 10:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Foebane

Can an Amiga 4000/060 play plain ol' 500 demos? If so, then the solution is obvious: get the very, very best.

yes most of the old 500 demos will run using a degrader or whdload install if exists
however some of them will fail due the 060 cpu and its caches,
the 060 is not a very compatible cpu for old stuff

the best Amiga is the A4000 of course,but very expensive, anyways to play games has no advantage over the A1200

13 February 2018, 17:28	#1
paulnography Registered User Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: North Ferriby Posts: 18	Whats the best Amiga to get? Hey folks I used to be a massive Amiga gamer back in the day, as I'm sure most people here have been. Since then I'd sold my Amiga to move on to the 'next big thing', sadly selling my beloved Amiga 500 with it's extra 1 Meg upgrade and all the games I'd bought over the years. Over the last 8 or so years I've been rebuying loads of Amiga games from Ebay to build up my collection again, but have never gotten around to getting an Amiga to play them on. So I'm after a little bit of advice. I'm likely only to be playing games on it rather than anything too heavy like coding, music or artwork (I have my Mac for that). But what would be the best Amiga to get to run the games I've been re-collecting for. I mainly have Amiga 500 games (some require the meg upgrade), and a few A1200 games. Is there an Amiga that can handle both in terms of compatibility as I've heard the A1200 does't play all 500 games, and obviously vise versa. Thanks!

13 February 2018, 19:57	#6
adolfo.pa Registered User Join Date: Aug 2017 Location: Spain Posts: 30	I've gone through a very similar situation, so my experience may be useful. The only difference is that I still had my old Amiga 500 around and could still experience the marvels of floppy swapping and slow disk access ;-). At first, I wanted to get an A1200 or a standalone Vampire (at the time I believed its release was imminent) because I considered my A500 extremely underpowered for anything other than playing floppy games, and I wanted to use it for programming also. So, I kept looking for an A1200 for a couple of months, trying to find a reasonably cheap one (good luck with that), hoping at the same time that the standalone Vampire would be magically released. Anyway, in the end I got tired of waiting, and was also wary of some of the problems with stock A1200 (faulty caps that need replacements, need of an accel. card to make it decent enough for non-gaming uses, etc.). So after all this waiting, I finally got an ACA500+ for my old A500 this christmas, and man I'm happy :-) I can play almost all non AGA games with WHDLoad, it is more than fast enough for my purposes (my ACA is overclocked to 42MHz), and basically I can do everything I wanted to do with it and more. So, as a fellow newcomer, my recommendation would be to get a cheap A500 and one of the many accelerators available (ACA, Witcher or Terrible Fire). Even if you finally get an A1200 in the future, I'm pretty sure you'll thoroughly enjoy it in the meantime; I've been using it for less than two months, and the investement (around 150€) has more than paid back :-) Btw, sorry for such a long post :-) Last edited by adolfo.pa; 13 February 2018 at 20:09.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Whats the best setup for Amiga OS 4.1	spannernick	support.WinUAE	1	07 July 2015 14:04
Whats the longest Amiga Demo in the History of Amiga?	diablothe2nd	Amiga scene	17	09 January 2012 19:50
Whats your 1st memory of your/an amiga?	mrbob2	Nostalgia & memories	44	28 April 2007 00:03
Whats your best Amiga game publisher?	IceC	Nostalgia & memories	49	17 September 2006 17:30
Whats special on the Amiga 500P???	Alf	support.Hardware	7	18 February 2002 08:47

13 February 2018, 17:35	#2
E-Penguin Banana Join Date: Jul 2016 Location: Darmstadt Posts: 1,213	Sell your house and get both! The A500s are cheaper. Most games were written for the A500 + 512k expansion configuration. There's WinUAE for AGA-only games.

13 February 2018, 18:15	#4
alexh Thalion Webshrine Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Oxford Posts: 14,337	For gaming an A500 + 512K FASTRAM upgrade + Gotek Floppy Disk Emulator + FlashFloppy firmware. Or WinUAE + GSync / Freesync monitor

13 February 2018, 18:31	#5
ajk Registered User Join Date: May 2010 Location: Helsinki, Finland Posts: 1,341	The A1200 is the overall best system for games. There is no way to play AGA games on an A500, but the A1200 can run practically all A500 games. Yes, there are some incompatibilities but WHDLoad and other patches can take care of them. For best results you'll want a hard drive (which can be a more modern solid state option like a CompactFlash or SD card) and at least a little bit of extra RAM or a low-to-middle end accelerator. But there is no need to go overboard and you can add things over time, as needed. Or, if you don't care about AGA or multi-floppy adventures and things like that at all, an A500 with a Gotek drive will indeed serve you very well. An A4000 would of course do the all same things but unless you are very lucky, it will be a far more costly option.

13 February 2018, 20:42	#7
Zak Zap´em Join Date: Aug 2012 Location: Germany Posts: 596	I have an (unfortunately damaged) A1200 as my best gaming rig. It has a Kickstart switch, I can switch to Kickstart 1.3, play all the floppy games there. It has an accelerator, so I can watch demos. It has a hard disk, so I can play WHDload. It even has a CD-Rom drive where I get my ADF's from. It is easily transportable which an A4000 isn't and has color composite video output, which the A500 hasn't. It was the best thing ever until my friend dropped it on the stairway.

13 February 2018, 21:19	#8
Mrz Banned Join Date: Dec 2016 Location: I Posts: 338	this question it has been done miles of times the best Amiga for games is by far the A1200 or the A4000 /030 cpu the Amiga 500 + ACA 500 plus is not a bad option but you miss all the exclusive AGA games which some of them are fantastic ie Onescapee,Aladdin,Slam tilt,skeleton krew,watch tower,james pond 3, lemmings 3,alien breed 3d2 ,genetic species etc

13 February 2018, 21:28	#9
Daedalus Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Dublin, then Glasgow Posts: 6,334	For me personally I couldn't imagine being limited to an A500 for gaming. Most of the games I enjoyed were either AGA only, AGA enhanced, or simply benefitted from the extra CPU power. I remember once trying to play Birds of Prey on a friend's A500 and just giving up since it was just too slow to be enjoyable. A stock A1200 was just about playable, and an '030 made it great fun.

13 February 2018, 22:03	#11
Amiga1992 Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ? Posts: 19,645	The OP has the "issue"that he wants to play the originals he bought/. So in his case, I'd stick to the A500.

13 February 2018, 22:16	#12
toples50 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2018 Location: Greece Posts: 143	I think A3000,the best overall Amiga ever.

13 February 2018, 22:39	#13
d4rk3lf Registered User Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Novi Sad, Serbia Posts: 1,645	Here's my humble opinion. If you want cheap, get Amiga 600 with CF card as HD. Amiga 600 is basically the same as Amiga 500, but it connects to cf card (and regular hd's) MUCH easier (and cheaper), then A500. I'd always prefer A600 with CF, over the A500 + Gotek (where's the fun, without Workbench?). But it's a matter of taste, I guess. Now, if you're like me, and you really want to buy only A500, and nothing else then A500, then get one. When I bought my A500, I could easily buy A1200, and spare myself a lots of trouble. But I wanted A500, not A1200, no 4000, no 600, just A500. But since you opened this thread, then you're (hopefully) not like me. If you can get A1200, it's of course, even much better then A600. Here's cool youtube clip about buying Amiga, a little bit obsolete maybe (since, lots of A500 accelerators came out), but cool to watch, anyway. [ Show youtube player ]

13 February 2018, 22:40	#14
indigolemon Bit Copying Bard Join Date: Jan 2017 Location: Kelty, Fife, Scotland Age: 41 Posts: 1,293	Actually, the only correct answer is one of each

13 February 2018, 22:45	#15
zipper Registered User Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: finland Posts: 1,837	A500, towerized with Blizzard 2060 and Picasso IV. OCS/ECS + RTG games -who cares about AGA...Ok, a cheap A1200 as backup...

13 February 2018, 23:26	#16
DamienD Banned Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: London / Sydney Age: 47 Posts: 20,420	If you are intent on spending loads of cash and trying to source real Amiga models then... ....otherwise, just use WinUAE You can do a lot more there with zero additional cost

14 February 2018, 05:04	#17
chip Registered User Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Italy Age: 49 Posts: 2,942	Since many Amiga games you bought are for A500, surely you should get one of those But for the other models, take it simple and use WinUAE .... it's free and works great

14 February 2018, 09:13	#19
Foebane Banned Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Cardiff, UK Age: 51 Posts: 2,871	Can an Amiga 4000/060 play plain ol' 500 demos? If so, then the solution is obvious: get the very, very best.

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)