My First Amiga, Help Needed!!

First of all I would like to congratulate you all on a great forum, and you have managed to answer many of my questions before I asked them!!
Now I have decided that I will be purchasing an a1200 (when I find one), was just wondering what I should look for in the a1200 and what I should add to the a1200. The a1200 is to be used for gaming mainly.
Hope you can help a noob in need!!

[PowerPie5000]

Hi and welcome

Any fully working A1200 will do... if you want a clean white system then it will usually cost a bit more but the yellowed one's can be picked up cheap enough If it's for gaming then i would also recommend getting a ram expansion (at least 8mb) or possibly a decent accelerator (can cost quite a bit!). A hard drive or CF card loaded with ClassicWB and WHDLoad along with a load of games is also a good thing to have installed

Not sure what Joysticks you prefer but i personally like using the microswitched type (clicky)... Most common are the Zipstick and Competiton Pro models

Also i wouldn't worry about the Kickstart ROM versions too much as i've not noticed any difference between using version 3.0 and 3.1 for the A1200.

[Josh]

Originally Posted by PowerPie5000

Also i wouldn't worry about the Kickstart ROM versions too much as i've not noticed any difference between using version 3.0 and 3.1 for the A1200.

The biggest difference is with 3.1 you can run OS 3.5 / 3.9, with 3.0 not.


Cheers Josh

[PowerPie5000]

Originally Posted by Josh

The biggest difference is with 3.1 you can run OS 3.5 / 3.9, with 3.0 not.


Cheers Josh

Thats true but OS 3.5/3.9 are not needed (or ideal) for classic Amiga gaming... A 3.0 or 3.1 ROM will be fine for a WHDLoad gaming A1200

[EreWeGo]

Originally Posted by PowerPie5000

Hi and welcome

Any fully working A1200 will do... if you want a clean white system then it will usually cost a bit more but the yellowed one's can be picked up cheap enough If it's for gaming then i would also recommend getting a ram expansion (at least 8mb) or possibly a decent accelerator (can cost quite a bit!). A hard drive or CF card loaded with ClassicWB and WHDLoad along with a load of games is also a good thing to have installed

Not sure what Joysticks you prefer but i personally like using the microswitched type (clicky)... Most common are the Zipstick and Competiton Pro models

Also i wouldn't worry about the Kickstart ROM versions too much as i've not noticed any difference between using version 3.0 and 3.1 for the A1200.

Welcome to the forums! Powerpie5000 has it pretty much answered with his reply - although even a 4mb ram expansion will do for WHDLoad, (which is also a HIGHLY recommended purchase if the A1200 is going to be used mainly for gaming).

If money isn't an issue, I'd recommend a scandoubler/flickerfixer like this:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...roducts_id=821
You can then use a modern LCD etc. I'd also definitely look at the CF card option like Powerpie5000 mentioned, I have a 2Gb CF card as my hard drive, stuffed full of WHDLoaded gaming goodness!

For transferring files between PC and Amiga, using a CF card/PCMCIA adaptor is great. Have a search of the forums regarding this.

As far as joysticks, obviously personal preference will vary, but some "classics" are the Competition Pro series, the Zipstick, the Suncom TAC-2, various Quickshot joysticks, and many others. I also sometimes use a standard Megadrive/Genesis pad, (only button "B" works for fire, but it's a great pad for gaming)

Anyway, good luck with your purchases!

Thank you all for your informative posts.
There was mention of an accelerator card? Is that necessary for games or just makes them run smoother?? And isn't there only space for one expansion on the a1200?? I could be getting this all wrong.........

[Graham Humphrey]

The majority of games an accelerator won't make any difference in terms of the speed games run at. Quite a few of the later commercial titles (from about 1997 onwards) may require them or at least take advantage of them and some of the more processor-intensive games (like flight sims) may benefit from it.

And you can only have one trapdoor expansion yes. That's the only place you can put an accelerator card.

[PowerPie5000]

Originally Posted by peterdinosaur

Thank you all for your informative posts.
There was mention of an accelerator card? Is that necessary for games or just makes them run smoother?? And isn't there only space for one expansion on the a1200?? I could be getting this all wrong.........

An accelerator card is both a CPU and RAM upgrade so no need to worry about having just one expansion slot Quite a few games will not benefit from having an accelerator (will not make a difference) but some A1200 games such as Gloom, Breathless, Alien Breed 3D etc.. and even some older titles will make use of the extra horsepower.
Some older pre-A1200 (OCS/ECS) games that had slowdown issues will run silky smooth on an A1200 with or without the accelerator

I personally use an E-Matrix 1230 expansion with a 40mhz 030 CPU and 16mb of RAM installed, it certainly makes a difference with my setup as i run Amigasys 4 AGA as my main OS which is fully loaded with all sorts

EDIT: i'm sure someone here will be able to gather up a list of games that will benefit from having an accelerator installed, I can only think of a few but i know there are more... and if you want to check out demo's from the old demo scene then an accelerator is highly recommended

[Graham Humphrey]

Originally Posted by PowerPie5000

but some A1200 games such as Gloom, Breathless, Alien Breed 3D etc..

Blimey I forgot all about them. I think I need to go back to bed.