HELP! AMIGA experts! Better to get PAL OR NTSC model?

[MaximumRD]

First, let me be clear, I have owned both the Amiga 500 and Amiga 1200 machines in the past. Being in Canada of course what was available to me (I was not into importing in those days) of course I ended up with NTSC models as that is the Canadian standard as it is in the good ol' U.S.A. Though I never got as far as getting higher models or using a Video Toaster etc, I did have simple fun making Titles for my home movies using just Deluxe Paint and recording to video tape. I am also knowledgeable enough that I made bootable disks and I knew to hold down the two mouse buttons to access the Early Startup Screen on my 1200 for certain games which was fine on my 1084's Monitor.

Here is the thing, currently I own NO Amiga hardware. I DID just recently acquire one of those 4 GB Compact Flash Cards with IDE adapter from the UK containing a bootable WB 3.1 with TONS of games/demos/applications all set to go. To test I even booted it using UAE on my PC, worked very well actually. I noticed when I booted emulating an NTSC Amiga and tried the game Super Skid Marks )an overhead racing game) the game had graphical glitches. So of course I then tried it again this time emulating a PAL Amiga and when I tried it again the game loaded with perfect graphics but it seemed much slower gameplay wise. Ok so to drone on I will just ask, though I live here in NTSC land when I am ready to buy another AMIGA might I be better served getting an PAL unit? Are they more compatible with the majority of titles? I don't really plan recording the output to make titles like I did back in the day considering the PC editing software I use now lol! The majority of the use would be for playing games, a recordable signal would be nice but I am sure I could at least display it using an add on device or something. Would I be correct in assuming I could obtain a PAL Amiga but use an American/Canadian power supply? I would think the output to the PC would be the same it just needs to be the proper unit to plug into our outlet? OK that's it, that is the capacity of my knowledge. What I would humbly request is: Please give me your advice, suggestions, opinions, comments and tell me what you think would be my best option and why? I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback! THANK SO MUCH IN ADVANCE!!!!

[mech]

If you are going with A1200, buy a pal one, get a indivision scan doubler(when they are back in production). You can use the american psu no problem(amiga only cares about the +5,+12 & -12V on the 1200 side).the indivision will allow it to promote to modern day lcd monitors etc.pal machines have the most games compatibility.

The A4000 on the other hand has a jumper to change between pal/ntsc. u can even install a switch there. just get a typical ntsc model with american psu in this case.. add a picasso IV(expensive!) video card or again,get a indivision scandoubler.

Mike

[MaximumRD]

So, if I get an A4000 is setting that jumper the SAME as selecting NTSC/PAL with the A1200 Early Startup Screen?

[Fabie]

Originally Posted by MaximumRD

So, if I get an A4000 is setting that jumper the SAME as selecting NTSC/PAL with the A1200 Early Startup Screen?

not exactly

the jumper on the A4000 selects the default boot mode....pal or ntsc
on the A1200 there is no jumper settings on the motherboard but there is an easy hack connecting a pin on the Alice chip to 5v will boot in pal and connecting it to ground will boot by default in ntsc

[pandy71]

But this will not change frequency of the master oscilator (PAL/NTSC soft/hard switching is related only to the vertical refresh rate - other timing remains the same as for PAL)

[desiv]

So, when you switch an NTSC Amiga 1200 to play PAL games, using either the preboot or whdload, you can get the graphics to display properly color and resolution wise, but the gameplay speed will still be different????

desiv

[Damion]

Exactly. The NTSC oscillator is slightly higher frequency which effects chipset timing. It's not a huge difference (the higher PAL resolution slows things down a bit regardless) but noticeable.