in which way the amiga beat the megadrive

[TCD]

Originally Posted by laser

gods on the megadrive features more vivid colours and features music+sound effects
the amiga version (not bad) only sound effects and less colours

Yes there is no music while you play, but the music on the MD is crap, as are the sound effects. The resolution on the MD is lower and just because there are more colors on screen at the same time (which I doubt) it doesn't look better. It looks worse than the Amiga version because there are less colors the designer could choose from (seems like a bad automatic 'nearest color' conversion to me). The MD version has not the real intro and so on. So how can you say that the Amiga lose?

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

Okay and for the sound : Does anyone really thinks the MegaDrive sounds better? He must have listened to the best MD music and the worst on the Miggy

Can you all please stop comparing fish with lettuce?
You can't put into comparison an FM SYNTHESIS chip against a DAC chip.
Compare if you will the FM sound of the Megadrive with the sort-of-FM sound of teh AtariST. Or something that makes more sense.
The FM synth does not play samples, and there's NO Genesis game with music using SAMPLES, therefore, no point of comparison.

The best thought out machines, in my opinion, have both a DAC and a synth chip.

[Zetr0]

Hmmm this is apples and pears as Akira suggests...

I love them both, I have such fond memories of both, arguably, AMIGA should be changed as at the time there were only a handful of models available.

The Megadrive / Genesis was release 1989/90 for the US/European markets and all that were available for the home market in them days would of been

• A1000 (1985)
• A2000 (1987)
• A500/A500+ (1987/88 - 89)
• A3000 (1990)

the A600/A1200 wasn't released until 1992 so it wouldn't be fair to compare the MegaDrive on a technical level to anything AGA or anything else but an unexpanded Amiga.

so... technically although their based on the same CPU nothing more is comparable between the A500+ and the Megadrive / Genesis.

Graphically the MD is limited to a set screen mode, which is text-cell based, i cannot remember off the top of my head, but its quite clever way of using updating the screen to allow for more colours that actually can be produced in a single screen mode like that on the Amiga. however this means the megadrive is set to a specific screen mode the A500a has many screen modes from hires productivity to low res games. so its what you are gonna use it for.

some more MD Graphics info

• Graphics modes:
  - 320 x 224 pixels, 512 colours (9 bit), 64 simultaneously, max. 80 to 90
• sprites (32x32 pixels), 2 scrolling playfields, 1 sprite plane (= 3 planes) FIXME
  - 40 x 28 text mode
• Video RAM:
  - 64 KB
• Color RAM:
  - 64 x 9 kbit

Sound is another area of contention here, The A500 as we know, has 4 channels of 8bit stereo (processor assisted 14bit) the MD has one sound processing chip helped out by the Zilog80 co-processor, neither of which are really any good on their own but together they can be made to produce some quite good sounds.

The biggest letdown of the MD is the lack of memory with only 64k for on board registers it hardly had that much room to swing a cat, compared to the A500+ which could at the time have up to 2MB of ram (thats a 16mbit cartridge). (not including processor cards etc)

Personally i was a little letdown by the A500 sound coming from my 1040 ST, however in terms of performance it could produce effects and sounds that the MD is just not capable of, I will post some instances. but the biggest letdown is the fact the MD has such a limited memory, with more memory comes the ability to more and more effects.

MD Sound Info

• 4-channel Texas Instruments SN76489 (PSG (Programmable Sound Generator))
• 6-channel Yamaha YM-2612
• Sound RAM:
  - 8 KB
• Signal/noise ratio:
  - 14 dB

So what was better.... hmmmm...... well i fear it comes down to cost, the MD is in my book around 85% that of an A500 insofar as games are concerned.

so back in 1990, when everyone was excited, what would you choose?

the Amiga A500 for £359.90 or the Sleek Black SEGA MegaDrive £189.99

okay... you get a keyboard with the A500

I didn't choose.... I had both... yes i know.... greedy

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Akira

Can you all please stop comparing fish with lettuce?

I'm not comparing fish and lettuce, but ways of producing sound. The Amiga is capable of playing FM sounds, while the MD lacks the ability to play samples. The thread is all about these differences and why shouldn't we point it out?

[s2325]

good Megadrive music: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LyFGvAVfXA8
Megadrive music with some sampled sound: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rqVCmUg6MtI
crappy Megadrive music: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q3EZyjX920

[Zetr0]

@Akira

looks like you got another post in before me...indeed i dooooo waffle on....

some of my favy and essentially immortal MD games

Gunstar Heros
MegaMan Series
Eco the Dolphin
Mortal Kombat
Street Fighter

ahh such good times

[Amiga1992]

Cyberdruid, the Amiga is NOT capable of "playing FM sounds". What the hell do you mean with "FM sounds"? We are talking about hardware synthesis and the Amiga lacks any sort of synthesizer hardware to "play FM sounds". H

Likewise, even when the MD does NOT lack the ability to play samples, there's no point of comparison. With tweakery on the coding side, it can play very shitty samples (a PSG trying to do DAC is not as high quality as a full blwon 8-bit DAC). But that is still not comparable to having a full blown DAC inside, which is what the Amiga has!! The Commodore 64 could also play samples with programming trickery but that doesn't make it comparable to the Amiga sound!

I am talking about you people comparing two very different things, which makes no sense at all. In the end it just looks like zealotry to defend a platform, when none should be "competing" (it's 2008 by the way)

Originally Posted by Zetr0

The A500 as we know, has 4 channels of 8bit stereo (processor assisted 14bit)

Sorry, the Amiga has 4 mono channels, hard-panned! If they were stereo, you could pan them from L to R in each chan The final output is "stereo" (hard panned stereo is not proper stereo)

The biggest letdown of the MD is the lack of memory with only 64k for on board registers it hardly had that much room to swing a cat, compared to the A500+ which could at the time have up to 2MB of ram (thats a 16mbit cartridge). (not including processor cards etc)

I don;'t get this point a lot.
The main reason why Amiga didn't get many ports of console games was lack of memory, since the Amiga would need to load all teh graphic data, map data
and more into its RAM after loading it from disk. The Genesis did not have this problem because it used ROM cartridges. Now, where would be the advantage of having system RAM in a cartridge-based system?

[Harrison]

Hmm... what a pointless argument. Two systems based around the same CPU, but with the rest of their hardware design developed with completely different intentions.

The MD was purely developed as a gaming platform. And with Sega building arcade machines they put that knowledge into their 16-bit system, creating something that was good as 2D sprite manipulation and multiple field generation, along with 6 channel synthesized audio. Whereas the Amiga was a completely different beast with multitasking, one of the first systems capable of sampled audio playback (why would the Amiga need to generate sounds from a chip when it could just play back real sampled ones?) etc...

If you really wanted to compare the MD to something, the SNES would be a better choice. Then the MD would lose hands down. Try comparing some of the games that were released on both the MD and SNES for proof of that.

It always used to annoy me when people would directly compare the ST and Amiga to the consoles of the day. Each was designed with a different aim in mind, so the consoles would always have a slight edge in certain game specific areas, whereas full home computers still offered so much more.

And in general, most games were always the best versions on the system they were developed on. In this regard many of the games listed in this thread were initially Amiga games, such as Gods, and remain the best on the Amiga. Likewise all other systems have their exclusive titles that are worth playing just as much as any other. It doesn't matter what system you are playing a game on, as long as the game is good.

[Zetr0]

@Akira

the MD has only 64KB of working space, the Amiga has well as much as is on it... 512KB - 2048KB

indeed, the A500 has to load the maps/gfx etc etc.. but arguably its WORKING area is much larger than that of the MegaDrive ?

mentioning this, I cannot think of any polygon games on the MD? anyone refresh my memory?

[Harrison]

@Zetr0

But surely, as with all cartridge based games, they don't need much ram as the game data is already stored in roms so doesn't need to be loaded into any ram?

[Zetr0]

@Harrison

my friend, it would hardly be fair to compare the MD to the SNES as that machine was release much later, and hence technically far superior.


as far as cart technology, that is its bonus and its bane, being able to store on demand all the data required means less needed work space, but one could argue with more workspace more could be done.... etc etc.... again its a matter of design implementation...

IMHO what makes a system are the Developers.... indeed, these are the Hero's of any and ALL platforms.

[Harrison]

Sort of true, but they were direct competition and competed against each other, with us seeing many games released on both formats. Therefore it is still fair to compare the same games released on the two formats to show the differences.

[frikilokooo]

About graphics the Megadrive goes a little further on that the A500/A1200 IMO.I can't believe that the Flink Megadrive version is faster and with one more scroll plane than in the Amiga CD32(AGA)! Aladdin is nicer in Megadrive too.
I think that Sonic or Ristar would be much worse in the A500...even the A1200 version

[Yoto]

Ok guys, i know wich console was better than Amiga, probably even better than Xbox or PS3!

Presenting The Philips Videopac G7400!!!

[Yoto]

It has both the best of Amiga and Mega Drive:
The MD cartridge and a keyboard like Amiga, even better than Amiga, because with this keyboard you can drop your coffee and your Tea (for our british friends), with no harm done!

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

mentioning this, I cannot think of any polygon games on the MD? anyone refresh my memory?

A shoot em up version of F117a Stealth Fighter was released for Megadrive I believe, but 3D games were not the norm.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by laser

gods on the megadrive features more vivid colours and features music+sound effects
the amiga version (not bad) only sound effects and less colours

I suggest you do a screen grab of both versions and do a colour count, I think you'll find the Amiga version has the extra colours. The sound effects on the Amiga version were also far more atmospheric, hence no reliance of music was needed.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

mentioning this, I cannot think of any polygon games on the MD? anyone refresh my memory?

[ Show youtube player ]

[frikilokooo]

and Vroom! (but with bikes)

http://www.gametronik.com/site/fiche...ke%20Challenge

[Zetr0]

@Galahad

I dont think i ever saw that one.... indeed not the norm...

@Double D Delicious Damien

Ahhhh Virtua Racing, how could i forget.... didnt that require the 32x dongle?