Benefit's of a Real Amiga vs Emulation

[Ian]

Right, serious topic here, I've been considering buying a real Amiga for a few month's now, but the only stumbling block has been, 'What's the point?'

Are there any real benefits to having a real Amiga?

It's been a while since I had a real Amiga, about 8 years, so my only memories are either vague or what I have experienced through WinUAE/WinFellow so I would appreciate your honest answer's.

Saying 'Buy a real Amiga 'cause it's better!' just doesn't cut it I'm afraid, I want hard evidence of the facts

[jmmijo]

Obviously the emu's can only do so much, it's nice to have a real one just in case you can't get the emu to work. The other advantage is if you have any size Amiga software lib. You can then connect the Amiga and a PC/MAC together and archive the disk images to say a CD-R or CD-RW or for those few lucky ones, a DVD+RW

This is the project I'm on right now, I'm waiting for the Catweasal board so I can archive both my Amiga and C64/128 software lib. I'm still finding un-opened boxes in my basement, it's like a freakin' treasure hunt

A while back we bought an A2000 with a Toaster in it for the TV station. I thought "Wow, here's my chance to re-live my old Amiga days!" It was a novelty at first. I pulled out all my old software thinking it would be a blast. Wrong. Some of disks worked, but then the reality of operating system requirements came back to haunt me. Early versions of games and disks that I had compiled wouldn't even load. I needed an A500 for this, an A2000 for that...

My point is that with an emulator you can have any system you want with the push of a button. Your software is on the hard disk in nice, neat folders. You don't need another corner of the room taken up for hardware and software, cables and electrical domination, not to mention the cost of all this.

I'm sure you have interests in other systems, too. We all do. But it would be hard to have a sega, super nintendo, intellivision, Coco computer, TI-99 or even a coin-op machine (MAME solves this) sitting in your computer space.

Emulation is the future. Old systems are just that. Old. They wear out. So does the original software. Emulators are already faster, easier to use and less expensive than the real thing. They will just get better...

Don't get me wrong. I miss the feel of my old system and the wonderful memories that went with it. It's just not practical, though, to try and set up so much archaic hardware when we're this close to true emulation. A year ago I wouldn't have said this and just think of what the near future will bring.

It's nice to get all your old software converted over to adf files, but once you do your "real Amiga" would probably collect dust. Better to find someone who will do it for you in trade or something. I'd like to see a commercial service that converts all software and carts to emulator compatible files. I'd pay to get mine done.

That old A2000 sits at the station and makes a commercial once in a while. I'll take my emulator...

[Codetapper]

Depending on what you want to do with it, a real Amiga is a good idea... For example, if you can get a nice A1200 with say a 68030 and at least 8Mb of fast memory, you can play all the HD games at full speed with proper joystick support etc.

For my PC, the emulator just doesn't cut it - games run anything from 20-50% of the original speed (some demos which really use the Amiga hardware crawl at maybe 5% of Amiga speed!) and I would never do any of my WHDLoad stuff on purely an emulator unless there was no other Amiga 1200's for sale in the country!

So depending what you want to do, the real thing is still a good purchase...

[jmmijo]

So Ian, it's probably going to come down to what you actually want to do with the real thing vs. what you're currently doing with an emu

[Drake1009]

I still like my real amigas. Though they're not upgraded it's a lot about nostalgia too. Even though I never had an Amiga before after I started emulation, friends of mine had Amigas which I remembered using.

I'd like to say the Amigas are more compatible than the emulators, but actually in some cases I've found the emulator being able to run stuff which the real amiga wasn't even if the emulated specs the setup was made from my real one.

[Ian]

@jmmjo

I don't really want to do anything different from what I do with emulation, the only reason's I'm concidering buying a real Amiga are:-

a) Some eliteist's on the board (Amigaboy & Akira) refuse to use emulators and only use the real thing, which suggest's (to me anyway) that there are benefit's to using the real thing.

b) I have been given a 28 inch 4:3 TV that currently is just sitting on my floor doing nothing. We have a few TV's, all fully booked up, but this one just sit's there

I thought an Amiga (If it was a worth will purchase) would be the perfect thing to hook up to the TV

[Paul]

Since I started using the real thing again, I've noticed a remarkable difference in quality and a lot less bugs. I haven't used an emulator since!

[CodyJarrett]

I use Amiga emulators on my PC in Paris, as there isn't enough room to have other stuff here.

But, when I visit my parents' roomy home, I use my A1200 with hard disk, monitor, accelerator and other nice things. Even then I would rarely use floppies to play games with. If it won't run off the hard disk, then it's not worth bothering about.

[RetroMan]

Originally posted by RocketMack
I needed an A500 for this, an A2000 for that...

That´s not completely true I have an A2000 here with Kick1.3, an autoboot HD Controller and two floppys with 1 Meg Chip and 2 Meg Fast ! This Baby is more compatible for old games then any A500 out there And if I want to have it fast, I´ll just turn a switch and at the next boot I got a 040/40Mhz. with SCSI-II Burner and a 4 Gig HD with OS 3.9 and an gfx-card

I only need these two configs (choosable with ONE switch) to get 99.9% off ALL software (old and new) to run on the real thing ! Just imagine how many hours of configuring and testing will be needed to get this amount of software to run on any Emu out there .....

@Ian : go and buy the real thing ! You won´t regret it !

[Galahad/FLT]

There is a market for both, and it all depends on what you want to do.

Me personally, I don't use Amiga emulators, its nothing personal, but I like to know what the cause of a bug in a game is, I can narrow it down on a real Amiga, on an emulator, it might be nothing to do with the software.

I also seem to like just about every game/demo that the emulators suck at. Again, its nothing against the emulator writers, but the Amiga, is still a powerful machine with its multi-processor environment, people are still producing games and demos on a system that is allegedly way underpowered in comparison to todays PC standards, but that doesn't stop people coding marvels.

Age of the machine is irrelevant, the PC is knocking on for 30 years old, and no-one is pensioning that off yet!

I picked up a Amiga A12oo Tower system with a 68o6o, 64 Meg of ram, 2x 4 Gig hard drives, 48Speed CD drive, pc keyboard, Packard Bell Monitor, with speakers, Loads of originals, loads of coverdisks, Catweasel PC HD drive, and a spare A12oo to go with it...... that little lot cost me £180.... I still have the receipt for the o6o card which cost three times that amount......

...if some idiot is stupid enough to sell a system like that, chances are there is some other stupid idiot that will as well...... Have the best of both worlds, an Emulator is ok, a system like the one above needs to be owned.

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by Galahad/FLT
...if some idiot is stupid enough to sell a system like that, chances are there is some other stupid idiot that will as well...... Have the best of both worlds, an Emulator is ok, a system like the one above needs to be owned.

There you go Ian, less then £200 for a really nice A1200

I am, once again, speaking from an economical point of view when I condone an emulator over the real thing.

If you have the money, the space and the time to build such a system then I might also consider it. I have many other types of game machines with their original software still packed away, but to activate them together at my computer station would be a monstrous fire trap.

It all breaks down to what's important to you, like everyone here has said. I must admit that I've looked real hard at Amiga systems for sale on Ebay lately...

[Akira]

Well, so much for PCs, I hust wrote an excellent reply and the fuckwit locked up, taking it down with it. Can't wait to configure my 1200 for net access...

Anyway, what has been said is fine. Galahad's advice is great (that 1200 was a nice catch, Galahad!).I nabbed my 1200 this friday for 150 dollars, and it came with an 030@50, 32MB of Fast RAM, 1GB HD, couple dozen disks, a Roclite external diskdrive, and lots of other things.

There are advantages, like everyone said here. It just doesn't feel right to emulate (to me). And hey, nothing betas having the actual thing running there. Some people dont understand this, that's why they always keep asking me why I buy original games (amiga or others), when I can download them off the net. It's just not the same

If you can find a bargain, nab it. It will be terrific on your TV

BTW space is no concern, an A1200 takes much less space than a PC does

"Nothing beats the Real Thing!"©

[jmmijo]

The A1200 doesn't really take up that much space, I think even the tower configs could be sat on the floor if need be. This is sort of like a kit car vs. the real thing. I'd love to have a Dusenberg J sitting in my driveway, in fact having Clark Gables original would be a dream come true but hey, I've not won a lottery or had some other windfall so the next best thing would be a kit care replica. The recplica is akin to running an emu, just not quite like the real thing, close but no cigar as the say

[Ian]

I have decided ...... I'm getting one

Space isn't a concern anyway for me, nor cash, the only thing stopping me buying one now is the fact all the one's on ebay (uk) are standard ones

I want a beast Nothing else will do

[jmmijo]

Maybe Galahad can help you find one, he seems adept at finding the steals

[Chaeo]

Well, I've just built this AthlonXP 2ghz and a few days ago I realised I finally had the power to play around with emulators - I ended up trying WinUAE and WinFellow, the latter of which worked faster, but WinUAE had more options. Ultimately it became clear to me that my real Amiga in the loft needed digging out and cleaning etc, which I'm currently working on. Yeah, the real thing is worth it, if you can get hold of one.

[Tolismlf]

Originally Posted by Chaeo

Ultimately it became clear to me that my real Amiga in the loft needed digging out and cleaning etc, which I'm currently working on. Yeah, the real thing is worth it, if you can get hold of one.

My A500 has so many problems.. Some Keyboard keys won't respond, Floppy seems to struggle.. No Joystick... Mouse is crappy... Not enough CPU power (68000)... No Hard disk... Kickstart 1.3... Not much RAM (1 MB)... 1084S gave up it's spirit... So after all i prefer the emulation!

[Unknown_K]

I prefer original equipment to emulators. If I have 30 minutes that I want to spend on an Amiga game I want to spend the whole 30 minutes on the game, not 25 minutes configuring the emulator and 5 minutes on the game itself.

Emulaters are great on simple slow systems without custom chips (Like an atari 2600 for example), I have every Atari 2600 game on a CD that gets used on my Dreamcast and they all run fine. The problem is the controller is different and since I used a real 2600 in the 70-80's I don't get the exact experience.

If you took a tour of my basement you would see the following setup and ready to run:
C128, Atari 1040ST, Tandy 1000HX, Apple IIgs, Amiga 1200, Amiga 2000HD, Mac IIfx, Mac 840AV, Mac 7500, Mac 8500, Mac 950. That takes up a bit of space. Under this desk are my 4 PC game machines (386/40, P200MMX, P2-400, XP1500+). And even on my PC's I still have removable HD trays so I can swap out my DOS game drive with my vintage OS/2 drive (or Windows 3.1, Desqview/X, etc) for some specific task.

[rattus]

I use a real A1200 because a) it's there, might as well use it! and b) my G4 is too slow to run E-UAE fullspeed. I still keep it around to test stuff out though

[Chuckles]

Originally Posted by Chaeo

Well, I've just built this AthlonXP 2ghz and a few days ago I realised I finally had the power to play around with emulators ...

Finally ... had ... the ... power?

I've been running WinUAE on a PIII/700 for ages now, and with very few exceptions, every game I throw at it runs at full speed without "dumbing down" the configuration, and with plenty of CPU left over. If you have better than a PIII/700 and you can't get that sort of performance, there are probably a host of minor issues in both the PC's configuration, and in the WinUAE configs that are robbing your performance. If you've got a monster machine then great, but don't be so sure you can't get an older machine to run WinUAE quite nicely with a bit of effort.

As for the real thing vs. emulation, I enjoy both, and if you have the space I'd always recommend getting the real thing. The machines have a certain feel to them that you just can't emulate. In my basement, besides the PIII/700, I have an Apple IIe, an Apple IIGS, a Mac Color Classic, an Amiga 1000 and an Amiga 2000HD, along with an XBox. All are set up and running, and I have an Apple II+, an Atari 800XL, an Atari 130XE, a couple of old 486's and a Super Nintendo tucked away in a storage area in the house. Wish I could hook 'em all up, but there's only so much you can fit into one area.

[Photon]

The difference is in the sound, the pixels and compatibility. I'm oldskool so I like to play nice old games like Paradroid 90, Datastorm, Gravity Force, Master Blaster, Rick Dangerous etc etc. As a matter of fact I hooked up my trusty old A500 and played a couple of those game this very day. If I want to play something heavy like F1GP I whip out my '040 Amiga.

The advantages with the real thing:

1) The sound. The WinUAE emulation is fine but it just doesn't sound like the real thing. I fiddle around with trackers a bit and I notice the difference. I also had trouble playing .mods that I downloaded, all but Protracker 3.00b+ hung. So...

2) The pixels. There just is no way to emulate the saturation of my 1084. If I emulate with raster lines the colors just die. If I don't, I'm left with much too sharp boxy pixels. Also, 50Hz on my Dell 19" Trinitron flickers a lot more than my 1084 @ 50 Hz, probably due to the 1084's phosphor layer which retains the picture for longer. (high-end) PC monitors just aren't nice to look at when using too low Hz. Also, copper shades that were perfectly smooth on the real Amiga suddenly look bad.

3) Compatibility is MUCH better for these nice old games and utilities from the early 90's. I'm having a very hard time running certain utilities in WinUAE, even though I configure it like the real machine. When I run it on the real thing with the exact same setup as in WinUAE, the same software that hung every time runs perfectly every time. This might of course get better with time.

There is of course a big advantage with emulating too - no disk swapping, no copying files or disks (much easier to drag and drop and organize on the PC), and you can download huge amounts of stuff to try out. It's also a lot nicer to code assembler in the emulator, you can start two emulation windows and code in one, start the program in the other, if one hangs, you still have your source. You can size the window as you like and enjoy a 100Hz+ picture, etc etc.

Why not do like me, enjoy the best of both worlds?

[Hillsy_]

Hmmmm...interesting...

@Unknown_K....Ahhh the Atari2600...Do you remember the game Adventure? or Vanguard? or maybe Yar's Revenge? So many memories. I might check out the Atari2600 emulator too, see if my controller works with it. Circus Atari....with the Paddles....What fun!! Definitely difficult to emulate...

@Chuckles..Yep agreed, I emulate the Amiga on my Athlon700Mhz PC with full speed and full graphics. Even Genetic Species runs very well. At one point I was tempted to buy another Amiga, but I don't think I will. The emulator is good enough for me. I played Turrican on the Emulator, and it felt the same, looked the same, sounded the same as when I played it all those egon's ago on my REAL Amiga. I only get the ocassional crash on WinUAE, but I do respect the people who do have a REAL Amiga. I have kept my American SNES and I understand the importance of preserving memories. People keep things for their own reasons, sometimes for programming, sometimes for games, sometimes fond memories, sometimes for collecting. Me, I was more into the games so the Emulator is sufficient enough for me. One thing I do think about is, When I go on Ebay I know what I am getting when I purchase a SNES game...Would I know what I am getting if I purchase an Amiga game? What about the floppy disks, do they still read fine? No read/write errors over time? I remember a long time ago alot of my friends who had Amiga's had problems with Powerpacks overheating due to the Hard disk. I am not critising the Amiga, just making some observations.

Paradroid 90...Didn't have a save feature on the REAL Amiga, but their are Save-States for the Emulator. Has this been rectified for the REAL Amiga?

Take it easy,

PS: Yeah, Datastorm & Paradroid 90 are great game!!

[Peanutuk]

For playing games I always use my A1200. As rattus says it is there so why not use it ? Hard drives are as cheap as chips and now that WINXP allows you to simply place the Amiga HD in your PC and copy everything across using WinUAE transferng large amounts of data is pretty straight forward. However if you wanted to use you Amiga for heavy stuff like surfing the web etc then the costs to beef up a standard A1200 for example are prohibitive, and you are risking the odd short-circuit or duff power supply that could destroy that precious Blizzard!

When I think of the time and money I've spent over the years on bits and bobs for expanding my A1200 to not really get anywhere other than playing games on it, it does seem a gigantic waste of time but hey it's fun! And what the hell did I buy that A2000 for? And that A500? And that.....etc. etc.

It's shame so much snobbery seems to be associated with owning 'The Real Thing' but unless you have the time, space and money to buy a real Amiga, emulation is a great and in many ways better alternative. I've never really used emulation for anything else but testing harddrive set-ups etc.

[manicx]

A real Amiga smells like a real Amiga. This is the fundamental difference to me..

[Tim Janssen]

I miss the clunky whirring tunes of my Amiga diskdrive when it tries to load a game.

[LAJ]

I like the sounds of the Amiga floppy disk too. I've played some games so much that I've memorised parts of their load up sequence (Errrrrrr, Aaaaaa, ORRRR for Lemmings)

UAE now has some floppy sound emulation, but it isn't quite there yet. It's only for the A500 as well, but on that note do the disk drives of the A500 and A1200 make different noises?

I prefer using my real A1200 as there's no fan noise, and I don't have controller pads for the PC anyway. I still use emulation from time to time though. However, it's part of my tradition to pour myself some coke, get a bag of quavers, and huddle 'round my old Miggy

[Nexjen]

I like both. I like the amiga better though because it sounds and looks better on my nice tv.

[Miggy2TheMax]

for gaming nothing beats the real deal, sound, look and feel. Whilst I havent tried to configureUAE to see if I could make it look and feel better, it just didn't feel the same so I didn't bother. I do fire it up occasionally to fool around with the workbench, and batch conversion of various files, the gaming I leave up to the master. Its fun reading this thread!

[spiff]

I prefer my emulated amiga right now.
1) Blazingly fast hardware and obscene amount of ram and HD.
2) Sound, the emulated amiga has cleaner sound, no more hissing due to crap hardware or muted filters.
3) Picture, running on a 25” nano arcade monitor is a lot cooler then my old 14”.

4)Controls… well, ok not right now but once I’ve hooked up my new set it should be awesome

[Toni Wilen]

3) Compatibility is MUCH better for these nice old games and utilities from the early 90's. I'm having a very hard time running certain utilities in WinUAE, even though I configure it like the real machine. When I run it on the real thing with the exact same setup as in WinUAE, the same software that hung every time runs perfectly every time. This might of course get better with time.

Hard to fix anything without names of programs.. (and I haven't heard about non-working utilities for a long time so I really suspect the reason is something else than emulation accuracy..)

[StarEye]

If you had a cat, and it died. Would cloning replace him?

[Peanutuk]

Originally Posted by StarEye

If you had a cat, and it died. Would cloning replace him?

Not really the same as my cat is a living (albeit now dead) entity that would have been unique and an Amiga is a computer.

[StarEye]

Yeah, I know. But the principal still stands. To some, the Amiga is much more personal than a PC. Just like you grow an affection for old toys. Therefore, it's not possible to emulate it, because it feels like it has a soul that you've grown attached to.

It's also possible to compare it to the software you run on it. Some of the really old games still grabs the interest of young gamers, even today. Why is that? Is it because of a certain charm perhaps? Is it because games today are worse? I don't think that's it. The reason I keep my amiga is because I just hate emulation. I can't get the right feel from the emulators, so I'd rather use the original hardware. I know that Street Fighter 2 is much better on the SNES, but since I don't have an affection for the SNES and I only have a SNES emulator, I stick to the Amiga version 'cause it gives me the correct feel. Strange, but that's how it is.

[hal]

i recently repaired the disk drive of an amstrad cpc6128 which was taking up valuable space and i was planning to throw away, now i had run an emulator of this machine before... it felt nothing like it... how can an emulator be so boring even having access to any piece of software available on the web
while the real thing that only differed in the way that i had ten 3" disks to work with be so fun ?

but then... that's another story... be it an amiga, an amstrad, a nes or a c64... using the actual thing feels better... maybe it's a pschycological thing (however that's spelled)

as for my miggy
i like the output of my miggy better on my less crispy clear old composite monitor not because it's better... because it reminds me of those days...
(but on another note i have to make do with a scandoubler and the 14" monitor i use for my pc due to lack of space )

[hal]

Originally Posted by StarEye

It's also possible to compare it to the software you run on it. Some of the really old games still grabs the interest of young gamers, even today. Why is that? Is it because of a certain charm perhaps? Is it because games today are worse? I don't think that's it..

one charm might be that games were different from what's done now...
and then it's the feel of playing a game made before you were born maybe...

[woody57]

So I guess I cannot argue about how good an emu engine might be as I,ve never used an amiga one sucessfully on other peoples PC's .

All I will say is if you enjoy taking your time with things the outcome is normally worth it for instance

a] mircrowave fast sausages vs grilled sausages taste wise NO CONTEST microwave tastes sweaty it might with added colouring look the same but NOT an equal contest

b] genuine LEVI 501 original denims vs import copy from ??????? your groin lets you know five minutes after you put them on and try to fasten your shoes the crotch in the copy pair allways splits right up your a**e at the worst possible moment or the zip breaks leavng you having to walk with your hands in front all day

c] Vauxhall/opel Tigra vs Ferrai Dino need I say more ?


Some things that cost more are built to last , others that take longer to achieve are worth the wait because it suits our senses better

Emu Amiga is like a McDonalds Big MAC it has all the ingredients of a tasty meal but seldom is the balance right for each customer , it was Amiga's customisation that gave it an edge in many areas .

But if you need a fast food fix then EMU will do , who knows eventually you might want the real thing again once you realise that emu is just hamburger Not Grilled steak lol


How do you like yours done ?

[Unknown_K]

Originally Posted by woodshed57

So I guess I cannot argue about how good an emu engine might be as I,ve never used an amiga one sucessfully on other peoples PC's .

All I will say is if you enjoy taking your time with things the outcome is normally worth it for instance

a] mircrowave fast sausages vs grilled sausages taste wise NO CONTEST microwave tastes sweaty it might with added colouring look the same but NOT an equal contest

b] genuine LEVI 501 original denims vs import copy from ??????? your groin lets you know five minutes after you put them on and try to fasten your shoes the crotch in the copy pair allways splits right up your a**e at the worst possible moment or the zip breaks leavng you having to walk with your hands in front all day

c] Vauxhall/opel Tigra vs Ferrai Dino need I say more ?


Some things that cost more are built to last , others that take longer to achieve are worth the wait because it suits our senses better

Emu Amiga is like a McDonalds Big MAC it has all the ingredients of a tasty meal but seldom is the balance right for each customer , it was Amiga's customisation that gave it an edge in many areas .

But if you need a fast food fix then EMU will do , who knows eventually you might want the real thing again once you realise that emu is just hamburger Not Grilled steak lol


How do you like yours done ?

Alot of people love hambergers and wouldnt know a steak is better if they never tried it. Thats the key, you have to try emulation and the real thing for a period of time to make up your mind. Each has its good and bad points and some people do a combination of both anyway.

[Ash]

I grew up on C64's and Amigas, later on PC
At the moment my two Amiga 500's and two Amiga CD32's are boxed up
I emulate games on my xbox, along with other emulators and stuff
I work and don't have the space to set them all up, I have one TV
Emulators for me