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Old 23 June 2020, 17:46   #10
Nishicorn
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Monkey Island 2
Space Quest IV & V
Police Quest 3
Day of the tentacle
Sam and Max hit the road
This is an interesting topic - with VGA-version's graphics already created and the game itself already written for the Amiga, all the AGA-version would need would presumably be just some 'relatively small' tweaks in the code to use different screenmodes, utilize the AGA's possibilities, and just load and implement the graphics a bit differently.

I would certainly be interested in seeing this type of efforts, it's always fun to see something created for the AGA Amigas (which seem to be a bit of an underdog, as OCS/ECS gets more love, perhaps because it's a more interesting challenge due to bigger limitations and the 'compact, universal design' is a bit like a C64, whereas AGA Amigas often come with different CPU and memory configurations, hard disks and who knows what else).

I always have to envy people that are able to create something 'for a platform' - I can only 'use old computers' for my projects (graphics and sound mostly) instead of being able to 'create for old computers'.

However, the listed games (and more) are mostly easy enough to emulate on AGA Amigas, since AGA Amigas share the CPU architecture with other platforms that those games exist for. I played most of those back in the day on my Amiga without problems.

Of course native versions would enable one to skip the hassle of installing and configuring an emulator that might require a fast CPU and dedicated partition to make it worth emulating, but if you have those things, you don't need ScummVM, you can just play them in a dedicated screen while still multitasking on the other screen(s) normally, if you just emulate another architecture that also uses the Motorola CPUs.

It was even easy to play Doom with good framerate and full sound and musics on AGA Amiga this way. Other games I played included things like Marathon II, Alone in the Dark, Dark Forces, Wolfenstein 3D (which has higher resolution and different, but still good musics), The Secret of Monkey Island, etc.

The advantage of DOS PCs of the day wasn't only the VGA/MCGA graphics, CPU power and lots of memory. They also had a variety of sound cards that in some ways surpassed or exceeded Amiga's 8-bit, 4-channel, sample-based limitations. For example, the Sound Blaster and even old Adlib cards could give a game 9 channels of 'live FM synthesis' sound, which at best can react 'live' to a player in ways samples never could (for an old example of something like this one can play the 'Falcon Patrol' games on the C64 that use 'filtered noise wave' sounds so effectively, you can know the exact distance of enemy aircraft just from how it sounds), sound unique and vast, while still leaving room for sound effects (and those could use samples).

Wing Commander is a good example of a nicely done soundworld that just doesn't sound as good on the Amiga. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge also uses the interesting 'iMuse' music system that sounds pretty amazing on Yamaha OPL2 chip.

So even if this 'code tweaking' could be done, everything glorious from the PC side still couldn't quite be carried on to the Amiga side, sadly.

Back in the day, this 'multichannel music capability with a personality' was one of the things I envied whenever I saw the PC versions of games, although I did enjoy Amiga's sound, when it came to these game ports, this part was never converted to Amiga side, and all we got was a more boring or limited-sounding aural side in the Amiga ports, where the DOS version had a certain 'epic charm' to its music world and even sound effects sometimes.

To my ears, a hand-crafted synth drum (that might sound slightly different every time) can sound better than some generic sample drum I've already heard a thousand times. Let alone other sounds. A long, sweeping FM-trumpet sound on a DOS game requires only a tiny amout of resources, and sounds good - but on the Amiga side, it might be replaced by a short, looping sample that just doesn't give the same expression at all.

So although this type of effort would be interesting just from the curiosity perspective, I think to get the 'overall effect' (or glory) of the DOS-version of a game, the sound would need to be somehow tinkered as well.

In the end, it might be better to just play these kind of games on the DOS platform, where you instantly and easily get the full benefit of both VGA beauty and the intended soundworld.
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