English Amiga Board - View Single Post

NathanTolbert · 14 April 2011, 07:45

Again, Sierra was interested primarily in the PC version, and did not do any re-draw on the graphics for other platforms, even if they were more capable. The Mac was very capable in the late eighties as well, and they got 16 color games just like the Amiga. Since Sierra used the PC as a baseline, they just did direct ports to other platforms. It's pretty clear from reading around and listening to stories from people who worked for Sierra that the vision was the IBM PC compatible was the future, and they based almost all of their designs off that. What is interesting was that they started on the Apple II, so you would think the Macintosh would get preferential treatment, but it didn't. Hell, they continued to release EGA games after VGA cards became affordable in 1990, even though other companies had started doing VGA at that point. Would you still think Sierra was terrible if they did enhanced graphics on the Amiga? Their AGI and SCI engines don't seem to run particularly well on the 68K platforms, as they run slowly on the ST, Amiga, and the Mac. (Takes a 68040@33MHz to match the smoothness I get on my 386-16 for Space Quest VGA remake!!) One thing you can say is this, before SCI V2.0 (VGA) playing a sierra game was a homogenous experience no matter what platform you played it on. The only exception to this was that the Apple IIGS got special music in places.

14 April 2011, 07:45	#76
NathanTolbert Users Awaiting Email Confirmation Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Olathe, Kansas Posts: 42	Again, Sierra was interested primarily in the PC version, and did not do any re-draw on the graphics for other platforms, even if they were more capable. The Mac was very capable in the late eighties as well, and they got 16 color games just like the Amiga. Since Sierra used the PC as a baseline, they just did direct ports to other platforms. It's pretty clear from reading around and listening to stories from people who worked for Sierra that the vision was the IBM PC compatible was the future, and they based almost all of their designs off that. What is interesting was that they started on the Apple II, so you would think the Macintosh would get preferential treatment, but it didn't. Hell, they continued to release EGA games after VGA cards became affordable in 1990, even though other companies had started doing VGA at that point. Would you still think Sierra was terrible if they did enhanced graphics on the Amiga? Their AGI and SCI engines don't seem to run particularly well on the 68K platforms, as they run slowly on the ST, Amiga, and the Mac. (Takes a 68040@33MHz to match the smoothness I get on my 386-16 for Space Quest VGA remake!!) One thing you can say is this, before SCI V2.0 (VGA) playing a sierra game was a homogenous experience no matter what platform you played it on. The only exception to this was that the Apple IIGS got special music in places.