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antonvaltaz · 02 November 2011, 14:06

I've been wondering this for a long time, and while I wouldn't be surprised if it's been discussed already, I couldn't find a definitive answer anywhere.
The Amiga 500/500+/600 and the Mega Drive/Genesis both had the same CPU at the same clock speed, yes? But they both had different graphics chipsets?

I'm just trying to work out why, for the genres which the Mega Drive specialised in (shoot-em-ups, beat-em-ups, platform games etc) the Mega Drive usually seemed *technically* so much better? (Though there were some really impressive Amiga 500 games, like Jim Power, Stardust, Lionheart etc).

Was it because the OCS/ECS Amiga was technically inferior to the Mega Drive, or did Mega Drive games just have larger / better resourced / harder working development teams?

The kind of things I'm thinking about - often particularly evident in direct conversions:

- the Amiga game having a black border, when the Mega Drive games were usually full screen (e.g. Cool Spot)
- the Amiga version having less / no parallax (e.g. Micro Machines)
- the Amiga version having less detailed background graphics (e.g. Zool)
- the Amiga version having fewer colours (e.g. Final Fight)
- the Amiga backgrounds being static, not animated (e.g. Street Fighter II)

Could a stock OCS/ECS Amiga have handled, say, an identical conversion of the Sonic games, with NO compromises in graphics or speed?

02 November 2011, 14:06	#1
antonvaltaz Registered User Join Date: May 2009 Location: Oxford, UK Age: 43 Posts: 511	Mega Drive questions I've been wondering this for a long time, and while I wouldn't be surprised if it's been discussed already, I couldn't find a definitive answer anywhere. The Amiga 500/500+/600 and the Mega Drive/Genesis both had the same CPU at the same clock speed, yes? But they both had different graphics chipsets? I'm just trying to work out why, for the genres which the Mega Drive specialised in (shoot-em-ups, beat-em-ups, platform games etc) the Mega Drive usually seemed technically so much better? (Though there were some really impressive Amiga 500 games, like Jim Power, Stardust, Lionheart etc). Was it because the OCS/ECS Amiga was technically inferior to the Mega Drive, or did Mega Drive games just have larger / better resourced / harder working development teams? The kind of things I'm thinking about - often particularly evident in direct conversions: - the Amiga game having a black border, when the Mega Drive games were usually full screen (e.g. Cool Spot) - the Amiga version having less / no parallax (e.g. Micro Machines) - the Amiga version having less detailed background graphics (e.g. Zool) - the Amiga version having fewer colours (e.g. Final Fight) - the Amiga backgrounds being static, not animated (e.g. Street Fighter II) Could a stock OCS/ECS Amiga have handled, say, an identical conversion of the Sonic games, with NO compromises in graphics or speed?