Which Amiga games ARE better than on the ST?

[Megalomaniac]

Strange, http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari...down_8997.html says one double-sided disk, and the crack I've downloaded (pun intended) of the ST version is one double-sided disk (and does have an intro that the Amiga version doesn't)

[PatmanQC]

Originally Posted by ransom1122

What do people think about Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: The Coin-Op!
Is it better on ST as it has music, or is the gfx & scrolling better on Amiga or exact?

That's a good one. Never knew about the music on the ST until I did videos on the history of the games on my channel. The music made it infinitely better to play in my opinion.

Now if only there were something we could do about that second fire button……

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Strange, http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari...down_8997.html says one double-sided disk, and the crack I've downloaded (pun intended) of the ST version is one double-sided disk (and does have an intro that the Amiga version doesn't)

True. the 2 disks release should be uploaded on Atarimania.

I own it, dumped it, and made a set of IPF.

[seb132]

I think you should ask the question the other way around: you’ll have far less answers!

[Seiya]

Originally Posted by jotd

Without criticizing the ST, we can't really compare the ST and the Amiga. Amiga hardware is better, there's not really a debate.

sure, but sometimes coders have made some miracles and some games are better on ST than on Amiga (a part numbers of colors).

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Seiya

sure, but sometimes coders have made some miracles and some games are better on ST than on Amiga (a part numbers of colors).

Sad but true, in many cases ST coders simply was better than Amiga coders.

[Megalomaniac]

The most technically impressive (not necessarily the best) Amiga games were generally made by coders who hadn't worked on the ST, or at least never did again - the likes of Terramarque, Bloodhouse, Reflections, DMA Design, Team 17's various guys. Conversely, most of the best ST coders (Thalion, the Bitmaps, Steve Bak, Wayne Smithson) didn't do much technically-outstanding Amiga work (Lionheart excepted). The skills in pushing the ST to its limits may not have been much use in making technically-stunning Amiga games.

On the colours point, in some cases the ST could actually outdo the Amiga for colours on screen, if multiple scanlines were used. Enchanted Land and Wrath of the Demon, for example, have more than 32 colours onscreen ingame, something only EHB (rarely used for pure action games, Lionheart an exception here I think) could match on the A500. Indeed, STE Sleepwalker has more ingame colours than the A1200 version!

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Sad but true, in many cases ST coders simply was better than Amiga coders.

I have an other view. They were trying to push and make the ST better in term of image to the people/users/players.

Some games on Amiga have been borked in a manner that can only be the result of a dev's will, not a technical problem.

For example, for Crackdown they spent a ton of time to make the ST version (many many months), and for the amiga version, 1 disk only, intro and outro castrated, 1 mastering error and everything done in 3 weeks.

Wings of Death is another one. They were trying so hard to push the ST version, and for this they went down the borked road again : Palettes wrongly calculated from the original ST version on Amiga, resulting in dark tones ; Incorrect use of the copperlist to build the Main title screen (the ST version use around 122 colors, the Amiga way less because they try to replicate the ST 512 colors trick the wrong way around. And last, the Main intro soundtrack is buggy from day 1, the samples are incorrectly played. This has been fixed by Stingray for the 1st time in the whdload slave of the game (in-game Hippel replayer fixed, annoying sound problems are gone now).

Now, if you talk about coding, the Amiga had a chipset, so no specific need to over optimize the ASM code that the ST coders were doing, because otherwise, the ST would still crawl.

Some devs simply tried to fuck up the Amiga version to make the ST versions shine, it's not at all link to a bad coding practises.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

The most technically impressive (not necessarily the best) Amiga games were generally made by coders who hadn't worked on the ST, or at least never did again - the likes of Terramarque, Bloodhouse, Reflections, DMA Design, Team 17's various guys. Conversely, most of the best ST coders (Thalion, the Bitmaps, Steve Bak, Wayne Smithson) didn't do much technically-outstanding Amiga work (Lionheart excepted). The skills in pushing the ST to its limits may not have been much use in making technically-stunning Amiga games.

On the colours point, in some cases the ST could actually outdo the Amiga for colours on screen, if multiple scanlines were used. Enchanted Land and Wrath of the Demon, for example, have more than 32 colours onscreen ingame, something only EHB (rarely used for pure action games, Lionheart an exception here I think) could match on the A500. Indeed, STE Sleepwalker has more ingame colours than the A1200 version!

-Enchanted lands use 34 colors in the intro, and 29 ingame.

-Wrath of the Demon on ST however displays around 64 colors on screen, while the Amiga version displays more than 100 colors (like beast).

-STE Sleepwalker use up to 53 colors on screen, but keep in mind that it includes the color raster. The Amiga version use a dual playfield (so 8+8 colors + 16 colors for the sprites + many colors in the raster, so that goes beyond the 53 colors showed by the STE).

-Lionheart, the level 1 shows up to 182 colors (rasters included).

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Some devs simply tried to fuck up the Amiga version to make the ST versions shine, it's not at all link to a bad coding practises.

I honestly think that's very unlikely. More likely they just wanted to get an Amiga port out asap and not spend forever optimising it.

[Megalomaniac]

I'm hopeless at actually counting colours, so I've no idea if this is right, but atarimania says 36 colours in game for Enchanted Land, and Amiga Power's review of A1200 Sleepwalker says that it's only 32 colours in game. Crack Down was an ST port on the Amiga, like most arcade conversions made in the UK in the 80s (Pac-Mania is about the only one that wasn't).

The claim that "Some devs simply tried to fuck up the Amiga version to make the ST versions shine" feels dubious though. They just felt that dedicating 3 months more to a stunningly improved Amiga version (if they had the Amiga-specific skills) wouldn't sell significantly more than a rush job done in 3 weeks (and they were probably right in most cases, sadly - Amiga Xenon 2 probably outsold Hybris and Battle Squadron put together, for example)

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

I'm hopeless at actually counting colours, so I've no idea if this is right, but atarimania says 36 colours in game for Enchanted Land, and Amiga Power's review of A1200 Sleepwalker says that it's only 32 colours in game. Crack Down was an ST port on the Amiga, like most arcade conversions made in the UK in the 80s (Pac-Mania is about the only one that wasn't).

The claim that "Some devs simply tried to fuck up the Amiga version to make the ST versions shine" feels dubious though. They just felt that dedicating 3 months more to a stunningly improved Amiga version (if they had the Amiga-specific skills) wouldn't sell significantly more than a rush job done in 3 weeks (and they were probably right in most cases, sadly - Amiga Xenon 2 probably outsold Hybris and Battle Squadron put together, for example)

Sleepwalker A1200 is dual playfield. So in theory 15+16 colors and copper effect. (But effectively I think they kept the 7 colors or the A500 front playfield so there is 23 colors on screen without the copper).
Seeing the STE version on YT I doubt there is more colors on screen, plus there isn't the parallax layer.

[Galahad/FLT]

Enchanted Land was written by an ST demo team The Care Bears, so it likely is 36+ colours, and I think the titlescreen for another game they did was more than that as well.

As far as the ST goes, Enchanted Land defies the hardware somewhat, but on Amiga, they retained the same push scrolling which was rather silly as obviously the Amiga could do that game in its sleep.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

I have an other view. They were trying to push and make the ST better in term of image to the people/users/players.

Now, if you talk about coding, the Amiga had a chipset, so no specific need to over optimize the ASM code that the ST coders were doing, because otherwise, the ST would still crawl.

ST coders always tried to match Amiga HW capabilities and in many cases they was very close to get almost this results. Perhaps not 50 but 25 fps, perhaps not 4096 colors but only 512 but still - of course some subtle differences between ST and Amiga made possibility to get some effects easier on ST than on Amiga but still... I think ST scene was forced to be more creative due of lack of the dedicated fancy HW like in Amiga but...
I never saw even tech proof of concept like this: https://www.leonik.net/dml/sec_pcs.py - who ever tried to use temporal dithering in Amiga in increase number of the perceived colors?

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by pandy71

ST coders always tried to match Amiga HW capabilities and in many cases they was very close to get almost this results. Perhaps not 50 but 25 fps, perhaps not 4096 colors but only 512 but still - of course some subtle differences between ST and Amiga made possibility to get some effects easier on ST than on Amiga but still... I think ST scene was forced to be more creative due of lack of the dedicated fancy HW like in Amiga but...
I never saw even tech proof of concept like this: https://www.leonik.net/dml/sec_pcs.py - who ever tried to use temporal dithering in Amiga in increase number of the perceived colors?

That's the other way around. They not exactly tried to match the Amiga hardware. What they did is pushing to the maximum the ST, and make no effort or even butchering the Amiga to make the ST version shine.

That's what i have noticed after reviewing and trying shit tons of games on Amiga and Atari STF/E

In reality, when the Amiga is pushed to the maximum, the ST is way way behind. There's no close up to Amiga Hardware possible/at all.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Enchanted Land was written by an ST demo team The Care Bears, so it likely is 36+ colours, and I think the titlescreen for another game they did was more than that as well.

As far as the ST goes, Enchanted Land defies the hardware somewhat, but on Amiga, they retained the same push scrolling which was rather silly as obviously the Amiga could do that game in its sleep.

34 colors on the intro and 29 colors ingame Phil. I launched the IPF of the ST version, took a screenshot, it never goes beyond 34. Ingame the 29 colors include the Color rasters.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

I'm hopeless at actually counting colours, so I've no idea if this is right, but atarimania says 36 colours in game for Enchanted Land

I did a screenshot from the Intro, irfanview counts 34 unique colors, never more, and 29 colors ingame (rasters included).

, and Amiga Power's review of A1200 Sleepwalker says that it's only 32 colours in game.

This is very possible, this game doesn't appear to be very colorful.

Crack Down was an ST port on the Amiga, like most arcade conversions made in the UK in the 80s (Pac-Mania is about the only one that wasn't).

They tried very hard to make the game on ST. The sega system 24 is not exactly a walk in a park to convert..... They spent many month to make the game on ST (at a time, the graphist had 36 floppies full of graphics from the coin op, just to illustrate the amount of data they had to include and convert).

They went over the deadline, the result is that they borked the Amiga version, mastering the game in haste resulting in a mastering error, removing the outro, cutting the intro (for the record, Wayne from Flashtro did a special cracked version of crackdown with the missing screens from the ST version, i'm credited in it).

There are other games which had this treatment, showing that they wanted to make the ST shine and the amiga version show as shit.

The claim that "Some devs simply tried to fuck up the Amiga version to make the ST versions shine" feels dubious though. They just felt that dedicating 3 months more to a stunningly improved Amiga version (if they had the Amiga-specific skills) wouldn't sell significantly more than a rush job done in 3 weeks (and they were probably right in most cases, sadly - Amiga Xenon 2 probably outsold Hybris and Battle Squadron put together, for example)

You should have a look here on EAB, there is a thread called hidden messages in games, you would then see the raging messages from the devs regarding the Amiga taking the lead from the ST, due to piracy saying things like "you wanted it : since you pirate ST games like hell, now the publisher want Amiga lead/amiga first games, so we will be letting the Amiga have the best version of games".

Just this sentence confirms what i said. They tried to make the amiga "bad" to make the ST "rise". But this is not how things work, The most advanced machine ends taking the top position, and the oldish slow obsolete machine is abandoned. The Amiga had the same fate years later in front of the PC

[Megalomaniac]

Enchanted Land may not be as many as 36 colours on every level, I assume you've only looked at level 1. Just because they're there doesn't mean you always have to use them. Push-scrolling aside (and that was hardly uncommon in 1990), ST Enchanted Land looks better than most contemporary Amiga platformers.

Hidden messages in code weren't seen by people who bought the games, they were seen by people who cracked the games, hence the message being aimed at pirates.

Even if those words were the programmer's pure sincere views, it's hardly confirmation of programmers intentionally making bad Amiga versions when they led with the ST. UK developers initially prioritised the ST version because it was easier to convert from ST to Amiga than vice-versa, and pure Amiga code and artwork didn't necessarily make the game outsell lazy ST ports, all else being equal. Pure business, sadly, even if they may have been slow to notice the moment where Amiga games were outselling ST ones.

Were programmers, or publishers, responsible for the mastering? A mastering error isn't in itself evidence of a rush job - Spectrum R-Type had a similar mastering error (the final level wasn't recorded onto the original tapes) and that's usually considering a programming masterpiece.

Also, very few of the most technically impressive ST titles were simultaneous ST/Amiga developments by a single team of coders. For 2D at least, what was amazing on the ST was only 'quite good' on the Amiga without a serious rework, and what was amazing on the Amiga needed redoing from the ground up to be workable on the ST. Hence guys like WJS

[alexh]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

I have an other view. They were trying to push and make the ST better in term of image to the people/users/players.

Erm no.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Some games on Amiga have been borked in a manner that can only be the result of a dev's will, not a technical problem.

Or more likely lack of money / resources / time.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Wings of Death is another one. They were trying so hard to push the ST version, and for this they went down the borked road again :

I am not 100% sure about Wings of Death but Thalion first year titles the Amiga ports were done by their sound guy Jochen "MadMax" Hippel in his "spare time". They were not priority, contained lots of ST specific code that should have been removed, the reason was economics, the Amiga versions made little or no money and so had to be "acceptable" in the shortest possible time.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Palettes wrongly calculated from the original ST version on Amiga, resulting in dark tones

Stingray wrote in the slave :- "Back in 2014 a problem regarding the palette was reported on the Mantis bugtracker so I had a look. Turned out there was nothing wrong with the palette at all! I have no idea what you [Dlfrsilver] have seen but the palette and colors are completely correct! Nothing to do in that regard.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Some devs simply tried to fuck up the Amiga version to make the ST versions shine, it's not at all link to a bad coding practises.

Certainly not the case above.

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by alexh

Stingray wrote in the slave :- "Back in 2014 a problem regarding the palette was reported on the Mantis bugtracker so I had a look. Turned out there was nothing wrong with the palette at all! I have no idea what you [Dlfrsilver] have seen but the palette and colors are completely correct! Nothing to do in that regard.

Apparently this was a thing(i never played this game) - https://amiga.lychesis.net/artists/OlivierCorviole.html