What Makes The Amiga CD32 The Best Amiga?

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The CD32 competed directly against The Megadrive with CD. The MegaCD was introduced in the UK on April 2, 1993. The CD32 was released in Sept 1993. Neo Go CD was released in Europe on December 3, 1994, over a year later. Jaguar CD was released in September 1995. SNES-CD was never released.

N64 was released over 1.5 year after PSX, was cartridge based vs PSX's CDs, and yet nobody would say that these two did not compete with each other.

CD32 was a gaming console, first and foremost, and as such had to compete with all the other consoles which mattered at the time, or would matter soon, no matter what storage medium they might have used. Its CD capabilities were some sort of a selling point, sure, but clearly not big enough, same as for all the other CD machines from that time.

That would only change with arrival of proper 3D...but, wait, we've already discussed that elsewhere, haven't we?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Foebane

What gets me is why would the CD32 be considered the best Amiga by Gilbert and others if even the physical design feels cheap and even rushed?

Unlike consoles like the NES, SNES and MegaDrive, the CD32 has its power switch on the back. It's a step-up from the Amiga computers like the A500 and A1200 that don't even HAVE power switches on the machines themselves, but they sill could've put the button on the top or otherwise easily accessible like the consoles mentioned.

The CD32 CD tray mechanism is another problem: The base and the LID clamp onto the disc and enable it to spin, which is not very reliable compared to the original PlayStation that lets the user clip the disc onto the base, and shut the lid afterwards, and the lid has no physical contact with the disc. Fine if the lid on the CD32 fits well, but is prone to slipping, resulting in users having to place a fairly heavy object on top of the CD32 lid to allow for better grip of the disc, as demonstrated by the Angry Video Game Nerd with a paint can. Humiliating for a cheap option.

There are probably other problems, too, like how reliable is the edge connector for the FMV expansion module or other expansion modules?

Wow, what a tirade!

There are good reasons for putting the power switch on the back - it keeps the power wiring short to reduce voltage drop, allows use of a reliable toggle switch rather than a dodgy press-on/press-off type, and it takes up less room on the motherboard (the CD32 is packed pretty tight). I am thinking about all the computers and other electronic devices I have, and can't think of any that have the power switch on the top. So... a pretty lame complaint.

CD32 uses a standard audio CD mechanism, and yes it's a cheap one but at least that means you can get a replacement cheaply. My PlayStation stopped reading discs and that was the end of it. I didn't have any problems with the lid on my CD32. I did have to throw away several expensive CDROM drives and Writers in PCs over the years, some of which had hardly any use.

The edge connector is unreliable? First I heard of it. I remember trying to repair a NES though - that cartridge connector is abominable! I had a Sega SC3000H that took cartridges too. Every now and then I had to take it apart and resolder the socket pins on the cheap single sided PCB. Shall I mention the numerous home computers with flaky edge connectors that weren't gold plated? And my PlayStation had constant trouble with its special video connector.

The CD32 was rushed - and just as well too or otherwise we wouldn't have it. But they still managed to do a pretty good job of it.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

There are good reasons for putting the power switch on the back - it keeps the power wiring short to reduce voltage drop, allows use of a reliable toggle switch rather than a dodgy press-on/press-off type, and it takes up less room on the motherboard (the CD32 is packed pretty tight).

This is how my foot toe looks, because of Amiga power switch.

https://www.bioped.com/wp-content/up...separate-2.jpg

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

I don't have time to write a proper reply tonight but feel everyone is skirting round the fact that Megadrive and SNES both have a 16 color limit per tile.... so the specs about how many colors both machines can display onscreen are very misleading. Because you can't put those colors where you want.

This is true, but only relevant if the games actually use enough colours and if the tiles are designed with this in mind. Most AGA games that use 2 layers either use the systems Dual Playfield mode (which only allows for 16 colours per layer), or are ports from the Mega Drive using identical assets. These games will not benefit. Neither will most A500 ports (of which there were many).

Now, AGA specific games that don't use Dual Playfield and/or aren't ports can indeed do better. But there's not many of those and honestly, the graphics for them don't look that different from what the SNES shows. It doesn't help that the majority of AGA games don't actually run in 128 or 256 colours mode either, which further limits the advantage it might have.

Why only pick on the CD32?

I'm not picking on the CD32, I'm picking on the spec sheet. It's misrepresenting the abilities of the system. It's a kind of make-belief that makes it seem like the CD32 is much better than it really is.

I have no issues with the CD32, it's a fine system that does what it does well enough. But that doesn't mean it's better than other systems at all tasks. Case in point: it's usually going to be worse at action games than the 16 bit consoles (which is also what we actually see in the results, so it's not something I've just made up). That's a bummer, I wish it was different because I really like the Amiga. But it's also true and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

And AGA has 8 bits per channel, so it's even better than the SNES. With AGA you can display 256 shades of gray, the others can't. Even VGA can't can't do it (only 6 bits per channel).

The post I was replying to was comparing the A500 to the MD/SNES, so it wasn't really relevant what AGA can do. Which is why I didn't mention it

But of course areas where the CD32 is better will be dismissed because the standard is defined as what the consoles are best at - moving lots of sprites and tiles around quickly - and the games are defined as best when they are tuned to that hardware.

I mostly agree, which is why I already pointed out that AGA Amiga's/the CD32 would be better at slower paced games than the consoles would in my reply to dreadnought. I also pointed out that these comparisons tend to be mostly about raw graphical speed.

Look, I've said many times in the past that I feel that AGA/A1200/CD32 are underrated. But that doesn't mean I therefore think we should pretend they are better at console style games than the consoles were (which is clearly what Gilbert is trying to prove with his spec sheets and constant references to those kind of games).

We should be fair and honest about what the systems can and can't do. Want to compare action games? Sorry, the consoles were better at them (though I'm certain that with similar development methods we could have gotten similarly titles in terms of playability). Want to compare strategy/adventure games? Yeah, the Amiga did those better.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

My PlayStation stopped reading discs and that was the end of it.

These things were and still are available today for a rather low cost. It was a very common fix back in the day, I'm genuinely shocked you didn't know that as they were advertised for all over the place.

I remember that mine also broke after I had it a few years, it was like a €20-30 replacement and then it worked again.

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Sigh.... Boss, it's really not about what CD32 could or couldn't do (nevermind that you not seeing it does not mean it could). It's about what it actually has done, and it really ain't much. Comparably, Megadrive has done a lot.


I don't mind people being fanboys, I also could be described as such in regard to few things. The problem appears when they start using unfair or made up arguments to support the fanboyism. Here we have the former: a) you seem to think some ports are fair representation of a system strength b) you think it's fair to compare machines released within 4 years of each other (back then it was actually much bigger gap regarding tech progress than now).

Following your logic, Xbox X "crushes" PS4. Who'd've thunk?

But even disregarding these absurdisms, I think MD holds up fairly well against A1200/CD32 (and whatever it was allegedly capable of...*eyeroll*)
It is well known A1200 wasn't exactly cutting edge at the time of release, so that probably helped.

And to cap it off, CD32 was/is not a best Amiga. It takes much more than a dry spec sheet to take this crown, which, as somebody pointed out many pages ago, belongs to A500.

Tbh, I don't actually know about the tech side - this is your and the other experts territory

I know MD/ SNES were superior when you consider all the factors, and that includes price, ergonomics, software library, release year etc. Specs -wise, relevant to gamedev? Over to you.

Perhaps it'd make more sense/fairness to compare CD32 to some of its contemporaries, such as Neo Geo CD or Jaguar. SNES...okay, but MD? It's a machine from previous decade.

I think if this thread was started as "What CD32 was really capable of?", without the fallacious title and desperate neediness, it'd be much more interesting, as were some of the more technical posts so far.

I think the modern Playstation and the Xbox are literally the same system. Doesn't the same manufacturer even make their GPUs? You get the same games, that look exactly the same unless you do some kind of forensic test to find minor differences in detail/framerate

That's a fair choice with the A500. It def made the most impact at the time. I used to have an A500. But CD32 is much better imo

Neo Geo CD was a luxury console (with huge RAM for the time) with a limited release. It also has dodgy (cutdown games) when compared to the original Neo Geo and only originally had a single speed CD. Agreed it is very powerful for 2D graphics but it has no proper 3D capability. Jaguar is from the next gen so should be compared against the CD64

As "systems" Megadrive and SNES are superior. I have already said they have better games. My argument was purely from a technical point of view. It's just a lot of Megadrive owners got over-sensitive about it and tried to make it sound I was saying the CD32 was a better system. My point is purely that CD32 crushes the Megadrive and SNES in terms of hardware power.

Maximum game size on Megdrive = 32 megabit
Maximum SNES game size = 48 megabit
Maximum CD32 games size = 4400 megabit

Just another example of the superiority of CD32's hardware

Originally Posted by roondar

That spec comparison is ludicrously misleading. It's plainly wrong in many areas.

• The CD32 does not display 256.000 colours in games at all. You're lucky if the games actually manage to use 256 colours (most CD32 games run in 64 colours or less). Meanwhile, the statistics mentioned for the Sega regarding colours on screen is actually what you really get in games. Highly misleading.
• The Processor comparison is similarly misleading, the 68020 in the CD32 does not manage 3.5MIPS unless you also add fast memory to the system (which is not how the system was sold so it's basically a lie), otherwise it's closer to 1.5-1.7MIPS. The Sega CD's 68000's both do about 0.5-0.7 MIPS, so combined they're closer to 1.0-1.4MIPS.
• The CD32 does not normally draw "7 million pixels per second" and certainly doesn't get anywhere near that in 256 colours. That statistic really is complete nonsense. It's clearly based on the theoretical performance of the Blitter assuming the screen is running in very few colours (like between 2 and 8 max) and it's only copying data. In the real world, the figure is much lower. It's even lower if you want to draw anything useful like bobs.
• The amount of pixels the Sega CD can draw per frame is not all that relevant to begin with as the graphics system of the Sega works very differently. What's relevant is that the CD32 will not be able to update all the pixels on the screen every single frame if it runs in anything over about 8 colours on screen, whereas the Sega system usually can - thanks to it's tile based approach. This is also a key reason for why so many Sega games feature animating background elements, while that is much rarer on the CD32.
• The Sprites being 32 or 64 bit is not really relevant, what is far more relevant is the amount of them. Bobs are nice, but you'll struggle to display more than 15-20 or so of any reasonable size (say 32x32). Sprites on the CD32 won't be enough to make up the difference in all but outliers.
• The claims about resolution are also misleading. Almost all Amiga games run at or below 320x256. The Amiga's hires mode (640x512) is not usable in games unless you have a flicker fixer or like headaches. The Sega CD isn't actually limited to 320x224 to begin with, as just like the Amiga it too supports interlace (though, just like the Amiga it's rarely used because well, headaches).
• Even the part about video playback is wrong. The CD32 can actually do better here than Commodore claims (it's not limited to 4096 colours), but then again the Mega CD can also do better than what Commodore claims.

Oh and by the way, I love the Amiga in all of it's forms. This is not intended as a "I hate the CD32" post in any way.

I program the Amiga for fun and try out all kinds of hardware banging stuff. It's a really rewarding environment to code for. But please, don't make all these weird claims. It's not the 1990's any more, we know what the CD32 can and can't do and these spec sheets are frankly not accurate. They're clearly meant to make uninformed individuals/consumers think their system is better than it actually is.

This was from the CD32 developers manual by Commodore so it's not an advert. And you can't blame me - if Commodore is lying to it's own developers in that case. It is confidential information from May 1993, so maybe some of the specs changed?

http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/download...per_manual.pdf
I know Sonic the Hedgehog at most you get about 45 colours on screen maybe (this is from memory but I'm sure its about that). According to the official stats CD32 displays 262 144 colors on screen in HAM 8 mode (more than stated here) so it crushes the Megadrive in terms of still screens (it never said in games), I have heard stories that to make a colourful title screen on the Megadrive you have to use 2 playfields. Not to mention all tiles used in background maps have to be transferred to a limited VRAM space first.

So while what you say about the CD32 is true - you don't pick apart the Megadrive's tech specs which are also misleading.

It's the same with the SNES - sure it can display 4 playfields (Mode 0) but they each have only 4 colours (3 if you use transparent color). So almost no games use this mode. Also F-Zero, great game - but like pretty much all mode 7 games uses an enhancement chip to handle the 3D maths needed to calculate new object positions.

So all these pieces of hardware are misleading people but the CD32 comes out of it as the most powerful overall.

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

LOL.
As mentioned million times already - nobody is picking on CD32, and many people (including me) love that console as an Amiga part, and legacy.
It's just, we can't claim is the best stuff ever invented, or best Amiga, 'cos it isn't.

Now I really think you're just trolling us.
Joking with us.

Because roondar (I didn't say you) was pulling apart the CD32 specs but NOT the megadrive specs.

That's not trolling to ask for a discussion to be more fair. People here seem to think trolling is disagreeing with them That's not trolling guys! You can't just call out troll everytime someone has a different opinion to you.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But of course areas where the CD32 is better will be dismissed because the standard is defined as what the consoles are best at - moving lots of sprites and tiles around quickly - and the games are defined as best when they are tuned to that hardware. Only problem is, some us don't think that is what makes good games. I got to play with the Megadrive when we sold them in my shop, but quickly got bored with it. I never would have bought one for myself as it was far too limiting and the games were boring.

Yes exactly this - everything the CD32 is good at gets dismissed by the cd32-haters. We need more balance in this discussion

Originally Posted by Foebane

What gets me is why would the CD32 be considered the best Amiga by Gilbert and others if even the physical design feels cheap and even rushed?........(cut to reduce space in reply)

Are these really problems?? My CD32 still works fine. My Playstation 1 has had it's CD fixed and the power contact resoldered. My Dreamcast GD drive got broken twice. (both times got broken by Powerstone). I'm sure early models of Playstation 1 have known problems with the hardware (warped textures etc) and the CD drive

I watched that AVGNerd episode ages ago and he implied his CD32 was like that when he got it. So it's his own fault he bought a dodgy machine. I think he just wanted to make the CD32 look bad. That's his thing though - entertainment not facts. The Gamesack CD32 episode is much fairer

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The edge connector is unreliable? First I heard of it.

I was asking a question, not making a statement.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

This was from the CD32 developers manual by Commodore so it's not an advert. And you can't blame me - if Commodore is lying to it's own developers in that case. It is confidential information from May 1993, so maybe some of the specs changed?

The source doesn't matter, it's highly misleading. That's what matters.

Don't underestimate how this works, pushing marketing information towards developers is useful because it also gets read by managers who know next to nothing about the reality of what systems/software/etc can do and since they're the ones spending the money, they're often convinced by this kind of stuff to spend money when they really shouldn't. The actual developers usually already know these sheets are exaggerated.

As a real-world example: I work a lot with databases and the amount of nonsense Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, etc. claim about their database server software and what it can achieve in their "developer marketing" around new versions is astonishing. People like me (the developers/experts) warn management it's not nearly as good as the docs make it sound, but management can often be convinced by impressive sounding official documents like this.

It's a very effective way of getting people to spend money.

http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/download...per_manual.pdf
According to the official stats CD32 displays 262 144 colors on screen in HAM 8 mode (more than stated here) so it crushes the Megadrive in terms of still screens (it never said in games)

The spec sheet makes no distinction between stills and in-game, which is why it's misleading as Commodore knew very well that HAM-8 wasn't really much more than a nice bullet point on a list when it comes to gaming.

HAM-8 is not useful for the kind of games we're talking about here.

So while what you say about the CD32 is true - you don't pick apart the Megadrive's tech specs which are also misleading.

I fail to see where the Commodore document is being misleading about the MD. There are plenty of Mega Drive games where 64 colours are actually being used, so the specs are not misleading. There's even a few that use the systems highlight/shadow options to increase that to well over 100 (theoretical max using that is around 183 IIRC).

It's the same with the SNES - sure it can display 4 playfields (Mode 0) but they each have only 4 colours (3 if you use transparent color). So almost no games use this mode. Also F-Zero, great game - but like pretty much all mode 7 games uses an enhancement chip to handle the 3D maths needed to calculate new object positions.

F-Zero does not use an enhancement chip.

Anyway, the spec sheet didn't compare against the SNES. Which is why I didn't comment on it.

So all these pieces of hardware are misleading people but the CD32 comes out of it as the most powerful overall.

No, it doesn't. For some game types, such as adventures and strategy games the CD32 is better suited than the MD/SNES. But for action games (which is what you've been focussed on), the MD/SNES are simply better suited. This reality means by default the CD32 is not "most powerful overall", because in that case it would've been better for all types of games and not just some types.

Because roondar (I didn't say you) was pulling apart the CD32 specs but NOT the megadrive specs.

The specs Commodore quoted for the MegaDrive are spot on, what they say the system can do - it can do. In fact, Commodore is underselling the advantages of the Mega CD by claiming it can only do video in 16 colours and not pointing out that the 64 colour limit is not really the actual limit. So why would I pick them apart?

It's the way the CD32 specs on that sheet are being compared that is misleading.

[-Acid-]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

Jaguar is from the next gen so should be compared against the CD64

There's no such console as the CD64 you need to get that fact into your head and stop using imaginary devices in your (piss poor) arguments.

Originally Posted by Gilbert

Maximum game size on Megdrive = 32 megabit
Maximum SNES game size = 48 megabit
Maximum CD32 games size = 4400 megabit

Just another example of the superiority of CD32's hardware

This is the sort of babble which makes you sound like a fool.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by -Acid-

There's no such console as the CD64 you need to get that fact into your head and stop using imaginary devices in your (piss poor) arguments.

.

Agree I don't know how many times this has been brought up, it was nothing more than a sales mans babbling. It was no more real than the gx8000 i Just through up that is better than the xbox series x. Unless he is talking about the backup device for the N64, but then that's not really a console.

I do kind of admire the persistence but also find it very very very very very irritating at the same time. I am begging to wonder if he is the love child of doomy and his cd32 love is the equivalent of the military spec a2000

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by roondar

The source doesn't matter, it's highly misleading. That's what matters.

Don't underestimate how this works, pushing marketing information towards developers is useful because it also gets read by managers who know next to nothing about the reality of what systems/software/etc can do and since they're the ones spending the money, they're often convinced by this kind of stuff to spend money when they really shouldn't. The actual developers usually already know these sheets are exaggerated.

As a real-world example: I work a lot with databases and the amount of nonsense Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, etc. claim about their database server software and what it can achieve in their "developer marketing" around new versions is astonishing. People like me (the developers/experts) warn management it's not nearly as good as the docs make it sound, but management can often be convinced by impressive sounding official documents like this.

It's a very effective way of getting people to spend money.
The spec sheet makes no distinction between stills and in-game, which is why it's misleading as Commodore knew very well that HAM-8 wasn't really much more than a nice bullet point on a list when it comes to gaming.

HAM-8 is not useful for the kind of games we're talking about here.
I fail to see where the Commodore document is being misleading about the MD. There are plenty of Mega Drive games where 64 colours are actually being used, so the specs are not misleading. There's even a few that use the systems highlight/shadow options to increase that to well over 100 (theoretical max using that is around 183 IIRC).
F-Zero does not use an enhancement chip.

Anyway, the spec sheet didn't compare against the SNES. Which is why I didn't comment on it.
No, it doesn't. For some game types, such as adventures and strategy games the CD32 is better suited than the MD/SNES. But for action games (which is what you've been focussed on), the MD/SNES are simply better suited. This reality means by default the CD32 is not "most powerful overall", because in that case it would've been better for all types of games and not just some types.
The specs Commodore quoted for the MegaDrive are spot on, what they say the system can do - it can do. In fact, Commodore is underselling the advantages of the Mega CD by claiming it can only do video in 16 colours and not pointing out that the 64 colour limit is not really the actual limit. So why would I pick them apart?

It's the way the CD32 specs on that sheet are being compared that is misleading.

BTW sorry I missed your earlier reply when I replied before. So I will reply to that a little here also

But... I would sat Commodore actually understated the CD32's ablities in a couple of those specifications too so not sure what they are up to. Just seems like whoever wrote those specs didn't have real data for some reason.

Also when it says "colours on screen" they are not going to choose a number lower than the maximum (well they actually did here but you get what I mean) Sony did this on Playstation 2. Max polygons per sec figures are usually just a very small triangle being drawn multiple times in the same position. In a game this figure is a LOT lower.

I meant Pilotwings, but pretty much any mode 7 games that has more than a few objects in it uses an extra chip. e.g.Mario Kart

Also on the Megadrive all sprites and map tiles have to be in (limited ) VRAM before they can be displayed. So it has disadvantages the CD32 does not have. The MD can only display 20 sprites per line. And it doesn't have a blitter to make up for it like the CD32. A lot of Megadrive games don't look as colourful as you expect from the stats. I think the Megadrive has colour restrictions per background layer too - just as AGA does

As for Megadrive being better at action games Look at something like Battle Squadron on Megadrive, Is it better? Debatable. Maybe a few more objects at times. But looks LESS colourful than the A500 version. The AGA version would be a generation ahead. People underestimate how the Copper can be combined with sprites and the blitter on the CD32. Not to mention the use of the CD drive

[ Show youtube player ]

btw I just noticed the music on Battle Squadron rips off Kraftwerk. Have been trying to place that for ages

Originally Posted by -Acid-

This is the sort of babble which makes you sound like a fool.

Now this is trolling. Just insults with no proper arguments back.

This guy was probably the same guy who back in the day got excited when he read the next version of SFII for the MD was coming on a 20 megabit cart but now is like : "Who cares about megabits?" - just because the CD32 destroys the Megadrive on that figure. Predictable...

CD32: CD quality Music
Megadrive : FM quality music


Some more facts for you to call babble.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

Now this is trolling. Just insults with no proper arguments back.

"Proper arguments"? Coming from you, that's quite rich.

It's unbelieveable that this thread went on for 20+ pages, but I'm as guilty of going along with this silliness. Time to get off...

[roondar]

Note: I had to shorten this post quite a bit as I originally made it much too long (some things I didn't answer as a result). Sometimes me doing this makes posts seem less friendly, but that is not the intention.

Originally Posted by Gilbert

But... I would sat Commodore actually understated the CD32's ablities

No, they really didn't understate the abilities.

Rather, they overstated the CPU's performance by a factor of two, fudged the sprite abilities by not pointing out the Blitter is not going to be able to compensate for the limited number of sprites per scanline, etc.

Also on the Megadrive all sprites and map tiles have to be in (limited ) VRAM before they can be displayed. So it has disadvantages the CD32 does not have.

The MD can only display 20 sprites per line. And it doesn't have a blitter to make up for it like the CD32.

It's worth pointing out that Amiga graphics and sound take up much more space than MD graphics for various technical reasons. You really can't compare the size of VRAM on consoles directly to the size of Amiga chip ram.

The MD can only display 20 sprites per line!? That's the equivalent of up to 640 pixels of sprites per line - that's actually a lot. Meanwhile, the Blitter can display at most around 20 objects of the same size as MD sprites in total. Not per line, just in total.

As for Megadrive being better at action games Look at something like Battle Squadron on Megadrive, Is it better? Debatable. Maybe a few more objects at times. But looks LESS colourful than the A500 version.

What you're doing here is called cherry picking: you pick a single (or a few) example(s) that suit your argument best and ignore they're not representative of the whole.

Case in point: there are much better playing & looking vertical shooters on the MD than Battle Squadron and Battle Squadron happens to be a port from the Amiga version, which means it was not originally designed with the MD's greater sprite abilities in mind. Anyway, even so the MD version visibly runs much smoother than the Amiga version in your video. Which is really kind of important for shooters

People underestimate how the Copper can be combined with sprites and the blitter on the CD32. Not to mention the use of the CD drive

You may not know this, but I actually program the Amiga. I've done Blitter, Copper and Sprite programming and made several examples available that show interesting ways to use them. I actually know reasonably well what is and isn't possible.

--
And now for something a bit more serious:

Other, quite talented, Amiga programmers in this thread (such as mcgeezer & DanScott) have also pointed out to you the CD32 is not as powerful as you think. By saying the CD32 can really do much more than what we've seen (and more than what the coders here are saying), what you're essentially and hopefully unintentionally doing is saying that we all don't know what we're talking about. It further implies that all the programmers for the system in the past were also either incompetent or lazy because well, real world CD32 games are not actually more impressive than 16 bit console games.

This is the key reason I'm still replying because I don't think this would be at all a fair assessment of the abilities of the coders in this thread/the Amiga community as a whole. Constantly overstating the abilities of the Amiga makes the people that code on it, make music/art on it seem to be really poor at what they do. And I really, really dislike that as we have some stellar individuals on this forum/in this community doing great work.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by roondar

Other, quite talented, Amiga programmers in this thread (such as mcgeezer & DanScott) have also pointed out to you the CD32 is not as powerful as you think. By saying the CD32 can really do much more than what we've seen (and more than what the coders here are saying), what you're essentially and hopefully unintentionally doing is saying that we all don't know what we're talking about. It further implies that all the programmers for the system in the past were also either incompetent or lazy because well, real world CD32 games are not actually more impressive than 16 bit console games.

This is the key reason I'm still replying because I don't think this would be at all a fair assessment of the abilities of the coders in this thread/the Amiga community as a whole. Constantly overstating the abilities of the Amiga makes the people that code on it, make music/art on it seem to be really poor at what they do. And I really, really dislike that as we have some stellar individuals on this forum/in this community doing great work.

I would add Britelite to that list as well I don't have that much experience of direct Amiga gaming, but the Demoscene really does show off their talents, as I've seen with my own eyes and ears.

[Retro1234]

writing games on Amiga no company had an in-house engine or code to reuse ready to use, things weren't to the same standard as console coders they had no access to game assets.

tricks are needed to get the best results, you have no access to examples to use, game writing takes longer and no resources or support from Commodore.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Foebane

I would add Britelite to that list as well I don't have that much experience of direct Amiga gaming, but the Demoscene really does show off their talents, as I've seen with my own eyes and ears.

Oh absolutely. There's many more, I just mentioned the two I remembered being most active in this 20+ pages thread

[AmigaHope]

AGA was a huge lost opportunity for sprite enhancement. It's great that they can be 64 pixels wide instead of 16, but it would have been far, far better if they had used the bandwidth to allow 32 16-pixel sprites per scanline instead. You can always move sprites together to make a larger sprite, but the ability to split them up would've allowed for way more flexibility (imagine bullet hell shooters where you don't need lots of colors or pixels for sprites but need a lot of them)

[EAUniW]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

AGA was a huge lost opportunity for sprite enhancement. It's great that they can be 64 pixels wide instead of 16, but it would have been far, far better if they had used the bandwidth to allow 32 16-pixel sprites per scanline instead. You can always move sprites together to make a larger sprite, but the ability to split them up would've allowed for way more flexibility (imagine bullet hell shooters where you don't need lots of colors or pixels for sprites but need a lot of them)

Jumped up OCS and I'm being kind.

[mcgeezer]

Here's a case point about the CD32 not being great.

Most people know that I'm porting Super Sprint to AGA Amigas. I last touched the CD32 back when I was doing Bomb Jack so I had the code there for saving to NVRAM. Bomb Jack has 10 hi-score names, Super Sprint has 30.

Just storing the 30*8 bytes brings it to 240 bytes and nearly a quarter of the NVRAM just for this game. Was it worth the effort to support CD32? Not really. Why did I do it? Because as I said earlier, I like all Amiga's.

Should I adjust it from saving 30 names from the arcade?

(Except them new fangled blood sucking things... don't like them).

[DanScott]

you can pack the names into 6 bits per character (5 bits if you only use A-Z)

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by DanScott

you can pack the names into 6 bits per character (5 bits if you only use A-Z)

Yeah probably.

Probably only worth storing the changed scores too.

Might as well do it, there 36 chars. 1 long word for the score but it doesn't go above 999,999.


Edit: Looks like I can get it down to under 100 bytes - 10 units.
Certainly not a priority though.