Chuck Rock 1, compatiblity issues on Amiga 1200 ?!?

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Don_Adan

Yes, some Amiga games was assembled using DevPac (Atari ST version). For checking if this is Atari ST exe file you must/can check not only $601A at begining of file, but also relocs table at the end of exe file, are very easy to recognise.

Thanks for this hint

[Megalomaniac]

I don't think any of Core's copy-protected games from before the A1200 worked on it, although the Corkers reissues usually fixed it (though not Heimdall for some reason - worth looking into?). It was short-sighted really, the A3000 came out around the same time as Chuck Rock and Commodore probably should have been clear that the OS and processor would be going into 'mainstream' Amigas later, so it'd be worth making sure their games worked on them where possible.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

I don't think any of Core's copy-protected games from before the A1200 worked on it, although the Corkers reissues usually fixed it (though not Heimdall for some reason - worth looking into?). It was short-sighted really, the A3000 came out around the same time as Chuck Rock and Commodore probably should have been clear that the OS and processor would be going into 'mainstream' Amigas later, so it'd be worth making sure their games worked on them where possible.

Nope.

No-one buying an A3000 was concerned that Chuck Rock didn't work on their machine, because if you had the money to buy one, the chances are a silly platformer was not what you spent all that money to play.

[Megalomaniac]

True, but 18 months later the A1200 was launched as the new mainstream machine, and its a shame that people buying it couldn't play Chuck Rock (or Jimmy White's, or the Lotuses, or (bad conversion though it was) Street Fighter 2, or Megalomania). Could Commodore have better communicated their intentions regarding doing a main machine with the 020 by late 1992, to lessen these issues?

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

True, but 18 months later the A1200 was launched as the new mainstream machine, and its a shame that people buying it couldn't play Chuck Rock (or Jimmy White's, or the Lotuses, or (bad conversion though it was) Street Fighter 2, or Megalomania). Could Commodore have better communicated their intentions regarding doing a main machine with the 020 by late 1992, to lessen these issues?

Commodore made it clear right from the outset that programmers should avoid hitting the hardware directly where possible, which would lead to better compatibility across the range.

Problem is, to get the most out of the Amiga A500 when doing fast action games, the OS is the first thing to be dropped because you need all that memory, and the OS routines for doing certain functions are not the quickest way to do it.

Jimmy Whites failed because of the copylock protection, Lotus 2 failed because the programmer didn't check using the system on boot up to check for what extra memory was present, he wrote a stupid routine instead, Streetfighter 2 had about 3 or 4 different versions and was simple programming errors, and Mega Lo Mania was again a stupid programmers attempt to detect what extra mem was available.

If you notice, most of the games that would be better on A3000 were usually strategy and flight sim type games for a more mature audience, and usually could be installed on hard drive and worked on those machines.

You also have to consider that Core obviously didn't many complaint letters regarding this type of thing, otherwise they would have rectified this situation earlier.

[Megalomaniac]

I'm not technically inclined, but I'm surprised that it was the copy protection causing Jimmy White's to fail, given that it loads up successfully and crashes when you take a shot. In my limited wisdom I'd assumed the movement physics were the issue.

True that most hard drive installable games worked fine on 020 and 030, and they were generally stuff that was processor- or memory-hungry rather than custom-hardware-hungry. It's just a shame that one Amiga couldn't do everything.