Atari ST Indoctrination

[idrougge]

I don’t think the STe was a particularly great machine. Though it was supposed to be an »Amiga-beater«, or at least reach Amiga parity, it didn’t really manage.

Whilst on paper, it has similar specs, it is full of let-downs.
• 4096 colour palette, but only 16 colours at once, whereas the Amiga does 32 colours, EHB and HAM.
• DMA sound with 50 kHz, but only 2 channels, making module playback much more complex than on Paula.
• Hardware scrolling at last, but no sprites and no copper.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by idrougge

I don’t think the STe was a particularly great machine. Though it was supposed to be an »Amiga-beater«, or at least reach Amiga parity, it didn’t really manage.

Whilst on paper, it has similar specs, it is full of let-downs.
• 4096 colour palette, but only 16 colours at once, whereas the Amiga does 32 colours, EHB and HAM.
• DMA sound with 50 kHz, but only 2 channels, making module playback much more complex than on Paula.
• Hardware scrolling at last, but no sprites and no copper.

Didn't it also have problems with samples in that unlike Amiga, it couldn't manipulate them once triggered, I seem to remember lots of mods on the STe that have issues with fades on sample sounds, they just cut out instead.

Also no update to its 2 colour HIRES modes, just the two low res and medres modes which seems an omission.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by idrougge

I don’t think the STe was a particularly great machine. Though it was supposed to be an »Amiga-beater«, or at least reach Amiga parity, it didn’t really manage.

Whilst on paper, it has similar specs, it is full of let-downs.
• 4096 colour palette, but only 16 colours at once, whereas the Amiga does 32 colours, EHB and HAM.
• DMA sound with 50 kHz, but only 2 channels, making module playback much more complex than on Paula.
• Hardware scrolling at last, but no sprites and no copper.

Didn't it also have problems with samples in that unlike Amiga, it couldn't manipulate them once triggered, I seem to remember lots of mods on the STe that have issues with fades on sample sounds, they just cut out instead.

Also no update to its 2 colour HIRES modes, just the two low res and medres modes which seems an omission.

[KONEY]

I also had a negative attitude towards the ST, I just assumed it sucked. These days I realized it didn't, for sure wasn't as good as the Amiga but it didn't suck as mac did ^_^

[phx]

The STe fixed a few disadvantages and the Falcon had really great hardware, but still the OS was so much behind AmigaOS!
Also the X68000 was a great machine, but its OS… not so much.

[Anubis]

Should stop drinkin', I see double (posts)

Some games were still playable on ST, even with all shortcomings... probably thanks to innovative programmers. Sadly, many bad conversions on Amiga are due to those shortcomings of an Atari.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Anubis

Sadly, many bad conversions on Amiga are due to those shortcomings of an Atari.

Ah, not this old chestnut again. It's an inverted logic, because obviously it's due to the devs responsible for the conversion, not the OG hardware. And often there is nobody to blame really, only the reality of the situation at the time.

[gimbal]

There was no shortage of pretty bad to terrible Amiga games, originals and conversions. If the ST hadn't existed, that would have still been just as true. Heck... maybe there would have been more? No way to know.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by gimbal

There was no shortage of pretty bad to terrible Amiga games, originals and conversions. If the ST hadn't existed, that would have still been just as true. Heck... maybe there would have been more? No way to know.

We'll never know for sure, but given that it was easier and cheaper to make a '68k' version that would work on both machines we got that. Of course that doesn't mean it would have been a lot different if only an Amiga version existed, but they could use twice the colours and at least some of the custom chips. Anyway, that boat sailed to the ocean a long time ago so who cares

[7-Zark-7]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I wouldn't necessarily say "awesome machine", it was more to do with awesome programmers who were able to wring what they could out of it, some of the best 68000 programmers are on the ST scene because that's what they had to be an expert on to get the ST to do anything good.

But my attitude toward the ST has softened over the years

Had a school buddy that got access to a lot of the latest release,(& older), 16bit games,& would never had known of Speedball/Speedball II,or Lotus II, Populous, Llamatron etc,if not for him!

Though,as an Amiga owner,nothing peeved me off more was playing so-so ST led ports,eg:Ghouls'n'Ghosts! (Or pretty much a lot of U.S Gold rushed ports). Heck,heard/read here that Amiga Addams Family (which I did enjoy) was a bit of a rush job hence the dropped parallax of the preview shots! Shame it was only for a relatively short period before the Megadrive/Snes arrival that the Amiga got to show off what it was capable of all along!

But hey,that was more due to Commodore International's upper management's incompetence!

[gimbal]

From what I can read, the Amiga version wouldn't have had parallax scrolling like the SNES version had, it would have had a static image in the background. So maybe the black version is better anyway, more rest for the eyes. I certainly love the Amiga version as it is, I'll play that over the SNES version any day.

[Total Eclipse]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Didn't it also have problems with samples in that unlike Amiga, it couldn't manipulate them once triggered, I seem to remember lots of mods on the STe that have issues with fades on sample sounds, they just cut out instead.

Possibly. Unlike Paula, the STe has 4 preset sample playback frequencies, so as well as having to use the 68000 to mix 4 channel mods down to stereo, it also has to interpolate the sample data to get the different pitches. That obviously takes CPU time, so depending on what's left over, there simply may not be enough processing power to calculate the additional effects.

It could just come down to the mod player as well. Even the regular ST had a port of NoiseTracker, though I'd have to see just how fully featured it was. Playback sounded okay on a STfm. TCB Tracker claimed to "only" need about 30% (ish) CPU time, but it skipped a lot of effects, even volume control on each channel. It saved MOD files in a proprietary format (so TCB mod files wouldn't work in Noise Tracker). It hogged many of the CPU registers, so was generally used just for intro music in games. There's also Audio Sculpture and Quartet, both of which had good quality audio, but again that may have come at the expense of missing out some effects.

[Retro1234]

The ST also had a good Mac emulator like A-Max maybe better with it's hi-res black and white mode.

I am doubtful that the quality of games would of suddenly improved dramatically on the Amiga if the ST didn't exist.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

The ST also had a good Mac emulator like A-Max maybe better with it's hi-res black and white mode.

I am doubtful that the quality of games would of suddenly improved dramatically on the Amiga if the ST didn't exist.

Disagree.

Changing a CPU routine to plot graphics from ST and changing offsets so you can retain the CPU to do the same on Amiga is likely quicker to code than a bespoke blitter routine for a programmer doing both versions.

If we pretend the ST didnt exist and Amiga was it, there would be absolutely no incentive for a programmer to do pure CPU routines to plot high speed graphics in the first place, meaning programmers learning how to do things better on Amiga earlier.

Sure, we are not going to see night and day differences by everyone, but I point to Pac Mania as an example of an early game that showed what the difference between ST and Amiga when the knowledge was there.

And Pac Mania wasn't even the best it could be on Amiga, I'm sure if Teque had done it several years later, it would have been improved.

Certainly Tiertexs early output wouldn't have been tolerated as long as it was.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Certainly Tiertexs early output wouldn't have been tolerated as long as it was.

You say that as if there eventually was something created by Tiertex that was tolerable.

[RichL]

US Gold knew exactly what they were going to get when obtaining the game license rights in September and needing it in the shops by beginning of November on multiple formats for Christmas, so not necessarily Tiertex’s fault?

I think anyone would have struggled.

[Tigerskunk]

Wasn't it more like the Amiga got the breadcrumbs falling off the table that were left over by the ST?
The first few years the ST was the big fish in the pond, not the Amiga.

With the Amiga 1000 being as expensive as it was, I guess without the profitable ST version there probably simply would not have been any Amiga games at all.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

With the Amiga 1000 being as expensive as it was, I guess without the profitable ST version there probably simply would not have been any Amiga games at all.

None at all? No. Much less? Likely. So it seems a bit like it's quantity over quality with the ST around and vice versa without it.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by gimbal

You say that as if there eventually was something created by Tiertex that was tolerable.

Compare their later stuff with their earlier stuff, night and day.

I didn't like Mercs, but it was far better effort than their earlier stuff

[khph_re]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

Wasn't it more like the Amiga got the breadcrumbs falling off the table that were left over by the ST?
The first few years the ST was the big fish in the pond, not the Amiga.

With the Amiga 1000 being as expensive as it was, I guess without the profitable ST version there probably simply would not have been any Amiga games at all.

This is what I have always thought, A1000 owners were lucky that another 68x series machine existed to have games ported from,
they weren't all terrible.