What Makes The Amiga CD32 The Best Amiga?

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

A memory slot would have been a problem, because it would have cost more money as well as making life more complicated for users.

Costing more was a problem for Commodore, who cut everything to the bone in almost everything they did. It wouldn't have been a problem for the user - every other console for the following decade or so used memory cards.

As for being a 'giant mess', how does it compare to games consoles that had no nonvolatile storage at all and had to include battery backed RAM in the cartridge? Every such game you bought was costing you more money to make up for the console's limitations. But nobody complains about that 'giant mess'.

What mess? I don't remember having to do anything crazy like delete my Zelda save just so I could save my Sim City game. Cartridges were expensive anyway, but they just worked with no messing. Besides, I'm sure Commodore would have been delighted to save even more money by omitting the NVRAM altogether and requiring game developers to include a save function on their media, but that's simple not possible for CD-based games, so they did the absolute bare minimum.

but if game save storage was all you needed a simple EEPROM upgrade could easily be applied.

That's something I've considered developing myself too, though from my initial look at it, it didn't look like the CD32 even supported larger EEPROMs should you fit one. So my thoughts were to bank swap multiple "EEPROMs" so that the CD32 only ever saw a single one but the user could select from a number of them. But I'm not all that interested in the CD32 so it's waaaaay down the list of projects...

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Various people here have continued the Amiga community's tradition of belittling Commodore and their creations, to the point of spouting easily disproved lies or 'just asking questions' when they have nothing to criticize. I'm not sure why they do this, but it suggests a deep-seated emotional trauma caused by false beliefs that conflict with reality.

Whenever a question asks what is 'best', you know the answer will be subjective - and when the subject is Amiga there will always be a pile-on by self-loathing users who feel it let them down in one way or another. Then there are those genius armchair engineers who are quick to point out supposed failings and confident they would have done a better job. Commodore should have done this, Commodore should have done that, it's basically a giant mess! Whereas those of us living in the real world are constantly amazed by what they managed to achieve.

Since coming back to Amigas I too have noticed this and find it strange. Sure they dropped the ball and all that but I mean look what we got? Computers we are all still talking about, modifying, enjoying etc. Seems to be a lot of "if only............." types knocking around on this forum. Who gives a shit about that it's all in the past, and I look forward to what there is now and what improvements people have been doing since and I'm grateful to all the developments and efforts people have made since.

Originally Posted by jotd

isn't the CDTV a console too? it would compete with CD32 then, so unclear which one is the best

I think this thread had some pretty informative parts. The opinion based parts should be ignored, enjoy the rest.

I think it's actually something different altogether and comes under the terminology of "multimedia" system. When my brother got his back in 1991 it came with a keyboard, disk drive and mouse and control pad so I don't think that makes it a console really. But may be I'm wrong?

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by jotd

isn't the CDTV a console too? it would compete with CD32 then, so unclear which one is the best

CDTV have waay cooler looks.
Almost enough to outcome the CD32 hardware advantage.

Let's open thread: "What Makes The CDTV better then CD32"?

Originally Posted by jotd

I think this thread had some pretty informative parts. The opinion based parts should be ignored, enjoy the rest.

Exactly my thoughts.

@Roondar and others.
Please don't stop posting because you can't convince Gilbert.
He is not the only one reading your replies, and I personally learnt a lot in this thread.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

@Roondar and others.
Please don't stop posting because you can't convince Gilbert.
He is not the only one reading your replies, and I personally learnt a lot in this thread.

Thing is that I don't want to be seen as spreading negativity either. I'm trying to stay accurate and in this case that ends up mostly being about what the system can't do, rather than what it can.

And that might give a negative view of the system, while I actually rather like the CD32 even though it has some clear flaws. Now, I personally don't think they're the best Amiga ever (honestly that'd probably be the A500 even though for me personally I had a lot more fun/use out of my A1200), but like I said that doesn't mean I think the CD32 is bad.

[lmimmfn]

The premise of the thread is wrong, the cd32 is a gimped 1200 with cdrom, akiko for chunky to planer thats only efficient because its using an 020, 1Kb of NVRam, and MPEG1 add on that was too expensive for your average consumer.

The only good thing to come out of the cd32 is gamepad support.

How in gods name would this ever be considered the best amiga is beyond me, A1200 had keyboard, cheap expansion(and upto double performance with cheap fastram), PCMCIA, 2.5" HD ability.
Also it had an expansion to upgrade to near A1200 possibilities but again stupidly expensive.

Nowadays the CD32 is kinda cool in that its at least upgradeable to close to A1200 but that's it.

The CD32 was a dud, Commadore was a dud, they completely missed the business practice of selling consoles below cos and making money on game releases by taking 30% of sales.

It also released far too early for games companies to prepare releases hence all the shovelware.

This thread is pointless based on the title, if it was called most junk AGA amiga or Commodores second worst Amigs i would agree(CDTV being worst)

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

The premise of the thread is wrong, the cd32 is a gimped 1200 with cdrom, akiko for chunky to planer thats only efficient because its using an 020, 1Kb of NVRam, and MPEG1 add on that was too expensive for your average consumer.

The only good thing to come out of the cd32 is gamepad support.

How in gods name would this ever be considered the best amiga is beyond me, A1200 had keyboard, cheap expansion(and upto double performance with cheap fastram), PCMCIA, 2.5" HD ability.
Also it had an expansion to upgrade to near A1200 possibilities but again stupidly expensive.

Nowadays the CD32 is kinda cool in that its at least upgradeable to close to A1200 but that's it.

The CD32 was a dud, Commadore was a dud, they completely missed the business practice of selling consoles below cos and making money on game releases by taking 30% of sales.

It also released far too early for games companies to prepare releases hence all the shovelware.

This thread is pointless based on the title, if it was called most junk AGA amiga or Commodores second worst Amigs i would agree(CDTV being worst)

I get what you are saying but I guess the fella who started the thread believes it is so and therefore posted it to see if there was like minded opinion about it.

Commodore might have went under but you couldn't call them a dud given the success they had for years with the PET, C64, Amiga. They did alright but obviously dropped the ball eventually as many a company has done.

shovelware

Good description

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

@Roondar and others.
Please don't stop posting because you can't convince Gilbert.
He is not the only one reading your replies, and I personally learnt a lot in this thread.

Yes notice I am not trying to convince other Amiga owners that their machine isn't the best Amiga- even though they are obviously wrong!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is summary of people's choices for the best Amiga so far :

1. A1200
2. A500
3. CD32
4. The Sega Megadrive
5. A4000
6. A1000
7. A2000
8. A600

(no CDTV yet!)

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by roondar

My reply has nothing to do with the tone of what you wrote, but rather the contents. In case you missed it, you implied (and now do it again this post) that I know that I'm wrong and leave the thread so I don't have to admit it. The not-so-nice way of putting this is that you were essentially calling me a liar. That's why I reacted that way.
Fine then, I'll answer all your points (in so far I didn't already answer them):

Yes I did say that. And I also said (which is actually the important part of what I wrote) that these two things were ultimately irrelevant. HAM-8 was almost never used because it's not suitable for games and video playback was at best a gimmick. The things they overstated however, happened to all be things that were relevant for games.

So one last time: Commodore made the CPU in the CD32 seem twice as fast as it actually is, fudged the sprite/object capabilities by not pointing out how limited the Blitter really is and made it seem like the CD32 could display over 1000x as many colours in games than it actually did in reality by not pointing out the 262.144 colour mode wasn't actually, you know, useful.
Well, it's limited to 20 objects horizontally. So yes, if you try to go above that, you'll get sprite flicker. This isn't particularly odd is it? If you go above the object limit per frame on the Amiga you'll either get lower frame rates (which is also quite bad) or Sprite flicker (which is the same problem).

What is relevant however, is that games like MUSHA are usually more visually impressive than CD32 shooter I've seen (MD shooters are certainly not any worse than CD32 shooters). Also, the 60Hz videos I could find of MUSHA don't actually show this large amount of sprite flicker you're talking about.

Also relevant is how the amount of objects & effects shown in MUSHA even in the parts of the game I saw are clearly beyond what the Blitter or Amiga Sprites could normally handle. Remember, I already pointed out the Blitter can only do around 20 objects in total of the same size as MD sprites.

Oh and... Rainbow Islands on the MD has no flicker. I checked a bunch of videos (incl 60 Hz ones) and there is no sprite flicker in any of them.
I already pointed out that most AGA games use either Dual Playfield+Sprites (which limits you to 48 colours) or 64 colour mode (which still isn't more than what the MD does). As for using sprites to do the status panel, there's a good reason why both the Amiga and the MD usually don't do this: if you use sprites/Blitter for a transparent panel, you can't use them for other objects. While the MD has a lot of sprites, they're still a finite resource.

And on a side note, there's far more Amiga games (AGA or not) with a non-full screen for gameplay than MD games. Use of score banners (some of which were impressively large) and/or borders is extremely common on the Amiga. I don't see how you can seriously claim the Amiga has the advantage here.
I'm well aware of these techniques and I never said that VRAM could not be a limit. However, decompressing GFX on the fly is not exactly unheard of on the Amiga either. Furthermore, what I said about comparing size is actually true - MD GFX are much smaller than Amiga GFX so you simply can't directly compare the size.

Just a small example then:

• A single MD screen layer takes up 1120 bytes of memory (plus the size of the source GFX to show)
• A single Amiga screen layer takes up between roughly 40960 and 81920 bytes of memory (plus the size of the source GFX to show)
• The MD screen does not need double or triple buffering, but the Amiga normally requires double or even triple buffering for its screens
• Double buffering doubles memory requirements (81920-163840 bytes)
• Triple buffering triples memory requirements (122880-245760 bytes)

So depending on what is required for your game, the CD32 can need up to around 220x the space for the screen. In fairness, the size difference for sprites/bobs & tiles is far less extreme (these normally are closer to 1x to 4x the MD size) but also in fairness, animation on the MD can make use of the fact that sprites are just a bunch of tiles which can help make storing different frames a lot cheaper. This is a key factor in why console games tend to be so much smaller than Amiga games. Note also that the vast majority of Amiga games are stored in a compressed form to save space and speed up loading times.

More importantly, the consoles can and do (as you show) quite easily stream cartridge data "instantly" from anywhere in the ROM. This is not something that the CD-ROM drive of the CD32 can actually replicate because CD's are not good at fast random access, the seek times of the CD32 are quite high.
The point is that Amiga to console ports tend not to be good indicators of what the console is capable of and that console-Amiga ports almost always end up worse than the reverse.
Like I said, I'm not saying you do it on purpose (and I included older developers in this as well, not just newer ones). But clearly, you do imply it. Case in point:
I read the above to say a) older developers didn't make decent games and b) current developers are unwilling or unable to use all this potential. That does seem to me at least to imply what I said.

If that isn't your intention, perhaps try not phrasing this point like you do.
That was not the conclusion of the CPS1 thread .
The conclusion was that the CD32 could, in most cases, probably create a graphically cut down version of CPS1 games that play well. Not that it could create close versions.

As for the cart size: again, you can't compare carts sizes to Amiga storage sizes, the systems work differently and store data differently. Cartridges and Arcade ROM sizes are almost always (much) smaller than their Amiga equivalents.

Ok, so let me get this straight: the CD32 version doesn't run well but looks nice and the MD version doesn't look as nice but runs a lot better. And you take this to mean that the CD32 version could be made a lot better (without any evidence for this, you just state it as if it's a fact) and that the MD version can't be made better (again, no evidence supplied).

This is exactly why I have issues taking your posts seriously. Zool on AGA runs in Dual Playfield mode. That is to say, it runs using about 48 colours, plus a few for the Copper gradient. It lacks the graphics line scrolling effects the MD uses. The main reason it looks more colourful is not because the MD can't display the colours (the foreground is almost identical and when you look at the shared background elements in the two version they also look almost exactly the same), but rather that the MD designers chose to use a different style of background that could be easily scrolled in layers. This gives it a different look.

But they both use roughly the same number of colours.
Let's first point out the obvious: the person who got me to conclude the MD could do 640 pixels of sprites per scanline was NOT me, but you. You said, without any other context:

I took that number to be accurate because I assumed you're not trying to lie (I did check it just to be sure and found that indeed, the MD can display 20 sprites per line in several sources). Then I merely multiplied the number 20 by the size (32x32 pixels) of MD sprites. That gives 640 pixels. As I just pointed out, I did also check to see if I could find anything about sprite limitations and didn't find any indication of the 320 pixel limit you're now started to refer to here. Some examples of the stuff I found:

Note that these specs, which I used and are identical to many other spec sheets on the MD online, do fit with my claim of up to 20 sprites per scanline @ 32x32 pixels = 640 pixels wide.

Note that again, no mention of any 320 pixel limit so this also fits with 640 pixels per scanline. Their more in-depth explanation further down the page also doesn't mention this limit. In fact, your post is the very first time I've ever seen this mentioned anywhere. Doesn't mean you're wrong, but it does mean I'd like to see the source of this for myself before agreeing with you. And obviously, it also doesn't mean I'm trying to hide/lie about anything.

In other words: your implication that I'm essentially lying couldn't be further from the truth as I merely repeated what I had seen you and other sources say. However (and this needs to be pointed out): even if the MD could only display 320 pixels of sprites rather than 640 pixels of sprites per scanline with an 80 object maximum, that would still give it much more sprite pushing power than the AGA Amiga's sprites+Blitter.

The conclusion here is that even if you are fully correct about the sprite limits and I was fully wrong, it still doesn't change that my actual point here (the MD can normally display significantly more objects in a frame than the CD32) remains true.

Anyway, I do hope to end this discussion soon. I find it not to be very productive.

I wasn't calling you a liar but was very suspicious you choose to leave the thread as soon as I have good points especially since you said that I "wouldnt accept the truth". Well good job I didn't or people would be thinking the Megadrive was a lot more powerful than it was.

That was my whole point though - sure the CD32 specs may be misleading but the Megadrive specs are too because unless you know the details of the graphics chip and how sprites are used on a particular machine you can't compare with just stats. All sprite based consoles are completely different and all have different limitations. The CD32 has sprites that can cover the width of the screen AND has a blitter AND an ultra fast and powerful CPU AND a Copper chip AND a CD Drive. That's quite a lot. The Megadrive probaby has a weak soundchip too (amount of channels aside). I haven't looked into it but a lot of consoles can't play sound samples at different pitches and so have to store multiple samples for each note they want to use. The MD could be one of them.

It also said about the 320 pixel limit in the earlier link (discussion, btw the Gilbert in that thread is not me. I am not that smart!) I gave you. So I do think this is the case. Musha - not unintentional sprite flicker - but look at how player bullets are displayed on alternate frames - obviously to beat the horizontal sprite limit.

Er. I have never said you are a liar or that you are lying about your knowledge of the Megadrive. I think that is excessive to take it like that. But on the other side - you can't say it's the truth and that I shouldn't argue against it - unless you really know that machine in depth and how all the DMA and VRAM business works too. I read what you wrote but seems like all that costs CPU time too, even if DMA is somewhat indpendent - it still really limits how many different graphics images can be used on screen at at a time

Well I think in the CPS1 thread we def thought we could get a CPS1 game working in dual playfield mode and with enough colours to look very close. Don't forget it can update display at half the frame rate and still be fast (like Rainbow Islands did and is well loved as a close arcade conversion).

And agreed lets end the discussion because seems to be escalating.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll answer any other responses to me soon. Thanks to the people posting in support of CD32. Is good to hear it has fans.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

I wasn't calling you a liar but was very suspicious you choose to leave the thread as soon as I have good points especially since you said that I "wouldnt accept the truth". Well good job I didn't or people would be thinking the Megadrive was a lot more powerful than it was.

Your good point seems to me to be that the MD can't push more sprites than a full screen wide and can only do 80 objects in total. But, this is still far more than the CD32 can manage. Please understand, I'm not in this to try and make the MD seem like the best system ever (it isn't). Neither am I in this to try and make the CD32 seem like crap (I have nothing against the system, I actually think it's neat we have an Amiga console). Really, I'm just in this to try and keep things as accurate as possible (even though I'll freely admit I too make mistakes about these things from time to time).

Overall though, and this is really important: when I wrote/write that you won't accept the truth I am not talking about individual points, I'm talking about the overall picture - the CD32 just isn't as good as you portray it to be. As such, I'll gladly accept I am wrong about the 320/640 thing, because it doesn't really matter for my point either way.

The CD32 has sprites that can cover the width of the screen AND has a blitter AND an ultra fast and powerful CPU AND a Copper chip AND a CD Drive. That's quite a lot.

I've tried to keep the following part short. It's not intended to be unfriendly!

The CD32 does not have sprites that can cover the width of the screen unless you limit them to 4 colours each, the Blitter can only do 1/4th the number of objects the MD can display (if we assume the same size), the CPU of the CD32 is only about 2x the speed of the MD one in real life applications (and kind of close to the total CPU power of the 2x 68000 in the MD-CD). I thought the comparison we did was with the Mega CD, so the CD drive is kind of a moot point. The Copper is quite good though and one of my favourite parts of the Amiga. But it generally won't give you the kind of stuff (i.e. raw graphical speed) we've mostly been talking about.

It also said about the 320 pixel limit in the earlier link (discussion, btw the Gilbert in that thread is not me. I am not that smart!) I gave you. So I do think this is the case. Musha - not unintentional sprite flicker - but look at how player bullets are displayed on alternate frames - obviously to beat the horizontal sprite limit.

I have no problem accepting this limit, but I do still find it odd I've never seen it mentioned elsewhere before. As for MUSHA and player sprites, it could indeed be because of the horizontal sprite limit, but it could also be an artistic choice. I've seen that done to bullets before even in arcade games to give them a transparent look.

Anyway, I'm only interested in the truth. Not in pushing one machine over another. If MUSHA is limited by the 320 pixel limit, then I'll accept that.

Er. I have never said you are a liar or that you are lying about your knowledge of the Megadrive. I think that is excessive to take it like that. But on the other side - you can't say it's the truth and that I shouldn't argue against it - unless you really know that machine in depth and how all the DMA and VRAM business works too. I read what you wrote but seems like all that costs CPU time too, even if DMA is somewhat indpendent - it still really limits how many different graphics images can be used on screen at at a time.

I didn't say you literally called me a liar, I said you implied I was a liar because I tried to end the discussion/leave the thread. And that is, whether you intended to do so or not, exactly what you did. I'll accept you didn't intend to do this and leave it at that.

Anyway, all GFX actions on both machines cost CPU time and I'm not so sure Amiga GFX operations are actually less CPU intensive to set up than MD GFX operations. If I had to guess, I'd say it's rather the reverse.

Well I think in the CPS1 thread we def thought we could get a CPS1 game working in dual playfield mode and with enough colours to look very close.

That's not how I read it.

And agreed lets end the discussion because seems to be escalating.

Understand I never like it when that happens and it's not my intention. It's unfortunate it happened.

[DamienD]

@roondar: I've stopped replying to Gilbert in this rubbish thread, as really there's no point

I've noticed a lot of other members doing the same.

...but I've even gone a step further; I don't even check / read now.

That's saying a lot; as I guess old habits die hard from being a Global Moderator... I still read all threads.

I suggest you do the same, and stop wasting your valuable time / energy replying

[Foebane]

Exactly, DamienD.

I already said, this thread would be utterly moot if the CD-ROM drive for the A1200 had been launched, as there would be no NEED for the CD32 AT ALL. But of course, it never was, so...

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by DamienD

@roondar: I've stopped replying to Gilbert in this rubbish thread, as really there's no point

I've noticed a lot of other members doing the same.

...but I've even gone a step further; I don't even check / read now.

That's saying a lot; as I guess old habits die hard from being a Global Moderator... I still read all threads.

I suggest you do the same, and stop wasting your valuable time / energy replying

These threads are like playing 'Premier Manager' (1992) but instead of football we're managing Commodore These debates have been going on for over 30 years now... I remember similar talk in the early 1990s on BBSs.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Paul_s

These threads are like playing 'Premier Manager' (1992) but instead of football we're managing Commodore

I'm sure any one of us could do a far better job than Mehdi Ali ever did, that's for sure!

[Gordon]

Well done Gilbert for this thread. Great discussion and I’m on your side mostly but ports with out adding extra buttons is inexcusable.

What’s your history? When did you first get one?

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by DamienD

@roondar: I've stopped replying to Gilbert in this rubbish thread, as really there's no point

I've noticed a lot of other members doing the same.

...but I've even gone a step further; I don't even check / read now.

That's saying a lot; as I guess old habits die hard from being a Global Moderator... I still read all threads.

I suggest you do the same, and stop wasting your valuable time / energy replying

We all know the people who bother to write in threads that they are not reading them - really are. Just admit you secretly love CD32 and use it to play your Men At Work and INXS CDs



(that's just a friendly bit of banter btw, I have to make this clear or people get mad at me)

Originally Posted by Foebane

Exactly, DamienD.

I already said, this thread would be utterly moot if the CD-ROM drive for the A1200 had been launched, as there would be no NEED for the CD32 AT ALL. But of course, it never was, so...

Foebane - you are low-key admitting the CD32 is the best Amiga - because it did get the computer expansion released which made it better than the A1200

Originally Posted by roondar

Your good point seems to me to be that the MD can't push more sprites than a full screen wide and can only do 80 objects in total. But, this is still far more than the CD32 can manage. Please understand, I'm not in this to try and make the MD seem like the best system ever (it isn't). Neither am I in this to try and make the CD32 seem like crap (I have nothing against the system, I actually think it's neat we have an Amiga console). Really, I'm just in this to try and keep things as accurate as possible (even though I'll freely admit I too make mistakes about these things from time to time).

Overall though, and this is really important: when I wrote/write that you won't accept the truth I am not talking about individual points, I'm talking about the overall picture - the CD32 just isn't as good as you portray it to be. As such, I'll gladly accept I am wrong about the 320/640 thing, because it doesn't really matter for my point either way.
I've tried to keep the following part short. It's not intended to be unfriendly!

The CD32 does not have sprites that can cover the width of the screen unless you limit them to 4 colours each, the Blitter can only do 1/4th the number of objects the MD can display (if we assume the same size), the CPU of the CD32 is only about 2x the speed of the MD one in real life applications (and kind of close to the total CPU power of the 2x 68000 in the MD-CD). I thought the comparison we did was with the Mega CD, so the CD drive is kind of a moot point. The Copper is quite good though and one of my favourite parts of the Amiga. But it generally won't give you the kind of stuff (i.e. raw graphical speed) we've mostly been talking about.
I have no problem accepting this limit, but I do still find it odd I've never seen it mentioned elsewhere before. As for MUSHA and player sprites, it could indeed be because of the horizontal sprite limit, but it could also be an artistic choice. I've seen that done to bullets before even in arcade games to give them a transparent look.

Anyway, I'm only interested in the truth. Not in pushing one machine over another. If MUSHA is limited by the 320 pixel limit, then I'll accept that.
I didn't say you literally called me a liar, I said you implied I was a liar because I tried to end the discussion/leave the thread. And that is, whether you intended to do so or not, exactly what you did. I'll accept you didn't intend to do this and leave it at that.

Anyway, all GFX actions on both machines cost CPU time and I'm not so sure Amiga GFX operations are actually less CPU intensive to set up than MD GFX operations. If I had to guess, I'd say it's rather the reverse.
That's not how I read it.
Understand I never like it when that happens and it's not my intention. It's unfortunate it happened.

roondar - I get what you are saying about you being called a liar and I apologise but I was more saying (at the time) that you were being "tricksy" rather than being a liar. That's like many times on this forum i get accused of trolling when I am not - but I don't always think those people are literally calling me a liar, I just think they believe I am trolling. Because from my point-of-view why suddenly leave when I pointed out those 2 tech specs that Commodore had understated (when you said they hadnt understated any) and also that MD sprites weren't as simple to use as you assumed? That wasn't me saying anything unreasonable at all. Just seemed to me (at the time) like I made some decent points and you didn't want to address them. I think if the reverse had been true you would have thought the same as me. So I hope you can see why I said that - But I am sorry I offended you. You seem like a good dude and you know your Amiga tech stuff.

I mean I probably agree the Mega CD is more powerful in some ways (it has that mode 7 + thing too), but I do think the CD32 could beat most "normal" Megadrive games Jungle Strike on CD32 is probably a good example, and that's just a conversion. And the Megadrive could never do something like Gloom Deluxe (which isn;t even using CD32 to the full). Sure there are games that use the Megadrive hardware to the max but the CD32 could do very good versions of those - if not completely copy them.

As for sprites - what you say about the CD32 I'm sure is right but I would guess if either of us coded a Megadrive game we would probably find out some more limitations it has - like drawing to map tiles in VRAM must be slow (I would guess that is how the 3D games work) but CD32 can display 128 sprites also and I think it can maybe tile the same big sprite twice horizontally on a screen? (can it do this? just asking) So if that's true it could fill the screen with 16 colour sprites.

Also it can do transparency (like the clouds in banshee) and color blending which the MD can't do legit ( I guess it could display a sprite/playfield on alternate frames on a CRT but that's not as flexible). And like I said the sound on the CD32 is much better than the Megadrive, so overall the CD32 could be the more capable Seems like the only thing the MD is better at is - load times, and slightly better at moving more objects/sprites around. Fightin Spirit looks way better than any MD one-on-one fighter - more colours, more background animation, better music and it was probably just made by a couple of guys in a barn.

Originally Posted by Gordon

Well done Gilbert for this thread. Great discussion and I’m on your side mostly but ports with out adding extra buttons is inexcusable.

What’s your history? When did you first get one?

Hey man. Appreciate the kind words, I don't get many here! I used to have an A500 back in the day but sold it and bought a sealed boxed CD32 around 2010 (I think, when there were lots of them floating around). I mainly got it at the time to be able to play every Amiga game on CD, but also I like consoles that are underappreciated and I find it enjoyable discovering fun games on them.

Apart from that I like CD32 a lot.Yes those shovelware games are shocking - how long would it take it change a few line of code?? (A1200 owners love those games as they are though....) But I started to get some good games for CD32 about 1-2 years ago. Just became a bigger fan since then, and I love the console and reading about it. Screenshots in magazines for CD32 look great and I like reading about when they enhance games for it - like Fire & Ice.

You have a CD32 too?

[mcgeezer]

I just can't believe how he's managed to extract a months worth of blatant trolling. I honestly can't comprehend how anyone can waste their time with the guy - I had his number well before Christmas.

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

I just can't believe how he's managed to extract a months worth of blatant trolling. I honestly can't comprehend how anyone can waste their time with the guy - I had his number well before Christmas.

There is no trolling bud, I think you just get upset at things you shouldn't get upset by tbh. Some of it is a bit of humour thrown in. Like when I say the CD32 "smashes" the Megadrive or I make a joke to emphasise a point- like about the barn (copying Fatal Fury and making it clear in the intro with the NEO and SNC logos is probably not something an established developer would do). But I do really think what I say e.g. that Fightin Spirit looks better than MD fighting games - watch them on Youtube and tell me different! I compared with Streetfighter 2 Special Championship edition on MD to make sure before I posted that. Fightin Spirit "smashes" it!

No more CD32 hating in this this thread please!

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

No more CD32 hating in this this thread please!

Joking or not, this is trolling at its best - subtle trolling.

You see, as many have come to realise and as I've said before you're simply an idiot. You write stuff that gets people's backs up and then when they respond to you with pure FACT you redirect and bend the discussion to suit your needs, which is to further fuel the thread and carry on the pointless discussion.

The thread should have been closed around Christmas eve, lots of time would have been saved doing so.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

Foebane - you are low-key admitting the CD32 is the best Amiga - because it did get the computer expansion released which made it better than the A1200

Not really.

I'd rather have:

A) My fully-featured and expandable A1200 with optional HDD and the CD-ROM drive added via the PCMCIA port, with maybe a bit of circuitry inside including Akiko for compatibility's sake, than

B) A much more limited CD32 with a massive box plugged into the bigger expansion slot in the back with all of the A1200 ports in it, and that's before I have to plug in a keyboard purchased separately, and in the end it looking like a weird Frankensteinian hodge-podge

When honestly, the option A) is better and much more elegant, not to mention, as I suspect, cheaper.

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

Apart from that I like CD32 a lot.Yes those shovelware games are shocking - how long would it take it change a few line of code?? (A1200 owners love those games as they are though....) But I started to get some good games for CD32 about 1-2 years ago. Just became a bigger fan since then, and I love the console and reading about it. Screenshots in magazines for CD32 look great and I like reading about when they enhance games for it - like Fire & Ice.

Always enjoyed playing the CD32 version of Fire & Ice. Those few conversions which were enhanced for the 32 really shone though - just a shame there were so few

I was a little critical of the hardware earlier in this thread but for solely playing games it's nice with the right controller. (I had five CD32s a while ago.)

..be nice if someone could refresh the CD32 with a slot loading mechanism, internal enhancements (new system board perhaps? )....