What Makes The Amiga CD32 The Best Amiga?

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

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 to further fuel the thread to carry on the pointless discussion.

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

Your points makes zero sense - "I am trolling"? but yet you are the one who keeps insulting me...

Also you guys send insults the CD32's way, so why can't I respond with some insults against your machines, They are good-natured. I like the A1200. But is fun to have a bit of banter back with people and make points at the same time. All I am doing is sending back to people what they give out. In fact less - because I have never called you anything

I think anyone neutral reading this thread would be asking why are so many bully-boys constantly trying to make it look like they are victims?

There is no fact. I guarantee in 40 years time you will be surprised at what people made the CD32 do. Look at Atari 2600. Still finding tricks! You port your games to CD32...You even said yourself you couldn't be bothered making an extra effort for it, which is fair enough but it's not exactly pushing the machine

I will let other people have their say now

[mcgeezer]

This is what i mean about you being an idiot, you’d think you were 13.

Would you take your CD32 to an Amiga convention and declare those who didn’t have a CD32 as an enemy?

I’ve tried telling you, nobody hates the CD32, it’s an Amiga - it’s the poorest mainstream Amiga in my opnion.

And hang on there “guarantee” is a strong word, and it should be used wisely.

Programming a CD32 and an Atari 2600 is a World apart, galaxies even.

P.S. anyone reading this thread will be thinking who hell is this fruit loop. (And i dont mean me)

[jotd]

tbh the only interest of porting existing AGA games to CD32 would be the controllers (that we can have on a real amiga too) and the CD quality music + 4 channels sound fx

But mcgeezer audio is so great thanks to the talented musicians that did the soundtrack on his games that it's not even worth it. It could, as mcgeezer asked me for a CD replay routine (that I hacked from some Toni code) which is used in CD32load.

Gilbert you're clearly overestimating everything else about the CD32. It's as powerful as a stock A1200 (so, not too powerful). 256 color games just crawl on it. It doesn't have the power of the MD or other consoles. It's a A1200 in disguise, akiko is a convenient cheap device to emulate the CIAs and have CD support. c2p is a joke.

more on akiko c2p: Devs weren't going to directly use akiko (by hw banging) because it wasn't documented too much, and even with that 3D games would have been slow.

The only way to use it was by using the OS, which is a terrible way to code arcade games, because it's darn slow, doesn't double-buffer...

And if you had enough CPU, then it was better to use asm c2p routines...

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

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.

Just read a bit here and there in this thread, and this is my findings about this thread as well.

This is basically people who know their shit like Roondar trying to explain to Daffy Duck why the Megadrive is a technically better game playing device than the CD32.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Steril707

This is basically people who know their shit like Roondar trying to explain to Daffy Duck why the Megadrive is a technically better game playing device than the CD32.

Except it isn't. It is a better device for playing games which have been designed to work with it. Many other games not so much, and for some it is completely useless.

Remember when the A600 was released and everybody complained about it not having a numeric keypad? A few games used those keys, so the A600 was not for them. Now consider a Megadrive - no keys at all! Too bad if adventure games or flight simulators are your thing.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Except it isn't. It is a better device for playing games which have been designed to work with it. Many other games not so much, and for some it is completely useless.

Remember when the A600 was released and everybody complained about it not having a numeric keypad? A few games used those keys, so the A600 was not for them. Now consider a Megadrive - no keys at all! Too bad if adventure games or flight simulators are your thing.

But a CD32 is no better at playing those type of games either

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Except it isn't. It is a better device for playing games which have been designed to work with it. Many other games not so much, and for some it is completely useless.

Remember when the A600 was released and everybody complained about it not having a numeric keypad? A few games used those keys, so the A600 was not for them. Now consider a Megadrive - no keys at all! Too bad if adventure games or flight simulators are your thing.

Errrr... except it is.

Where’s the keyboard on a CD32?

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

Also you guys send insults the CD32's way, so why can't I respond with some insults against your machines

Lol
I've heard about personal insults, family insults, physical and mental insults...
But console and computers insults?

That's the new one for me.

Go on my friend!
Insult my Amiga 500 as much as you like, and I won't feel bad, or in any way offended by you.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Errrr... except it is.

Where’s the keyboard on a CD32?

As you know, the CD32 has a keyboard port and an OS which supports it. But that isn't the point. The Megadrive hardware was optimized for running a particular style of game, and so of course it does that very well. It's not so good for some others.

The CD32 is essentially an A1200 but with CDROM storage instead of a floppy (and possibly hard) drive, and an (optional) external keyboard. The CD32 is very easy to get a wide variety of Amiga games and other stuff running on because it is an Amiga. To do the same on a Megadrive requires many compromises and is a lot harder (if even possible at all).

"No", you say, "the CD32 can't match the Megadrive's ability to move sprites and tiles around so it could never do justice to a game like Sonic, which means the Megadrive is better in every way!". But Sonic is a boring game - I played it for about 2 minutes before deciding that if this is the pinnacle of console gaming then count me out. The Megadrive is an uninspiring little box that only has one purpose, to make you buy overpriced cartridges containing the games they want you to play, because those games work well on a Megadrive. Games that don't? "You don't want to play those games", they say, "not enough things gyrating around the screen, too few garish colors, screen size/resolution is all wrong, and the music isn't sufficiently jingly!"

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The CD32 might not hit nails in as fast as a sledge hammer, but it's a much more versatile tool. Just being an Amiga makes it infinitely better than a Megadrive in my book. Being the most compact Amiga with the latest OS that Commodore produced, AGA chipset, Akiko c2p, 68020 CPU and 2MB RAM just like the A1200, built-in CDROM, and excellent expansion capabilities makes it the best!

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

As you know, the CD32 has a keyboard port and an OS which supports it. But that isn't the point. The Megadrive hardware was optimized for running a particular style of game, and so of course it does that very well. It's not so good for some others.

The CD32 is essentially an A1200 but with CDROM storage instead of a floppy (and possibly hard) drive, and an (optional) external keyboard. The CD32 is very easy to get a wide variety of Amiga games and other stuff running on because it is an Amiga. To do the same on a Megadrive requires many compromises and is a lot harder (if even possible at all).

"No", you say, "the CD32 can't match the Megadrive's ability to move sprites and tiles around so it could never do justice to a game like Sonic, which means the Megadrive is better in every way!". But Sonic is a boring game - I played it for about 2 minutes before deciding that if this is the pinnacle of console gaming then count me out. The Megadrive is an uninspiring little box that only has one purpose, to make you buy overpriced cartridges containing the games they want you to play, because those games work well on a Megadrive. Games that don't? "You don't want to play those games", they say, "not enough things gyrating around the screen, too few garish colors, screen size/resolution is all wrong, and the music isn't sufficiently jingly!"

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The CD32 might not hit nails in as fast as a sledge hammer, but it's a much more versatile tool. Just being an Amiga makes it infinitely better than a Megadrive in my book. Being the most compact Amiga with the latest OS that Commodore produced, AGA chipset, Akiko c2p, 68020 CPU and 2MB RAM just like the A1200, built-in CDROM, and excellent expansion capabilities makes it the best!

Sorry, but what you talk about here is why the Amiga is an all around better computer than the Mega Drive is and why you like it personally more than the MD. Which I guess is nobody contesting.

We are talking about raw facts here about how one of those two devices pushes more to the screen estate than the other one and is therefore suited more for 2D action games.

And since "we" means a couple of the probably most knowledgeable guys when it comes to Amiga game dev currently around like Roondar, Dan Scott and McGeezer, you should probably take these things they state in consideration.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

As you know, the CD32 has a keyboard port and an OS which supports it. But that isn't the point. The Megadrive hardware was optimized for running a particular style of game, and so of course it does that very well. It's not so good for some others.

The CD32 is essentially an A1200 but with CDROM storage instead of a floppy (and possibly hard) drive, and an (optional) external keyboard. The CD32 is very easy to get a wide variety of Amiga games and other stuff running on because it is an Amiga. To do the same on a Megadrive requires many compromises and is a lot harder (if even possible at all).

"No", you say, "the CD32 can't match the Megadrive's ability to move sprites and tiles around so it could never do justice to a game like Sonic, which means the Megadrive is better in every way!". But Sonic is a boring game - I played it for about 2 minutes before deciding that if this is the pinnacle of console gaming then count me out. The Megadrive is an uninspiring little box that only has one purpose, to make you buy overpriced cartridges containing the games they want you to play, because those games work well on a Megadrive. Games that don't? "You don't want to play those games", they say, "not enough things gyrating around the screen, too few garish colors, screen size/resolution is all wrong, and the music isn't sufficiently jingly!"

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The CD32 might not hit nails in as fast as a sledge hammer, but it's a much more versatile tool. Just being an Amiga makes it infinitely better than a Megadrive in my book. Being the most compact Amiga with the latest OS that Commodore produced, AGA chipset, Akiko c2p, 68020 CPU and 2MB RAM just like the A1200, built-in CDROM, and excellent expansion capabilities makes it the best!

But the CD32 was a console, competing in that space. So its games needed to compete in that space. So i.e. With the MD and Snes etc and with action oriented action games. So the fact that the MD and the Snes outshine the specs of the CD32 in this area is very much relevant. The fact that the CD32 is no more capable(OOTB) of playing non action related games is very much relevant too

[d4rk3lf]

Exactly.
If you wanted to make your CD32 to A1200, it's way more expensive then A1200 itself - it's pointless.

But in Bruce Abbott defense, it's actually possible, and with Genesis or Snes is not, not even close, or more precisely, not at all, which really makes me mark a bonus point to CD32.
As I said previously, only because of this feature, I'd pick CD32 before any console.

Cd32 is tiny nice A1200, in console... I'd always prefer "real" A1200 over it, but still, it's nice to have it around as an option.
Nothing more - nothing less..

For me, way more advanced Amiga console (if we consider time period) is CDTV.
That was so advanced, and early, that even C= didn't know what to do with it, and how to market it.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

For me, way more advanced Amiga console (if we consider time period) is CDTV.
That was so advanced, and early, that even C= didn't know what to do with it, and how to market it.

Are you kidding me? Commodore never knew how to market the Amiga in ANY form, FULL STOP. It was a miracle it sold as much as it did, although Commodore subsidiaries like the UK under David Pleasance had the right ideas.

[PortuguesePilot]

I see people comparing the graphic abilities of a Mega Drive with that of the CD32. The Mega Drive is a very nice all-rounded console (I own two) and has a very capable (for the time) graphical chipset that made action games, platform games, shoot'em-ups, arcade games and other fast moving games run very well. The sound chip is a bit on the poor side, to be honest, in spite of being a true FM synthesizer. For those types of games (platform, action, shoot'em ups, etc) the Mega Drive is better than the Amiga.

As has already been said, the Amiga is better suited for other sorts of games. Because it is a computer and has a keyboard and a mouse from the get-go, things like strategy games, adventure games, puzzle games, etc are better on the Amiga. In 1985 the Amiga was so ahead of its time that it simply knocked out all of the competition. The 16bit computers that were around at the time were i8088@ CGA (286 and EGA with luck and bucks), monochromatic Macintosh 128K and Atari ST (excluding other marginal computers and the japanese-only ones). Most young people that owned computers at this time had 8bit machines (C64, Spectrum, MSX, etc). The consoles that ruled the market were all 8bit (NES, MasterSystem and Atari 7800). The Amiga absolutely trashed (right use of the word here) EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. THEM. Safe from extremely expensive (and therefore very rare) PCs that already equipped 32bit CPUs (state-of-the-art 386SX) and could come with both a VGA board and a Sound Card (primitive ones, at this time), NOTHING touched the Amiga in terms of performance and ABSOLUTELY nothing surpassed it on bang-for-the-buck. Absolutely nothing. The major rival was the Atari ST. And that already says it all. The consoles were all left far behind.

But it didn't last long. In 1987 (1989 in the West) came a small wondrous little thing that I curiously see no-one talking about: the NEC PC-Engine, released in the West in 1989 as the NEC Turbografx16. Despite its name, it has an 8bit CPU but it also features a glorious, awesomely well thought-out and very well put-together GPU that, IMO, is even better than the Mega Drive's and even better than AGA. It really is a beautiful little thing. I own a TurboGrafx and its form is a not as cute and cosy as the PC-Engine but it's still a very small little console that packs a very mighty punch. The PC-Engine's GPU puts the Amiga OCS to shame (sorry to be so blunt). For the first time in the console world, the Amiga was superseded in graphical terms. The PC-Engine's sound chip is also quite good. The more-than-discussed Mega Drive came in 1989 (1990 in Europe) and the SNES in 1990 (1991 in the West). The Mega Drive has been thoroughly discussed already, so no need to dig into it any further, and the SNES is even better (I know about the CPU, but in the end of it all, the SNES has better games from a technical point of view) and lets not even bring the SNK Neo-Geo AES into discussion. It was priced monstrously but it had a monstrous performance as well. So that was the end of the Amiga as a high-end gaming machine. And if in 1985 the (arguably quite good) 7MHz 68000 CPU was the bottleneck with the amazing OCS being the Amiga's flagship, by 1993 the AGA chipset (together with the 2MB Chip RAM) was the bottleneck. AGA was nowhere near the revolution that OCS had been in its day. AGA can be compared to the Mega Drive's graphical abilities, though the japanese machine will win on sheet-numbers on almost everything. Even so the Amiga did squeeze out quite a few games that were better than their Mega Drive counterparts (Lotus [an OCS game] being a prime example, but also Chaos Engine and Sensible Soccer [also OCS], among others), but by this time the end of the Amiga as a top-dog in the gaming world was a reality.

As for computers, the PCs evolved faster than ever before or after and by 1993 (the Amiga 1200 was released late 1992) the 386DX VGA AdLib/Sound Blaster were already present in quite a few households. They were much more powerful machines than the poor old A500 and even than the brand-new A1200, even though most PC games still paled compared to their Amiga and console counterparts, with only sporadic titles showcasing the new PC abilities. The Atari ST line was virtually dead by now, and even the quite impressive Falcon (1993) didn't revert its fate. In 1987 Acorn had put out the very competent (and, as it turned out, surprisingly influential in the long run) Archimedes computer, a 32bit machine that was very able to compete in equal terms with the Amiga, with many of its games being very similar to the OCS Amigas' version, but that sold comparatively poorly. Apple had polished the Macintosh line into being very good 32bit all-rounders that could compete directly with PCs. And I'm excluding the japanese-only market where jewels like the very versatile NEC PC-98 and the mighty Sharp X68000 were offered since the 1980's. These computers marked the end of the Amiga as the top-dog in the computer realm too.

So, naturally, the once mighty Amiga ended up dying out by 1994 and with it so did Commodore. 1994. Just a year after the CD32 came out. We already established that OCS was all-mighty in 1985 but AGA was 'meh' in 1993, so how could a tiny piece of plastic based on the rehash of a 1985 design (let's face it, that's what AGA basically is) compete with anything that was going strong in the market by that time? It couldn't. The CD32, even if it can be turned into sort-off a A1200, is not up there with the likes of its fellow 1993 contestants. There's a reason Wintel PCs won the computer wars (even the very competent Macintoshes were left in the dirt) and the console wars were about to be brought to a brutal and bloody end with the arrival of a somewhat unexpected newcomer known by the name "PlayStation".

There. Summed up what should be common knowledge about the so called "computer wars" and the entirety of the fourth-generation console market. The CD32 is all but a footnote on the consoles book and we only remember it because it has a small word in it that reads "Amiga". That's it. As a console, it was a rotund failure and even in its computerized form it's little more (and also little less) than an A1200, itself (although extremely beloved by us) a lacklustre home computer that came out in 1992...

Anything that you guys seem fit to articulate about it is mere daydreaming. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to daydream... I'm guilty of indulging it in myself. But we should note that even if we want really bad for things to be (or have been) a certain way, in the end... they just are what they are.

[Tigerskunk]

@PortuguesePilot: Nice summing up. Especially that bit about the PC-Engine/TG16. I remember what some famous game magazine reviewers from the 80ies said in a podcast a few years ago about the PC-Engine: "It showed us in 1988 the graphics in action games that we had expected from the Amiga, but kind of never got".

It's really an amazing machine.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

But it didn't last long. In 1987 (1989 in the West) came a small wondrous little thing that I curiously see no-one talking about: the NEC PC-Engine, released in the West in 1989 as the NEC Turbografx16. Despite its name, it has an 8bit CPU but it also features a glorious, awesomely well thought-out and very well put-together GPU that, IMO, is even better than the Mega Drive's and even better than AGA. It really is a beautiful little thing.

TurboGrafx-16

The TurboGrafx-16 uses a Hudson Soft HuC6280 CPU—an 8-bit CPU modified with two 16-bit graphics processors—running at 7.6 MHz. It features 8 KB of RAM, 64 KB of Video RAM, and the ability to display 482 colors at once from a 512-color palette. The sound hardware, built into the HuC6280 CPU, includes a PSG running at 3.58 MHz and a 5-10 bit stereo PCM...

The TurboGrafx-16 failed to break into the North American market and sold poorly, which has been blamed on the delayed release and inferior marketing. Despite the "16" in its name and the marketing of the console as a 16-bit platform, it used an 8-bit CPU, a marketing tactic that was criticized by some as deceptive...

An enhanced model, the PC Engine SuperGrafx, was rushed to market in 1989. It featured many performance enhancements and was intended to supersede the standard PC Engine. It failed to catch on - only six titles were released that took advantage of the added power and it was quickly discontinued...

Just another crappy console full of boring proprietary hardware.

I have never seen one so perhaps they were not sold in New Zealand. However the New Zealand Story was ported to it, and...

Although New Zealand story is a superb game, the PC Engine version is a little disappointing, due to some graphical shortcuts (it misses the intro, simplifies some backgrounds and loses some animation). The classic, twee soundtrack is also rather tinny and grating

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

For the first time in the console world, the Amiga was superseded in graphical terms... So that was the end of the Amiga as a high-end gaming machine... the end of the Amiga as a top-dog in the gaming world was a reality.

The Amiga was never actually 'top dog' in the gaming world - arcade machines always beat it 'technically', the C64 and then the PC beat it in sales, and the PC beat it technically too if price was no object. So what you are really talking about is the perception that it was at one time the 'top dog'.

As for computers, the PCs evolved faster than ever before or after and by 1993 (the Amiga 1200 was released late 1992) the 386DX VGA AdLib/Sound Blaster were already present in quite a few households. They were much more powerful machines than the poor old A500

This is true. Of course a well-built 386DX was several times the price of a poor old A500 too, but the higher price was 'justified' (No no - I'm buying it for business, not gaming!).

...and even than the brand-new A1200, even though most PC games still paled compared to their Amiga and console counterparts, with only sporadic titles showcasing the new PC abilities.

I sold A1200s in my shop alongside a 386SX with similar specs (2MB RAM, 40MB hard drive, Windows 3.0, VGA monitor vs. 1084 but no sound card) for the same price. On paper the 386SX was faster, but in practice the A1200 beat it easily both for games and productivity. 2MB RAM was barely enough to run Windows 3 and the 16 bit bus slowed the CPU down, but people still bought them in droves because Microsoft etc.

Even crappy CGA and EGA games sold well on the PC because people already had the machines and didn't care that much about how many colors were on screen (and why should they?). Yes, only a few games showcased the PC's capabilities, but that was because only a few PCs could showcase the PC's capabilities. In Amiga land we had a similar situation with the A3000 and A4000, both of which could showcase the Amiga much better than an A500 or A1200. But even fewer games were produced for high end Amigas. Why? Mostly because even fewer people had them. Popularity and market success is almost always about numbers, not capabilities.

The Atari ST line was virtually dead by now, and even the quite impressive Falcon (1993) didn't revert its fate. In 1987 Acorn had put out the very competent (and, as it turned out, surprisingly influential in the long run) Archimedes computer, a 32bit machine that was very able to compete in equal terms with the Amiga, with many of its games being very similar to the OCS Amigas' version, but that sold comparatively poorly.

All true, and yet more proof that hardware specs were less important than software compatibility.

So, naturally, the once mighty Amiga ended up dying out by 1994 and with it so did Commodore. 1994. Just a year after the CD32 came out. We already established that OCS was all-mighty in 1985 but AGA was 'meh' in 1993, so how could a tiny piece of plastic based on the rehash of a 1985 design (let's face it, that's what AGA basically is) compete with anything that was going strong in the market by that time? It couldn't.

And yet in its short life time ~100,000 CD32s were sold in Europe (more would have been sold in the US too, if there wasn't an injunction against it).

The truth is, Amigas were always 'meh' compared to PCs - for the simple reason that they weren't IBM compatible. AGA was almost as big a step up as EGA to VGA, but developers settled on the PC due to its enormous user base and more affluent gamers who actually bought titles rather than pirating them. It wouldn't have mattered what Commodore put in the A1200 it still would have been 'meh' to the computer gaming industry.

Commodore rightly figured that if they were to make any headway with the Amiga they had to drop the idea of competing against PCs and embrace the idea that it was 'just' a games machine, while keeping the middle ground open for those users who wanted more than just a console. The CD32 did a pretty good job of it, being compatible with the A1200 and A500 so it could take advantage of a larger software base, and easily expandable to full computer status or somewhere in between depending on finances.

This brings us to reason #93 why the CD32 is the best Amiga! It was by far the cheapest way to get into AGA and CDROM for the best Amiga gaming experience. Who cares about those other consoles with their overpriced cartridges and limited genres, or expensive PCs that constantly need upgrading, the CD32 was the pinnacle of stock Amiga gaming.

Those of us who could see the writing on the wall knew that it would probably be the last machine Commodore produced, making it even more desirable (#94). This has been borne out by current prices on eBay, with boxed CD32s going for well over $1000. Turns out the CD32 was also the best Amiga for speculation, with a greater ROI than any other model! (reason #95).

When the CD32 came out I did not have an AGA machine at home. It was cheaper (and more interesting) for me to buy the CD32 and add a keyboard and mouse than to buy an A1200 (which I couldn't justify because I already had a heavily expanded A3000). This applied to many A500 users too (#96).

The CD32, even if it can be turned into sort-off a A1200, is not up there with the likes of its fellow 1993 contestants.

It was £70 cheaper than the competition (Sega Megadrive with CD), and just a needed a suitable boot CD and mouse to become a useful 'sort-of' A1200 (reason #97). Even better with a keyboard, but you could use an onscreen app for that. If you had a CD writer like I did then you could burn a CD with your favourite software (#98) and add to or modify it because the CD drive is multi-session (#99). Later on with the SX32 you could make it into more than an A1200 (#100), and today the expansion options are wide open (#101).

Anything that you guys seem fit to articulate about it is mere daydreaming. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to daydream... I'm guilty of indulging it in myself. But we should note that even if we want really bad for things to be (or have been) a certain way, in the end... they just are what they are.

Like most posters in this thread you are missing the point - any comparisons with other platforms (whether it be crappy consoles, other failed computer systems or the PC juggernaut) are off topic.

I have now counted at least 100 reasons why the CD32 is the best Amiga. Some may disagree, which is fair enough because what's 'best' is subjective. As you rightly point out, the CD32 'is what it is' - not a console, not a PC, but an Amiga. This thread was started to discuss the opinion that it is the best Amiga - not how it might compare to any console or PC.

[PortuguesePilot]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I have now counted at least 100 reasons why the CD32 is the best Amiga. Some may disagree, which is fair enough because what's 'best' is subjective. As you rightly point out, the CD32 'is what it is' - not a console, not a PC, but an Amiga. This thread was started to discuss the opinion that it is the best Amiga - not how it might compare to any console or PC.

And the reasons why I and many others disagree have already been said countless times. It is not the best Amiga at all and it will never be, in spite of you fanboys wanting it to be. As I said, "things are what they are", not what you want them to be. Repeating a lie a million times won't make it become truth.


The comparison of hardware was brought by others, not by me. I just broaden it past the Mega Drive vs CD32 that was already going on. And come on... not knowing the PC-Engine and calling it "just another crappy console" comes to show how poor your knowledge of gaming hardware is, which doesn't exactly help your case...

[Gilbert]

Bruce Abbot is speaking the truth. Even if you just play music from the CD on CD32 you already save yourself a lot of memory that can be used to enhance the game. Then separately you can stream in and out graphics data form the huge storage device attacted to the console - the CD. You can also add a keyboard and turn it into an enhanced A1200. Facts!

Fightin Spirit CD32 - 64 colours on screen at a time. Looks better than any MD Versus Fighter and has better music AND bigger sprites. People saying the CD32 can't beat the Megadrive are just looking at specs on paper. Not at the results when you make an effort. This is just an early game too.



Megadrive Streetfighter 2 Special Championship Edition. Look at how limited it's color abilities are. This was made by a huge Capcom team with a huge budget on one of the Megadrive's biggest-ever carts



Time to be honest and admit the CD32 really does crush the Megadrive. You can't say it's trolling when you are presented with reality.

[d4rk3lf]

Gilbert, have you seen the recent demo for AGA on Street Fighter 2?
Guy did incredible job:
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=105585

EDIT:
Ahh, I see flame started over there too

[Konrad]

Gilbert, again you're confusing subjective opinion with objective arguments. You show StreetFighter2 on Megadrive and assume that this is the pinnacle of what was possible on the console.
"It was programmed by Capcom team, so it must've been the best result possible, right ?" This is why I can't take your arguments serious.
This was the same for your Battle Squadron post. Showing Amiga and Megadrive and derive from that technical capabilities. This is pure nonsense.
Also earlier taking the talk of a Commodore marketing person doing his job as 100% truth and not considering/accepting that this could also be exaggerated, because he wanted to sell CD32s.

To your screenshots:
Fighting Spirit amazed me when it was released. A worthy fighting game on Amiga. I also bought it back then. The graphics are good. But alot of blues and reds (possibly because characters had to share pallets, also with background). So in some places a not so good separation from the background. Again, a good game and good graphics. But not amazing.

See here a screenshot of the patched StreetFighter2ChampionEdition, called Remastered.
This looks already a lot better than your screenshot from the official version. So better quality still is possible on Megadrive. And this is an inoffical hack which could just be modified to a certain degree. Who knows what would've been possible in the hands of other talented programmers ?

[sarcasm on]
Time to be honest and admit the Megadrive really crushes the CD32. You can stop trolling and embrace reality[/sarcasm off]