What Makes The Amiga CD32 The Best Amiga?

[FOL]

Originally Posted by DamienD

The debate isn't whether or not the CD32 is an Amiga; of course it is.

It's about is it the best Amiga... and in relation to that, it clearly isn't give all the valid reason provided by majority people in this thread.

Just because one huge fanboy says it is doesn't make it true; yet he'll continue to argue that it is no matter what

I hate the English language sometimes. As you misunderstood what I ment.
I was just trying to get across its an Amiga, like all Amiga's. They are all the BEST, .

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by FOL

I hate the English language sometimes. As you misunderstood what I ment.
I was just trying to get across its an Amiga, like all Amiga's. They are all the BEST, .

That would be a great existential question - is an Amiga really an Amiga?

Answer : Yes except in the Matrix

Originally Posted by spudisgood

Well to me seems underpowered, basically an A1200 with a CD drive and no keyboard/mouse. Games look no better than what was then current-gen 16-bit consoles such as the Super Nintendo and the games that were available seem to be existing A500 games with a few more colours and CD audio.

If you want an example of how Commodore should have gone about 32-bit CD-based games console look no further than the Sony PlayStation. I would even rate the Atari Jaguar above CD32 in terms of performance and I think it was more popular too. CD32 to me seems to be like the C64 console, an attempt to cash in and make some money when times were desperate financially. They should have avoided it altogether and concentrated on getting a AAA/Hombre based Amiga out to replace the underpowered A1200.

I would say no way the SNES could run Guardian without an expensive add on chip. There was a 3D game on SNES I remember without an extra chip - was very very basic.

You can't really compare the CD32 to consoles that came after it. I mean the Sega Saturn is worse than Playstation 2.....

Also don't forget the Amiga CD64 was on it's way which was going to out-power the N64. In fact 20 times as powerful.




Answer more soon. Busy times!

[FOL]

Yeh, but your just quoting stuff from mags, no one can prove. Never even heard of CD64 until you just mentioned it.
You can't say what might have been when in actual fact Commodore died.

Thats like saying the CD32 attachment for A1200, would have out powered the CD32.
There is no complete hardware to prove it.

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by FOL

Yeh, but your just quoting stuff from mags, no one can prove. Never even heard of CD64 until you just mentioned it.
You can't say what might have been when in actual fact Commodore died.

Thats like saying the CD32 attachment for A1200, would have out powered the CD32.
There is no complete hardware to prove it.

I was just saying that there were plans for next-generation hardware because people were comparing the CD32 to Playstation - which isn't a fair comparison. CD64 would have crushed both Sony and Nintendo.

Originally Posted by str0m

"I'm impressed you have a GX4000. I am interested in that console"

Small library but I luckily have a multicart with most of them on and another cart with a rather good new version of ghosts n goblins. Sadly the excellent CPC Pinball Dreams port needs 128k ram which the GX doesn't have.

I like the idea of that console in the same way I like CD32. It never really took off and it's fun discovering and finding good (or better than you thought existed) games for it. It does sound like modern developers will be able to make some good games for the GX4000 too.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Amiga CD32: Announced July 16 1993, released Sept 1993.

Doom: released December 10 1993.

There's no doubt that Doom was driving PC sales, but so were all the other PC games. PC sales were always well ahead of Amiga, and those users desperately wanted games for their machines so the PC games market was much larger as well, even before Doom.

The difference is that Amiga developers didn't have the backing, because Amiqa game sales were poor and piracy was rife. Console developers could afford to do do it because they had strong backing and a guaranteed market.

BTW the SNES Doom cartridge had a lot of extra hardware in it, so it wasn't just a matter of re-coding for a lower spec machine. Imagine if Amiga games came with a ROM, extra RAM and custom-made RISC processor programmed to act as a graphics accelerator!

Yes, it's true that the CD32's (and A1200's) hardware was not fully exploited by most games. However many older games could have been well worth porting to it just for basic improvements such as faster loading with no disk swaps, CD audio tracks etc. I wrote the code for an early CDTV multimedia title, and Commodore was impressed by the speed I managed to get out the machine. But when run on in the CD32 it was twice as fast and much slicker. Many existing games would have been much nicer to play on the CD32 if they bothered to port them properly.

What Commodore should have done was hoover up as many old games as they could at bargain prices, then port them into the CD32 as a bundle of 'classic' games. But they didn't even have the resources (or the vision) to do that.

Indeed, Commodore didn't even exist when the PlayStation came out.

Instead of producing an FMV cartridge for the CD32, Commodore should should have made a 3D graphics board for it. But back when they were designing the CD32, nobody thought that was the way to go.

The Amiga's sprites are much more advanced than those on the C64. But It wouldn't matter what they put in it, Amiga users would always say it should have had more. PCs had no sprites, no blitter, no copper, no dual playfields etc., and yet users didn't complain. They were happy enough to get any games.

I think though n every Amiga magazine you saw people constantly asking Doom on CD32 - for a reason. So it was pretty big around then and important to people. Also there were all the games after Doom like Quake and Unreal. Those were even bigger

As for SNES Doom - yes I was just saying that everyone was expecting to the CD32 to do a perfect one-to-one copy of Doom while ignoring Doom on every other contemporary system - wasn't a one-to-one port - even the lauded Jaguar port. And especially not the SNES port (Missing floors and ceilings I think)

That cool about your CDTV title, so did you write any games for the Amiga at all? or any older system like BBC Micro? (I love that computer)

Oh yes the PC sucked up until a certain point. Amiga games were way better and more colourful for good few years. I still don't think anyone would have complained if the Amiga had extra sprites - I think you lose one too if you do hardware scrolling or dual playfield (or something!) Personally I love the Amiga but it does have a bit of a reputation among retro people for the screenshots looking a lot better than the games look when they are in motion. I think more sprites would have alleviated this

Originally Posted by IanS

If you just 'liked' the CD32, nobody would have a problem. But you seem to worship it, ignoring it's bad points and misrepresenting it's good points, based on a fundamental lack of understanding. Or... you're just trolling.

Why can't the AUX port save games? Because nobody has implemented that feature in either the games or the hardware you connect to it. Do you actually know what a serial port is?

The CD32 is nothing more than a modified and castrated A1200 with a built in (and rather limited) CD ROM drive, a quick and dirty C2P feature that nobody used, all packed in to a flimsy black case. It failed to sell in any great numbers and nobody made decent games specifically for it. Case closed.

That's not true what you say - I said a lot of bad things about the CD32 (the crappy designed case for example I said), I said it had low save memory but it was still enough for most games. Also the way it still has borders on the screen. But people ignore that because it doesn't fit the narrative they want to put across. Literally everyone here so far who has called me a troll has since been proven to be a troll themselves...

I would say people here don't give the CD32 *enough* credit for being able to play music from CD or stream data in during gameplay and also for the ability to run games like Dragons Lair with it's FMV cart. If you add the multi button controller to that then it is clearly the best Amiga. The C2P feature has been proven to be faster than doing it with the CPU - so the fact that so few people used it shows an issue with developers being lazy (or low budgets/time) - not the CD32

Er...I asked several people why the serial port couldn't be used - and no one answered. What else can I do? I already said I didn't know about Amiga ports. The only thing I had plugged into my ports on my A500 was that Mastersound cart - for sampling. Anyway that storage issue with storage was solved by Amiga Jedi Bruce Abbot who figured out you could connect a floppy drive with just 2 cheap TTL chips. And yes sure the developers would have to code to save to a floppy - but that was the whole commodore plan anyway to add a floppy drive to the CD32 - so would just be future proofing om their part

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

.....or stream data in during gameplay ...

You have mentioned this a few times. Its not ability I have heard of before. What extra hardware in the CD32 gave this ability ? and how did it work that was an edge over the others ?

Also you cant say the CD64 would have crushed the competition, it never existed beyond DPs wet dream in print. And literally that is the first time most people have even heard of it.

Its like saying ahh some console i dreamt up would crush the xbox series x .

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

You have mentioned this a few times. Its not ability I have heard of before. What extra hardware in the CD32 gave this ability ? and how did it work that was an edge over the others ?

Also you cant say the CD64 would have crushed the competition, it never existed beyond DPs wet dream in print. And literally that is the first time most people have even heard of it.

All Amiga's can stream in new data during gameplay but they had a limited capacity storage device. The CD32 has a CD with 550(?) Megabytes of storage capacity. It's not fast but you can stream something like 300k second. So over 4 seconds of gameplay you can stream in 1Mb of new graphics data!

An example of it's use - all horizontally scrolling platform games have enemies that appear in certain parts of the level but never again. So once the player gets past that point that graphics data can be replaced with new graphics data for enemies for later in the level. So animation frames and enemies no longer need to be cut from the game - as happened often on the lesser machines.

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

Its like saying ahh some console i dreamt up would crush the xbox series x .

You look like animal from the muppets. No one would believe you Also Commodre/Amiga had already had released 3 games consoles by this point (C64GS, CDTV and CD32) How many have you released?

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

Also Commodre/Amiga had already had released 3 games consoles by this point (C64GS, CDTV and CD32) How many have you released?

I agree on C64GS, I remember seeing these in my dads shop. CDTV though, as much as I like it, its a glorified CD player, .

[EAUniW]

The 64GS and CDTV are best forgotten.

Under threat of jail.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by EAUniW

The 64GS and CDTV are best forgotten.

Under threat of jail.

even the gx4000 was better than the 64GS lol

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

All Amiga's can stream in new data during gameplay but they had a limited capacity storage device. The CD32 has a CD with 550(?) Megabytes of storage capacity. It's not fast but you can stream something like 300k second. So over 4 seconds of gameplay you can stream in 1Mb of new graphics data!

An example of it's use - all horizontally scrolling platform games have enemies that appear in certain parts of the level but never again. So once the player gets past that point that graphics data can be replaced with new graphics data for enemies for later in the level. So animation frames and enemies no longer need to be cut from the game - as happened often on the lesser machines.

This is what I thought nothing extra, and more easily achievable from a faster HDD surely ? So no advantage over A600 and A1200 OOTB ?

[EAUniW]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

even the gx4000 was better than the 64GS lol

The GX4000 at least tried to stand out as a console.

The GS was a stunted 64. The Terminator debacle is hilarious.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by EAUniW

The GX4000 at least tried to stand out as a console.

The GS was a stunted 64. The Terminator debacle is hilarious.

I cant remember that, but if I had to guess it needed a keyboard ?

[EAUniW]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

I cant remember that, but if I had to guess it needed a keyboard ?

Ocean programmed the game to need a tap of the return key to start it. Guess which Commodore console didn't have a keyboard.

It was such a failure that they shipped the Terminator cartridge with a new C64 pack and disassembled the unsold GS units to get the motherboard.

A gold standard shambles.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Such a lack of quality control its staggering.

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

This is what I thought nothing extra, and more easily achievable from a faster HDD surely ? So no advantage over A600 and A1200 OOTB ?

Do any games stream data off the HD during gameplay (like in my example) on on the A1200? I'm guessing no. They aren't going to write that feature in unless every A1200 has a HD. The standard model didn't have one.

But every CD32 has a CD drive that reads at 300k a sec.... (maybe a bit less with error correction but still very useful)

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

Do any games stream data off the HD during gameplay (like in my example) on on the A1200? I'm guessing no. They aren't going to write that feature in unless every A1200 has a HD. The standard model didn't have one.

You'd be hard pressed to find any A1200 where users didn't immediately buy a hard drive for.

That was the one if the main points of getting one, and pretty much a given.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by EAUniW

Ocean programmed the game to need a tap of the return key to start it. Guess which Commodore console didn't have a keyboard.

It was such a failure that they shipped the Terminator cartridge with a new C64 pack and disassembled the unsold GS units to get the motherboard.

A gold standard shambles.

lol, I never knew that, remember the Terminator packs. It was the first C64 I had seen, trying to copy the Amiga with fancy glossy sleeve on it.
Never had any customers complain about not being able to start game.

[EAUniW]

Originally Posted by FOL

lol, I never knew that, remember the Terminator packs. It was the first C64 I had seen, trying to copy the Amiga with fancy glossy sleeve on it.
Never had any customers complain about not being able to start game.

The C64 Rev. C was a great looking computer, drawing from the 128 and with winks towards the aborted C65.

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by DamienD

You'd be hard pressed to find any A1200 where users didn't immediately buy a hard drive for.

That was the one if the main points of getting one, and pretty much a given.

I think only 50% of A1200 users got harddrives. Back in the day, I knew 2 A1200 owners in real life and neither had a HD at the time.It would be interesting to see stats from Commodore. Reminds me of XBox360 - no game could use the hardrive to the full extent because the people who bought the Core model with no HD wouldn't be able to play it


Something else that makes the CD32 an excellent machine is that games made for it would have had extra levels - like Banshee was going to have 2 extra levels. Zool does have an extra level and I think Jetstrike does too. These were just early games often quickly ported so imagine the future enhanced versions that would be available.


Back in the 90s if your friend had a Megadrive you could mock him for only having 16 bits of power. According to Commodore's analysis the Megadrive and Mega CD twin CPU set-up is rated at 0.3 MIPS and the CD32 is rated at a huge 3.5 MIPS of power. The Megadrive was a good machine for the time but the CD32 roundly beats it. 3 button joypad?? No thanks!

[Retro-Nerd]

At that point (1993) the Mega Drive already had a fantastic 6-button controller. It's known as one of the best 2D games controller ever. And this one was much better than the crappy CD32 controller, which was an abomination.

About the games: Sega and Nintendo fans had a good laugh about the games library of the CD32, especially the action games.