MAC & Amiga Graphics ?

[blade002]

Can someone give me some information on how the Amiga & MAC compared graphically from 1985 right up to Commodores demise in 1994 ?

Was the Amiga the king in the Graphics stakes still, due to the AGA chipset or did the MAC wipe it out before 94 ?

[Whitesnake]

Well the Amiga was more purpose built for Multimedia/Games in mind, Sprite Hardware and amongst other things.
If you remember the reviews of the A1000 there was somewhat confusion surrounding it when they aimed at the Business Market.

This was due to all the graphical and sound demos they showed which were not really deemed useful for business application.
The Mac on the other hand as i understand it is just a big Bitmap Graphics display. It doesn't sound much but due to the more simple and straight forward approach it makes it pretty usable at any graphical task at the time.

For example it makes it more ideal for High Resolution display and Polygon based drawing. But less ideal for 2D Platformers etc.
But the truth be told it didn't need any Sprite Hardware as it was powerful enough to do such things and you could always get a full 256 colour display or more in later models.

In the long run the Macintosh graphical route was a better option for supporting it today, In the day the Amigas option was better to get max performance.

Edit: To answer who was king in Graphics i would say the Mac was when the first colour models arrived, But the Mac didn't have anywhere near as many games. But the games that did come on the Mac like Lemmings and Worms are much superior versions, Much more colour and 640x480 resolution etc.

[redblade]

I read some where that Apple computers were very happy that commodore did such a shit job marketing the Amiga or Apple would have been in a lot more trouble.

[Legerdemain]

Originally Posted by Whitesnake

To answer who was king in Graphics i would say the Mac was when the first colour models arrived, But the Mac didn't have anywhere near as many games. But the games that did come on the Mac like Lemmings and Worms are much superior versions, Much more colour and 640x480 resolution etc.

Hm... did Worms scroll smoothly on any kind of x86 Mac? When reading what you wrote I just came to think of the fact that I can't recall having seen one single x86 Macintosh game that scrolls smoothly... (and when running ShapeShifter on RTG/060 Worms doesn't scroll smoothly at all, while still being perfectly playable).

[kriz]

Yeah the AGA is very good for a lot of 2d stuff! But 3D is worse

And its Mac 68k game

[Whitesnake]

Originally Posted by Legerdemain

Hm... did Worms scroll smoothly on any kind of x86 Mac? When reading what you wrote I just came to think of the fact that I can't recall having seen one single x86 Macintosh game that scrolls smoothly... (and when running ShapeShifter on RTG/060 Worms doesn't scroll smoothly at all, while still being perfectly playable).

Don't you mean 68k Mac? If so then it does scroll smoothly. Shapeshifter the emulator pretty much craps out when trying to emulate Worms and Lemmings and quite a lot of other high resolution games.
Also you can't compare the Shapeshifter emulator to real 68k Mac performance.
For example it won't run Dark Forces, Shapeshifter is decent for desktop stuff just not games.

[Legerdemain]

Originally Posted by Whitesnake

Don't you mean 68k Mac? If so then it does scroll smoothly. Shapeshifter the emulator pretty much craps out when trying to emulate Worms and Lemmings and quite a lot of other high resolution games.
Also you can't compare the Shapeshifter emulator to a real 68k Mac performance.
For example it won't run Dark Forces, It is decent for desktop stuff just not games.

Haha, yes, 68k Mac... I have been discussing x86 processors too much today... can't think clearly...

Is there a particular reason for DarkForces not working, by the way?

[Whitesnake]

The game does a lot of non implemented features that are not present in Shapeshifter.

[Legerdemain]

Originally Posted by Whitesnake

The game does a lot of non implemented features that are not present in Shapeshifter.

Oki. Well, I haven't really tried that many games... but the ones I have tried have worked pretty well (except Worms that simply doesn't look good when scrolling around the screen).

The main reason why I ever started using ShapeShifter was that on my Blizzard 1230 equiped A1200 Sim City 2000 ran so insanely much faster under ShapeShifter than it did in its native Amiga version... that I later on could play games like Alone In The Dark, Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2, Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis in full 256 colour glory (and updated GUI for the original Monkey Island) and WarCraft 2 was merely a bonus... Sim City 2000 was the main reason for me using ShapeShifter...



So, had it not been for Maxis not putting any effort at all into the Amiga version of Sim City 2000, I am not so sure I ever would have bothered about the 68k Mac... or, rather, emulating it...

[redblade]

What was Warcraft like under emulation?

[Sune Salminen]

Originally Posted by Legerdemain

Oki. Well, I haven't really tried that many games... but the ones I have tried have worked pretty well (except Worms that simply doesn't look good when scrolling around the screen).

I remember getting Worms to run well with Basilisk II a few years back.
I think the latest version have gone SDL so it might be slower now than it used to be though.

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by redblade

What was Warcraft like under emulation?

Now I wonder the same question.

I have original CD, but I'm missing Warcraft II original CD which was PC/Mac compatible. Not sure if first CD was the same PC/Mac compatible. Will have to check it.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Anubis

I have original CD, but I'm missing Warcraft II original CD which was PC/Mac compatible. Not sure if first CD was the same PC/Mac compatible. Will have to check it.

I have Warcraft II which I think I bought from Sold-Out software for £5 http://www.sold-out.co.uk/soldout/index.html

Also grabbed Broken Sword 1 + 2 and House of the Dead 2 at the same time

[Anubis]

I also got Warcraft II Battle.net which includes both original game and scenario. Got this after I couldn't find original. The lost Warcraft game was also part of Battle Chest, which means it includes both first game, second game and scenario. I've lost only original CD for Warcraft II, but still have other cds from chest.

Can't you tell I liked the game?

[Legerdemain]

WarCraft 2 runs rather decent. Fully playable.

Concerning Dark Forces... the demo I have run, I just recalled, a friend of mine confirms that he has run it aswell...(under ShapeShifter, that is). I have not tried the full version though...

[Whitesnake]

Originally Posted by Legerdemain

WarCraft 2 runs rather decent. Fully playable.

Concerning Dark Forces... the demo I have run, I just recalled, a friend of mine confirms that he has run it aswell...(under ShapeShifter, that is). I have not tried the full version though...

Interesting, Because Shapeshifter doesn't work with multibinaries which Dark Forces is. 68k/PPC
If it does run i wouldn't imagine it would work well as you really need to a PPC to run it at its best.

[X-ray]

I played and finished Warcraft II and it was definitely playable...no complaints here. That was with Shapeshifter on my A4KT/060, no gfx card.

[redblade]

So Warcraft II would of run smoothly on a Amiga 1200/030? or would the std 020 with 2mb chip and 2mb fast be good enough.

Isn't Warcraft 2 at 256cols @ 640x480 resolution?

[X-ray]

@ redblade

I can't envision it being very good on anything less than an 040.

[Legerdemain]

Originally Posted by X-ray

@ redblade

I can't envision it being very good on anything less than an 040.

If you have an 060 you will need MacOS 8.x to get it to run at all... not sure about 040, though...