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New Amiga games coming this year
- Thread starter Thanati
- Start date
Nitty_Grimes
Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
Green Beret by Dante Retro Dev
Famous arcade action classic, finally on the Commodore Amiga computers.
danteretrodev.itch.io
HerjansEagleFeeder
Member
What is the best way to play AMIGA these days without using software emulation?
8BiTw0LF
Consoomer
You could get a standalone Vampire V4, which while technically an emulator, is an FPGA based which technically runs as if it were a 68080. However, you could also get the Amiga mini which is out in March.
Finding a "cheap" A500 is actually really difficult. They're so bloody expensive right now.
The best option would be to either go the vampire route or possible a raspberry pi 4. However, the latter is still running an emulator.
Fess
Member
These are only ways I have experience in.
Best: An original Amiga 500 on a Commodore 1084 or Philips 8833 monitor, Tac-2 joystick or Wico Command Control.
Great: Amiga 1200 with Compact Flash card as HDD and Indivision AGA mod on a PC monitor at 100hz for close enough PAL50 screen update. Tac-2 joystick or Wico Command Control. Get a turbo card as well, ACA1234 is the latest one from Indivision Computers iirc, I use an old Blizzard accelerator though (which will probably die any day now).
Okay: Accept that it’s 2022 and erase the ”without using software emulation” line and get a Raspberry Pi 400 and run a Pimiga image. What you can do to make it feel alright is get a joystick port USB adapter and play with Tac-2 joystick or Wico Command Control. Connect to any PC monitor or TV. Some speed/screen update issues may happen but it’ll be mostly alright.
Nitty_Grimes
Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
WinUAE is the best emulator.
8BiTw0LF
Consoomer
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
AGA really didn't solve the fundamental issues with the Amiga's bitplane based graphics, if anything it actually made them more impactful.
Just drawing stuff on Amiga is a lot more work than on a 16-bit console, no sprites* and no tile-based playfields add a massive overhead. Supporting AGA over OCS/ECS basically increases your workload in every respect but gives virtually nothing back to compensate.
Objectively the most cost-efficient way of doing stuff is to run dual playfields and eat the loss in bit-depth by leaving the front playfield for sprites/playfield objects alone, and hide the limited palette for the scene/background (back playfield) using copper tricks. That way you don't need to track and undraw every moving object and allows you to easily use exploits like pointer-scrolling to avoid the need to physically shift the entire screen.
At the opposite end of the scale if you want to keep it simple and do a software implementation of a tile-based display then you're looking at giving over an entire frame to doing that alone, because even efficiently coded that's how long it takes to draw that much data.
*Although technically the Amiga does have sprites, they are severely limited and so you need to use blitter objects instead.
I have this build and it's phenomenal.
CamHostage
Member
Hmm, interesting. Amiga seems like a platform that should have more post-market interest, but I don't hear a lot about it and it (and other UK-popular platforms) is rarely even included in emulator packages. There are some classics on the platform, I keep saying some day I'll get deep into this library, but not yet so far...
Hmm, is Castlevania AGA good? It looks troublingly like Haunted Castle, which can be tough to enjoy, but otherwise I don't know much about it.
Hmm, is Castlevania AGA good? It looks troublingly like Haunted Castle, which can be tough to enjoy, but otherwise I don't know much about it.
lmimmfn
Member
I disagree, AGA allows by default 2 Meg chip ram, x4 fetch mode, and also allows 64 pixel wide sprited which can span the full screen vertically, plus its dual playfield mode is 2x16 colour layers vs 2x8 colour layers with ECS/OCS.
While the Amiga isn't tile based(thank god) most games use tiles but theres no need to redraw a full screen of tiles every frame, only the new area scrolled needs to be drawn.
Also 020 CPU in AGA machines provides a good speed improvement vs stock 68000 of the A500/A600 especially with Fastram
Fess
Member
Most games play badly with a controller since jumping is usually done by pushing the joystick up and you often have some key inputs as well. You can map some keys to buttons but sooner or later you’ll hit a wall and has to fiddle with settings instead of playing. It’s why I’m not overly excited about the Amiga 500 mini, it’s coming with a controller instead of a joystick and has no functional keyboard, I’m sure it’ll work with the games included but not for all games I would want to play.
Functional ”modern” setup in my opinion:
Raspberry Pi 400 - the Pi with built-in keyboard
Retronic Design USB joystick adapter
Old school joystick
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Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Unless you are using pointerscrolling you still have to do a full-screen copy so its slow, and that method has its limitations despite it basically being free apart from the edge update.
Full screen width sprites were never an issue, even on OCS, was just a matter of force-loading via copperlist.
Going to 020 meant you had to either detect and disable caches or not use self modifying code, which always was a goto for squeezing additional cycles out of the CPU. So not only did it cause a lot of BC issues, it made for the gain of going to the better processor less impactful than it might have been.
The big issue though was that copperlist work wasn't free, every instruction caused bus-contention and AGA requires a lot more writes.
Having worked on both, something like Megadrive/Genesis was a wet-dream compared to Amiga. SNES was a bit more of a pain on the cpu side with its glorified 6502 but again less hassle than Amiga which was really hamstrung by its screen layout. It was nice for scene demo's but it always sat in a bad middle-ground without BPP or tile/playfield modes.
Redneckerz
Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
*Technically*, the CD32 should be able to run Trapped 2, since that's the most advanced native Amiga engine which also runs on practically everything, even 020 and OCS
Reviews: https://hol.abime.net/4182/review
Native res screens: https://hol.abime.net/4182/screenshot
Reizo Ryuu
Member
I think I have an amiga 500 in storage, are they worth anything?
nkarafo
Member
First time i ever see this game.
Is it fan-made or official? I don't see it in any game lists. Are there any other games like this?
cartman414
Member
I wonder if anyone ever thought about doing a recreation of AAA or Hombre (backported to work with 68k or PPC). Obviously not a full chip, but more of an FPGA deal, and the types of games that could have been. (Sort of like the aftermarket MSX upgrades covering the never released V9978 and the OPL4.)
8BiTw0LF
Consoomer
Yeah about $200-500 depending on version.
Unbelievable what that machine can do. A marvel of the late 80's - nothing comes close to from that era.
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I think what people need to keep in mind with the Amiga, back in the day. We are talking about developers working out of their basements, small teams of 1 or 2 people. It was so unprofessional when compared to Japan. The Japanese teams were usually twice the size. Games were rushed, just like today. US Gold and Ocean were notorious for using single coders meeting 4-6 week dead lines. Crazy town.
These recent efforts just show, what a proper team and budget could do. The Amiga could do much better, especially on Arcade ports. The ram configurations and disk limits/loading were always an issue, but no different than cd loading really.
Japanese developers were reluctant to share anything for ports, source code, graphics etc. European developers did a lot of that by hand and eye with playing arcade machines. That is crazy.
Obviously you had bigger companies like Psygnosis, Core Design and Team 17, more original products, bigger teams and budgets. But even they were publishers for many smaller developers.
Also up until 1989, Atari ST was the usually the lead platform, with games ported to the better Amiga. But some of those Amiga exclusives or early works - were always breaking new technical ground.
Even an ace game like Turrican 2, supposedly only sold 30k-40k copies? but everyone had a copy published by Defjam. So obviously the return on investment was much lower.
If you judge the Amiga, you need to break it down to Arcade Ports and Original products. Because games Like Agony (which was reduced to 3 disks due to costs) are beautiful.
The industry was just starting to come out of the 'garage basement development phase' at least in Europe. North America and definitely Japan were well ahead of the curve in terms of being more professional and corporate.
Also, I can't believe no one thought of bullet hell shooters on the Amiga 30 years ago. That is unreal.
Such a great machine.
These recent efforts just show, what a proper team and budget could do. The Amiga could do much better, especially on Arcade ports. The ram configurations and disk limits/loading were always an issue, but no different than cd loading really.
Japanese developers were reluctant to share anything for ports, source code, graphics etc. European developers did a lot of that by hand and eye with playing arcade machines. That is crazy.
Obviously you had bigger companies like Psygnosis, Core Design and Team 17, more original products, bigger teams and budgets. But even they were publishers for many smaller developers.
Also up until 1989, Atari ST was the usually the lead platform, with games ported to the better Amiga. But some of those Amiga exclusives or early works - were always breaking new technical ground.
Even an ace game like Turrican 2, supposedly only sold 30k-40k copies? but everyone had a copy published by Defjam. So obviously the return on investment was much lower.
If you judge the Amiga, you need to break it down to Arcade Ports and Original products. Because games Like Agony (which was reduced to 3 disks due to costs) are beautiful.
The industry was just starting to come out of the 'garage basement development phase' at least in Europe. North America and definitely Japan were well ahead of the curve in terms of being more professional and corporate.
Also, I can't believe no one thought of bullet hell shooters on the Amiga 30 years ago. That is unreal.
Such a great machine.
Redneckerz
Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
It is official, made by demoscene group Oxyron in 1997. It is the successor to Trapped: Das Rad Von Talmar. Oxyron was a C64/Amiga demogroup and thus were able to make Amiga games look like the Playstation.
Both games are highly advanced: Lens flares, dynamic lighting, reflections and full 3D texture mapping. Trapped 2 supposely runs at a stable 30 fps (!) on a 68060 at 50 Mhz in 1x1 res.
Trapped 2 was not destined for greatness, because it is one of few AmigaCD games.
A successor turned FPS was also in development, Trapped 3. This was unreleased as the main developer (Michael Piepgras) gained new employment.
Similar games are Das Rad Von Talmar and for the Atari Falcon Towers II: Plight of the Stargazer.
nkarafo
Member
So it won't run nicely on any "regular" Amiga then? Only those fancy upgraded ones that also run things like Quake, etc?
It certainly wouldn't even work on a 1200 or CD32, right?
Redneckerz
Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
You'd think that, but Trapped 2 is insanely scalable for Amiga hardware. Here are the details:
Sadly there is no footage available ran on such hardware.
nkarafo
Member
I imagine it will be something along 2-3 fps if it runs at 30 fps on a 060. There are much simpler FPS games like Gloom and Fears that already run like crap on 020 specs.
Redneckerz
Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
I wouldn't know. It has a special 020 executable for it and it does 30 fps (Which for that timeframe is unheard of) on a 50 Mhz 060 (So not even the 66 Mhz variant, or the 75/80 Mhz variants).
Another tidbit: Alien Breed 3D2: The Killing Grounds had a semi-standalone expansion, called Xenium Core, in 1998.
nkarafo
Member
I found a demo but it wouldn't run on the RetroArch emulator i'm using. I can run all 1200 and CD32 games but this wouldn't load for some reason. I even tried running it on a "Amiga 4000" preset and it still wouldn't work.
Maybe someone who uses the standalone WinUAE and can fiddle with more options could test how it runs on several different CPUs.
Fess
Member
Looks great even today in my opinion, took some photos awhile back, running on the Pi400.
The logo we all think about when youngsters say that Sony has never bought a publisher
Title screen. The music here is so nice
The loading level art is amazing.
Fess
Member
I get sound delay on this one, builds up over time, in half an hour it can be a second late. I’ve tried all fixes talked about online, lower the buffer size, change to pull, nothing helps. Extremely annoying.
Ah, thanks for the heads up. I had a problem with the previous one where everything would go into slow motion after going into the settings menu.
What version of raspberry pi do you have?
Fess
Member
Yeah I had that too, it’s fixed on this one. But the sound delay is problematic.
I have a Pi 400.
Oh man. Looks like I’ll be encountering it soon as well then. I have the same setup. Haven’t had a chance to play more than 15 mins or so.
Thanks for the heads up!
Fess
Member
For info, I play the audio through HDMI, then from the screen directly to a sound system through the 3.5mm jack.
I set the resolution and refresh to 1920x1080 at 50hz via the display option through sudo raspi-config if you hit F12 and quit UAE. No idea if the refresh is the cause, default is set to 60hz but then you get huge amount of framedrops so I can’t see anyone using 60hz.
Report back if you don’t experience any delay, I’m trying to figure out what’s causing it.
I’ve only played Turrican so try that if you can, check how synced the shooting sounds are, they should start lagging behind quite fast. You can reset the sound sync for a short while by hitting F12 and lower the buffer from 8 (default) to like 5, but it comes back.
It’s annoying that there is always something that aren’t properly working. I don’t understand how things like this can go unnoticed. Shouldn’t be system specific when everybody is using the same build but I don’t know how any of this works so
Great, thanks for this! I’ll give it a go this evening.For info, I play the audio through HDMI, then from the screen directly to a sound system through the 3.5mm jack.
I set the resolution and refresh to 1920x1080 at 50hz via the display option through sudo raspi-config if you hit F12 and quit UAE. No idea if the refresh is the cause, default is set to 60hz but then you get huge amount of framedrops so I can’t see anyone using 60hz.
Report back if you don’t experience any delay, I’m trying to figure out what’s causing it.
I’ve only played Turrican so try that if you can, check how synced the shooting sounds are, they should start lagging behind quite fast. You can reset the sound sync for a short while by hitting F12 and lower the buffer from 8 (default) to like 5, but it comes back.
It’s annoying that there is always something that aren’t properly working. I don’t understand how things like this can go unnoticed. Shouldn’t be system specific when everybody is using the same build but I don’t know how any of this works so
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Looks great even today in my opinion, took some photos awhile back, running on the Pi400.
The logo we all think about when youngsters say that Sony has never bought a publisher
Title screen. The music here is so nice
The loading level art is amazing.
Agony was a shit game though!
Sorry, but like an awful lot of Psygnosis output, the gameplay rarely lived up to the graphics.
cartman414
Member
C64 (a good chunk of its catalogue) and Amiga seemed to reflect a sort of "European-ness" in their game catalogues. Harder than Nintendo hard games, love for SID-esque oscillating effects...
Fess
Member
That’s harsh, they published lots of games:
Amiga Games by Psygnosis - Lemon Amiga Game Database
Amiga games database with information about every Amiga game ever released!
www.lemonamiga.com
But Agony had issues no doubt. Even the much talked about Shadow of the Beast was mostly played because of the graphics and parallax scroll. 1 and 2 were insanely difficult games, even the git gud crowd would struggle.
I loved Lemmings though, one of my favs. I really liked Killing Game Show too, incredibly difficult but it was so unique, was made by the founder of Bizarre Creation btw. And Blood Money was lots of fun. Nitro was a great top-down racer, fun with friends. Walker was unique too.
veterangamerUK
Member
I remember being a Spectrum owner and walking into my local computer shop seeing an Amiga running one of the Newtek Demo Reels. Jaw dropping and never had such a big jump in tech since
I remember the same sensation. It felt like such a huge leap from the speccy (which I still hold dear to my heart).
Hudo
Member
I didn't exist when the Amiga was a thing but from what I can decipher from the ancient texts, it must've been quite the revolution.
RAIDEN1
Member
When people say they miss Sega as a hardware manufacturer, then the same could be said about Commodore, I would like to see someone create a game that pushes the CD32 to its limits, because back when it was alive, it paled in comparison to the 3DO...and Commodore were gunning for the Mega CD with that console, when arguably the Mega CD despite not having the 32-bit power had the better games, compared to Commodore's 32-bit beast...
Seider
Member
It was something like going from Snes to Psx.
Hudo
Member
veterangamerUK
Member
Yes and although I still play on the modern consoles, my favourite time was always the Amiga era, great 2D graphics and THAT Paula sound chip. How on earth did Commodore go bust, they had a machine ahead of anything else by far