SimCity 2000 Amiga/A1200/Dates
Michael Robert Bromery
Chris Weiss <cwe...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Hey all, we're working on SimCity 2000 for the Amiga and have run
>into an ugly problem. I need to make a decision about it soon and
>would love some opinions from the users on this.
>
>Support 640x200 mode, which will allow all the near view
>graphics to fit on one low-density disk. We just came up
>with this and are probably missing out on a few negatives
>besides how ugly it'll look (like how many disks it'll take).
>This will push the release date back 6 weeks and will cost
>2 limbs (and probably my job).
>
>We really have no solid figures on the number of 4meg 1200
>machines without hard disks, so it's hard to say which
>decision will work best. I think it'll be PAL only, with
>multiple language support, but we're looking at selling
>outside the US only. What's the market like for those low
>end machines? Is it worth the trouble to support them?
>Which choice should we make?
>I _WOULD_ like to keep my job :)
>Are there other alternatives we're not thinking of?
>
>Just as an FYI - We expect(ed) to finish the product July
>1st. I don't know how long it'll take Mindscape to get it
>on the shelves though.
Ok, comming from one A1200 owner, I guess you meant for 2 megs of ram
on the stock A1200s because with 4 megs, you could load most of the game into
memory and hardly use the drives. Do what every other person does when they
have problems. Make it HD only. Already, there's an increasing amount of AGA
games that only support the HD so as for the market, it should be there as
lots of people who play games on the A1200 have already been forced to add
a HD in order to play this certain game they like. Also, there seemed to be
a bit more excitement for getting Hard-drives for those with AGA machines. As
for the NTSC/PAL problem, if you must make it PAL, then do like all the other
recent Maxis games do, make them mode-promotable so that everybody is happy.
With mode-promotion and non hard-coded screen requests, us Americans and NTSC
users will have a nice auto-scrolling screen if we wanted to use TVs.
Allowing that means that you can keep all your code the same with simply
the one-line change of not hard-coding the screen resolution in the program.
Yes, definitely make it HD only if you must, most of us can use it and you
wouldn't be doing anything different than a lot of other coders supporting the
AGA platform. You could, perhaps, use a powerpacker-type executable compression
scheme to allow running off of the disks, but I'm all for the HD push.
I truly believe that is your best bet. As I'm gearing to get some heavy work
done on the graphic engine of one game currently in development, I already
tossed the idea of making it floppy-runnable a while ago, floppies are a
joke if you want big games nowadays. Let Sierra stick with the 30 floppies to
flip idea (they practically invented it.)
-- Mike Bromery. (President of UMAUG - The University of Maryland
Email: dave...@wam.umd.edu Amiga Users Group.)
C.E. Wrigley
A base A1200 has 2 MEGS OF CHIP-RAM ONLY. And you thought you had problems
before...
Personally, I have a base A1200 with an 80 Mb hard drive, and I would be
somewhat pissed off if SimCity 2000 were not released with all the graphical
options (i.e. all levels of magnification). Perhaps if you had an option in
the game to turn of the higher resolutions (a la DOOM), or just a note saying
that floppy users should not change the level of detail unless they want a
lot of swapping. PLEASE don't cut down another great game just to make it
compatible with base machines - try and include everything.
Jinx.
m h kift
>Hey all, we're working on SimCity 2000 for the Amiga and have run
>into an ugly problem. I need to make a decision about it soon and
>would love some opinions from the users on this.
>
>Machines with 4 megs and no hard disk.
Well, I now how difficult it must be for you deciding on how to support
low-end machines and high-end machines alike. I'm afraid that I will
have to be negative and say that, if your SimCity2000 conversion comes
out with only lowres graphics, and a drastically lower number of colours
than the original, then I won't buy it, plain and simple.
I've been waiting for this game for ages, and to see the port crippled
because of low-end machine support is very painful. I'll understand if
you do it (afterall, you need to make a lot of sales to make a profit),
but this won't make the owners of high-end machines any happier.
While I'm on this subject, I was reading about Theme Park from Bullfrog
recently, another game I've been waiting for for ages. Unfortunately,
it seems that the amiga version will be the only one with cut down
graphics!!! Even the aga version will only have 32 colours, while the
pc, 3d0, jag, and even the bloody supernes version will probably have
256. I imagine that the more I read about it, the more I'll discover they
conveniently left out (like the hires aga port of syndicate we were
promised but which somehow failed to turn up).
Anyway, enough of my ranting.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Martin Kift Email: M.H....@swansea.ac.uk |
| Software developer (C/C++/OWL/MFC) Finger: cek...@cekift.swan.ac.uk |
| Procede Software Ltd. UK. anon ftp: cek...@cekift.swan.ac.uk |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| A1200/80/68030 50mhz/6 megs/BlitzII. Next game: StarWoids, coming soon |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Mr J G Morton
91...@eng.cam.ac.uk (C.E. Wrigley) writes:
>Slow down a bit there - where did you get this idea that A1200s have 4 Megs?
>A base A1200 has 2 MEGS OF CHIP-RAM ONLY. And you thought you had problems
>before...
Is it to be AGA only? Or could a non-AGA version be brought out that uses
some enhanced configuration (e.g. oodles of memory)?
>
>Personally, I have a base A1200 with an 80 Mb hard drive, and I would be
>somewhat pissed off if SimCity 2000 were not released with all the graphical
>options (i.e. all levels of magnification). Perhaps if you had an option in
>the game to turn of the higher resolutions (a la DOOM), or just a note saying
>that floppy users should not change the level of detail unless they want a
>lot of swapping. PLEASE don't cut down another great game just to make it
>compatible with base machines - try and include everything.
I seem to remember Civilisation needing 3 disk changes in order to meet
the other rulers, this was before I stuck it on my hard drive. Just include
a note saying `Hard Drive prefered' and an explaination.
Anyway a lot of 1200 owners do have hard drives in my experience.
Will there be any improvements on the PC(eugh) version? I have seen this
and it looked impressive.
Jon(me)
--
+ ` You'd set the table for the barber Sweeny Todd, +
+ You'd clip the wings of any rising god ' - The Levellers +
+ Jon(me) - Ma...@csv.warwick.ac.uk - Mataclypt to some. +
+ " Seen one messiah, seen them all. " - MtY +
Hannes Gnad
Hallole !
>Hey all, we're working on SimCity 2000 for the Amiga and have run
>into an ugly problem. I need to make a decision about it soon and
>would love some opinions from the users on this.
>
>The trouble is in supporting base-level Amiga 1200 machines.
>Machines with 4 megs and no hard disk.
>
>The trouble is thus:
>SimCity 2000 (for those who haven't seen) has 3 levels of
>magnification on your city. Tests with early Low Density
>disk based 4 meg machines indicates that to load the graphics
>for the near view, the user will have to swap 3 disks.
>This makes the game pretty much un-playable in that situation
>as the user changes zoom levels reasonably often.
>
>Solutions we have come up with:
>
>Do not support floppy-only systems (the original plan).
I think for a game like 'SimCity 2000', this is the right choice.
Force the users to have/buy HDs if they want to play such high-end games.
The users will do this (like all A500 users I knew bought one megabyte the
day 'Dungeon Master' was available).
And for the future, HD will be no question any more !
>Support the low-density floppy only systems in the 640x4??
>resolution and let the user suffer through the swaps (a
>hard disk version would be included). This will push the
>release date at least 2 weeks back, which will cost me a
>limb.
No good idea !
>Support 640x200 mode, which will allow all the near view
>graphics to fit on one low-density disk. We just came up
>with this and are probably missing out on a few negatives
>besides how ugly it'll look (like how many disks it'll take).
>This will push the release date back 6 weeks and will cost
>2 limbs (and probably my job).
640x200 ???!!!! For AGA !!! Nooooo !
>I think it'll be PAL only, with
>multiple language support, but we're looking at selling
>outside the US only. What's the market like for those low
>end machines? Is it worth the trouble to support them?
>Which choice should we make?
>I _WOULD_ like to keep my job :)
>Are there other alternatives we're not thinking of?
PLEASE: Not PAL only ! Pal means 50 Hz, and that means flicker !
Please make 'SimCity 2000' run on a standard screen, and include a standard
screen mode requester.
I use an A4000 and a multisync (and I will buy this game, hehe), and the
best screen mode to work with is Euro72 (about 654 x 410).
With scalable windows for the game display, this should be no problem.
Please do it ! Think about the people with 'bold' hardware, too !
Greetinx.
Gary Amiga 4000/040/6/420
(Hannes Gnad) Fido: 2:246/1115.11
Always remember - there's nothing better anymore - than the AMIGA
Alan Blair
> Hey all, we're working on SimCity 2000 for the Amiga and have run
> into an ugly problem. I need to make a decision about it soon and
> would love some opinions from the users on this.
>
> The trouble is in supporting base-level Amiga 1200 machines.
> Machines with 4 megs and no hard disk.
[...]
>
> We really have no solid figures on the number of 4meg 1200
> machines without hard disks, so it's hard to say which
> decision will work best. I think it'll be PAL only, with
> multiple language support, but we're looking at selling
> outside the US only. What's the market like for those low
> end machines? Is it worth the trouble to support them?
Er, the market _is_ those low end machines :) . There are plenty of hard-drive
machines out there, but it's not the majority (he says authoritatively :) ).
I'd say you should support as best you can, as long as it doesn't have a detrimental
effect on the hard-drive version. Or: release a hard drive only version, _then_
worry about cutting it down. Even if it's crippled, it'll sell (cf Wing Commander),
and maybe even clinch some hard-drive sales. Yes, that's it... do the hard-drive-only
release, and take it from there.
alan
> Which choice should we make?
> I _WOULD_ like to keep my job :)
> Are there other alternatives we're not thinking of?
>
> Just as an FYI - We expect(ed) to finish the product July
> 1st. I don't know how long it'll take Mindscape to get it
> on the shelves though.
>
>
> --
> Disclaimer: By the time you read this, I've forgotten I wrote it.
> Personal: cwe...@netcom.com Professional: cwe...@maxis.com
Chris Weiss
My mistake about the 1200 base level being 2 meg.
Do all Amiga 1200 machines ship with 880k drives?
Mathias Karlsson
>My mistake about the 1200 base level being 2 meg.
>Do all Amiga 1200 machines ship with 880k drives?
YES. And that is, IMHO, a BIG mistake (one of many) by C=.
No games or software can be distributed on 1760k drives just because of this.
:-(
vh MK
--
//
\X/ -- Death before Dishonour! Death before DOS!!! --
C.E. Wrigley
Is it just me, or does anyone else out there think that these guys HAVEN'T
GOT A CLUE ABOUT THE AMIGA ???!!! 4 Meg base A1200? Do we all have 880k
drives? (Yes, Chris, we do - only the A4000 comes with HD drives as
standard, I think)
I hope that this project doesn't turn out to be a straight PC code port like
Civilisation AGA. Don't get me wrong, I love Civ, but why is it so jerky and
slow on the A1200 compared to a PC? Perhaps because the programmers DIDN'T
KNOW THE MACHINE WELL ENOUGH??
Please, guys, I want to see SimCity 2000 scorching across my multiscan
monitor in productivity mode, with virtually no delays as it loads of my
hard-drive, so could you take a little time to investigate the Amiga fully
before you carry on. Perhaps treat yourselves and go and buy one? (Tell
your wife its for the kids:-) )
Jinx.
Jeff Hanna
C.E. Wrigley <91...@eng.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>In article <cweissCp...@netcom.com>,
>Chris Weiss <cwe...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>>My mistake about the 1200 base level being 2 meg.
>>Do all Amiga 1200 machines ship with 880k drives?
>>
>GOT A CLUE ABOUT THE AMIGA ???!!! 4 Meg base A1200? Do we all have 880k
>drives? (Yes, Chris, we do - only the A4000 comes with HD drives as
>standard, I think)
GIVE THE GUY A BREAK! Geezus, a games producer comes on here asking for
our input and opinions and you FLAME him? Great way to offer support!
Is it his fault we only have 880k drives as standard? No! And, you are
wrong about the 4000 being the only Amigas with 880k drives. The 3000T and
some lucky late-run 3000s did. Now maybe you can begin to see why he
asked the question concerning disk drives. Some have 1.76 drives, some don't
and there is NO rhyme or reason to it. If one AGA machine has them, it isn't
that hard to think that maybe all AGA machines have them. Lord knows that with
C='s total lack of advertising for their machines it's hard for people not
"in the know" to get concrete information on the configurations!
>I hope that this project doesn't turn out to be a straight PC code port like
>Civilisation AGA. Don't get me wrong, I love Civ, but why is it so jerky and
>slow on the A1200 compared to a PC? Perhaps because the programmers DIDN'T
>KNOW THE MACHINE WELL ENOUGH??
Kind of wrong here too. The Civ AGA coders knew enough about the Amiga to
hard code CHIP MEM ONLY into CIV AGA. It sucks, and I don't understand why
they took the extra time to add in code for such a patently stupid idea
as that, but they did.
>
>Please, guys, I want to see SimCity 2000 scorching across my multiscan
>monitor in productivity mode, with virtually no delays as it loads of my
>hard-drive, so could you take a little time to investigate the Amiga fully
>before you carry on. Perhaps treat yourselves and go and buy one? (Tell
>your wife its for the kids:-) )
I agree with you on this last paragraph. In email I told Mr. Weiss that since
the game will be AGA only it would be better for them to support a
country independant resolution such as Productivity instead of hard-coding
a PAL screen. Even an option for the the display database would be better
than a hardcoded PAL screen. Heck, if they made the game OS compliant and
display-database savy all those people with 2.x and any one of the scads of
24 bit boards that offer AGA emulation -might- be able to use it. Of course
the game would have to run under Workbench and not kick the OS out. Gee, that
wouldn't be all that bad, now would it? :)
But, Productivity mode would be the nicest, since it offers the same
resolution/# of colors that the Mac and PC versions of Sim City 2000 are
programmed in!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Hanna | "Albert Einstein nailed space-time, but the
quar...@expert.cc.purdue.edu | Wild Thing had him stumped."
quar...@genie.geis.com | -Thomas Dolby
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Colas Nahaboo
|> Machines with 4 megs and no hard disk.
ask amiga format (UK mag). They made a reader survey recently, and
although they did not disclose the results, the editor pointed out that
there was a astonishing low figure of non-HD machines in the survey
I do not have their email, but the email of the sister publication amiga
shoper is: amsh...@cix.compulink
PS: if I were you, I'd play it safe. Maxis products do not interest action
gamers, and I think nearly all the others have a HD
--
Colas Nahaboo, Koala (Bull Research)
Mosaic Info: <A HREF="http://zenon.inria.fr:8003/koala/colas.html"></A>
C.E. Wrigley
>C.E. Wrigley <91...@eng.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>>Chris Weiss <cwe...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>My mistake about the 1200 base level being 2 meg.
>>>Do all Amiga 1200 machines ship with 880k drives?
>>>
>>Is it just me, or does anyone else out there think that these guys HAVEN'T
>>GOT A CLUE ABOUT THE AMIGA ???!!! 4 Meg base A1200? Do we all have 880k
>>drives? (Yes, Chris, we do - only the A4000 comes with HD drives as
>>standard, I think)
>
>GIVE THE GUY A BREAK! Geezus, a games producer comes on here asking for
>our input and opinions and you FLAME him? Great way to offer support!
You're right, Jeff, I didn't actually intend a flame, so apologies to Chris
Weiss for my somewhat insulting earlier post. I should have realised that
not everyone is an Amiga fanatic.
>>I hope that this project doesn't turn out to be a straight PC code port like
>>Civilisation AGA. Don't get me wrong, I love Civ, but why is it so jerky and
>
>Kind of wrong here too. The Civ AGA coders knew enough about the Amiga to
>hard code CHIP MEM ONLY into CIV AGA. It sucks, and I don't understand why
>they took the extra time to add in code for such a patently stupid idea
>as that, but they did.
Oh, was that the reason? Well, you learn something new every day...
>>Please, guys, I want to see SimCity 2000 scorching across my multiscan
>>monitor in productivity mode, with virtually no delays as it loads of my
>>hard-drive, so could you take a little time to investigate the Amiga fully
>>before you carry on. Perhaps treat yourselves and go and buy one? (Tell
>>your wife its for the kids:-) )
>
>I agree with you on this last paragraph. In email I told Mr. Weiss that since
I still stick with this little wish list, even after Stefan Boberg's little
reminder that 256 colour Productivity is slow. After all, SimCity 2000 IMHO
will be a game that won't be complete without its high-res graphics.
Jinx.
Mathias Karlsson
>>Kind of wrong here too. The Civ AGA coders knew enough about the Amiga to
>>hard code CHIP MEM ONLY into CIV AGA. It sucks, and I don't understand why
>>they took the extra time to add in code for such a patently stupid idea
>>as that, but they did.
>Oh, was that the reason? Well, you learn something new every day...
Maybe they were lazy and/or stupid...
>>>Please, guys, I want to see SimCity 2000 scorching across my multiscan
>>>monitor in productivity mode, with virtually no delays as it loads of my
>>>hard-drive, so could you take a little time to investigate the Amiga fully
>>>before you carry on. Perhaps treat yourselves and go and buy one? (Tell
>>>your wife its for the kids:-) )
> I still stick with this little wish list, even after Stefan Boberg's little
>reminder that 256 colour Productivity is slow. After all, SimCity 2000 IMHO
>will be a game that won't be complete without its high-res graphics.
Yes, Productivity isn't exactly blistering fast, but, as far as I know, if you
have a VGA or multiscan monitor, you probably have an Amiga 4000. Most people
I know with 1200s have 1084/8833 15KHz-50/60Hz RGB-monitors, or TV-sets and
they're not interested in productivity-mode anyway. So, most people with
productivity-mode compatible monitors probably have fast computers as well.
The best solution would, of course, be like this: Support all graphic modes
from 320x200*32 up to 640x512*256 DBL-PAL. But the last resolution will not
be very fast on a plain A1200...
Another question, is 256 colours really necessary? Some speed increases can be
made by using just 128 colours. Or even 64. But I guess this is a little bit
too low.
Stefan Boberg
>>Please, guys, I want to see SimCity 2000 scorching across my multiscan
^^^^^^^^^
>>monitor in productivity mode, with virtually no delays as it loads of my
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>hard-drive, so could you take a little time to investigate the Amiga fully
>>before you carry on. Perhaps treat yourselves and go and buy one? (Tell
>>your wife its for the kids:-) )
I'm sorry, but the underlined verb is not compatible with the
underlined noun. The two shouldn't be used in the same clause without a
negation stuffed in somewhere ;-)
I wouldn't want to play anything running in 256 colour productivity mode,
really. It's S*L*O*W.
--
Stefan Boberg, Amiga/CD32/Console Programmer - Team 17 Software/LhA Devel.
======== I work for Team 17, but my opinions sometimes do not ==========
==== Living in a satellite fantasy, waiting for the night to end =PSB=
Sean - Curtin
As another deprived USA Amiga owner I vote for a standard screenmode requester.
It's just an OS call and IT would make the game compatible across all video
standards. Make the width/height/depth fixed if you want (autoscroll) but
make the screenmode user-selectable.
As for floppy/ HD support, make it HD only, if you have to. Most AGA machines
already have hard drives, and those that don't at least already have the
interface, so someone wanting to upgrade need only buy the drive itself.
Hell, I would almost buya Mac emulator to run this game.
Oh yeah, copy protection. As long as I have the opportunity let me say this:
NO DONGLES or KEYDISKS!!! I cannot be more emphatic about this. They are a
pain in the ass, and just encourage people to wait for a cracked version.
Manual protection, codewheels, etc. I can deal with, but the other...yecch.
I seem to recall Maxis as being pretty good about this anyway.
One more thing...let me shamelessly beg for USA distribution. There are
more of us out here than you think. It's just a bigger country than
England or Germany, so we're farther between. Even if it's only available
at one or two mail-order houses, my check is as good as in the mail.
Lastly, let me thank you for asking potential end users what they want in the
game. I wish more games manufacturers did the same.
...Sean.
Hans-Joerg Frieden
Regards, Hans-Joerg.
--
Hans-Joerg Frieden ! EMail: ! The Borg
Schlossstrasse 176 ! in...@uni-trier.de (preferred) ! SpreadSheet:
54293 Trier ! hfri...@treveris.uni-trier.de !
++49 (0) 651 66410 ! fri...@rzbsdi01.uni-trier.de ! Locutus 1-2-3
Geoff Adams
>In article <cweissCp...@netcom.com>, cwe...@netcom.com (Chris Weiss)
>writes:
>|> The trouble is in supporting base-level Amiga 1200 machines.
>|> Machines with 4 megs and no hard disk.
>
>ask amiga format (UK mag). They made a reader survey recently, and
>although they did not disclose the results, the editor pointed out that
>there was a astonishing low figure of non-HD machines in the survey
>
>I do not have their email, but the email of the sister publication amiga
>shoper is: amsh...@cix.compulink
>
>PS: if I were you, I'd play it safe. Maxis products do not interest action
>gamers, and I think nearly all the others have a HD
AF's email address is:-
okay??
Geoff.
Hans Guijt
>>Personally, I have a base A1200 with an 80 Mb hard drive, and I would be
>>somewhat pissed off if SimCity 2000 were not released with all the graphical
>>options (i.e. all levels of magnification). Perhaps if you had an option in
>>the game to turn of the higher resolutions (a la DOOM), or just a note saying
>>that floppy users should not change the level of detail unless they want a
>>lot of swapping. PLEASE don't cut down another great game just to make it
>>compatible with base machines - try and include everything.
Yes! Give us all the good bits, and add switches to turn them off if you
don't have the memory or HD. That way you could run lean from just one or
two disks, if necessary, while still making the game attractive for users
with loaded machines.
>Anyway a lot of 1200 owners do have hard drives in my experience.
Not surprising, the 10-second poll time encourages one to buy a HD!
>Will there be any improvements on the PC(eugh) version? I have seen this
>and it looked impressive.
For know let's hope it isn't degraded too much...
By the way, do you (the programmers) intent to write your own windowing
environment, or will you use Intuition?
Hans
Hans Guijt
>>Do not support floppy-only systems (the original plan).
>
>I think for a game like 'SimCity 2000', this is the right choice.
>Force the users to have/buy HDs if they want to play such high-end games.
>The users will do this (like all A500 users I knew bought one megabyte the
>day 'Dungeon Master' was available).
>And for the future, HD will be no question any more !
Yes. The more games there are which are HD-only, the more people will buy
HD's.
>>I think it'll be PAL only, with
>
>PLEASE: Not PAL only ! Pal means 50 Hz, and that means flicker !
Weeny! Most amiga users run in Pal, and almost none of those notice the
flickering! And Pal gives you more pixels to play with, which is a great for
a game like this. But your next suggestion makes sense:
>Please make 'SimCity 2000' run on a standard screen, and include a standard
>screen mode requester.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Simcity 2000 runs in some kind of windowing
environment, doesn't it? If that is the case, simply use Intuition windows
(and all nice 3.0 features - surely the game isn't written for 1.2
machines!!?). Supporting different screen modes would be very easy then.
Also, users could choose interlace/noninterlace/Dblxxx if they wanted too,
most users don't have multisyncs you know! (interlace flicker is a lot worse
then Pal flicker...)
Hans
Hans Guijt
>>My mistake about the 1200 base level being 2 meg.
>>Do all Amiga 1200 machines ship with 880k drives?
>
>YES. And that is, IMHO, a BIG mistake (one of many) by C=.
We all heard the excuses for the drive. But a4000's ship with HD drives,
hard disks, and lots of RAM, so perhaps you could make this an a4000-only
release! (just joking of course...)
>No games or software can be distributed on 1760k drives just because of this.
Distribution is not the problem, if there is a nice fat HD to install onto.
Hans Guijt
>GIVE THE GUY A BREAK! Geezus, a games producer comes on here asking for
>our input and opinions and you FLAME him? Great way to offer support!
On the other hand, there have been some terribly-coded games from the
states. Civilization is a good example indeed.
>Is it his fault we only have 880k drives as standard? No! And, you are
>wrong about the 4000 being the only Amigas with 880k drives. The 3000T and
>some lucky late-run 3000s did. Now maybe you can begin to see why he
>asked the question concerning disk drives. Some have 1.76 drives, some don't
>and there is NO rhyme or reason to it. If one AGA machine has them, it isn't
>that hard to think that maybe all AGA machines have them. Lord knows that with
>C='s total lack of advertising for their machines it's hard for people not
>"in the know" to get concrete information on the configurations!
If you hold this against the amiga, you should take a look at the PC market.
It could be much, much worse.
>I agree with you on this last paragraph. In email I told Mr. Weiss that since
>the game will be AGA only it would be better for them to support a
>country independant resolution such as Productivity instead of hard-coding
>a PAL screen. Even an option for the the display database would be better
>than a hardcoded PAL screen. Heck, if they made the game OS compliant and
>display-database savy all those people with 2.x and any one of the scads of
>24 bit boards that offer AGA emulation -might- be able to use it. Of course
>the game would have to run under Workbench and not kick the OS out. Gee, that
>wouldn't be all that bad, now would it? :)
Kicking the OS out is a stupid move for a game that needs constant HD
access, so it probably allows some form of multitasking.
>But, Productivity mode would be the nicest, since it offers the same
>resolution/# of colors that the Mac and PC versions of Sim City 2000 are
>programmed in!
Screen mode requesters and scalable windows would be nicer, since it is a
superset of what you are proposing!
Todd Gilbert
> I think it'll be PAL only, with
> multiple language support, but we're looking at selling
> outside the US only.
please please PLEASE sell this game in the US!!!!!
I have a 4000/040 so I can't be in your sample space for the A1200
question,
but if you must support the low end machines could you perhaps make two
versions--One for machines with hard drives the other for those without.
That way you could release the HD version first and keep your limbs and
take
the extra 2-6 weeks to get out the low end game.
Wow, a high end game ported to the low end?! My vision of the universe
is changing :>
Regards
Todd
--
tgil...@salsa.abq.bdm.com The owls are not what they seem
or " @nacho.abq.bdm.com And neither are the penguins
"Have you ever noticed that we tend to elevate to the level
of expert anyone who happens to agree with us?"
Daniel Cannon
> AF's email address is:-
> okay??
Anyone tried calling up that Spong thing? Every time I try the number (morning/
afternoon weekends) it just rings, and rings, and rings. And rings.
I'm using the number mentioned in the latest AF (if they've managed to print
the right number, that is).
I'll be damned if I'm ringing up during office hours for 'em. Nope, the super-
information-cyber-techno-space-highway or whatever it's called this time can
wait, as far as my phone bill is concerned.
Dan.
Bob Tomasevich
CW> Hey all, we're working on SimCity 2000 for the Amiga and have run
CW> into an ugly problem. I need to make a decision about it soon and
CW> would love some opinions from the users on this.
CW> The trouble is in supporting base-level Amiga 1200 machines.
CW> Machines with 4 megs and no hard disk.
CW> Solutions we have come up with:
CW> Do not support floppy-only systems (the original plan).
The best choice.
CW> Support 640x200 mode, which will allow all the near view
CW> graphics to fit on one low-density disk. We just came up
CW> with this and are probably missing out on a few negatives
CW> besides how ugly it'll look (like how many disks it'll take).
CW> This will push the release date back 6 weeks and will cost
CW> 2 limbs (and probably my job).
Do this and I WILL NOT BUY THE GAME!!!! I have been waiting
for this game for a long time and would HATE playing it in
low-res mode on my A4000/040.
Looking forward to a high-res, mode promotable version,
Bob
* Q-Blue 1.0 [NR] *
Bill Godfrey
Colas Nahaboo <co...@crios.inria.fr> wrote:
>I do not have their email, but the email of the sister publication amiga
>shoper is: amsh...@cix.compulink
I can't confirm wheather the amshopper part of this e-mail address is correct,
as I don't read Amiga Shopper, but Cix's e-mail suffix is...
@cix.compulink.co.uk
... The one given above will only work if you are in the *.co.uk domain.
Sorry for being picky.
--
Enjoy yourself.
- Bill "The Big Furry Hamster" Godfrey.
P.S. "I'm good at the course, I just keep forgetting the coursework
deadlines!" - Me. 7th March 1994.
Brian S Mogged
: Hey all, we're working on SimCity 2000 for the Amiga and have run
: into an ugly problem. I need to make a decision about it soon and
: would love some opinions from the users on this.
Great to hear you are asking usenet for information.....
The port of SimLife was almost perfect.... I hope the same for Sim CIty..
: The trouble is in supporting base-level Amiga 1200 machines.
: Machines with 4 megs and no hard disk.
Isn't that 4 megs... But you probably mean 2 :-)....
: Solutions we have come up with:
: Do not support floppy-only systems (the original plan).
I would hope that is your decision, force more people to buy hard
drives. I really like ST25 aniversery for that fact alone. That they wern't
afraid of release a semi slow hard drive only game(BUt not on an MBX-030).
To be honest out of five 1200 owners that I know of, none of them
bought the "offical commodore hard drive installtion kit" but all have
hard drives(Most of them used the XDS system really nice)....
: Support the low-density floppy only systems in the 640x4??
That is probably get you more sales but it will frustrate users. But
if it is the only way to relase it :-)
: Just as an FYI - We expect(ed) to finish the product July
: 1st. I don't know how long it'll take Mindscape to get it
: on the shelves though.
Hopefully it will be out by August..... Anyword of making it CD32
happy!
--
Brian.s...@Uwrf.edu <- send all mail to this address....
Michel J. Brown
d3k...@dtek.chalmers.se (Mathias Karlsson) writes:
> cwe...@netcom.com (Chris Weiss) writes:
>
>
> >My mistake about the 1200 base level being 2 meg.
> >Do all Amiga 1200 machines ship with 880k drives?
>
> YES. And that is, IMHO, a BIG mistake (one of many) by C=.
>
> No games or software can be distributed on 1760k drives just because of this.
>
I beg to differ with you, as the last eighteen disks of the Video Toaster
3.X package are *all* high density disks. I have a high density drive I
bought from my dealer a while back for $95. Works great, more filling ;^)
Virtually yours,
Michel
>
> :-(
>
> vh MK
> --
> //
> \X/ -- Death before Dishonour! Death before DOS!!! --
>
Michel didn't change this, cause he thought he didn't have a .signature,
so we made one for him... feel free to make fun of him.
Michel J. Brown
quar...@expert.cc.purdue.edu (Jeff Hanna) writes:
>
> Kind of wrong here too. The Civ AGA coders knew enough about the Amiga to
> hard code CHIP MEM ONLY into CIV AGA. It sucks, and I don't understand why
> they took the extra time to add in code for such a patently stupid idea
> as that, but they did.
>
They must've been the same group that coded for Sim Ant :-/
>
>
> I agree with you on this last paragraph. In email I told Mr. Weiss that since
> the game will be AGA only it would be better for them to support a
> country independant resolution such as Productivity instead of hard-coding
> a PAL screen. Even an option for the the display database would be better
> than a hardcoded PAL screen. Heck, if they made the game OS compliant and
> display-database savy all those people with 2.x and any one of the scads of
> 24 bit boards that offer AGA emulation -might- be able to use it. Of course
> the game would have to run under Workbench and not kick the OS out. Gee, that
> wouldn't be all that bad, now would it? :)
>
My thought exactly, then I'd get better/more use from my PII card ;^)
>
> But, Productivity mode would be the nicest, since it offers the same
> resolution/# of colors that the Mac and PC versions of Sim City 2000 are
> programmed in!
>
Sure, why not, then I'd be a snap to port, right? Just a thought :^)
Virtually yours,
Michel
Tony Marshall
>
> >Will there be any improvements on the PC(eugh) version? I have seen this
> >and it looked impressive.
>
> For know let's hope it isn't degraded too much...
>
> By the way, do you (the programmers) intent to write your own windowing
> environment, or will you use Intuition?
>
assume all these vital details have already been decided upon and implemented.
Get a UK Amiga mag for the latest previews.
--
Tony Marshall |===============================================|
Carlisle, UK |#include <JeanMichelJarre.TangerineDream.Yello.|
to...@zigzag.junct9.royle.org|.Neuronium.PetShopBoys.BerndKistenmacher.Ashra>|
bli...@spuddy.uucp |===============================================|
Hans Guijt
>> By the way, do you (the programmers) intent to write your own windowing
>> environment, or will you use Intuition?
>>
>Eh? The program's already been converted by John Jones Steele in the UK so I
>assume all these vital details have already been decided upon and implemented.
>Get a UK Amiga mag for the latest previews.
Oh, I didn't get that. Well, does it run in its own windowing environment,
or does it use intuition ;-) ?
Hans
Chris Weiss
into an ugly problem. I need to make a decision about it soon and
would love some opinions from the users on this.
The trouble is in supporting base-level Amiga 1200 machines.
Machines with 4 megs and no hard disk.
The trouble is thus:
SimCity 2000 (for those who haven't seen) has 3 levels of
magnification on your city. Tests with early Low Density
disk based 4 meg machines indicates that to load the graphics
for the near view, the user will have to swap 3 disks.
This makes the game pretty much un-playable in that situation
as the user changes zoom levels reasonably often.
Solutions we have come up with:
Do not support floppy-only systems (the original plan).
Support the low-density floppy only systems in the 640x4??
resolution and let the user suffer through the swaps (a
hard disk version would be included). This will push the
release date at least 2 weeks back, which will cost me a
limb.
Support 640x200 mode, which will allow all the near view
graphics to fit on one low-density disk. We just came up
with this and are probably missing out on a few negatives
besides how ugly it'll look (like how many disks it'll take).
This will push the release date back 6 weeks and will cost
2 limbs (and probably my job).
We really have no solid figures on the number of 4meg 1200
machines without hard disks, so it's hard to say which
decision will work best. I think it'll be PAL only, with
multiple language support, but we're looking at selling
outside the US only. What's the market like for those low
end machines? Is it worth the trouble to support them?
Which choice should we make?
I _WOULD_ like to keep my job :)
Are there other alternatives we're not thinking of?
Just as an FYI - We expect(ed) to finish the product July
1st. I don't know how long it'll take Mindscape to get it
on the shelves though.
Adarsh Menon
you can get it. The first step has already been taken as far as
supporting AGA is concerned, might as well go all the way.
SimCity2000 is a big enough name that people who want to play it
(which I'm sure represents a LOT of people) will buy what it
takes to play it. I know I would...
Just my $50 (when it comes out)...
--
// Adarsh Menon Budding Computer Scientist
\\_// University of Calgary, Amiga 2000 40 MhZ 030
\X/ Alberta, Canada 5.0 L Mustang
Paul Overend
>IMO the quality standards of this game should be kept as high as
>you can get it. The first step has already been taken as far as
>supporting AGA is concerned, might as well go all the way.
>
Sorry I missed much of this thread. This may have already been said. Does it
'support' AGA or is it AGA only??
>
> // Adarsh Menon Budding Computer Scientist
> \\_// University of Calgary, Amiga 2000 40 MhZ 030
> \X/ Alberta, Canada 5.0 L Mustang
Paul G. Overend
Mike
Paul Overend <ccs...@midge.bath.ac.uk> wrote:
>Sorry I missed much of this thread. This may have already been said. Does it
>'support' AGA or is it AGA only??
Looks like AGA-only - thank god.
Mike.
You can reach Mike Richards at the following /@\ \|/
address ... (if you're that desperate). `-\ \ ______ - 0 -
\ \/ ` / \ /|\ _
m...@aber.ac.uk \_i / \ |\____//
| |==| |=----/
---- Why not drop me a line ...? -------------------hn/--hn/-----------
Chris Weiss
machines. Sorry, 4 meg is required. I talked to John about the code and
he is going to try to implement a screen mode requester.
FYI - No, I don't know much about Amigas. Very few people in the US office
do. We're contracting a UK programmer (John Steele, the guy who wrote
SimLife) to do the programming, and our UK office is going to handle
distribution (whether or not it'll be available in the US, I don't know
probably direct from Maxis US - please don't call until you know it's
out :)
Zsolt Szabo
>SimCity2000 is a big enough name that people who want to play it
>(which I'm sure represents a LOT of people) will buy what it
>takes to play it. I know I would...
>Just my $50 (when it comes out)...
Sure. Let me just go out and spend $500 so I can play a game, why don't you!
Zsolt Szabo
>Ok - the decision is that we're going to support only Hard Disk equipped
>machines. Sorry, 4 meg is required. I talked to John about the code and
>he is going to try to implement a screen mode requester.
>
That's nice. I don't play games, but I might just buy this one, simply
because it supports the next generation of Amigas. I'm cetainly not
someone who has tons of money to waste, but I got myself an A1200 w/HD
and soon another 2 megs (4 total), and I believe that most people are in
a better position than I (working at our University's computer lab for
$4.25/hour!!!), so they really have no excuse for still using a 1 meg A500.
Richard A. Boyd II
>In article <Cq9HM...@midge.bath.ac.uk>,
>Paul Overend <ccs...@midge.bath.ac.uk> wrote:
>>Sorry I missed much of this thread. This may have already been said. Does it
>>'support' AGA or is it AGA only??
> Looks like AGA-only - thank god.
> Mike.
>You can reach Mike Richards at the following /@\ \|/
>address ... (if you're that desperate). `-\ \ ______ - 0 -
God I hope not. WHy can't there be a requestor so those of us without AGA
can play as well? This AGA-only crap gets to be annoying.
Hans-Joerg Frieden
>In article <Cq9HM...@midge.bath.ac.uk>,
>Paul Overend <ccs...@midge.bath.ac.uk> wrote:
>>Sorry I missed much of this thread. This may have already been said. Does it
>>'support' AGA or is it AGA only??
> Looks like AGA-only - thank god.
> Mike.
What should that be - AGA-Only, thank god??? I don't have AGA, and
don't plan to buy a 4000 in the near future, so why is AGA-only any
good? I'm not against supporting AGA, but I would like to have ECS
versions, too.
Michael Robert Bromery
Zsolt Szabo <robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> wrote:
>In article <cweissCq...@netcom.com> cwe...@netcom.com (Chris Weiss) writes:
>>Ok - the decision is that we're going to support only Hard Disk equipped
>>machines. Sorry, 4 meg is required. I talked to John about the code and
>>he is going to try to implement a screen mode requester.
>>
Four megs? I think that'll be just fine! :). Anything that is big
enough to do that would be something worth looking at. I'm looking at ,
at least, 6 megs total into the summer (got major Image processing to do).
By the way, smart move on the HD only thing. Even in marketing and
economical reasons, it's a safe bet that anyone with 4 megs of memory that
even has an Amiga has a harddrive. I can put money on it. If even 1% of
the Amiga community has that setup would be very surprising. Heck, even .40
of a percent. A screen mode requestor would be killer, In general, it makes
coding for a large group of diverse people SO MUCH EASIER, you wouldn't believe it.
Believe it or not, developing on the platform isn't as strange on
development tools as it seems initially. You just got to know a little what to look for.
---- Michael Bromery.
Email: dave...@wam.umd.edu
HANS CHRISTIAN SANDER
>Subject: Re: SimCity 2000 Amiga/A1200/Dates
>Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 16:33:44 GMT
>Ok - the decision is that we're going to support only Hard Disk equipped
>machines. Sorry, 4 meg is required. I talked to John about the code and
>he is going to try to implement a screen mode requester.
Great! A screen mode requester would be very good.
My A4000/040, 480MB hard-disk, 18MB-RAM is drooling all over this game.
Hans C. Sander
Tachyon
: Ok - the decision is that we're going to support only Hard Disk equipped
: machines. Sorry, 4 meg is required. I talked to John about the code and
: he is going to try to implement a screen mode requester.
: FYI - No, I don't know much about Amigas. Very few people in the US office
: do. We're contracting a UK programmer (John Steele, the guy who wrote
: SimLife) to do the programming, and our UK office is going to handle
: distribution (whether or not it'll be available in the US, I don't know
: probably direct from Maxis US - please don't call until you know it's
: out :)
Isn't this the guy who `ported' UltimaVI??
This thing's gonna run like a dog on anything except an '040 machine. If
it requires 4 Meg, you're going to lose the standard A1200 market. If it
requires AGA you'll lose the 500/2000/3000 market unless it'll run on some
of the available graphics cards. What machines are you targetting this at?
Parrish Heywood
Adarsh Menon
Well this $500 wouldn't be for a dongle that only lets you play
SC2000. I for one wouldn't have accelerated my machine unless
games supported it (which fortunately they did). We've already
seen Star Trek Anniversary and Typhoon AGA requiring harddrives
(and in the latter's case an accelerator). Now with SC2K also
needing similar requirments, I think this would provide a case
for many to upgrade.
Just my thoughts...
Adarsh Menon
>m...@aber.ac.uk (Mike) writes:
>
>>In article <Cq9HM...@midge.bath.ac.uk>,
>>Paul Overend <ccs...@midge.bath.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>>>Sorry I missed much of this thread. This may have already been said. Does it
>>>'support' AGA or is it AGA only??
>
>> Looks like AGA-only - thank god.
>> Mike.
>
>>You can reach Mike Richards at the following /@\ \|/
>>address ... (if you're that desperate). `-\ \ ______ - 0 -
>God I hope not. WHy can't there be a requestor so those of us without AGA
>can play as well? This AGA-only crap gets to be annoying.
Well the more games that come out that are AGA only, the more
users there will be out there who will upgrade to AGA, which can
only mean good things in the long run.
I think it's high time that developers begin to upgrade their own
standards from the 1 MB Ram ECS required games that we still see.
Just my thoughts...
>
>> \ \/ ` / \ /|\ _
>> m...@aber.ac.uk \_i / \ |\____//
>> | |==| |=----/
>>---- Why not drop me a line ...? -------------------hn/--hn/-----------
--
Ted Dennison
|> In article <cweissCp...@netcom.com>, cwe...@netcom.com (Chris Weiss) writes:
|> >
|> > My mistake about the 1200 base level being 2 meg.
|> > Do all Amiga 1200 machines ship with 880k drives?
|> >
|>
|> converting such a complex piece of software doesn't seem to know
|> the basics about the machine onto which the conversion is being made. This makes
(stuff deleted)
If you had read his previous posts more carefully, you would know that he is
not doing the conversion; that is being subcontracted out. He is just trying
to make a decision as to what machines to support (vs. how good to make
the game). The fact that an uninformed person from Maxis is coming here to
ask for information/opinons is a GOOD thing, as is the fact he decided to
port the software at all. Let's not make him regret either of those
decisions.
T.E.D.
p.s. Your concerns as to the quality of the port are probably well founded,
just misdirected.
Jeff Hanna
If you read the entire thread you would've noticed he said that they are
getting an English programmer, the one who did SimLife, to do this for them.
> This thing's gonna run like a dog on anything except an '040 machine. If
>it requires 4 Meg, you're going to lose the standard A1200 market. If it
>requires AGA you'll lose the 500/2000/3000 market unless it'll run on some
>of the available graphics cards. What machines are you targetting this at?
I'm sure it will run quite acceptably on my 50MHz 030 A1200. If they are
requiring a hard drive and 4+ megs then they are targeting AGA machines with
hard drives and 4+ megs. Not a hard concept, huh?
Any base A4000 and any expanded A1200 will run this game with no problems.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Hanna | "Albert Einstein nailed space-time, but the
quar...@expert.cc.purdue.edu | Wild Thing had him stumped."
quar...@genie.geis.com | -Thomas Dolby
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hans Guijt
>> or does it use intuition ;-) ?
>>
>> Hans
>
>going to know what Intuition is :-)
As I understand it now, the guy who posted is not the same person as the guy
who converts the game. We can hope that the *programmer* knows what he is
doing!
I thought Civilization was very irritating - all those almost-intuition
features, that worked slightly different. Bah!
Hans
Pro...@arl.admin.dsto.gov.au
>>>'support' AGA or is it AGA only??
>
>> Looks like AGA-only - thank god.
>> Mike.
>can play as well? This AGA-only crap gets to be annoying.
>
software will be AGA only.. its th eonly way we can compete and keep up with
the Macs and IBMs of the world.. OCS/ECS is old an deserves to be phased out.
I suppose you'll be against the AAA chipset when it arrives too? A500 is a
great computer.. but it IS 10 years old... (almost..) same as IBM 286's -
they work fine.. but basically theyre all in garbage bins coz theres better
machines available.. same with the A500, the A1200 kills it dead.. my advice
to all is UPGRADE!!!
Craig P.
N W H Mailer
Frankly, someone who doesn't know whether an A1200 has a HD drive or not is not
going to know what Intuition is :-)
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
Nicholas Mailer University of Leeds eng3...@sun.leeds.ac.uk
N W H Mailer
>
> My mistake about the 1200 base level being 2 meg.
> Do all Amiga 1200 machines ship with 880k drives?
>
> Disclaimer: By the time you read this, I've forgotten I wrote it.
> Personal: cwe...@netcom.com Professional: cwe...@maxis.com
I don't mean to be rude, but isn't it slightly alarming that someone who is
converting such a complex piece of software doesn't seem to know
the basics about the machine onto which the conversion is being made. This makes
me worry that the conversion is going to be very much like the Sierra conversions
- kludges, software emulators of other computers' code and ignoring much of the
Amiga's chipset beyond the microprocessor. If software companies were not
prepared to put the time and expertise into converting their games to the Amiga,
I would prefer they didn't do it at all. It just gives the Amiga a bad name.
Richard A. Boyd II
>Craig P.
That's the problem: to effectively upgrade one needs to buy a whole new
machine if one wants everything to work properly.
'
-- R.Boyd
m h kift
>machines. Sorry, 4 meg is required. I talked to John about the code and
>he is going to try to implement a screen mode requester.
Excellent decision. Although I didn't intend to buy this originally
(having played the PC version I thought it was good, but not quite
brilliant), I'll certainly buy it now. I hope everybody out there with
more than a passing interest in this game (and the hardware to run it)
goes out and buys it, we need to demonstrate support for high-end games
such as this (and not just a500 compatible NDOS shoot-em ups, on 1 disk
requiring 512k) 8)
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| Martin Kift | Software developer (C/C++/OWL/MFC) |
| Email: M.H....@swansea.ac.uk | Procede Software Ltd., UK. |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
| A1200/80HD/68030-50/6M/BlitzII. | Next game: 'StarWoids' coming soon! |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
Chad Freeman
: >Support 640x200 mode, which will allow all the near view
: >graphics to fit on one low-density disk. We just came up
: >with this and are probably missing out on a few negatives
: >besides how ugly it'll look (like how many disks it'll take).
: >This will push the release date back 6 weeks and will cost
: >2 limbs (and probably my job).
: 640x200 ???!!!! For AGA !!! Nooooo !
Actually, I think this is quite a feasible solution. After all, most
PC games I've seen use that resolution or lower! They use the 256
color palette to achieve a higher perceived resolution.
--
Chad Freeman cjf...@pitt.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graduating Software Engineer Send E-Mail for on-line resume
Bruce Welch
Yes, please! I would even break the piggy bank to get fast ram and an
accelerator if necessary for a productivity mode Sim-whatever!!!!!!
(currently a stock A1200 40meg with df1:=high density)
--
this signature being renovated ... excuse the mess
Arno Glim
You can make waterfalls by changing some sectors to water.
Then you can put a hydro-powerplant on that waterfall.
Now you have cheap and reliable power, which makes all other powerplants useless.
I don't like it at all.
Changing sectors to water should be left out of the Amiga version. Digging for water
is sufficient.
Kaspar Stromme
cwe...@netcom.com writes:
SIM CITY 2000 in ECS or AGA or both? Why is this question so hard to
answer? I have sent personal letters to Chriss Weiss asking him to at
least post the answer to this question, yet nobody seems to know.
(Except for a couple of AGA-freaks, who apparently think that the
whole world should go AGA).
Let's face it; the majority of Amiga owners use ECS, or worse. And
many of these ECS owners (including me) have invested substantial
amounts of money
expanding our machines. It would be ridiculous to trade my current
system for a monetary equivelent system that is sub-standard to mine
in all areas except graphics. So when (if) I upgrade it will be
to an AAA Amiga or a PC, I will not spend my money on technology that
is already obsolete. Yes, AGA is as OBSOLETE as ECS. If Amiga
production resumes (BIG IF) then it's only a matter of 1 to 2 years
before we see new generation of Amigas that will make AGA's look
pretty tame.
Kaspar S
My 5! worth; no flames please.
Jeff Hanna
Richard A. Boyd II <ra...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Isn't productivity mode limited to four colors? If so, I don't the
>game would look all that well.
>
>-- R.Boyd
Whoa! You're thinking in ECS, not AGA. MULTISCAN:Productivity on AGA machines
can have a Minimum Size of 640x200, a Maximum Size of 16368x16384, and a
Maximum ammount of Colors of 256.
It defaults to 640x480x256, so it is a perfect choice for converting
SimCity 2000.
Richard A. Boyd II
Mr M Sawicki
some sort of prefrences where user could select at what kind
of detail level they want to play. This would allow everyone
to enjoy this game to its maximum (or maximum that their system
allows).
Adarsh Menon
Sorry if you consider this a flame, but in your reference to AGA
being obsolete you should consider that AAA should be backwards
compatible to AGA therefore AGA might as well be supported now
(which means you'll have better stuff to play with when you do
get AAA).
>Kaspar S
>My 5! worth; no flames please.
Bruno Fernandes
This is in regards to a comment about AAA being backward compatible to
AGA... Only if that AGA capable program was 100% friendly. Anything
that touches the hardware or any undocumented features is 100% toast and
willfail completely under AAA - that's why no hardware specs were
released for AGA (it's a kludge in comparison to AAA).
Bruno.
Hybrid Developments.
--
"Also believe that peanut butter | The ideas expressed may very well be my
and bacon have been neglected as | own.
food groups, particularly when |
eaten together." - D. Cooper | e0f1...@credit.erin.utoronto.ca
Zsolt Szabo
>: 640x200 ???!!!! For AGA !!! Nooooo !
>
>Actually, I think this is quite a feasible solution. After all, most
>PC games I've seen use that resolution or lower! They use the 256
>color palette to achieve a higher perceived resolution.
What? No way, man! There are no games for clones that are 640x200, save
those that are CGA compatible. Most games are either 320x200 or 640x480,
and games like Sim City 2000 are definitely 640x480.
Alan L.M. Buxey
: Sorry I missed much of this thread. This may have already been said. Does it
: 'support' AGA or is it AGA only??
AGA only - as all new games should be! :)
alan
From Alan, replies appreciated!___ __ _ __ ___ _
.----------------------. ///\\ |\\ /| || // ` /\\ __ __ 32
| Alan Buxey | __ /// \\ | \\ /|| ||(( __ / \\ // ||\\
|kc...@uk.ac.susx.solx1| \\\///--- \\l \/ ll ll \\_ll/--- \\ \\_ ||//
`----------------------' \XX/Amiga - The Reason That God Created Silica!
Alan L.M. Buxey
: Excellent decision. Although I didn't intend to buy this originally
: (having played the PC version I thought it was good, but not quite
: brilliant), I'll certainly buy it now. I hope everybody out there with
: more than a passing interest in this game (and the hardware to run it)
: goes out and buys it, we need to demonstrate support for high-end games
: such as this (and not just a500 compatible NDOS shoot-em ups, on 1 disk
: requiring 512k) 8)
....and still runnning a pre-AGA motherboard!
Alan L.M. Buxey
: God I hope not. WHy can't there be a requestor so those of us without AGA
: can play as well? This AGA-only crap gets to be annoying.
pre-AGA machines are dragging the Amiga backwards, we wanna go
forwards!!
update your outdated equipment.
Face it, hardly any CGA PC owners were crying `cos all new games
were VGA - they UPGRADED!!
Alan L.M. Buxey
: Isn't this the guy who `ported' UltimaVI??
most probably, he also did SimLife and he did do d-generation too (there
are 4 more games of his porting that are coming out this year too - all
of `em quite good). We have no speed problem with John Steeles.
: This thing's gonna run like a dog on anything except an '040 machine. If
no it aint. The 020 of an A1200 will handle it quite nicely - esp. as it
will have to have fastRAM.
: it requires 4 Meg, you're going to lose the standard A1200 market. If it
the "standard" market?? you mean the "entrance level" market! If people
want to play sophisticated next generation games, then they will have to
UPGRADE!! there will be NO complaints when the Amiga "DOOM" equivalent
comes out requiring AGA, 030 and 4 megs of RAM, will there????!!
: requires AGA you'll lose the 500/2000/3000 market unless it'll run on some
: of the available graphics cards. What machines are you targetting this at?
once again, outdated machines, upgrade!
Alan L.M. Buxey
: What should that be - AGA-Only, thank god??? I don't have AGA, and
: don't plan to buy a 4000 in the near future, so why is AGA-only any
: good? I'm not against supporting AGA, but I would like to have ECS
: versions, too.
ECS is too slow (esp. in Hi-res). AGA is much faster. flog your old box
and get the new cheaper A4000/030.
Alan L.M. Buxey
: >they work fine.. but basically theyre all in garbage bins coz theres better
: >machines available.. same with the A500, the A1200 kills it dead.. my advice
: >to all is UPGRADE!!!
: That's the problem: to effectively upgrade one needs to buy a whole new
: machine if one wants everything to work properly.
just like PC's! I mean, you cant just take your 286 and put in a 486
without devastating its "performance". you have to put it on VESA or PCI
local bus, and get the new sound card and SVGA card etc.
getting a new Amiga is cheaper than getting a new PC set-up.
Alan L.M. Buxey
: (Except for a couple of AGA-freaks, who apparently think that the
: whole world should go AGA).
as you should!
: Let's face it; the majority of Amiga owners use ECS, or worse. And
: many of these ECS owners (including me) have invested substantial
: amounts of money
majority use pre-ECS from what I have gathered (from questionaires). ECS
was only available on 2 machines ... you bought at the wrong time mate!
: is already obsolete. Yes, AGA is as OBSOLETE as ECS. If Amiga
: production resumes (BIG IF) then it's only a matter of 1 to 2 years
: before we see new generation of Amigas that will make AGA's look
: pretty tame.
so i suppose you wont be buying an AAA amiga either then? (`cos its only
graphically more powerful- actually, it has wicked sonics too!!)
keep all your accelerator stuff/ harddisks etc and flog off the base
A1500 or whatever.
Alan L.M. Buxey
4 colours and AGA? i thought that was on ECS only.
Alan L.M. Buxey
: This is in regards to a comment about AAA being backward compatible to
: AGA... Only if that AGA capable program was 100% friendly. Anything
: that touches the hardware or any undocumented features is 100% toast and
: willfail completely under AAA - that's why no hardware specs were
: released for AGA (it's a kludge in comparison to AAA).
well, seeing as simcity2K will be multitasking working with intuition
etc, then i think its going to be one of the most OS friednly games
released so far. John Steele only reads the documented features of AGA,
not things like the coppermapping etc :)
Richard A. Boyd II
>Richard A. Boyd II (ra...@netcom.com) wrote:
>: God I hope not. WHy can't there be a requestor so those of us without AGA
>: can play as well? This AGA-only crap gets to be annoying.
>pre-AGA machines are dragging the Amiga backwards, we wanna go
>forwards!!
>update your outdated equipment.
This would mean buyin a PC since AGA is already outdated.
Taken.
Richard A. Boyd II
>getting a new Amiga is cheaper than getting a new PC set-up.
>alan
On which planet?
Alan L.M. Buxey
: >pre-AGA machines are dragging the Amiga backwards, we wanna go
: >forwards!!
: >update your outdated equipment.
: This would mean buyin a PC since AGA is already outdated.
: Taken.
PC's are also outdated. PowerPC maybe... ;)
be serious - and dont sulk over your outdated machinery.
Alan L.M. Buxey
: >alan
: On which planet?
mother earth of course. see, you get to keep your monitor and
accelerators, just by a bottom range A4000/030 and put all your old
stuff in.
Daniel Cannon
> >alan
> On which planet?
Let's do the math (tm):
First, the Amiga:
RRP of an A1200: 299UKP
RRP of a Desktop Dynamite pack A1200 in Dixons: 199UKP
RRP of a bare A1200 in Dixons: 99UKP
Right, now look at a PC:
RRP of a barest of bare 486's (very low HD, crap monitor, only Windows, etc):
800-900UKP
Perhaps that's unfair, so a bare 386 would be about 500-600UKP.
So that would be Planet Earth, then.
Dan.
NICHOLS SCOTT CONRAD
>Richard A. Boyd II (ra...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>: God I hope not. WHy can't there be a requestor so those of us without AGA
>: can play as well? This AGA-only crap gets to be annoying.
>
>pre-AGA machines are dragging the Amiga backwards, we wanna go
>forwards!!
>
>update your outdated equipment.
>
>Face it, hardly any CGA PC owners were crying `cos all new games
>were VGA - they UPGRADED!!
Why should somebody with an A3000 upgrade to a new computer. I new computer
would mean an A4000, costing roughly $2000, this is a lot of cash.
C= should have sold AGA board upgrades for about $500 to the A3000
community. Not that I play many games on my Amiga, but this attitude
towards AGA-only is rather stupid. I think though, all games should be
AGA first, then release (a month or two later) an ECS version.
Scott
Michael Robert Bromery
Alan L.M. Buxey <kc...@central.susx.ac.uk> wrote:
>: Isn't productivity mode limited to four colors? If so, I don't the
>: game would look all that well.
>
>4 colours and AGA? i thought that was on ECS only.
>
Yes, it is ECS only. He just didn't realize we were talking AGA and
Commodore stopped having color limitations for resolutions starting with
AGA. That's unless I'm kidding myself when I choose 640x400x256 and my
workbench is doing a darn good 4 color dithering to look the same. Nah!
AGA doesn't have resolution dependant color or pallette sets. You can take
that to the bank.
-- Mike Bromery. (President of UMAUG. The University of Maryland
Email: dave...@wam.umd.edu Amiga Users Group.)
Michael Robert Bromery
Alan L.M. Buxey <kc...@central.susx.ac.uk> wrote:
That's not the way to go at it. The reason some things are going AGA-only
is simply because they want to push the gaming market to a more competitive
means. It's not the A3000s that are a problem, but as of right now, the
A3000s don't make up for much of a percentage of the ECS owning community.
If certain games like SimCity2000 were to be ported to the ECS machines,
only A3000 people would buy them or people with some mega upgraded ECS
machines. I'm not knocking the A3000s at all, but understand the marketting
strategy here. The amount of people with real memory and a good speed base
own the AGA group of machines. You can feel confident that this new BIG
game release will get a decent amount of buyers from the AGA owning crowd.
You aren't guarranteed an audience like that on the ECS platform. You don't
know that they all have 2 megabytes of graphics memory (which is pretty
slim in the ECS percentage) to run the software, or even 2 megs of memory
installed at all. AGA owners have a much higher basic base of operations
and they know they can sell something that is more demanding to a larger
group of people. They also know that AGA owners, generally, are more likely
to even upgrade to 6 or 10 megabytes of ram (many which I know have or are
positively planning to do so). HardDrives are more of a guarrantee as well.
As for the AGA upgrade, yes, it would be great for the A3000s to have
that avenue and would be a boon if someone like GVP would make something
like it. Not only, it would increase the AGA owning crowd, if not that much,
but would make a good bit of money from those A3000 owners who want to
upgrade. It's not really the chipset that makes a few things exclusive
(which goes for only 4 or 5 games(or planned games) so far), but AGA as
a specification base for what the owners of those machines are most likely
to have.
I payed a good bit more than an A3000 to upgrade my A500 as such, but
had a good idea where things were going when AGA came around so I took the
route to sell my upgraded system as quickly as possible for the A1200. Plus,
programming in this architecture is quite fun and much more like the way it
is on the Unix operating systems at school. 68020 instructions (nice, I
never had that before) :). I also wanted a bigger harddrive and a nicer
memory configuration without taking up my entire desk space like the A500.
Mainly my reason as well as I had and have some particular program ideas
that specifically are made to take advantage of the AGA chipset. I sold my
A500 stuff so that it would make a severe cut to how much I had to pay to
upgrade. Hmm. I payed less than what I payed for the Harddrive alone, and
this was back in the early AGA days, quite the deal. :) That's the easiest
way.
-- Mike Bromery. (President of UMAUG. The University of Maryland
Email: dave...@wam.umd.edu Amiga Users Group.)
P.S. -- By the way, nothing outspeeds the GVP Accelerated A4000s. At the
local store, there are two A4000s sitting next to each other. One was
ordered by the John Hopkins University of Physics research. The JHU one
had one of those GVP accelerators fitted in it and BAM!. All I can say is
a little limmerick to help you out. An A4000/040 to an A2000 with 2 Megs
is like an A4000/040 GVP accelerated to an A4000/040. I thought the regular
A4000 was going to run out "yiping" like a hurt puppy being so close to that
monster. Talk about having things for breakfast. Owch! Oh! and to tell a
secret, I don't think there is a slow AGA mode on the GVP accelerated machine.
I tried it, in 8-bitplanes, in practically every screenmode. Nasty stuff.
Graphics speed is killer, certain speed tests give you an increase of around
10 times with it in. They left it on all of the first day they had it to
test whether it got too hot or a possible meltdown. It seemed fine. Oh well,
it was just something to make my mouth water. Those with A4000s may want to
look into it.
Richard A. Boyd II
>be serious - and dont sulk over your outdated machinery.
>alan
>
Who's sulking. I just won't be buying the game; leaves more money
for more worthwhile ventures.
-- R.Boyd
Richard A. Boyd II
>: >alan
>: On which planet?
>alan
Like I said, on which planet? Around here (California/USA) I could
get a DX4 system with 8meg RAM, 450 MB hard drive, tripple-speed CDROM,
14,400 baud modem, 1280x1024 graphics card w/2MB, etc AND a 15''
high-resolution low-emissions monitor for less that and A4000/030.
While I would prefer to have an Amiga, buying one is simply not
not a good idea. The A4000/030 is WAY overpriced. Furthermore
with the Amiga's Future still on shaky ground, buying a new Amiga
again becomes a bad idea (forgive the double not not in the previous
sentence - typo).
If you think one game will over come this, I can get you Yosemite Park
for real cheap. Also so real prime moon real estate, too :)
-- R.Boyd
Richard A. Boyd II
>> >alan
>> On which planet?
>Dan.
More like planet Zeldar-5. In my neck of the US, the situation is VERY
different. See my post to Alan.
-- R.Boyd
Richard A. Boyd II
>Scott
Right on! Commodore should have released an AGA board and their should
be an ECS version.
--R.Boyd
Mike Muir
for us 3000 owners. Their excuse was that it would be too expensive
for the public and therefore they wouldn't sell well. Personally
I think if they had come out with one after the 4000 had been out
for a while it would have been a good move. It would've allowed
for enough sales of new 4000s and probably would have caught a lot
of 3000 users that will end up bying clones.
If some company eventually buys out Commodore I think we should
put some pressure on them to release an AGA upgrade.(Along with WB3.1)
Terence Tan
see why it should not also be able to run with NON AGA machines with
Graphics Cards(i.e. GVP Spectrum,, Picollo, Picasso, Retina Z3)..
If it doesn't, then why not!!! These cards provide similar if not
better functionallity then AGA.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A4000/040/Internet: ter...@hitech.po.my(Malaysia) Terence Tan
120megs / /*//_\ "Amigo Man"
6 megs / \*// \miga Mostly Harmless ..
Bruce Welch
<ra...@netcom.com> wrote: >br...@rpl.regina.sk.ca (Bruce Welch) writes:
>Isn't productivity mode limited to fourcolors? If so, I don't the
>game would look all that well.
> >-- R.Boyd >
Normally, I wouldn't even bother to reply, even directly through e-mail,
but this one really gets me!! All I had to do was pull down my term
screen, open up workbench, prefs, screenmode and move the slider on
multiscan productivity from my normal 16 over to 256 in order to be able
to categorically deny the pretensions of the previous post. I've made my
share of mistakes, but taking part in an amiga group and not knowing how
many colours are available is inexcusable - at least look it up first!!!
Now that I have that little emotional outburst out of my system, I've
been thinking that the most compatible way of getting my system up to the
point of being able to play the game would be to track down the 28 Mhz
'020 accelerator board and max out the ram on it. I've been patiently
waiting for word on an '030 board that could be disabled with software so
that I wouldn't have the seemingly endless compatibilty problems that
keep showing up, and still be able to put up a jpeg without being
embarrassed over how slow it is. Or have to pull the board to play my
current collection of games. What's been slowing me down (besides the
oft bemoaned lack of cash), is waiting for the much promised pcmcia
emplant. All the pieces have to work together, I can't afford (the wife
won't let me!!) to have unused stuff lying around anymore (ah, the good
old days).
Bruno Fernandes
>
>: God I hope not. WHy can't there be a requestor so those of us without AGA
>: can play as well? This AGA-only crap gets to be annoying.
>
>pre-AGA machines are dragging the Amiga backwards, we wanna go
>forwards!!
Making AGA-only will keep the Amiga rock solid at NoWhere. Time to think
Beyond AGA.
>update your outdated equipment.
Hardly. Any AGA Amiga is just as outdated as my FASTER, and much nicer
A3000. AGA is a kludge and a bad one. Anyone smart enough to know a
little bit about the Amiga should not be stupid enough to make a game
that caters only to one model or range only.
>Face it, hardly any CGA PC owners were crying `cos all new games
>were VGA - they UPGRADED!!
Let's have those people making AGA games not bang the hardware and see if
the games will work on 24 bit boards that fry AGA specs.
The only AGA machine I would pick up would be a CD^32 - and only if I
could get one dirt cheap. It would serve as a CDROM above all and allow
me to play with some AGA toys. Technicaly though AGA is far too inferior
for me to bother with as far as an upgrade path goes. Take a look at
some DevCon material and you'd be singing a different tune.
One can only hope that any rescue of the Amiga will also involve the
production and realization of all the work that has already gone into AAA.
Bruno.
Hybrid Developments.
--
"Also believe that peanut butter | The ideas expressed may very well be my
and bacon have been neglected as | own.
food groups, particularly when |
eaten together." - D. Cooper | e0f1...@credit.erin.utoronto.ca
PeO
Bruno> Let's have those people making AGA games not bang the hardware
Bruno> and see if the games will work on 24 bit boards that fry AGA
Bruno> specs.
Doesn't the other MAXIS games run quite happily on 24-bit boards (not
in 256+ colours, but anyway)?
--
Per Olofsson | -One day, lad, all this will be yours!
cl3p...@cling.gu.se | -What, the curtains?
http://cling.gu.se | / Monty Python & the Holy Grail
Tachyon
: Why should somebody with an A3000 upgrade to a new computer. I new computer
: would mean an A4000, costing roughly $2000, this is a lot of cash.
Exactly. And the cry of `upgrade' `upgrade' isn't going to sell many
machines. Currently there's only a finite supply out there.
: C= should have sold AGA board upgrades for about $500 to the A3000
: community. Not that I play many games on my Amiga, but this attitude
: towards AGA-only is rather stupid. I think though, all games should be
: AGA first, then release (a month or two later) an ECS version.
Dave Haynie appears to have speculated on the possibility of a AAA board
on a Zorro III card. It's supposedly possible because of the intensely
modular nature of the AAA architecture.
Aside from that, with flexible gfx routines, it'd be possible to
distribute SC2000 with a full set of gfx and allow the user to select the #
of colors to match his machine. A pre-calced set of tables could remap the
colors appropriately and with a scaling routine, you could possibly choose
lo or hi-res mode for the game itself. This *would* require a lot of
fiddling with the gfx code to handle the two resolutions but since the
windowing has to be redone to fit Intuition, it'd be a feasible option if
you wanted to reach that extra market.
Parrish
: Scott
Tachyon
: Tachyon (Parrish...@guru.apana.org.au) wrote:
: : Isn't this the guy who `ported' UltimaVI??
: most probably, he also did SimLife and he did do d-generation too (there
: are 4 more games of his porting that are coming out this year too - all
: of `em quite good). We have no speed problem with John Steeles.
Obviously not. After all, anything less than an '020 isn't worthy of
running a game on right?
: : This thing's gonna run like a dog on anything except an '040 machine.
: no it aint. The 020 of an A1200 will handle it quite nicely - esp. as it
: will have to have fastRAM.
Well I guess we'll see. I'll reserve comment till I see it running.
: : it requires 4 Meg, you're going to lose the standard A1200 market. If it
: the "standard" market?? you mean the "entrance level" market! If people
: want to play sophisticated next generation games, then they will have to
: UPGRADE!! there will be NO complaints when the Amiga "DOOM" equivalent
: comes out requiring AGA, 030 and 4 megs of RAM, will there????!!
Yes.. The STANDARD market. Exactly how many 4M A1200's do you think
are out there?
: : requires AGA you'll lose the 500/2000/3000 market unless it'll run on some
: : of the available graphics cards. What machines are you targetting this
: once again, outdated machines, upgrade!
Yes I know. Upgrading is your solution to everything isn't it? Forget
the poor sods who can't afford/justify it. The Amiga games market is only
fit
for you and your upgraded buddies isn't it?
: alan
Parrish
Bruce Welch
>
>Whoa! You're thinking in ECS, not AGA. MULTISCAN:Productivity on AGA machines
>can have a Minimum Size of 640x200, a Maximum Size of 16368x16384, and a
>Maximum ammount of Colors of 256.
>
>It defaults to 640x480x256, so it is a perfect choice for converting
>SimCity 2000.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A perfect example of why I should have kept my big mouth shut and waited
for someone with more sleep to respond. Next time I'll watch the Grand
Prix on CBC and go straight to bed rather than reading news!!! My only
defense is having gone straight from 1.2 to 3.0 with the old machine
having been packed away for a few years while I was moving from house to
apartment to present home in the country. On the other hand, I can
always blame it on the cat batting at the keyboard when I'm not looking 8^).
Hans Guijt
>Bruno> Let's have those people making AGA games not bang the hardware
>Bruno> and see if the games will work on 24 bit boards that fry AGA
>Bruno> specs.
>
>Doesn't the other MAXIS games run quite happily on 24-bit boards (not
>in 256+ colours, but anyway)?
Which is probably why they are dog-slow. I guess that Bruno with his FASTER
machine doesn't notice that, of course, but all of us with lowly AGA
machines are bound to run into trouble. Perhaps Bruno could explain to us
how developers can make use of beyond-AGA facilities, when there are no
machines available to test on?
Hans
Hans Guijt
> Yes.. The STANDARD market. Exactly how many 4M A1200's do you think
>are out there?
Almost none. Most of my friends have 6Mb in their a1200's, or 2Mb.
Installing two 1Mb simms is almost never done (in my experience).
> Yes I know. Upgrading is your solution to everything isn't it? Forget
>the poor sods who can't afford/justify it. The Amiga games market is only
>fit
>for you and your upgraded buddies isn't it?
Upgrading is an unfortunate part of owning a computer. Be happy that it is
actually possible to add ram to an 1200, rather than buying a completely
new machine!
But, even if you don't want to upgrade, you can spent many happy years with
your C-64.
Hans
Hans Guijt
>on a Zorro III card. It's supposedly possible because of the intensely
>modular nature of the AAA architecture.
I have wondered about that. The specifications for AAA called for lots of 64-
bit datapaths. How can they be done on an old machine?
> Aside from that, with flexible gfx routines, it'd be possible to
>distribute SC2000 with a full set of gfx and allow the user to select the #
>of colors to match his machine. A pre-calced set of tables could remap the
>colors appropriately and with a scaling routine, you could possibly choose
>lo or hi-res mode for the game itself. This *would* require a lot of
>fiddling with the gfx code to handle the two resolutions but since the
>windowing has to be redone to fit Intuition, it'd be a feasible option if
>you wanted to reach that extra market.
Sure - both size and color scaling. Why not require all users to install
AdPro?
Hans
Bruno Fernandes
Hans Guijt <GU...@stpc.wi.LeidenUniv.nl> wrote:
>In article <CL3POLOF.94...@lunar.cling.gu.se> cl3p...@cling.gu.se (PeO) writes:
>>Bruno> Let's have those people making AGA games not bang the hardware
>>Bruno> and see if the games will work on 24 bit boards that fry AGA
>>Bruno> specs.
>>
>>Doesn't the other MAXIS games run quite happily on 24-bit boards (not
>>in 256+ colours, but anyway)?
>
>machine doesn't notice that, of course, but all of us with lowly AGA
>machines are bound to run into trouble. Perhaps Bruno could explain to us
>how developers can make use of beyond-AGA facilities, when there are no
>machines available to test on?
>
Perhaps you should be more open minded. WHo said anything about
Beyond-AGA? Any developer who is anyone had good access to many notes
regarding AAA but that's not the issue. Many of these AGA games right
now crank on the hardware and will definately break. It seems you don't
know how much of a "hack" AGA really is.
It's funny how people claim that moving to a 1200 is an upgrade. Haha.
Moving from my 3000 to that would be like moving from a Porsche to a Lada
with a nice interior. Any 1200 user talking about upgrading and then
complaining about speed should wise up and slap in a real processor
themselves. 020's are far outdated. AGA is dead slow - use some real
graphics processors and see for yourself. I'm just sick of people
treating AGA as the only alternative. Any game should of course have an
AGA version but if the makers want that game to even have a remote
possibility of working later down the road, they'll have to be extremely
careful. And all this should not preclude the release of ECS (OCS)
versions of any given game. There is simply a much bigger market. AGA
in relation to the other chipsets is not the same issue as moving from
CGA to EGA to VGA. If AGA were expansion card based then this would be
so. Then one could really update instead of downgrading to a machine
who's AGA graphics are the only good things going for it.
Bruno
Tachyon
: In article <Parrish_He...@guru.apana.org.au>,
: If you read the entire thread you would've noticed he said that they are
: getting an English programmer, the one who did SimLife, to do this for them.
I did read the entire thread and I understand this. The problem is that
previous ports attributed to him been slow and don't appear to have been
optimised for the Amiga platform. This means the port is done quickly but
it doesn't exactly run well.
: > This thing's gonna run like a dog on anything except an '040 machine. If
: >it requires 4 Meg, you're going to lose the standard A1200 market. If it
: >requires AGA you'll lose the 500/2000/3000 market unless it'll run on some
: >of the available graphics cards. What machines are you targetting this at?
: I'm sure it will run quite acceptably on my 50MHz 030 A1200. If they are
: requiring a hard drive and 4+ megs then they are targeting AGA machines with
: hard drives and 4+ megs. Not a hard concept, huh?
Well that's very nice for you then. Unfortunately your purchase of this
game isn't going to pay for the development costs. If *you'd* read the
original post, you'd realise it was an inquiry about configurations and the
feasibility of running the game off floppies. They also appeared to have
the impression that 4Megs was standard for an A1200. There's a lot of
difference between targetting a release for a standard configuration and
targetting it at expanded machines. You can cut your potential market quite
significantly.
: Any base A4000 and any expanded A1200 will run this game with no problems.
Right, so no ECS market. (Scratch several million machines)
No standard config A1200 market (Scratch - at best- 50% of the A1200's)
But hey, it'll run for you. What do you care?
Parrish Heywood
Parrish...@guru.apana.org.au
Hans Guijt
>Perhaps you should be more open minded. WHo said anything about
>Beyond-AGA? Any developer who is anyone had good access to many notes
>regarding AAA but that's not the issue. Many of these AGA games right
>now crank on the hardware and will definately break. It seems you don't
>know how much of a "hack" AGA really is.
You mean those notes with all the HW specs, chip-register layout, OS calls
etc? Or do you mean all that stuff that was posted to the net, from the
talks of Lew Eggenbrecht and Dave Haynie? That's not useful information to a
developer, you know.
And you believe so much that AGA is a hack... Well, it's a working hack,
supported by thousands of customers. Unlike those 24-bit boards you can use
in your FASTER machine.
>It's funny how people claim that moving to a 1200 is an upgrade. Haha.
>Moving from my 3000 to that would be like moving from a Porsche to a Lada
FYI: most a1200 owners UPGRADED from an a500. That's an upgrade.
>with a nice interior. Any 1200 user talking about upgrading and then
>complaining about speed should wise up and slap in a real processor
>themselves. 020's are far outdated. AGA is dead slow - use some real
Sure, I'd love to see '040s as the base processor. But how many kids could
pay for such an a1200/40?
>graphics processors and see for yourself. I'm just sick of people
>treating AGA as the only alternative. Any game should of course have an
>AGA version but if the makers want that game to even have a remote
>possibility of working later down the road, they'll have to be extremely
>careful. And all this should not preclude the release of ECS (OCS)
AGA machines offer a lot more power than ECS machines, a fact which isn't
changed by the small amount of a3000 out there. Some games are possible ONLY
on AGA machines, for both technical and economical reasons.
Furthermore, games have a limited lifespan. I agree that every effort should
be made to keep them as compatible as possible, but I prefer to see
spectacular games NOW rather than in a mythical future machine. Perhaps you
haven't noticed yet, but the future of C= is somewhat uncertain at this time.
>versions of any given game. There is simply a much bigger market. AGA
>in relation to the other chipsets is not the same issue as moving from
>CGA to EGA to VGA. If AGA were expansion card based then this would be
>so. Then one could really update instead of downgrading to a machine
>who's AGA graphics are the only good things going for it.
Fine with me. I'll let you know how much fun SimCity2000 is.
Hans
Kaspar Stromme
this is the case, I have yet to hear an OFFICIAL statement regarding
this)
T here's no technical reason why SCK cannot be done the same way Maxis
converted A-Train. A-Train, if you have played it, ran in 32 color
low-res (320*200), and while it didn't look as good as the PC version,
it was just as playable. And that's what I want to do: play SCK, not
look at it.
BTW: ECS and OCS are identical, with the exception of Super-Hires and
Productivity modes. So a game like A-Train will, believe it or not,
even work on a 1000!
By making SCK AGA only, the programmers are shutting out every
expanded Amiga that does not have AGA. And there are a number of those
out there.
As for the comment "just grab your parts and plug them into a base AGA
machine", that would be completely pointless. Most of the equipment I
have only works with my A500 .
And comparing the ECS - AGA jump to the CGA - VGA upgrade is also
very misleading. All most PC owners had to do was buy a new graphics
card and plug it into the new machine. Sure, it wasn't the best thing
to do as far as bus speeds etc, but at least it didn't force you to
buy a whole new machine.
Oh, well. At least my roomate has a PC. I guess I'll be playing SCK
on his machine.
Kaspar S
George Francis McBay
: seen the specs on the game across the board and if you want all of the
: options, you're going to need 4 megs, some things you just can't get around.
: Sim City 2000 just needs it. It's gotta hold 4 megs of memory at a time.
Exactly. While I love the Amiga, I sometimes just don't understand
(some) Amiga users. Not every game is going to be able to run on an
A500/1floppy/512K system. And I'm *glad* it's not. I am sick of seeing
shitty scaled down versions for Amiga ports in order to have access to
the full market. Please don't flame me for being a "rich elitest,"
that is far from the truth (I'm using a slightly expanded A1200/HD now)
My A1200 can't run a lot of games due to stupid floppy based protection,
and bad hardware coding. I usually don't whine about this (so long as I
don't get stuck buying an unreturnable unusable game) -- I just use games
that _do_ work.
--
George McBay, g...@escape.com |Amiga__|
"When the light begins to change," |__ ///|
I sometimes feel a little strange..." |\\\/// |
___________________________________________________________| \XX/ |
Bruno Fernandes
Hans Guijt <GU...@stpc.wi.LeidenUniv.nl> wrote:
> e0f1...@tuzo.erin (Bruno Fernandes) writes:
>>Perhaps you should be more open minded. WHo said anything about
>>Beyond-AGA? Any developer who is anyone had good access to many notes
>>regarding AAA but that's not the issue. Many of these AGA games right
>>now crank on the hardware and will definately break. It seems you don't
>>know how much of a "hack" AGA really is.
>
>etc? Or do you mean all that stuff that was posted to the net, from the
>talks of Lew Eggenbrecht and Dave Haynie? That's not useful information to a
>developer, you know.
I mean DevCon and other developer-only material.
>And you believe so much that AGA is a hack... Well, it's a working hack,
>supported by thousands of customers. Unlike those 24-bit boards you can use
>in your FASTER machine.
Sure, it works. But it's a dead end line.
>>It's funny how people claim that moving to a 1200 is an upgrade. Haha.
>>Moving from my 3000 to that would be like moving from a Porsche to a Lada
>
>FYI: most a1200 owners UPGRADED from an a500. That's an upgrade.
Who's talking about A500 users? We're talking about some joker screaming
at everyone to upgrade to an A1200. He didn't care to ask what systems
people were already running. I'd hardly call a move from a 24 bit Fusion
equipped A2000 to the A1200 an "upgrade." Likewise for any other decent
system.
>>with a nice interior. Any 1200 user talking about upgrading and then
>>complaining about speed should wise up and slap in a real processor
>>themselves. 020's are far outdated. AGA is dead slow - use some real
>
>Sure, I'd love to see '040s as the base processor. But how many kids could
>pay for such an a1200/40?
I never mentioned that an 040 should be the base processor of the A1200.
That would be a stupid move. It's a kid's machine as you say and kids
don't need 040's. I just want the people screaming about "upgrades" to
look at the crummy processors they're running - I know some people have
030's with FPUs or 040's inside their 1200's.
>>graphics processors and see for yourself. I'm just sick of people
>>treating AGA as the only alternative. Any game should of course have an
>>AGA version but if the makers want that game to even have a remote
>>possibility of working later down the road, they'll have to be extremely
>>careful. And all this should not preclude the release of ECS (OCS)
>
>AGA machines offer a lot more power than ECS machines, a fact which isn't
>changed by the small amount of a3000 out there. Some games are possible ONLY
>on AGA machines, for both technical and economical reasons.
There are a hell of a lot of really expanded A2000's out there as well,
not to mention A500's. AGA offers you deeper screens and increased
bandwidth. Those are pluses for most games. If you're a programmer
though you should know better than to say anything is "impossible" -
improbable is a better word. You still wouldn't see an exact port of
DOOM on any AGA machine. But you can see a faster and more fun game even
on a ECS machine.
>Furthermore, games have a limited lifespan. I agree that every effort should
>be made to keep them as compatible as possible, but I prefer to see
>spectacular games NOW rather than in a mythical future machine. Perhaps you
>haven't noticed yet, but the future of C= is somewhat uncertain at this time.
That's fine. Since these games have a limited lifespan, they are not
reasons in and of themselves to "upgrade" to an A1200. I know a bit
about what's going on with the former C= International, thanks.
>>versions of any given game. There is simply a much bigger market. AGA
>>in relation to the other chipsets is not the same issue as moving from
>>CGA to EGA to VGA. If AGA were expansion card based then this would be
>>so. Then one could really update instead of downgrading to a machine
>>who's AGA graphics are the only good things going for it.
>
>Fine with me. I'll let you know how much fun SimCity2000 is.
You do that. I've played it on a 486. The fun lasts maybe a day. I
just want to see the game on the Amiga to know it is available, not
because I plan on playing it. I've got better things to play and make
with my time.