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Amiga: To use actual hardware or Emulate

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jukingeo:

--- Quote from: Xiaou2 on December 15, 2009, 02:58:18 am ---
 A few more comments:

 
 I never cared that much for Fantasy Zone...  UNTIL,  one day I went to this
arcade in Florida.  They had one in a Simulator chair!   I remember the monitor was
not the standard 19".  It was at least 25, if not larger.   The unit moved in all directions.
 Because of the sheer size of the monitor, and the awesome simulator chair, I felt
like I was actually flying!
--- End quote ---

We had a flight simulator that was like that at a Dave & Busters.  It had 3 screens in a wrap-around field that made it feel like you were looking outside of an actual cockpit.  The chair didn't move though, but it did have some kind of 'rumble butt' speaker in the chair and if you 'blew' up, you really felt it.

There was Afterburner II also.  That was in a moving chair.  A WAY cool game!  I don't care for the game outside of the simulator version though.  I am not much for jet combat games, but that game was an exception because of the cool cabinet.


--- Quote ---   ;D  I was giggling like a little girl!   :laugh2:    I put in
every last quarter I had, and I was loving it.   I really wish I had taken a picture of
that machine.  I dont think Ive ever seen anything like that ever again.

 Makes me want to build a motion chair...
--- End quote ---

Oh, you are asking for a huge project with that one.   I think you are better off trying to reprogram an Afterburner (II) cabinet.  But because it is a simulator game...I don't think it would come cheap.  It would be really cool to rig an Afterburner cabinet for let's say, the original Star Wars?  THAT would be a cool project.   The original Star Wars sit down cabinet was cool in itself, but imagine ramping that up to a MOTION Star Wars sit down cabinet.

 

--- Quote ---As for the X68000...  Most games are simply arcade ports.   But, since Mame already
does arcade directly... theres little reason to use the x68000 versions.  Especially
because they are more of a hassle to get going, have load times...etc.

 Still, its interesting to see the differences.   Most especially the Music.  The sounds
and music on the x68000 ports are different, but they are also very interesting / good
too.
--- End quote ---

You are probably right.  I also found out that the X68000 was made by Sharp and distributed only within Japan.  So it is very rare that one would make its way here.   I have seen them on Ebay last night and they are not very expensive.  But the main issue is that because they come from Japan, everything is in Japanese.   ...I can't read Japanese.  So as you said, right there it probably is more trouble than it is worth.


--- Quote --- Of course, there are the few games like TFII which are just pure Awesome.
To be honest, it Should have been in the Arcades.  Its that good.
--- End quote ---

Is that a role playing game?  Usually when it comes to those I can't see them in an arcade cabinet.  I usually only play those either on my computer or PS2.   Lately I been preferring the PS2 (Final Fantasy series) because like when I am watching TV, I can 'cuddle up' in bed and get really deep into a game.


--- Quote ---A lot of games for it were either direct arcade ports, or RPG'ish / strategy
games which are not in english.  Im sure there are a few original action Gems which
Ive not yet discovered / played however.
--- End quote ---


Well, one thing I can walk away from this post is that I think I would be better off building (or emulating) around a console platform rather than trying to buy or emulate another computer.  At least when emulating a console, I can use the correct controller for it.   That was the whole reason why I was thinking about a project like this.  With Mame there are TONS of different controller configurations and I wanted to put together a small 'bartop' type cabinet in which I could play a ton of games using a given configuration.   So now that I am looking into it, it does seem I would be better off with a console platform, or stick with Mame and a simple controller configuration.

So, thanx for the information.  I learned quite a bit from this post and it sure stopped me from wasting too much time on something that may not be for me after all.

Geo

Loafmeister:
The Amiga was an amazing system but we're talking about a computer who's majority of classic games are anywhere from 15-20 years old, and thus have aged quite a bit compared to most other computers/consoles released since.  Because of this, and because software emulation works darn good for most of the classics, I'd say stay with the emulation solution. Keep in mind, like any advanced hardware, nothing beats the real thing as opposed to emulation.  But like any system we emulate, there's always some compromise and imho the level of emulation on the Amiga really is high enough that compromising is kept to a minimum.

I'm in the midst of reconfiguring my arcade cab and you can betcha I'll have an Amiga section so I can give it the odd Amiga originals some good playtime; great games like: Apidya, Battle Squadron, Project X, Blood Money, Alien Breed 1 & 2, Speedball 2, Turrican 1 and 2, Stunt Car Racer, Nebulus, Rick Dangerous 1 and 2, Typhoon Thomson, Xenon 1 and 2, Prince of Persia, Killing Games Show, Shadow of the Beast 1 and 2 (probably with cheats, Xiaou2 is right :) ), Zany Golf, Silkworm (there was an arcade version but I loved it to death on my Amiga :) ), SWIV, Lotus 2, Flood, Rocket Ranger, James Pond 1, 2 and 3 and yeah, Lemmings.  Heck, I might even try and play Wings on it, I don't think it's too keyboard dependant. :)

Anyway, I think most of those are Amiga originals or if they were multiplatform, the Amiga release was one of the better versions.  There might of course be some exceptions due to personal preference but these have aged pretty good (minus maybe a 3d game like Stunt Car Racer but any self-respecting Amiga fan will look past its dated look and just enjoy the gameplay :)). Whatever the case, there were many, many more quality releases but either my memory fails me and I'm forgetting them (believable!) or they were too dependant on keyboard control or just don't fit into my own definition of what's playable on a cab, IE: an adventure game.

Enjoy the Amiga world, it's never too late to play great games.

Level42:
The ST was "good with music" _because_ of the Midi port. The sound processor was inferior to the Amiga for sure. But you should read about the history of the Tramiel family and Atari, Commodore and Amiga at the time. There was a battle going on.
Atari beat Commodore by releasing the ST much earlier and especially much cheaper.
Also, I liked the way that it could also be used as a serious computer with the high-res monochrome screen. The Amiga lacked business credibility. The ST was often used as a cheaper Mac as a desktop publishing system (Talk about long-gone buzz-words).

I think the ST was the better "all round" machine of the two. The Amiga was great for games.

I think the given example of Space Harrier is not entirely honest. It was also about who programmed what for what machine. If a programmer was good with programming the ST's sound processor, he could do some great stuff with it. Sometimes programmers were just lazy or under a time-limit to release stuff. Look at what the Pokey could do when the Atari 8-bit machines were almost 10 years after it's initial release. I bet the hardware designers never dreamed stuff like that would be possible when they developped the system, but the programmers simply learned to use it to it's full potential.

As far as the Amiga Star Wars version beating the real arcade version: Only someone who never played the arcade version can write something crazy like that.

RayB:
Amiga's would crash all the time for no apparent reason. So... somehow I wouldn't trust an emulator emulating a crashy OS.

Loafmeister:
Atari ST had it's bombs and the Amiga had it's GUI Meditation Error, true. Still, once WB2.0 came out, I rarely saw those crashes.

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