Ze-ro, you forgot to mention the 500+ in your Amiga lifeline:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500%2B
Many Amiga to CD32 conversions had quite a bit of enhancement, eg sound was more/better on CD32 than Amiga computers due to the usage of CD media.
Here's my small CD32 collection:
http://www.videogamecollectors.com/g..._itemId=201397
Last edited by tom; 12-18-2008 at 04:38 AM.
... and the 2500, 1500, 3000T, 4000T etc ... but I don't think that was the point, the main variatons are more important :)Originally Posted by tom
Wii: 8285 8147 1575 6278
exactly... and the 2500, 1500, 3000T, 4000T etc ... but I don't think that was the point, the main variatons are more important
Many games will work 100% sans a small part of the bottom of the screen being cut off. Some will work with no problems at all... and... for all you know, your TV can display PAL. I found out my Sharp LCD can though there's no mention if it anywhere.
Indeed. Some games are smart enough to detect what mode your hardware is, and will display in the appropriate mode. I don't know if D/Generation is one of these games, though like Ice mentioned, you might be lucky and happen to have a TV that can handle 50Hz signals.
To my knowledge, no one has made a comprehensive list of all the compatibility issues for each game. I've been keeping my own list with my own findings, but there are still lots of games I don't have, and since I'm using a 1084S, I sometimes can't tell the difference between 50Hz and 60Hz. One of these days, I'd also like to see a comprehensive list of which CD32 games work properly on Amiga computers.
--Zero
Hmm, I wonder if I'd hook up my CD32 to my TV card and set the TV card to NTSC, would that produce any useful test results?
Depends on your TV card I guess. Will the picture roll is the refresh rate isn't right, or will it just ignore the extra lines and patiently wait for a vertical blanking signal?
Also, you might end up with a black and white picture, depending on how smart your card is.
--Zero
Now this is getting strange. I hooked this up to my other TV (an HDTV CRT) to see if this was the case, and iit still plays, but may be converting PAL to NTSC -- it just looks like crap with lots of ghosting and the colors are washed out. The only reason I'm not sure it's displaying in PAL is because the system menu screen still looks crappy, which I would expect to be NTSC.Some will work with no problems at all... and... for all you know, your TV can display PAL
But here's the kicker. I thought I had a broken controller because when I tried to play the game on the first TV, it was always acting erratically, like every button on the controller was being randomly pressed. But on the second TV, the controller functions just fine.
Why would the TVs have this effect? My first guess was that playing a PAL game on an NTSC TV was screwing with the game's timing and affecting the controller polling. But how would the TV make a difference? Is there actually any kind of a feedback loop where the system gets timing information back from the TV? I thought it was just a "send it and forget it" thing with video signals. The other thing is that the controller even behaves erratically on the system menu screen where you select languages and manage save files. Wouldn't that screen be in NTSC mode?
This is easily the most confusing console I've ever owned...
Edit: Okay, this is strange, too. I tried a Master System controller and it's not erratic at all with the first TV. D/Generation doesn't recognize any button presses, but the d-pad works just fine. Then on the system menu, it works perfectly, both d-pad and buttons. So it seems like there's some weird conflict happening in the combo of my standard controller+SDTV (and, potentially +D/Generation). What the hell is going on here... I wish I had more games and controllers to test with.
Last edited by Mobius; 12-19-2008 at 01:04 AM.
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I have no idea why the TV would change anything (other than problems like lag), but it sounds like it's the game. Some games are finicky with controllers, especially when you're dealing with these 9-pin ports that so many systems used. I don't know anything about D/Generation, but I do know that a few CD32 ports were extra sloppy and weren't really designed to work with the CD32 controller, as crazy as that sounds.
Okay, mystery solved. When I hooked the system up to the HDTV again, it was doing all the same weirdness as with the SDTV, just at a slower rate. I got a new controller from the seller and it's working perfectly and now I get to enjoy D/Generation in all its glory! What a great game...
I think I'm going to start a compatibility list for what games work properly on NTSC systems, but I'm still confused about whether there are REALLY separate NTSC and PAL versions of the games. Can anyone confirm there are? As in "I own both the NTSC and PAL versions of this game, and the PAL version doesn't work on the NTSC system"? I'm aware that one game actually got released with an NTSC label (Diggers, I think) but are there actual separate versions for the other games?
[SIZE="4"][URL="http://www.retroreviewproject.com"]The Retro Review Project[/URL][/SIZE]
I can say there may already be a compatibility list in progress... Give it some time...
There are very, very few NTSC releases and there is a miniscule amount of games that will not even boot on NTSC machines (like Zool.. it locks out when it detects a NTSC chipset). Most games run in what I like to call NTSC-C - or NTSC with the bottom cut off that usually work just fine. I haven't come across any games that are NTSC-only as of yet, just games that can detect NTSC/PAL and boot accordingly.
Ah crap... you know as an OS geek I've always been fascinated by the Amigas...
and I happen to have a 1084S
What Amiga OS can a 1200 run? I think the last I heard was it getting to OS 4? Or can only the expensive 4000s run those?
Man, I really shouldn't have read this thread. It's going to make me want an Amiga now that I know I can use it on that monitor.
-AB+
Holy crap. It's been a while.
Well, it seems D/Generation and Chuck Rock work perfectly with well centered screens, and Guardian works perfectly if you re-center the screen while the game is paused. Chuck Rock has a big black border around the picture, but it seems like a pretty shoddy port in general. (Music or sound effects, but not both at the same time? Lame.) Those are all I've tried, but I'll probably be trying Chuck Rock 2, Lotus Trilogy, Bubba'n'Stix and Fire and Ice before too long.
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A stock 1200 can run up to 3.1. An Amiga 1200 with 4MB can run OS 3.5. An Amiga 1200 w/8MB or RAM and preferably a 68030 or better can run OS 3.9. If you have a PPC card ($$$), you will probably be able to run OS 4.0
If you get a cheap adapter ($15), you can run an A1200 on most VGA monitors if it's in DBLNTSC, DBLPAL or VGA monitor mode though you won't be able to play games in those modes (you'd still need a 1084). Of course, to put it in this mode you would have to boot up on a 1084/TV the first time to set this.
I run 3.1 on my Amiga 3000 (68030 w/ 11MB RAM). I'd say there's little point in upgrading beyond that. The later releases add some things that people these days expect to be part of the operating system (like a TCP/IP stack, better multimedia support, etc), but that comes with a large speed penalty, to the point where I wouldn't recommend 3.9 unless you have a 68040.
Amiga OS 4.0 and MorphOS both require a PPC CPU, and therefor will not run on ANY stock Amiga that Commodore released. Not even the 4000. PPC accelerators are incredibly expensive (think $300-$500 or even more, depending on the features), making this somewhat of a difficult road.
A stock 1200 would probably work best with 3.1.
I'd really like to see someone put together a cheap memory expander for the CD32 so you could run WHDLoad on it. It seems that people have actually looked into it though, and the edge connector that it would require is prohibitively expensive.
The game actually works fine if you switch it into PAL mode... which I always thought was somewhat ironic. The programmers were obviously smart enough to know the differences between PAL and NTSC, smart enough to detect a mismatch, and smart enough to make both versions... why didn't they just make it check the video mode and adjust the video timings to make it work? Plenty of other developers managed to do this with their games.
Anyways, if you have a TV or monitor that can handle a 50Hz signal, then the only game I've seen so far that will cause you trouble is F17 Challenge. No matter what I did, I could not convince this game to work on my NTSC CD32, though it works perfectly on my PAL system.
--Zero
I grabbed a CD32 off ebay around a year ago, but I have no games for it. I haven't even tried booting the thing up yet. I just need -A- game; does anyone know of any freeware or shareware titles for it that I could download and burn simply to test it out?
Au contraire moonfraire... it doesn't work at all, whether in PAL mode or not (that was the first thing I tried). It flatly tells me I'm running on an NTSC system, it isn't supported, and go contact my dealer.
Ahhh, dang. Amiga 4.1 looks soooooo swank... alas.
I guess I can just hope that MorphOS gets ported to mac platforms I guess, or find a Gemini machine.
So... in that case what would be the best model Amiga for general gameplaying with compatibility... I'd be interested in playing Starflight II as well as Sensible Soccer '96 - does this mean both a 500 and 1200 or is there a 'specific' 1200 that can run most/all 500 games?
-AB+
Holy crap. It's been a while.
Some abandonware:
http://www.amigaland.de/component/op...,select/id,19/
Thank you very much, El Metz!
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