Eurotrash Gaming: The Amiga Thread

Yoshi

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I feel like I have a blind spot in my gaming knowledge with regard to these platforms. I've played ports of its games, like Lemmings, Shadow of the Best, Flashback, etc. and sequels but never the genuine article.

What's the best way to play these in a non-emulated manner in 2018? I think I remember reading that the 1200 is the way to go?

Is there a good place to buy this stuff, maybe a forum?

Anything else I should know?
 

gray117

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You can use WHDLoad now to run everything off an A1200 I believe.

But back in the day most (A500) games wouldn't work on an A1200. I'd still go to an A500 with a bit of extra ram if I were to go for the nostalgia. *If* (I doubt you are) wanting to use disks you'd probably opt to go A500

... otherwise dirty emulation and easy controller of choice may be the less frustrating/time consuming way to swap and tinker with the various amiga configurations - unless you've got your heart set on modding/keeping the thing.
 
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Dr Shroom

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Amiga's have gotten really fucking expensive over the years, especially the 1200 (which is the only model you actually need if you're just playing games)
WHDLoad runs everything if you got all the various kickstart roms out there and a CF card can easily be installed in a 1200, I'd really recommend getting an accelerator card though, like the old Blizzard ones which are more than good enough if you don't want to play games like Alien Breed 3D or other, high end games. The 1200 (and the 4000, but good luck finding one of those) also gives you access to AGA chipset games, which the older models can't handle.
Don't bother with the 500, 500+, the 600 or the desktop models, no point really.
You can buy pre-configured CF cards on ebay if you can't figure out how to format the thing yourself (can be done via WínUAE, but it's kinda complicated). CF on IDE adapters are easily found on ebay and possibly amazon.

I wouldn't waste my time with floppies anymore. Also get a new compatible mouse or an adapter for PC US mice, because the amiga mouse sucks shit.
You could try to buy one on EAB http://eab.abime.net/ , but I have no idea how their marketplace works.
 
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greedostick

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I feel like I have a blind spot in my gaming knowledge with regard to these platforms. I've played ports of its games, like Lemmings, Shadow of the Best, Flashback, etc. and sequels but never the genuine article.

What's the best way to play these in a non-emulated manner in 2018? I think I remember reading that the 1200 is the way to go?

Is there a good place to buy this stuff, maybe a forum?

Anything else I should know?

A1200 is the way to go. eBay is crazy, especially if you want WHD load. Which is pretty much necessary since you're dealing with volatile floppy software.

I know a guy on the Amiga facebook group, think his name is Cliff. He sells WHD loaded, and recapped 1200's for a fraction of the cost on eBay. About $500.00 shipped from the UK. Then you need a step down converter. Easily found on Amazon for cheap. He is a bit slow getting these out though. Took like 2 months, and always had to approach him asking for updates, but he eventually came though.

One thing I learned about the Amiga, is that most of the games people go crazy over, are not that great with a few notable exceptions. Flashback, Another World, Ruff n Tumble, Turrican, are all solid.

I really dig the dungeon crawlers on the Amiga, such as Black Crypt, and AmberMoon (German exclusive, with official translation released by the company, Thalion).
 

gray117

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Always going to push speedball 2 if there's an element of games recommendation going on, especially to Americans where I think the amiga (/megadrive - being the popular port) didn't necessarily get exposure as much. In fact, add in Gods, Cadaver and Chaos Engine ... and you've got a nice spread of genres just from bitmap brothers on amiga... but if there was one I'd want to push it'd be Speedball 2

... best to ignore the recent impersonators, though the black tower ones don't play awful they don't compare with the fantastic sweet spot that Dan Malone hit art wise.
 

Yoshi

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Thanks for all the feedback. I'll keep my eyes open for a 1200. Are there NTSC/PAL compatibility issues beyond the 110v/220v power? Said differently, if I can find a domestic 1200, are there certain European games it won't be able to run? I think the CD32 had that issue.
 

NeoSneth

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Thanks for all the feedback. I'll keep my eyes open for a 1200. Are there NTSC/PAL compatibility issues beyond the 110v/220v power? Said differently, if I can find a domestic 1200, are there certain European games it won't be able to run? I think the CD32 had that issue.

Yes. I sometimes run into PAL/NTSC issues, but it's mainly a display problem. It's quite rare.
The indivision MkII allows you to output to a more modern Display. that certainly helps.

I'm still using CF cards. Anyone have a reliable SD card IDE adapter?
 

Dr Shroom

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Why would you use a SD card? A 4GB CF card is more than enough if you're just playing games.
 

OMFG

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I currently use an A500 with a flashed Gotek drive that allows me to use an 8GB USB flashdrive to cue up game images.
 

Dr Shroom

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I currently use an A500 with a flashed Gotek drive that allows me to use an 8GB USB flashdrive to cue up game images.

Internal or external? Had quite a few games not booting up when I used it as an external drive.
 

ShootTheCore

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Two years ago, I picked up a recapped A1200 shipped from the UK from Steve Clifford in the Commodore Amiga Facebook group for about $350. He set it up for me with 8 megs extra memory and a 8 GB Compact Flash card all loaded up with the games library and ready to go. No idea what the going rate for them is these days, but Steve is still selling machines on there all the time, so hit him up.

IMHO, the A1200 is the only model you want to mess with if all you want to do is play games. A stock A1200 has 2 megs of memory and will run roughly 70% of the total games library using WHDLoad images - no need for floppies. Adding 8 megs of memory will get you up to 90% of the total games library running - pretty much everything but the CD games. Eventually, I did install an Individual Computers ACA1233n accelerator to speed things up and bump the system up to 128 megs of memory, which got all the CD games running straight off of WHDLoad images on the CF card.

I used a $20 voltage convertor off of Amazon to handle the Amiga's UK power supply on my US wall power. For video output, I run a SCART cable into my OSSC upscaler - it handles all of the NTSC and PAL resolutions just fine.

Regarding NTSC and PAL on the A1200, you can hold down both mouse buttons when powering on the computer and choose which mode it starts up in. The WHDLoad game images can also be configured on a game-by-game basis to launch in NTSC or PAL mode. Be aware that there are a lot of Amiga games that only run in PAL mode.
 
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