Amiga Versions that are superior?

[balpat]

Hey everyone!

Sorry, if this topic came up before. A quick search showed nothing similar.

ScummVM does support quite a few Amiga Versions. Being an Amiga user I have quite a few games left from that era - including some that I haven't found as PC versions (yet).

But then I thought: Hey, some of these games actually have a superior Amiga port. Personal Nightmare, for example which looks a lot better in its Amiga-incarnation.


Now I wanted to make sure if I really get the "best" version before looking for an inferior PC version.


See, even though, for example, "Elvira" supports VGA looking at the screenshots I think we actually see the exact same graphics the Amiga has - except the Amiga has better sound.

The same is true for Elvira 2 and Waxworks.

But also Future Wars seems to have exact the same graphics on PC as on Amiga - except the Amiga's GUI has a nifty transparency effect.

Can anyone confirm or correct this?

[LordHoto]

But also Future Wars seems to have exact the same graphics on PC as on Amiga - except the Amiga's GUI has a nifty transparency effect.

Can anyone confirm or correct this?

The transparency effect of the Amiga GUI in Future Wars is not yet correctly implemented, I started to do that once, but never finished due to some implementation internals in our engine and me not having enough time to fiddle with it.

In theory it would also be possible to enable the effect for DOS versions when it is fully implemented, since it is not special to the data files but the interpreter used. Guess the DOS one didn't have it so it can be used with EGA graphics cards too.

Apart yeah I think they have the same graphics.

[circletheory]

Can someone post a list of Amiga ported games that are superior to its DOS counterpart? Would love to know what I've been missing out on (and how many more games I have to re-play to get the full experience!).

[LordHoto]

Can someone post a list of Amiga ported games that are superior to its DOS counterpart? Would love to know what I've been missing out on (and how many more games I have to re-play to get the full experience!).

My list:

- no games here -

[Freddo]

Can someone post a list of Amiga ported games that are superior to its DOS counterpart?

As I see it, pretty much all Amiga versions before MI2 are superior, while MI2 and later have superior DOS versions.

There will obviously be exceptions to this and changes due personal preferences, but meh

[balpat]

Both posters before mine are partially wrong, I believe.

First, there are indeed versions that are superior in the Amiga platform. In my opening post I mentioned a few examples ("Personal Nightmare" for example) - even if my "Future Wars" example has been partially corrected by LordHoto.

But it is also true that there are games before Monkey Island 2 that are superior on the PC than on the Amiga.
Beginning with Indy 3, Lucas Arts started to redo their games with 256-color VGA-graphics.

If you take the FMTowns-versions, even Zak has a superior version but it is, of course, not on the Amiga.

Switching over to Sierra, all AGI games sound and look better on the Amiga. While the graphics are essentially the same, the optimized palette on the Amiga renders these games just a little nicer to look at.

[circletheory]

But it is also true that there are games before Monkey Island 2 that are superior on the PC than on the Amiga.
Beginning with Indy 3, Lucas Arts started to redo their games with 256-color VGA-graphics.

Switching over to Sierra, all AGI games sound and look better on the Amiga. While the graphics are essentially the same, the optimized palette on the Amiga renders these games just a little nicer to look at.

Thanks balpat. I've never considered playing any of the Sierra AGI games on Amiga. You mentioned that the color palette is better on Amiga than PC -- does this mean those AGI games have more than 16 colors? How about the sound quality? Is the Amiga music/sound better than the 3-Voice Tandy/PCJr sound for those games? I'm very curious now ...

[LordHoto]

But it is also true that there are games before Monkey Island 2 that are superior on the PC than on the Amiga.
Beginning with Indy 3, Lucas Arts started to redo their games with 256-color VGA-graphics.

Switching over to Sierra, all AGI games sound and look better on the Amiga. While the graphics are essentially the same, the optimized palette on the Amiga renders these games just a little nicer to look at.

Thanks balpat. I've never considered playing any of the Sierra AGI games on Amiga. You mentioned that the color palette is better on Amiga than PC -- does this mean those AGI games have more than 16 colors? How about the sound quality? Is the Amiga music/sound better than the 3-Voice Tandy/PCJr sound for those games? I'm very curious now ...

I think ScummVM supports using the Amiga palette when you set the render mode of AGI games to Amiga in the options dialog.

[LogicDeLuxe]

Apparently, the palette changed between AGI versions on the Amiga. I've seen at least different versions of Larry 1. One with a palette worse than EGA, and one with a palette similar to 16 color SCUMM on Amiga.

For the music, it's just 2 voice beeping. Better than PC speaker, but worse than anything else.

And last, Amiga AGI has mouse support, although completely useless. The walk code doesn't even have a path finder. And you know Sierra: one wrong step, and you're dead.

[Collector]

For the music, it's just 2 voice beeping. Better than PC speaker, but worse than anything else.

The best music for the PC versions is with Tandy sound. It has 3 voices with noise channel.

[MoKeiichi]

The best music for the PC versions is with Tandy sound. It has 3 voices with noise channel.

Tandy is second best, AppleIIgs is even better with samples and sometimes additional music not heard elsewhere. Think of the cat screech in KQ3 or the MarrowMatic-Music in SQ2. Since the sound chip used in AppleIIgs, the Ensoniq ES5503 DOC (which was created by the same guy as the SID used in C64, Bob Yannes) already seems to be emulated in MAME and some specific AppleIIgs emulators I presume, we might hear some AppleIIgs sound in ScummVM soon. (hey, one may have dreams, I know it's on SARIEN's and SCUMMVM's TODO-list for quite a while now)

[balpat]

Thanks balpat. I've never considered playing any of the Sierra AGI games on Amiga. You mentioned that the color palette is better on Amiga than PC -- does this mean those AGI games have more than 16 colors?

No, not more color just better used colors. Faces for example have a lighter red and some of the blue is also lighter. Just nicer.

[Collector]

Tandy is second best, AppleIIgs is even better

If you had read what I said you would have seen that I said:

The best music for the PC versions...

[Mau1wurf1977]

For the music, it's just 2 voice beeping. Better than PC speaker, but worse than anything else.

The best music for the PC versions is with Tandy sound. It has 3 voices with noise channel.

Hi!

This raised my curiosity.

For the old Sierra games I'm aware of playing them in Tandy mode. I also know about the Amiga and especially the AppleII (GS?) versions which have the best sound hands-down and also mouse support.

However what about Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken? Do they support the Tandy sound?

In terms of Amiga vs. PC

I was at school during the C64, Amiga and PC days and I clearly remember the transition between the platform. I never had the Amiga, was stuck on the C64 and later my parents got me a PC.

For me it was really the VGA graphics that shifted things towards the PC. As mentioned, The Secret of Monkey Island and Last Crusade received a VGA overhaul and look nicer compared to the Amiga.

MI supports the MT-32, so it's straight forward, Last Crusade supports Adlib and Game Blaster. It's subjective if they sound better compared to the Amiga, but at least they are decent alternatives.

Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken sound better on the Amiga though. Graphics are indeed identical. I don't know much about the Amiga Emulation and loading times and things like that, so not sure how that affects the experience. But from the videos on YouTube it seems that the Amiga version takes longer to load between rooms and that the scrolling is also slower (slows down just like on the C64).

And then there is also the C64 version which has terrific sound if you ask me, but the graphics are quite basic.

The C64 is the only version that has that chirping sound in front of the house

[LogicDeLuxe]

Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken sound better on the Amiga though. Graphics are indeed identical. I don't know much about the Amiga Emulation and loading times and things like that, so not sure how that affects the experience. But from the videos on YouTube it seems that the Amiga version takes longer to load between rooms and that the scrolling is also slower (slows down just like on the C64).

Of course, comparing a bare Amiga 500 with a 80486 or similar is not fair. Use faster Amiga, and it won't slow down. Running from a harddrive, loading times should be insignificant. Running directly from floppies, the loading times would be roughly about those on PC DD disks.

And then there is also the C64 version which has terrific sound if you ask me, but the graphics are quite basic.

The V1 on PC has the same graphics with only a few exceptions like the logo at the kid selection screen and the Nuke'em-Alarms door. V1 MM is included with English DOTT.