From: skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls)
Subject: Re: AmigaWorld LIES about Amiga Links
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 13:40:04 GMT

In article <James_Hastings-Trew.0jbk@telepro.UUCP> James_Hastings-Trew@telepro.UUCP (James Hastings-Trew) writes:
>In a message dated Tue  1 Sep 92 10:12, Barrett@iastate.edu (marc N Barrett
>wrote:
>
> MB> What you saw was probably not Links 386 Pro.  It was probably the
> MB> older and weaker VGA version running on the SVGA machine.  The fact is,
> MB> the Amiga version of Links has a screen resolution of 320x200, which is
> MB> exactly the resolution of most C-64 games.  Links Pro 386 has a screen
> MB> resolution of 640x480, which is almost five times as many pixels.  Links
> MB> 386 Pro also uses a color palette that is almost as wide compared to the
> MB> Amiga's color palette as the Amiga color palette is compared to the C-64
> MB> palette.  
>
> MB> Since it is obvious that you have not seen Links 386 Pro, just
> MB> take my challenge: pull out the issues of Discover and AmigaWorld that 
> MB> I mentioned, open them to the pages I mentioined, and compare the screen
> MB> shots head-to-head, then tell me with a straight face that I am wrong.
> MB> I most certainly am not.
>
>Well, you got MOST things wrong. Most C64 games have a resolution of 160 x
>200 - 320 * 200 was considered HI RES mode on the C64, and just about every
>game I have ever seen opted for the 160 x 200 colour mode because it
>offered greater colour flexibility.
>
>The C64 had a colour palette of 16 fixed colours.
>
>The Amiga version of LINKS has a colour palette of 4096.
>
>The SVGA version of LINKS has a colour palette of 256.

Well, the SVGA version may only be able to display 256 colors at once, but
it has a palette of 262144 colors, much more than the Amiga.  In fact there
are 64 times as many colors available on the SVGA and the Amiga in turn has
64 times as many colors than the C64.  The 256 color VGA and SVGA modes may
not offer as many colors as the Amiga, but they do offer more shades of 
each color (64 vs 16) and do not suffer from the HAM artifacts.

The people who wrote Links on the Amiga did the best they could do given
the inferior color capabilities of the Amiga at a given resolution.  If the
AA machines are more than just vapor, then the Amiga may once again reign
as the graphics champion, but we may not see many games for them.  In the
PC world the LCD will probably be something like a 386 with SVGA, >=4M RAM,
hard drive, and a SoundBlaster.  With the A600, C= has assured that the
Amiga's LCD will always be a slow 68000, 1M RAM, floppy drive, and the 
wonderful ECS.  :-(

>And I believe you that the screen shot in one magazine is probably prettier
>than the one in the other. One might be a screen grab, and the other might
>be shot off the monitor. You cannot tell anything by looking at screen
>shots in magazines.

True, the old AmigaWorld and .Info screen dumps come to mind as being about
the worst looking graphics in any recent computer magazine.  But I can tell
you that every day I work with graphics on an SVGA that look better than
anything that an Amiga can display.  As long as the colors are 16 or less
and the resolution doesn't go past overscanned and interlaced CGA (known as
"HiRes OverScan" to Amiga folks), the Amiga can hold its own.  But a 486
with a $100 Tseng SVGA card eats the Amiga for lunch when higher-res and/or
more colors are needed.  :-(

Skip Sauls
skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu




Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy