From: Steven_Hurdle@amusers.UUCP (Steven Hurdle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: Wing Commander Amiga
Distribution: world
Date: 1 Jan 93 16:17:42 PST
Organization: AmUsers - The Amiga Users Group of Victoria BC

In a message dated Sun 27 Dec 92  2:48, Oahvenla@snakemail.hut.fi (osma Ahv
wrote:

 OA> Very simple. Compared to 320x200x4 (bitplanes), 640x400x4 is four
 OA> times as
 OA> much data. Also, since you have to transfer 320 bytes instead of 160
 OA> in the
 OA> 64 msec (A3000 w/ de-interlacer) or 32 msec (A4000 with 31kHz modes)
 OA> it takes
 OA> to draw one line to the screen, hires modes eat a lot of chipmem
 OA> bandwidth.
 OA> In fact, on A3000 it would take all the chipmem bus (leaving
 OA> processor access
 OA> only between lines and frames). So, using hires would mean that the
 OA> program
 OA> would have much less time to transfer a lot more data, so the frame
 OA> rate would
 OA> drop. Simple as that.
 OA> I'd take high frame rate over high resolution in animation any time.
 OA> Of course,
 OA> if you could get both, it would be great, but...

You're kidding?  I wouldn't sacrifice much detail for the sake of speed. 
I've always been annoyed by how euro-mags (and euro-gamers by extension?)
rate flight/driving simulators mostly by speed.  They don't really rate the
speed compared to the detail it must deal with.  They call some games
"slow" which is a ridiculous contention in most cases.  Some games
genuinely are slow because they were poorly coded, but in many cases it's
just because it's a more ambitious project with more realism and detail.  I
know many simulator fanatics over here (in Canada) and we're usually so
disappointed with these driving games where they emphasize speed and give
only a small nod towards realism.  If your games seem slow, it's probably
not because the game has a problem but just because you haven't accelerated
your machine yet.  The Blizzard Board is good if you want a quality thing
with the option of FastRAM, but if you can get an AdSpeed cheap then great.
In truth, you want an '030 or better of course but if you're
budget-conscious then a 14mhz 68000 may be the way to go.  You can't expect
stock A500s and A2000s to be competitive any longer.  The A1200 will go a
long way to correcting this.

   My other point is that I'll take detail over speed any day because
eventually most we'll all get our next (and faster) Amigas someday (I don't
think any of us expect to use A500s or even A3000s forever).  When and if
you do get a faster machine, you'll be glad you had the emphasis on detail
so you can then get the speed as well.  Look at Cinemaware's Wings, though.
That's the perfect balance IMO.  Of course if the game was crap and not
coded properly to work with the system and then won't run on future
machines, why did you buy it anyway?  I've never bought games that wouldn't
run under 2.0 or better, wouldn't run under accelerators, required you to
disable hardware like external drives/printers, etc.  If people want to
write crap games like that I won't be encouraging them.  Now that I'm going
to get an A1200 soon, I'll get the benefit of that as I'm sure basically my
entire software collection will run with few problems.

   BTW, another thing I won't buy is any game that requires a joystick in
port 1 but leaves port 2 empty!  Grrr... that's bloody frustrating and
awefully stupid.

  And while I'm on the warpath, I might as well gripe about stubborn
low-end peoples.  Personally, living in N.A. I have NEVER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE
MET AN AMIGA USER WHO HAD LESS THAN 1 MEG!  I'll have to take people's word
that apparently some euro-gamers really only own 512k, but I find it
impossible to believe.  A501 cards are cheap, and ditto for second floppy
drives (the only peoople you're likely to meet here with 1 floppy drive are
those with large HDs for who it isn't necessary).  I'm all for supporting
the lowest-common-denominator, but you have to be realistic about it!  It
irks me to no end that games are often scaled-down just to accomodate 512k
users, or at least that this was true until recently.  Since almost
everyone has two floppy drives, and many have three, the fears of "horrible
disk swapping" had never made much sense to me either until I discovered
they were referring mostly to single-drive euro-gamers.  I would have never
guessed that this was the case as these are inexpensive add-ons.... but I
guess I should have seen it coming since they stuck with the C64
tape-drives for so long when EVERYONE in N.A. had at least one 1541 floppy,
and most had two (I only had one though for the first few years and that
was tough because there was some disk-swapping there, but I literally never
even considered using a tape-drive!).  I just don't understand.  Why get a
pathetically-underpowered 16-bit machine (single-drive/512k A500 great
example) when you could have some fun with a FULLY decked-out classic 8-bit
machine for less?  :)

  I only have two floppies, but since everything's moving to HD-installable
this doesn't matter anymore.

 OA> Osma Ahvenlampi  -  oahvenla@snakemail.hut.fi   * Workstation power
 OA> for micro-
 OA> All my opinions are not necessarily really mine * computer price:
 OA> Amiga := FUN

-- Via DLG Pro v0.995

Steven Hurdle <==> The Swindler                [public replies only please]
Writer of "Virtual Rumours", a rumour/news column in some club newsletters.
Coming to you from Victoria B.C., the Bahamas of Canada:  via SupraFAX!!!!!

                     "Give me AGA, or give me DEATH!!!"