From: davereed@wam.umd.edu (Michael Robert Bromery)
Subject: Re: AGA-games
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 06:01:21 GMT

   Don't forget Mindscape. They are sure to be on the list for the AGA Amiga
on their ports. In fact, I found out something really interesting. Well, it
took a while longer to get my version of Wing Commander apparently because
they were revising it with(what amigaman told me (Amigaman -- The shop)) AGA
support. 
       Well, I have an ECS Agnus and an EHB Denise with workbench 2.04 and my
friend has a 1.2 older amiga with the old chip set, but he may have EHB Denise.
 Anyways, I noticed that the Wing Commander I got would actually revise it's
graphics according to what version of the OS you are using. AGA support might
actually really have been written for it. All I know is that it most definitely
looked better on my machine even on a television set. My TV adaptor is messed up
right now, but I happen to get a glimpse of it (By holding the adaptor(in a way
I don't prefer to do it, plus I can't let it go then)) in color, not just B&W.
And what can I say?? It sure did improve on the graphics. When I played it on
my friends 1.2 A500, I got 16-color dithered graphics. Ok, but nothing compared
to, my 32 color much less dithered graphics when on my 2.0 operating system.
      I played mine from my harddrive and I wanted to look through the thing
to find out how in the world they did it. In fact, they didn't have to make three
versions at all. They basically made the highest color version and then it
dithered more and more as you went lower in your Kickstart version because they
assumed if you measure the graphics library version, it can tell you something
about the amiga. All unaccelerated amigas that are slower come with less than
2.0 operating system. Accelerated ones most often have 2.0 AGA has 3.0+.
      I don't know if the first version did this and I'm not sure whether it is
true to include the AGA step up from the 2.0 graphics. AGA working support is
there(they are even listed on the box). But it'll be a little time before I can actually test it. Probably a couple of weeks. 
        Well, about the test. In order to find out what they were doing, I had 
to boot from floppy disks on my 2.0 machine to find out. Sure enough, it pops
up my graphics library version, tests it, and uses it. I'm happy about it. It
looks good. This game really gives incentive for 2.0 or aga machines depending
on what you have below it. This is what I wanted, absolutely OS friendly.
It counts as the fastest OS friendly simulator out there and beats the
feel of even the Dynamix polygon games in terms of speed.(Sorry Dynamix) It 
surely uses different routines, but still is 3Space. Well, I won't compare
apples to oranges, giving that I like the Dynamix flight sims with the 
accelerator, this is just speaking in terms of unnaccelerated machines. 
It's true, if I see a game that not only uses bitmaps, but does 3Space in
as much detail as Dynamix does polygons, then I can compare critically and
take it apart to give a better speed synopsis. 
         So, I take this time to throw a warning at all of you who want to get
Wing Commander in the future(They will probably get this version) that OS
version is important for better and better graphics. 1.2 isn't bad, especially
in flight, but the animation graphics may look a little altered. 

  ---- Hope this helps.
    P.S. -- It's lookin pretty keen in 2.0+. Like I said, I'll give an up
to 2.0 ROM review of this game within a couple of days. I'll test the 3.0
and get back to you when I do. It maybe a couple of weeks though, I have an
uncle with a 4000 I can try it. If it truly does use AGA graphics modes, I'm
pretty sure I would be one of the first to have it, for my shipment came
with the first group after revisions.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games