From: davidme@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au (David Meiklejohn)
Subject: Re: AmigaWorld LIES about Amiga Links
Organization: Qld Dept Primary Industries
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 01:37:49 GMT

In article <1992Aug31.094150.7646@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
>   In the September 1992 issue of AmigaWorld, Bob Hays writes the following at
>the beginning of a review of Amiga Links:
>
>   "A DOUBLE RARITY among Amiga games, LINKS (Access Software, $59.95) was
>written for the Amiga, not simply ported from the MS-DOS version, and it has
>a 4096-color HAM-mode display.  As a result, this golf game looks substantially
>better on the Amiga than on a VGA-mode PC."
                               ^^^
>    My comments: BULLSHIT!!  BULLSHIT!!  BULLSHIT!!

Isn't it good to see the English language being used to the full?

>    The same company -- Access Software -- has developed Links 386 Pro, a
>version of Links that fully utilizes an SVGA display, with 256 colors out of
                                         ^^^^
>262,144 at a resolution of 640x480.

Marc, try reading what it says here - the game looks better on an Amiga than
VGA, _not_ SVGA.  HAM is at least comparable to 256-colour VGA at 320x200,
which is what the standard PC Links uses.  So, what AmigaWorld said was true,
and to accuse them of LIES is a big exaggeration.  What you can accuse them of
is not telling the whole truth - there is a new version of Links for [34]86's
that looks better than the Amiga version when it's running on a (supported)
SVGA card.  Just which particular SVGA cards does it support, by the way?  You
do realise that there's no standard, don't you?

>   What is my point about all this?  This is only the beginning for games on
>the IBM platform.  Now that some games have already started coming out that
>support SVGA, more will come.  It will be a *LONG* time before enough Amiga
>systems have sold with AA chipsets to justify software developers producing
>games that support comparable resolutions and color capabilities on the
>Amiga.  

True enough.  Unless the AA machines sell very well - it depends on the
response in Europe.  The real problem we have is that the A600 doesn't have AA.
That would be OK if it wasn't selling, but I was talking to a friend of mine
who sells Amigas in a department store last night, and he said that they've
sold out of every batch they've been able to get from Commodore quite quickly.
These are A600HDs, btw.  With sales that strong now (sure, it could be partly
because it's a new machine and people want the latest), they're likely to do
even better as we move up to Xmas.  If the situation is the same in Europe,
that means ever increasing numbers of ECS Amigas, and the AA machines can't
be expected to become a big fraction of the market.

The other side of the coin is that some games just aren't worth trying to
port to the A600 market - ECS only and too slow, although hard drives are
becoming common at the low end.  These would at least have some chance of
being ported to an AA machine with an 020 or above - 256 colour graphics
could come straight across, with no conversion needed.  We'll see, I guess.

>   Due to lack of progress, the "Ultimate Game Machine" is very fast becoming
>the "Ultimate Joke Machine".

Only if playing games is your reason for owning an Amiga.  It's not an issue
for me - I still plan on buying an A4000.  I'm sure there'll be something to
play, even if it's not the latest thing in the PC world.


-- 

David Meiklejohn                  | Internet : davidme@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au
Computer Systems Officer, QDPI    | Fax      : +61 70 92 3593
Mareeba, Australia                | Voice    : +61 70 92 1555
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy