Amiga Questions

[Tempest]

Ok I know that asking questions about an Amiga is considered blasphemy on an Atari board, but some of us like to check out the competition now and then...

 

I finally made room on my game room desk for my Amiga 1200. I've had it for quite awhile now, but I never got around to really playing around with it. Now I have some questions.

 

1. From the color scheme I appear to be running Workbench version 2.x (no idea how you actually tell). Is this good enough for games, or do I need to upgrade to one of the 3.x versions?

 

2. I appear to have 2MB of Graphics Memory and 4MB of Other Memory. Is this enough for games, or do I need to add more?

 

3. My mouse appears to be flaky. It moves just fine, but when I click the buttons they only appear to work half the time. Is Do Atari ST mice work with the Amiga? Are there better 3rd party alternatives?

 

4. Is a CD drive necessary for games? I used WHDLoad, but I know they made some games on CD.

 

5. What kind of joystick do I need for games? Is the Amiga joystick unique or will an Atari ST one work?

 

6. Can you write Amiga disks on a PC?

 

Anything else I should know?

 

Tempest

[Blur2040]

Ok I know that asking questions about an Amiga is considered blasphemy on an Atari board, but some of us like to check out the competition now and then...

 

I finally made room on my game room desk for my Amiga 1200. I've had it for quite awhile now, but I never got around to really playing around with it. Now I have some questions.

 

1. From the color scheme I appear to be running Workbench version 2.x (no idea how you actually tell). Is this good enough for games, or do I need to upgrade to one of the 3.x versions?

 

2. I appear to have 2MB of Graphics Memory and 4MB of Other Memory. Is this enough for games, or do I need to add more?

 

3. My mouse appears to be flaky. It moves just fine, but when I click the buttons they only appear to work half the time. Is Do Atari ST mice work with the Amiga? Are there better 3rd party alternatives?

 

4. Is a CD drive necessary for games? I used WHDLoad, but I know they made some games on CD.

 

5. What kind of joystick do I need for games? Is the Amiga joystick unique or will an Atari ST one work?

 

6. Can you write Amiga disks on a PC?

 

Anything else I should know?

 

Tempest

 

1. I'm no Workbench expert, but I think you're fine with that.

 

2. That's plenty for most games as far as I know. But I don't really push Amiga's limits very much.

 

3. ST mouse is a no-go. You can build an adapter to use it on Amiga, tough.

 

4. Most games are disks. The only CD games that you are likely interested in are CD32 and CDTV games. Those pretty much all have a version on disk...and those are pretty much exactly the same. I know that there are some really late Amiga games on CD, but I imagine that you're in this for the classics.

 

5. Any 9 pin Atari-style joystick is fine. I hear people like to use SMS controllers a lot. Buttons are on the same pins...but the wires for movement have to be switched out. I'm still in the process of trying to figure out exactly which ones you have to switch out, myself. I'm having a bit of trouble with it as my ST mouse is flaky.

 

6. Not without special additional hardware.

 

I mostly much with CD32, so others can probably give you slightly better information on the first two. For general classic Amiga gaming (not the moronic upgraded Amigas with PPC cards and 3D accelerators) you should be more than fine.

Edited April 16, 2009 by Blur2040

[Rybags]

1. From the color scheme I appear to be running Workbench version 2.x (no idea how you actually tell). Is this good enough for games, or do I need to upgrade to one of the 3.x versions?

Actually, Workbench 1.3 as found in most 500s is the most compatible with older games. But I'd imagine by now, like the ST, friendly cracker groups have developed lots of fixes.

 

2. I appear to have 2MB of Graphics Memory and 4MB of Other Memory. Is this enough for games, or do I need to add more?

That's plenty. Once again, 1 meg total RAM is the most common configuration and you can actually get some games that don't work properly with more RAM.

 

3. My mouse appears to be flaky. It moves just fine, but when I click the buttons they only appear to work half the time. Is Do Atari ST mice work with the Amiga? Are there better 3rd party alternatives?

You could pull it apart and clean the guts.

The ST mouse isn't compatible straight up - you'd need to change the wiring slightly since the X/Y/Dx/Dy lines are assigned differently between the 2 machines.

 

4. Is a CD drive necessary for games? I used WHDLoad, but I know they made some games on CD.

If you look around there's a huge Torrent called "Amiga CD32 TOSEC" or similar that has a pile of CD images.

As for CD being necessary - not really, but of course you benefit from faster loading and the expansions some games offered on CD.

For the most part, Amiga CDs are a disappointment and usually don't offer much more over the floppy versions of games.

 

5. What kind of joystick do I need for games? Is the Amiga joystick unique or will an Atari ST one work?

Joysticks are the same... although I believe there are a few games that can work with a CD32 controller.

 

6. Can you write Amiga disks on a PC?

No, but later WB versions can read 720 floppies (and 1.44 on later again versions). So, you can put ADF files on, then use a utility on the Amiga side to recreate the original floppy from the image.

A bit of a pain on a 720K disk since you need 2 passes to recreate a full 880K floppy.

 

For earlier WB (e.g. 1.3), there's utilities like DOS2DOS that can read 720K DOS floppies.

[Tempest]

Can you actually run Amiga 32CD games straight up on a 1200? I know the CD32 had some extra chip (Akiko or something like that), but I guess if the game didn't use it...

 

How is the compatibility with newer versions of the OS? 2.x is fugly looking and some of those newer OS's look very close to Windows 95/98. Like I said, I use WHDLoad so I think they may have patched most of the games that had problems, but I don't know for sure. I'd love to get my hands on Defender of the Crown 2!

 

Is it possible to play CDTV games on the Amiga? Not that there any many worth playing...

 

Tempest

[Warriorisabouttodie]

You don't have to replace the 2.0 roms to run the later AmigaOS 3. You can simply load the rom into a portion of your memory, you can use this method to downgrade to 1.3 as well. It's been too long for me to remember the program you do that with.

 

The truth is 2.0 should run just about everything, most games don't use the OS anyway.

 

Is your drive High Density? if so, you can read 1.44 PC floppys easily with either Amiga OS 3 or use one of the gazillion different proggys that reads msdos disks on earlier version of the OS (dos2dos was one)...

[98PaceCar]

I'm in the process of building what I consider to be the ultimate gamers 1200. My plan is to run all of my games via WHDLoad from a compact flash card instead of a traditional hard drive. To do that, I have ordered a CF to IDE adaptor. That should cover my storage needs with a simple 4gb CF card.

 

To get the full benefit out of WHDLoad, it's best to have an accellerator (the 030 series seems to be the most compatible) and you really want at least 4mb of fast ram, but depending on the accellerator you can cheaply add more than that. I currently have a Blizzard 040 with 16mb ram in it and have had no problems at all running any of the classic games.

 

I'll address your specific questions below.

 

1. From the color scheme I appear to be running Workbench version 2.x (no idea how you actually tell). Is this good enough for games, or do I need to upgrade to one of the 3.x versions?

 

2. I appear to have 2MB of Graphics Memory and 4MB of Other Memory. Is this enough for games, or do I need to add more?

 

3. My mouse appears to be flaky. It moves just fine, but when I click the buttons they only appear to work half the time. Is Do Atari ST mice work with the Amiga? Are there better 3rd party alternatives?

 

4. Is a CD drive necessary for games? I used WHDLoad, but I know they made some games on CD.

 

5. What kind of joystick do I need for games? Is the Amiga joystick unique or will an Atari ST one work?

 

6. Can you write Amiga disks on a PC?

 

Anything else I should know?

 

Tempest

 

1. All 1200's should have at least the 3.0 Kickstart in them. The later ones have 3.1. If you have 3.1 roms and an accellerator, OS 3.9 is a very nice upgrade. Of special interest to 1200 users, 3.9 added a built in TCP stack which you can use with certain PCMCIA network cards. If you really are running OS 2.x, I would say at least upgrade to 3.0 or 3.1, depending on your Kickstart version.

 

2. The 4mb of fast ram should suit you fine on most WHDLoad games, but more is always better. 16mb to 32mb seems to be the sweet spot between cost and benefit.

 

3. Some ST/Amiga mice are switchable or you can build an adaptor. The later Amiga Technologies mice seem to be very nice (just got my first one).

 

4. A CD isn't really necessary. As someone above said, most of the CD32 games are slightly enhanced versions of disk based games. WHDLoad does support some of the CD32 and even CDTV games though.

 

5. Standard Atari style joystick. Nothing fancy here.

 

6. The only way I know of to write Amiga disks on a PC is via a Catweasel board, but if you get a Compact Flash to PCMCIA adaptor you can move .adf files to the Amiga and write the images out there easily. If you check out the www.amigakit.com website, they sell an adaptor along with software that makes this very easy. I think it's still less than $20 for the hardware and software to do it.

[Tempest]

1. All 1200's should have at least the 3.0 Kickstart in them. The later ones have 3.1. If you have 3.1 roms and an accellerator, OS 3.9 is a very nice upgrade. Of special interest to 1200 users, 3.9 added a built in TCP stack which you can use with certain PCMCIA network cards. If you really are running OS 2.x, I would say at least upgrade to 3.0 or 3.1, depending on your Kickstart version.

Ok how do I go about upgrading the Kickstart and OS? You said the Kickstart is on roms? Once I upgrade the Kickstart I assume I can use a disk to upgrade the OS?

 

I appears I have Kickstart version 39.104 and Workbench 39.29

 

2. The 4mb of fast ram should suit you fine on most WHDLoad games, but more is always better. 16mb to 32mb seems to be the sweet spot between cost and benefit.

How do I go about upgrading the RAM? What kind do I need?

 

5. Standard Atari style joystick. Nothing fancy here.

One button or two? I thought I read somewhere that Genesis pads work on the Amiga, is that true?

 

Incidentally I have a DKB Cobra Accelerator installed. I know it had an optional SCSI card called the Ferret, but I've never seen one for sale.

 

Tempest

[98PaceCar]

Ok how do I go about upgrading the Kickstart and OS? You said the Kickstart is on roms? Once I upgrade the Kickstart I assume I can use a disk to upgrade the OS?

 

I appears I have Kickstart version 39.104 and Workbench 39.29

Ok, the 39.104 kickstart is 3.0 and the Workbench should be 3.0 as well (going from memory). Kickstart is just a pair of roms on the motherboard and the workbench is stored on the HD (installed from a set of floppies for versions 3.0 and lower, CDROM for 3.5 and 3.9). I've seen both Kickstart and Workbench for sale on ebay before, but I did find an issue with your system that may prevent you from being able to upgrade easily. I wasn't familiar with your DKB Cobra, so I looked it up in the hardware guide. Turns out, it requires a firmware update to be able to address it's additional memory when used with 3.1 Kickstart roms. I'm sure if you check on the various Amiga forums, somebody has that, but it does add some complexity to the job.

 

How do I go about upgrading the RAM? What kind do I need?

This is where it's good that you have an accellerator (and an 030 at that!!). The DKB will take any standard 72 pin SIMM. Not sure of speed requirements, but I always try to stick with 70ns or 60ns (but in reality, I use whatever I have on hand). Looks like the SIMM slot is mounted on the back of the card, so as long as it physically clears you should be able to go up to 128mb on it.

 

One button or two? I thought I read somewhere that Genesis pads work on the Amiga, is that true?

I believe that a Genesis pad will work. I haven't run across enough games that need 2 buttons that I have ever even tried it though.

 

Incidentally I have a DKB Cobra Accelerator installed. I know it had an optional SCSI card called the Ferret, but I've never seen one for sale.

Since the 1200 has build in IDE and you can easily set it up to work with compact flash over PCMCIA or even network it via TCP, I've never worried about trying to set up a SCSI adaptor for the 1200. I do use the built in SCSI in my 3000 to have access to a CDROM, but that was for convenience in transferring files over. It does look like this is a pretty decent accellerator, so that should be a tremendous help with WHDload. Being that it's an 030 should keep compatibility high as well.

Edited April 16, 2009 by 98PaceCar

[Tempest]

Thanks for the information. I really appreciate it.

 

Is the Kickstart 3.1 really all that necessary? As you pointed out I'll need to update the firmware on my accelerator to make it work and the roms themselves are about $30. I'll do it if needed, but is it really? Then again, OS 3.9looks pretty nifty, but I'll need a CD Drive to install it anyway.

 

How much memory do I really need? As you pointed out I can go up to 128MB, but how much do I really need? All I plan on doing on this Amiga is playing games, nothing too complex. I do have a PCMCIA ethernet card that I'd like to use, but that's about as complex as I'll probably get.

 

What do you know about external video cards? I see there are some games that support them (like Simon the Sorcerer II). Are there enough of them to worry about it or is it only needed if I want to play things like Hexen or Quake?

 

Tempest

[Rybags]

Not 100% on this but I think you need Fast Page RAM, EDO isn't compatible.

 

Problem there is that almost all the 72 pin SIMMs you find out there are EDOs.

[98PaceCar]

Thanks for the information. I really appreciate it.

 

Is the Kickstart 3.1 really all that necessary? As you pointed out I'll need to update the firmware on my accelerator to make it work and the roms themselves are about $30. I'll do it if needed, but is it really? Then again, OS 3.9looks pretty nifty, but I'll need a CD Drive to install it anyway.

 

How much memory do I really need? As you pointed out I can go up to 128MB, but how much do I really need? All I plan on doing on this Amiga is playing games, nothing too complex. I do have a PCMCIA ethernet card that I'd like to use, but that's about as complex as I'll probably get.

 

What do you know about external video cards? I see there are some games that support them (like Simon the Sorcerer II). Are there enough of them to worry about it or is it only needed if I want to play things like Hexen or Quake?

 

Tempest

 

No problem at all! I've been doing Amiga since it was new, so I've always had a soft spot for them!

 

For a gaming platform, Workbench 3.0 is more than fine. If you were looking at doing more than that, I'd suggest the 3.1 Kickstart and 3.9 Workbench though. Especially since you already have an accelerator. To just play with it, save your money. The later Workbenches moved the platform closer to modern GUI design and added a lot of nice perks, but to run games the older ones are just as good. You may run into a partition size limit on 3.0, but off the top of my head I don't remember what it is. I've heard it is possible to install 3.9 without a cd, but it does require one of the PCMCIA to CF adaptors and a CF cart big enough to hold the CD. I haven't tried it first hand, but I don't see any reason it wouldn't work as I have run many Amiga apps from the PCMCIA slot.

 

I wouldn't put any effort into going past 16 or 32 mb ram. Those are pretty cheap and easy to find. Personally, I've never had more than a 16mb stick in any of my systems and have had no problems at all. I haven't tried to break into the later releases though, so if that's your goal you may want to consider more. Truthfully, an 030 won't cut it on those games anyway, so you'd need to build something a bit more robust. For the bulk of the library, 16mb is more than fine. Most of the OCS and ECS games run in either 512k or 1mb, so even with the added overhead of Workbench and WHDLoad, 18 mb total is more than enough. You may even want to stick with your 4mb for the time being and see if you run into any issues. My guess is you will be ok on most things.

 

You can set up a TCP stack under 3.0. I believe Miami is still somewhat available and I think there is even a freebie stack on Aminet. I've used Miami before and it seemed to work pretty good. If you want to use a PCMCIA card, make sure it's a 16 bit and 5v card. There are a few websites around that talk about the specific requirements. From my experience, the one to have is the 3CCE589EC from 3Com.

 

The video cards that I'm aware of require one of the big box Amiga's (2000, 3000, 4000). This is another expense that unless you are REALLY into Amiga, you won't want to get into. The amount of titles that take advantage of them is pretty small. One thing you may want to consider is getting one of the new Indivision AGA add on cards. It's a flicker fixer/scan doubler and gives a nice VGA output on a 1200/4000/CD32. I haven't gotten one for my setup yet, but it's next on the list.

 

Do you have WHDLoad running on your system yet? It's one of the single best things to ever happen to Amiga gaming!

[Tempest]

Yep I have WHDLoad but it's the non-registered version. What does registering get you other than being able to bypass the start up screen?

 

I have a scanline doubler (one of those odd purchasaes I made back before I was even really into Amiga) so I'm currently using a 20" VGA monitor with the Amiga and it looks great. Oddly there appears to be some color bleed in Workbench, but not in any game I played.

 

What kind of specs do I need to look for on the memory? I have tons of old PC memory sticks laying around, but I don't know if they're compatible.

 

I have Miami on my hard drive (I saw the folder anyway). Are there instructions somewhere on how to use it?

 

I might try OS 3.9 since it looks pretty spiffy, but will I run into any game issues if I use it? I assume WHDLoad would take care of that anyway.

 

So I guess my gameplan here is:

 

1. Get a new mouse (the left button is shot on mine)

2. Get some more memory (16 MB stick)

3. Get myself a PCMCIA to CF adaptor so I can move stuff back and forth between my computer and Amiga.

 

Later on I'll...

 

4. Upgrade to Kickstart 3.1

5. Flash my Cobra card so I can use Kickstart 3.1

6. Upgrade to OS 3.9

7. Look into a CD drive (or just use the PCMCIA to CF adaptor).

 

 

Those later games look interesting, but I don't really feel like dropping money on all the stuff I need to play them (new accelerator, external graphics card (if that's even possible on a 1200), CD drive, etc.). At that point you're getting into 'Amiga extremist' type stuff. All I want to do is play some good games and maybe DotC 2 (assuming there's a WHDLoad for that).

 

 

BTW I've read that some people use a CF card or SD card instead of a hard drive on the Amiga. But then I've also read that those aren't meant to be hard drive replacements and burn out after a couple thousand write cycles. Is this true or is that old info (this was an article from around 01 or 02)?

 

Tempest

[98PaceCar]

Yep I have WHDLoad but it's the non-registered version. What does registering get you other than being able to bypass the start up screen?

I'm still using the free version myself. I think it's more of a donationware model with this one. There's no extra functionality given for paying that I'm aware of.

 

I have a scanline doubler (one of those odd purchasaes I made back before I was even really into Amiga) so I'm currently using a 20" VGA monitor with the Amiga and it looks great. Oddly there appears to be some color bleed in Workbench, but not in any game I played.

Very nice! One thing to watch out for is the PAL/NTSC issue with some of the games. A lot of the WHDLoad packs and patches only support the PAL version. Hopefully your monitor and doubler can handle the 50hz signal. Not sure what would cause color bleed in Workbench. You may be able to switch screen modes and clear that up.

 

What kind of specs do I need to look for on the memory? I have tons of old PC memory sticks laying around, but I don't know if they're compatible.

It should be just a standard 72 pin SIMM, 70ns or faster, non edo. A lot of that will depend on your accelerator though, so you may want to grab the manual for it and check there. If you can't find one that works in your pile, let me know. I have a few extra that I can test here.

 

I have Miami on my hard drive (I saw the folder anyway). Are there instructions somewhere on how to use it?

I just did a quick google to see where the author's website is now and it appears to be gone. I know that he was upset about something with the software and dropped support at some point in the past, but maybe it's completely gone now. I'm pretty sure I have an install set for it at home, so I'll check for any docs it came with.

 

I might try OS 3.9 since it looks pretty spiffy, but will I run into any game issues if I use it? I assume WHDLoad would take care of that anyway.

I ran this config on my 4000 for a while and it seemed to be pretty stable. There were a few games that would lock up after some time, but I never tracked it down as being a problem with either WHDLoad or the Workbench. I'm thinking it was my accelerator, but never spent the time to figure it out for sure. There are a number of tooltypes (settings basically) that you can use to help WHDLoad run better on more advanced machines, so 3.9 shouldn't be a problem with it provided you are willing to fiddle with the settings.

 

So I guess my gameplan here is:

 

1. Get a new mouse (the left button is shot on mine)

2. Get some more memory (16 MB stick)

3. Get myself a PCMCIA to CF adaptor so I can move stuff back and forth between my computer and Amiga.

 

Later on I'll...

 

4. Upgrade to Kickstart 3.1

5. Flash my Cobra card so I can use Kickstart 3.1

6. Upgrade to OS 3.9

7. Look into a CD drive (or just use the PCMCIA to CF adaptor).

 

Those later games look interesting, but I don't really feel like dropping money on all the stuff I need to play them (new accelerator, external graphics card (if that's even possible on a 1200), CD drive, etc.). At that point you're getting into 'Amiga extremist' type stuff. All I want to do is play some good games and maybe DotC 2 (assuming there's a WHDLoad for that).

That should get you a very usable system for gaming. Most of the games won't take that much hardware to run and there is a large amount of really good stuff. The later games always looked interesting to me, but not so much so that I wanted to build a system to run it. By the time you build up a good 4000 to run them, you've spent what a modern PC would cost.

 

I'll check my packs to see if I have a DotC 2 setup. I know that the first one is there (ran a demo at a show with it).

 

BTW I've read that some people use a CF card or SD card instead of a hard drive on the Amiga. But then I've also read that those aren't meant to be hard drive replacements and burn out after a couple thousand write cycles. Is this true or is that old info (this was an article from around 01 or 02)?

There is (or was) some truth to CF cards having issues after a fairly small amount of write cycles. I know the newer cards are better, but it's still a finite number (I want to say 1,000,000 plus). The nice thing about Amiga OS is it doesn't really need to write to the drive for it's normal operations. In a WHDLoad centric environment, most of what it will be doing is reading data and not writing, so it becomes less of an issue. I know one guy that has been using a CF in his 1200 for several years now and has had no problems at all. My plan is to just buy a nice brand name card (Sandisk seems to be a good one) and try it out. They've gotten cheap enough now that I'm willing to risk it. If you have Microcenter in your area, they seem to be a good source (4gb for $13 the last time I bought one).

[Tempest]

Yep I have WHDLoad but it's the non-registered version. What does registering get you other than being able to bypass the start up screen?

I'm still using the free version myself. I think it's more of a donationware model with this one. There's no extra functionality given for paying that I'm aware of.

I'll probably register it anyway. WHDLoad is an AMAZING piece of software and I don't mind supporting the person who developed it.

 

I have a scanline doubler (one of those odd purchasaes I made back before I was even really into Amiga) so I'm currently using a 20" VGA monitor with the Amiga and it looks great. Oddly there appears to be some color bleed in Workbench, but not in any game I played.

Very nice! One thing to watch out for is the PAL/NTSC issue with some of the games. A lot of the WHDLoad packs and patches only support the PAL version. Hopefully your monitor and doubler can handle the 50hz signal. Not sure what would cause color bleed in Workbench. You may be able to switch screen modes and clear that up.

I believe it can (it's an NEC Multisync). I haven't noticed anything not working yet.

 

What kind of specs do I need to look for on the memory? I have tons of old PC memory sticks laying around, but I don't know if they're compatible.

It should be just a standard 72 pin SIMM, 70ns or faster, non edo. A lot of that will depend on your accelerator though, so you may want to grab the manual for it and check there. If you can't find one that works in your pile, let me know. I have a few extra that I can test here.

I think I have the manual, I'll have to see if the specs are in it. I think the sticks I have are EDO though, I wonder how I can tell? I was using them in my old Pentium 133.

 

 

I just ordered a new mouse, Kickstart 3.1 roms, and a PCMCIA to CF kit. Once those get here then I'll look into updating my memory and card. I found the updated BIOS for it and it sounds easy enough to do. It's the memory compatiblity that I'm worried about.

 

Tempest

[Tempest]

Bah I just checked and the memory appears to be EDO. How do you find Non-EDO memory these days?

 

Tempest

[98PaceCar]

Hmm, maybe I'm getting lucky and my bag-o-ram happens to have the right stuff in it. Could also be that my accelerator is just using the ram as it needs to and not getting any benefit from being EDO. I'll have to dig into that a bit. Have you tried any of the sticks you have yet? Maybe pull the Cobra and see what's in it now. That might help you figure out what you need.

 

I agree with you on WHDLoad. I need to register it myself, just to support the team behind it.

 

One thing I just thought of. On some accelerators, there can be a conflict when a pcmcia device is plugged in. Most of the time, it just prevents the extra ram from being used but I've also heard it can cause the system to not boot. It's easy enough to manage by temporarily pulling the accelerator while transferring data from pcmcia, but you might want to research that a bit before your kit shows up, just in case. Has something to do with how the memory is mapped.

[Tempest]

Hmm, maybe I'm getting lucky and my bag-o-ram happens to have the right stuff in it. Could also be that my accelerator is just using the ram as it needs to and not getting any benefit from being EDO. I'll have to dig into that a bit. Have you tried any of the sticks you have yet? Maybe pull the Cobra and see what's in it now. That might help you figure out what you need.

Yeah I'll just have to try the memory I have and see if it works. I didn't see anything on any of the Amiga board about having to use non-EDO RAM which makes me wonder.

 

Hopefully I wont have to pull the Cobra each time I want to use the pcmcia slot. It's a REALLY tight fit and it took me almost 20 minutes to get it back in the last time I took it out.

 

Tempest

[+remowilliams]

You can set up a TCP stack under 3.0. I believe Miami is still somewhat available and I think there is even a freebie stack on Aminet. I've used Miami before and it seemed to work pretty good. If you want to use a PCMCIA card, make sure it's a 16 bit and 5v card. There are a few websites around that talk about the specific requirements. From my experience, the one to have is the 3CCE589EC from 3Com.

I use the 3CCE589ET here and it works like a charm. Not sure what the C/T difference is. I also use Miami in conjunction with Amiga Explorer, it works amazingly well to very easily transfer data between XP and the 1200.

 

I'm still using the free version myself. I think it's more of a donationware model with this one. There's no extra functionality given for paying that I'm aware of.

Most WHDload slaves will not write to the disk or save game data if you are not registered...

 

Do you have WHDLoad running on your system yet? It's one of the single best things to ever happen to Amiga gaming!

It certainly is. That's why I built what I consider an ultimate classic Amiga gaming rig (GVP 1230 Turbo+ / Jaws (68030 @40Mhz w/FPU) / 20MB RAM / 4GB internal CF HDD / Indivision AGA / Catweasel MK2 / PCMCIA Ethernet)

 

And like you said, going beyond that really gets into the 'Amiga extremism' of running things that aren't classic gaming and can be done much better and wildly cheaper on any somewhat modern PC.

[98PaceCar]

Most WHDload slaves will not write to the disk or save game data if you are not registered...

 

You just solved a nagging problem for me! <runs off to register>

 

It certainly is. That's why I built what I consider an ultimate classic Amiga gaming rig (GVP 1230 Turbo+ / Jaws (68030 @40Mhz w/FPU) / 20MB RAM / 4GB internal CF HDD / Indivision AGA / Catweasel MK2 / PCMCIA Ethernet)

 

Nice setup! I have one of the GVP 1230s as well, but only 8 mb ram for it. I do have the SCSI addon though. Going to give my Blizzard 1240 a shot before I downgrade to the 030. Hoping it will be compatible enough, but I have the 030 to fall back on if I need it. I'm going to do the IDE to CF and plan on an Indivision as well. Does the Catweasel give you much benefit or do you just have it to have it?

[Tempest]

I stuck in the extra memory I had and it turns out it's 32MB and seems to be recognized by the Amiga (it played DotC 2 just fine for awhile).

 

Tempest

[98PaceCar]

It certainly is. That's why I built what I consider an ultimate classic Amiga gaming rig (GVP 1230 Turbo+ / Jaws (68030 @40Mhz w/FPU) / 20MB RAM / 4GB internal CF HDD / Indivision AGA / Catweasel MK2 / PCMCIA Ethernet)

 

Quick question about the Indivision... Did you have to remove the drive tray to use it? If so, how did you go about securing the IDE to CF adaptor?

 

I stuck in the extra memory I had and it turns out it's 32MB and seems to be recognized by the Amiga (it played DotC 2 just fine for awhile).

 

Tempest

 

Glad you found some memory. I think 32mb will serve you well! Did you get your WHDLoad key yet? I'm curious how long it takes and how it works.

[Tempest]

Glad you found some memory. I think 32mb will serve you well! Did you get your WHDLoad key yet? I'm curious how long it takes and how it works.

No I didn't. I paid by paypal on Friday and I haven't heard anything yet.

 

Tempest

[+remowilliams]

Quick question about the Indivision... Did you have to remove the drive tray to use it? If so, how did you go about securing the IDE to CF adaptor?

Yes, you would have to either remove or modify the drive tray so I chose to simply remove it. As for the new 'mount' I just ensured the back of the CF IDE adapter had no contact points and used a couple of zip ties to secure it in place.

 

The Indivision is fantastic by the way.

[Tempest]

Do any games really need more than 32mb or is adding more silly? 128mb chips aren't all that much, but unless there's really a point I'll probably just stick with what I have.

 

What is this Indivision you're talking about?

 

Tempest

[Ze_ro]

I'm a little bit late to the party here, but just thought I'd toss in my 2¢...

 

I have Miami on my hard drive (I saw the folder anyway). Are there instructions somewhere on how to use it?

Miami is pretty straight forward, using a GUI for everything. I think it even has on-line help if you get stuck. You will need to know certain things about your network to get started though (when in doubt, try telling it to use DHCP, and it might be able to get all that information for you).

 

Be aware that you will need a driver for the specific device you wish it to use. I use a X-Surf card in my 3000, so I got all this stuff on a CD with the product, but if you're using a PCMCIA card, you might have to search around for drivers in order to get it working. The driver is literally a file that will sit on the hard drive, and you just tell Miami which file to use. Also be aware that Miami is a shareware product, and you're supposed to register it. Since that's no longer possible, the Amiga community won't shun you for pirating it... all you need is a keyfile to upgrade it. If you need it, I think I have a copy sitting around somewhere (there used to be a website that collected Amiga keyfiles for programs that you could no longer register, but it seems to be gone now).

 

Also, 98PaceCar mentioned another TCP stack... I'm guessing that's AmiTCP. Stay away from that mess unless you REALLY know what you're doing! It's basically a port of an open source TCP stack (and related utilities) originally meant for Unix. If a command line scares you, then you'll NEVER get it working.

 

I might try OS 3.9 since it looks pretty spiffy, but will I run into any game issues if I use it?

Keep in mind that the vast, vast majority of games don't use Workbench at all, so they don't care what you're using... and the games that DO use Workbench will generally run smooth because Workbench will just handle all the differences on it's own without the program having to worry about such things. It's the Kickstart that causes all the incompatibilities.

 

You're using a 68030 accelerator, right? Frankly, I wouldn't recommend running OS 3.9 on that. 3.9 is meant for much more powerful Amigas, and will likely just clog things up with features you really won't need or use. Integrated TCP/IP and larger filesystem support are the only major features it adds in my opinion. I prefer to stick to 3.1.

 

Do any games really need more than 32mb or is adding more silly? 128mb chips aren't all that much, but unless there's really a point I'll probably just stick with what I have.

There are Amiga games that require larger amounts of RAM, but those are the same games that require PowerPC accelerators and CyberGrafX cards and stuff like that. For the kind of Amiga you have, I'd say any more than 8 MB will probably never get used. However, WHDLoad will take advantage of the extra memory to "pre-load" games (basically, sticks the whole disk image in RAM), and the Amiga can make excellent use of a RAM disk, so even if no single program needs RAM, it certainly doesn't hurt to have more. Thing is, the larger a stick you need, the more and more difficult it will be to find a non-EDO one.

 

Basically, stick with what you have. 32MB is practically a bottomless pit for a 68030 machine... remember that 80MB hard drives were common at the time.

 

Is a CD drive necessary for games? I used WHDLoad, but I know they made some games on CD.

Honestly, I wouldn't bother. If you had a machine equipped for SCSI, I'd say go for it, because it's easy at that point... but it's really not worth putting too much effort into. Using Compact Flash via the PCMCIA slot will do just fine for transferring files, so the only thing you'd really want a CD-ROM drive for would be the 3.9 upgrade (which I already recommended against), and CD32 games... but trust me, you're not missing out on much there. WHDLoad supports most CD32 games anyways (though they'll take up a good chunk of hard drive space), and all those games were released on floppy disk anyways (aside from maybe 3 or 4).

 

Also, if you have a CD-ROM drive, you have to screw around with drivers for it. I use a program called AmiCDFS.

 

Can you actually run Amiga 32CD games straight up on a 1200? I know the CD32 had some extra chip (Akiko or something like that), but I guess if the game didn't use it...

The Akiko was a multi-purpose chip... it controlled the CD-ROM drive, it had 1K of built-in NVRAM that was used to save game data, and it performed chunky to planar conversion in hardware. The NVRAM can be dealt with via software (I'm not sure how it does it, but AmiCDFS apparently manages to do it), but C2P cannot as far as I know. There are very few games that use this feature anyways, since the CD32 was the only machine with this chip. Basically, just play the floppy disk versions instead.

 

Is it possible to play CDTV games on the Amiga?

Yes, however, there are a good number that will have major compatibility problems if you try to run them on a 1200 (usually due to Kickstart, though sometimes due to things like having too much memory, or caches enabled or whatnot). Basically, the only worthwhile games on the CDTV were SimCity, Xenon II, and the Turrican games anyways. Though

is so hilariously awful that I'll have to get a copy.

 

What kind of joystick do I need for games? Is the Amiga joystick unique or will an Atari ST one work?

Most games only use one button, but there are a few that have special support for the CD32 controller, and you can find them for less than $30 in most cases. Having to hit the space bar with your foot because you don't have a second button is really lame.

 

I hope some of that was helpful. If you need more in-depth help, I'd recommend asking the folks over at English Amiga Board.

 

--Zero