Best ST model for gaming?

[Lynxpro]

Although they can be alittle pricey by comparison, I'd recommend a 1040STe. The difference in both sound and graphics performance are noticeable, and a few of the games that require the STe are absolute gems. Obsession pinball is probably my favorite, but Dynabuster and Asteroidia are both pretty awesome, too. The ability to easily upgrade to 4MB of RAM by just popping in 4 SIMMs is pretty cool. And, if you upgrade to TOS 2.06, you can also upgrade your floppy drive to 1.44MB. All in all, it's my favorite 16/32 bit Atari; even over my Mega 4 STe, Falcon, and TT.

On YouTube, TheShadowNose even rated Obsession better on the STe than the Amiga, and that guy never prefers ST stuff, or A8 stuff [compared to the C64].

[Lynxpro]

One thing we're forgetting here when it comes to favoring the STe [or Mega STe, TT, Falcon] over the ST/f/fm models is the Enhanced Controller Port(s) [ECP] option. You can then use Jaguar [or the gray ones Atari marketed in Europe specifically for the STe] controllers and you could actually do 4 or 8 players with the Jaguar Team Taps.

 

Of course the questions then to ask would be a) how many games written for the STe - not the Falcon - recognize/require/support ECP and b) do any of those games support more than 2 players using ECP [and not say supporting the DB9s or the Michtron Parallel Port-to-2-DB9s adapters in addition to the ECPs].

[+remowilliams]

Giving you a choice to play a small amount of games with the shitty jagpad is not a plus.

[tjlazer]

STE's are harder to find here in the US. If you can find one, get one, but be prepared to pay a few hundred. Otherwise a 1040STf will do nicely. 99% of all games run on a 512k ST anyways! Heck, you could get away with a 520ST with SF354 drive as the large majority of COMMERCIAL games came on SSDD 360k disks!!!! (Thanks to Atari cheaping out an initially releasing the ST with a 360k drive, that set the disk standard pretty much it's whole life)

Edited July 11, 2014 by tjlazer

[+DarkLord]

Guess it's a matter of opinion but I personally like the Jagpad.

[Lynxpro]

Giving you a choice to play a small amount of games with the shitty jagpad is not a plus.

 

The JagPad isn't shitty.

 

 

And I 100% agree that Atari should've never released the damn SF354…or cancelled it by late 1986. It was bad enough having to listen to Amiga and Apple //gs owners crow about how their 3.5" discs held 880k/800k to 720k on our SF314s [not counting non-standard hacked file formats that weren't embraced by Atari or the third party publishers, of course].

Edited July 11, 2014 by Lynxpro

[+wood_jl]

It seems that a lot of the "cracked' commercial game images you're going to download from the Internet are 720K images, even when the original commercial disk was a 360K disk. So when you use your old PC to write the downloaded game back to an actual disk, it's 720K. I don't know if that's how it always is, but I've run into that a few times.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

It seems that a lot of the "cracked' commercial game images you're going to download from the Internet are 720K images, even when the original commercial disk was a 360K disk. So when you use your old PC to write the downloaded game back to an actual disk, it's 720K. I don't know if that's how it always is, but I've run into that a few times.

Yes, I noticed that too. But cracks were mostly on menu disks of 800KB, because that was most popular format. Then some people extracted separated games from menu disks, and they did not care about single sided floppy users, and did not care about some other things too. Microsoft did not care about Atari users, so you can not write most of Atari floppies under Windows without special SW, and it stays for SS, 400K floppies too.

 

Btw. it is not correct that you need TOS 2.06 for HD (1440K) floppies. What you need is little piece of HW, what will give 16MHz to FDC chip. But I think that much better is to get HxC floppy emulator or mass storage.

[UKRetrogamer]

Yes, I noticed that too. But cracks were mostly on menu disks of 800KB, because that was most popular format. Then some people extracted separated games from menu disks, and they did not care about single sided floppy users, and did not care about some other things too. Microsoft did not care about Atari users, so you can not write most of Atari floppies under Windows without special SW, and it stays for SS, 400K floppies too.

This was a problem I hit with my original 520STFM back in the day.

 

Mine was an early model with 360K floppy drive. I couldn't find a direct 720K replacement at the time, so a local hacker made a modification with a switch to allow me to boot from my external 720K floppy-drive.

 

IIRC, the modification was done by wiring the switch to pins on the sound chip but I might be wrong - this was a long time ago.

[galax]

Yes, that was quite a popular mod- it's easy to find info on it. You're right about the sound chip. I know people who did it just because the external drive was more accessible.

 

I never saw a single sided drive in the UK, I think by the time the ST was cheap enough to be on my radar double sided was standard.

 

Many people forgot about single sided users by the early '90s, at some point didn't magazine cover disks abandon those special formats that allowed single sided users to access some of the software?

[+DarkLord]

Btw. it is not correct that you need TOS 2.06 for HD (1440K) floppies. What you need is little piece of HW, what will give 16MHz to FDC chip. But I think that much better is to get HxC floppy emulator or mass storage.

 

You're right. I've got the 1.44 mod in my STacy, and when I switch back and forth between TOS v1.04 and TOS v3.06, I don't lose the upgrade. I do have to run a small AUTO folder

program under TOS v3.06 to enable the high density option under the drop down menu, and under TOS v1.04 I have to run other software for formatting etc,. Even without that

software though, it shows the correct size and reads the 1.44 floppies under TOS v1.04 just fine.

[Serious]

I didn't notice any opinions on whether I should get a PAL or NTSC model.. or if it matters?

 

I'm in the U.S., but I have a video setup that can deal with PAL. I know that for Amiga and C64, PAL is the way to go.. I'm wondering if it is the same for the ST?

 

Thanks!

[Charlie_]

I didn't notice any opinions on whether I should get a PAL or NTSC model.. or if it matters?

 

I'm in the U.S., but I have a video setup that can deal with PAL. I know that for Amiga and C64, PAL is the way to go.. I'm wondering if it is the same for the ST?

 

Thanks!

Doesn't matter. The ST switches 50hz and 60hz with no troubles. The only trouble a USA model might give you is with some demos, but so far most everything has run for me.

Same with games. If anything you may need to run a little app that put the ST in 50Hz mode before running the game or demo, but that is rare too.

What is important is that your RGB monitor be able to display 50 and 60Hz because games and demos will switch the machine to 50Hz a lot.

[+wood_jl]

Doesn't matter. The ST switches 50hz and 60hz with no troubles. The only trouble a USA model might give you is with some demos, but so far most everything has run for me.

Same with games. If anything you may need to run a little app that put the ST in 50Hz mode before running the game or demo, but that is rare too.

What is important is that your RGB monitor be able to display 50 and 60Hz because games and demos will switch the machine to 50Hz a lot.

My SC1224 (JVC model) displays PAL a little bit off-center, but not much. It's just enough to notice, but it's is NOT enough to be disturbing. I love the fact that the ST and a stock monitor can run any software!!!

[galax]

All STs can be switched between 50 and 60Hz in software. European ROMs start in 50Hz, US Roms start in 60Hz. If you get a model with a modulator, it will have composite out on the monitor port (can make/buy a cable), which should look much better than the TV output. I use composite out with a $5 garage sale 19" LCD TV for games which looks OK, and a multisync LCD for high res (annoyingly I can't find a multisync LCD TV...).

[English Invader]

I love my ST hardware (proud owner of a 520 STfm (1.02, 2.5 MB) and a 520 STe (2.06, 4MB)), but I'm going to speak a little about the virtues of ST emulation.

 

ST emulation is so advanced these days and so well supported by the Automation and PP catalogues that there is no sensible reason to branch out to the real hardware; especially if you live somewhere like the US where the ST didn't do so well.

 

For a decent ST set-up that will play most games, you will probably pay in excess of £100 (even if you upgrade the hardware yourself) and then if you want a full game library you'll need either a floppy emulator or an UltraSatan which takes you up to £200.

 

For me, the ST is a must have because it's the machine I grew up with and once the real hardware is in you it never goes away, but there are some people out there who have a choice and there are plenty of other retro options that are a lot easier on the wallet.

[NightSprinter]

tjlazer, I was lucky to have came across what I did in 2008 (though it has mostly sold off since then). Gotta love Craigslist sometimes.. >.>

 

I still think that for anyone wanting to get into sprite art for games (or in general) the ST is great because one can become creative with the sixteen colors (not counting the special modes for Spectrum or NEOChrome) before moving up to more modern stuff like Grafx2 or Pro Motion.

[galax]

"there is no sensible reason to branch out to the real hardware"

There's no sensible reason for just about everything that happens on this website

[IainGrimm]

I got the 520STe last Christmas, boxed complete with manuals and the software starter pack and a few extra games for £60, upgraded the ram which took all of 10 minutes to do, ram was only around £15 delivered. Then bought a D type scart cable from Retro Gaming Cables and the UltraSatan from Lotharek and PP's driver so it was around the £200 mark for the full setup.

 

Little pricey overall but well worth it, still cheaper than going for an Amiga 600 / 1200 then ram expansion, accelerator board and the internal hard drive setup for WHDLoad. Reason I haven't upgraded my 600 is due to the price of the kit needed to bring it up to same standard as the STe.

 

I would say go with a 520STe then gradually add to it till you have the full setup, most expensive item is the UltraSatan, you also have to buy the lead for it to connect to the ST.

[English Invader]

Little pricey overall but well worth it, still cheaper than going for an Amiga 600 / 1200 then ram expansion, accelerator board and the internal hard drive setup for WHDLoad. Reason I haven't upgraded my 600 is due to the price of the kit needed to bring it up to same standard as the STe.

 

That was one of the main things that put me off upgrading my A600, but in truth I just love the authentic disk experience on the Amiga; somehow it just seems that bit more polished than on the ST and emulation/hacked games just don't do it for me as far as the Amiga is concerned.

 

The ST is my tinker machine. I love running games via UltraSatan or using the Blitz Copier to make back-ups of copy-protected disks; the ST is a lot more PC friendly than the Amiga so it's a lot more suited to that kind of endeavour.

[IainGrimm]

Yeah, you actually have the desktop built into the ST machines also (granted the first models had to be booted from a disc) which makes it ideal for things like the UltraSatan.

 

The Amiga does suit running from discs much better, put a disc in and away you go, Workbench is handy and required for some items like the old Lucas games and some applications require a Workbench area to be able to load (EasyADF you boot from the floppy and then it gets files from the Workbench disc to operate properly, great thing to have on 600 or 1200 as it allows the emulator adf files to be transferred back to discs).

 

Overall though I am the same, I will use discs (and tapes on my 8 bits) where possible. With my Acorn Archimedes A3010 you can put a hard drive in it but its a right mess around so everything I have on that is on disc and I won't be even attempting to put a hard drive in it. Thing with the Arc also is that maximum size it supports when it comes to a hard drive is 160Mb, doesn't allow multiple partitions either unlike the ST.