Amiga 500 games?

[grandcross]

Is there a list for games specifically for the Amiga 500? There's a lot of games which seem to require the Amiga 1000 or something better.

 

Also I'm still a newbie at vintage computing, so if I wanted an Amiga, which model should I get?

[Warriorisabouttodie]

Is there a list for games specifically for the Amiga 500? There's a lot of games which seem to require the Amiga 1000 or something better.

 

Also I'm still a newbie at vintage computing, so if I wanted an Amiga, which model should I get?

 

 

The only thing you need to know is how much memory a game requires. Every game that requires only 512k will work with the A500, if you have 1mb (a 512k expansion installed in the trapdoor on the bottom of your machine) you can run nearly every ECS game. A500, A1000 and A2000 are all pretty much the same thing game wise. The only games that won't work if you have 1mb of memory are those that require AGA which came at the end of the Amiga's life cycle and is only featured on the A1200/A4000.

 

Your best bet for games is the A500 with 1mb of memory. If you have the extra money you might want to shoot for a 1200.

Edited March 11, 2009 by Warriorisabouttodie

[Mirage]

I second the 500 with 1mb. It will run the majority of the Classic-era games, and it's easier to find and easier to use than a stock 1000. I have both, and pull out the 500 when I want to use one. There were a couple really nice ones for sale here this week... check the Marketplace section.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Actually, the Amiga 1000 was the first model. The Amiga 500 was its successor, so the Amiga 1000 is not "better" in any hardware-wise way other than it's a "desktop" with detached keyboard, instead of the integrated keyboard-disk-drive computer, and some minor differences: The Amiga 1000 (at least the first models) requires the "Kickstart" disk which loads the main OS, which already is in ROM on the Amiga 500 and thus doesn't have to be loaded anymore (this is because Kickstart still received revisions during the A1000's short lifetime). Also, the A500 has 512K standard (1 MB with the standard expansion, and expandable to up to 8,5 MB to my knowledge) while the A1000 only has 256K standard (expandable to 512K with the standard expansion).

 

Now some tricky games (don't know if there are any, though) might take advantage of the A1000's Kickstart memory, which is replaced by ROM on the A500, by loading directly instead of the Kickstart disk. Such games of course will have problems with the A500, but I doubt there are many of them. Also, there are some games which run on a standard A500 with 512K memory, but NOT on an expanded one (not even with the standard 1M one). I think "Garrison" (a Gauntlet clone) was one of them, and some Defender clone (forgot its name right now). On the other hand, some games won't run correctly on an unexpanded A500, for instance "Marble Madness" lacks sound on some levels in that case. And some later games and apps (such as the "Theme Park" demo and "PageStream") even have problems with 1 MB installed and really only run smoothly with more memory. Then there are some apps (Aegis Animator comes to mind here, Amigabasic may be like that too) which refuse to reserve more memory than a standard amount for their data, even if more memory is available.

[grandcross]

Thanks for all the info guys.

 

Yeah, I saw the Amiga threads on the Marketplace but I'm already in the middle of ordering an A500. I'll be getting an A500+Kickstart+mouse+RF adapter+power supply+1mb upgrade. That's all I'll need then, right?

 

Lastly, is there a place I can buy Amiga software?

[Mirage]

You should be set. A monitor would be nice, but isn't necessary especially if you're using it just for games.

 

I don't have time to detail it now (leaving for work), but as for software, really your best and cheapest option would be to look into connecting your Amiga to your PC to use software off your PC's drive. Look up the Amiga Forever project's Amiga Explorer (http://www.amigaforever.com/ae/) for one software solution. It's a lot easier and cheaper than hooking up most retro-computers to your PC. While you're there, look at the Amiga Forever emulator... it's a nice package for the emulator (no, I have no association with them, just a happy user).

 

(Note that not everything will work via this cable/connection, but a lot of software will work fine that way). Quite a bit of Amiga software used the old "look up the code in a book" as protection, so you'll either have to find cracked version, a copy of the book online, or a list of codes etc... that's the biggest problem with running many Amiga/ST games without the original package, but the info is usually available somewhere if you look.

 

There are a few places to buy Amiga software off the web in box, but one of them (Centsible) is unreliable at best -- I'd avoid them like the plague.

Edited March 11, 2009 by Mirage1972

[nonner242]

I coulda swore that there was "some" advantage the 1000 had over the 500? Was it an extra port? Or video flicker was not as bad...I keep thinking it had something to do with running PAL on a NTSC 1000 had no scrolling? I know my 1000 with 6meg and HDD runs every program I own. While my 500 2meg run 95% of them. I do know my 1000 looks alot clearer connected to a TV new or old than the 500 does. Amigas are sweet, loads of awesome games...I just need to get some cool sd reader or something similar for mine so I can do huge animations again since my 4000 is gone now.

[Warriorisabouttodie]

I coulda swore that there was "some" advantage the 1000 had over the 500? Was it an extra port? Or video flicker was not as bad...I keep thinking it had something to do with running PAL on a NTSC 1000 had no scrolling? I know my 1000 with 6meg and HDD runs every program I own. While my 500 2meg run 95% of them. I do know my 1000 looks alot clearer connected to a TV new or old than the 500 does. Amigas are sweet, loads of awesome games...I just need to get some cool sd reader or something similar for mine so I can do huge animations again since my 4000 is gone now.

 

 

One advantage the 1000 had over the 500/2000 was better RGB output. You could get a RGB booster for the 500/2000 that would compensate but the stock 1000 looked better out of the box.

[nonner242]

It is pretty sharp!

[icbrkr]

http://eager.back2roots.org/

 

List of every Amiga game and what system it runs on. That should help you out

[nonner242]

http://eager.back2roots.org/

 

List of every Amiga game and what system it runs on. That should help you out

 

Its dead!

[the maddestman]

http://eager.back2roots.org/

 

List of every Amiga game and what system it runs on. That should help you out

http://www.back2roots.org/ works much better

 

I'd say get an A500 with a 1Mb RAM upgrade, with kickstart 1.3. That will run most older games. If you want to run virtually everything, you'd also want to get an A1200 with a 68030 + 4Mb RAM expansion, as well as a reasonable size hard drive (say 2Gb, which would be plenty), and then you'd be able to play 99% of the games available for the Amiga series, with the exceptions of games that require a gfx card and/or more CPU grunt (68040/060 or PPC)

[Trooper]

I'd say get an Amiga 600 or Amiga 1200, then you get the PCMCIA port which makes it reeeeally easy to move stuff from the PC to the Amiga. But of course the downside is that compatibility isn't 100%

[Ze_ro]

If you really want the best compatibility, get an Amiga 1200 with a nice big hard drive, and install WHDLoad. Basically, it patches disk-based games to be hard drive installable, and fixes most of the compatibility problems at the same time.

 

You'll probably want 8MB of RAM or so in order to run WHDLoad nicely (the base 2MB of the 1200 is going to be very limiting), so you'd also need an accelerator card... though these are relatively affordable compared to other Amiga hardware.

 

--Zero