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Amiga or Commodore? Where to begin...

SkyHighGam3r

By SkyHighGam3r
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SkyHighGam3r Newbie

SkyHighGam3r

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So I was toying with adding "The Amiga" to my system... only to find out that Amiga/Commodore is vastly more complicated than I had thought.

I was under the impression the Amiga was a single PC-style system. Yet there's the Commodore 64, Amiga 500, 4000, CD-32, etc etc...

I don't even know where to begin now.

Are these all separate systems with separate games?

Originally I envisioned having just one "Amiga" wheel, could this combine the 500, 1000, 4000 etc systems?
What about the CD-32?

It's all just very confusing and I don't know where to start. Thought this would be as straight-forward as, say, NES lol

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gouafhg Newbie

gouafhg

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For the simplest way I would just recommend setting it up with the help of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcnlNV7GjOQ

 

So Commodore was a company that produced computers, its a brand, say like Apple. Some products are (more or less) compatible, Say like, different iPads. Some are entirely different machines,.like a macbook and an iPad.

 

You should read up a bit about commodore, c64 and the amiga since I think they are a really important part of computing history.

 

Anyway. this is how it goes:

The Commodore 64 is its own system. Make a wheel for that; "Commodore 64".

 

The amiga computer series is supposed to be backwards compatible, and the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000 was the latest in the series to be released. When considering real hardware this is not entirely true, but on the behalf of a hyperspin wheel I would say make a wheel for the Amiga computer series: "Commodore Amiga". The emuator of choice is WinUAE configured for an Amiga 1200.

 

Then they released a video game console, the Amiga CD32. Just after they released it they went bankrupt, so there aren't really that many games for it. However, most of the games released for it were just ports of the amiga computer games. After all, the hardware in a CD32 and Amiga 1200 were pretty much the same. Some things are different though, as the CD32 has a special joypad with more buttons than the regular Amiga computer joysticks. So, make a wheel for the CD32; "Commodore Amiga CD32". The emulator of choice is WinUAE configured for an Amiga CD32.

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SkyHighGam3r Newbie

SkyHighGam3r

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Anyway. this is how it goes:

The Commodore 64 is its own system. Make a wheel for that; "Commodore 64".

 

The amiga computer series is supposed to be backwards compatible, and the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000 was the latest in the series to be released. When considering real hardware this is not entirely true, but on the behalf of a hyperspin wheel I would say make a wheel for the Amiga computer series: "Commodore Amiga". The emuator of choice is WinUAE configured for an Amiga 1200.

 

Then they released a video game console, the Amiga CD32. Just after they released it they went bankrupt, so there aren't really that many games for it. However, most of the games released for it were just ports of the amiga computer games. After all, the hardware in a CD32 and Amiga 1200 were pretty much the same. Some things are different though, as the CD32 has a special joypad with more buttons than the regular Amiga computer joysticks. So, make a wheel for the CD32; "Commodore Amiga CD32". The emulator of choice is WinUAE configured for an Amiga CD32.

Wow!

That so thoroughly answered my question, thank you! lol

Seriously that cleared up a lot of confusion. Wikipedia wasn't being very helpful either haha.

As far as the emulators go, you mentioned that WinUAE was the best.

I had recently read that RetroArch would emulate 'Amiga'. Do you know if it's core is comparable at all to WinUAE? Using those shaders is a big deal for me.

It's going to be even more important when I get my system hooked up to the 13" CRT TV. (Hopefully as soon as Thursday)

Seems like my next step once I get the skeleton wheels setup and the emulators running would be to find a list of exclusives. If I remember, most of the Amiga games were ported to it's console cousins.

Then again, I also remember hearing that the Amiga version was usually the superior one.... Hmmm...

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gouafhg Newbie

gouafhg

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I'm kinda new to this actually, just that I've been around, working with, amiga computers for the last 25 years :P Therefore I don't really know how good retroarch's amiga core is. What I do know is that WinUAE is pretty much the perfect emulator when it comes to amiga. Only thing it's a bit too perfect sometimes :P Like the memory is actually zero at boot as with a real computer it'd be random bits in there.

 

WinUAE also has a filter section that runs shaders. I'd say try set it up and get it running. I ended up scaling the screen with a null filter and adding a scanline overlay. But I'm running a LCD-screen. How come you need shaders when running a CRT-screen?

 

Also, I have to say good luck :) I'm not sure when I'll be able to write more here. Might be tomorrow or it might be in a while. But I'll check in sometime for sure!

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badboo Newbie

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This system was a pain in the ass for me. I had this system on my hyperspin wheel set to be ready to configure for several months and until recently I kind of found out how to do it. 

 

Follow the link above as posted and hopefully it doesn't take that long for you to do it.

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SkyHighGam3r Newbie

SkyHighGam3r

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Well my computer's GPU fan started making a horrible noise, so I am taking it to get repaired after work today. So It may be a day or two before I can really continue work on it.

I'm going to work on it this week when I have some time. I appreciate all the links and resources guys. I was able to throw together some themes for these systems with that knowledge. I'll get the boxes/videos off Emumovies, and I already grabbed (what I think is a full) romset as well for the Amiga.

I don't normally go this route, but given the sheer amount of games that are on the Amiga (Isn't there like 2,500~??), and their small size, I think I am going to try to match the media to the romset and database. Usually I'd take the time to hand-sort each one.... but that would take so much time and I'm burned out after doing that to everything from NES to Wii.

Is it don's hypertools or something that allow me to do this?

In addition, going this route means I will probably have superfluous data like (USA)(v1.1)(!) etc etc, is there a way to make that not display in Hyperspin without editing the entire XML?

I'll probably be doing this for:

Commodore 64

Commodore Amiga
Commodore Amiga CD-32
Atari 2600/5200/7800
Atari Lynx
Atari Jaguar (+CD)
Nintendo Virtual Boy

I also created a Microsoft Xbox wheel... There's no videos, and obviously the games don't work... but one can dream.

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SkyHighGam3r Newbie

SkyHighGam3r

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While I do not have the "official" amiga database on my FTP, its a lot better and you get everything you need. Did you check my signature? =)

I took a look at it but was a little lost to be honest. lol

I'm ok with not having official. I just want all the games that aren't shovelware haha.

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badboo Newbie

badboo

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Well my computer's GPU fan started making a horrible noise, so I am taking it to get repaired after work today. So It may be a day or two before I can really continue work on it.

I'm going to work on it this week when I have some time. I appreciate all the links and resources guys. I was able to throw together some themes for these systems with that knowledge. I'll get the boxes/videos off Emumovies, and I already grabbed (what I think is a full) romset as well for the Amiga.

I don't normally go this route, but given the sheer amount of games that are on the Amiga (Isn't there like 2,500~??), and their small size, I think I am going to try to match the media to the romset and database. Usually I'd take the time to hand-sort each one.... but that would take so much time and I'm burned out after doing that to everything from NES to Wii.

Is it don's hypertools or something that allow me to do this?

In addition, going this route means I will probably have superfluous data like (USA)(v1.1)(!) etc etc, is there a way to make that not display in Hyperspin without editing the entire XML?

I'll probably be doing this for:

Commodore 64

Commodore Amiga

Commodore Amiga CD-32

Atari 2600/5200/7800

Atari Lynx

Atari Jaguar (+CD)

Nintendo Virtual Boy

I also created a Microsoft Xbox wheel... There's no videos, and obviously the games don't work... but one can dream.

Good luck with that, what I did was to only keep the amiga roms matching the media, because there is (like you said) thousands of roms. So I won't have a lot of names without art on my wheel.

 

Anyway, for the xbox media, you can find the videos and art on youtube, look for robustter downloads, and you will find the art there and for another systems too. I have the xbox wheel with full art ready and dreaming too.

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SkyHighGam3r Newbie

SkyHighGam3r

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Good luck with that, what I did was to only keep the amiga roms matching the media, because there is (like you said) thousands of roms. So I won't have a lot of names without art on my wheel.

 

Anyway, for the xbox media, you can find the videos and art on youtube, look for robustter downloads, and you will find the art there and for another systems too. I have the xbox wheel with full art ready and dreaming too.

So, are you saying the media is sub-par compared to the romsets?

I might have to figure out another solution if that's the case... I really don't want to spend 100s of hours on this, but I also don't want to miss things. (some of the 'full'sets I saw didn't even have ghostbusters 2, let alone who knows what else...)

As far as the Xbox Media, I got the boxes off of EmuMovies, but all they had was the trailers as far as videos go. :(

The CD-32 I am just going to go with exclusives and delete the rest I think... or that and keep any Amiga games ported to it.

No clue what I am gonna do with Commodore 64...

Lynx, fullset, probably skim through to delete trash

Jaguar, same thing... the CD attachment I have no idea.

Virtual boy I'll do a light scan to delete trash, but I'm excited that we can play this is Stereoscopic 3D now.

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badboo Newbie

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So, are you saying the media is sub-par compared to the romsets?

I might have to figure out another solution if that's the case... I really don't want to spend 100s of hours on this, but I also don't want to miss things. (some of the 'full'sets I saw didn't even have ghostbusters 2, let alone who knows what else...)

As far as the Xbox Media, I got the boxes off of EmuMovies, but all they had was the trailers as far as videos go. :(

The CD-32 I am just going to go with exclusives and delete the rest I think... or that and keep any Amiga games ported to it.

No clue what I am gonna do with Commodore 64...

Lynx, fullset, probably skim through to delete trash

Jaguar, same thing... the CD attachment I have no idea.

Virtual boy I'll do a light scan to delete trash, but I'm excited that we can play this is Stereoscopic 3D now.

 

Maybe I will need to have another look at it, but do what I remember is that the media I got (or whatever is to be found out there) is for around 300-400 roms, compare to 2000-3000 roms from the database. I am giving rough numbers but what I mean is the ratio form existing media to existing roms is pretty low.  For this reason I meant that I didn;t want to have thousands of roms on my wheel without wheels and art (it looks ugly for me). So I focused only on the existing media.

 

Yes, that is the point, trying to spend the least time to configure a system. This amiga system took me quite a while to nail it, and still I think I need to polish it a bit more.

 

For the xbox media, have a look at the resource I gave you form YT, they don't have trailers on the videos, instead they are normal clips from in game. Actually they have everything there and it is really good. So better go get it before they remove the link.

 

I have the CD-32 too, another nightmare system LOL, I got all the media but the emulator was a bit anoying for me, maybe not as complicated as winuae, but still a pain in the a$$. Still need to work on it.

 

For the rest, I don't remember ho I have them working, I will have to check later.

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wesfranks Newbie

wesfranks

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As I hinted above, Killer Gorilla matches the official XML, media. XML presumably wipes out demos, non-playable, etc. And has Ghostbusters 2.

 

For tutorial, as above- http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/topic/2702-complete-guide-for-commodore-amiga-in-hs-and-RL-using-winuae-only/?hl=%2Bcomplete+%2Bguide+%2Bcommodore+%2Bamiga+%2Busing+%2Bwinuae+%2Bonly and also look for his Amiga CD32 tutorial.

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Turranius Newbie

Turranius

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Congratulations ! I'm a little cranky cause I am sick =)

 

In all honesty though, WHDLoad games are updated quite frequently and my sets try to keep up with that with new "rom packs". Its not really "roms" since you can just as well run them on a real Amiga, but I do two separate packs. One for the amiga community and one for Hyperspin.

 

If anyone is interested in the "other" pack for real Amigas / emulators, you can check here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=68704

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SkyHighGam3r Newbie

SkyHighGam3r

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Congratulations ! I'm a little cranky cause I am sick =)

 

In all honesty though, WHDLoad games are updated quite frequently and my sets try to keep up with that with new "rom packs". Its not really "roms" since you can just as well run them on a real Amiga, but I do two separate packs. One for the amiga community and one for Hyperspin.

 

If anyone is interested in the "other" pack for real Amigas / emulators, you can check here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=68704

So I don't know if I am just an imbecile, or if FTPs are really complicated, or Amiga roms are really that differant... but I have no idea what I am looking at with this stuff lol.

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SkyHighGam3r Newbie

SkyHighGam3r

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Good luck with that, what I did was to only keep the amiga roms matching the media, because there is (like you said) thousands of roms. So I won't have a lot of names without art on my wheel.

 

Anyway, for the xbox media, you can find the videos and art on youtube, look for robustter downloads, and you will find the art there and for another systems too. I have the xbox wheel with full art ready and dreaming too.

I don't know if I am looking in the wrong place but I don't see XBOX stuff at all just Xbox 360.

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