Amiga CD32!

Started by Alberto 2K, October 26, 2012, 12:01:34 PM

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AmigaJay

Here's a quote from a mag who saw footage of the CD32 version of Magic Carpet, there was a prototype of a A1200 version minus the texture mapping, hence the reason for a CD32 only version which uses the Akiko chip.

It does make you wonder if Bullfrog did pull off some amazing feat to get it running on the CD32, sadly until footage or a build ever gets released we shall never know. After Commodore went bankrupt in 94 Bullfrog stopped all Amiga development straight away (Mindscape published the CD32 ports of Theme Park and Syndicate in early 95) so the game was never complete enough to release.

"MAGIC CARPET - Bullfrog

From what we have seen, this is going to be one of the most visually stunning of the first batch of releases for the CD32. This is a shoot-em-up seeing the hero flying on the back of a magic carpet blasting the hell out of everything in his path, a-la Space Harrier. What makes Magic Carpet stand out is the spectacular fractal-based texture-mapped landscapes giving the graphics a stunningly realistic quality.

What makes Magic Carpet different from most of the other CD32 titles is that this game will NOT be released on any non-CD Amiga as it relies heavily on the new Akiko chip for converting PC-style graphics to the Amiga. A few very impressive stills from the game in action can be found on the CD give you a taster of what the action should be like."
Old School Gamer Since 1982 - Creator of various gaming websites and blogs 1998-2018

Rogue Trooper

Quote from: "AmigaJay"Here's a quote from a mag who saw footage of the CD32 version of Magic Carpet, there was a prototype of a A1200 version minus the texture mapping, hence the reason for a CD32 only version which uses the Akiko chip.

It does make you wonder if Bullfrog did pull off some amazing feat to get it running on the CD32, sadly until footage or a build ever gets released we shall never know. After Commodore went bankrupt in 94 Bullfrog stopped all Amiga development straight away (Mindscape published the CD32 ports of Theme Park and Syndicate in early 95) so the game was never complete enough to release.

"MAGIC CARPET - Bullfrog

From what we have seen, this is going to be one of the most visually stunning of the first batch of releases for the CD32. This is a shoot-em-up seeing the hero flying on the back of a magic carpet blasting the hell out of everything in his path, a-la Space Harrier. What makes Magic Carpet stand out is the spectacular fractal-based texture-mapped landscapes giving the graphics a stunningly realistic quality.

What makes Magic Carpet different from most of the other CD32 titles is that this game will NOT be released on any non-CD Amiga as it relies heavily on the new Akiko chip for converting PC-style graphics to the Amiga. A few very impressive stills from the game in action can be found on the CD give you a taster of what the action should be like."

Talking of Bullfrog, was'nt there talk of an enhanced, AGA version of Syndicate for the A1200 (running in higher res, more colours etc) which was then canned as it ran too slow (mind you not sure if they did the MCD version of Powermonger, but despite MCD having a faster CPU than the MD, game ran slower than the cart version), this was going to resurface on CD32 and use the Akiko chip?.

Had a brief browse over a few non-released CD32 games:

Lost Eden

Mega Race-MCD got, but looked grainy due to limite colours (plus game not much cop)
Pitfall:Mayan Adventure (guess would have been like Jaguar version, std version just running in 256 colours etc)

Prince Of Persia:S.E (hopefully better than MCD version, which was over-shadowed later by far superior cartridge version)


Agression AGA specific ver. and CD32 Specific version

Dracula CD32 (lucky escape if MCD version is anything to go by)

Inferno CD32 (saw very mixed reviews on PC)

King Of Thieves AGA/CD32 specific versions

TFX AGA.


Got good few Amiga mag scans on HDD/DVD, inc CD32 gamer, will have a browse.

Rogue Trooper

Found a few scans of interest, inc interviews with the CD32 designer/V.P of Engineering at the time at CBM, Lew Eggebrecht.

He talked of: Expecting 3rd parties to to add V.R applications and headsets to the CD32, said the greatest challenge of developing the CD32, was acieving cost targets, he saw CD32 as a replacement for the CDTV and it's main competition came from Nintendo+Sega, the MCD being seen as THE device it had to beat (with the AA Chipset+32 Bit CPU giving CD32 between 3-5 times the performance of the MCD).

He also talks of the decision to limit number of early developers for CD32 to 'those who'd ommit resources and had been a long time faithful Amiga developer' (Mike explain why Mike Singleton said whilst he'd love to develop for CD32, he had yet to see 1).

Archer Maclean said the hardware had the potential to do some stunning stuff and he'd def.be looking at working with it (**did he ever auctually start any CD32 specific games though?).


1 of the coders behind Microcosm said, in terms of downsides of CD32' ..you have to keep things Exec.legal, which slows things down a bit.Most games throw the Amiga O/S out the window and generate their own, but we have to stick with this'.

Else here i see:

CD32 Gamer giving Rise Of The Robots 90% at review, Microprose just porting over Xcom, not optimising code, so game crawls along, poor scrolling etc, D.I.D talking of A1200 Inferno being on 9 Floppies, but CD version coming, C.U Amiga talking of AGA TFX in terms of:

Speedy, light sourced, texture mapped F-15's, rolling countrysides+fractual clouds.

So does seem expectations on CD32/A1200 to deliver PC-like gaming experiences was high.

AmigaJay

Yeah a 256 colour high res port of Syndicate for the CD32 was promised too, turned out 2mb ram wasn't enough (needed 4mb)
So I think a lot of hype and developers giving false hope even before the CD32 came out of what it could and couldn't do.

Oh did more digging on Magic Carpet, read game was roughly 30% complete on CD32 running through Akiko chip with texture mapping at only 8fps when development stopped, so far from being playable, but at least proved being possible, who knows if they could have got that speed up enough is something we don't know, but it goes with the other story's that the Akiko chip was good but needed a faster CPU (030 25-40mhz) to get decent speed texture mapped games.
There is a prototype 030 card for the CD32 that would have gone in the back, but never saw the light of day when Commodore went bust.
Old School Gamer Since 1982 - Creator of various gaming websites and blogs 1998-2018

Rogue Trooper

Quote from: "AmigaJay"Yeah a 256 colour high res port of Syndicate for the CD32 was promised too, turned out 2mb ram wasn't enough (needed 4mb)
So I think a lot of hype and developers giving false hope even before the CD32 came out of what it could and couldn't do.

Oh did more digging on Magic Carpet, read game was roughly 30% complete on CD32 running through Akiko chip with texture mapping at only 8fps when development stopped, so far from being playable, but at least proved being possible, who knows if they could have got that speed up enough is something we don't know, but it goes with the other story's that the Akiko chip was good but needed a faster CPU (030 25-40mhz) to get decent speed texture mapped games.
There is a prototype 030 card for the CD32 that would have gone in the back, but never saw the light of day when Commodore went bust.

Interesting to hear of CD32 Magic Carpet, game originally written for Pentium, PC's i believe.

Dunno IF you saw it on early pages of the Saturn thread on here, but (just to recap), despite being easier to code for (less custom hardware effects) than the Playstation and thus 'easier' to convert PC code to, inital coding of Saturn Magic Carpet had a frame rate of 3 FPS, they then looked at how Saturn hardware 'worked' and recoded game for it's specifics, ensuring game was'nt as CPU intensive as it was and engine was'nt drawing stuff you never saw on-screen and they had frame rate of between 12-20 FPS, depending how chaotic screen was.


Sounds like they took a similar approach with CD32, code for hardware strength's (which is way it should be), but your talking time and resources.Wonder if that 8 fps was best engine was achieving at that point? i.e it would have slowed to a crawl on later, more chaotic levels and thus work abandoned?.

Magic Carpet was also rumoured to be coming to 3DO and Jaguar CD or so some places claim, also any early EDGE readers might recal seeing an early/beta version of the game being in 3rd person, so it looked like a Space Harrier type affair.

Rogue Trooper

In same C+VG (Dec'94) issue i found the stuff for Laird (Jaguar review thread) i see:

Embryo A1200, 82% CD32 version planned.

Novastorm PC CD 87% MCD+CD32 versions planned.

Megarace 3DO 72% (PC CD 91%, MCD 75%) but no mention of a CD32 version planned.

Football glory Amiga 88% CD32 ver.planned

Magic Carpet PC 96% No other versions planned.

Dreamweb A1200 86% CD32 version planned.
Which would have cast of professional luvvies and voice-over men reading the script.

Also talking of magazines/CD32, there was 'talk' of Rebel Assault coming to CD32 as well as MCD (probably handled it far better, MCD colour pal.really not suited to this game), also that Biosphere started out on CD32, but then switched to PC and was re-named Genewars.

Also some German mag was claiming CBM were trying to secure Day Of The Tentacle on CD32.

Few more C+VG related things, different issue:

Bubble+Squeak, 84% they say was developed soley for CD32, yet reading review,only benifit appears to be 256 colours.

Gunship 2000, 91% 256 colours, faster, smoother update.

Striker-NO improvements on CD32, no even CD music, 75%

AmigaJay

Yeah I remember well all the CD32 versions planned,so many cancelled games must be one of the highest for a console!
Will try and find a list somewhere.
Old School Gamer Since 1982 - Creator of various gaming websites and blogs 1998-2018

TL

Quote from: "AmigaJay"Yeah I remember well all the CD32 versions planned,so many cancelled games must be one of the highest for a console!
Will try and find a list somewhere.

Probably second only to the Jaguar!

AmigaJay

http://web.archive.org/web/20080116153652/http://cd32.amiga32.com/

Found a list here, though it only has 70-75 games listed, I have seen one that has around 100.
Again makes for glum reading, and kinda makes you glad the CD32 still got 160+ games considering it was only on the market 7 months before Commodore went belly up.
Old School Gamer Since 1982 - Creator of various gaming websites and blogs 1998-2018

TL


DreamcastRIP

Possibly one of the cheekiest adverts in gaming history in terms of both the ad's message and, more so, it's chosen location!
Owned: Spectrum Jaguar JaguarCD Lynx ST 7800 Dreamcast Saturn MegaDrive Mega-CD 32X Nomad GameGear PS3 PS PSP WiiU Wii GameCube N64 DS, GBm GBA GBC GBP GB VirtualBoy Xbox Vectrex PCE Duo-R 3DO CDi CD32 GX4000 WonderSwan NGPC Gizmondo ColecoVision iPhone PC Mac

TL

I remember that well! Sega definitely had the last laugh though!

Rogue Trooper

Quote from: "DreamcastRIP"Possibly one of the cheekiest adverts in gaming history in terms of both the ad's message and, more so, it's chosen location!

SEGA tried a similar approach years later, but f*cked it up, big time.They sent emails to various magazines at the time of the DC, 'suggesting' some Sega fan had pulled off a nifty bit of graffiti on  Sony's HQ.

A photoshopped image of said building with 'Sony Playstation best before 14/10/99' was included, however SEGA had used the HQ building of Sony MUSIC, NOT SCEE, DOH!

Rogue Trooper

Mevlut Dinc of Vivid Image had a CD32 game in the works, Hodja, claimed it was the most ambitious game he'd planned, it was then moved to PS1 development, where he planned it to be the 1st real-time 3D adventure on the format, but as he had that and Street Racer 2 on the go, both at the same time, it was shelved.

Rogue Trooper

We've been talking in past of 3D performance of early 32 BIT consoles, until now i'd never seen claims for what the CD32 was capable of, but EDGE had it down (at the time) as 1,000 Polys persecond (10X10 Pixel triangles).