Karl Kuras wrote: > > Actually, I hate to say this, but until the 256 color versions of the games > appeared, the Amiga and ST ports were 1-1 conversions of the PC games. No > improvements whatsoever... in fact many of them ran slower.
Sadly, most PC-to-Amiga conversions (I've never used an ST, sadly) were slower than the original. PC programmers were contracted to port to Amiga instead of hiring Amiga people to do the conversions. Or, if Amiga people were contracted, they had a hard time porting 8086 assembler over to 68000 assembler, or did it 1-to-1 where they didn't try to optimize any code (use additional registers, etc.) Or the people porting to Amiga simply didn't understand Amiga graphics hardware. Star Control is a great example of this: the melee portion was very simple sprite combat, but Star Control running on an Amiga 500 did full-frame updates in a chunky manner (not planar). It was sheer incompetence. > This actually goes to the issue of the lowest common denominator argument > made earlier. They really did just cater to the lowest graphical platform > (Apple II for several years until I believe Space Quest III or KQ 4 came > out... not sure which was first). And then ported those libraries straight > to other systems. King's Quest 4 was the first SCI system using 320x200 16-color graphics. They built the SCI system at the same time they were writing/scripting KQ4, so they had two developlment tracks for it: AGI and SCI. Both versions were released, but the AGI version is fairly rare. Screenshots of both versions are here: http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/gameId,129/ Two of my favorites: AGI: http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/gameId,129/gameShotId,1998/ SCI: http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/gameId,129/gameShotId,2076/ The above two shots clearly illustrate my frustration with the AGI system, because both AGI and SCI ran in the same 320x200 graphics mode :-) > Another side issue, if memory serves me correctly the original version of > KQ1 (for the PC Jr.) did not have mouse support... this was only added later > for those platforms that did have mice like the Amiga and ST. Can someone > confirm this? Yes, all Sierra games for the PC and compatibles did not have mouse support until 1987, with the conversion of their AGI system to DOS (was previously a proprietary bootable disk). And only then was the mouse used to navigate the menus once you pulled them down -- they were not used for controlling objects, etc. Even the joystick was more useful since you could control the character with it :-) Only in 1990 with KQ5 and the icon-based system did the mouse become integral. -- http://www.MobyGames.com/ The world's most comprehensive gaming database project. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
