Vapourware The definitive, authoritative, and probably non-exhaustive list of non-(IBM) PC cRPGs

[flyingjohn]

Did anyone manage to get Perihelion up and running on Windows using emu?

1. Install WinUAE
2. Install BetterWB (or ClassicWB, if you're not so familiar with the Amiga)
3. Get any Amiga game you want from the Retroplay WHDLoad Packs archive
4. Profit

One benefit of this approach vs using ADF floppy images is the much faster loading time (plus sometimes unofficial bugfixes).

Or you could install fs-uae.
And just scan your whdload files and start them without a os.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Between 1986-1993 for sure

Both VGA and the Roland MT-32 appeared in 1987, so from that year onwards Sierra and LucasArts adventures are arguably the best on the PC (although sometimes the Amiga music can be also quite good). I guess the same goes for other types of games, but maybe RPGs are a bit different because many of them are a bit lackluster in the graphics and especially sound departments (compared to other genres).

Think the landmark pc version turned to be superior was around eye of the beholder 2 release. Still the amiga version was excellent and very close so 1991 and you were not missing much .PC being clearly superior was 1992 and ultima underworld.

These days I recommend the AGA WHDLoad versions. I replayed the AGA version of EoB 1 last year and it's excellent.

Nobody sane would play the Amiga versions over the DOS ones which are still better and easier to run

Except all insane Amiga fans. It shows you never owned that machine.

Never claimed to own one. It's funny, of all old computers, the Amiga never got an easy to use emulator which is why most people into retro gaming skip its library entirely

fs-uae runs out of the box
I never used winuae because it doesn't work on lunix, heard it's harder to use

Never claimed to own one. It's funny, of all old computers, the Amiga never got an easy to use emulator which is why most people into retro gaming skip its library entirely

It just takes some non-zero effort, man. Excuses like this are a bit lame, there's *tons* of guides (both written and videos on youtube) that will help you set up a nice Amiga environment in a few hours, even if you're a total newbie.

Even the CRPGAddict was able to do it, so c'mon. But sure, it's not like popping in a cartridge...

fs-uae is about as simple as using a snes emulator

 

[Grauken]

Never claimed to own one. It's funny, of all old computers, the Amiga never got an easy to use emulator which is why most people into retro gaming skip its library entirely

It just takes some non-zero effort, man. Excuses like this are a bit lame, there's *tons* of guides (both written and videos on youtube) that will help you set up a nice Amiga environment in a few hours, even if you're a total newbie.

Even the CRPGAddict was able to do it, so c'mon. But sure, it's not like popping in a cartridge...

fs-uae is about as simple as using a snes emulator

Nope, it still needs the kickstart roms, so not quite as simple as a SNES emu, though you're right that FS-UAE made things much simpler compared to earlier Amiga emulators.

 

[Rincewind]

Both VGA and the Roland MT-32 appeared in 1987, so from that year onwards Sierra and LucasArts adventures are arguably the best on the PC (although sometimes the Amiga music can be also quite good). I guess the same goes for other types of games, but maybe RPGs are a bit different because many of them are a bit lackluster in the graphics and especially sound departments (compared to other genres).

Which part are you disagreeing with Zed Duke of Banville ?

I didn't want to derail the thread with a discussion of the development of PC technology, but even though IBM created the VGA graphical standard in 1987, the new VGA cards were quite expensive and resource intensive. If you examine games making good use of VGA graphics, it seems there weren't any before 1990 and only a few released that year, though the number released increased greatly in 1991 and again the following year, by which time CD-ROM was also coming into use for games. For example, you referenced Sierra and LucasArts adventure games, but King's Quest V was released in 1990 with EGA graphics followed by a 1991 re-release with VGA graphics (and a CD-ROM re-release in 1992), and the first King's Quest game to be created with VGA was King's Quest VI released in 1992. Similarly, Space Quest III released in 1989 with EGA while Space Quest IV released in 1991 with VGA, Leisure Suit Larry III released in 1989 with EGA while the next game in the series released in 1991 with VGA, and Quest for Glory II released in 1990 with EGA while Quest for Glory III released in 1992 with VGA (and the original game in the series received a VGA re-make that same year). Audio in games seems to have taken even longer to surpass the Amiga, although that's more difficult to determine.

Yes, that's actually very true about VGA. I was more thinking about the sound capabilities of those adventure games when replayed today using DOSBox and the excellent MUNT MT-32 emulator. These days I actually prefer the MT-32 soundtracks to the Amiga ones in pretty much all those earlier adventures. As you said, all EGA Sierra games looked almost exactly the same on the Amiga (sometimes they tweaked the colour palette a little bit, and sometimes they changed the background slightly for mysterious reasons), so the sound is really the biggest differentiating factor. It's a bit of a personal preference too; I just prefer the "luxurious" MT-32 sound with reverb and much higher polyphony (it was a ~$500 hardware in 80s money, after all!) to the 4-channel / 8-bit sound of the Amiga. However, those Amiga soundtrack conversions were *very* competent in almost all cases (e.g. Monkey Island 1-2 comes to mind, but again, the MT-32 version just outshines it, in my opinion).

However, once Sierra and LucasArts started using VGA, the difference started to show quite markedly. Most of the time they just did a low-effort 256->32 colour conversion and called it a day; not much was actually repainted by hand. All VGA Sierra titles looked quite horrible on the Amiga, disgusting automatic dither everywhere, etc.

Of course, these days we can just download MUNT for free. But back in the day very few people could afford a competent IBM PC compatible computer, *and* a VGA card, *and* a ~$500 audio interface! Compare that to the $700 price of the Amiga 500! Even with the 1 MB memory expansion it did not cost much more than $1000, and then it got a lot cheaper over the years. So in the 80s and early 90s there was really no contest in terms of price/performance ratio.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Never claimed to own one. It's funny, of all old computers, the Amiga never got an easy to use emulator which is why most people into retro gaming skip its library entirely

It just takes some non-zero effort, man. Excuses like this are a bit lame, there's *tons* of guides (both written and videos on youtube) that will help you set up a nice Amiga environment in a few hours, even if you're a total newbie.

Even the CRPGAddict was able to do it, so c'mon. But sure, it's not like popping in a cartridge...

fs-uae is about as simple as using a snes emulator

Nope, it still needs the kickstart roms, so not quite as simple as a SNES emu, though you're right that FS-UAE made things much simpler compared to earlier Amiga emulators.

fs-uae comes with internal kickstart roms now
no idea how good they are because it takes about 5 seconds to download all available ones from archive.org and place them in the kickstart folder

 

[Rincewind]

Lol "set up a nice Amiga environment in a few hours"

I never had problems emulating Amiga, I've gotten actually difficult systems to run, Amiga just has shit setup with obnoxious fans making it more difficult.

What is "lol" about that? What is "obnoxious" about the setup? Anyway, there are computer users and console gamers, I guess.

In Amiga circles we used to call these people "lamers" back in the day

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Grauken your new nickname is lamer

 

[AdolfSatan]

Aventures au Chateau (1985) [Only short LP available, looks way too simple to be called an RPG]
L'Anneau De Zengara (1987) [Straddles a fine line between being an RPG and a graphic adventure, never quite settling for either. I'd grant it the RPG title, tho. It looks beautiful, but everything points out to it being a shitty game]
TheSaurus: Dungeon's Revenge (1986) [Unsure if RPG or graphic adventure. Frogspeak only.] [Graphic adventure]
Turlogh le Rodeur (1988) [Very unorthodox game, involving visible dice rolls. Unsure if RPG. Frogspeak only.] [Not an RPG though I'm not sure what to call it either]

Was curious, so I looked for some info on the net. Those are the ones for which I found any reliable info.

 

[Rincewind]

Aventures au Chateau (1985) [Only short LP available, looks way too simple to be called an RPG]
L'Anneau De Zengara (1987) [Straddles a fine line between being an RPG and a graphic adventure, never quite settling for either. I'd grant it the RPG title, tho. It looks beautiful, but everything points out to it being a shitty game]
TheSaurus: Dungeon's Revenge (1986) [Unsure if RPG or graphic adventure. Frogspeak only.] [Graphic adventure]
Turlogh le Rodeur (1988) [Very unorthodox game, involving visible dice rolls. Unsure if RPG. Frogspeak only.] [Not an RPG though I'm not sure what to call it either]

Was curious, so I looked for some info on the net. Those are the ones for which I found any reliable info.

I want L'Anneau De Zengara (1987) to be on the list for the art style alone

 

[Kev Inkline]

Never claimed to own one. It's funny, of all old computers, the Amiga never got an easy to use emulator which is why most people into retro gaming skip its library entirely

It just takes some non-zero effort, man. Excuses like this are a bit lame, there's *tons* of guides (both written and videos on youtube) that will help you set up a nice Amiga environment in a few hours, even if you're a total newbie.

Even the CRPGAddict was able to do it, so c'mon. But sure, it's not like popping in a cartridge...

fs-uae is about as simple as using a snes emulator

Nope, it still needs the kickstart roms, so not quite as simple as a SNES emu, though you're right that FS-UAE made things much simpler compared to earlier Amiga emulators.

You can even register at openretro and download the specific configurations for each game with its adf if you want. If that's too hard, then you (you as in general 'you') should probably not be on a pc game forum, even.

 

[octavius]

Some questions regarding Amiga vs DOS:

1. When did directional sound become common or even possible in DOS games? I know Arena from 1994 didn't have it. Can't remember if Doom from 1993 had it (but I don't think so). I know Thief from 1998 had it.

2. Correct Aspect Ratio. I didn't consider this aspect when I played emulated Amiga games 5-10 years ago, but nowadays it tends to bother me if the image is stretched. How do you deal with this when using an Amiga emulator?

 

[Rincewind]

2. Correct Aspect Ratio. I didn't consider this aspect when I played emulated Amiga games 5-10 years ago, but nowadays it tends to bother me if the image is stretched. How do you deal with this when using an Amiga emulator?

Yes, I'm the same, and I've spent quite a bit of a time to configure WinUAE to display correct aspect ratio for games that use 320x256 resolution BUT only fill the upper 320x200 portion of the screen (basically the PAL versions of all NTSC games made in the USA; virtually no one ever created two separate art assets for PAL and NTSC). It's not as easy as in DOSBox to just set a flag; you literally need to use manual stretching and some other trickery with some shader upscalers to get acceptably sharp looking results and not just simple nearest-neighbour interpolation.

I'll share my config sometime today when I get back to my main PC.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

2. Correct Aspect Ratio. I didn't consider this aspect when I played emulated Amiga games 5-10 years ago, but nowadays it tends to bother me if the image is stretched. How do you deal with this when using an Amiga emulator?

FWIW, it's important to distinguish between display aspect ratio and pixel aspect ratio.
NTSC and PAL Amigas had different pixel aspect ratios meaning that running a game with the incorrect international setting will probably make it look wrong.

If the game looks squashed: Switch to NTSC
If the game looks vertically stretched: Switch to PAL

 

[Rincewind]

2. Correct Aspect Ratio. I didn't consider this aspect when I played emulated Amiga games 5-10 years ago, but nowadays it tends to bother me if the image is stretched. How do you deal with this when using an Amiga emulator?

FWIW, it's important to distinguish between display aspect ratio and pixel aspect ratio.
NTSC and PAL Amigas had different pixel aspect ratios meaning that running a game with the incorrect international setting will probably make it look wrong.

If the game looks squashed: Switch to NTSC
If the game looks vertically stretched: Switch to PAL

Nah, that's not a good idea. True, you can switch PAL Amigas to NTSC mode (there were utilities for that), but you can't switch NTSC Amigas to PAL. It would not even make much sense, because it would cut the lower portion of the screen.

But the problem with switching PAL Amigas to NTSC is that the vertical blank interrupts are used for syncing pretty much everything (all MOD players on the Amiga most definitely use the vblank for syncing, but I guess in many cases they synced the game logic to that as well). So in the best case scenario just the music will play a bit faster (we're going from 50 to 60 Hz), but it could affect the gameplay too.

So, my solution is to leave it always in PAL and just mess around with the display settings to get an image that's stretched by the exactly right amount. So I'm effectively simulating stretching the image using the controls on an analog monitor.

 

[Rincewind]

FWIW, it's important to distinguish between display aspect ratio and pixel aspect ratio.

Yes, the pixel aspect ratio is what is really relevant here. All monitors were 4/3 aspect ratio in the 80s/90s. Pixels on the Amiga are supposed to be square in 320x256 (it fills a 4/3 monitor nicely), whereas on CGA/EGA/VGA pixels needed to have an 1/1.2 aspect ratio so that 320x200 fills a 4/3 ratio screen.

So basically I'm achieving 1/1.2 pixel aspect ratio with my "stretched" WinUAE display config.

 

[Rincewind]

Actually, I was wrong; you can switch NTSC Amigas into PAL mode too if you have the right version of the chipset:

http://oldwww.nvg.ntnu.no/amiga/amigafaq/AmigaFAQ_19.html

 

[Jarpie]

It depends on a game, games made by american companies, like LucaasArts, SSI, Sierra, Cinemaware etc made games for NTSC, so you should set UAE to NTSC/60hz, as they'd be stretched and run slower than they should. Afaik many european games were made for PAL so you should set those for PAL/50hz, but some european devs did use NTSC for development, so it is mostly case-by-case basis.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

2. Correct Aspect Ratio. I didn't consider this aspect when I played emulated Amiga games 5-10 years ago, but nowadays it tends to bother me if the image is stretched. How do you deal with this when using an Amiga emulator?

FWIW, it's important to distinguish between display aspect ratio and pixel aspect ratio.
NTSC and PAL Amigas had different pixel aspect ratios meaning that running a game with the incorrect international setting will probably make it look wrong.

If the game looks squashed: Switch to NTSC
If the game looks vertically stretched: Switch to PAL

Nah, that's not a good idea. True, you can switch PAL Amigas to NTSC mode (there were utilities for that), but you can't switch NTSC Amigas to PAL. It would not even make much sense, because it would cut the lower portion of the screen.

But the problem with switching PAL Amigas to NTSC is that the vertical blank interrupts are used for syncing pretty much everything (all MOD players on the Amiga most definitely use the vblank for syncing, but I guess in many cases they synced the game logic to that as well). So in the best case scenario just the music will play a bit faster (we're going from 50 to 60 Hz), but it could affect the gameplay too.

So, my solution is to leave it always in PAL and just mess around with the display settings to get an image that's stretched by the exactly right amount. So I'm effectively simulating stretching the image using the controls on an analog monitor.

The number of them that exist is small, but there were games made for NTSC Amigas that would look(and run) incorrectly on a PAL Amiga.
e.g., if I play Ambermoon(PAL game) in NTSC mode the game is sped up(sound distortion makes it easily noticeable) and the screen is squashed.
demo comparison:
https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxt...html?uid=12b1795e-21cd-11ec-abb7-b9a7ff2ee17c

ofc I'm only discussing FS-UAE emulator. I don't own any Amiga hardware and it's the only emulator for my platform(Lunix)

 

[Grauken]

I assume you mean Linux and not actually Lunix?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I assume you mean Linux and not actually Lunix?

(rip techtv)

 

[Rincewind]

I assume you mean Linux and not actually Lunix?

(rip techtv)

Pure gold. BonziBuddy.

 

[Rincewind]

Okay, this is how I achieve correct aspect ratio in NTSC games (1:1.2 pixel aspect ratio) in WinUAE, plus some other random info that I think is useful (for octavius or whoever else is interested). Note that enabling NTSC in the Chipset section will have zero effect on the pixel ratio. WinUAE just writes regular "square pixels" into a framebuffer; it's up to the user to configure the desired vertical stretching via output filters, which we'll get to shortly.

Still, it's a good idea to enable the NTSC option for US made games (or games primarily intended for the US market). Without it, the music and possibly also the gameplay will be about 15% slower. (Be aware that enabling NTSC might cause problems with PAL cracktros of NTSC games, but those are not present in the WHDLoad versions, so unless you're playing cracked ADF floppy versions, this should not be a concern.)

So this is what the below configuration will give us (and the non-aspect ratio corrected version, for reference). Note how the aspect ratio corrected output is minimally blurry in the vertical direction, and 100% sharp horizontally (the achieved effect is similar to the "bilinear sharp" filter in some other emulators).

Note: the forum does stretch the original images, so just download and view them in a proper image viewer that doesn't do any scaling.

Eye of the Beholder II - with aspect ratio correction (NTSC pixel ratio)

Eye of the Beholder II - aspect ratio uncorrected (PAL square pixels)

First, you'll need this D3D shader: Point-Prescale.fx
Just put it into plugins\filtershaders\direct3d inside the WinUAE install directory (create the subdirectories manually if they're not present).

Then configure the display settings as follows (it's very important to 100% match every single setting; they work together in non-obvious ways).

__________________________________________________________________________________________

You can set Settings / Native / Windowed to Full-Windowed instead if you want borderless windowed fullscreen.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

This is where the magic happens! I like to use 1.5x scaling for Horiz/Vert size; that will give you basically 3x3 pixel rectangles for every "native" pixel, plus the 1:1.2 vertical stretching on top of that. The size of the resulting image on a 24" inch widescreen monitor closely matches the image size of a 14" 4/3 monitor from a normal viewing distance, which I prefer.

But if you want the image to fill the screen, you can use 2.0x scaling for 4x4 pixel rectangles, then adjust Vert. position to center the screen again.

Note: fooling around in the Aspect Ratio Correction section is surely tempting, but ultimately all my attempts have been fruitless and these settings were the only ones that gave me the correct output.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Make sure you use DirectX 9:

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Now, these settings are really optimised for low-res Amiga screenmodes for playing games. Workbench in hi-res mode looks a little bit funky, but I don't care because I only use it to launch the games (and using 2x scaling actually fixes the problem almost completely).

Finally, this is my whole config, some might find it helpful: A1200.uae

(it's pretty much the perfect & most compatible A1200 WHDLoad gaming setup)

Have fun, and remember... Only Amiga makes it possible!

 

[octavius]

 

[Rincewind]

I have to admit, while PAL output just works out of the box, they really should include a single "NTSC stretch" checkbox or something that does all this for you automatically... But I guess the current approach gives you much more flexibility (if you're patient enough to figure it out...)

 

[anvi]

Don't forget this game:

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