What's the best hardware/expansion route for the complete Amiga gaming experience?

[Greg2600]

Greetings. New here but been on various retro forums for 20+ years. I am an avid collector, but I prefer to play original hardware though with improved video and prefer to use flash/multi carts or ODE's rather than original game media. In the area of the Amiga, what would be my "best route?" I see there's so many options of add-ons for the different systems, although those devices and the original hardware are often scant to find. I would also say a bit of a requirement is to use a standard NTSC 27" CRT Television not a monitor or HDTV.

My initial aim was to get a CD32, and then the TF330/360 to expand. I believe that would eliminate the issue I would have running the CD32 on an NTSC television, as it's not easy finding a NTSC console and many of the games are PAL, no? Plus then I would likely need a keyboard and mouse anyway for many of the games.

Then my friend recommended just getting a 500, hooking that to the TV, and using of the expansions for it to run WHDLoad. Though I'm not sure what % of Amiga games wouldn't run on that hardware (requiring an AGA).

Appreciate any thoughts. I'm not in a rush either.

 

[dwaco]

But then you could have 1200 instead which has AGA. Which has keyboard. And ide and pcmcia. I’d think it is a best choice if you are not planning for several Amigas. Even then it would be first choice IMHO.

 

[Watson]

Welcome to Amibay!

 

[Greg2600]

But then you could have 1200 instead which has AGA. Which has keyboard. And ide and pcmcia. I’d think it is a best choice if you are not planning for several Amigas. Even then it would be first choice IMHO.

How difficult is it to come by a 1200?

 

[Sardine]

A500 1mb with gotek runs 90% all games

No need for a 100mhz monster to play hybris or new Zealand story or turrican.


An A1200 with a simple 8mb ram expansion with ide cf card loaded with whdload will play 99.9% of all games.

For the 0.1% that would benefit form 030 or higher is the likes of elite frontier etc

Faster is not always better.

 

[miggymad]

An A1200, TF1230 accelerator card, CF or SD card Interface instead of HD.

A basic setup but should run the vast majority of WHDLoad games, demos and utils - apart from anything that needs a faster 040 or 060 chip of course.

 

[Greg2600]

A500 1mb with gotek runs 90% all games

No need for a 100mhz monster to play hybris or new Zealand story or turrican.


An A1200 with a simple 8mb ram expansion with ide cf card loaded with whdload will play 99.9% of all games.

For the 0.1% that would benefit form 030 or higher is the likes of elite frontier etc

Faster is not always better.

An A1200, TF1230 accelerator card, CF or SD card Interface instead of HD.

A basic setup but should run the vast majority of WHDLoad games, demos and utils - apart from anything that needs a faster 040 or 060 chip of course.

Thanks! I agree with both of you, at this point I'm looking for the least clunky solution which I can actually obtain. And will work on my TV setup. Are these machines (preferably unyellowed CIB) easy to find these days? I haven't gotten to scouring this forum yet, but eBay has very little. And I've been casually looking for CD32's for awhile, not a lot to find. Plus as I stated, I've grown to fear that the CD32 setup may be too complicated for what I'm looking to do. Granted the console is smaller, but the original boxes are about the same size (for storage).

 

[dwaco]

Unyellowed I see often enough here on this forum, CIB I have seen only once or twice. If you lurk here for some time then you can get the feeling if what's available.

 

[Sardine]

A500 is more likely to work out of the box , the only issues is if it only has 512k ram most games since the a500+ required 1mb ram and if the fdd works not to mention the actual game disks.

Trapdoor upgrade to 1mb ( cheap ) , a gotek and i joystick and your set.



The a1200 is a better option aga graphics 2mb chip ram 020cpu @ 14mhz built in ide and pcmcia ports with caveat. It might need a full recap and if they leaked a repair and the same possible issues with the fdd. Addons cost a bit more but hugely increase ram and speeds in combination with ide opens up a whole library of games that you can setup on a pc in winuae not even having to touch the fdd.

Cib will be extremely difficult to find and priced accordingly i would rather buy a serviced, recapped and tested system even without the box than a roll of the dice boxed unit that might require medical attention.

 

[mark1968]

i do think the NTSC and CRT requirement will restrict you a bit for a A1200 as i see a lot of A1200 but they tend to be PAL. Another thing to consider is the A600. (wait for the cries of Noooooooo). It has PCMCIA, IDE and is easy to find, newer than 500, more likely to be CiB and is reasonably expandable. It has ECS graphics above oCS of 500.

 

[dwaco]

1200 is a no-brainer recommendation for any newcomer. If one later becomes a real Amiga afficionado, 1200 will still serve you well even if you later also decide on 4000 experience.

600 however, has caveats. For some they might not be important enough, for some really important. If you don't know much about Amigas it would be better to learn the difference before deciding on 600 and assign your own importance to them. So that you don't think later 'I wish I got a 1200 instead'.

Does this qualify as 'Noooooooo' cry?