Eon is an astonishing Amiga demo released a few years ago. It runs on a bog-standard Amiga 500, a machine that first saw the light of day in 1985. Here’s how it was made.
Andreas shared a comparison that will make it clear to any developer on a modern machine just how much slower the Amiga 500 is compared to a modern machine.
Let’s MD5 ~800Kb data, using reference RSA MD5 code.
On an old, but modern, Surface Laptop 2 that took 2ms.
The Amiga 500 took 29 seconds.
This CPU is more than 10,000x slower than the CPU in your PC or Mac.
One of my WordPress plugins will do an MD5 calculation of the URL on every request, and it’s like nothing. It’s not a big job for a web server to do. An Amiga could not do that.
However, it can, in the right hands, seemingly perform miracles and create cool looking demos that even today impress! There’s something to be said for programming in a constrained environment.
UPDATE in December 2021! Chris released version 2.0 of PiMIGA. There’s only one version this time and it comes in a huge 23GB 7z file. You can grab a torrent to download PiMIGA 2.0 from his video here:
This version runs on a 64bit version of Linux and feels faster. It does not come with Amiga ROMs so you must provide them. Chris explains where to put the kick31a1200.rom in his video. If you receive an error saying /dev/sda1 is missing on boot up and nothing else happens then you haven’t copied the ROM into the right place!
I found another video elsewhere where the author complained of really bad lag but it may have been some weird HDMI issue, or sound buffer lag. The only problem I noticed was that Syndicate ran way too fast. Maybe the JIT had to be disabled?
Make sure you change the sound settings (F12->Sound):
Set Frequency to 22050
Filter to off.
Sound Buffer Size to Min.
Don’t forget to save the configuration.
UPDATE on Feb 15, 2021! Chris Edwards has released version 1.5 of PiMIGA. It now comes in two forms and works (sort of) on the RPI3b as well as RPi4 and 400. The two versions are a 32GB “lite” version and a 128GB “MF” version:
Lite edition, all programs and games, no videos , no mp3, all mods. MF edition, 65,000 + ADFs from the complete Commodore Amiga Tosec archive (de-duped /cleaned / virus scanned ) 128,000 executables in a 13 cd pack of stuff from eab archives of yesteryear. emulations, music, videos all sorts of goodies.
More details are to be found on his release video, including links to the torrent files for both.
UPDATE! Chris Edwards released version 1.4 of PiMIGA for the RPI4 or 400. More info in his release video here.
UPDATE! As of November 23rd 2020 there is now a PiMIGA 1.3 Pi 400 Edition thanks to Chris Edwards. This version has been cleaned up so the happynewyear96 virus has been removed, and it now works out of the box on the Raspberry Pi 400! It works on the Raspberry Pi 4 too of course. Pi3 owners will want to download the original 1.2b version. Here’s a teaser trailer.
PiMIGA 1.3 is available as a torrent, so download it with your favourite torrent client. The password on the archive is still pimiga but I haven’t tested it yet, it’s still downloading. This Reddit thread has more info and a useful comment linking to PiShrink that will reduce the size of the image from 32GB to 20GB. I am very excited about trying this on my Raspberry Pi 400!
The Commodore Amiga was an amazing 16 bit computer of the 80’s and 90’s and is still used today by people who love the system.
WinUAE is the best Amiga emulator for modern systems and it has been ported to many operating systems. FS-UAE is a great port I use on Mac and Amiberry or Amibian use the uae4arm port that runs on Raspberry Pi boards.
To load games and apps on the Amiga you used 3.5 inch discs but if you had a hard disk back then the Amiga supported it. I never did so I put up with the relatively slow loading of the discs.
As I have been spoiled by much faster loading of modern systems, loading games from discs in an emulator soon became a bore. Many games used to (slowly) load an intro with thumping music and an animation, but after hitting fire on my joystick I’d be prompted to “Enter disc 2” for yet more loading.
Enter WHDLoad, a system that patched games so they could be loaded from a hard disk image. It sounds great in theory but over the years I could never get it working the way I wanted. I just wanted to see a nice Workbench desktop UI with an disk image of games to play around in.
I’m not the only one apparently. Through this video on alternative operating systems for the Raspberry PI I found out about PiMIGA. It’s a 32GB disk image you burn to SD card for RPI 3 and 4 and when booted up presents a rather nice Workbench desktop with lots of games and apps. BTW, the password is ViWsC7oU3.
It’s based on Amiberry, and uses WHDLoad of course and everything is set up for you!
I haven’t tested it yet myself. My RPI3 is busy running Plex, Backuppc and Pihole but I want to get an RPI4 to give it a go!
Here’s a word of warning however. The video above shows a virus checker running and it finds a couple of viruses that are removed (in Amiga apps) so I would isolate the Raspberry PI device from the rest of your network if you can. Use the guest network of your router perhaps or just leave the device offline.
An alternative to PiMIGA is AmiKit which appears to do something similar but runs on Windows, Linux and Mac (and RPI4 with some fiddling around) and even lets you launch Windows, Linux or Mac apps from within Workbench. It looks rather nice!
The guys on the Retro Asylum podcast played Stunt Car Racer this month. That game is one of my favourites. A wild roller coaster of a game where you literally drive a car around a roller coaster.
I played the C64 version for hours on end and listening to them prompted me to set up FS-UAE again as I wanted to try out the Amiga version once more. I think I’ve only ever played that version in emulation as I didn’t have the game when I had an Amiga 500.
Anyway, FS-UAE is a great emulator based on the Winuae Amiga emulator. It uses openretro.org for database files including graphics and game information which is really helpful. It’s sort of an Amiga version of Gamebase64! Here’s a video describing how to set it up. I’ll leave it up to you to find the games and everything else but it’s not hard to find them.
Stunt Car Racer is an amazing game, and in my opinion still holds up today as a decent game. Sure, the graphics are simplistic, sound is limited but what is there is superbly polished.
The Amiga and Atari ST versions even had simultaneous multiplayer which I sadly never experienced but I’d love to know if FS-UAE could handle using some sort of virtual null modem cable to connect emulators on two machines together. It does emulate the Amiga serial port so there might be hope for the future. I found this thread about Winuae but people there didn’t have much luck.
So, what does Stunt Car Racer look like? Here’s someone who doesn’t know how to play it but he’s very entertaining and he learns as he goes..
The game is set on a roller coaster. Timing and speed are everything. You have to hit ramps at the right speed to jump gaps, and failing to line up a turn or a jump in time would result in a crash.
Here’s a much better driver, including the TNT version which I haven’t played yet but looks hard as nails!
[1] This game was created by AmiGer/CARE (http://www.discreetfx.com/care/) by modifying the original game Stunt Car Racer. The TNT of the title stands for “The New Tracks”. A track designer was written in Delphi and used to create 8 new tracks to race. The title screen and menu screen have been modified, as well as the colour palette. [2] The disk version has the track colours incorrect in the track preview window – they retain the reds from the original. The WHDLoad version fixes this problem. [3] 2-player mode via null-modem connection.
This is one of the few games I play exclusively with the keyboard. Start a race and press “p” to pause, then f1 to redefine the keys. I usually use , . t g [space] and then press o to unpause.
Stunt Car Racer appeared on multiple platforms: Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Speccy, and Amstrad machines all had versions. Here’s a video comparing them. It’s amazing what Geoff Crammond and porting teams did back then!
Earlier this year, (2019 for those coming across this post in the future), the game was ported to the BBC Master and it flies along!
That looks way smoother and faster than the C64 version!
There is a sort-of modern remake. The game Assetto Corsa features the first track!
Stunt Car Racer is an amazing racing game. Track down the Amiga version, fire up Winuae or FS-UAE and give it a whirl. You’ll love it!
Here’s rather impressive remix of the Xenon 2 Megablast main title tune created by a talented banjo player!
Long time readers may remember I used the original music in a video for a short but fun game of Bad Company 2. We joined a game with nobody on the other side so we had fun with the crates, grenades, bullets and smoke. Looking at the date on the video I can’t believe that was almost six years ago!
Some visual adjustments
e.g. race colours, track names gfx dropped, title screen modified etc.
AGA fixed
Cracked 🙂
Long time readers will know my dislike for Blur and I’ve hardly played NFS Hot Pursuit since I got it last month but Stunt Car Racer gripped me like no other racer since. It required perfectly timed boosts, cornering and was literally a rollercoaster of a ride.
Thanks David for the comment linking to this video. It’s so great it deserves a post of it’s own.
Press Play On Tape get on stage with Jon Hare and play the Cannon Fodder theme with game controllers. Playstation and Xbox controllers of various types were used as well as a retro arcade joystick played by Jon.
It’s well worth watching even if you don’t remember the game!
David produced a montage of great clips from Geoff’s Youtube channel and played the old Cannon Fodder theme tune in the background. I can’t believe this hasn’t been done before but maybe the average Youtuber is too young to remember this classic Amiga game!
Geoff himself used the same tune in this Squad Rush video as he and his team annihilated the opposition. Cannon fodder indeed!
Montage clips are from Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2 of course. If you’re curious, here’s the Cannon Fodder intro and here’s some gameplay from the game. Great game, but I always preferred Syndicate.
Syndicate is a game I played a lot in the early nineties. I was never any good at games (some things never change!), but this is one of the few games I stuck with and managed to finish. The original game came out in 1993 for DOS and the Amiga. It was on the Amiga that I first came across it but the DOS version is easier to run these days. Luckily both versions are exactly the same.
What do you need? First of all, download the latest version of DOSBox. It’s available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and many other operating systems.
Now look for the game itself. You can download Syndicate in many places so search for it using Google. Some would describe it as abandonware as the game can’t be bought any more but it’s a legal grey area. Bullfrog still own the copyright to the game so if you don’t own a copy downloading it is, strictly speaking, an act of piracy.
Unzip Syndicate in a convenient location and launch DOSBox. The familiar DOS prompt will open, on the Z: drive so mount the Syndicate directory using the command of the same name. If you’ve installed it in /games/Syndicate/ use the following:
mount c /games/Syndicate
Now change to drive C using
c:
You may need to edit synd.bat if it’s there (to set up your sound card) or just run main.exe as I did. The game will launch and probably run a little too quickly. Slow it down with CTRL-F11, and use ALT-Enter to enter fullscreen mode. CTRL-F12 will speed it up again, handy for researching new weapons and mods. 🙂
In fullscreen mode, you’ll swear you’re using an Amiga again! Enjoy what must be one of the best shoot ’em ups, ever!
There’s also an opensource version of Syndicate. It hasn’t been updated since 2007 though. Anyone with game coding experience want to lend a hand?
As a special bonus, here’s the Atlantic Accelerator. It’s the very last level in the original Syndicate. This guy makes it appear really easy but it’s not. This level takes quite a bit of time to master! Just read his video description for all that he went through.
Or better yet, check out this video of American Revolt. Wow, all those enemy syndicate guys descend on you like flies to a …
Oh yes, I remember well the original Batman The Movie game. Bloody good it was, even if I didn’t get that far in it. Amazing music to top it all off. I can still hear the first level beat in my head all these years later.
I only played it on the C64 but the Zzap 64! screenshots of the Amiga version had me wishing I owned the more powerful 16 bit machine.
Batman The Movie, C64
Batman The Movie, Amiga
Actually, I remember seeing the flip screen Batman The Caped Crusader on someone’s Amstrad CPC 464 too but I never got into that sort of thing myself.
This year’s “Batman: Arkham Asylum” is another story altogether. I played the demo on Xbox Live last weekend and was blown away first by the amazing intro and the visuals, but then by how easy it was to swing from Gargoyle to Gargoyle, doing the Batman thing! The demo itself isn’t that long but it’s a great taster for what’s to come!
The guys at Joystiq loved the game too, giving the game a very favourable review, even going so far as to say,
Easily the best video game 2009 has had to offer thus far.
This Amiga demo blew me away when I first saw it. There are better ones out there but I think the dancing figures were such an unusual feature at the time it struck a chord with a lot of people.
Consider installing a browser extension that blocks ads and other malicious scripts in your browser to protect your privacy and security. Here are a few options.
uBlock Origin is a free, open source, ad blocker for your browser.
Use pi-hole if you have a spare Raspberry Pi on your network.
Set the private DNS settings on your phone to dns.adguard.com to block adverts and trackers.
