Classic Games: Amiga vs Atari

Cannon Fodder
Ghost & Gobliins
Gods
Golden Axe
Lemmings
Pang
Prince of Persia
R-Type 2
Sensible Soccer (International Edition)
Speedball 2
The Great Giana Sisters
The Secret of Monkey Island
Toki
In this video, we will compare various emulated classic games/
Amiga 500 (WinUAE) vs. Atari ST (Hatari)
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Atari ST
Amiga 500
Amiga best games
Amiga top games
retro games

[@tekk9995]

Well, that one is obvious. Amigaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa :D

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

no one played these children games on Atari, now show the grown up games like simulators... and that is obvious Ataaaariiiiii.

[@tompaton5050]

Atari ruleZ

[@doctorsocrates4413]

Both great computers for their time period....

[@markdillon5494]

I had both machines growing up - ST first then the Amiga. Loved them both equally for different reasons. But yes the Amiga was the superior machine.

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

Amiga was much slower then ST, no Amiga was not superior, it was good for children pixel/scroll games that got played on arcades more then a decade ago...

[@adroharv5140]

@@madigorfkgoogle9349 the ST was had a slightly faster clock speed that's all and it meant games that did 3d tended to benefit this ever so slightly. I had both and the differences were slight regards to their 3d performance but massively in Amiga's favour for everything that required smoothly moving of 2d scrolling and sprites

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

@@adroharv5140 ST had 10-20% higher computing power then Amiga, that made a difference in 3D games. Only kids were interested into pixel/scroll games. And ATARI had STE for kids, but ATARI owners didnt care much about those kids games. But computer is not just gaming console, and calling weaker computer superior is kinda strange. ST was clearly superior computer with its higher power and excellent high rez monochrome monitor. I had and still have both...

[@adroharv5140]

@@madigorfkgoogle9349 for what you you're talking of sure but as a computer for what most will have bought them for at the time, the Amiga was the obvious choice for both kids and adults who loved games. The 3d difference is negligible given both were quite poor to begin with

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

@@adroharv5140 well, ST was obvious choice for more adults then Amiga. The 3d difference was negligible to the point where a game was playable with some limitations on ST, compared to unplayable on Amiga. Just two examples out of my head, Frontier and F1 GrandPrix. I had Amiga back then since I was writing some programs for it, but any game I was interested into was much better running on ST, the samples were better on Amiga obviously, but if the game is utter slideshow, you cant play it.

[@gurujoe75]

The Amiga was an absolute multimedia monster in its time period, say 1987-1992. The ultimate home gaming entertainment in excellent graphics and audio. The Atari ST wasn't bad, only the Amiga was too good.

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

Great selection of games. I appreciative the Amiga the more I see it, but the ST was the computer that changed my life and allowed me to become a software developer , engineer and architect because of it's low cost and all-around power. Now-a-days I find it cool to love and explore all of the platforms because we have everything we would ever need right at our finger tips.

[@Harkonnen75]

I totally agree. I had friends who started creating music with an Atari ST. I started programming in Basic on my Amiga 500... and after studying, I worked as a software developer. We were very lucky to live that experience...

[@tompaton5050]

No Second Prize was also very good on the ST

[@retrotronics1845]

Lotus II is one of the few games programmed with talent on both AND pushes both machines, the difference is not as big as you would expect for STFM vs A500 with it's blitter. F1 (by Domark) is another interesting one, they sacrificed the 12.5% extra 68000 CPU time to do software sample playback so it's very similar on both Amiga, usually the sound is the most obvious difference.

[@Harkonnen75]

Thanks for such an interesting comment. If one day I do a second part. I'll put both games. It will be interesting to see the contrast Thanks for the comment :-)

[@retrotronics1845]

@@Harkonnen75 My experience owning a 520STM in early 86 and later an A1000 in 1987 was interesting. Very few games were coded on either with the same sort of effort thrown at PC-Engine, Megadrive and SNES hardware.

[@pawewawrzyniak8020]

Still ST for me :-) However, for many years I have both now.

[@Harkonnen75]

I perfectly understand. The first love never forgets... :-)

[@pawewawrzyniak8020]

@@Harkonnen75 Yes, exactly :)

[@RockTo11]

It isn't even close - the Amiga crushed the poor lil ST

[@Harkonnen75]

Honestly I'm not fooling anyone if I say I'm pro Amiga :-) And I think the same... although I respect the Atari ST, I think the Amiga is... superior... in everything. P.S: my highest respects to Atari fans.

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

Ι still have my first Amiga and I admire Jay Miner's work on 8bit Atari and Amiga but the term "crushed" doesn't suit this rivalry. Amiga is a superior machine but I don't recall ST users feeling crushed. The ST machine delivered every time the coders and artists did a proper job.

[@colinbrydon7659]

30 years on and still fanboys. Both had positives and negatives. ST was exceptional at 3D polygon games. A lot were virtually identical, but do agree some were so much better on Amiga. But some were also better on ST. SOUND with the ST you loved it or hated it😊

[@illegalquantity]

Atari version is usually weaker. It has less colors and worse colors, and worse audio. There was hardly any game in this video, which at least almost approached the Amiga quality. Only the original Atari games are better, but there are few. I liked the Amiga version of every game better in this video. I add, Toki is quite good on the Atari as well.

[@colinbrydon7659]

No not all Amiga games are better, amiga sound is definitely better, however any polygon games are always better on the ST. Some are identical graphics but yes a lot are marginally better on Amiga.

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

@@colinbrydon7659 a lot of games on ST are lazy ports, not exploiting ST capabilities at all. Especially those made with EGA PC graphics.

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

Both amazing computers. My first game and creative experiences on an 16bit machine were on an STE. The first 16bit machine I owned was an Amiga 500 /1mb.....so I can say with certainty that none of those machines suck. Amiga had a superior architecture that almost "lost" the train but finally managed to convince users and software houses to take advantage of its abilities. Jay Miner's previous machine (Atari 8bit) didn't enjoy that fate even if it was superior to other 8bit machines in many ways. Life is not fair but Amiga and ST did manage to get what they deserved. ST was an honest machine that could deliver as long as the coders knew what they were doing. The fact that great hits like XENON II and GODS were ST ports in both machines proves that it was good enough. "Good enough" was Tramiel's dogma in Commodore and his C64 project and "good enough" defined the ceiling in his next project (ST).

[@Harkonnen75]

I remember that at that time I had friends with Amiga 500 and Atari ST and they both used them for music. And they were both happy. And yes, Atari ST had good games. And the Amiga story wouldn't have been possible without Jay Miner's an ex-Atari employee... I first had an Amiga 500 and it was my first love. So I can't be too objective :-)

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

​@@Harkonnen75 objectivity has no place in our early memories and feelings.Experiencing both machines (my friend had an STE and I later got my 500) I have to say that I still prefer playing specific games on the STE (and vice-versa) even if they are and feel inferior (i.e. North and South, Blood Money, Gods, Pang , Xenon II) because specific sound and visual cues trigger childhood memories. "GOOD enough" games were all we needed to have fun and build our memories. We didn't care about top performance. We just hopped from one house to an other and played on 8bit or 16bit machines any multiplayer (or not) game with good a gameplay. We were lucky enough to have a number of system to choose from. "which one sucked or was better" was never the issue. People nowadays use the technical characteristics of their machines to argue for a superior childhood experience over other people's experiences but that can never a real thing. I still have my Amiga hooked on a CRT and this year I bought an STE and a C64....but the machine I daily fire up is an 800XL....we are an intrinsically irrational creature = ).

[@jimkrom]

While both machines were great for their time, especially if you were upgrading from a speccy like I did, the ST and Amiga gap was quite notable. The fact that the games you mentioned were ports from the ST to the Amiga though doesn't prove anything as both machines were Motorola 68k based and the coders at the time would aim for the lower spec machine to get a game done and just port it to the other with minor improvements (mainly in the sound department). When it was the other way around with games made for the Amiga and ported to the ST, you could see the clear gap between those two machines. Look at the Turrican games, or shadow of the beast games,or the Lotus games.

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

@@jimkrom yes the gap was notable, all modern 3d games were awful on Amiga. But ST was not just toy as Amiga, it was a real general computer and majority of ST owners picked ST over Amiga for a reason. Amiga was too slow and had no SM-124 monitor.

[@andreinoooo]

Both great machines. I wonder what the budget was for Giana Sisters and Ghosts’n’Goblins on the ST 😂😂

[@PascalSquale]

Giana sister existe pour Atari Ste avec du scrolling.

[@MartinJSUK]

Worth pointing out, Cannon Fodder isn't representative because you've chosen just about the only level with no horizontal scrolling, which is dreadful on the ST version. Otherwise mostly pretty close, though the Amiga usually wins on sound. The truer comparison is once you look at Amiga-original games the ST never got, and realise how far technically they often are ahead of games designed for both.

[@moozoo2589]

All depends on how the game was ported on one platform or another. Both systems have similar capabilities.

[@off1k]

Ah no, both systems don't not have similar capabilities, it's night and day when pushed for 2D games, there's games on the Amiga that the ST has no hope of reproducing to anywhere near the same detail and not vice versa. ST doesn't have hardware sprites, hardware scrolling, dual playfield, blitter, copper. ST has lower resolution, less colour palette, less on-screen colours, no native PCM sound, DMA structure is inferior. The slightly faster CPU clock cannot make up even a fraction of the above advantages the Amiga has regarding 2D games. The best effort imo the ST produced to get as close to the Amiga version that it could get with a game using those custom chips is Wrath of the Demon but is still a fair way off. 3D on the other hand is where those custom chips on Amiga have almost no advantage. ST and Amiga for many 3D games are same speed but there's quite a few with better framerate on ST, although minimal but it's there.

[@jimkrom]

@@off1k ah, no, while I agree with most of what you said, the Amiga could in theory use the copper for 3d polygon based games to get an extra boost as it would free up cpu cycles to deal with just the polygons, but again, devs aimed for one version that would run on both machines, hence it was hardly ever used.

[@off1k]

@@jimkrom Oh yeah I know this but it's not a huge advantage using the copper for 3D but yes it would save some cpu cycles, they can also use the blitter but the line draw can't keep up the fill rate so makes it tricky. The only game I've heard of that uses both the BLitter and Copper for 3D routines is Ambermoon. Yeah they didn't bother using the blitter and copper for Amiga 3D games, too much extra code to work on is what I've heard. That Dread game that's coming out of both Amiga OCS and ST is using the blitter on Amiga (not sure about copper) and it gains about 2-3 frames over the ST despite the ST requiring 2MB minimum to run vs Amiga on 1MB (512k/512k)

[@doctorsocrates4413]

@@off1kHow many games were produced using those hardware abilities of the amiga.?..yeah the amiga had all the bells and whistles but hardly any software houses actually made use of them...both machines were graphically the same for 90% of the games available...

[@off1k]

@@doctorsocrates4413 "How many games were produced using those hardware abilities of the amiga" Before 1990 not many, it takes long time to learn extra hardware capabilities, especially when they're multitaskable co-processors (Copper and Blitter). Moot point anyway, the OP said "Both systems have similar capabilities" which is simply not true as explained in my original comment. In the early days, the Amiga was the one of the first home systems to have co-processing power and was the first system to use those co-processors properly, eventually. So of course the developers are going to code for the lowest common denominator (The Atari ST) in mind. It takes time, effort and knowledge to take advantage of Amiga. The Amiga didn't catch up in sales until ~1989, we start to see huge differences (more often) between ST and Amiga post 1990. "both machines were graphically the same for 90% of the games available..." Even without the use of the co-processors in Amiga they weren't the same, they might have been similar but Amiga still has the advantage of the much higher colour palette and 2 to 4 times the amount of on-screen colours plus higher resolution as well as hardware sprites.

[@jimkrom]

Surprised to see an Atari win, with Prince of Persia. The rest were no match though, with Giana sisters and Ghosts'n'Goblins being the most notably worse versions on the ST compared to the Amiga

[@swapd0]

I've seen many Amiga fans that say that POP on the ST looks worse, WTF!

[@8bitrocketstudios]

@@swapd0 There are updated ST version of some of these that exploit STE and play or look and sound much better, but yeah, when the Amiga was used to its strengths, it could be much better than the plain old ST.

[@swapd0]

@@8bitrocketstudios Yes, I know, Giana Sisters and PacMania for example.

[@AA-vf3eu]

Giana sisters graphics looks the same on st and Amiga and only noticable difference is scrolling

[@jimkrom]

@@AA-vf3eu and for that it IS notably worse like I said. Idk where you made the assumption that "notably worse" meant looks-wise

[@mwaawm]

Amiga Toki gets the blonde bimbo whereas the Atari gets the brunette- classy. Prince of persia is an easy win for the ST as was any game that used 3d polygons. The persistent Amiga fanboys have warped memories for in the heyday of these machines the ST was the lead platform and games performed better on it than on the Amiga, once you get to the 90s its weaker hardware is being shown up but by then the consoles are killing off both machines it was just the Amiga fanboys rabid loyalty that had it limp on for a couple more years.

[@colinbrydon7659]

Only issue is POP does not have polygons. 😊. BUT YOU ARE SO CORRECT. ST WAS AN AMAZING MACHINE.

[@RetroGames4K]

Amiga all the way, the only one I see better is pang. But overall Amiga wins.

[@gonzalofernandez2693]

Yo tuve la Atari y la cambie por Amiga 500 a mí me gusta los gráficos de Amiga.

[@TheAmigaGuru]

errrr

[@Klinkerklunk]

Atari ST sux, Amiga's the best.

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

I am an Amiga user and no...Atari ST doesn't suck. It was the dream of every 8bit user. You need to put things in to perspective. Inferior architecture and performance , sure. Good enough for that period? hell yeah. Sucked? not at all.

[@colinbrydon7659]

ST was a fantastic machine that did certain games so much better than an Amiga. Anything with polygons for example. Amiga was also a fantastic machine. Great sound and some games were so much better on it. For me having both in the 80s the ST first and my preferred.

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

ST is way faster computer 10-20% faster then A500 and has Hi-rez monitor, so why would it suck?

[@Pawel.K.]

Atari ST graphics look's like 8-bit ATARI 65 XE 🤣🤣🤣

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

if you pick out lazy ports that used EGA PC graphics, then yes, but that has nothing to do with ST capability.

[@jozefk.2495]

Both were really bad, no wonder both of these systems died early. Also, there were not many differences between these games, even though on paper Amiga had better capabilities.

[@RavageReeves]

both were great for there time

[@colinbrydon7659]

Yes and don’t forget they were about for circa 6-7 years. Similar today with consoles. They were cutting edge tech nearly 40 years ago before consoles. If you could afford one at release which were probably £1000 today you were doing well

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

Amiga was a slower computer of them two, so no it had not better capabilities. And dont forget that those computers lasted using snappy GUI from i286 running DOS up until 486DX2 running Win95, and even then MegaSTE was still a competitor.

[@MartinJSUK]

@@madigorfkgoogle9349 the ST's processor was slightly faster, but the Amiga's custom chips, if used properly, gave it the edge for almost everything else

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

@@MartinJSUK no, in arcade games of course, in everything else you would use a computer ST outperforms Amiga. The only really interesting circuit in Amiga "Custom chips" is Copper, but that is not helping the computing power at all.