Emulators or the real thing?

[Castelle]

Hi,

I have been wondering from reading the threads that the Amiga is a hobby thing, an interest, a thing of fun but what do you guys favour these days?

Is it the real thing, were you can sit down and relive the glory days and marvel at what magic an Amiga is or;

Do you go for the Emulator, there has been massive changes and they are so good that you'd think you are using the real thing.

I'm probably playing devils advocate on this but I'd be interested to see your views...

Over to you guys...

[Demon Cleaner]

I voted for both, as I like, if only sometimes, to play some games on my real C64 or Amiga, but usually I tend to use the emulator. Imagine at work, when you bring along your C64 and plug it next to your PC!

[Buleste]

I mostly use my A1200 but when i'm doing screenshots for the main site or i'm running one of the higher end games i'll use the emulator as it's just faster.

[Zetr0]

I voted for both, as I like to setup with an emulator, and then transpose this to the original.

I love hacking the original one too, I doubt i would have any of my half dozen amigas completely finished any time soon, and thats the way i like it :D

[Stephen Coates]

I voted for the real thing. Nothing beats it.

Emulators are handy though, especially since they are very good these days.

[ppill]

Couples of months back I'd have gone for emulation but when my A1200 developed a fault with the display I simply had to replace it (got two mobos just in case ;)). It just didn't feel right even with the original HD hooked up to the PC.

But we're so lucky to have Toni churning out one version of WinUAE after another.

Emulation is definetly for those coming back after a LONG break. There's just too much hassle with real hardware and the OS if you haven't got the experience.

[Puni/Void]

Like others here, I find it difficult to just choose one of the categories, so I've voted for both.

Emulation is extremely handy when it comes to grabbing screenshots for the main site, so I often tend to use WinUAE for this task. It's fast and efficient and I don't have to copy the files from one machine to another. Also, the fastest Amiga I have is an Amiga 1200 with Blizzard MKIV 68030 accelerator card. This card mostly gets the job done, but with demos requiring more memory and better CPU, WinUAE is my only option.

On the other hand, nothing beats the experience of using a real Amiga. These days I'm enjoying my new Amiga 600 with a CF adapter and 1MB of extra memory. It's hard to describe, but whenever I use a real Amiga, computing is fun again. So whenever I use the 1200 or the 600 (or the CD32), it's always a blast. :smokin:

[Harrison]

As with many of the others here I voted for both. I tend to mostly use emulation as I have the PCs already setup so it is easy to just fire up WinUAE for a few games. And also load up other emulators too.

But there is always that sense that something special is missing when using an emulated Amiga. It is hard to describe what it is, but I'm going to say it is missing the soul of a Real Amiga. There is just something special when you boot a real Amiga and use it.

[Buleste]

I think it's that Emulators are too clean. When something goes pear shaped with an emulator you just restart. If it goes on a rela Amiga then you have too look into what happened.

[Harrison]

No... I don't think it is that in my case. The actual feel/experience you get when using a real Amiga, playing games or using applications, is different to emulation.

I suppose it is a bit like racing cars in a computer game, compared to racing a real car. You can't actually feel the car or sense what it is doing in the simulation.

[JLPedro]

I think the amiga wouldn't have survided till now without emulation, its great for testing and very fast, and becoming more and mora acurate. But nothing beats playing with the real amiga (i have two, a 1200 and a 600) or any other computer (also spectrum and msx).

[Stephen Coates]

The idea of having windows runing in the background might have something to do with it :ninja:

[Tiago]

Both !

Some games in the real thing others in winuae.
Some demos i can only run in emulation... so both is the best answer!

[Buleste]

In a bizarre twist i've tried some of the 'high end' games for standard amiga on Win uae and whilst Payback is super fast and playable - Naplam is totally unplayable. It's so fast that even if you were ODing on 'Phet it would be impossible to play. However an emulated amiga emulating a c64 works fine.

[Harrison]

You can slow down emulation though to try and fix problems with games running to fast. It can require some experimentation with the settings though.

[AlexJ]

Isn't there a "match A500 timing exactly" option. Having that on may help.

[Graham Humphrey]

I didn't realise it was a multiple choice poll... never mind.

I prefer real Amigas but WinUAE is excellent and without it I doubt there'd be as much interest in the Amiga these days.

[my_lo]

I had an amiga 500 which i sold to buy an amiga 1200 which i sold to buy my first PC, 12 years ago... I will always regret to have sold them... ow man i loved them T_T, especially the A1200 but things are what they are and i only have space for one computer now, so i chose a PC with emulators. If i could chose, i would have a luna park at home and a room for the c64 and A1200 but i only have a small room, so the choice is easy: emulation (with a bitter taste).

[Harrison]

Hi my_lo and welcome. :thumbs:

That is the problem many now face. A lack of room and desk space forced a lot of people to sell their Amigas and buy a PC. But it seems many are now decided to get back into the Amiga and buying second hand Amigas to relive the old days. Emulation is very good these days, but it does still feel like something special is missing compared to the real thing.

[my_lo]

Hi my_lo and welcome. :thumbs:

That is the problem many now face. A lack of room and desk space forced a lot of people to sell their Amigas and buy a PC. But it seems many are now decided to get back into the Amiga and buying second hand Amigas to relive the old days. Emulation is very good these days, but it does still feel like something special is missing compared to the real thing.

Thanks Harrison, i'm sooo happy to have found such a great community :thumbs:

I couldn't agree more, emulation is practical but it'll never replace my good old collection of floppys, the lists we were exchanging with my neighbour... (to myself: i won't shed a tear, i won't shed a tear).
But who knows, one day, in a bigger house, i may join the others and ebay some A1200 :)

[Demon Cleaner]

To get retro stuff, especially Amiga, you can always use AmiBay (http://www.amibay.com/), which is dedicated for selling/buying stuff.

[Vangar]

Real. Nothing beats the old pixel screen, the sound or the feel of an Amiga. :D

[merlin20674]

Voted for both

Although emulation is now straight forwrd and easy to use and to configure, you just couldn't beat the real thing. I remember spending hours in front of a twin tape deck copying the latest games my mates had for the C-64 was just to easy in them days. And always having to be carful not to knock the tv modulator out of the back of the 500 or the ram at the back of the zx81 pmsl. only thing i don't miss is the loading times. That used to drive me mad, especially when it was a tape and you had to turn the tape or even rewind it to certain position then the game would crash and you would have to start again.

Fond memories
Danny

[Shaun1984]

For me personally, emulation is not an option, you just cannot capture the experience in my opinion.