I've already run the WC demo on the WinUAE. It's a very strange setup, but I'll try to do a video of it (I'm not sure but I believe it has sound - could be wrong here).
One thing worth mentioning, that many WC fans are getting the wrong idea about the port.
Yes it's right it only uses 16 colours, as it's mentioned above.
Why the 16 colours? Doesn't the standard Amiga can support 32 colours and even 64 in EHB? And AGA ones did 256 colurs?!
- OCS Amigas (A1000/earlier A500/A2000) could display up to 32 colours from a palette 4096 colours (all available in HAM mainly usable for static or controlled animated images
- ECS Amigas (A500(+)/A600/A1500/A2000/A2500/A3000/CDTV) could display up to 64 colours (EHB mode) from a palette of 4096 colours (all available in HAM mode)
- AGA Amigas (A1200/a4000/CD32) could display up to 256 colours from a palette of 16.8 million (in wich more than 256000 were available in HAM8 mode)
The OCS models were available from 1985 to 1986. 1987 models to 1992 were ECS models.
Late 1992 introduced AGA machines.
OK, so the original WC was released in 1990 and the Amiga version completed in 1992, so it supported the ECS models wich support up to 64 colours.
Then why not use them?
Two reasons spring to mind (I'm not going to go overly technical at this so don't hit me
):
1. Performance and technical differences
The Amiga Display was done in a bitplane manner - they're called Planar displays. And the video memory normally is organized in this form:
- 2 colours - 1 bitplane
- 4 colours - 2 bitplanes
- 8 colours - 3 bitplanes
- 16 colours - 4 bitplanes
- 32 colours - 5 bitplanes
- 64 colours - 6 bitplanes (or EHB / HAM in ECS modes)
- 128 colours - 7 bitplanes (AGA only)
- 256 colours - 8 bitplanes (or HAM 8 - AGA only)
This form allows easy and speed access through DMA and allow memory copying with diferent techniques. 2D operations and effects (specially on big portions of images benefit from this).
Of course wider the bandwith, more pixel individual operations become more slow (and occupy more memory).
In old 3d games where everything is calculated at the pixel level, the gfx becomes overloaded, and while the CPU may render fast or not, there would be a bottleneck at the DMA level.
PC uses Chunky (CGA-VGA), in that the CPU has write all the pixels, each occupying a byte. So large portions of memory have to be written individually (that why they sucked at 2D image display), relying on the CPU grunt force.
So it's clear that the Amiga was narrowed to 4 bitplanes for reasons of performance. And it was written a special subroutine to perform all the calculations on a type based chunky buffer (as the PC version) and then do a translation to Planar display at software level.
The CD32 actually used the AKIKO chip to perform this operation at hardware level (but some experts argued that it wasn't exploited to its max).
But why were the cut-scenes done in 16 colour also? That might to do with second reason!
2. Disk space and making the port more easy (at developer level that is...)
Doing everything in chunky might account why aren't the Menu/Mess hall/Briefings and related cut scenes not so smooth (as in SEGA CD version) and better looking. Using the same display engine as the for the gameplay may have soften the burden of writing specific GFX routines and images for that purpose (but they become more CPU intensive naturally).
Also the 16 colour chunky files would also be more compact and easier to fit in less floppy disks, to make the version playable at least with two drives (normal setup for an Amiga 500 at that time) - and 3DD floppy disks really aren't much for such a game (compare with the PC version).
And that way all the other files could be transferred with little change and keep the all port faithful and easier to debug.
As my personal note:
The work done was impeccable and really should be commended - Nick Pelling was definitely a good programmer.
Still, I would prefer two entire disks dedicated to the all Non flying game GFX (Mess/Briefings/Cut scenes) with every ounce of power the Blitter could deliver with at 64 or least 32 colours and silky smooth scrolling. That would made a huge difference... It's actually easy to imagine how that would look - just watch those parts on the SEGA CD version - that's how it would look (and should really)!
In the CD32 version it's less noticeable these issues, but again the same applies. It could be even better on those areas, the HW could have been better exploited - More silky smooth 2d scenes.
Edit: Possibly the time halted in Amiga WC development due to Nick's disease played some part in these "options" and final showdown...
