Re: What IIgs Games Benefit From Accelerator Cards?

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

"Tempest" <tempest@atariprotos.com> wrote:

>Title says it all, what IIgs games benefit from accelerator cards? 

I would break that into three categories...

1) Games that already run quite respectively but gain smoother scrolling:

- Zany Golf
- Rastan
- Thexder
- Questron II
- Journey to Calibus
- Super Mario Bros.
- Mazer II
- Marble Madness ?
- Defender of the World
- Ultima I (GS)
- Ancient Land of Ys
- Xenocide
- Winter/World/California Games

2) Games that are extremely slow, that finally play as they should: 

- Aaargh!
- Dungeon Master
- Silpheed (opening titles)
- VIAD (opening titles)
- Firepower
- Rocket Ranger
- Test Drive II
- Grand Prix Circuit
- Tomahawk
- Skate or Die ? (impossible to test on my ROM 3)
- Windwalker
- Sierra 3D adventures (Quest series, etc)
- Battle Chess (calculation time for computer moves)

3) Games that absolutely REQUIRE acceleration to be playable:

- Out of This World
- Wolfenstein 3D
- LemminGS

>On the flip side, what IIgs games are incompatible with accelerator cards?

    None. However, there may be a handful that become unplayable to the user
because the game play or animation is too fast and/or out of sync.I can't
think of many off hand, except:

- Hoverblade
- Orbizone ?
- Naxos ?

    There are several others I'm sure, but those are the major ones I can
think of. You may not even notice there is a difference playing a game, 
until you disable accelerator and run it back at 2.6 MHz to compare.

    There is a day and night difference with Aaargh, Dungeon Master
or Test Drive II with a decent speed accelerator, going from painful
game play to being a pleasure. Out of This World runs beautifully at
3/4th the screen size, out pacing even the Super Nintendo version.

    Having owned everything from a 6 MHz to 15 MHz accelerator 
(with 8K ranging to 64K) you want at least a 9 MHz with 32K cache 
card. I know there was a _huge_ difference between my 8/16 and
15/64 ZipGS, I was blown away at the difference it made on the
above listed games. I put question marks next to Orbizone and
Naxos because I don't remember if they were unplayable (speed
wise) on my accelerated IIgs or an emulator.

Mitchell Spector