Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!moriarty From: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Survey of Macintosh Game Compatibility with Mac SE/30 Keywords: games compatibility Mac SE/30 SEx Message-ID: <8074@fluke.COM> Date: 3 May 89 23:02:53 GMT Sender: news@tc.fluke.COM Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA Lines: 192 When I bought my Mac SEx (a.k.a. SE/30), I had heard that most programs that worked with a Mac II worked with my SEx. And, indeed, this has been true, right down to dozens of PD and shareware programs written over five years ago that run like a charm. As expected, though, quite a few game programs haven't been working, even ones that work fairly well on a II or IIx. I've assumed that these incompatible games are mostly due to the SEx's VRAM chips (as opposed to the SE's use of standard RAM for the video) and the custom CRT controller chip that the SEx has. (Got this information from the Microprocessor Report.) Or perhaps some games check the processor type and assume the machine's a Mac II (and thus has a larger monitor) or checks out the screen size and assume it's a 68000-based machine like the Plus or the SE. At any rate, I decided to do a quick review of which games worked on the SEx, and which didn't. I also called up the makers of the various commercial games I had problems with and asked about fixes/upgrades -- this was rather interesting in itself, as I got some diverse impressions of these companies through their tech support people. Both results and company feedback are listed below; I've sub-divided games into PD/Shareware and Commercial sections. Test equipment: One Mac SEx, 5 Megs memory, all INITs off, ram cache off, 80 MB internal hard drive. If I couldn't get it to run on the hard drive, I tried running it from the floppy drive. My selection of games was limited to a) which games I'd purchased and b) which PD games I enjoyed playing. None of these games was extensively tested -- I played for a few minutes to look for obvious problems. I've attempted to supply version numbers with every game tested. Oh, and all PD/shareware games were checked with Disinfectant 1.1 beforehand. Here we go.... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- <<>> PROBLEMS: AQUARIUM 0.5: Yeah, the little demo program that turns your screen into a fishtank. It's *old*. Kept giving me some type of read error (don't think the file was corrupted, but you never know). AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER 4.0: *This* was a disappointment, as I've always enjoyed this game. (Didn't the author say at some time that he was working on a commercial version?) The help menus and everything work fine, but as soon as the actual games starts, the first mouse movement made causes an 01 bomb. BLACKBOX 1.0: An old favorite. Would start up and immediately quit back to the Finder. CONTINUUM 1.01: It's got "Falcon's Disease" (see FALCON in the commercial games), i.e. the screen flickers horribly. It gives you a message at startup about INITS, something about "Do you have a second graphics buffer reserved?" I said yes, and then it would start, albeit with massive flickering. MEGAROIDS: Starts game, and then hangs without drawing screen. RAN O.K.: 1000 Miles 1.1 BioRhythm 0.51 Brickles 8.0 Bstations 2.0 Cairo Shootout 1.0s Canfield 3.1 Dungeon of Doom 4.0 Hangman 10.0 Risk Scarab of Ra 1.2 Seahaven Towers 1.2 (but who'd want to play it without color?) Stratego 0.95 (If someone can come up with a challenging algorithm for the computer opponent on this game, I'll buy it toute suite). Tanked Theldrow 1.0 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- <<>> PROBLEMS: MAZEWARS+ 1.0 (MacroMind): Problem: sounds don't play with this. This was certainly the most entertaining call I made to a game manufacturer; I phoned in to discover that they had discovered the problem themselves about two weeks ago, but I was the first SEx user to call in to report it. "Hey, Bill, we finally got one!" Apparently version 1.1 will fix all these problems; $10 upgrade fee with a xerox of the disk and the letter I got with the game (the one saying I was one of the first 300 purchasers of the game). Very nice people at MacroMind... APACHE STRIKE, DARK CASTLE (Silicon Beach): Problem: Remember when you tried to run Silicon Beach games under version 6.0? You'd get "something in high memory" even when you had no INITs, no RAM cache, no nuthin'? It's baaaack! What is interesting is that BEYOND DARK CASTLE runs fine... Silicon Beach didn't say much about DARK CASTLE (I know, they're getting out of the game market -- I've got Super 3D and I've used Digital Darkroom, and more power to 'em), but they said they were working on fixing APACHE STRIKE, and that registered users would be notified. Very polite. BALANCE OF POWER (the 1985 version) (MindScape): Boots up from the hard drive, but the little boxes that fade in and over don't appear, and you're stuck on the opening screen. MacroMind said I needed to buy BOP 1990 (the new version); upgrade price, $27.95! Screw that, I could buy it from MacConnection for $30. Probably the most brusque, except for Epyx, who were downright obnoxious. SUB BATTLE SIMULATOR (Epyx): Problem: Well, it runs (make sure you move all the sounds into the same folder with the games, not in a sub-folder), but... the target ships are about 1/2" above the water! And I got some strange graphics when passing other ships. Called Epyx; from the conversation I had, I got the impression they are not very Mac knowledgable. They tried to snow me with, "Well, that's an Apple System Software problem"; when I pointed out that it ran fine on a Mac Plus with the same software, and that the pre-6.0.3 software didn't run with the SEx, he basically said they didn't plan to fix it, and that there were no plans for an upgrade. Thank you, Epyx. (Though I wouldn't be adverse to a Mac version of CRUSH, CRUMBLE AND CHOMP.) MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR 1.0: Problem: Won't boot. Called Microsoft, who told me that a version which worked on the SEx or the Mac II was not yet available. I believe it for the Mac SEx, but doesn't MS Flight Simulator work on the Mac II? Maybe he meant to say the IIx or the IIcx. Usual polite MS customer service. SHANGHAI 1.0 (Activision, now Mediagenic): Problem: Get bomb 01 on booting. Rep from Mediagenic said that an upgrade to the program would be available around the end of June, and that it would fix the bug. They will notify registered users. Nice folks; apparently no one had called in about an SEx problem yet. FALCON 2.0 GATO 1.42 PT-109 1.0 (Spectrum Holobyte): Well, they are THE Mac games company. Falcon has that damn flickering problem, though it runs fast; Gato 1.42 had no sounds playing; PT-109 ran fine, except that when you pulled down the QUIT command, the game bombed. The rep at Spectrum Holobyte (or Sphere, as they're called now) was very straight and up-front about it. They don't know what's ailing FALCON yet, but they've been working on it for a month; they hope to have it licked by early June. Said they probably won't send out notices to everyone (strictly an SEx problem), and asked me to call back in about a month. (I'll let you know what I find out.) No plans to upgrade Gato, but a fix -- the sounds work... if you run it under MultiFinder! Ha! I'd love to see what caused that problem. Fine with me, I got 5 megs... They are also beginning to look at a fix for PT-109, but since only QUIT bombs, it's not ultra-high priority. Sounds like a patch might be sent out, which is reasonable. Professional support rep here; I especially appreciated his candor after Epyx. RAN O.K.: Beyond Dark Castle Colony The Fool's Errand (difficult to check much of it) Lode Runner 1.0 (Created in 1984, and still runs fine!) Shufflepuck (Rev. HC) Smash Hit Raquetball II Tetris 1.00 (This one was *extensively* checked :-) ) Trust & Betrayal All Infocom games worked OK, too (gosh, all that volatile parser technology... :-) ) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hope this is of some help to you game-players out there thinking about upgrading to a SE/30... "You think anyone who's proud of the work we do is an ass-kisser." "No... I think anyone who *puckers* up their lips, and *presses* it against their boss's buttocks and then *smootchs* is an ass-kisser." Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer INTERNET: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM Manual UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, hplsla, thebes, microsoft}!fluke!moriarty CREDO: You gotta be Cruel to be Kind... <*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>