Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    One note about the sounds for "Leader Board".  They are actual
    digitized versions of real golf sounds.  For instance, the sound
    of the ball falling into the cup is a recording of a real
    ball falling into a real cup.  Some folks don't notice the
    realism since it's SO GOOD!  Once again a job that would be
    impossible on other computers is just another day at the office
    for the Amiga.
    
    -jim

A couple quick questions about "Leader board":

Is a joystick required or recommended?

I'm not a golfer, I just know someone who would enjoy this program, so I
have to ask: what does the title mean?

Thanks,
John O.

    Re: .2
    There is, as far as I can tell, no option for joystick.  It's all
    mouse driven and that's alright by me.
    
    The "leader board" can be found at a golf tournament.  The current
    statuses of the leading players are recorded there.  I've only been
    to a handful of tourneys but as I recall there are several of them
    maintained throughout the course so that the golfers can get an
    up-to-the-minute idea of where they stand.
    
    Re: .1
    I heard that the C64 sounds are digitized but I'm not convinced
    that's the case for the Amiga.  I've heard the sound of a ball falling
    into the cup before and the metallic tink of the Amiga just ain't
    it.  The 64 version sounds about right.
    
    BTW, you really don't need to be a golfer to enjoy this game.  It
    might help if you had an idea of the concepts of golf but I have
    a friend who enjoys playing it and he's never touched a club.
    
    
    Wasting too much of his valuable programming time on course 4,
    Gary

    re .3 re .1
    
    Since the Amiga can only produce sounds from wavetables (i.e., no
    analog synthesis facilities), I'm not sure what you mean by the
    Amiga version's sounds not being digitized.  I can't imagine anybody
    going to the effort to compute the wavetables for a golfball plinking
    into a cup when you could get them so easily by sampling.  Now,
    the sample may not be great, but that's a different problem.
    
    len.
    

    re: ball sounds
    
    SID can reproduce sampled sounds as well as synthed sounds.  But
    that's not really what we're interested in.  
    I really have no clue how the they arrived at the cup sound but
    if it was sampled, it was a poor job.  The 64 sounds better.  Don't
    buy this one for the sound, rather for the nice graphics and
    playablity.
    
    Gary

    Please describe how the SID can play sampled sounds.
    
    -jim

    There is NO WAY that the c'64 SID chip can play sampled sounds.
     Trust me.

    Correct.  I checked the SID description in the C64 Programmer's
    Reference Manual.  The SID is a standard 3 oscillator analog synth
    configuration.  It does not support *any* sampling or wavetable
    functionality.
    
    len.
    

    re:.5
    
    Given that the C64 SID is a 3 oscillator analog synth and the Amiga
    uses sampled sounds, how can the C64 sound better?  I would only
    believe a claim like that if I could hear the machines side by side.
    
    -jim

    jim, et al.
    
    Okay, okay, don't leap down my throat.  I ain't no hardware or 
    sound generation guru.  I only go by what I read in the rags.
    It seems to me that there's a device either named, or made by a company
    called, COVOX that can record sounds for you.  It, so the rags
    say, includes software to playback these sounds through SID without
    benefit of special hardware.  I have no first-hand experience here,
    just info from reviews and the like.  If I gave the impression that
    someone had done the sampling with SID, I'm sorry that's not at
    all what I meant.  But if one truly cannot play sampled sounds through
    SID then the folks who run articles and ads regarding this product
    might be interested in hearing from you.
    
    As far as the comparison of the golf sounds goes,  what else can
    I say to convince you.  I don't intend to make any comment about
    how well the Amiga can produce or reproduce a sampled sound.  I've
    heard some astounding things done on the Amiga.  Hell, the Boing
    sound in itself is amazing.  I merely think that the folks who produced
    the sounds for the Amiga "Leaderboard" (BTW, not the same programmers
    who did the 64 version) did not do a particularly good job.  The
    sounds do *not* sound to me like the real thing.  Perhaps a subjective
    viewpoint but it's not like I'm trying to defend the 64 while cutting
    down the Amiga.  I sold my 64 after buying my Amiga.  I'd be more
    than happy to run a A/B comparison of the 2 versions.  I doubt that
    many are interested enough in it to come to South Carolina to hear
    it.
    
    Removing human pieces from my esophagus,
    Gary

    
    BTW, is there some technical reason why one can't play a sound on
    both stereo channels simultaneously?  Perhaps it's just laziness
    on the programmers' parts, but Leaderboard's sounds are produced
    in the left stereo channel only.  Would it have been so hard to
    balance out the signal by playing it on both sides?  Did they think
    that most people would be content with the tinny little monitor
    speaker?  I'm still an Amiga "babe in arms" so the above questions
    are not necessarily rhetorical.

    It is quite easy for a sampled sound to be worse than an an analog
    synthesis.  For example, if the sampler has too few bits per sample,
    or too few samples per second, making a good sound with it becomes
    very hard.  Even without these problems, a clumsy programmer can
    make bad sounds with *any* hardware.  Conversely, a clever programmer
    can make an analog synth sound good, with enough patience.
        John Sauter 

    Sorry, Gary, if you felt put upon, such was assuredly not our intent,
    just trying to set the record straight.
    
    The SID *does* have an audio input, which I believe just gets routed
    through the SID's VCF, taking the place of the internally generated
    signals.  Maybe this outboard box hooks in that way.  The SID has
    no provision whatsoever that I have been able to discern for dealing
    with sampled sounds whose wavetables are stored in the C64's memory.
    
    I'll amplify John's remarks in .11 by noting that half the battle
    of making a good sampled sound is capturing the sample.  This is
    "just a matter of" traditional audio recording.  Even with the best
    sampling technology you can still make some ugly sounds.  Witness
    some of the early CDs.
    
    len.
    

    re: .10   Leaderboard isn't in stereo????  Could it be possible
    they just ported the ST version to the Amiga and made no effort
    to take advantage of all that great hardware?
    
    Arrgghhh (reminds me of some of the Apple ports to my Atari 400)
    
    -dave

    re: 13
    Dunno.  Could be possible.  The only clue I have is that the back
    of the box has photos of both the ST and Amiga versions accompanied
    by the author's names.  Brent Erickson for the ST and some conglomerate
    named Scuptured Software, Inc. which consists of Craig Condor, Bryan
    Brandenburg and Hal Rushton.  (Not really much of a clue, eh?) 
    It's interesting to note that by comparing the photos on the back,
    one might conclude that the ST version is better than the Amiga
    version.  The Amiga photo looks rather spartan compared to the other.
    Glad I didn't really pay too much attention to it at the time I
    bought it.  The Amiga version is FAR better than the picture will
    lead you to believe.  More closely resembles the ST picture.  Could
    well be the dreaded port-from-the-inferior-machine syndrome. :^)
    (Oooooh! I hear the flames a comin'.)
    
    Likes "Leader Board" warts and all,
    Gary

    re mono sound - recall that the Amiga doesn't really have a mono
    sound mode - the way you get centered mono is by sending the same sound
    to both outputs, using up *two* of the four audio channels (since they
    are hard assigned two each to the left and right outputs).  They
    have just been trying to be good multitasking citizens, leaving
    three audio channels available for other tasks, but it's hard for
    me to imagine what you'd be doing with them in a multitasking situation.

    re: .15
    
    Thanks for the info.  As far as the programmers' ethics are concerned,
    you give them far more credit than I do.  They would not be so kind
    as to leave open a few sound channels for the use of other programs
    and then not give you the opportunity to run other programs.  You
    can <Left A> n  and get to the WB screen, but you'll see very little
    when you get there.  No WB.  No CLI.  I haven't tried running this
    program from a CLI yet, so I guess I shouldn't throw stones until
    I do.  Seems odd though that if you intend to have a program that
    allows multitasking, that you'd make it impossible to do so using
    the prescribed method of startup.
    
    Still love it even if it does commandeer my Amiga,
    Gary

    I have seen both the ST and Amiga versions of Leader Board, and
    I own the Amiga version.  The Amiga version LOOKS very similar to
    the ST version, but my Reliable Sources tell me that the ST version
    was written in 68000 code, but the AMiga version was written in
    'C', ergo, definately not a port job.  
    
    As to the sound, I play my Amiga thru a JVC receiver and some KHL
    loudspeakers, and the sound of the ball falling into the cup sounds
    pretty good, but the club hitting the ball kinda s***s.  I think
    the club swing was synthesized, and none too well at that.

Well, I went out to buy Leader Board, and found it isn't the only golf
simulation for the Amiga. There's "Mean18", also. I compared them in 
the store, and bought Leader Board. "Mean18" definitely looks like a
port, the graphics are terrible. Leader Board has very clean graphics
and nice presentation.

I was waiting to hear this abominable ball-falling-in-cup sound, and
was pleasently surprised. I just have the sound through the 1080
speakers, but it sounds okey to me, based on minature-golf sounds I
am familiar with. The sound of swinging, hitting, putting are all
reasonable, too. I wasn't expecting a real "being there" sound, just
not cat-dropped-on-piano; maybe I need higher standards.

Only bug I've noticed so far is that occasionally there is NO sound,
for one specific move, usually a putt with a drop-in. It's slightly
disturbing, gives a vague feeling you've suddenly gone deaf, but no
big deal. I enjoy the game a lot- you can stand there and whop one
right after the other into the water and not worry about the cost of
all these pixels you're losing...

John O.

    Okay, okay. The sound really isn't *that* bad, I just wish it'd
    come out of both speakers. And yes, I've noticed the sound dropout
    bug that you've mentioned.  It doesn't seem to have any rhyme or
    reason to it.
    
    I've seen photos of the ST "Mean 18" screen and was not impressed.
    I wasn't aware that it is out for the Amiga.  The write up that
    I saw said it was available for the ST and the I*M PC.  The screen
    photo that I saw looked very I*Mish.  Only a few, icky colors on
    the screen.  Perspective looked all wrong.  Hope to see it first
    hand for the Amiga before I pass final judgement, though.
    
    Gary

    I've been playing "Mean 18" since last weekend.  I liked the "low"
    price.  Hope I can compare with "Leader Board"... I'm starting to
    PAR the expert mode already.
    

    My favorite Amiga software emporium had "Mean 18" the last time
    I was in but all I got to see was the back cover which has some
    (shrug) I*M PC pictures on it.  The store didn't even have time
    to break one out yet.  I almost weakened and bought it sight unseen
    but reason prevailed and I bought "Leather Goddesses of Phobos"
    instead.  (Fun-ny game, BTW.)

    Gary

    I blew some of the dust off of my older disks the other day and
    came across my original Leader Board disks.  Haven't played it much
    recently since it doesn't run under 1.2 and I get sick of rekicking.
    Does anyone know if Access has bothered to update it to run under
    1.2?  Ed, have you heard anything?  I'd play it more often if I
    didn't have to go through all the trouble.   (Mean 18 is a bit more
    realistic, but it hurts the eyes.  It'd be nice to play both.)
    
    Gary

    When I first installed 1.2 on my system, I noticed that Leader Board
    and some early EA releases didn't work properly.  Being a real fan
    of Leader Board, I called Access and asked if they had an upgrade
    available.  They said they had just put the finishing touches on
    a 1.2 version, and would send me a free copy.
    
    I got the copy a few days later and tried it under 1.2.  It would
    load and run, but the graphics were still flakey.  I tried fixhunk,
    nofast, and every other trick I could think of.  (I had just installed
    2 megs of fast ram, and it worked OK with the Starboard disconnected).
    
    I called Access and spoke to someone named Mike and told him it
    now worked under 1.2, but didn't like fast ram.  At that point,
    he said they'd have to figure it out, and I never bothered to call
    them back.  Someone should check, since I have to believe that with
    A500s selling like the proverbial hotcakes, any developer with an
    ounce of business sense would fix their products to meet the Amiga
    standards.
    
    By the way, the concept of Atomizing a program to distinguish between
    chip and fast ram was known from day one.  Lazy developers just
    never bothered to study their documentation correctly.
                                                          
    Ed.
    

    I have an A500 with just the 512K. Two weeks ago I bought Leader
    Board and it works just fine.  I specifically asked for a version
    that would run on the A500, apparently they just released it.
    
    Rich