Scanned from 2000AD Prog 715 cover date 26/01/1991

THE MICROS 3: PC COMPATIBLES

W hen the words "games machine" are uttered, what springs to mind are consoles, the ageing ST and the naked power of the Amiga. The IBM PC Compatible though? Nah. The PC is the tool of the dull-minded striped shirt brigade. Or is it?
Try sitting down in front of a 20MHz 386 machine with VGA graphics, a Roland sound card, joystick card, and a 40Mb hard drive and we're talking scorched underwear time.
Unlike the ST, Amiga, or the consoles, the PC is a very flexible computer. Basically you can buy a box running an operating system, and start adding, as and when your pocket allows. Equally you can just buy the most powerful combination off the shelf. Before you do that you need to know the minimum requirements in each of the following areas graphics, sound, memory, storage and processor type.

GRAPHICS

There are five main graphics cards, which can be fitted into the internal slots of the PC, and costing anything up to around £170. Here are the specs for each card, though note that the details given are for the colour and resolution modes which are commonly used. The Amstrad 1512 for example, uses CGA, but has an extra graphics mode which is virtually never used.
Hercules — monochrome card, complete useless for games.
CGA — four colours, and 160x200 resolution. Not much good either, though one or two games have made good use of this low-power card.
EGA — 16 colours and 160x200 resolution. This is now the basic display for games, and has been immortalised by Sierra-on-Line. An EGA card is the minimum you need to play games. Strangely enough, the card can also display 320x200 res. with 16 colours, but this is very rarely used.
MCGA— 256 colours and 320x200 res. Now we're talking. The resolution is the same as the ST and the most basic Amiga mode, but with all those colours to play with excellent graphics can be displayed, especially digitised pictures.
VGA — 256 colours and 640x400 res, though this is the basic VGA display, and some cards offer even higher resolution with with up to 4096 colours. This is graphics heaven, though be aware that many American games which claim VGA graphics actually use MCGA. Star Trek V is one culprit.
Usually, a graphics card is downward compatible, so that your VGA card will be able to display MCGA, EGA or CGA graphics. Whilst the prices for the cards is generally very reasonable, if you are contemplating adding say a VGA card to an existing machine, be aware that a special VGA monitor is also required. And that will cost you another £200 or so.

MEMORY & STORAGE

Until a couple of years ago most PCs were equipped with 512K RAM, but I'm afraid that isn't enough for today's RAM-hungry games software. 640K RAM is now the desired amount, and most new PCs will give you at least that, up to a megabyte, which is better. Storage is another PC peculiarity. While your typical ST and Amiga game might run over two disks, or even three, PC games, especially anything to do with a graphical adventurish bent can run to eight disks! Rather than spend all your time swapping the things around you need a hard drive to install this and all your other software onto. A 32Mb hard drive is the minimum worth buying, and the good news is they are available as plug in cards for around £200.
Hard drives are optional, but disk drives are not, and here the situation is confused. The basic disk drive of the PC is the 360K 5.25 inch drive. This is quite outdated, and an increasing number of games are only supplied on 1.44Mb 5.25 inch disks. The newer format of 3.5 inch disks (which are of a format compatible with ST drives, incidentally) typically hold 720k, but are not quite as popular yet. To get the best of both worlds it is advisable to have both a 3.5 inch and a 5.25 inch drive.
So much for graphics, on the sound front, the PC comes ill-equipped. Those of you who have owned an original rubber keyed Spectrum will be at home. Although limited to beep-beep for a long time, some programmers have a actually managed to wring acceptable music out of the miserable little chip (Lucasfilm's Monkey Island springs to mind). If want more, an AdLib board is the next best thing (not much change from £250), and for the really rich Roland produces a range of fabulous sound boa (from £350). Maybe that beeper isn't so bad after
SOFTWARE
On the games front it has to be said that fast ac arcade shoot 'em ups are not prolific on the Xenon II (Mirrorsoft) has started a trend towards converting such megablasters though, all thank the lure of the huge American market, and a nun of Psygnosis releases are now coming through. Where the PC really excels is in the sims market.
Tank! (Mirrorsoft) is an excellent sim of the A Abrams MET, featuring modelled, rolling landsc; while Ml Tank Platoon (Microprose) offers much same thing, but it is suitable for slower PCs (it's a damn site better than the Amiga version).
Battle Chess II and Ishldo are graphically grc and offer a more strategic game: Test Drive III Super Off Road Racer gives you on and off road action; the superb Buck Rogers and Tunnels < Trolls offer a treat for RPG fans; Stormovik, L Attack, Chopper, F-19 Stealth Fighter and Flight of the Intruder give you the best in fighter/bomber sims; while John Madden Football and TV Sport Football offer plenty of strategy and action sports fans.

PC COMPATIBLES

Data applies to various makes and models
Manufactured by: IBM. Amstrad, Commodore, many others.
CPU: 8086. 800286. 80386. 16-bit
Memory: 640K RAM
Disk drive: Internal 5.25 inch 360K. or 3.5 inch floppy drives.
Screen Options: Monitor (colour or mono) usually supplied with machine.
Supplied with: Mouse controller. Windows WIMP- software.
Optional extras: VGA monitor, external floppy drive, internal floppy disk drive, hard disk, card; various applications.
Software support: Excellent and growing all the — especially in Great Britain.
Recommended price: £500-£600 (for EGA model colour monitor).
Software prices: £30-£50
Positives: Superb graphics on higher powered modles
Expansion via slots (take cards for joysticks, graphics and sound cards). Large variety of games software (plus best business/utility software range of any micro). Inexpensive peripherals prices (compared with other micros). Massive user-base insures long-term durability of system.
Negatives: Initially expensive. Higher-priced software. Not many arcade-quality games. Poor sound through internal speaker and sound cards very expensive. Slow speed and poor animation on standard machines. Remarks: The vast quantities of PCs in use all over world (especially in America) could see this type of micro outlast all the others and become the definitive games computer!

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