@KimmoK

would be great if Amiga will have again custom graphics chip.

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@KimmoK

Quote:

And 1440x780 HAM8 was far superior in quality vs standard SVGA.

PAL with full Overscan has 1472x566 pixels interlaced. Largest non-laced resolution is well below 800x600. Even cheap (in 1993) 512 kB plain SVGA card can deliver 800x600 256 colours non-laced and there was good choice of GFX cards capable of Hi or True Colour in that resolution (or even higher) back then. In some special cases (video production you mentioned) AGA can be competitive with GFX chipset not directly suited for such use. But most of us need computer for other tasks, where SVGA (and better cards) has great advantage over AGA.

@pavlor

1440x580 was what I used. 780 was typo/mistake.
"Largest non-laced resolution is well below 800x600."

Interlace is not that annoying when handling photos etc.
(and WB/tools could remain on separate screen or on GFX card screen if needed)

(I've seen one A1200 setup where some 1400x550i was it's everyday resolution and the flickering was really not toobad.)

" 800x600 256 colours non-laced and there was good choice of GFX cards capable of Hi or True Colour in that resolution"

Not as standard setup. Same for Amigas.

When A4000 with AGA and A3000 some 24Bit card (ImpactVision24 IIRC @ 768×625) was put side by side, AGA looked better.

Last edited by KimmoK on 11-Feb-2014 at 08:34 PM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 11-Feb-2014 at 08:32 PM.

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@KimmoK

The problem whit HAM8, was that if you wanted a special color. You first needed a base color, but if the base color looked was not correct, you need to change the color it was done on next pixel, but only red, green or blue where possible to change, in worst case scenario you need 4 pixels, to get correct color, by then you where suppose to show a different color.

The result was that you never got right color, or color looked wrong, this is way HAM6 and HAM8 is called near true color. But because you can display lots of color, but all color looked wrong.

And also HAM was not natural format for any PC picture format like TGA,JPEG,BMP,TIF or else they used back then, so picture first needed to be decompressed, like normal, but then image needed to be converted to HAM before it was displayed, on Amiga500 this was horrible slow.

Also because it was a big deal to put the correct colour on the screen as this need CPU power to do it, it was not really useful for anything else then display still images, it was way too slow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_Mach

You also need to realize that PC did have 8bit already in 1990, two years before AGA was resealed on Amga1200,Amiga4000. AGA was outdated when it came out.

In 1992, when AGA came out, ATI released there Mach 32,
support true colors 32bit, support up to 1280x1024 at 60Hz.

http://service5.boulder.ibm.com/pspsdocs.nsf/8d77653332b629ab862563cc005ee09a/3d990de2d7a4f1c48525626e00464f6d?OpenDocument

It should be clear now that AGA was out dated when it came out, it was slow, it did not support true color, and it killed Amiga.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 11-Feb-2014 at 08:41 PM.
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Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 11-Feb-2014 at 08:36 PM.

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@KimmoK

Quote:

(I've seen one A1200 setup where some 1400x550i was it's everyday resolution and the flickering was really not toobad.)

Sorry, I have A1200 here and yes I tried interlaced resolutions. No more.

Quote:

Not as standard setup. Same for Amigas.

?? What is "standard setup" for so variable computer like PC?

Quote:

When A4000 with AGA and A3000 some 24Bit card (ImpactVision24 IIRC @ 768×625) was put side by side, AGA looked better.

Well, compare to Picasso2 (good old Cirrus Logic GD5426 used in many PC GFX cards back then).

@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

You also need to realize that PC did have 8bit already in 1990, two years before AGA was resealed on Amga1200,Amiga4000. AGA was outdated when it came out.

Out-dated for high-end A4000. For A1200 it was competitive in 1992/1993 (256 kB SVGA was used in sub 800 USD PCs).

Quote:

and it killed Amiga.

Nonesense. Lack of chipset development was demonstrated 2 years prior by A3000 - superb computer except GFX (ECS was bad joke).

@NutsAboutAmiga

- "8Bits on PC" implies VGA, which wasn't really standard in 1990.

- it was kinda standard in 92, but than only as a basic 256k card, which only did 256 colors in 320x200 (640x480 was down to 16 colors)

- pallete was limited to 256k

- and it was sloooooooow shootemups or any other 2D action game so popular on the Amiga wern't even remotly possible

- later VGA compatible cards did add >256 colors in similar ways than AGA

- try watching a (compressed) >256 color image on an 8MHz 286 with a basic VGA (actually something EGA would have been more realistic for such an early 286) and you will see that the A500 will not only display the picture faster, but also in better quality.

- AGA was only slowed when you tried to do something against it's nature (like running early 3D games designed for chunky modes)

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@Kronos

Quote:

- "8Bits on PC" implies VGA, which wasn't really standard in 1990.

VGA cards were affordable in 1990 and really cheap in 1991.

Quote:

it was kinda standard in 92, but than only as a basic 256k card, which only did 256 colors in 320x200 (640x480 was down to 16 colors)

Kronos was righ. It is 640x480 and 800x600 in 16 colours.

Quote:

- and it was sloooooooow shootemups or any other 2D action game so popular on the Amiga wern't even remotly possible

But much better for basic 3D.

Quote:

- AGA was only slowed when you tried to do something against it's nature (like running early 3D games designed for chunky modes)

Should be true, but my A1200 (68030 50 Mhz/AGA) is as fast as my 486SX notebook (25 MHz, ISA? VGA).

In 1992, AGA was competitive only in lowest segment of market (eg. 600-800 USD for computer).

Edit: SVGA 256 kB.

Last edited by pavlor on 11-Feb-2014 at 09:45 PM.

@pavlor

Quote:

pavlor wrote: VGA cards were affordable in 1990 and really cheap in 1991.

Cheap != standard

Most PCs sold in 1990 still either EGA (some even CGA) or Herkules GFX.

Mostly due to the fact that VGA capable monochrome monitors where still much expensive than Herkules capable ones.

Color VGA was out of the question for must users.

All this did start to change a few years later, but even when the A1200/4000 were released anything >640x480 wasn't really useable on the 31kHz 14" CRTs that dominated the market (and AGA had no problem running those at similar specs).

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@pavlor

>>(I've seen one A1200 setup where some 1400x550i was it's everyday resolution and the flickering was really not toobad.)
>Sorry, I have A1200 here and yes I tried interlaced resolutions. No more.

Also I have tried to use interlaced resolutions but on my A4000 setup and I did not manage to set up my display like my friend did. (I should check what display he had, IIRC, nothing special most likely, but perhaps some lucky advantages)
I used virtual 700x1000 resolution untill I got RTG card.

I used interlaced modes only for some GFX manipulation and video titling.

>?? What is "standard setup" for so variable computer like PC?

Setup that most people buy?
Unless people wanted to do photo editing, they did not have 640x480x24b capable display card.
Also all average Macintoshes did not have true color (high res) available untill around mid 90's.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

>it was not really useful for anything else then display still images, it was way too slow.

It was perfectly usable on Brilliance and Digipaint for WYSIWYG picture editing.
And it was usefull for video clips. (it played at the same speed as 8bit video, IIRC)

And when using clever design, one could use HAM8 and fast 64color at the same time.

>You also need to realize that PC did have 8bit already in 1990

In lo res. VGA and then SVGA cards had very little memory untill late 90's.
And still in y1994 it was standard that a PC games were 320x256x8b,

(in 92..93 most PCs we built were equipped with Trident9000 series of GFX cards and 512kb video RAM)

>two years before AGA was resealed on Amga1200,Amiga4000. AGA was outdated when it came out.

Outdated on some things for high end.
But 1440x580x266144c/24b was superb when compared to low color highres of a stock PC.

AGA required people to use separate screens for different things. 32 colors for fast output needs (like on desktop) and HAM8 for pictures. etc... The fun point was that you could change the resolution 600 times in one second (IIRC, on screen / application switch), no need to reboot like on a PC at that time.

Last edited by KimmoK on 12-Feb-2014 at 09:05 AM.
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@Kronos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chips_and_Technologies

EGA came to PC in 1985
VGA came to PC in 1987

The thing here is when you compare Amiga to PC, you compare it to not what came the same year ot what existed at the same time, but to things that where almost 10 years older.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_graphics_chips_and_card_companies

This the big list of company’s Commodore was compting whit to make the best graphic card, there was simply not possible.

And also the PC where not behind:
http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/component/content/article/501-miro-magic-plus

When it came to VRAM, there where lots of cards that did have the same amount of vram.

Chips F82C481:
40Mhz 2 to 4 MB of ram.

Weitek Power 9000
2MB,

Videologic Rapier 24
3,5Mb of VMEM.

S3 P86C928
2MB of vram.

Chips&Technologies F82C481 Miro Magic Plus
2MB of vram.

To compete whit the graphic cards company’s, Commodore needed to make new graphic chip every year, whit 8 years development cycle they had, they where unable to keep up, so in 1993, whit 32bit PCI bus came out, all the advantages of the AGA chipset was rendered mute.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 12-Feb-2014 at 09:49 AM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 12-Feb-2014 at 09:35 AM.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Typical displaycard for PC build in 1992-1993: http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/component/content/article/1129-trident-tvga9000c

In rare cases buyers demanded better than standard GFX card.

Same for CPU. People bought what was affordable.
In 1994 486DX2@50Mhz was pretty good and in mainstream sales.
Year later also I got a new P1@75Mhz for a specific need (to outperform my 486 PC at work, oh those win3.1 times...).

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@KimmoK

Yes but the Macintosh provided a better user interface, for the people who where into high end graphics.

And this was kind of my point as multimedia computer, it was not rally that good, when it came to graphics, and as game computer the AGA chipset was outdated in 1993, too slow, where unable to run the same games in 640x480, 3d games where mostly forced to run in 320x200 whit 2x2 pixels up scaling or some thing like that, not interesting to the hard core gamer, and not to the graphic industry.

And when it came to doing home office, people wanted a IBM compatible anyway, because they wanted to run the same application at home. They did not care about sound or graphics.

Even if they did buy a PC whit 512k graphics whit only PC speaker, it was easy to pop in a sound blaster or upgrade to better graphics card, on Amiga you where stuck whit low end graphic cards more or less, applications where depending on AGA, in many cases it did not help having a Picasso II graphic card, and the A1200 was not that easy to upgrade in 1993.

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@KimmoK

Quote:

Typical displaycard for PC build in 1992-1993: http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/component/content/article/1129-trident-tvga9000c

Mmmm nope... Almost every machine had one of these by that time...

http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/component/content/article/857-trident-tvga8900c

@NutsAboutAmiga

>Yes but the Macintosh provided a better user interface, for the people who where into high end graphics.

I disagree 100%
No multitasking, no dynamic memory handling, single button mouse...
Mac system(7) os was good only for those who did not know any other UI.

>And this was kind of my point as multimedia computer, it was not rally that good, when it came to graphics,

Weird view. With AGA machine one could do better looking multimedia show than what was standard on macintosh in y1997.

> and as game computer the AGA chipset was outdated in 1993, too slow, where unable to run the same games in 640x480, 3d games where mostly forced to run in 320x200 whit 2x2 pixels up scaling or some thing like that, not interesting to the hard core gamer, and not to the graphic industry.

640x480 started to appear for PC games in 1995 or so.

(on my A4000 I played SimCity2000 at 640x480+8 resolution. No problem. But they say that using macintosh version of SimCity2000 on my HW would have been faster.)

>And when it came to doing home office, people wanted a IBM compatible anyway, because they wanted to run the same application at home. They did not care about sound or graphics.

Mainly they needed to be compatible and M$ made it impossible without using their SW.
(I remember converting some .doc files on my A4000 by using PCTask and word2.0)

>Even if they did buy a PC whit 512k graphics whit only PC speaker, it was easy to pop in a sound blaster or upgrade to better graphics card, on Amiga you where stuck whit low end graphic cards...

PC upgrades were cheaper. And Amiga lacked 3D. Otherwise I disagree.
It was easy to use multiple audio cards at the same time on Amigas, etc, etc....
I remember that I got two higher end audio cards (better than standard SB) for x86, finding out that then I could not get sound to work in games. It was definitely not an easy or simple thing. It needed a lot of hard work and tuning (per game and per application) untill Win95 became in games mainstream.... And PCs still struggle to beat autoconfig in plug and play.

Some observations from golden A4000 era:
-A4000/030 was faster in playing video from RAM than A4000/cbm040
-A1200/030 was usually faster as well in that video playback

Last edited by KimmoK on 12-Feb-2014 at 11:21 AM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 12-Feb-2014 at 11:09 AM.

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@KimmoK

Quote:

I disagree 100% No multitasking, no dynamic memory handling, single button mouse... Mac system(7) os was good only for those who did not know any other UI.

Well compared to Windows3.0/3.1 and MSDOS

Quote:

Weird view. With AGA machine one could do better looking multimedia show than what was standard on macintosh in y1997

Well Mac did have QuickTime, way better then IFF animations.

Quote:

640x480 started to appear for PC games in 1995 or so.

Do you remember

DOOM I it was from 1993
Heretic from 1994.

And lets not forget long list of adventure games that did not come to Amiga, because did not have hard drive, cdrom and more then 2MB of RAM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_graphic_adventure_games

Quote:

Mainly they needed to be compatible and M$ made it impossible without using their SW. (I remember converting some .doc files on my A4000 by using PCTask and word2.0)

Microsoft was always sold there office package to Macintosh.
We did have support for WordPerfect on Amiga, but WordPerfect did not make the transition to windows well, WordPerfect for windows was buggy.

Quote:

And Amiga lacked 3D

But PC did not have 3D back in 1993-1994, 3D came whit 3DFx Voodoo in 1995.
the 3D graphics before 1995 was all drawn by software, it was the speed of the PCI bus combined whit chunky graphics that was the killer, this what enabled 3D games in good resolution.

OCS/AGA was only good for flat shared polygons, thanks hardware fill

http://amigadev.elowar.com/read/ADCD_2.1/Hardware_Manual_guide/node0122.html

Quote:

And PCs still struggle to beat autoconfig in plug and play.

Autoconfig on Amiga, was nothing more then having a driver in a BIOS.

It was not special, you where able to plug in network cards, and hard drive controllers, to boot from in MSDOS, the technology was called “BIOS extensions”.

In my eyes Plug&Play is some thing else, this basically Windows95 detecting the hardware and automatically installing a driver.

AmigaOS does not automatically install a driver for you, AmogaOS does not connect to internet to find a driver.

I so like the way “BIOS extensions” and “AutoconfigTM”, did it not needing a driver because it was on the card, but the disadvantage was that you need to flash the EEPROM on the card to upgrade it.

Anyway but this was not way PC won the war or not.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

I don't see how DOOM (which runs in 320x200) is an argument against PC games not using 640x480 until a few years later.

Heretic was released december 23rd 1994 and also uses 320x200 (or 240, not entirely sure).

Both have since gotten upgrades to improve resolution, but that's not very relevant.

Last edited by olegil on 12-Feb-2014 at 12:27 PM.

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@olegil

Wrong DOOM is 640x480.

http://www.myabandonware.com/game/doom-1nd

Download one of screen shots and check picture resolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexen:_Beyond_Heretic

Heretic 1994.
Hexen: Beyond Heretic 1995

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 12-Feb-2014 at 12:42 PM.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

I do not believe that "AGA" killed Amiga, it was Commodore that killed the platform with its lack of innovations. AGA was one year ready before they used it (after pressure from sales people). Before they instead started to sell "A600" that was a big mistake and it finally bankrupted the company. But the main reason was that there was no bigger innovation for years while the development outside accellerated. Another reason was the reluctance of Amigans to buy modern hardware like harddrives so developers were forced to use A500 with second disc-drive and thus split games to make them fit to discs. Not only the market was smaller and even slowly shrinking whereas the PC market was rising, the developers had to invest a lot of additional work to support both Amiga and PC like adapting graphics (to 64 colors), make the games fit to discs and adapt them so they were playable on slow hardware. And as a final point many amigans thought "Software companies" are too rich why buying it. So there were a couple of reasons in my view, AGA was certainly not comparable to what graphics was with the A1000 but I do not think it was the reason for the end.