Quote:

KimmoK wrote: Doom on y1992 (low end) PCs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fcPxAO1FeU (386DX/40 8,73fps 486sx/25 12,88fps and some benchmarks)

strange.
I well remember Doom2 on my old 486SX33. 25 fps, the maximun frame rate of Doom 2 DOS
however i had a TsengLab ET4000 VLB integrated in motherboard with 512k or memory.

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@Seiya

Doom depends both on CPU and GFX. Still 25 FPS seems to be too high for Doom 2 on 486 33 MHz even with fast GFX board.


Edit: Are you sure you hadn´t SX/2 board?

Last edited by pavlor on 25-Jun-2015 at 07:29 PM.

@pavlor

it was 15 years ago, but i remember very well to have played with Dark Forces on SX33, very smooth at maximum details. I had never seen a game like that before. It was my first game on SX33.
With DX2 it was more smooth than SX33

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@KimmoK

Quote:

KimmoK wrote: @cdimauro [... ANOTHER WALL OF TEXT...]

In the PC vs Amiga thread you've written that you've stopped writing, whereas here are you continuing with substantially the same arguments? Haven't you asked to remove this sh*t (your word here!) because you don't want to pollute this visible thread with "idiocies" (again, your word!) that might be seen by external people?

Be coherent one time: if you want a reply AND don't want to dirty this thread, move your comment in the other one! But FIRST reply to the other replies which I've already written, and are waiting for you. Doesn't make sense to restart with the same discussions, whereas others are already pending, right?

@Massi

Quote:

Massi wrote: @pavlor A plain Falcon030 has performances comparable to a plain A1200. On the audio side the Atari machine was far superior, not all people know that a stock Falcon030 was able to play MP3 music (!), thanks to its onboard DSP. It also had interesting specs for graphics and not only. Overall it was an underrated system in my opinion.

The audio was good, but in 1992 there were several sound cards which allowed more channels, processed by an independent chip. The GUS and its GF1 chip was the most famous example, albeit it lacked a DSP for more sophisticated effects (or for completely different purposes).

Regarding the graphic capabilities, the only interesting thing was the hi-color mode. However, it stolen a lot of resources due to the poor 16-bit data bus. Aside this, it offered low resolutions compared to the standards of the time, and the full palette was of only 256K colors, whereas the standard was already represented by 16M colors.

I think that it suffered of the same problems of the AGA machines: it arrived to the market too late.

@KimmoK

Quote:

KimmoK wrote: @Massi Even if a bit dull, but this was perhaps it's best/most important feature (if Atari had stayed afloat longer): "Chunky 16-bit truecolor mode" It would have helped Falcon to survive better than AGA Amigas in 3D gaming arena. (Otherwise it seems it had VGA kind of graphics capability etc.)

It was better from some point-of-view, since it allowed 256 colors with screens up to 640x480.

But it lacked an 8-bit packed/chunky mode (it used bitplanes, like the Amiga chipsets), which was mandatory for the 3D at that time. The 16-bit chunky required too much resources, and with the castrated 16-bit data bus the situation was even worse.

@cdimauro

Quote:

it arrived to the market too late.

Later than late - as I wrote, Falcon030 was not really available until May 1993.

@Jupp3

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Jupp3 wrote: @cdimauro Quote: Finally something. Thanks! But I don't see the "large display" (I mean: that game didn't used high resolution). Other than the video being outputted to a projector. Well, as usual, the "standard" resolution for that game is 320x240 (+ perhaps some overscan), with scrolling in X & Y axis. Of course it also supports split screen modes. BUT in addition to that, it actually DOES support hires. And why wouldn't it?

Because hi-res required A LOT of resources, both to display the screen and to update it. With the same number of bitplanes, it required double the bandwidth (of course).
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Just think about it. It's mostly static track (cars leave some track marks, but those don't move, and can be just drawn to bitmap, and left there). So there is hires support. That's enough to display full height of the track, but it still scrolls in X direction.

Yes, but still there's a lot of things that have to be displayed on the screen every frame. Using the hi-res mode on an AGA machine with 256 colors basically left only 50% of memory accesses available, and with the 16-bit Blitter it's difficult to keep track of all that.

Consider that you need to restore the old graphic for the new frame, removing all displayed objects (not the marks, of course), and then you have to write again them.

I don't know if it used a triple buffer, but in this case the game run at 25FPS.
Quote:

Screenshot: (Looks a bit weird, which I assume is due to interlacing)

To me seems a 2x scaled image. I also made a search, and I've found low-res screenshots for this game (also for the CD32 version), which is what I expect.
Quote:

For that, there's a special link up mode: One system is set to display the left side of the track, while the other one displays right, no scrolling anywhere. In the middle, there's some overlap, so you have time to "change the monitor". But if instead of monitors you have 2 video projectors instead, you can set them to partially overlap (visible on the video as a brighter area) and display the complete track as one big image. I guess the developers didn't think of that! Trust me, I know this. I was actually one of the drivers on the video

I saw. The effect was very good. And the game is really exciting: simple, but very playable and fun.
Quote:

And while it's a very nice game with a very nicely done "gimmick", and very good multiplayer support, it's nothing that you probably couldn't do on a 486 aswell. Probably with significantly bigger system requirements (which "a 486" already is)

Yes, but it depends on the skill of the coders and the budget for the conversion, of course.

@pavlor

Quote:

pavlor wrote: @cdimauro Quote: I took a look at Infoworld of April 1994, and there were configurations with 4, 8, or 16MB. The latters cost was from $2000, which was affordable InfoWorld certainly is not aimed at home users...

But you used it as a reference for the prices of the time. I just did the same.
Quote:

USD 2000, affordable. I take it as bad joke.

The context, pavlor: we were talking of PCs. :) For a PC of the time, $2000 weren't a huge price, considering that you had a monstrous 16MB system.
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Quote: Do you think that it's also interesting for us? I don´t think so. Our interest is in AmigaOS, not some weird historical Unix contest.

Good. One less thing to discuss.
Quote:

Quote: Good. Can we compare it with the Amiga o.s. 3.0? If you mean Amiga OS 3.0, then why not compare with OS/2 2.0?

Because OS/2 3.0 was released in 1994, basically when Commodore went in bankrupt.

Since the Amiga o.s. 3.1 was ready at the time, even if it wasn't sold by Commodore, you can consider it as the last product of the house.
Quote:

Quote: Again, looking at Infoworld of April 1994, the low-end configurations (with 4MB) were around $1200. Important to note taxes are usualy excluded in InfoWorld adverts, so end user prices were higher. Mid 1994, you could buy 386DX with 4 MB RAM and SVGA 512 kB/monitor for around 1000 USD.

OK. And another data which can be useful.
Quote:

Again, what is our baseline? 1992 (AGA/3.0 release) or 1994 (Commodore bancruptcy)?

Before we were talking of games, and it was important to look at when the machines were introduced.

Now we were talking of o.ses and we were comparing what was produced by other companies 'til the period of Commodore's bankrupt, which was at end of April 1994.
Quote:

Quote: If you don't want to use, it's fine, but the Amiga o.s. 3.0 run also on an Amiga 4000... Nothing against that...

@cdimauro

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cdimauro wrote: It was better from some point-of-view, since it allowed 256 colors with screens up to 640x480.

Amiga 1200 can do that too. But unlike the Atari falcon Amiga 1200 can do 640x480, 800x600 and even 1280x400 with 256 colors out of a 24 bit palette while the Atari had only 12 bit color palette.
Quote:

But it lacked an 8-bit packed/chunky mode (it used bitplanes, like the Amiga chipsets), which was mandatory for the 3D at that time. The 16-bit chunky required too much resources, and with the castrated 16-bit data bus the situation was even worse.

Chip ram is slow on the Amiga, otherwise Doom had run much better on AGA with a reasonably good 68K CPU.

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Using: One Commodore C64 - One Commodore Amiga 500 - One Commodore Amiga 1200 with BVision and Blizzard 68060 with PPC coprocessor running Amiga DOS - One Hellbillylitre Amigatwox86x64x6000x running Windows7

@pavlor

Quote:

pavlor wrote: @cdimauro Quote: it arrived to the market too late. Later than late - as I wrote, Falcon030 was not really available until May 1993.

So, even worse... R.I.P.

@Hillbillylitre

Quote:

Hillbillylitre wrote: @cdimauro Quote: cdimauro wrote: It was better from some point-of-view, since it allowed 256 colors with screens up to 640x480. Amiga 1200 can do that too. But unlike the Atari falcon Amiga 1200 can do 640x480, 800x600 and even 1280x400 with 256 colors out of a 24 bit palette while the Atari had only 12 bit color palette.

Exactly. The Falcon was too limited for the time, as I said.
Quote:

Quote: But it lacked an 8-bit packed/chunky mode (it used bitplanes, like the Amiga chipsets), which was mandatory for the 3D at that time. The 16-bit chunky required too much resources, and with the castrated 16-bit data bus the situation was even worse. Chip ram is slow on the Amiga, otherwise Doom had run much better on AGA with a reasonably good 68K CPU.

With 3D games, it was better to use the fast ram to render the screen, and then just copy the result to the chip ram.

However, it required a packed/chunky-to-planar conversion before, which contributed a lot lowering the performance.

The Amiga hardware wasn't suited for 3D games...

EDIT. The Falcon had a 18-bit palette.

Last edited by cdimauro on 25-Jun-2015 at 08:38 PM.

@cdimauro

Quote:

But you used it as a reference for the prices of the time. I just did the same.

No, you called 1200 USD (excluding taxes) computer low-end, because you didn´t find cheaper model in this magazine. As historian by education and profession, I have other sources for such purpose.

Quote:

The context, pavlor: we were talking of PCs. :) For a PC of the time, $2000 weren't a huge price, considering that you had a monstrous 16MB system.

For PC, probably not. For most users... right question.

Quote:

Good. One less thing to discuss.

OK.

Quote:

Before

Quote:

Now

Hard to keep pace of your mind...

@cdimauro

Oki, it looked like you where talking about Amiga 1200 could not run 256 colors 640x480.

Yes the job is done in fast ram and copied to chip ram but since chip ram access is slow it get faster using RTG on games like Doom, but still Doom runs fast enough here on AGA too with a 060.

Last edited by Hillbillylitre on 25-Jun-2015 at 09:02 PM.

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Using: One Commodore C64 - One Commodore Amiga 500 - One Commodore Amiga 1200 with BVision and Blizzard 68060 with PPC coprocessor running Amiga DOS - One Hellbillylitre Amigatwox86x64x6000x running Windows7

@pavlor

Quote:

pavlor wrote: @cdimauro Quote: But you used it as a reference for the prices of the time. I just did the same. No, you called 1200 USD (excluding taxes) computer low-end, because you didn´t find cheaper model in this magazine. As historian by education and profession, I have other sources for such purpose.

OK, but please: as an historian, try to better contextualize.

I talked about April 1994. How was the PC market at the time? The 60Mhz Pentium was presented more than ONE YEAR before. The 486 was a mature product, filled the low and mid-end market, and I reported the prices of one 486SX (not DX!).

Do you think that have sense to report the prices of a 386, just because... it existed? On such period, you can do very little or nothing with the games available at the time. Even the productivity was crippled, because people used Windows 3.1 (and 3.11) and related applications. An 800x600x8bit desktop, which was very common, required 480KB, saturating the very low-end SVGA with 512KB, and that's just for the screen: then you had to handle windows and images.

So, please be more realistic.
Quote:

Quote: The context, pavlor: we were talking of PCs. :) For a PC of the time, $2000 weren't a huge price, considering that you had a monstrous 16MB system. For PC, probably not.

Quote:

For most users... right question.

Sure.
Quote:

Quote: Before Quote: Now Hard to keep pace of your mind...

Before = when we talked about videogames . Remember? Also KimmoK explicitly stated it.

Now = when we started talking of another argument, the operating systems.

@Hillbillylitre

Quote:

Hillbillylitre wrote: @cdimauro Oki, it looked like you where talking about Amiga 1200 could not run 256 colors 640x480.

Absolutely not. Except for the hi-color, the AGA chipset was clearly superior compared to the Falcon.
Quote:

Yes the job is done in fast ram and copied to chip ram but since chip ram access is slow it get faster using RTG on games like Doom, but still Doom runs fast enough here on AGA too with a 060.

Well, the 060 was a monster.

@cdimauro

Quote:

Do you think that have sense to report the prices of a 386, just because... it existed?

What do you think most people buyed in mid 1994? No it was not Pentium...

I know history is not your expertise, but some of your comments are simply amusing.

Quote:

Even the productivity was crippled, because people used Windows 3.1 (and 3.11) and related applications.

In 1994, DOS was still most used (and installed) OS for PCs.

Quote:

An 800x600x8bit desktop, which was very common

In 1994? Wow!


I see, you think 486/VLB GFX card/SoundBlaster/15" monitor/Windows 3.11 was affordable configuration in mid 1994. For 1500 USD - why not. However, forget about price under 1000 USD (eg. class of RAM expanded A1200 with monitor - if we stay with our original comparison). Remember, we compared A1200 with available PC competition - and that was 386DX/SVGA in mid 1994.

Anyways, games are meant to be played on the big TV screen in a good pleasant relaxing chair and not have the face smeared into a computer screen on a shitty office chair. Therefore is my AmigaTwox connected to a large TV screen just like the Amiga is meant to be.


PlayStation came out in 1994 BTW and PC became crap for many more years.

Last edited by Hillbillylitre on 25-Jun-2015 at 09:56 PM.

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Using: One Commodore C64 - One Commodore Amiga 500 - One Commodore Amiga 1200 with BVision and Blizzard 68060 with PPC coprocessor running Amiga DOS - One Hellbillylitre Amigatwox86x64x6000x running Windows7

@cdimauro

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: @Hillbillylitre Well, the 060 was a monster.

Yes it's a nice CPU on the Amiga. I've never overclocked it and will probably never do it, its not necessary in any way so the real Amiga is perfect and complete.

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Using: One Commodore C64 - One Commodore Amiga 500 - One Commodore Amiga 1200 with BVision and Blizzard 68060 with PPC coprocessor running Amiga DOS - One Hellbillylitre Amigatwox86x64x6000x running Windows7

@Rob: you're right. It was more 1996.

For example this is what you would get in 1996:
- external scandoubler for A1200: 1470FF
- A1200 magic pack: 3190FF

See: http://download.abandonware.org/magazines/Amiga%20News/amiganews_numero92/Amiga%20News%20092%20-%20Page%20036%20%281996-07%29.jpg

So that's almost half the price of the A1200... And I guess you easily reach the price of the Falcon if you add both prices..

Today scandoubler like indivision are still being sold for something like 120-150€.. Again, not what I call cheap, and near the price of an a1200 alone.

Last edited by Leo on 25-Jun-2015 at 11:17 PM.

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