@Rob

This case looks pretty acceptable:
https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/core/core-500/black/

(that PSU cabling solution is new to me)

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@BigD

"A4000 HD floppies were a kludge running at half speed to give Paula the ability to keep pace! "

Well, I did not notice it.
I used only 1,92Mb format and compressed data with my standard A4k.
(that feature was unavailable in mainstream)

"CBM didn't bother with the kludge in the A1200 and hence ALL AGA software came on DD disks not HD ones! Embarassing!"

I got Amiga2000 with HDD in 1989 and after that I tried to get only HDD intallable games etc.
Only a few games appeared, embarassing.

"The sound sutuation was another kludge. The SNES was able to supercede Paula in the ears of gamers because of extra channels. Many Amiga games had sound effects / music tracks only.
And you argue this was all fine!"

oh. I have not played any of those games?

And I could not care less.
+Amiga CD32 wiped the floor with SNES in games console arena.

(In My Amigaworld only CPU limited the amount of channels at 14bit, after I got a4k.)

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@KimmoK

Quote:

Well, I did not notice it.

Well it was spinning at half the speed with variable motor technology adding to the cost etc and then the A1200 didn't carry said technology meaning far too many floppies in game boxes for the life of the Amiga (Team17 took intro music out of games like Alien Breed 3D because they wanted to fit it on just 2 disks so it did matter)! Sharing PC data was easy on the software side as CrossDos was great however the hardware support WAS a mess!

Actually the SNES wiped the floor with the CD32 becasue it was FAR better supported by software houses and used the hardware it had in a far wider range of games. You'd barely have noticed that the CD32 was 32-bit and the SNES was 16-bit; compare Oscar (Ruff n' Tumble didn't get a CD32 release) with Super Star Wars / Super Mario World! Any deficiencies on the SNES were made up for by extra chips on individual cartridges including 3D games like StarFox / StarWing. Guardian in comparison really needed a 030 CPU & Fast Ram to run smoothly (especially the intro).

Commodore SHOULD have upgraded the Paula chip even if it was to keep parity with the Atari Falcon's features! Riding on the coat tails of the Los Gatos Amiga 1000 was not acceptable from 1991 onwards nevermind 1992/93! No original chips should have been present in a modern Amiga machine from 1991 IMHO.

I glad you faffed around with 14 bit audio your A4000 but for OCS/ECS/AGA games it was only CD-Audio that removed the sound effects or music track restriction and even then you needed a CDDA compatible disc drive! On that basis T-Zero rocked as a horizontal shooter on AGA with great graphics and sound but no one was playing 2D shooters on other platforms by 1999 (and the SNES was dead)!

Another thought about the Amiga's sound use. The CD32 version of Banshee STILL didn't have in-game CD music playing in the actual game even though the music was composed and ready to go! Insane.

Last edited by BigD on 19-Nov-2019 at 12:09 PM.
Last edited by BigD on 19-Nov-2019 at 12:06 PM.
Last edited by BigD on 19-Nov-2019 at 12:00 PM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

There's always been options other than Paula.
I guess acknowledging that makes your rant appear as stupid as it actually is though, so pretending Paula is the only option is understandable.

@KimmoK

Quote:

KimmoK wrote: @BigD +Amiga CD32 wiped the floor with SNES in games console arena.

The beauty of the SNES is that the cartridges could have accelerators like the SuperFX chips etc included as needed...

http://www.racketboy.com/retro/super-nintendo-snes-games-that-pushed-the-limits-graphics-soun
See the DOOM port that have features other ports didn't.

So even a 16 bit system can outperform SAGA in 3D...

Last edited by Lou on 19-Nov-2019 at 03:12 PM.

@fishy_fis

Quote:

There's always been options other than Paula.

So it's ok that Paula was NEVER updated because you think that we swapped to a PC-like soundcard model around when exactly? Paula was it for all the wedge-type low end Amigas and hence the only supported sound chip for 99% of Amiga software and games in particular.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

CD32 was perfectly capable of doing 16bit stereo mixed with 8bit paula.
Comparing 16bit 128kb RAM system to 32bit 2Mb +CDROM system is laughable anyways.

Also I think A1200 with RAM expansion (or CD32 with some fast RAM) could easily have mixed music with sound effects on the fly via SW.

To sum up this matter, IMO: Paula was more than good enough when CBM was alive, but OS should have been delivered with RTA+RTG capability to encourage 3rd party developments and HW with +HDD and fast RAM as standard.

I'm pretty sure CBM would have survived if they had dropped the PC line in 1989 or so.

Last edited by KimmoK on 19-Nov-2019 at 04:29 PM.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@KimmoK

Quote:

Comparing 16bit 128kb RAM system to 32bit 2Mb +CDROM system is laughable anyways.

Yeah hilarious considering SNES games were objectively BETTER with clearly superior sound in 90% of cases. I am not saying that the SNES contained superior hardware (though Mode 7 was cool and Xtreme Racing etc didn't quite replicate it even on AGA) but the actual practical application and standard of games was FAR ahead on the SNES.

The CD32 only really compared favourably with the MegaCD / SegaCD and that was an add-on to a console (and 16-bit) not a brand new machine! Still Final Fight CD was a killer app and what did the CD32 have Microcosm?! I would say Guardian but there was zero marketing and no story. Speedball 2 had the best version on the CD32 but it was not a noticeable enough upgrade to the standard Amiga OCS version (colour palette was nicer though IMHO).

Your points clearly show how stupid it was not to have in-game music on the CD32 version of Banshee and it wasn't the only culprit. With some games i.e. Alien Breed 3D you had CD music in-game but no option to switch it off!

Last edited by BigD on 19-Nov-2019 at 04:58 PM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGIye6Bkxvw

SNES Doom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjKFx74bVgo

CD32 Gloom

The mistake Amigans make it thinking the CPU is what matters and not dedicated chips creating enhanced graphics and sound. The same mistake Apollo is making..

The 'chipset' was great in 1985. Old in 1990. AGA was already behind the times in 1992.

This is ALSO why X1000/X5000 Amigas are also unics without a proper OpenGL/Vulkan api…

Even evil empire PC gamers know to spend $100 less on a cpu and $100 more on a gpu for their gaming PC budgets because that's where the BANG is...

Last edited by Lou on 20-Nov-2019 at 12:12 AM.

@Lou

... also why does Gloom CD32 seem to have the same in-game music as Guardian? Was there no end to the short cuts taken with Amiga game music? Thank God literally for Chris Huelsbeck's Turrican soundtrack etc and anything by Allister Brimble.

Last edited by BigD on 20-Nov-2019 at 11:38 AM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

" HD floppies were a kludge running at half speed to give Paula the ability to keep pace!"

Just a note...

that might explain why my A4000 reads PC 1.44Mb disks more reliably than a real PC.
(I salvaged some data from a few PC floppies @ work around y2001)

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@Lou

The problem of cd32 was only one ... just the 1% of the games use the machine hardware extras (cdrom and the 2mb) compared the snes . I have all the cd32 games in my collection and many of them just add compared the 1200 music as a cdrom track (in the best way).
The total conversion of doom on snes was made using the superFx chip, im sure the game engine was totally converted for use the superFx... the same thing can be done on CD32, if we consider demo scene we see miracles using the amiga 1200 standard hw.

_________________
I love Amiga and new hope by AmigaNG
A 500 + ; CDTV; CD32;
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MacBook Pro Retina I7 2.3ghz;
#nomorea-eoninmyhome

@tlosm

Quote:

tlosm wrote: @Lou The total conversion of doom on snes was made using the superFx chip, im sure the game engine was totally converted for use the superFx... the same thing can be done on CD32, if we consider demo scene we see miracles using the amiga 1200 standard hw.

I believe you. Only one game; Wing Commander CD32 even attempted to use the Akiko chip for chunky to planar conversion to free up the CPU. Sadly even that game failed to use the chip correctly because of a typo in the code (predating the disastrous AI routine typo in Aliens Colonial Marines)! An 030 makes the Akiko pointless however but as a low cost solution it held promise had developers bothered to use it! Whether Doom was possible at anything over 15 fps I'm not sure but if ID were involved and were prepared to 'bang the metal' I'd say it was possible to get it playable on an official version of Doom CD32.

Edit. Looks like DoomAttack requires 8 Mb of fast ram in addition but 5.8 fps is possible with Akiko routines compared to standard 020 C2P at 3.9 fps! That is some improvement. 030/50mhz is much faster at 8.8 fps with 020 routines but it was much more expensive in 1993. Optimised for 030 routines I can vouch that ADoom was very playable for Doom 1 though getting slower on Doom 2 (I still completed it on the 'miggy though).

Source

Last edited by BigD on 21-Nov-2019 at 09:54 AM.
Last edited by BigD on 21-Nov-2019 at 09:51 AM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

The akiko was probably used on Liberation too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MqHP-fix9c.

watching better on youtube, here is the standard doom running on 020+ akiko vs tff30 ..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5N8F1egmNc
compared with the snes version doom is 320x256 on snes sure is 256x256 (snes res) plus the cd32 have all the texture the snes doom is not all texaturized ... im curious to see in the same situation of snes how cd32 perform.

Last edited by tlosm on 21-Nov-2019 at 10:26 AM.

_________________
I love Amiga and new hope by AmigaNG
A 500 + ; CDTV; CD32;
PowerMac G5 Quad 8GB,SSD,SSHD,7800gtx,Radeon R5 230 2GB;
MacBook Pro Retina I7 2.3ghz;
#nomorea-eoninmyhome

@tlosm

Yes AKIKO! It helped a no-fastram 020 to C2P … because in the TRUE Amiga spirit - the custom chips are what gave it the early edge …

… which is why when I went on the Apollo forum I said they should enhance the AKIKO to make a SuperAkiko which can do 256 or preferably 1024 bytes C2P at once, along with adding multiple/many SIMD units working in parallel independently from the cpu to have a *chance* of being competent in 3D...and not letting the one unit in the CPU do it all.

Then I learned about the farce of "SuperAGA".
That's when I likened to the design same flawed logic and hubris of the CELL processor. Egos were hurt.

That's when I got banned.

A 3.58Mhz 16 bit version of the 6510 processor ran DOOM better than most 32bit version because of 1 custom chip. Go friggin figure...

@Lou

A super akiko? interesting thing but i think it will need an extra fpga or a bigger fpga compared the one of the Vampire? by the way if we speak about Vapire will have more sense today make it have a pcie slot for an extra gpu .... but have an extra gpu will open more other issue example the drivers for 2d adn 3d, and a question... for what software?.
Today have a vampire is only a funny thing for have your classic software run faster and better on a classic hardware or on a dongle (standalone) like the turbo chamaleon do for c64... and my tthink we have to see it like this.

Last edited by tlosm on 21-Nov-2019 at 12:59 PM.

_________________
I love Amiga and new hope by AmigaNG
A 500 + ; CDTV; CD32;
PowerMac G5 Quad 8GB,SSD,SSHD,7800gtx,Radeon R5 230 2GB;
MacBook Pro Retina I7 2.3ghz;
#nomorea-eoninmyhome

@tlosm

Most of what a 3D GPU does is vector math. MMX/SIMD is just matrix/vector math ... basically the same math operation on 16 floating point values at the same time.

Modern GPUs have 1400-5000 of these "stream processors / cuda cores" running in parallel at up to 2Ghz...though for ages they were sub 1Ghz...

Who knew you needed a driver to do math...?

3D engines exist on the Amiga but they are slow because depending on the cpu to do all the math floods the pipeline to the point where it doesn't have time to do anything else. This is the Vampire paradox. I saw a Vampire demo do 20,000 polygons/second meanwhile under-[CPU]-powered consoles of the mid-90's were doing 100,000-200,000 polygons/second in-game code, with sound.

All the SuperFX chip does is act as a co-processor (hello copper) and process a lot of MATH with a RISC instruction set. It doesn't even do SIMD...but if math and moving data is it's only responsibility then it 'acts' like a gpu...

@Lou

superfx was a dedicated custom chip i dont see it like a co-processor like is the math coprocessor. ammx are like the intel mmx for the intel multi media cpu instruction or the amd 3d now cpu instruction ? i think more the first one... for have a better 3d performances of vampire for sure will be need a better gpu... it means with a better gpu probably you will have shogo run good on vampire like was it running on cyberstorm 604e with cybervisionppc... not because cpu but thanks of gpu.
about drivers and software ... if the Os dont have the drivers or the software is not wrote to use somthing hw specific ... no party.

_________________
I love Amiga and new hope by AmigaNG
A 500 + ; CDTV; CD32;
PowerMac G5 Quad 8GB,SSD,SSHD,7800gtx,Radeon R5 230 2GB;
MacBook Pro Retina I7 2.3ghz;
#nomorea-eoninmyhome

@tlosm

How you look at it is irrelevant. To do 3D is used a software rasterizer...
It was a co-processor because it is a processor: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Super_NES_Programming/Super_FX_tutorial

Called a graphics SUPPORT unit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_FX

AGNUS is also a co-processor...I guess it's not fair that Amiga uses custom chips but no one else is allowed to eh?

FYI: An Amiga with no custom chips is called a DRACO...

@BigD

Quote:

Updated Paula, 030, Fast Ram and Chunky to Planar support might have saved the Amiga in 1992/93.

Chunky graphics is probably the big one. If Amiga had had a 256-color packed-pixel graphics mode (something like VGA mode 0x13) from the beginning (or at least from 1990), things may have turned out differently.

I was amazed the first time I saw Wolfenstein 3D running on a 286 in a computer store. A "brain dead" 286! I remember thinking, "This is the beginning of the end for Amiga." At the time I didn't realize that the end would be so long.

_________________
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