AGA wasn't too bad, just need a more powerful CPU ;)


https://youtu.be/Pmc9eC6fSm0


Seriously though they'd probably have been better off putting their resources into a new PC based graphics architecture for the A4000 etc and giving up on the old planer chipset. A500+ with ECS and internal IDE HD for the budget end and no AGA machines ever made.

Last edited by NovaCoder on 07-Oct-2022 at 04:50 AM.

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @bhabbott Quote: The Amiga, like all home computers and consoles of the day, was not designed to be constantly upgraded with new technologies, and there was no reason to believe it wouldn't have a life cycle just like the others. Eventually it too would become 'retro' - and that is not a bad thing. The Amiga WAS designed to be upgradable. Heck even the CD32 can be turned into a fully functioning 030 (if not 060) CD-Rom capable A1200 alike computer! The issue was C= sold widgits and hadn't understood they needed to develop an ongoing computer platform! Absolute idiots! At least Good ol' Chicken Lips made Irving Gould even more rich!

A500 with GVP A530 32-bit CPU accelerator was killed by A1200's AGA requirement.
A500 with Progressive 500/040 32-bit CPU accelerator was killed by A1200's AGA requirement.
A2000 with 32-bit 68030 CPU accelerator was killed by A1200's AGA requirement.
A2000 with 32-bit 68040 CPU accelerator was killed by A1200's AGA requirement.
A3000 with 32-bit 68030 CPU @ 25 Mhz was killed by A1200's AGA requirement.
A3000T with 32-bit 68040 CPU @ 25 Mhz was killed by A1200's AGA requirement.

Without RTG or AGA, 32-bit CPU accelerated Amiga OCS/ECS machines weren't ET4000AX Fast VGA Doom config competitive. 32-bit accelerated Amiga OCS/ECS configs weren't able to build a sizeable Amiga userbase for Doom-type games.

Meanwhile, 32-bit PCs such as 386DX were able to upgrade with a fast VGA chipset such as ET4000AX ISA, and the PC gaming platform benefits from it. 32-bit PCs were able to build a sizable PC gaming userbase for Doom-type games for a longer time duration.

Without a hardware vendor-neutral RTG ecosystem, the Commodore A2410 graphics card add-on was pointless for the Amiga platform. Video Toaster didn't advance Amiga's core gaming target market and Commodore can't survive with just a tiny Video Toaster market.

The business accounting/business automation PC market is larger than the tiny Video Toaster market.

The "Amiga WAS designed to be upgradable" argument has major structural problems.

Dave Haynie POV's AGA compressed release schedule was very important.


Timeline context for RTGs
1992 Enhanced Graphics System (EGS). EGS was first presented with the EGS 110/24 card (GVP) at the World of Commodore/Amiga show in New York in April 1992 but its compatibility with most Amiga applications was limited.

Other RTGs are Picasso II WB Emulation, and Probench 3.

1995 CyberGraphX RTG. Introduced in 1995 with the Phase5 CyberVision64 graphics card.

1996 Picasso96, CyberGraphX compatible.

2014 AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition (2014) integrated RTG functions directly into graphics.library.

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@NovaCoder

Quote:

NovaCoder wrote: AGA wasn't too bad, just need a more powerful CPU ;) https://youtu.be/Pmc9eC6fSm0 Seriously though they'd probably have been better off putting their resources into a new PC based graphics architecture for the A4000 etc and giving up on the old planer chipset. A500+ with ECS and internal IDE HD for the budget end and no AGA machines ever made.

Try it with Doom since this topic has a 1992/1993 time context.

Quake was released in 1996.

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@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @NovaCoder Quote: NovaCoder wrote: AGA wasn't too bad, just need a more powerful CPU ;) https://youtu.be/Pmc9eC6fSm0 Seriously though they'd probably have been better off putting their resources into a new PC based graphics architecture for the A4000 etc and giving up on the old planer chipset. A500+ with ECS and internal IDE HD for the budget end and no AGA machines ever made. Try it with Doom since this topic has a 1992/1993 time context. Quake was released in 1996.

Okay

https://youtu.be/vTnz4snCIcA

@bhabbott

Quote:

bhabbott wrote: @cdimauro Quote: cdimauro wrote: @bhabbott Then why don't you use HAM8 for the Workbench as well? It should be super-fluid, right? Why would I? Apart from Workbench not being compatible with HAM8, why would I waste precious ChipRAM and bandwidth when 8 colors is plenty enough?

Hey, who said that Windows had only 256 colors while Amiga had HAM8?

So, the question is still pertinent: why don't you used the Workbench with HAM8?
Quote:

But that's the Amiga fan, never satisfied and always wanting more.

Totally false: see above. You made a precise statement and then I've asked a proper question. Next time it's better that you think what you say.

And BTW: your is typical Amigan victim complex.
Quote:

OCS Amigas struggled with 8 colors,

Guess why...
Quote:

and most PCs back then only ran 16 colors in WIndows -

Which PCs and Windows are you talking about? Windows 3.0 arrived on '90 and PCs already SVGA graphic cards.

So, you should have been talking about Windows 2.0 and PCs with EGA or VGA. Which, anyway, had resolutions up to 640x360 and 640x480 in 16 colors without interlace: much better than what an Amiga could achieve. EGA was released on '84 and VGA '87.
Quote:

so you would think getting a faster 8 or 16 color Workbench would be enough. But no - they wanted at least 256 colors in the highest resolution possible. Why? because it was there, and because they were consumed by PC envy.

You don't even know the history but you continue to talk as a fanatic.

Actually it's not only PCs which were advancing technologically! Have you ever heard of Apple's Mac II? I don't think so. And what about Acorn Archimedes? Neither, right?
Quote:

The Amiga doesn't need a high resolution desktop because each application can open its own screen.

It's YOU that don't needed: don't generalize YOUR needs with the ones from all people!
Quote:

But PCs can't. On a PC the desktop isn't just for launching apps, everything has to use it. Therefore the desktop resolution has to be good enough for the most demanding applications. Want to display a 24 bit image? The desktop has to be 24 bit, with all of its performance implications

Correct, and? At least it was possible.
Quote:

Most PCs in 1992 had very poor performance in 256 colors, let alone 24 bit.

Wrong! Wing Commanders arrived on 1990 and already shown what could be possible.

And 1990 Windows 3.0 arrived with the GDI accelerated in hardware. In fact, graphic cards started to add a Blitter for it.
Quote:

That was a bit deal for them, but shouldn't have been for Amiga users.

See above: it's not only PCs which evolved. Actually it was only the Amiga which didn't...
Quote:

Quote: Someone already replied: not for 1.44MB floppies. Amiga floppies are 880k, not 1.44MB. More PC envy?

Again, you don't know of what you talk about.

But some already replied to your completely false statement.
Quote:

Quote: And do you know why we never saw 2.88MB floppies (even running at 1/4 of the speed) for Amigas? The same reason we didn't see them on PCs? It wasn't a standard format,

LOL. Again: that's a lie! This was a STANDARD format. You could say that it was rare / uncommon because it was expensive, yes, but NOT that it wasn't standard: that's a complete lie!
Quote:

and the extra capacity wasn't worth the hassle.

Oh, sure. You liked to have adventure games in tenths of SD floppies and continuously swapping them...
Quote:

What happened to 2.88 MB floppies? Quote: In 1990, IBM shipped its highest-end 486-based PS/2 models with 2.88 megabyte floppy drives. Sun and NeXT also shipped 2.88 megabyte floppies in their most expensive workstations. But these were the $10,000 systems of their day, the systems where no expense was spared. Mainstream systems didn’t come with them. And even if you wanted one, they weren’t easy to find. You could buy 720K and 1.44 megabyte floppy drives at any computer store, even consumer electronics stores. If you didn’t know what magazines to read, you didn’t even know 2.88 megabyte floppy drives existed. And they were expensive. The drives were announced in 1988 at a promising price of $300, and the price never really came down from there. Looking through old magazines, I had a hard time finding one even for that price, even four years later. Some companies were asking $500 for the drives. The disks themselves were also scarce and expensive. The main day-to-day use for floppy disks on PCs was for backups, but as hard drives got bigger even 2.88MB wasn't enough.

Nevertheless, they were available IF someone needed it.

Whereas for the Amiga it was IMPOSSIBLE to have them. Even if someone wanted to build a version for Amigas. Do you know why?
Quote:

Many businesses used tape drives, which were cheap but dedicated for one use only and possibly not that reliable (users didn't find out until they had to restore their data). I sold heaps of tape drives to PC users. Then in 1994 Iomega invented the ZIP drive, which held 100MB on a 3.5" floppy-sized disk. Other manufacturers followed suit with similar solutions (eg. 3M's LS120 'Super Disk' with 120MB capacity).

OK, and? This is a completely different story!
Quote:

In 1998 I developed an Amiga driver for parallel port ZIP drives.

Yes, on 1998: when the Amiga was already dead...
Quote:

Quote: The Amiga lost the technology advantage much, much before. And the videogames market as well. Because Commodore slept instead of working on new chipsets after the Amiga 1000. The Amiga never really had the 'technology advantage' over the high-end and videogames market. It's strength was in being a better home computer than other contemporary machines (C64, Amstrad, ST, Tandy 1000 etc.).

The first Amiga was a 1000, which was NOT an home computer: it was super expensive! How could you compare it with a C64?!?
Quote:

The OCS chipset was so good that the Amiga was on top of that market into the 90's

GOSH. You were living on a parallel world: there's no other explanation possible. You're dreaming...
Quote:

largely because it was a popular platform that developers got to know and were able to get the best out of.

Sure: the chipset remained essentially the same for YEARS!

Only AGA introduced some differences, but it was too late and it was absolutely not competitive.
Quote:

Unfortunately the Amiga wasn't popular enough to be the primary target of most developers - if it had we would have seen a lot more great stuff and fewer ugly ports.

This doesn't match with the above statement that it was "on top of that (games) market"...
Quote:

When the A1200 was released a lot of users complained about its lack of 100% compatibility with OCS games.

Me as well, and for very good reasons: the developers that caused those issue were a bunch a complete idiots, since they didn't followed Commodore's guidelines.
Quote:

Many also voiced their disappointment with AGA games. Why? Because just having more colors, more detailed backgrounds and smoother movement wasn't enough. For most genres a well designed OCS game is good enough that AGA (or VGA) doesn't add that much.

That's the typical envy of people which haven't that much and say that what they have was already enough...
Quote:

This fact vindicates Commodore's 'tardiness' in developing new chipsets.

Only on your wet dreams...
Quote:

Commodore wasn't the only one to push a 'standard' for as long they could rather then continuously bringing out new technologies. The average length of time between the release of new console models was in the order of 6 years, not much different from the Amiga (7 years from OCS to AGA).

But the Amiga wasn't a console!
Quote:

Amstrad kept the same chipset in its CPC range for 6 years, finally adding sprites and 4096 colors in 1990 (5 years after the Amiga). IBM released VGA in 1987, and it was still the base level for PC games 10 years later (and still mostly being used as a dumb frame buffer).

Again, you don't know of what you're talking about. SVGA games arrived well before 1997 and in quantities.

You lived on a parallel world...
Quote:

Your complaint is typical of butt-hurt Amiga fans, who - not understanding its limitations - believed the hype about it being the best machine ever! Then they felt betrayed when having to face the truth. Which is silly.

And this is the typical Amiga victim complex...
Quote:

The Amiga, like all home computers and consoles of the day, was not designed to be constantly upgraded with new technologies, and there was no reason to believe it wouldn't have a life cycle just like the others.

That's because you never opened an Amiga manual published by Commodore.

BTW, emphasis is mine.

You really don't know what you talk about!
Quote:

Eventually it too would become 'retro' - and that is not a bad thing.

For you, sure. I fully understand.

P.S. As usual, no time to read again.

@bhabbott

Quote:

Why would I? Apart from Workbench not being compatible with HAM8, why would I waste precious ChipRAM and bandwidth when 8 colors is plenty enough?

https://aminet.net/package/driver/moni/WBHacksAGA
AGA's HAM6 (6-bit planes) mode for Workbench.

Quote:

Most PCs in 1992 had very poor performance in 256 colors, let alone 24 bit.

Your "Most PCs" argument is flawed when the PC clone market is several times larger than the Amiga market.

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@BigD

Quote:

@Bosanac So serious computer professional/experts didn't need AGA on the A3000? They didn't need more slots so that the Toaster would fit properly? Come off it, it wasn't perfect!

This one didn't.

I had an A4000 and A1200 for AGA.

The A4000 was the worst Amiga I ever owned.

@cdimauro

For 1993 Doom, using AGA as a dumb frame buffer is a good enough approximation against VGA "Mode Y" performance with ET4000AX class SVGA ISA cards. Mode Y is a variant of Mode 13h.

The problem is the CPU and 32-bit Fast RAM.

John Carmack effectively wanted a 68040/68LC040 @ 25 Mhz or 68030/68EC030 @ 50 Mhz class CPU as an official Commodore A1200 SKU. Commodore has a larger purchasing power when compared to 3rd party CPU accelerators.

For Doom-type games, the AAA chipset is nothing without a competitive CPU pairing.

Last edited by Hammer on 07-Oct-2022 at 06:50 AM.

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@Hammer

I have 386SX 20 MHz from 1991.
It is good enough to play original DOOM on
a quarter of the screen at 15 fps.
In C 386SX 20 MHz is half time slower than 68020 14 MHz used in Amiga 1200.
With better more friendly asm on moto 68020 will be even faster.
So yes if AGA had chunky pixel Amiga 1200 will be good enough to play DOOM.
Commodore bankrupt because AGA was has not chunky pixel.

@NovaCoder

Quote:

NovaCoder wrote: AGA wasn't too bad, just need a more powerful CPU ;) https://youtu.be/Pmc9eC6fSm0 Seriously though they'd probably have been better off putting their resources into a new PC based graphics architecture for the A4000 etc and giving up on the old planer chipset. A500+ with ECS and internal IDE HD for the budget end and no AGA machines ever made.

FYI, VGA has planar modes e.g. 4 bit planes. IBM added chunky pixel mode for VGA. Fast VGA cloners improved upon IBM VGA's chunky pixel mode.

AGA was reasonable that needs higher CPU power.

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@bhabbott

Quote:

We also had a Commodore 386SX-16 system set up beside the Amiga for comparison. This sold for the same price as an A1200 with 40MB hard drive and 1084 monitor. It had 2MB of RAM, 80MB hard drive, a so-so VGA monitor and Windows 3.1, but no sound card. Even stock A1200s put it to shame in the games department, but business users preferred it for obvious reasons

GF's dad at the time had a 386 in 3.11 that was in 800x600 and was a lot faster with display.

Quote:

A good hard drive does over 2MB/sec on the A1200 IDE port. That's plenty fast enough for a machine that only has 2MB RAM. However most hard drives back then were much slower.

Anyone can look this up.
PIO modes require the CPU and many cycles to transfer the data, holding it up doing anything else which also, got in the way of serial transfers that also, didn't have 16550 fifo buffering.
90's era PCs used DMA modes and achieved faster transfers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WDMA_(computer)

Quote:

The Amiga can easily transmit 115200bd at full speed with the right software. Many PCs didn't have a buffered serial port either, but this didn't matter for programs like LapLink, which took over the machine and accessed the serial port directly.

Utter rubbish.
I have had this discussion way too many times, so prove it.
You may be able to CONNECT at 115200 speed however, I want bits per second proof of data transfer to prove your claim, use any accelerator + fast RAM card you want.
I worked for the largest Telecoms company at the time and had access to a lot of hardware and I know it cannot do it.
Numerous testing at the time proved the Amiga to be the bottleneck even if the COMS program shows 115200 connection, the re-tries on even NULL modem were due to the AMIGA coms port, not keeping up. I tried many and various
serial device alternatives. The only fix came when I got an A1200 and Surf Squirrel 16550 buffered serial port.

Quote:

56k wasn't standardized until 1998. Before then not many people were using it because the MODEMs were expensive and there were two incompatible implementations - one from USRobotics and another from Rockwell. Of course, as you say, solutions for the Amiga existed. There was the Surf Squirrel and clockport serial boards for the A1200, and various I/O cards for the A2000 etc. Many of us didn't bother though because 28k8 and slower was fine, and we had already bought these MODEMs and didn't feel we needed to 'upgrade'.

You will be lucky if you can sustain 56k over NUL modem with standard Amiga serial port.
Like I said, I had access to a LOT of cutting edge hardware for that era.

Quote:

What are you going on about? Amiga floppy drives don't spin at 'half' speed, and they aren't that slow. An A1200 can read from the drive as fast as it can send the data.

Want to make a bet?
I'm talking High-Density of course Yes, I have such drives.

Quote:

I sense PC envy. In 1992 most PC's (that had a sound card at all) had 8 bit cards (the Sound Blaster 16 was released in June 1992). But 'budget' PCs back then usually came with no sound card, and adding a good one could cost US$300 or more.

Doesn't make it less true, envy or not.

Quote:

Yeah, that was disappointing - but not surprising that the rumors were false. It's not so much that AAA got cancelled 'at the last minute' as that they weren't making the progress required to get it out on time. Also it would have been expensive. They probably would have debuted it on an A3000 class machine at a ridiculous price.

Was so peeved! Atari got the Falcon.

Quote:

The truth is, AAA would have solved nothing. Trying to compete head-to-head with PCs was bound to fail. By 1995 the Amiga had lost its last advantage over PCs in the 'serious' market, and was being swamped by them in the high-end gaming market. Its only hope was as a low-end hobbyist computer and gaming console.

It got delayed by C. It was promised so many times over the years that it was coming out. Talk to Dave about how resources were pulled till it was basically just him then, he got pulled.

Last edited by SHADES on 07-Oct-2022 at 08:47 AM.

_________________
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@ppcamiga1

Quote:

ppcamiga1 wrote: @Hammer I have 386SX 20 MHz from 1991. It is good enough to play original DOOM on a quarter of the screen at 15 fps. In C 386SX 20 MHz is half time slower than 68020 14 MHz used in Amiga 1200. With better more friendly asm on moto 68020 will be even faster. So yes if AGA had chunky pixel Amiga 1200 will be good enough to play DOOM. Commodore bankrupt because AGA was has not chunky pixel.

386SX is gimped by a 16bit bus just as an Atari Falcon's 68030 was gimped by a 16-bit bus.

With A1200, using both custom chips and CPU at the same results in half the hardware performance potential for each side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5N8F1egmNc
Stock 68EC020 @ 14 Mhz with Fast RAM is not enough for Doom. This example is similar to slow 386SX-based PCs.

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@thread

Guess who I am.

Quote:

Hey

What do you mean when you say Hey? What does Hey have to do with amount of colours on the desktop. Saying Hey does not make computers perform better.

Quote:

who

I don't know. You're the one asking false questions. You answer it.

Quote:

said

People don't say anything here. All comments are typed.

Quote:

that

Are you referring to PC? You can't say "that" because PC is not one thing. There were 2 SKUs of A1200 on launch, with or without HDD, and only about 10 different variations of accelerators CPU/FPU/MMU. DOS/Windows PCs had hundreds of variations. You can say "that" when talking about Amiga, but you can't say "that" when referring to a PC.

Quote:

Windows

Windows looked better, but using it sucked. Nobody cared about multi-tasking. People thought the UI is the OS. And if the OS can display more colours, then the OS was better. Windows 3.x with VGA was better than AmigaOS 3.x on AGA.

Quote:

had

That's what we are talking about. It's about what was had in 1992/93. Not what we have today.

Quote:

only

If you didn't have enough money, then you only had an A1200 with AGA. In the US and western Europe, the DOS/Windows PC revolution started with the release of VGA in 1987. Everyone who had enough money ran out and bought a VGA card, even if they didn't have a PC. They knew that they eventually would.

Quote:

256

Just a number.

Quote:

colors

PC with VGA had just as many colours as AGA.

Quote:

while

Of course while. It doesn't matter what your experience is in isolation. You have to put these side by side and run them at the same time.

Quote:

Amiga

Is that the only word you know? Amiga this, Amiga that. Amiga was not ahead, but it was amazing. Sounds like someone has Amiga envy.

Quote:

had

The operative word: had. When compared to the clearly superior DOS/Windows PC with VGA of 1992/93, which was way more affordable than a CRAY X-MP/Y-MP machine of its day, the Amiga A1200 with AGA wished it "had" the games the PC did.
Even after Amiga got orphaned and was later put into foster care, the only games Amiga A1200 users wanted to play are the ones the PC already "had" many years before.

Quote:

HAM8?

All it's good for on Amiga A1200 with AGA is to look at slowly rendered static pictures. Can it render a folder icon in HAM8 while dragging it from one folder to another? Can it run Amiga version of Wing Commander in HAM8?
Nobody was interested in holding and modifying. Since the beginning of the affordable game-busting VGA-driven DOS/Windows PC revolution in US and western Europe in 1987, everyone knew that packed pixels (chunky) was superior. No one understands why Commodore, Atari, Nintendo, Sega, EGA, etc used planar graphics.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@ppcamiga1

Quote:

Commodore bankrupt because AGA was has not chunky pixel.

Yep. That's the only reason.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

Just to reflect something agami said about his first AGA purchase, I agree. My A1200 was my primary computer from end 1992 to end 2007. I liked it so much I bought more than one. I still have two, one Frankentower that was expanded in various ways and a wedge machine with more modest expansion.

That's a long time to use a machine that was allegedly obsolete on launch. Getting an RTG card for it was key to that longevity however.

Last edited by Karlos on 07-Oct-2022 at 08:05 AM.

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Doing stupid things for fun...

@thread

I liked the AMIGA too! Still do.
The topic was "Poll : How good or bad was the AGA chipset in 1992/1993. "
I thought it was barely hanging on, due to x,y,z (see previous posts)
Do I hate it ? no. I have fond memories of using it to create dial-tones for telephone exchanges that still get used today.
Was I frustrated by it's many shortcomings that we still fight with today? YES.

Points that are worthy for that time :
- MULTITASKING
- Ease of use ( i needed FAT filesystem, I mounted one via a device driver etc)
- Small footprint (in comparison to what was around then)
- 4 channel sound (although it was 8-bit, it had 4 of them)
- Easier to customise. I liked having yellow themed Workbench and hand made mouse pointers.

However, the expansion needed to get connected with the world in every day use, was a pain.

Falcom was far superior and with that dsp it was way more useful. SCSI was DMA too. Transfer speeds much higher in i/o
AAA would have floored it though.

_________________
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@SHADES

Quote:

Was so peeved! Atari got the Falcon.

Did it though? Did we r e a l y "get" the Falcon? Can a last-ditch-effort qualify as serious strategic goal? How many Falcons did we end up "getting"?

Last edited by agami on 07-Oct-2022 at 09:04 AM.
Last edited by agami on 07-Oct-2022 at 09:02 AM.

_________________
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@SHADES

Let's not over-egg the falcon. It had a 16MHz 030 attached to a 16 bit data bus, halving the maximum transfer rate to the rest of the entire system. We all acknowledge the A1200 was hobbled by having a chip ram only default SKU, but that could be fixed with additional ram. There's no fix for the falcons 16 bit bus design.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

@ppcamiga1

Quote:

Commodore bankrupt because AGA was has not chunky pixel.

Yep. That's the only reason. [/quote]


Commodore was already working on AAA chipset.
The AAA chipset had many good features.
AAA did had chunky pixel,
AAA did had more color modes = Hicolor, truecolor
AAA did has 16bit audio support,
AAA did had 8 Audio DMA channel, making it possible have both good game music and good SNDFX at the same time.

AGA was meant "only" as intermediate solution until AAA is ready.

For AMIGA AGA was major improvement over OCS/ECS.
The 64bit DMA fetchmode, gave the machine x4 more display bandwidth than before.
The color quality increased from 12bit palette to real 24bit truecolor palette.
The palette registers increased from 32 to 256

Yes Chunky would have been nice and would have made easier to code CPU painted 3D games (like DOOM).

Nevertheless AGA did increase the Amiga power in many ways.
The majority of popular Amiga games are 2D= Turrican, Rtype, Giana Sisters, Hybris, you name them.
And with AGA the coders could make much nicer looking 2D games than with OCS.

@agami

Quote:

Did it though? Did we r e a l y "get" the Falcon? Can a last-ditch-effort qualify as serious strategic goal? How many Falcons did we end up "getting"?

Atari did release the Falcon. Was it better than the AMIGA? what we had at the time? Yes. It was.
Did I prefer the OS? not a chance.
The hardware was superior, the user experience was certainly not

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