@FairBoy

Quote:

FairBoy wrote: @Gunnar Quote: 1) Amiga offers sprites. Yes, and unfortunately probably one of the least sophisticated sprite hardware in the history. Quote: With AGA you can create 8 Sprite Most importantly it is up to 8. Due to the fixed DMA slots you quickly lose sprites. And it's still just 8. Quote: with 4 colors 3 colors + transparency Quote: or 4 very big sprites up to 4. And you cannot manually load data into these nor can you manually reuse them. Quote: with 16 colors each. 15 colors + transparency. And each is misleading because the same single palette is shared among all those few sprites. Quote: This gives you nice options for games. It gives you a rather crude helper tool for games. Quote: You can even make a complete background playfield with the sprites. Yes, because AGA didn't really improve on the playfield system you had to. And as always with Amiga sprites with severe limitations. Quote: 2) The Planar hardware support smooth scrolling for free 3) You can do nice effect like Dual Playfield You don't need planar hardware to have smooth scrolling for free. It was the Amiga way to do it, which again came with its limitations, tied to the fact that there are only hscroll values for even and odd planes. Which is why you are unflexible with the color setup for those playfields and which is why there is just a Dual and no triple or quadruple playfield mode. Which is why you have to resort to the abovementioned sprite hack with its severe limitations. Quote: 4) You can use the Copper to make add a lot more colors to the Display. Actually that's maybe the only true strength of the AGA chipset compared to OCS: the otherwise ugly bankswitching allows you to at least quickly change a whole set of colors instead of one by one. Oh, yes, speaking of setting colors in AGA: the way you setup a 24bit color value comes straight out of hell. Quote: AGA offers a lot very nice features for games Most of all it lacks tons of nice features that were standard on other (game) hardware: chunky / packed color formats, tilemode, sprite flipping, sprite scaling, no manual sprite Y sorting, no unflexible DMA structure, not just 1 to 4/8 sprites max, etc. AGA also lacks consistent feature enhancements: still the same slow short word blitter, still short word sprite data register (so no manual mode for wide sprites), etc. Not to mention other shortcomings like still no flicker fixer, still fixed sprite pairs, still fixed sprite priorities, still the antique Paula, etc. Quote: The trick with Amiga chipset is that the hardware does all this for free. This means you can smooth scroll dualplayfield with many colors thanks to Copper - without eating CPU time. Plain wrong. Nothing is for free here. Keep the copper busy to e.g. work around sprite and color limitations and you'll feel it, especially on a Chip-RAM-only Amiga. And as being mentioned, everything comes with limitations: Want to have 8 sprite in automatic mode? Then better make sure that you don't use hscroll or delay your display start. Want to use sprite manual mode? Then better make sure that you don't use wide sprites. Want to reuse sprites in automatic mode? Then dont forget to sort and watch out for overlap. Want to reuse and even animate (wow!) sprites in automatic mode? Then prepare to constantly reconstruct / blit into the DMA structures. Want to flip or scale sprites? Ooops. Then either waste quite a lot of your free CPU time or waste quite a lot of RAM. I could go on and on here. "For free", LOL. You must be kidding. Quote: PC GFX card did not provide the same features at the time. You'll find plenty of non-PC gfx hardware of that time which beats AGA, especially when it comes to gaming. Unfortunately the Amiga wanted to be a egg-laying jack of all trades. For mid 80s OCS this worked pretty well. But with AGA's minor improvements it was no more than "okay" compared to other hardware of the time. All in all ppcamiga1 has a point when he claims that there is nothing special in AGA. When compared to OCS it's a rather sad improvement. Actually, the only true special thing about AGA is that despite it's shortcomings some people managed to make cool and still somewhat competitive stuff with it. And I'm being very fair here. I don't blame the hardware engineers, they certainly did what was possible within their budget, time and other restrictions. Nevertheless AGA is nothing stunning at all. That's just a fact. Your rose-tinted glasses don't change that.

A post to frame. Well said!


@Gunnar

Quote:

Gunnar wrote: @FairBoy Quote: AGA doesn't shine neither when compared to other game hardware of that time or of earlier time What were AGA design goals? 1) able to play A500 games Achieved! 2) give improvements over ECS More colors, Bigger Sprites, Higher Screen modes. Nicer Workbench screens. Achieved! 3) get done and to market Achieved! AGA reached all its design goals. You have to see AGA as what is was. It was designed and planned as OCS upgrade. AGA design goal was a "inflation adjustement" of the OCS chipset. Nothing more, nothing less. AGA design goal never was not to be "Wonder weapon"

And here comes the ARMCHAR QUARTERBACK which has never developed a game for Amiga and AGA.

When I've bought my A1200 I started experimenting with the AGA and checking the copperlists generated by the system to see which new registers and bits were used to enable specific features.

When I've realized the most important stuff, then I've presented my findings to the rest of the team (Fightin' Spirit) showing how we got more bandwidth enabling the new 4 x fetch mode.

However, this game made use of horizontal scrolling, so it means with 4 x fetch mode we loose all sprites besides one. Fightin' Spirit used 6 attached sprites to generate 48 pixels wide 16-colours sprites for displaying the so called "energy bubbles". So, this wasn't possible anymore, since there were basically no sprites available.

When it came time to develop the AGA/CD32 version, then Dario (the main coder) had to change the fetch mode to 2 x only when the sprites were displayed, so that to have at least one 64 pixels wide 16-colours sprite available for such "energy bubbles". We lost some memory bandwidth during those scanlines, but it was the best compromise found.

Gunnar, you talk about numbers and features, but since you haven't worked with real games, then you're just chatting.

Some years ago you talked here about AGA and that the possibility to extended the existing games from 32 colours (OCS/ECS) to 256 colours, which was plainly wrong. There, again, I've proved (reporting all numbers with different cases, including NTSC and PAL screens) that by enabling 4 x fetch mode on AGA you can only extend such graphics to 128 colours while keeping exactly the same assets (I mean: BOB sizes)...

@Gunnar

Quote:

Gunnar wrote: @FairBoy Every hardware has limitations. This is normal. Also the Amiga chipset has limitations. This is also normal. The Amiga chipset allowed to make good 2D games. For example: Lionheart Can a PC have done such a game with VGA? Yes but you would need a 486 or Pentium Class machine to do similar on the PC.

Quote:

Gunnar wrote: If you code for a VGA screen buffer, and you want to do some dual playfield scrolling, then you need a very powerful and costly CPU for this. Yes the 68040 CPU could do this. How much did the 68040 CPU at that time? How much did a 486DX2 cost at that time? The smooth scrolling effects that you can do with dual playfield, and with Sprite playfields on Amiga, would with VGA frame buffer only easily "consumed" a high CPU costing $500 and more.

Is it the another statement from an ARMCHAIR QUARTERBACK?

A 386 is enough. Having a good 16-bit VGA ISA card, or course.

And having another requirement: the right mindset and thinking out of order for solving problems.

A give you an hint on the above topic: a 8 + 8 dual playfield requires 3 + 3 = 6 bits for "emulating it".
Now, if you're smart enough and you had experience on PC programming, then it should be enough for arriving to at least one (there are different) solution for this specific problem.

@ppcamiga1

Quote:

sprites, playfields, blitter were not upgraded to 256 colors. accept that. there is nothing special in aga and aga may be changed to anything.

Why do you talk so much nonsense?
Do you really believe what you say?
Or do you just not understand how Amiga works?

OCS the chipset of the A1000
ECS the chipset of the A600
AGA the chipset of the A4000

ECS can do everything OCS can plus some more
AGA can do everything OCS and ECS can plus more

(1) PLAINS
Amiga OCS/ECS/AGA have bitplanes planes.
OCS/ECS support 6 planes
AGA support 8 planes

(2) PLAYFIELDS
Amiga supports DUAL playfield
This means you can split the existing planes into 2 Playfields
which you can move and scroll interdependently.
OCS/ECS can split the 6 planes to 3/3
AGA can split the 8 planes to 4/4
You can on Amiga also use the sprites to create with them a background layer. Many games do this.
AGA makes this creating a Sprite layer easier as AGA support 64pixel wide sprites.
AGA also has a show Sprites Double Mode which is very handy for this.

(3) SPRITES
Sprites on OCS/ECS have 16 pixel width
Sprites on AGA support 16/32 and 64 width
This means AGA can show pretty big Sprites like Streetfigther.

(4) BLITTER
The Amiga Blitter can process any number of planes. There is no limit.
Also the OCS Blitter can write 8 planes.

(5) COLORS
OCS/ECS have 4096 total colors.
AGA has 16 Million Colors



What is AGA?

AGA is the upgraded OCS/ECS chipset.
Its compatible and can play OCS/ECS games.
It offer more features than OPS.

@cdimauro

Quote:

However, ..

Cesare you posted hundreds of complains about AGA.
WHY exactly do you do this?
And WHY do you think you need to argue with me for AGA not being what you wish?


Did you think AGA was the wonder weapon?
It is not.


Commodore planned AAA chipset as wonder weapon with tons a new features.
As it had to many features to debug the AAA chipset was not market ready.
And Commodore made something more simple, as upgrade = AGA.


AGA is an upgraded Original AMIGA chipset.
It offers all what OCS and ECS can do, and a lot more.


What are AGA goals?

(1) have not to much changes = not to much to debug.

(2) stay with the programming concept of OCS/ECS

(3) be able to play OCS/ECS games

(4) improve some features:
+ 16 Million color palette
+ 64 pixel sprites
+ 8 Planes
and more gimmicks



AGA is exactly all what was planned for it.
AGA can play A500 games and can play better looking games.
AGA 16 Million colors make a big difference

@Gunnar

Quote:

Gunnar wrote: Can a PC have done such a game with VGA? Yes but you would need a 486 or Pentium Class machine to do similar on the PC. The "advantage" of the Amiga chipset was to allow you to do more with your amount of memory and CPU speed that you had. The Amiga chipset and Copper allowed it to do more. The same is true for AGA. AGA Amiga chipset allowed you to do more in certain areas with the CPU speed than the same CPU could do with a simple "VGA" framebuffer.

Nope. 386DX-33 with ET4000AX.

https://youtu.be/KQDEKoRcXZc?t=83
386DX-33 with ET4000 equipped PC plays Lotus 3.


https://youtu.be/KQDEKoRcXZc?t=389
386DX-33 with ET4000 equipped PC plays Raptor Call of the Shadows.


https://youtu.be/PhxHW5wpw2c?t=1221
386DX-40 with ET4000 equipped PC plays Pinball Fantasies.


https://youtu.be/3vNSgIuTops?t=92
386DX-40 with ET4000 equipped PC plays The Lost Vikings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6Uf_CSa7RI
Mortal Kombat II on 386DX. This port is superior when compared to the SNES version. Amiga's version is okay, but it's inferior to SNES and PC versions.

https://youtu.be/M6T0qd-A6WU?t=112
386DX-33 with ET4000 equipped PC plays Wing Commander 1.


https://youtu.be/oJgQJaqmPx4?t=795
Doom (low details) on 386DX-40 with 128K cache
Tseng ET4000 ISA = 26.751 fps
Trident 8900CL ISA = 23.0088 fps
WD90C32 = 26.838 fps (Diamond Speedstar 24X)


386DX-33 or 386DX-40 needs good SVGA clone chipsets at ET4000AX level e.g. Trident 8900CL and WD90C32 alternatives.


There are low-cost fake 486DLC drop-in CPU upgrades since 386DX-33 doesn't have Amiga's 1985 era 68000 slow memory bus. Amiga's Fast RAM with CPU accelerator (Northbridge board) with weak economies of scale results in a weak price-performance competitive solution.

For Amiga's core European market, Amiga AGA solution was released in Q4 1992 along with SNES.

SNES's general 2D superior games in 1992 have diminished A1200's 2D gaming experience.

SNES has been building its install base since 1990 vs AGA was building its install base from Q4 1992. When a game studio targets a platform, the install base is taken into consideration.

For gaming PCs, ET4000AX level SVGA performance has been building its install base since 1989. 386DX-based PC's "Defender of the Crown" moment was 1990's Wing Commander 1.

My key point is that the 386DX-33 PC delivered an entry-level "32-bit" 2.5D/3D gaming experience above SNES, hence avoiding the SNES steamroller.

Last edited by Hammer on 02-Mar-2024 at 07:31 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 02-Mar-2024 at 06:51 AM.

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Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@Hammer

Thank you for proofing my point.

What was my point?
The Amiga chipset allowed the Amiga to play games
that looked better than the amount of memory and CPU speed could do without the Amiga chipset.


Quote:

386DX-33 with ET4000 equipped PC plays Lotus 3

Thank you, good example
We see here an Amiga 500 type of game.
As we have hundreds/thousands of such games on the Amiga in the late 80th and early 90th


Could a PC with 7 Mhz play this game?
No of course not.


What did the Amiga 500 cost in 1988/1990?
What did the PC with sound card and ET4000 cost in 1988/1990?

You compare a PC which costed several times the amount of the A500 with the Amiga 500.



The AMIGA was a big success.

Why was the AMIGA such a success?

The Amiga was nice to code, was affordable and it offered Audio and GFX features,
that were better than what C64 / ATARI / MAC/ PC offered at this time and for the same money.

Do we agree here?

Regarding how many MIPS do you need to mimick Amiga hardware features with a CPU
And do you need an 68040 or x386 or x486 or Pentium?


Of course it depends a lot on "what" Amiga hardware feature you want to mimick.

* The Amiga can do smooth scrolling with 50 FPS and on multiple playfields.

* The Amiga can show a lot more than 256 colors on Screen with the Copper.

* The Amiga can scroll with very fine resolution up to even 1/4 pixel


Every cheap Amiga 500 can run the game Lionheart

What do you think what type of PC do you need to make such a game?

@Gunnar

Quote:

Thank you for proofing my point. What was my point? The Amiga chipset allowed the Amiga to play games that looked better than the amount of memory and CPU speed could do without the Amiga chipset.

SVGA chipset selection is important. It's a false narrative that IBM's original VGA can do the job.

Quote:

Thank you, good example We see here an Amiga 500 type of game. As we have hundreds/thousands of such games on the Amiga in the late 80th and early 90th

386DX-33 PC playing Mortal Kombat 2 beats the Amiga version.

A500's Lotus 3 performance needs a CPU upgrade when it's smoother on the mentioned 386DX-33/ET4000AX-based PC.

I have my school friend's abandoned A500 rev 5 (partly working for a short time), A3000/030 @ 25 Mhz, and mentioned 386DX-33/ET4000-based PC. My school friend's family purchased 486DX-33 in 1992.

My A500 Rev6A was traded for A3000 and AUD $900 in early 1992.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, my school friend's abandoned A500 rev 5 (with C= 512 KB Chip RAM card, busted PSU) was used to repopulate my second A500 Rev 6A motherboard from the UK. I purchased ECS Agnus and 2nd hand A500 PSU (25 watts version) to restore my old A500 Rev6A 1 MB Chip RAM configuration.

Quote:

Could a PC with 7 Mhz play this game? No of course not.

Don't change the subject. i.e. 1992 released AGA is the subject.

A500 had the performance vs price superiority in 1989.

Quote:

What did the Amiga 500 cost in 1988/1990? What did the PC with sound card and ET4000 cost in 1988/1990?

A500 had the performance vs price superiority in 1989 and 1990.

For the price, the A3000 didn't have graphics performance vs price superiority in 1990 and 1991. My Dad is an idiot who believed in the Commodore brand and model scheme.

IBM VGA and 8514 1987 releases were PC's "Amiga 1000" moment and it took the cloners to release cost-reduced versions.


https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_hqQJaNzN9IcC/page/n603/mode/2up
PC Mag 1992-08, page 604 of 664,
Diamond Speedstar 24 (ET4000AX ISA) has $169 USD.


https://dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufac...tseng_labs.php
By 1991, according to IDC, Tseng Labs held a 25% market share in the total VGA market.

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Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@Hammer

Quote:

Could a PC with 7 Mhz play this game? No of course not.

Quote:

Don't change the subject. i.e. 1992 released AGA is the subject.

My post was 100% on the topic, I spoke about.

You posted Lotus, which is an Amiga 500 game.
My point is the chipset allowed the Amiga to do more.
The Amiga 500 was 7 MHz... Could a PC with 7MHz or 8MHz do the same game?
No



My point was very simple

* that Amiga OCE/ECS chipset allowed the Amiga to make better games than the 68000 CPU could do alone.
* that Amiga AGA chipset allowed the Amiga to make better games than the 68020 CPU could do alone.


The Amiga chipset is a multiplier of the CPU power.
The Amiga can with the DMA chipset and Copper do a lot more than it could do without them.



Commodore did upgrade the Amiga chipset 2 times.
The Amiga 600 had ECS which was a small upgrade
The Amiga 1200 had AGA which was a more significant upgrade.


Lets say the Amiga is a car..
Ok lets say = OCS is VW Golf with 65 PS
ECS is VW Golf with 70 PS
AGA is VW Golf GTI with 110 PS



AGA is clearly giving the Amiga some improvements.
AGA is NOT a complete new chipset.
AGA is a compatible iteration of the same chipset.

The A1200 basically replaced the A500.
AGA gives you more for the same money...


Help me understand, why are you so aggressive attacking AGA?

Did not understand what it is?
Did you assumed it is something else than it is?
Why are you unhappy?

Last edited by Gunnar on 02-Mar-2024 at 08:42 AM.

@Gunnar

Quote:

My post was 100% on the topic, I spoke about. You posted Lotus, which is an Amiga 500 game. My point is the chipset allowed the Amiga to do more. The Amiga 500 was 7 MHz... Could a PC with 7MHz or 8MHz do the same game?

That's a useless argument when the PC market is NOT limited by a 7 Mhz 286-like CPU i.e. 68000.

386DX-33 with ET4000 can handle a top-down 256-color shooter like AGA's Banshee.

In line with OP's 1st post, 386DX-33 with ET4000 level SVGA chipset enables entry-level 32-bit 2.5D and 3D gaming experiences that are above SNES's late 16-bit gaming experience.

The recent Turrcian AGA (256 color VGA) port pushed stock A1200's Chip RAM bandwidth to the limit, hence the need for Fast RAM to maintain 50 hz. 128 color AGA doesn't need fast RAM.

With accelerated CPU power, AGA 320x200 256 colors can maintain Star Wars Dark Force above 50 hz, hence AGA is sufficient. The real issue is Amiga's CPU power and economies of scale.

The competitive problem is top-down 16-bit era 2D shooters can be handled by low-cost SNES.

Quote:

My point was very simple * that Amiga OCE/ECS chipset allowed the Amiga to make better games than the 68000 CPU could do alone.

68000 can't do 7 MIPS for 7 Mhz with 7 Mhz 16-bit bus, hence there are value-added opportunities for Commodore (Amiga), Sega (Mega Drive), and Sharp (X68000).

68000's 32-bit instruction set with 16 ALU and 16-bit bus is good for forward-looking 32-bit OS, but it's not optimal for 16-bit when compared to the native 16-bit instruction set/16-bit ALU enabled WDC 65C816.

Motorola didn't add some of the DSP56000-like instructions into a multimedia-enhanced 68000 variant.

Quote:

* that Amiga AGA chipset allowed the Amiga to make better games than the 68020 CPU could do alone.

For stock A1200, the hardware potential is about half when 68EC020 and AGA compete for shared memory bandwidth. Stock A1200's CPU like 7 Mhz 68EC020 instead of 14 Mhz 68EC020.

Motorola added a hardware barrel shifter with 68020 CPUs.

Quote:

The Amiga chipset is a multiplier of the CPU power. The Amiga can with the DMA chipset and Copper do a lot more than it could do without them.

68000 can't do 7 MIPS for 7 Mhz with 7 Mhz 16-bit bus, hence there are value-added opportunities for Commodore (Amiga), Sega (Mega Drive), and Sharp (X68000).

Motorola didn't add some of DSP56K's instructions into a multimedia-enhanced 68000 variant.

At a certain point, the Amiga's fundamental 1985 chipset design can be a decelerator.

"Hard to program" is a downfall for PS3's CELL and it's a similar problem for Amiga Copper.

Quote:

Lets say the Amiga is a car.. Ok lets say = OCS is VW Golf with 65 PS ECS is VW Golf with 70 PS AGA is VW Golf GTI with 110 PS

ECS's improvements are mostly useless for games and it's another C128 mindset i.e. Commodore recycles aging C64 gaming hardware with C128's high resolution with low color business modes.

The C65 design was too late as the true successor to the C64.

Quote:

AGA is clearly giving the Amiga some improvements. AGA is NOT a complete new chipset. AGA is a compatible iteration of the same chipset.

This is a known fact.

Quote:

The A1200 basically replaced the A500. AGA gives you more for the same money...

Wrong.

A500 was 1st introduced at $699 USD in 1987 or USD $863 in 1992's inflation.

A1200 was $599 USD in 1992 or $485 in 1987. A1200 wasn't the $863 "A500" performance banger for 1992.

From the A3640 card's price (the price difference between A3000T/030 vs A3000/040), the A1200 with 680LC040 @ 25 Mhz would be around $799 USD which is more than enough to restore Amiga's "bang per buck" advantage against Apple's Quadra 605 (68LC040 @ 25Mhz)'s $999 USD offer and similar priced 486SX-33 PC clones. No 3rd party Amiga CPU accelerator can match Commodore's economies of scale.

I fully supported Commodore UK's push for CPU accelerated A1200 bundle in 1993!

For 1993, A1200 with 680LC040 @ 25Mhz with 4MB Fast RAM for Apple Quadra 605's $999 USD asking price is pretty good. A1200 with 680LC040 @ 25Mhz accelerator would counter the 486SX-25 to 486SX-33 price range during 1993.

Last edited by Hammer on 02-Mar-2024 at 10:10 AM.

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@Gunnar

https://youtu.be/NLEByo2du0Y?t=132
Lotus 3 running on a 286-16 MHz PC with Trident 8900. IBM VGA is not recommended.

Using 386DX-33 with ET4000 is overkill for Lotus 3.

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@Hammer

Quote:

"Hard to program" is a downfall for PS3's CELL and it's a similar problem for Amiga Copper.

Comparing Copper and PS3, really?
This is very bad comparison.

PS3 is difficult but Amiga copper is easy.
Could it be that you never coded Amiga?

I think I can compare both.
I was in the IBM Cell team, and I wrote even demos for the Cell.
And I coded games, cracktros and demos on Amiga.
And from my experience the Amiga Copper is very logical and very easy to program.
Thousands of Amiga games and thousands of Amiga demos make good use of the Copper.

If you never coded on Amiga then I would invite you to try it.
Its a lot fun and its not hard.

Last edited by Gunnar on 02-Mar-2024 at 10:57 AM.
Last edited by Gunnar on 02-Mar-2024 at 10:53 AM.

@Hammer

Quote:

The A1200 basically replaced the A500. AGA gives you more for the same money...

Quote:

Wrong. A500 was 1st introduced at $699 USD in 1987 or USD $863 in 1992's inflation. A1200 was $599 USD in 1992 or $485 in 1987. A1200 wasn't the $863 "A500" performance banger for 1992.

Boy are are difficult.
What did you not understand on my point?

I said that Amiga 1200 was a entry level, low cost computer.
It was to replace the Amiga 500 as entry model, giving you more memory, faster CPU
and upgraded chipset for same or less price.

Didn't you just say the same as me?

Some people wine and complain and bash about the Amiga chipset ...

Why?
Do you guys feel betrayed?


The Amiga 1200 AGA was an solid entry level Computer.
The Amiga 1200 has an elegant to program chipset,
that is pretty good for Giana Sisters like 2D games.
And you got it with a swift and fast OS and you can run many
nice programs like DPaint or Music programs.


Was this not a fair deal?
In my opinion it was.

The Amiga 1200 is not a NEOGEO Killer, and its not a machine to play Fortnite.
But it was also never sold or promised you as this.


You paid a low price for the Amiga 1200.
And you got a decent entry level Computer.


What did you expect?
Why do you complain?


When you do to Mc Donalds and order Big Mac,
do you then also complain that you not got a 400 gram Angus Steak for the $5 you paid?

I think you got what you paid for.

@Gunnar

Quote:

100% on the topic

99,999643685%

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@Gunnar
Quote:

@FairBoy Quote: don't come up with false statements like "for free" You misquote me. Or you misunderstand me.

No, I didn't misquote you at all and there was nothing to misunderstand.
You clearly made this exact claim and it's wrong and all of what I wrote in response to it was and remains true.

At least admit it when you talk bull instead of falsely accusing others, just before adjusting your claim to fit your needs.
But well, fits the overall picture you're painting of yourself here.

Everything else you wrote is just bla, once again.
E.g. it simply does not matter at all if any AGA design goals were achieved or not.
It also doesnt matter that the Amiga was no pure gaming machine - AGA also lacked any significant improvements in pretty much all aspects which are not necessarily related to gaming, e.g. crappy hires support, unusable Workbench at 256 colors (higher number of colors on the Workbench also painfully reveal the outdated slow blitter in combination with the planar architecture when you e.g. scroll shell content).

All that does not change but merely underlines the fact that AGA was underpowered and not special at all when it was released and that it even had a hard time to compete in 2D gaming.

And no, it also also doesn't matter if you can spend $$$ on NeoGeo games when the talk was clearly about the base device costs (although it originally was just used as an example for good sprite hardware before you blew it up, the typical distraction strategy of yours).

Quote:

The Amiga sprites with max 16 colors is very good. If you compare this to state of the art Arcade systems like Capcom Streetfigther or NEOGEO then 16 color sprites is good. 16 colors for a Sprite is actually good.

It really becomes absurd now:
Comparing one of the weakest sprite hardwares of the time with that of a machine designed around sprites and then claim that the former was very good, implying that it was playing in the same league in any way.
And to top it: in other posts you complain about a comparison between NeoGeo and Amiga being unfair (Ferrari vs Golf).
Only Gunnar makes it possible.

Quote:

16 colors for a Sprite is actually good

Yes, but once again you "forget" most of the true weak AGA picture here, most importantly that it's the same 16 color palette for all sprites and that it's just up to 4 such sprites max.
If you had mentioned those "tiny" details (which is just the tip of the iceberg of AGA's sprite limitations) then your "state of the art Arcade systems / NeoGeo" statement from above would sound quite different.

Quote:

This means AGA can show pretty big Sprites like Streetfigther.

And this statement of yours would immediately reveal as equally absurd too.

You do that all the time:
you post some totally incomplete info from the AGA specs and use that as an argument pro AGA (to silence people who rightfully question AGA's qualities), even though it would quickly turn out to be an argument against AGA if you'd also mention all the limitations that surround this feature.

And to be clear: I have no problem with AGA being what it is. I happily accept that it is just a small improvement over OCS/ECS.
But I have a problem with guys who make false statements to harshly cancel others. And which even lie to make others look bad.

Alright, enough precious weekend time wasted with you for now.
Fairwell!

Last edited by FairBoy on 02-Mar-2024 at 12:43 PM.
Last edited by FairBoy on 02-Mar-2024 at 12:33 PM.

@FairBoy

Quote:

You clearly made this exact claim and it's wrong and all of what I wrote in response to it was and remains true.

Could it be that you simply miss the point?


What was my point?

The Amiga hardware allows you to do many effects in hardware,
without the need to spend huge amounts of CPU power on it.

Some examples:
- The Amiga can scroll the screen - without the need for the CPU to do expensive memcopy
- The Amiga can fluently scroll several screen layers - without expensive memcopy.
- The Amiga can put extra layers like Score and Live display on top of the game using Sprites - without needing to spend CPU on expensive memcopy.


Is my point correct?
Yes
You can do these effects with minimal amount of instructions on Amiga.
So you are saving thousands of instructions compared to some other systems.



If you compare the Amiga to other Computers like e.g. Atari ST or the Apple/MAC
Then on other system you can create such effects
but you need to "spend" a high price in using the CPU for this.
You need to pay with thousands or tens of thousands of executed instructions per frame to create this.
= You spending a lot CPU power on them.

So from an Amiga you can get this with minimal effort
If you can do an effects with 1 instruction
instead spending 10,000 CPU instructions on it -

Is this then not in comparison "For free" ?
Without you having to spend significant amounts of your available CPU power on this?

Last edited by Gunnar on 02-Mar-2024 at 01:07 PM.

@Gunnar

still no 256 color sprites playfields blitter
aga is what it is nothing special
no reasons to keep it
it is not good old OCS

@ppcamiga1

Quote:

still no 256 color sprites playfields blitter aga is what it is nothing special no reasons to keep it it is not good old OCS

your post is still nonsense


Even if you post this 100 more times this will not change it.

@ppcamiga1

Your post give the impression that you "like" OCS and hate/not like AGA

As AGA is improved OCS.
I not really understand how this makes sense.


As you like 300ml Coke but hate a 500ml Coke bottle.
Where is the logic in this?

Can you help us understand?