Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[hammer]

Originally Posted by TEG

This can sum up perfectly the grief the community have about Commodore management. Failing in the professional market, especially the video/graphism one but in the game market too. A one that the brand had a huge recognition due to the C64/A500 success.

SGI's professional workstation graphics also failed when it was road-killed by PC Master Race's NVIDIA's GeForce product line.

SGI was bleeding engineers to other companies (e.g. 3DFX, ArtX) who wanted to deliver SGI's graphics to the masses. The final kill is when NVIDIA's war of attrition with court battles caused SGI to transfer its remaining 3D engineering teams to NVIDIA. NVIDIA is the natural successor to SGI. 3DFX was assimilated into NVIDIA.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by hammer

SGI's professional workstation graphics also failed when it was road-killed by PC Master Race's NVIDIA's GeForce product line.

SGI was bleeding engineers to other companies (e.g. 3DFX, ArtX) who wanted to deliver SGI's graphics to the masses. The final kill is when NVIDIA's war of attrition with court battles caused SGI to transfer its remaining 3D engineering teams to NVIDIA. NVIDIA is the natural successor to SGI. 3DFX was assimilated into NVIDIA.

But SEGA MEGADRIVE had BLAST PROCESSING, plus an 6MzT508 Chip in its pipeline for 8 concurrent MegaTwerps.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by hammer

"Most PCs " is flawed argument when the gaming PC minority is larger than Amiga's install base.

Which is bollocks, frankly - "Most PCs that I had access to" was the quote to which you were referring. None of those PCs were even close to being "gaming" PCs. They ran Windows 3 at best, most were DOS.

The games ran poorly. You can't deny that, for these PCs.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Which is bollocks, frankly - "Most PCs that I had access to" was the quote to which you were referring. None of those PCs were even close to being "gaming" PCs. They ran Windows 3 at best, most were DOS.

The games ran poorly. You can't deny that, for these PCs.

But, but, but Tseng ET4000AX...

[TEG]

Originally Posted by hammer

SGI's professional workstation graphics also failed when it was road-killed by PC Master Race's NVIDIA's GeForce product line.

SGI was bleeding engineers to other companies (e.g. 3DFX, ArtX) who wanted to deliver SGI's graphics to the masses. The final kill is when NVIDIA's war of attrition with court battles caused SGI to transfer its remaining 3D engineering teams to NVIDIA. NVIDIA is the natural successor to SGI. 3DFX was assimilated into NVIDIA.

Yes but SGI was positioned on the very high end, not on the "DPaint/Photoshop" market like the Amiga. And they haven't the Toaster. Different market sectors.

The other point is they were successful through the PS1 which embed their technologies and as you explain, the tech survived through NVIDIA. Really different from Amiga tech.

I always though the right move for Commodore would have be to embed their technology on a graphical card for the PC. Very soon, instead of wasting R&D into the sidecar. Would have provide bucks and notoriety.

[EAUniW]

..

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by TEG

Yes but SGI was positioned on the very high end, not on the "DPaint/Photoshop" market like the Amiga. And they haven't the Toaster. Different market sectors.

SGI practically implemented OpenGL in hardware - per pixel depth 256..1000+ bits - there is no comparison between both - SGI was brute force approach - maximum performance at all cost.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

But SEGA MEGADRIVE had BLAST PROCESSING, plus an 6MzT508 Chip in its pipeline for 8 concurrent MegaTwerps.

Nothing beats Blast Processing to this day!

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

But SEGA MEGADRIVE had BLAST PROCESSING, plus an 6MzT508 Chip in its pipeline for 8 concurrent MegaTwerps.

SNES has a 60 million install base while Mega Drive has a 30 million install base. Enough said.

Nintendo still has a hardware game console business and is still in the hiring cycle.

Sega is downsizing with impacts on Total War studio Creative Assembly, Sega Europe, and Sega Hardlight and selling off Relic Entertainment to UK investment company Emona Capital.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by TEG

Yes but SGI was positioned on the very high end, not on the "DPaint/Photoshop" market like the Amiga. And they haven't the Toaster. Different market sectors.

The other point is they were successful through the PS1 which embed their technologies and as you explain, the tech survived through NVIDIA. Really different from Amiga tech.

PS1 doesn't have z-buffer acceleration and it's a pure fixed-point integer hardware solution from Sony.

PS3's PSGL is for NVIDIA's RSX which is based on OpenGL ES and Nvidia's CG. PSGL was replaced by PS4's GNM/GNMX/PSSL (relative to MS HLSL, https://www.pcgameshardware.de/scree...11.2_-pcgh.jpg PS4 has DirectX11.2+/OpenGL 4.4 hardware feature set with custom Sony extensions.

NVIDIA was copying SGI's IP, hence SGI sued them, but SGI didn't have the financial strength to fight NVIDIA.

In 1999, SGI transferred the graphics engineer teams to NVIDIA in return for NVIDIA agreeing to license SGI's 3-D graphics patent portfolio. SGI was factoring their graphics engineer's livelihoods and their future. NVIDIA is the natural successor to SGI without the SGI name.

Ex-SGI engineers who formed 3DFX have the correct direction. 3DFX's assets were acquired by Nvidia on December 15, 2000. The remaining "SGI rebels" are in ArtX and were purchased by ATI and later AMD.

Silicon Graphics Inc. went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009 and was acquired by PC server-based Rackable Systems which renamed itself Silicon Graphics International Corp.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise acquired Silicon Graphics International Corp in November 2016.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise purchased the former SGI's Cray via Tera Computer Company (which was renamed itself as Cray Inc) in 2018. Hewlett Packard Enterprise relocated to Compaq's headquarters campus in Texas.

Amiga Hombre intended to have hardware Z-buffering. Commodore's argument with Amiga Hombre is CD32's price range with OpenGL compliance for the masses.
Amiga's games console with keyboard and mouse has open access freedom.

Valve's Steam Deck argument is open game console access freedom which is different from the SNES "walled garden" business model influenced Xbox and PlayStation.
There is an argument for open-access freedom game consoles.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Which is bollocks, frankly - "Most PCs that I had access to" was the quote to which you were referring. None of those PCs were even close to being "gaming" PCs. They ran Windows 3 at best, most were DOS.

The games ran poorly. You can't deny that, for these PCs.

You can keep ignoring Intel's report on 486 sales majority from 1992 to 1994 and Dataquest's market intelligence. For numbers, you can stay ignorant and watch the minority gaming PC install base murder Amiga's install base.

PC's Doom and Doom 2 have 4 million unit sales and an estimated floating (pirated) 15 million copies.

It's absurd to think that the minority gaming PC's install base is less than Amiga's install base.

John Carmack's comment against Amiga Doom port was about Amiga's install base for his Doom games.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by pandy71

But, but, but Tseng ET4000AX...

John Carmack's comment against IDsoftware developed Amiga Doom port was about Amiga's install base for his Doom games.

[grelbfarlk]

What if the A1200 had Blast Processing and cartridges, and a lot of fans on the bottom so the A1200 could hover over the desktop and blow crumbs and small bugs away.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TCD

Alone in the Dark was released in late 1992. It seems that you have forgotten what the actual situation was 'back then'.

I said,

"the majority of fans who were disappointed with the A1200 on release were disappointed before it was even a thing."

The system requirements for Alone in the Dark were low enough (286, 640k, MCGA) that the A1200 should have been able to handle it, but in late 1992 the A1200 had only just been released and had virtually no user base. If the game was to be ported to the Amiga they would target OCS because that's where the market was. But this would be challenging and the results disappointing - if they even bothered. Amiga fans were primed to expect this ever since VGA games started coming out on the PC.

So it would be "Oh look, PCs are already getting fantastic games like Alone in the Dark and now finally we get a machine that makes it possible on the Amiga too, but how long before we get the games?". You're not going to get Alone in the Dark on the Amiga until maybe mid 1993 if you're lucky, which makes you sorely disappointed that the A1200 wasn't a thing a year earlier. In practice of course we didn't get this game at all (unless you ran a Mac emulator), just another example how the A1200 was way to late to avoid disappointment.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

What if the A1200 had Blast Processing and cartridges, and a lot of fans on the bottom so the A1200 could hover over the desktop and blow crumbs and small bugs away.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I said

You say a lot of things Including, but not limited to, the part that I commented on.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by hammer

You can keep ignoring Intel's report on 486 sales majority from 1992 to 1994 and Dataquest's market intelligence. For numbers, you can stay ignorant and watch the minority gaming PC install base murder Amiga's install base.

I don't think anyone is arguing that the PC didn't murder the Amiga for gaming.

But the games I saw on average consumer PCs of friends around me back when AITD came out were awful and the sound was worse than on the Amiga. You can't say that it wasn't - because that was my lived experience.

Maybe you and your rich circle of friends could afford gaming PCs at that point in time but nobody I knew could. It was going to be a good few years after that before PCs became anything like affordable for the average UK buyer.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Dunny

and the sound was worse than on the Amiga.

That's very nice and polite way to say it.

You see, I am religious person. And when I was youngster, and was hearing scratching and beeping from PC speaker for the first time, it helped me envision how sounds in hell sounds like.

[gunatm]

No. I was a hardcore Amiga user and for me the option to use 256colours/Ham8 was a winning situation. In 1995 when I got my A1200 there were still some good games made. In the end of 1996 I bought my first PC, and I used my A1200 still for quite a while upgraded with a Blizzard 1230IV including SCSi.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by hammer

John Carmack's comment against IDsoftware developed Amiga Doom port was about Amiga's install base for his Doom games.

Please don't take this too personally - i was ironic but not too much, just a bit.