Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[vulture]

Errrr....Reshoot-R

[Shatterhand]

And if you think that's a bad example, check out Alien Soldier. Technically blows every amiga game ever made away.

In spite of the VISUALSHOCK! SPEEDSHOCK! SOUNDSHOCK! NOW IS TIME FOR THE 68000 HEART ON FIRE! , I really don't think Alien Soldier is pushing the hardware at all. The game does exactly what the hardware was made for (And yes, it shows how much "proper" for action games the MD is), but it's just a lot of sprites working together to make some amazing bosses. That's what Treasure was REALLY good at, joining a lot of different sprites to make a big boss. Gunstar Heroes did it incredibly well too.

But the big thing there is not the hardware, is the amazing sprite work of Treasure. The way they make a lot of different sprites work together has always been amazing

[ruinashiro]

Shatterhand, I agree in a way, and I am a huge Treasure fan, but I am framing this in terms of what the amiga could and could not do. There is no way an OCS or AGA machine could do Alien Soldier - that's my point.

That sprite work is both the hardware and Treasure. But the game has other aspects - see the fog, rain and lightning in the outdoor attack, the pseudo-3d floors later in the game, the colors, amount of objects, speed.

[Shatterhand]

Shatterhand, I agree in a way, and I am a huge Treasure fan, but I am framing this in terms of what the amiga could and could not do. There is no way an OCS or AGA machine could do Alien Soldier - that's my point.

I don't know. I honestly don't know. Have you seen Reshoot R? That game really made me rethink what the AGA can do. It doesn't look as impressive as Alien Soldier exactly because... it's not Treasure doing it (Sorry Richard Loewenstein.... Nothing but huge respect for your work, but competing with professionals doing this as a paying job, and some of the best in their job nonetheless, is very hard). Reshoot R also moves a shitload of stuff on screen WITH lots of cool background effects WITH speed. If the objects of Reshoot R were moving together to create a big boss moving instead of just creating simple waves of attacks, I think it could do stuff that looks like Alien Soldier.

I've just seen Reshoot R on Youtube, I don't have an AGA machine so I didn't play it. Sorry if I look too naive.

[vulture]

Yet, that has nothing to do with the technical aspect of things, it's just about artwork.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

You keep think I'm arguing with you when I'm not

I was under the impression we were discussing thing, not actually arguing

For the record you're the one who said I was spreading false information when I wasn't.

In retrospect, I agree my reaction to your post about the difficulty of Amiga scrolling was too harsh. Reading it all back, it's clear to me now you didn't intentionally try to make it seem the Amiga had problems in that area. I misread that and that may have made my posts more antagonistic than they should've been. My apologies.

That said, I do stand by my point - smooth scrolling (in any direction/combination of directions) is not hard to achieve on the Amiga. This is something I hold to because there are many systems on which it actually is hard to scroll the screen. The Amiga is simply not one of those systems. I also still feel the lack of these kind of games back in the early days had other reasons than it being too complicated to achieve the effect.

...I know one where they said that for sure was in Exile but I don't have the article here with me. I know that because I actually emailed the guy who wrote it to find out how it was done. So instead I told you what *actual* A1200 developers said at the time as a way of furthering the discussion...

Well, I didn't think we were arguing per se but I did think that we were still discussing scrolling on the Amiga. Hence my reply - it seemed like a rather sudden change of subject.

Exile is a wonderful game made by talented individuals. But as far as I've been able to find, also one made by people who gave the task of porting the game to William Reeve. He had only ever made a single game before (on the BBC Micro). Much respect to him figuring it all out, he did a great job. But it stands to reason that someone without Amiga experience will struggle when his first ever Amiga project (and second game he ever coded) is something as complicated as Exile.

Anyway, it's probably best we drop the part about scrolling, I don't think it'll achieve many new insights apart from keyboard wear and tear

On the topic of the A1200, I agree. I've already said as much many times in this thread and am more than happy to do so again if it helps get the point across: the A1200 is (with very few exceptions) not going to outdo the 16 bit consoles for 2D action games. It will get a lot closer than the A500 and on occasion it does exceed itself and gets something really nice like Reshoot-R, but...

If what you want is 2D action games that throw as many objects on on screen as can be handled, then the consoles are a better bet.

...I was responding to it because when we got a Megadrive it was like an upgrade on the A500 for arcade games. We wouldn't have bought it otherwise!...

The MD is certainly an upgrade from the A500 for those kind of games and I agreed with you already that they are better suited for action games

I originally replied to you merely to provide a counterpoint to the idea that the A500 didn't do those types of games and essentially said that despite the hardware disadvantage, there were some games that still managed to be quite impressive nonetheless. Then, due to me misreading your follow-up posts tone (sorry, it happens), I got a bit too harsh in my responses and so here we are, apparently both not really understanding the other

But I was never arguing that originally - I made this thread because I wanted to get a A1200 at the time but found it to be underpowered and disappointing...but not so much if you were someone who wanted and expected the A1200 to be the same distance ahead of the 16bit consoles as the A500 was to the 8 bit consoles

I do think this is a fair point and hopefully have gotten that across during this thread.

My (many) comments were never about saying people can't hold this opinion, they were only about pointing out why you could find it a good machine as well. They were also about trying to provide a counterpoint to some of the -to my mind- sometimes unfairly harsh positions or some of the more uneven comparisons. Some posts were mostly to try and show it "wasn't all that bad". Also, I did sometimes try to correct some factual errors (both 'pro' and 'anti' Amiga).

But in no way do I want to leave the impression that I think the A1200 is the best or fastest computer ever. Nor that it is the 16 bit console killer or some sort of DOOM slayer.

My whole point has been that there are people (myself included) who were not disappointed, despite AGA being somewhat lacklustre. The A1200 opened my eyes to so much non-gaming stuff and offered an affordable platform to try out so many things. It literally transformed the way I used the Amiga compared to the A500 I used before it. The A1200 also offered some very nice games on top of an already impressive library. That it's not as good as the consoles for 2D action games, nor as fast as a fast PC didn't bother me at the time and still doesn't.

None of that is meant to change your or anybody else's opinion. It's only meant as a counterpoint. No more.

Btw I loved the bit on how many objects you can get moving over a scrolling landscape. I have wanted to know that for years. Thank you. I think more people should do benchmarks on systems just to see how they compare in a fairer way. That's interesting the A1200 is effectively double the performance of the A500 for 2D objects.

No problem. The A1200 speed is dependent on screen modes compared, though. If you compare an A500 in 16 colours VS an A1200 in 256 colours the results are very different.

As for me asking about if the Amiga had an arcade game that ran at 50fps fullscreen, you have a point. But what I really meant (given what we had been talking about) was a scrolling one over a map with lost of sprites moving around. Not a simple one and not an 8 bit one. That's why I said Dragon Breed is a good example and Toki too.

Well, my issue here is that such a requirement is a fairly arbitrary one - who gets to decide what 'a lot of sprites' is, or what 'simple' means?

For instance, I personally don't think that the PacMania port to the Amiga is simple - it does something that was almost never seen at that time on any system, nor even possible on most (meaning its use of rather extensive overscan). You clearly disagree, but I hope you can see my issue here.

It just leads to a lot of guesswork and trial and error to see if any game qualifies by those standards. And at the end of it, we might never get a game that does. Simply because what constitutes 'lots of sprites' is in a matter of opinion, not fact. You might specify 40, I might think 20 is enough. Etc.

[tolkien]

I cant be disappointed with the machine that still own, use for write here, has a daily use and have given to me more than 25 years of funny.

[Retro1234]

Originally Posted by tolkien

I cant be disappointed with the machine that still own, use for write here, has a daily use and have given to me more than 25 years of funny.

Now that is something I can't argue with

[8bitbubsy]

I never owned an Amiga 1200 back in the day, and I was also too young to do so. Anyway, I have always liked the machine in later years. I think it's attractive looking, and it's the only Amiga that has audio that is not heavily low-pass filtered (e.g. the audio is sharp). The built-in IDE connector and PCMCIA port makes it easy to to set up an internal hard drive and transfer files externally, so in my eyes it's the only Amiga you'll ever need.

Now there are some negatives, of course. The keyboard is pure trash, and the quality of the chassis is horrible. It was meant to be as cheap as possible, so I can forgive them for that. Though an upgraded Paula chip would be nice given that 4 channel 8-bit PCM with no free panning was considered somewhat outdated in 1992...

[matt3k]

Yes, very dissappointed. The 1200 and 4000 were both cheaply made underpowered by terrible management. I owned them and sold them both. The 1200 became twitchy with each addon, and was just a headache for me.

Heck a 3000D with 60ns zips and a nice scsi drive was a much better and faster system than a 4000D with bad memory and slow/cpu intensive ide.

Sadly the darn varta batteries have destroy so many of them. Lucky for us Chucky and Hese have given some nice options for us.

The AAA3000 would have been a decent update to the 3000D.

The 3000D and T imho were the best Amiga's commodore every produced. They put quality parts into them and they feel high end. I will give it to the 2000D, although it was a sideways step really, but they were built like a tank and gave us the toaster.

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by matt3k

Yes, very dissappointed. The 1200 and 4000 were both cheaply made underpowered by terrible management. I owned them and sold them both. The 1200 became twitchy with each addon, and was just a headache for me.

Heck a 3000D with 60ns zips and a nice scsi drive was a much better and faster system than a 4000D with bad memory and slow/cpu intensive ide.

Sadly the darn varta batteries have destroy so many of them. Lucky for us Chucky and Hese have given some nice options for us.

The AAA3000 would have been a decent update to the 3000D.

The 3000D and T imho were the best Amiga's commodore every produced. They put quality parts into them and they feel high end. I will give it to the 2000D, although it was a sideways step really, but they were built like a tank and gave us the toaster.

I disagree that the A3000 was the best. While it was definitely the best-engineered, it was a bit of a step back from the A2000 in terms of room to work in for the power user, yet was priced like it was for a corporate power user. Yeah the A3000T fixed this but it was ungodly expensive.

C= never once produced a good middle-ground system, it seemed to only produce machines for teenage gamers and machines for companies with deep pockets. The A3000 could have been that middle ground system (with the A3000T being the expensive power system) if they had been priced appropriately.

[Unkown]

Well going to keep this short and sweet.

I was more than happy with ALL my Amiga A1200 that i had back in the day they did serve me well and fullfilled my needs back then i had no complaints.

I am also looking forware being reunited with yet another A1200 some time in the near future.

Happy Days & The Memorys Will Return Soon!

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

I disagree that the A3000 was the best. While it was definitely the best-engineered, it was a bit of a step back from the A2000 in terms of room to work in for the power user, yet was priced like it was for a corporate power user.

As a former A3000 owner myself, I agree - except for the 'best-engineered' part.

The A3000 was a bitch to work on - from the lack of room to not being able to operate it with the case half off, the ZIP RAM that was impossible to install without bending IC legs, the CPU board that didn't have enough room to add a fan, etc. It also weighed ton, and the power supply fan was incredibly noisy. I have no desire to own one today.

C= never once produced a good middle-ground system, it seemed to only produce machines for teenage gamers and machines for companies with deep pockets.

Not quite true. They did release the A1500, which was an A2000 stripped down to make it more affordable. In New Zealand Commodore sold A2000s with nothing but a single floppy drive, which many of my friends bought. I should have too, but I didn't like the size of the box (big mistake).

I love the A1200 though. Just the size I like, and plenty of computing power with an appropriate accelerator card (I have a Blizzard 1230-IV). It might have been marketed as a teenage gamer's machine, but there was no reason it couldn't be a good 'middle-ground' system too. A friend of mine used one to run his business on (and play games too, of course!).

[matt3k]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

I disagree that the A3000 was the best. While it was definitely the best-engineered, it was a bit of a step back from the A2000 in terms of room to work in for the power user, yet was priced like it was for a corporate power user. Yeah the A3000T fixed this but it was ungodly expensive.

C= never once produced a good middle-ground system, it seemed to only produce machines for teenage gamers and machines for companies with deep pockets. The A3000 could have been that middle ground system (with the A3000T being the expensive power system) if they had been priced appropriately.

I would say that the 2000 made the most impact on an industry and the 3000 was not a gaming machine but a true workstation (having owned a 2000D I wouldn't say it was a gaming rig either). I would say expensive compared to what? How about a Mac? At the the time the Mac was more expensive than a 3000T, but the 3000T offered a clear high end system. The 3000T wasn't that expensive it was priced right for what it did. Look at the PS2 systems fetching 10k for little more than a clone would do. Price is a subjective thing, but comparing a mac or ps2 to a 3000 really gave the 3000 the upper hand. I bought my 3000D new back in 91, and I was only a college student that saved my pennys for a while to do so.

Again I don't view games as criteria for the best, if so a stock 1200 would get my vote, I'm looking for a great workstation to define an era, and the 3000's do that.

I'm a power user and my 3000D with a mediator and all decked out works great. I sold my 2000s because they didn't have the speed, zorro II and a 16 bit bus couldn't compete for me. Even thought the 2000 had more card slots, you really didn't need them. A mediator, radeon, prisima (Prelude if you prefer), and a xsurf 100 ran much faster than my 2000 with an 060 and video card, it wasn't even close. For me a power user wanted performance and the 2000 couldn't deliver. I really like my 2000's but for workstation performance the 3000 was much better.

I don't see how the 2000 was any easier to work on than the 3000, other than populating zipp memory. On one had the 3000D ( the 3000T is ideal imho) did move a great amount of air and was solid, it did require you to hack the drive tray at some point for adding the CSPPC or CSMKIII and the 2000 didn't require it, it was easy to work on.

The 2000 and 3000 and 4000 were all similar to work on. The 500, (never owned a 600) and 1200 were a pain to get them to perform as a workstation.

imho the 2000 was a great system that really didn't innovate from the 1000, and the 4000 was a real disappointment for me with so many things. The 3000D/T were the best workstations

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by matt3k

I don't see how the 2000 was any easier to work on than the 3000, other than populating zipp memory.

You had to unplug the mouse and keyboard and slide the case all the way to the front to get into it, whereas with the A2000 you could just leave the case screws out and sit it there. To access the CPU slot on the A3000D you had to take out the disk drive stage (and riser card?). On the A2000 all the slots were easily accessible even while the machine was running.

the 3000D... did move a great amount of air

...noisily. So loud it was irritating.

and was solid, it did require you to hack the drive tray at some point for adding the CSPPC or CSMKIII

Yeah, I remember - that steel was thick!

The 500, (never owned a 600) and 1200 were a pain to get them to perform as a workstation.

The A500 and A600 were low-end machines that were not designed to be upgraded internally except for base RAM, but people found a way. The A500 did have the side expansion slot though, and accelerator/RAM/hard drive units were available - very easy to install and provided almost 'workstation' performance - not bad for a low-end games machine!

Internally the A500 is fairly easy to work on once you remove the case top and rf shield. I remember some PC clones that were worse - especially the 'slimline' models. The A600 is a bit fiddly, but since there wasn't much you could put it anyway... (until now! The Vampire has more power than I ever dreamed of).

imho the 2000 was a great system that really didn't innovate from the 1000,

At one time I had an A1000 with a 'Sidecar' - and also a RAM board and hard drive that couldn't all be attached at the same time. No accelerator or video slot either. Compared to that the A2000 was definitely innovative.

and the 4000 was a real disappointment for me with so many things.

Yeah it was a bit disappointing. Flimsy case with nasty sharp edges, awkward horizontal slots and not enough drive bays. PIO IDE was disappointing for a 'high-end' machine, and the price was a bit steep. I still might have bought one though - if I hadn't already invested too much in my A3000.

[matt3k]

@Bruce

All great points.

True you did have to unplug the mouse and keyboard to take the case off, and the daughterboard had to be moved to get the tray out, and the 3000D would not boot with the daughterboard removed, but a 4000D would.

The 2000D was better for slapping things in, now that I remember. True a accelerator and video slot, a flicker fixer was great for using better monitors. I agree that did innovate the line. I will say that a stock 1000 and 2000 ran at about the same speed however. Where a stock 3000D was much, much faster than a stock 2000.

To be honest, unless you wanted to play aga games, the 4000 wasn't worth it. I had a stock 4000D with an 030 and seagate IDE drives and my stock 3000D with a fast quantum scsi disk and 60ns zipps was so much faster and responsive than the newer machine. The other thing, my 3000D ran reliable only replaced the battery with a coin cell before it leaked. The 4000 caps leaked and killed audio and some other component.

I did put a silent nachua fan in the power supply and life is good, the fan was loud but it moved a lot of air. The 4000D moved less air and heat even though it was a bigger case. The drive tray is thick and took a bit to cut, but I take the quality metal any day.

I found the 500 and 1200 to be fine for games. The 500 was my first Amiga and I enjoyed it. I didn't enjoy getting them to a workstation class, especially the 1200. I agree you can get the performance up there with them but not as satisfying as opening up the 2000 or 3000 and putting a card in. I did have to get hacky with the 2000 for 2 megs of chip and other mods.

At the end of the day and after thinking about it, I will say the 3000T was probably the best Amiga ever created. I still like the form factor of the 3000D, it still looks cool even today and the mouse and keyboard still feel quality. But a T has more card slots and is easier to upgrade. It still has zipps, but they were the fastest option in the day, and I'm ok with that.

I could see where if you had to start over it may be difficult, even finding a decent 3000 would be difficult and expensive, for me I enjoy working on the 3000's. I take mine down and clean in every so often, I just enjoy the classic hardware. The biggest issue I have is speed really, even an over clocked 060 with fast local ram for big jobs. I have 7000 emails in simple mail and it is unusable. Perhaps that cs-labs 100mhz accelerator with local video and memory will be released. That may be the ticket. I have tried emulating with MOS or WinUae, at they are extremely fast and nice in their way, but I enjoy the hardware. MOS X64 might also be worth looking at for me when it gets done... Lastly I'm most likely going to get a Chucky ReAmiga 3000D and Hese AA3000+, hats off to both these gentlemen, it doesn't sense for price/performance but it fun playing with the hardware for me...

[oscillik]

Back when the Amiga 1200 was released, my access to computers was at school (I think there were some RM machines, and some BBC Micros but that's all) and a family friend had an Amiga 500 which blew my mind.

The Amiga 500 really kickstarted my interest in computers and I got heavily into PCs around 1996.

In retrospect, had I been a serious Amiga user back then, I think I would've been a bit underwhelmed with the A1200.

Of course, I now own an A1200

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

C= never once produced a good middle-ground system, it seemed to only produce machines for teenage gamers and machines for companies with deep pockets. The A3000 could have been that middle ground system (with the A3000T being the expensive power system) if they had been priced appropriately.

The A4000/030, for its rather short lifetime, was rather affordable.

[Rich_hard1]

At the time, those with Amigas all wanted the A1200, those who didn’t have an Amiga computer played it with their friends or tried saving for one. By the time it eventually got released, just a few months after the tiny a600, commodore were initially filing for bankruptcy. Now the nostalgia is more real than ever, the A1200 will always be the most affordable Amiga home computer, with a place in every Amiga users heart. Some might say, the very idea of Amiga home computing spurred the evolving home console market, who knows without the Amiga, we probably wouldn’t see many of the game systems over the past 20 years or so. Or a very different way of gaming anyway.

[zipper]

Never bought one. Just put my A500 into tower and beefed it with Blizzard 2060 and PicassoII+, then CV643D and PicassoIV. Later got an A4000.