Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by daxb

@Dunny:
What about Genetic Species?: http://hol.abime.net/2716

That came out around the time I left the scene, I think. And in any case, I dunno if my usual source of warez would have had it

But as mentioned, there was also Gloom - a fantastic Wolf3D clone, and AB3D-II was also excellent, I remember spending weeks playing that on my 1200+50MHz 030.

To say there were no good 3D games on the Amiga simply because it had no chunky screenmodes is idiotic at best, and a poor troll at that. Games are not suddenly made more fun or more playable that way.

[vulture]

AB3D-II was indeed awesome! Could the engine be better optimized? I suppose so, I'm not a programmer. But still, what an incredibly atmospheric game!

[Dunny]

I suspect that AB3D-II had aspirations beyond what chunky graphics could do at the time - it would have been better suited to graphical acceleration with texture filtering. That it ran at all well on an accelerated A1200 was a testament to the skill behind it.

[roondar]

Appologies for snipping parts of your reply, the idea is to make this all somewhat less of a wall of text.

Originally Posted by chb

A DSP was not part of AAA, true, but that does not mean it would not have been a part of an AAA Amiga. The DSP in the A3000+ also was not considered to be part of AGA. You're right, that's pure speculation, but again, we do not know what system Haynie was thinking about when making his quote.

I think we're reading far too much into an off-the-cuff remark made to a receptive audience. It's clear from the AAA documentation you have to bend over backwards to get anywhere near the figure he mentioned. Even when we do so and add a non-existing DSP, we're still nearly 100MB/sec short for the lower end of his range.

Edit: I've been thinking. It's possible that he was talking about theoretical limits - the CPU/Blitter may not have the speed to get to a 400-600MB/sec total, but perhaps the VRAM does support it (if the both ports are used to their theoretical limits). And maybe the BUS theoretically does as well. So if you put in a hypothetical CPU/Blitter combo that can push 200MB/sec or more, you'd actually get to those sort of numbers. But in practice it doesn't matter, since neither the CPU nor Blitter that were to be included could actually support such speeds.

I guess that's my main problem with such figures: having a system with an aggregate of about 70MB/sec of bandwidth to VRAM when using the CPU/Blitter combined and then claiming 400-600MB/sec bandwidth feels wrong to me. Even if it were technically correct (see the first bit of my edit), you'll never be able to actually do anything useful with all that bandwidth other than displaying high resolution still images. This is also were my comments about PSX and PC performance came from: those machines were similarly limited in what they could actually push over the bus, which limited real world performance.
End of edit

Mac Quadra AV 840 from 1993
<...>
you'll arrive at ~500 MB/s total bandwidth.
<...>
I think those Macs are a quite good comparison, as an high-end AAA Amiga probably would have been positioned roughly in the same class as the Quadra AVs. So nothing outlandish about such a bandwidth.

I went over the mac Quadra 840AV specs with a fine tooth comb, read up on the DSP etc. That machine does not do 500MB/sec. It does about 300, if you include the internal DSP cache (which I still find highly debatable)*. Which is obviously still a lot, but also only half of what Dave Haynie suggested as the upper limit.

Edit: also see above for reasons why these numbers are essentially useless without comparably quick support hardware (which neither AAA nor the Mac Quadra AV has).

*) VRAM (25MHz@64bit=200MB/sec) + Main RAM/CPU (40MB/sec shared with NuBus) + DSP (66MB/sec) = 306MB/sec.

Yep, but a lot in this thread isn't . After all, I think we're all just discussing some old obsolete systems for our pleasure... But if any mod would move that branch to an own thread, I would not protest.

I do like discussing tech stuff like this, but Foebane does have a point - this thread turned from a simple discussion about who liked the A1200 and why to in-depth technical analysis of a non-existent chip set and it's potential competition in the form of the fastest 68K Mac ever made.

So, here's the deal: I'm more than happy to continue this elsewhere - but suggest we do not do it here

Originally Posted by vulture

AB3D-II was indeed awesome! Could the engine be better optimized? I suppose so, I'm not a programmer. But still, what an incredibly atmospheric game!

There were some 3rd party patches released for the game that sped it up, so I guess the answer is yes.

Originally Posted by Dunny

I suspect that AB3D-II had aspirations beyond what chunky graphics could do at the time - it would have been better suited to graphical acceleration with texture filtering. That it ran at all well on an accelerated A1200 was a testament to the skill behind it.

IIRC, the game won an industry prize for technological achievements at the time.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by swinkamor12

PS-2 386SX was sold by IBM in 1989 three years before a1200 realease.

The PS-2 Model 55 SX was announced on May 09, 1989. It had a 16MHz 80386SX CPU, 2MB RAM, VGA graphics, 30MB ESDI hard drive, 3 Micro Channel slots, a 1.44MB 3.5" floppy drive, PS/2 Keyboard and mouse ports, serial and parallel ports. Guess what's not in those specs? That's right, a sound card! (good luck finding an MCA sound card at a reasonable price). The Model 55 SX was discontinued in 1991.

In 1992 IBM announced the PS/2 Model 25SX. It had an 80386SX CPU clocked at 16MHz, 1MB RAM, 3 ISA bus slots, 1.44MB Floppy drive, Built-in VGA monitor, 'enhanced' VGA that could do 640x480 in 256 colors (but not supported by its own monitor!), the usual mouse/keyboard/serial/parallel ports, no hard drive, and of course no sound card!

Imagine it's 1992 and you have a choice between this thing and an A1200...

[TEG]

Originally Posted by roondar

I think we're reading far too much into an off-the-cuff remark made to a receptive audience. It's clear from the AAA documentation you have to bend over backwards to get anywhere near the figure he mentioned. Even when we do so and add a non-existing DSP, we're still nearly 100MB/sec short for the lower end of his range.

Nobody have Dave email to ask him what he had in mind at the time ?

[Hewitson]

I very much disagree about c2p having such a "low overhead". If this was the case, 3D demos (and Doom, Quake, etc) wouldn't run like shit even on an 060.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I very much disagree about c2p having such a "low overhead". If this was the case, 3D demos (and Doom, Quake, etc) wouldn't run like shit even on an 060.

Doom does not run like shit on an 060.
Quake runs like shit on PC's with a CPU as fast as an 060.
Don't believe me?

Here is doom on a 68060:
[ Show youtube player ]
Here is Quake on a Pentium-75 (about the speed of a 66-75MHz 68060):
[ Show youtube player ]

[swinkamor12]

This is how Quake 1 work on Pentium 75 if You are not idiot and do not use cheapest available graphics in Your pc.

[ Show youtube player ]

[roondar]

Next time I'll watch two or three videos before picking one. I picked the first hit and that did indeed run it a lot worse than the others.

As I've said before, I'll change my mind when shown evidence. So here's an A1200 running it@66MHz to show the difference:
[ Show youtube player ]

Edit: I remembered something about this. Quake is heavily FPU dependent and the 68060 FPU is significantly slower than the Pentium one (assuming proper code it can be as much as twice as slow). Take that as you will, it won't magically make the A1200 faster.

[swinkamor12]

So this PS-2 has not only slower vga card but also slower CPU - 16 MHz.
Thank You Ba to check this.
I never buy PC from IBM, and I do not know anybody who use it.
In 1992 IBM was already kicked off from desktop PC market.
Their PC where slower and cost more than clones.

AB3D. I never like this better DOOM.
It never run good on uae or NG.
As I wrote I do not buy 060 beacuse at end of 1999 060 cost as much as ppc with bvision.
AB3D was not good reason to buy 060.
AB3D was too late. In 1996 on PC there was already Quake.

c2p. This crap c2p takes too much time ad work of developer and too much time of procesing power of cpu.
It is obvious for everbody except some insane Amiga fanatics that AGA have to have chuky pixels from the beginning.

[vulture]

@roondar

Well, looks about right. About 11% clock difference, add another 5% of better ipc performance on Pentium's side and, finally, about 5%-10% for the c2p. PC is also using a Voodoo Rush, not your standard SVGA for sure.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by vulture

PC is also using a Voodoo Rush, not your standard SVGA for sure.

If the PC can use a fancy graphics card, then it would only be fair to compare it to an Amiga with a Picasso card - then any c2p arguments are moot.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by swinkamor12

So this PS-2 has not only slower vga card but also slower CPU - 16 MHz.
Thank You Ba to check this.
I never buy PC from IBM, and I do not know anybody who use it.
In 1992 IBM was already kicked off from desktop PC market.
Their PC where slower and cost more than clones.

Note that this was not the PC I showed Doom on.

AB3D. I never like this better DOOM.
It never run good on uae or NG.
As I wrote I do not buy 060 beacuse at end of 1999 060 cost as much as ppc with bvision.
AB3D was not good reason to buy 060.
AB3D was too late. In 1996 on PC there was already Quake.

I'm assuming you mean AB3D-II. Part one was released in 1995 and runs smoothly on even a basic A1200.

As for part two, it runs just fine on UAE:
[ Show youtube player ]

c2p. This crap c2p takes too much time ad work of developer and too much time of procesing power of cpu.
It is obvious for everbody except some insane Amiga fanatics that AGA have to have chuky pixels from the beginning.

Calling people insane and fanatical over and over is unacceptable.

Disagree all you like, but drop the insults. You're the only one doing it and it's getting really old.

Originally Posted by vulture

@roondar
PC is also using a Voodoo Rush, not your standard SVGA for sure.

Wait, what?! That's a 3D card...

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by demolition

If the PC can use a fancy graphics card, then it would only be fair to compare it to an Amiga with a Picasso card - then any c2p arguments are moot.

PC fanboys don’t have rules in arguments, cost?! who cares about cost!? its how the PC masturbator race rolls

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

PC fanboys don’t have rules in arguments, cost?! who cares about cost!? its how the PC masturbator race rolls

I went from a A500+ with a 20MB sidecard HDD (and no fastmem!) to a 486DX/2-66MHz PC and while that was a big upgrade by most people's standards, it felt like a downgrade on many fronts as well. While I was able to play Doom and write homework with truetype fonts in MS Works, many games like platformers did not run as well as they did on the Amiga. Objectively the PC could do more colors and higher resolutions but many games just weren't as smooth the same way as they was on the Amiga.
When it came to the sound, it was a major downgrade though as I could not afford a sound card for the first year of having that PC so I was stuck with PC Speaker sounds.


Many things can be said about dead platforms - they should have done this or that but ultimately the Amiga did well in its time so they must have done many things right. We will never know if the Amiga would have survived a bit longer if the A1200 was launched with AAA, c2p, more memory, an 030 CPU etc. or whether the higher price would have caused an earlier demise. Quite a lot of A1200s were sold so I guess the performance/price point couldn't have been completely off.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by demolition

Quite a lot of A1200s were sold so I guess the performance/price point couldn't have been completely off.

Not really, its a misconception, probably from early reports of the A1200 breaking all (Amiga) records from launch, but we all know the A500 was a very slow burner so this record didn’t account for alot.

And from Commodore’s yearly records, the A1200 sold a total of between 200K - 249K machines worldwide from Oct 92-mid 94 a good 18+ months of sales, in comparison in the UK ALONE the A500 sold from July 91-June 92 (12 months) 300K machines and was rising year on year, not bad for a supposedly dead machine!

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Not really, its a misconception, probably from early reports of the A1200 breaking all (Amiga) records from launch, but we all know the A500 was a very slow burner so this record didn’t account for alot.

I don't remember any such reports though. Mostly reports of very poor supply and stores being out of stock. This was mirrored by essentially zero ads actually trying to sell the machine in Amiga Format until 1993. That might have seemed like a sales record I suppose. However, the numbers I managed to find said that Commodore only had 30.000 Amiga 1200's available for the entirety of the UK in 1992.

And from Commodore’s yearly records, the A1200 sold a total of between 200K - 249K machines worldwide from Oct 92-mid 94 a good 18+ months of sales, in comparison in the UK ALONE the A500 sold from July 91-June 92 (12 months) 300K machines and was rising year on year, not bad for a supposedly dead machine!

The numbers I found don't agree about increasing sales of the A500 in 1992. The Amiga 500 sold nearly a million units in 1991. The Amiga 500/500+/600 combined sold only about 350.000 units in 1992 (200.000 of these were A600's). The Amiga was dropping massively well before the A1200 launch.

As such, I don't doubt the A1200 sold poorly. For one, the initial supply was very poor and for another, it was selling on the back of a massive decline in the Amiga market.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by roondar

I don't remember any such reports though. Mostly reports of very poor supply and stores being out of stock. This was mirrored by essentially zero ads actually trying to sell the machine in Amiga Format until 1993. That might have seemed like a sales record I suppose. However, the numbers I managed to find said that Commodore only had 30.000 Amiga 1200's available for the entirety of the UK in 1992.

Most reports were bad this is true, and Commodore did an god awful job of supplying retailers with machines in 1992, 30k for the UK is generous, only 44k units for the whole of Europe were available in 1992.

Originally Posted by roondar

The numbers I found don't agree about increasing sales of the A500 in 1992. The Amiga 500 sold nearly a million units in 1991. The Amiga 500/500+/600 combined sold only about 350.000 units in 1992 (200.000 of these were A600's). The Amiga was dropping massively well before the A1200 launch.

That said, I don't doubt the A1200 sold poorly. For one, the initial supply was very poor and for another, it was selling on the back of a massive decline in the Amiga market.

The A500 sold 1.03m in 1991 and was increasing year on year, 1992 was the year that broke the camels back, and this had nothing todo with the PC, other wise the same argument could be pointed as to why the Amiga sold so well in 1991, but anyway the UK year on years sales

July-June period.
1987/1988 - 40K
1988/1989 - 160K
1989/1990 - 200K
1990/1991 - 250K
1991/1992 - 300K

So bar Commodore fucking up with a more expensive A600 there is no evidence to say the Amiga would not have continued these sales patterns had they positioned the budget machine alot better in 1992, certainly the A500 could have continued off the back of the 16bit consoles as they went hand in hand and pushed each other, but as we know the A600 and A1200 put pay to any future by confusing the very market with higher launch prices, no numpad, A500+/A600 discontinuation in 6 months, A1200 shortages, A1200 incompatibilies etc it all contributed to the downfall of the Amiga all in the space of 8-9 months.

[swinkamor12]

In 1996 for price of Amiga 4000 with 060 cpu and picasso graphics card one can buy at least four Pentium 75 MHz PC with affordable SVGA card.
Pentium 75 MHz PC with affordable SVGA card should be compared with something less expensive on Amiga side.