Machine Wars - Fight!

[lordofchaos]

I thought it might be a good idea to have a dedicated thread to those "machine wars" that seem to crop up during off-topic discussions. So why not use this place to let off some steam and get those "what machine is better" rants off your chest. Perhaps moderators could redirect those kind of rants here?

Obliviously things should never turn personal by making negative and cruel comments about an individual.

[trixster]

Ok. The Falcon was a far more ambitious and better machine than the A1200.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by trixster

Ok. The Falcon was a far more ambitious and better machine than the A1200.

Well more or less. IF you talk about the true color mode, yes. The DSP, yes.

But all that is around, nope, the 1200 is more balanced.

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by trixster

Ok. The Falcon was a far more ambitious and better machine than the A1200.

On paper or in practice? I mean, what software shows that? Or game?

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

I thought it might be a good idea to have a dedicated thread to those "machine wars" that seem to crop up during off-topic discussions.

You mean a thread for Dennis to ramble in?
Sure, good thought, but I doubt you can contain him! Haha.

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by Akira

You mean a thread for Dennis to ramble in?
Sure, good thought, but I doubt you can contain him! Haha.

Haha! Yes I must confess, I felt inspired after reading your exchanges.

The fanboy is strong with this one!

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by trixster

Ok. The Falcon was a far more ambitious and better machine than the A1200.

Yes, and much more expensive. The Amiga 1200 got to many more homes thanks to it's affordable price.
On the other hand the Falcon040 never made it, while the Amiga4000/040 or even A4000/060 was available.

[trixster]

The Falcon looks way cooler than the A1200 so it wins, hands down.

[idrougge]

Then you touch it and realise it's made like a toy.

[Gordon]

If the Falcon is a Falcon, then the Amiga is an Eagle

[trixster]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Then you touch it and realise it's made like a toy.

True.

[trixster]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

On paper or in practice? I mean, what software shows that? Or game?

At the time of release, admittedly not much. But most recently the Badmood version of Doom, and the DML Quake 2 test, show what the Falcon and its DSP can do, and it's way beyond an A1200 with fast ram. DML thinks that badmood can be made to work on a 4mb falcon.

[Jack Burton]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

On paper or in practice? I mean, what software shows that? Or game?

I don't know which one is better but these videos can give an idea of what a Falcon030 is capable of :

Game
[ Show youtube player ]

3D engine
[ Show youtube player ]

Software (softsynth tracker )
[ Show youtube player ]

[ Show youtube player ]


To be fair I think it does not look that bad.

[trixster]

And half life on falcon. Not stock, as it needs 14mb, but it's on the stock cpu and DSP.

[ Show youtube player ]

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by trixster

At the time of release, admittedly not much. But most recently the Badmood version of Doom, and the DML Quake 2 test, show what the Falcon and its DSP can do, and it's way beyond an A1200 with fast ram. DML thinks that badmood can be made to work on a 4mb falcon.

Quite impressive. Still, an A1200 fully expanded with 60060 would be fairly comparable surely. And then it begs the question, why play those games on the Falcon at all? They run on the oldest PC machines, and better..

For myself it's the software that makes the machine, and that's where the Falcon falls short, under realised and under utilized.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by trixster

At the time of release, admittedly not much. But most recently the Badmood version of Doom, and the DML Quake 2 test, show what the Falcon and its DSP can do, and it's way beyond an A1200 with fast ram. DML thinks that badmood can be made to work on a 4mb falcon.

Thats all well and good, but those advances would have been more relevant soon after the machines release, not over 20 years later.

[trixster]

For sure, but we're all current user for these old machines, new hardware and software is still being developed for these machines, so I think it's relevant to show what's available now. It would have been amazing to see the machines pushed to their limits at the time, I quite agree.

And the OP said which machine "is" better, not "was" better!

[trixster]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

Quite impressive. Still, an A1200 fully expanded with 60060 would be fairly comparable surely. And then it begs the question, why play those games on the Falcon at all? They run on the oldest PC machines, and better

You could ask quite why any of us persist with ancient, underpowered machines. And I think the answer is because we want to and because we can, and because we find it interesting.

You might argue that spending hundreds sticking an 060 into an A1200 or Falcon would and probably should be considered lunacy as you can do it so much easier on a £25 raspberry pi. But we still do it. But surely eeking every last ounce of ability out of a stock machine to see what can be achieve is a much less crazy activity, it's actually achieving something.

[Amigajay]

Amiga 500 Vs Atari ST - the ST was a decent machine, its just the Amiga made it look crapper than it was, soundwise the ST needs putting out of its misery!

Amiga 500+ Vs Atari STE - sure it closed the gap a little, but there was hardly any software support

Amiga 1200 Vs Atari Falcon - on paper the Falcon is better, but the extra cost (the 1mb model was £599 at launch, a full £200 more than the A1200, let alone the £800 4mb model twice the price!) and sod all software support bar a handful of games shows it was no contest regardless of C; going bankrupt 18 months later

[trixster]

Looking at the OP's topic, I guess it depends on how you wish to define what is "best"?

Is a computer inextricably linked to its software? Can they ever be separated? One machine might be massively more popular than an other, but does that make it "better"? A machine might have measurably better hardware than a contemporary but if the lesser machine is much easier to program for does that make it "better"?

I posted initially Falcon vs A1200 as a bit of a troll to get the thread moving but I think it's an interesting comparison. It would have been nice to see how the Falcon might have faired had Atari not pulled the plug on its computer division only a year after release iot concentrate on an even more ill-fated stab at the console market. It would be nice to see what might have occurred had Atari not decided to go-Acorn and price their machine out of everyone's reach. (I'm thinking Acorn A3000 here).