Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by pandy71

You simply do things different way, your code operate on color values not on registers index. You need more CPU cycles but still this at the composition level - modern graphic use HW compositors so you can have various planes in memory and at the composition stage they just mixed with preprogrammed weight (alfa) so in theory you can have more planes and they can be mixed at various stages (using blitter and HW plane composer) - in 3D HW this can be even more extended - beyond traditional 2D plane concept.
Probably Copper tricks are easier to be done nowadays at the pixel level than before on line level.

That doesn't really work though. On a palettized display I can half the screen in Color 1 and the other half in Color 2 and both those colours set to black. Then the Copper can periodically change the colour values of Color 2 and those changes should only be visible on the second half of the screen. But on a 24-bit RGB display the entire screen was black, you've lost the concept of them being "different" colours that just look the same.

Pretty much the only way that works is to maintain a palettized version elsewhere and re-render it on every frame, recalculating Copper changes as you do. Not ideal from a performance perspective though.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by pandy71

This topic is about A1200 disappointment not about superiority of 486 over 386 - SNES is example of some HW but compared to Amiga not PC vs PC. Stay on topic.

SNES and Mega Drive are the 1st post's comparative examples.

SNES is known to have packed pixels via Mode 7 and Mode 7 Direct Color and officially supported math accelerator addons via various DSPs and RISC CPU(SuperFX).

My argument's position wouldn't change if I substituted the PC for SNES with officially supported math accelerator addons i.e. it is still Commodore UK's officially supported upgraded AGA platform baseline argument which Ali rejected.

Originally Posted by pandy71

LOLipop - XGA was designed after 8514 and it closed gap between VGA and 8514 providing graphic acceleration from IBM together with VGA compatibility. Additionally offered accelerated 64k colors screens.
But... But this topic is about A1200 disappointment not about superiority of XGA over 8514.

Again, my argument's position wouldn't change if I substituted the PC for SNES with officially supported math accelerator addons i.e. it is still Commodore UK's officially supported upgraded AGA platform baseline argument which Ali rejected.

Originally Posted by pandy71

All above is SOFTWARE - why the heck you willing to emulate 8514AI (i.e. 8514 API) if you can probably provide higher performance by directly perform operations using CPU for your unaccelerated graphic HW.

8514's pro app desktop use case is not in this topic i.e. read the 1st post's game.

When there's a compatibility target, it depends on the price and the majority of use cases e.g. games.

Originally Posted by pandy71

And clearly you are providing misinformation as IBM officially not provided 8514 register documentation (as they goal was to use dedicated API i.e. 8514AI) -

IBM provided 8514 hardware documentation to Microsoft since 8514's AI wasn't sufficient.

Originally Posted by pandy71

Once again - this topic is about A1200 disappointment not about correcting your misleading arguments about for example ET4000 having accordingly to you HW acceleration when Tseng staying completely opposite. You simply don't see difference between software blitter and HW blitter.

FYI, ET4000W32 was released in 1992.

8514's pro app desktop use case is not in this topic i.e. read the 1st post.

Originally Posted by pandy71

how's that? Commodore planned to replace Alice+Lisa with Tseng product?

That's your argument.

My argument for the A1200 is to improve CPU power i.e. Commodore UK MD's argument.

My argument for the ET4000 class chipset for the PC is against slow VGAs which is a bottleneck for gaming.

Originally Posted by pandy71

Obviously your goal is try to derail this thread by not staying on topic and flooding it with completely irrelevant and misleading information's about Tseng products

Do you claim gaming PC did not affect the Amiga's survival? Do you support the position that PC's Doom-type games have zero effect on the Amiga's survival?

How come Commodore's AGA aimed at 256 color display like PC's VGA 256 color display baseline?

Originally Posted by pandy71

- from your perspective ET4000 is almost same like Et4000w32 etc

Don't put words in my mouth. You're misleading.

Originally Posted by pandy71

even if both are completely different products sharing only (partially) name - you are quoting some information's but you don't understand it as it is irrelevant from topic perspective. Please stay on topic!

ET4000 has some acceleration features.

8514's pro app desktop use case is not in this topic i.e. read the 1st post.

Amiga's 2D hardware acceleration is a decelerator in certain situations since AGA's Blitter is stuck in 1985. Aminet has many different hacks to enhance the graphics speed e.g. fastblit, cpublit, cpuclr, etc. Using Fast RAM with fast 68K CPUs. https://amitopia.com/check-out-this-fblit-alternative/

https://www.powerprograms.nl/amiga/cpu-blit-assist.html
For A1200, the 68EC020 CPU assists the Blitter.

For 32x32 bobs
A500 Blitter has 11 Bobs per PAL frame.
A1200 Blitter has 17 Bobs per PAL frame.
A1200's gimped 68EC020 CPU has 8 Bobs per PAL frame, 49.7% of A1200 Blitter.
A1200 CPU+Blitter (optimized) has 19 Bobs per PAL frame.

What happens when the CPU is 68EC020-25 with Fast RAM?

PS; both 68EC020 and 80386 have hardware barrel shifters.

WD90C31 has acceleration.
OTI-087 has acceleration.

[Promilus]

Hammer - you're just doing nonsense comparison... you want good 2D? You already have it in AAA - everything is faster. A lot faster memory, much more memory, more DMA channels, wider blitter and copper and also slightly improved copper instruction set iirc. Why the f... you are spamming all that PC VGA nonsense? Once 3D PCI came out it essentially killed off all old 2D companies like Oak tech, tseng or cirrus. So it was irrelevant to what A1200 in 92 could have... It could've be AAA and I wouldn't be crying about that, and certainly I would not compare it to the VGA cards which did cost almost as much as whole A1200...

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Promilus

Hammer - you're just doing nonsense comparison...

you want good 2D? You already have it in AAA - everything is faster. A lot faster memory, much more memory, more DMA channels, wider blitter and copper and also slightly improved copper instruction set iirc. Why the f... you are spamming all that PC VGA nonsense?

Doom was released in Q4 1993 and PCI wasn't dominant. You're posting nonsense. You have a timeline problem.

The rot in the Amiga gaming scene started in Q1 1992 e.g. A600's release and the sales flop.

For AAA;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanc...ecture_chipset
The chipset would include up to 1 million transistors in its 64-bit dual-system configuration (total).

64-bit AAA has a similar transistor budget as Amiga's Hombre. AAA is 2D focus while Hombre is 3D focus.

Originally Posted by Promilus

Once 3D PCI came out it essentially killed off all old 2D companies like Oak tech, tseng or cirrus.

Is this a problem in the commodity market with desktop PC's graphics display modularity advantage? Why is this a problem when I can change XYZ SVGA card for ABC SVGA card and continue playing games? This doesn't concern me.

The whole point of dumping IBM MCA is access to lower-cost add-on cards!

Did you assume I cared about these AIB/chipset companies when I dropped them on the next Xmas or next post-Xmas or next black Friday sales?

Originally Posted by Promilus

So it was irrelevant to what A1200 in 92 could have.It could've be AAA and I wouldn't be crying about that, and certainly

Refer to this topic's purpose.

Originally Posted by Promilus

I would not compare it to the VGA cards which did cost almost as much as whole A1200...

I didn't pay $400 to $779 AUD (barebone A1200 cost) for a Doom-capable SVGA card during Q4 1992. IBM 8514 does NOTHING for PC's DOS gaming. 8514 wasn't a major factor when Windows 3.0 was released. 8514 is a nothing burger in 1992.

S3 didn't even bother targeting 8514's compatibility.

Only a fool thinks that AGA's "hardware acceleration" is on par with PC SVGA chipsets that powered Amiga's RTG cards.

8514 and VGA only established the use cases for SVGA cloners.

[Promilus]

Refer to this topic's purpose.

you do listen to your own advice and stop spamming irrelevant PC BS

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by hammer

SNES and Mega Drive are the 1st post's comparative examples.

SNES is known to have packed pixels via Mode 7 and Mode 7 Direct Color and officially supported math accelerator addons via various DSPs and RISC CPU(SuperFX).

My argument's position wouldn't change if I substituted the PC for SNES with officially supported math accelerator addons i.e. it is still Commodore UK's officially supported upgraded AGA platform baseline argument which Ali rejected.

Once again you are constantly comparing (example) SNES vs MD and this is completely unrelated to A1200 at all.
So stay on topic and stop flooding us with unrelated and usually misleading random info's about Tseng, Sharp, Intel, NVidia etc.
Stay on topic.

Originally Posted by hammer

Again, my argument's position wouldn't change if I substituted the PC for SNES with officially supported math accelerator addons i.e. it is still Commodore UK's officially supported upgraded AGA platform baseline argument which Ali rejected.

Once again - this is like beating dead horse with big bat and expecting his resurrection...

Originally Posted by hammer

8514's pro app desktop use case is not in this topic i.e. read the 1st post's game.

When there's a compatibility target, it depends on the price and the majority of use cases e.g. games.

IBM provided 8514 hardware documentation to Microsoft since 8514's AI wasn't sufficient.

Once again 8514was used in this topic to illustrate when IBM PC line get first HW accelerated graphics. Years after Amiga.
And IBM never released officially 8514 low level - register documentation.
Officially known 8514 register documentation is from MIPS so obviously some documentation was known - whether it is outcome of cloning or leaks or official but secret (NDA) release - who cares after so many years and absence of MCA in Amiga.

This is completely unrelated to this topic.

Originally Posted by hammer

FYI, ET4000W32 was released in 1992.

How this is related to Amiga 1200?

Originally Posted by hammer

That's your argument.

My argument for the A1200 is to improve CPU power i.e. Commodore UK MD's argument.

My argument for the ET4000 class chipset for the PC is against slow VGAs which is a bottleneck for gaming.

ET4000 will not improve A1200 power... A1200 limitations are located mostly in chipset limitations (RAM bandwidth, RAM organization etc) not in CPU - adding ET4000 will not made suddenlyA1200 better - you can place ET4000 in A3000 or A4000 or A2000 but this not made any of those machines faster and more appropriate for Doom.

Originally Posted by hammer

Do you claim gaming PC did not affect the Amiga's survival? Do you support the position that PC's Doom-type games have zero effect on the Amiga's survival?

How come Commodore's AGA aimed at 256 color display like PC's VGA 256 color display baseline?

Don't try to put such claims on me - PC gaming capability and competition with Amiga was possible wit popularity of 386 but there is nothing related to ET4000 or ET4000W32 there.

Don't put words in my mouth. You're misleading.

Originally Posted by hammer

ET4000 has some acceleration features.

Ok, let's assume you are right and i'm not, list those "some acceleration features" in ET4000.

Originally Posted by hammer

8514's pro app desktop use case is not in this topic i.e. read the 1st post.

Once again - 8514 is example - IBM started HW graphic acceleration so technologically it was comparable to Amiga.

Originally Posted by hammer

Amiga's 2D hardware acceleration is a decelerator in certain situations since AGA's Blitter is stuck in 1985. Aminet has many different hacks to enhance the graphics speed e.g. fastblit, cpublit, cpuclr, etc. Using Fast RAM with fast 68K CPUs. https://amitopia.com/check-out-this-fblit-alternative/

https://www.powerprograms.nl/amiga/cpu-blit-assist.html
For A1200, the 68EC020 CPU assists the Blitter.

For 32x32 bobs
A500 Blitter has 11 Bobs per PAL frame.
A1200 Blitter has 17 Bobs per PAL frame.
A1200's gimped 68EC020 CPU has 8 Bobs per PAL frame, 49.7% of A1200 Blitter.
A1200 CPU+Blitter (optimized) has 19 Bobs per PAL frame.

What happens when the CPU is 68EC020-25 with Fast RAM?

PS; both 68EC020 and 80386 have hardware barrel shifters.

What if 68020 has 56MHz speed or you speedup something else - what if...?
I think there is no single person in this thread claiming anything else - of course having more memory, faster CPU will be better.

Originally Posted by hammer

WD90C31 has acceleration.
OTI-087 has acceleration.

Wow... thx for this information so important from this topic perspective...
Btw as i didn't verified this earlier but my memory was correct OAK OTI087 has no acceleration beside to some registers to speedup CPU driven pattern fill in packed pixel modes - i've recalled correctly that it was quite standard, average SVGA card, so... usually you provide misleading information.

[sokolovic]

Was anyone else disappointed by the ET4000 ?

[paul1981]

Was anyone disappointed with their most recent PC purchase? Was it really a noticeable advancement and have the 'wow factor' over your old PC that your used just a few years ago?

My opinion is there has been no noticeable improvement for a quarter of a century now. Or is it me? They still play videos full screen, and 3D games full screen, still same looking OS GUI etc. Am I missing something?

The last time I was impressed with any computer was when as a family we purchased our first PC in 1999 with dial-up and a 15" monitor, with 24 bit graphics, 8GB hard drive, all at a blazing 466 MHz. Prior to that I had an A1200 attached to a tv with 8MB RAM, a 260MB hard drive and a SCSI CD-Rom drive.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by paul1981

Was anyone disappointed with their most recent PC purchase?

Absolutely not.

Originally Posted by paul1981

My opinion is there has been no noticeable improvement for a quarter of a century now. Or is it me?

25 years? Yeah, it's you. The difference between a very high end 25 year old peecee and even a 10 year old low end peecee is enormous. Current stuff isn't comparable in any way, shape or form. It's all so far beyond what was available 25 years ago.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by paul1981

Was anyone disappointed with their most recent PC purchase?

Not really, but I haven't purchased a PC recently. Actually, I do not even own a desktop or tower these days. It's laptops now, and I'm writing this on a mobile workstation that is more powerful than my last PC. It is an old pre-owned laptop, but still quite good.

Originally Posted by paul1981

My opinion is there has been no noticeable improvement for a quarter of a century now. Or is it me? They still play videos full screen, and 3D games full screen, still same looking OS GUI etc. Am I missing something?

I don't have higher expectations in that sense, but the timing is not quite right. My first PC was an AMD Athlon ~2002, which was a big improvement over the Amiga. What followed was a rather disappointing P4 probably ~2004, and then an AMD64 years later which was a significant improvement. That I retired last year and replaced it by the mobile workstation, probably build around 2014, so 10 years old. It feels quite comparable to my office PC, but I don't have higher expectations in terms of graphics or performance. My office laptop is a hp elitebook which I do not like the least - bad keyboard, bad connectivity, non-swapable battery. Good for typing for a couple of days, but not really usable. Performance wise, the mobile workstation is probably slower, but "good enough" for everything I do. If you want performance, we have some real monster machines in the office (AMD Ryzen, 64 cores) that give you an enormous boost, but that's high-end and not really consumer-products. intel seems to stall at the moment and sells you the old stuff under new names.


So, I would say, it depends. The office PC is "good enough", and there is not much progression. Laptops quite similar, only useless evolution (slimmer, but less usable, less connectivity, more eye-candy than productivity). High-end, server side: I would disagree that there is no evolution.

Originally Posted by paul1981

The last time I was impressed with any computer was when as a family we purchased our first PC in 1999 with dial-up and a 15" monitor, with 24 bit graphics, 8GB hard drive, all at a blazing 466 MHz. Prior to that I had an A1200 attached to a tv with 8MB RAM, a 260MB hard drive and a SCSI CD-Rom drive.

The last time I was impressed is when I got hands on the latest AMD Ryzen. Also, the latest Raspi is quite impressive for its form factor. There is no "impressive" hardware anymore at my home - I simply haven't found a use for it, all I have is good enough for my needs, and if I would buy something new with similar performance, it would be in many aspects worse. No DVD anymore, no usable keyboard anymore, no legacy connectors anymore, instead a full bag of adapters for USB-to-LAN, USB-to-USB, USB-to-VGA, USB-to-HDMI, HDMI-to-VGA... Thanks, but no thanks. I want to plug in my LAN cable, my DVI monitor, my USB-2 mouse, and I want to play my DVDs, and not pile up electronics.

[Locutus]

Last computer i bought that felt 'Impressive' to me was my AMD 3950X with 128GB memory.

With that amount of memory i could finally run complex transaction and data streaming applications i work on, locally with a full Kubernetes, Kafka and Postgres DB setup all in their own paravirtualized VM's and with enough performance to run full production datasets.

I suddenly had a mini-Datacenter in my desktop...It's since been replaced with a TR4 machine which is much bigger but that felt like an incremental increase, not opening up new posibilities.

....And yes i cried when i bought 128GB of DDR in 2020.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Thanks, but no thanks. I want to plug in my LAN cable, my DVI monitor, my USB-2 mouse, and I want to play my DVDs, and not pile up electronics.

Just build a desktop peecee.

[Arne]

My most recent PC purchase exposed me to Windows 11, so yes, I was incredibly, incredibly disappointed. Now, every PC purchase is disappointing, but from a UX perspective W11 is actually worse than XP. Is it deliberately hostile, a product of industrial sabotage, or just an absolutely mind boggling showcase of incompetence? An unholy trifecta, perhaps.

As for raw hardware performance I don't think I'd need anything faster than 2014 mid-low specs for the stuff I do. Best advancements are in temps and sound level. That stuff becomes obvious once you go back and boot up a 1999 machine, like a Dell or G4 mac. Boot times were great in the Amiga/8bit/16bit days, then got abysmal with W95/98, and now they're at least tolerable. My A1200+ 2.5"Conner on IDE booted to desktop in a few seconds and installed programs started instantly.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by paul1981

Was anyone disappointed with their most recent PC purchase? Was it really a noticeable advancement and have the 'wow factor' over your old PC that your used just a few years ago?

My new PC is significantly faster at processing images than the one I had before. Windows 11 is a pretty horrible UI experience indeed, but performance isn't impacted (too much) by it. I wouldn't call it a 'wow factor', but upgrading my PC did improve a number of tasks that I do on a nearly daily basis.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by paul1981

Was anyone disappointed with their most recent PC purchase?

I don't recall I've ever been disappointed with my PC purchases. That's because I'm on a rather tight budget (ok, maybe recently not so tight as before) and always plan my moves very carefully.

I know people love to say things like "well, my 10 year old GPU and CPU are still going strong!", and that's fine if you do some simple desktop things or play the same old games, but if you want to stay near the top - especially in gaming - there's no way around upgrades.

I do it every few years and, yeah, it still has the wow factor, though of course nowhere near as big as back in the day (which is rather obvious).

Note about Win 11 - it's not mandatory, but if you really must have it changing the UI with 3rd party programs is banally simple.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Promilus

you do listen to your own advice and stop spamming irrelevant PC BS

You're the real bullshit.

Read https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...postcount=3516
Pandy71 started PC addon vs PC addon. PC vs PC is NOT my argument!

My response post against Pandy71's #3516 is https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...postcount=3520

I attempted to restore the debate back to gaming i.e. Doom game benchmarks. IBM 8514 and clones are nothing for PC DOS VGA gaming.

------------------
http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/amigahi...ggebrecht.html
Lew Eggebrecht, Vice President of Engineering at Commodore.

Lew Eggebrecht: We do get squeezed with clone PCs at the top and Sega underneath, and also boxes like 3D0,


Lew Eggebrecht: "We can't make that decision right now - it's something we'll have to look at but in that time frame, even in the low end, every machine is likely to have a DSP. It's a cost thing - although the AT&T chip itself is only $20 to $30 or so. AT&T has a number of lower cost options, as well, that are designed more specifically to go on the motherboard

------

DSP3210 has a $20 to $30 price range and it's in the game plan, but Commodore runs out of time and money. Lew Eggebrech is open for Nintendo-style officially supported DSP for ALL Amigas. It's too bad Eggebrech was not in the hot seat earlier in the 1988 time frame. Lew Eggebrech is better than Bill Sydnes.


-------
http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/amigahistory/mikesinz.html
From Mike Sinz (Commodore)
AT&T DSP32 selection was to speed up render times in a low-cost method, not just audio processing.

Eggebrech and engineers agreed with AT&T DSP32 selection.

Dave Hydnie is correct about bundling AT&T DSP32 with AGA as the complete solution for the AGA(AA) generation.

A1200/CD32 with AGA-DSP32 complete solution would have blown away any 386DX-40 and 486DX-33 PC competition. DSP32 being a RISC core in design, the RISC threat is real. In modern times, PiStorm32-Emu68's low-cost RISC is a good direction for my A1200. Since A1200 is not being manufactured, I prefer FPGA SAGA with PiStorm support i.e. retro clone with a forward road map.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

No, but does AGA offer hardware overlays, true-color and 3D acceleration?

Fact is, it's a horse of a different color.

I was told this RTG P96 driver is 'not 2D accelerated'. You seem to be talking about something else, perhaps a graphics processor in the Pi's SoC? In which case who knows what tricks it's using.

One thing's for sure though - if you want that graphics coming out of your Amiga's video ports (composite/RGB) then it has to go through ChipRAM and bandwidth becomes critical. If it's doing something else (eg. using the Pi's HDMI output) then that is indeed a 'horse of a different color' - and not a fair comparison.

"This system from 2012 is faster than one from a decade earlier, therefore I was disappointed with the A1200" is not just an invalid argument, it's historical revisionism. Nobody back was dissing the A1200 for not being up to the standard of something that wouldn't exist until well into the 21st century.

nobody needs sprites if a fast accelerator can move graphics around, and nobody needs dual playfield if hardware overlay is available.

I do. I need a chipset with interesting features that make programming it interesting. I also need retro hardware in my retro computer to keep it true to its retro spirit - otherwise why bother?

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I do. I need a chipset with interesting features that make programming it interesting.

Current and recent GPUs are quite interesting.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Once again you are constantly comparing (example) SNES vs MD and this is completely unrelated to A1200 at all.
So stay on topic and stop flooding us with unrelated and usually misleading random info's about Tseng, Sharp, Intel, NVidia etc.
Stay on topic.

Read https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...postcount=3516
You started PC addon vs PC addon. PC vs PC is NOT my argument!

Originally Posted by pandy71

Once again - this is like beating dead horse with big bat and expecting his resurrection...

What's the intent of Vampire and PiStorm, again? A resurrection via retro with a forward road map direction.

TheA500mini has reached mainstream brick-and-mortar stores in Australia.

https://medium.com/@scottdaniel_2089...-ff5c90ddde85#
The Rise of Retro Gaming: Nostalgia in the Digital Age

Originally Posted by pandy71

Once again 8514was used in this topic to illustrate when IBM PC line get first HW accelerated graphics. Years after Amiga.

Less than two years. May 1985 to April 1987 is 23 months. Don't exaggerate.

PC has a strong 256-color use case.

Amiga's 2D acceleration becomes de-acceleration with fast 32-bit 68K.

You're a fool to compare Amiga's 2D acceleration with the SVGA chipsets that enable Amiga's RTG.

---------------


Lew Eggebrecht: "We can't make that decision right now - it's something we'll have to look at but in that time frame, even in the low end, every machine is likely to have a DSP. It's a cost thing - although the AT&T chip itself is only $20 to $30 or so. AT&T has a number of lower cost options, as well, that are designed more specifically to go on the motherboard


DSP3210 has a $20 to $30 price range and it's in the game plan, but Commodore runs out of time and money.

Lew Eggebrech is open for Nintendo-style officially supported DSP for ALL Amigas including low-end Amigas.

It's too bad Eggebrech was not in the hot seat earlier in the 1988 time frame. Lew Eggebrech is better than Bill Sydnes.

DSP32 is a new math-based object manipulator.

Originally Posted by pandy71

And IBM never released officially 8514 low level - register documentation.
Officially known 8514 register documentation is from MIPS so obviously some documentation was known - whether it is outcome of cloning or leaks or official but secret (NDA) release - who cares after so many years and absence of MCA in Amiga.

8514's AI wasn't enough for Microsoft and IBM gave hardware documentation for 8514.

8514 does nothing for PC DOS gaming. 8514 compatibility is nothing when S3 didn't even bother implementing it.

With Windows 3.0's 1990 release, I didn't care about 8514 compatibility. The only credit for IBM is the strong 256-color use case as the baseline clone target.

Originally Posted by pandy71

This is completely unrelated to this topic.

You started the PC add-ons vs PC add-ons debate. Read https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...postcount=3516

8514 does nothing for PC DOS gaming.

Originally Posted by pandy71

How this is related to Amiga 1200?

It covers your "professional" 2D acceleration argument.

8514 does nothing for PC DOS gaming.

Originally Posted by pandy71

ET4000 will not improve A1200 power... A1200 limitations are located mostly in chipset limitations (RAM bandwidth, RAM organization etc) not in CPU - adding ET4000 will not made suddenlyA1200 better - you can place ET4000 in A3000 or A4000 or A2000 but this not made any of those machines faster and more appropriate for Doom.

That's your argument. I didn't advocate ET4000's inclusion into AGA.

My ET4000xxx with market share example is to show the competitive market from the gaming PC's side and it's against the "PC has crappy Tridents" argument.

I advocated for improved math power for A1200/CD32 as per Lew Eggebrech's interview.

Originally Posted by pandy71

Don't try to put such claims on me - PC gaming capability and competition with Amiga was possible wit popularity of 386 but there is nothing related to ET4000 or ET4000W32 there.

Somebody argued with most PCs have crappy Trident SVGA. I posted Tseng Labs' market share and the size of PC's annual unit sales.

I posted Intel's 486 and Pentium shipment report to shoot down the "most PCs are XT/AT crap with monochrome display" argument.

Originally Posted by pandy71

Ok, let's assume you are right and i'm not, list those "some acceleration features" in ET4000.

Can't you read? ET4000 can assist the CPU with certain workloads. VGA has some accelerated features since emulated VGA is slow i.e. ask Rendition, Inc.

Your argument wouldn't matter when AGA's 2D acceleration is not fast i.e. A1200's gimped 68EC020 has 49% of A1200's Blitter.

Originally Posted by pandy71

Once again - 8514 is example - IBM started HW graphic acceleration so technologically it was comparable to Amiga.

You're a fool to compare AGA's 2D (de)acceleration against SVGA chipsets that powered Amiga's RTG cards.

I haven't forgotten OS patches for fast CPU bilts on my A1200 with 8 MB Fast RAM card, and later with TF1260. The OS patches for fast CPU bilts were applied to my A3000(68030@25 Mhz with static ZIP Fast RAM)'s OS.

Originally Posted by pandy71

What if 68020 has 56MHz speed or you speedup something else - what if...?
I think there is no single person in this thread claiming anything else - of course having more memory, faster CPU will be better.

"Deaccelerator" says Hi.

Originally Posted by pandy71

Wow... thx for this information so important from this topic perspective...
Btw as i didn't verified this earlier but my memory was correct OAK OTI087 has no acceleration beside to some registers to speedup CPU driven pattern fill in packed pixel modes - i've recalled correctly that it was quite standard, average SVGA card, so... usually you provide misleading information.

https://www.xfree86.org/4.0.2/Status24.html


"OTI087 (the latter with some acceleration) is provided by the XF86_SVGA server and the oak driver."

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I was told this RTG P96 driver is 'not 2D accelerated'. You seem to be talking about something else, perhaps a graphics processor in the Pi's SoC? In which case who knows what tricks it's using.

I haven't made the driver, so I cannot tell you, but I would be astonished if the Pi wouldn't have an accelerator on board which could help blitting.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

"This system from 2012 is faster than one from a decade earlier, therefore I was disappointed with the A1200" is not just an invalid argument, it's historical revisionism. Nobody back was dissing the A1200 for not being up to the standard of something that wouldn't exist until well into the 21st century.

No, but for things that did exist back then, of course. I personally did not buy an A1200 because I already had my A2000, and I considered it a waste of money to reinvest into the architecture back then. The improvements weren't large enough to make it worthwhile, so I didn't. I didn't have a PC either, though. Instead, I got a graphics card for the A2000. The GVP Spectrum must have entered the market around 1993, the A1200 around 1992. I got mine later, of course, but they are quite close in terms of introduction date. The GVP was worth it, and could do more than what AGA could offer.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I do. I need a chipset with interesting features that make programming it interesting. I also need retro hardware in my retro computer to keep it true to its retro spirit - otherwise why bother?

Well, the question was wether the A1200 was disappointing, wasn't it? In my case, it was. So, what else to say?