Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by logo

For me it was the contrary, and it's one of the reasons Commodore died (not enough customers) and why we didn't see a lot of great AGA games.

If you were into action games you'd get a console, if you were into 'brainy' games you'd get a PC. By mid 1992 the competition on both 'sides' had a lot to offer (in case of the PC more and more games became exclusive). So gettting an A1200 was a bit of a gamble and like you say not enough people took that gamble. You mentioned that no other computer in 1992 could do 2D action games like the Amiga. Well, the consoles could and they were a lot cheaper.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by TCD

. You mentioned that no other computer in 1992 could do 2D action games like the Amiga. Well, the consoles could and they were a lot cheaper.

No the consoles could'nt because they were not computers.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by hammer

Commodore could have integrated an additional chunky pixel raster for Lisa instead of a 16 million color palette.

Chunky graphics would have also required a new blitter as the current design is inherently planar and bit-oriented, and also a rewrite of larger parts of graphics (what P96 delivers today). Thus, many follow-up costs, and CBM went cheap - chunky at Denise (as cheap as it would have been) would have created larger costs at two other ends.

[logo]

Originally Posted by TCD

If you were into action games you'd get a console, if you were into 'brainy' games you'd get a PC. By mid 1992 the competition on both 'sides' had a lot to offer (in case of the PC more and more games became exclusive). So gettting an A1200 was a bit of a gamble and like you say not enough people took that gamble. You mentioned that no other computer in 1992 could do 2D action games like the Amiga. Well, the consoles could and they were a lot cheaper.

Or you were lucky ("rich") enough to own an A1200 (I was) and could access plenty of all kinds of games: action, strategy, puzzle, simulators, point & click, platformers, race, etc... In the same time, you had maybe what was the first "multimedia" computer wich was created. Amiga was a multimedia machine before the word itself was invented.

Sokolovic answered you about the end of your message.

For the ones who really want to talk about pure Power, I suggest you to play Dread or Reshoot Proxima 3 on A1200, and try to do the same on the 3.58 MHz japanese console you like so much...

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by freehand

Does anyone know what d4rk3lf is talking about ? the comparisons are from one extreme to another to suit and personal taste.

Let me explain what I wanted to say... I was drunk that day... and now... I am a little less drunk.

So...
It's 1994... everybody screaming "I want Doom" (I personally didn't experienced it this way, but I trust you guys that it was a big thing then).
So I ask myself: What budget should A1200 owner have to invest, so he/she could play Doom fairly smoothly? My guess is some 040 card. Right?
So I ask myself again: What budget should 386 owner have to invest, so he/she/they/them.. etc... can play Doom fairly smoothly? My guess is some mid range 486, right?
So, how much money would each of them have to invest?
I really don't know...
I assume Amiga owner would invest less (because he would be only buying accelerator... not the whole new motherboard, processor, new ram... etc).
But I might be wrong...

But even if Amiga guy should give some more money in order to play Doom, all I can say, that it's totally understandable, because Amiga was not built for these kind of games.

So, if we reverse the roles.
How much money would PC owner needs to pay in 1987 in order to play A500 2D games in smooth scrolling, colors from 4086 palette.. etc...?
Yes, PC was not built for this.... but how much money then above example?
I think... much.. much... much more.

Conclusion:
I am impressed how Amiga, despite it's "not my territory", could be worthwhile long after Commodore bankruptcy, and I still don't see the logic (that many mentioned here), that was a good investment to buy PC in 1992-1993-1994-1995.
(Personally, I think that PC was not worthy until Win XP came out, but let's stop at 1995).

Originally Posted by dreadnought

This narrative that PCs were somehow less expandable than A1200 is certainly one of the most eyeroll-worthy amongst all the kerrazy ideas I've ever encountered on this forum - and this takes some doing

Well... I gave my opinion (hopefully more clearer) on this, above this quote, and I still think that PC (overall) is less expandable.
First of all, PC didn't had "mini versions" of it's computers like A500, 500+, 600, 1200 that all it's architecture is in keyboard (LOL, imagine reduced 286/386 computers in the keyboard.. that would be great to see ).
But even with these computers... let's say... A1200... you can buy accelerator and turn Amiga 1200 to 060 (Pentium, more or less, equal comp).
Even A500 had 060 accelerator back in the day...
Can you, in any way, turn 286 to Pentium machine? or 386? or 486?

Again, I am not saying I am right...
... wait... alcohol just came to me brain.
OF COURSE I AM RIGHT!

[dreadnought]

@logo

My point is that everyone is entitled to have an opinion on whatever happened back in the day (we all do) but it should be possible to express youself without denigrating other users/platforms/games.

And your post sounded like a part of the "it's all fault of those icky deserters" narrative, which I'm not a fan of.

@d4rk3lf
It's not really how you paint it to be, for reasons we went over ~bazillion of times already, so I don't agree overall, but I appreciate the fact you can have a drink or three and still sound merry and not super seriously agitated, so....peace out

[grond]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Chunky graphics would have also required a new blitter as the current design is inherently planar and bit-oriented,

Apart from the fact that AGA should have got a new blitter anyway (with 32bit width): why wouldn't the legacy-blitter be able to blit chunky pixels? It doesn't even know about the format of the stuff it blits. You obviously couldn't use the blitter's line drawing and fill modes but that wouldn't be much of a loss.

and also a rewrite of larger parts of graphics.

That's like saying a dual playfield mode needs a rewrite of graphics. The chunky screenmode (in addition to the planar one we got!) would have been very useful even without OS-support. OS-support could have come later in KS3.2 or 3.3 or whatever much like KS2.0 wasn't ready for the ECS-release.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by grond

Apart from the fact that AGA should have got a new blitter anyway (with 32bit width): why wouldn't the legacy-blitter be able to blit chunky pixels?

Because area-filling and line drawing apparently works very different in chunky modes.

Originally Posted by grond

That's like saying a dual playfield mode needs a rewrite of graphics.

No, that's only a detail of the copper initialization from two RastInfos instead of one and thus relatively harmless. With chunky, however, a lot of drawing primitives change that do not change with dual playfield, as even very elementary assumptions are not true anymore. For example, computing the width of a bitmap. Or to give you a better estimate, look at how many functions P96 has to patch - all of these would have required a rework. Of course it's easy to say "that's all trival" as the work is done at this time, but if you look at the development time of P96, then that was all but trivial.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Let me explain what I wanted to say... I was drunk that day... and now... I am a little less drunk.

So...
It's 1994... everybody screaming "I want Doom" (I personally didn't experienced it this way, but I trust you guys that it was a big thing then).
So I ask myself: What budget should A1200 owner have to invest, so he/she could play Doom fairly smoothly? My guess is some 040 card. Right?

In 1994, no amount of money you spent on an A1200 was going to let you play Doom fairly smoothly - you could not play Doom on the Amiga at all. You either bought a PC, a MegaDrive+32X, a Jaguar or waited another year and bought a SNES.

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

So, if we reverse the roles.
How much money would PC owner needs to pay in 1987 in order to play A500 2D games in smooth scrolling, colors from 4086 palette.. etc...?
Yes, PC was not built for this.... but how much money then above example?
I think... much.. much... much more.

If you were a PC owner and wanted to play comparable games in 1987? You probably just bought a NES. It was certainly cheaper than trying to play action games on PC hardware back then and cheaper than buying an Amiga if you didn't need the "computer" aspect.

The Amiga was a great platform in the late 80s, and if you wanted a cheap(ish) computer that could play decent quality games it was a great choice. Games on the PC were primitive and the 8-bit consoles not quite as impressive.

By 1992 that equation had shifted a lot though, and AGA didn't add enough oomph to make it as compelling a prospect. The PC was very rapidly catching up on every front and the games consoles were miles ahead if you just wanted arcade quality games.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

In 1994, no amount of money you spent on an A1200 was going to let you play Doom fairly smoothly - you could not play Doom on the Amiga at all. You either bought a PC, a MegaDrive+32X, a Jaguar or waited another year and bought a SNES.

CD revolution with games killed Jaguar. Jaguar was sold no more than 150,000 units before it was discontinued in 1996.

Jaguar's weak command processor (68000) with strong co-processors made the system unbalanced and increased programming difficulty when compared to Sony's PlayStation (33 MIPS CPU, 66 MIPS co-processor).

The commercial failure of the Jaguar prompted Atari to leave the console market.

Commodore's AGA ecosystem unit sales exceeded Jaguar's.

1993-1995 Gaming PC's game library has more than just Doom. The PC has a "timed exclusive" with Doom.

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

By 1992 that equation had shifted a lot though, and AGA didn't add enough oomph to make it as compelling a prospect. The PC was very rapidly catching up on every front and the games consoles were miles ahead if you just wanted arcade quality games.

1990's Wing Commander VGA was PC's "Defender of Crown" moment. Wing Commander VGA needs 386 @ 25 Mhz for a smooth frame rate.

I shifted to PC gaming with my Dad's ex-corporate IBM PS/2 Model 55SX (386SX-16, 16-bit system bus, original VGA 16bit-MCA, Windows 3.0) before trading it and purchased a PC clone with a full 32-bit 386DX-33/ET4000AX/Windows 3.1) in Q4 1992. In 1996, Quake and other Pentium class games caused my Pentium 150/S3 Trio 64 UV/Windows 95 PC clone purchase over uncompetitive performance/cost Phase 5 Cyberstorm 060/CyberVision 64 upgrade for Amiga 3000 or Apple's price/performance competitive PowerMac offerings.

My early 1992 Amiga 3000 was relegated to Amiga 500 gaming, Deluxe Music 2 (for non-profit org work), CAD (tech drawing subjects), and presentation school work. My school's computer programming subjects have MS Basic and Borland's Turbo Pascal on the PC. Many of my school friends who owned Amiga 500s switched to 386DX-33 and 486SX Gaming PCs in 1993.

Against PC's 386DX-33, 386DX-40, and 486SX PC competition, the Amiga 1200 needs to have price/performance competitive 68030 @ 50Mhz or 68LC040 accelerators. In 1993 Australia, Amiga 1200 with 50 Mhz 68030 accelerator was priced around a 486SX-25/486SX-33 with SVGA PC clone, but 68030 @ 50Mhz with AGA is like 386DX-40 with ET4000AX performance. PC's 1993 to 1995 Doom clones did not use FPU.

Amiga CD32's Wing Commander AGA bundle wasn't a smooth frame-rate experience. CD32 needs 32-bit Fast RAM and 68EC020 CPU at 25 Mhz.

Amiga 4000/EC030 wasn't price/performance competitive against the 386DX-33 PC counterpart. Any 386DX PC can run MMU-enabled business OS like Xenix 386. Amiga 4000/EC030 wasn't even ready for AMIX (Amiga Unix port).
Amiga 4000/040 was priced like a no-name 1993 Pentium PC clone. Commodore can't survive with the Video Toaster market niche. For 3D raytracing from 1993 to 1995, Windows NT-based Lightwave on RISC and Pentiums was eating Amiga 4000/040s.

Commodore didn't establish mass production for 68040 socket infrastructure for 1994's 68060 release and 3rd party Amiga 68040/68060 accelerators didn't have economies of scale. Before the May 1994 bankruptcy, Commodore was selling Pentium PCs in 1994 ahead of 68060-based Amiga mass production.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Let me explain what I wanted to say... I was drunk that day... and now... I am a little less drunk.

So...
It's 1994... everybody screaming "I want Doom" (I personally didn't experienced it this way, but I trust you guys that it was a big thing then).
So I ask myself: What budget should A1200 owner have to invest, so he/she could play Doom fairly smoothly? My guess is some 040 card. Right?
So I ask myself again: What budget should 386 owner have to invest, so he/she/they/them.. etc... can play Doom fairly smoothly? My guess is some mid range 486, right?
So, how much money would each of them have to invest?
I really don't know...
I assume Amiga owner would invest less (because he would be only buying accelerator... not the whole new motherboard, processor, new ram... etc).
But I might be wrong...

But even if Amiga guy should give some more money in order to play Doom, all I can say, that it's totally understandable, because Amiga was not built for these kind of games.

So, if we reverse the roles.
How much money would PC owner needs to pay in 1987 in order to play A500 2D games in smooth scrolling, colors from 4086 palette.. etc...?
Yes, PC was not built for this.... but how much money then above example?
I think... much.. much... much more.

Conclusion:
I am impressed how Amiga, despite it's "not my territory", could be worthwhile long after Commodore bankruptcy, and I still don't see the logic (that many mentioned here), that was a good investment to buy PC in 1992-1993-1994-1995.
(Personally, I think that PC was not worthy until Win XP came out, but let's stop at 1995).



Well... I gave my opinion (hopefully more clearer) on this, above this quote, and I still think that PC (overall) is less expandable.
First of all, PC didn't had "mini versions" of it's computers like A500, 500+, 600, 1200 that all it's architecture is in keyboard (LOL, imagine reduced 286/386 computers in the keyboard.. that would be great to see ).
But even with these computers... let's say... A1200... you can buy accelerator and turn Amiga 1200 to 060 (Pentium, more or less, equal comp).
Even A500 had 060 accelerator back in the day...
Can you, in any way, turn 286 to Pentium machine? or 386? or 486?

Again, I am not saying I am right...
... wait... alcohol just came to me brain.
OF COURSE I AM RIGHT!

Amiga CPU accelerator should include 32-bit Fast RAM.


1995 competitive context in Western markets:

From Australia with Aussie dollar (AUD). AUD is about 20-to-30 percent lower than USD.

From https://archive.org/details/EA1995/E...e/n69/mode/2up
Page 70 of 148
Ritron Computers System in the Australian state of Victoria
Pentium 90-based PC has $1945 including tax or $1595 without tax.
Includes: 1.44FDD, 8MB RAM, 540MB HDD, 256KB L2 cache, PCI video card, keyboard, 14-inch SVGA monitor.

Since I have a 386DX-33 PC clone from 1992 in place of an A1200, I only need to purchase a new motherboard, CPU, and RAM. Buying S3 Trio 64UV PCI is optional. My cheap Yamaha 16-bit OPL3 ISA sound card, PC case, PSU, keyboard, monitor, speakers, and mouse are recycled.

For November 1995, Pentium 90 with PCI motherboard combo has a $799 asking price with tax.

https://archive.org/details/EA1995/E...e/n67/mode/2up
December 1995 Xmas month. Page 88 of 68.
Ritron Computers System in the Australian state of Victoria
Pentium 90-based PC has $1872 including tax or $1535 without tax.
Includes: 1.44FDD, 8MB RAM, 540MB HDD, 256KB L2 cache, PCI video card, keyboard, 14-inch SVGA monitor.

Multimedia upgrade kit with CD-ROM 16-bit sound card, speakers, MS Encarta/Works/Money/Golf/Dangerous Creatures
CD-ROM 2X = $329
CD-ROM 4X = $399
CD-ROM 6X = $649


My A3000/030 @ 25Mhz 4MB Fast RAM + 2MB Chip RAM with SCSI CD-ROM 2X speed (from Apple's targeted audience, Apple PowerMac purchase was a close call).

VS

https://archive.org/details/Australi...ont_Studios_AU
The Amiga Returns in the Australian 1995 market
From Australian Amiga Review, Nov 1995
Page 2, Cybervision 64 (S3 trio 64U), $1099

Page 8,
DKB Mongoose 030 @ 50Mhz, 882 @ 50Mhz, 4MB RAM = $869
GVP 40Mhz 68040, 4MB RAM = $1399

Page 34
Amiga 1200, please call. Hint: final price and stock issues.
DKB Mongoose 030 @ 50Mhz, 882 @ 50Mhz = $599 (needs Fast RAM)

Page 82
Warp Engine 040 40Mhz = $2299
A1200HD = $1245
A4000T/040 = $4945
A4000T/060 @ 50 Mhz = $5445

A1200HD's $1245 + DKB Mongoose 030/882 @ 50Mhz with 4MB RAM's $869 = $2,114

For the 1995 Australian market, 486DX and Pentium-based PCs killed the Amiga AGA in performance vs price ratio.

A1200's worldwide sales didn't reach 1 million units install base and it would limit 3rd party Amiga CPU accelerator vendors' potential market size.

The Amiga platform failed for a few reasons.

Apples to apples comparison
1. PC staggered purchases vs accelerated Amiga staggered purchases
2. New PC build vs new Amiga + accelerator build

There's only a tiny A1200 install base in Australia.

-

In modern times, the $232 price for PiStorm32 Lite(84 Euro or $138.39 AUD)+RPi 4B ($94 AUD) is enough for AUD $244 priced AM4's B450 motherboard and Ryzen 5 5500 i.e. https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/q9Jk9r


On price vs performance, AMD Ryzen 5 5500 six-Zen 3 cores/12 threads Zen 3 smacks RPi 4B's quad-cores ARM Cortex A72.


---------

For the UK's 1993 market:


According to Amiga Computing Issue 062 Jul 93, page 3 of 164, page 4 of 164
Amiga 1200 Comic pack with 60 MB HDD is £539
Amiga 1200 Comic pack with 120 MB HDD is £679

M1230XA with 68030 at 50Mhz and 4MB RAM is £499
Total price:
£1038 for 60 MB HDD
£1,178 for 120 MB HDD



According to Amiga Format Issue 052, Nov 1993, page 2,
A1200/020 at 14Mhz with 2MB RAM has £295
A4000/030 at 25Mhz with 80MB HDD + 2MB RAM has £979
A4000/030 at 25Mhz with 80MB HDD + 4MB RAM has £1129
A4000/040 at 25Mhz with 120MB HDD + 6MB RAM has £2329

VS

PC Format Nov 1993, page 120 of 166.
486SX25 with 4MB RAM + Cirrus Logic SVGA 1MB + 130MB HDD reached £999.

486DX33 with 4MB RAM + Cirrus Logic SVGA 1MB + 130MB HDD reached £1249.

In 1993, "writing is on the wall" for Commodore's uncompetitive offerings in the £599 to £1500 range while the SNES game console attacked Amigas 600/1200's base price. Unlike Apple, Commodore's Amiga was squeezed out from Amiga's core European mainstream gaming market.


---------

For the US's 1993 market:

UK-based PC prices were expensive but in the year 1993.

A500's October 1987 introductory price is $699 USD. Note that $1000 USD 486 33Mhz based PC in December 1993 is approaching A500's October 1987 introductory price range.

No 3rd party Amiga CPU accelerator will not match Commodore's economics of scale.

A500's $699 USD October 1987 introductory price is about USD $1,600 in 2020 equivalent.

PC Mag 1992-08, page 604 of 664,
Diamond Speedstar 24 (ET4000AX ISA) has $169 USD.

https://archive.org/details/amiga-wo...e/n57/mode/2up
Amiga World Magazine (November 1993), page 58 of 100,
A1200 price $379
A3000 5MB, 105HD, price $899
A3000T/030, 5MB, 200MB HDD, price $1199
A3000T/040, 5MB, 200MB HDD, price $1599
Cost for 040 card = $400

The cost estimate for a 68040 card, $1599 - $1199, hence the cost for 040 card is about $400.

A3000 had obsolete ECS graphics in 1993.

A1200's $379 + 040 card's $400 = $779.

Commodore could have pre-configured "out-of-the-box" A1200 with 68LC040 at 25Mhz SKU for slightly above $779 (i.e. add 4MB fast ram, HDD) which could compete against $1000 486 33Mhz based PC and Apple's Macintosh Quadra 605.

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

A4000 wasn't built like a lower-cost optimized A1200.

A4000 has a motherboard + daughter board with slots while the 486 PC competition has a single motherboard with slots.

When using SVGA chipsets for Amiga's RTG vs PC,

A4000 has a motherboard + daughter board with slots + SVGA RTG card.

VS

486 PC has a single motherboard with slots + SVGA card.

A4000 is already at a disadvantage in BOM cost when compared to a mini-tower PC clone.



https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/pdf..._June_1993.pdf
Gateway Party List, Page 72 of 314

4SX-33 with 486-SX 33Mhz, 4MB RAM, 170 MB HDD, Windows Video accelerator 1MB video DRAM, 14-inch monitor for $1494,

4DX-33 with 486-DX 33Mhz, 8MB RAM, 212 MB HDD, Windows Video accelerator 1MB video DRAM, 14-inch monitor for $1895,

Page 128 of 314
Polywell Poly 486-33V with 486SX-33, 4MB of RAM, SVGA 1MB VL-Bus, price: $1250


https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/pdf...ugust_1993.pdf
Gateway Party List, Page 62 of 324

4SX-33 with 486-SX 33Mhz, 4MB RAM, 212MB HDD, Windows Video accelerator 1MB video DRAM, 14-inch monitor for $1495,

4DX-33 with 486-DX 33Mhz, 8MB RAM, 212 MB HDD, Windows Video accelerator 1MB video DRAM, 14-inch monitor for $1795,

Remember Gateway?

Page 292 of 324
From Comtrade
VESA Local Bus WinMax with 32-Bit VL-Bus Video Accelerator 1MB, 486DX2 66 Mhz, 210 MB HDD, 4MB RAM, Price: $1795



https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/pdf...tober_1993.pdf
October 1993, Page 13 of 354,
ALR Inc, Model 1 has a Pentium 60-based PC for $2495.



https://archive.org/details/amiga-wo...ge/n7/mode/2up
Amigaworld, October 1993, Page 66 of 104
Amiga 4000/040 @ 25Mhz for $2299
Amiga 4000/030 @ 25Mhz for $1599


Page 82 of 104
M1230X's 68030 @ 50Mhz has $349
1942 Monitor has $389
A1200 with 85MB HDD has $624
A1200 with 130MB HDD has $724

The Commodore solution is beaten by the Gateway solution.

Target sales period: XMas of 1993 Q4. The 1993 XMas sales period was Commodore's last chance.



Apple's performance vs cost remained competitive against the 486SX-based PC. Apple is still alive.


Amiga 500 with Warp560 68060 accelerator is not price vs performance competitive when the latest PC UEFI Class 2 still has native retro PC legacy support. I have Drawbridge that allows the latest PC to read/write Amiga floppy disk like Paula chip i.e. running Drawbridge with WinUAE duplicates the retro physical Amiga floppy disk drive sounds from games like Hybris and BattleSquadron. FreeSync/GSync solves Amiga's 50 hz PAL content.

Unlike Intel Raptorlake IGP, AMD Zen 4 AM5's RDNA 2-based IGP still has legacy VGA BIOS.

https://www.heise.de/news/Intel-Core...e-6066457.html
Intel does not include a VGA BIOS for the integrated GPU of the Intel Core i-11000 Rocket Lake.


From 1985 to 1989, the Amiga OCS chipset's general graphics capability (32 colors and 64 color EHB from 4096 color palette) was between IBM's 1985 PGA (256 colors with 4096 color palette) and EGA (16 colors), and the Amiga was price-performance competitive.

Amiga OCS was price-competitive against IBM's original 1987 VGA, but IBM has a technically superior 8514 which was later cloned and cost-reduced by several SVGA cloners e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_8514 IBM 8514 served as basis for many SVGA clones.

8514's programming interface was recycled for IBM's XGA in 1990 release.

[Promilus]

Amiga 500 with Warp560 68060 accelerator is not price vs performance competitive when the latest PC UEFI Class 2 still has native retro PC legacy support.

That's stupid comparison. Accelerator with mid 90s CPU made for late 80s computer vs modern PC? Are u insane? Show us comparison between Warp560 and PC AT accelerator of similar performance. No? Nothing? Sigh...

Unlike Intel Raptorlake IGP, AMD Zen 4 AM5's RDNA 2-based IGP still has legacy VGA BIOS

Or just emulates one like all new UEFI boards emulate BIOS with CSM...
And again - what's the relevance to the topic? Commodore is dead for nearly 30 years. All the support for Amiga platform is done by 3rd parties. Some of them being just side job or hobby (like Warp - CS Labs has profitable business in different market and the time consumed by the Amiga project was never profitable enough, wouldn't be even if board would cost twice as much - that's the discrepancy between their regular income and what they did get out of the Warp project). So you have PiStorm... great. Basically for A500 it's 2 boards (Pi3 and PiZero2W iirc). Pi4 is twice as fast but to this date A500/2000 classic pistorm has not been updated to handle that (but all they did promise is that Pistorm32 changes MIGHT be backported to Pistorm, not they WILL BE). Pi02W obviously is rather slow (although it's cheap kick ass accelerator for Amiga). What's next? No nothing... Pi5 is incompatible. If they solve Pi5 pcie latency to gpio they can do it with every damn f... SBC out there, even intel based
(obviously with emu porting to different platform). Just make FPGA-based 68k bus wrapper and use it like peripheral inside PCIe addressing space. And so the glorious episode of Broadcom in Amiga ends here and now.

So the A1200 was last ditch effort to get some control over market. It didn't came out as early as it should've. It didn't sell nearly as well as it should have. It didn't start with new quality games as it should have. It did not save Commodore from facing financial disaster. But it did leave us with fond memories, community and some hardcore fans which did everything they could to keep it alive for 3 decades now. Is your regular 386DX or 486SX PC blessed with the same fate? No? Aaaa

[hammer]

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

The Grafitti is still hampered by chipram bandwidth, even at 320x256 on OCS you're still stuck with a maximum framerate of around 33FPS, double that on AGA machines.

I dont think it's a sufficient solution for the amiga range, yes it solves the chunky problem, answers the bandwidth question but it highlights that basic chunky mode in AGA would not have been sufficient without throughput, I.e. VRAM.

http://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/retr...et4000_pt1.php

Diamond SpeedSTAR - a prominent card that sold well. The card has 1 MB of DRAM in a combo of GoldStar 60ns and Sanyo 70ns chips. It has the same RAMDAC as (2) above, and has the oldest ET4000AX revision, TC6058AF.


https://www.computer.org/publication...0-tseng-et4000

A unique feature of ET4000 architecture was that the design maximized the capabilities of DRAM and eliminated the requirement for VRAM, which reduced costs.


DRAM's performance also improves.

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

Which also raises the question that by 1992 end of when the A1200 released shouldn't they have released it with 2MB VRAM, the priced were only 20% more than DRAM by that time.

Don't get me wrong, the FPS would be fine for the likes of Doom but would be completely inefficient for high rez PC games. Perhaps the conversation becomes irrelevant with the arrival of the juggernaut that was the PS1.

DRAM's performance also improves over time.

Hollywood's 24 fps was enough for game consoles like Xbox 360 and PS3.

From 2005 to 2012, PC Master Race has 60 Hz or bust, but FreeSync or GSync enables smooth frame rates below the 60 Hz standard e.g. my FreeSync 4K monitor can reach 40 Hz.

50 hz PAL content is covered by FreeSync/GSync.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Promilus

That's stupid comparison. Accelerator with mid 90s CPU made for late 80s computer vs modern PC? Are u insane? Show us comparison between Warp560 and PC AT accelerator of similar performance. No? Nothing? Sigh...

There are Pentium-based SBC ISA cards for PC clones with ISA slots backplane. [ Show youtube player ] This example used Pentium III @ 1.4 GHz SBC for the existing PC's ISA slots backplane.

I have a mini-tower PC clone with 486SX-25 SBC with ISA slots backplane and Trident SVGA ISA card. 486SX-25 SBC ISA can be replaced by another Pentium SBC ISA. For cutting-edge games, bus performance needs to be upgraded.

Refer to d4rk3lf's "Even A500 had 060 accelerator back in the day."
Can you read?

Before Vampires and PiStorms, A500's best CPU accelerator was PPS (Progressive Peripherals & Software)'s 040-500 which includes 68040 @ 28Mhz or 68040 @ 33Mhz and 32-bit Fast RAM.

68060 on the 68040 socket will need 5V to 3.3V modification. Normal end users can't do this modification.

Read https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/b...List.aspx?id=2 for Amiga 500's CPU accelerator list.

Without using the ACA500 Amiga 1200's CPU accelerator adapter, Warp560 is the only 68060 CPU accelerator for the Amiga 500.

Amiga with CPU accelerator with Fast RAM turns Amiga's custom chipset into PC's Southbridge equivalent role.

Amiga's CPU accelerator with Fast RAM is PC's Northbridge equivalent role.

PC motherboard upgrade can allow the use of existing video and sound cards! I recycled my 386DX-33 PC's era 16-bit sound card ISA for my Pentium 150-based PC in 1996. I could have recycled my existing SVGA ET4000AX ISA card, but I purchased a faster S3 Trio 64 UV+ PCI card along with Pentium 150 and its motherboard. PC motherboard + CPU + SVGA PCI upgrade is equivalent to Phase 5's A1200 accelerator card with RTG, but the difference is my 1996 Pentium 150 PC obliterates any 68060 Rev 6 powered Amiga comparable cost!

In modern gaming PCs, we have large RTX 4090 cards that make the PC's motherboard look like an addon card for the monster RTX 4090 card.



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For the 1992 to 1994 timeline context,

If I upgrade from A500 with GVP A530 to an AGA machine, I would purchase an A1200 and A1230 CPU accelerator. That's a double 68030 accelerator purchase.

If I upgrade from A2000 with GVP g-Force 040 to an AGA machine, I would purchase an A1200 and A1240 CPU accelerator or Amiga 4000/040(with A3640 card). That's a double 68040 accelerator purchase and the entire A2000 is dumped.

If I upgrade from A3000 with 68030 @ 25Mhz to an AGA machine, I would purchase an A1200 and A1230 CPU accelerator or Amiga 4000/EC030. That's a double 68030 purchase and the entire A3000 is dumped.

Amiga CD32 was Commodore's closest small Amiga on-a-card.

With full 32-bit CPU accelerated Amiga 500/1500/2000/2500/3000/3000T, "Only Amiga Makes It Possible" which dumps a "full 32-bit" 68020/68030/68040 CPU accelerators since these OCS/ECS platforms can't be upgraded with AGA! Meanwhile, a PC's "full 32-bit" CPU (386DX, 486) can participate in VGA/SVGA era PC gaming!

With PC clones that follow the AT standard, modular components (e.g. keyboard, external case, PSU, floppy disk drive, hard disk) can be recycled into upgraded PC builds.

I could do a sleeper retro PC build with the latest AM5 micro-ATX motherboard with my old 386DX or Pentium 150 PC case and PS/2 keyboard components. I can fit the latest E-ATX PC motherboard into a K8 Opteron-era E-ATX PC case and that's more than 20 years.

Amiga's game console topology doesn't work on desktop computers!

PiStorm + RPi 3A (with Emu68's soft 68040 and RTG) with Amiga 500 turns the entire Amiga into a south bridge role.
PiStorm32 + RPi 4B (with Emu68's soft 68040 and RTG) with Amiga 1200 turns the entire Amiga into a south bridge role.

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What happens when AMD and NVIDIA release big ARMv8 CPU clones with PCIe 5.0 slots for the desktop PC market at competitive pricing with competitive performance? https://www.anandtech.com/show/21106...essors-for-pcs

AMD's AM5 motherboards already support CPU ISA-neutral UEFI and existing AMD CPUs have ARM Cortex A5-based Firmware TMP. AM5's UEFI needs to be updated with CPU microcode updates for ARMv8 CPUs.

[Promilus]

Before Vampires and PiStorms, A500's best CPU accelerator was PPS

Nope. Thanks to MicroniK A500 tower kit you could've put A2k CPU card inside which means Blizzard 2060 was available for A500 long before Warp... albeit at radical system change and obviously expensive process. And again you did mention ACA500 which handles A1200 accelerators (although I'm not sure anyone did use e.g. Blizzard1260). ACA500 is over decade old now so even if you arbitrary rule Micronik Tower Kit out it still is an 060 option before vampires and warps. I think 060 feature level of V2 was around the launch of V4... FPU was added to the softcore only after V4 was released. In other words - I did burst your bubble with actual facts, it would be a good option for you to at least try to learn from your mistakes.

[sandruzzo]

@Thomas Richter

With blitter that had 8bir aligned destination you would have it ready for chunky.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Promilus

But it did leave us with fond memories, community and some hardcore fans which did everything they could to keep it alive for 3 decades now. Is your regular 386DX or 486SX PC blessed with the same fate? No? Aaaa

Absolutely. But the problem is, it's not what these arguments are really about. If you take A1200 out of the context of the times it's certainly a nice machine, and nobody (at least far as I recall) ever questions the fact that it had some highlight moments, brought joy to many people, and is now more popular than ever.

No, instead we have an endless game of motte & bailey, where the bailey is claiming how brilliant A1200 actually was, how everyone should know better and bought it, and if only this or that (x100) had happened we we'd be all now typing it on Amigas Series A. And when you poke holes in this scenario people will retreat to the bailey, which indeed is the "eh, but some people liked it then and some still enjoy it now".

And this is why we have had 150 pages of this thread, and the same dead horse flogged over and over again in other similar ones.

Btw, are you really going to go into yet antother epic argument with hammer? Didn't you block him or something? And, @hammer, aren't you actually starting to copypaste the same posts from other threads> I swear I saw that Quadra ad at least 3 times now.

This is getting surreal I don't usually post memes, but I feel like starting to spam Bill Murray in Groundhog Day all over the place.

[TCD]

Yay, another thread ends up in walls of text! Well done team!

[Amigajay]

It’s Hammer time!

[Promilus]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Btw, are you really going to go into yet antother epic argument with hammer? Didn't you block him or something? And, @hammer, aren't you actually starting to copypaste the same posts from other threads> I swear I saw that Quadra ad at least 3 times now.

This is getting surreal I don't usually post memes, but I feel like starting to spam Bill Murray in Groundhog Day all over the place.

1. Nope, I'm not going to fall for that troll-festa again.
2. Yes, I got him into ignore list but I can - if I wish - view his posts. I usually don't.