Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[albino]

Thanks gorf....

[TEG]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

Problem is I saw ZERO evidence of any home computer game publisher apart from the bankrupt Cinemaware that could have made a professional quality genuine 'only possible on CDTV' game anyway. The CDTV is lovely, the games for it are lousy. The CD32 is even worse, it feels like the cheapest console I have ever used AND there are bugger all properly designed CD-ROM developments/ports from PC HDD only games.

The console itself, do not look so cheap, clearly you exaggerate. It's a pretty heavy thing, the plastic is normal and the design rather cool. But the real problem is with the joystick yeah. Very light, buttons that make you think of a cheap toy, the veryyy long cable which is ugly and made of an indeterminate stuff. A disaster. I'm sure this was all Mehdi Ali choices.

[TEG]

Originally Posted by Gorf

For a fully assembled machine the whole supply chain is much longer and more complex, and you need to assemble the parts (manual labor), the boxes are much bigger and take more room in storage and do cost more to ship and so on.
And you would sell them at stores, which would display them and take up to 25% for themselves..

I would think they could easily offer such a board at half the price of an A1200 (or less) over direct orders (or a couple of resellers with very little margin on their side) and still having the same profit in the end.

Or more plausible: C= ending up with more money, since it seems likely to my that 1 in 10 A500 owners would upgrade that way, which would be 400K AA boards instead of just <100k A1200

Yeah and it was a different time more in favours with such hardware improvements. A time when devices with fixed battery was unthinkable and electronic components shops where common then. Moreover there was still a network of shops more or less specialized in Commodore/Atari brand, at least in France. And Internet was not here so you was used to go in shops and eventually wait in line.

So I don't think it would seems a strange move but Commodore would have to create a real dynamic by marketing the advantages of the new platform and saying "It's the new standard, we support it strongly" and "We give everyone the mean to come in this new era".

Imagine, you go back with a game to use your rejuvenated Amiga, I'm sure a lot would jump only for that reason.

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

If the A1200 had come with 128k of 32bit Fast RAM as well as AKIKO in addition to a 14mhz 020 what sort of 2.5D or Wolfenstein type performance would that give you over a 2mb only AKIKO devoid A1200 that we did get?

Is there a Doom/Wolf engine specifically coded for AKIKO for CD32 with some Fast RAM spec? Is there any FPS that uses AKIKO and detects Fast RAM on CD32?

Gloom Deluxe?

https://amiga.abime.net/games/view/gloom-deluxe

[AnimaInCorpore]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Akiko doesn't buy you much, actually, it is highly overrated. If that chunky-to-planar conversion would be something the blitter could do (over DMA) or if the display hardware would have been chunky to begin with - that would be of some advantage. But the way how Akiko works... no.

Even if the Akiko would be like two times faster - the custom chip concept would've been a nightmare for upcoming chipsets in respect of keeping the compatibilty. In fact: the time for proprietary systems was already over in favor of a more or less "simple" PC-DOS architecture: a cheap and easy way to upgrade every part of the system (to a certain extend).

[TEG]

Originally Posted by AnimaInCorpore

Even if the Akiko would be like two times faster - the custom chip concept would've been a nightmare for upcoming chipsets in respect of keeping the compatibilty. In fact: the time for proprietary systems was already over in favor of a more or less "simple" PC-DOS architecture: a cheap and easy way to upgrade every part of the system (to a certain extend).

Not necessarily, it's falling in the "there cannot be another way than the PC one" thinking. Look at MacBook, you cannot update it nevertheless people buy it. But the constructor of such products have to assume and so regularly propose machines up to date.

Look at how it work today between Apple and Samsung on the premium mobile phone segment. You have a new model each year and a lot of marketing around it. It should have be exactly the same with the Amiga. You create a dynamic. The management team wasn't up to the job, that's all. It was always the engineers who came up with the ideas, and sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't.

"To be honest, after Jack Tramiel was ousted, the management team was largely incompetent, had never had a business plan and, in my opinion, was moving from one crazy decision to another."

David Pleasance, Amiga Future - February 2017

Do you remember the slogan of Commodore under C64/Tramiel time? It was completely abandoned later.

[ Show youtube player ]

[CCCP alert]

Originally Posted by TEG

The console itself, do not look so cheap, clearly you exaggerate. It's a pretty heavy thing, the plastic is normal and the design rather cool. But the real problem is with the joystick yeah. Very light, buttons that make you think of a cheap toy, the veryyy long cable which is ugly and made of an indeterminate stuff. A disaster. I'm sure this was all Mehdi Ali choices.

Not an exaggeration, volume slider and reset/power buttons are pure Saisho/Amstrad bottom of the barrel 1970s wobbly quality, the styling is crap and the console is more brown than any C64, the CD lid is as cheap as the cheapest CD player ever and creaks like disposable tech, there is nothing nice about the CD32 physically.

Oddly the joypad isn't too bad though, it fits quite well in western hands and the controls are not bad, was surprised.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Akiko doesn't buy you much, actually, it is highly overrated. If that chunky-to-planar conversion would be something the blitter could do (over DMA) or if the display hardware would have been chunky to begin with - that would be of some advantage. But the way how Akiko works... no.

Gloom c2p rendering times:-

c2p Gloom 1x1 256 colors

68020/14 - 61.6 ms
68020/14+fast - 54.6 ms
68020/14+akiko - 24.2 ms
68030/50+fast - 21.7 ms
...
68020/14+fast+akiko - 17.6 ms

Stock CD32 with akiko is:-
2.5 times faster than 68020 without FastRAM.
2.3 times faster than 68020 with FastRAM.
0.9 times 50MHz 68030 with FastRAM.

CD32 with akiko and FastRAM is 1.2 times faster than a 50MHz 68030!

Real-world results: Sega CD to Amiga port of Heart of the Alien (standard Amiga version needs 50Mhz 030 for 100% speed, runs 50% speed on A1200 with FastRAM):-

Originally Posted by earok

Akiko optimisation is the big thing. The game uses C2P for rendering so we've been testing builds using the Akiko for that, and we've seen a big FPS increase. Currently with the test build, cutscenes can still drop down to 50% framerate but ingame framerate is either at or close to 100%.

Considering that akiko c2p cost almost nothing to implement, I'd say it has been mostly underrated.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Gorf

So someone should fix that Wikipedia entry:

Budggie is simply replacement for large TTL logic from A3000 (translation for 32 bit CHIP from 16 bit) - plenty of 74646 chips and others as single ASIC.

Originally Posted by Gorf

Under the written word "DMAC" you can identify a Xilinx FPGA, which was the most expensive part on the board (other than the drive itself)

DMAC is present (and it provide SCSI support after mounting WD3393 and FAST RAM 2MB - A570 is similar to A590), Xilinx FPGA i used for CD functions (precede Akiko).

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Considering that akiko c2p cost almost nothing to implement, I'd say it has been mostly underrated.

Akiko c2p could be native in Lisa so all AGA machines beneficial - also avoiding conversion and instead directly interpreting data in Lisa would efficiently double speed. Implementations will be similar...

[grond]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Gloom c2p rendering times:-

Stock CD32 with akiko is:-
2.5 times faster than 68020 without FastRAM.
2.3 times faster than 68020 with FastRAM.
0.9 times 50MHz 68030 with FastRAM.

CD32 with akiko and FastRAM is 1.2 times faster than a 50MHz 68030!

Says the guy who constantly argues that the lack of a chunky mode wasn't a problem at all. Now it turns out that even a kludge that requires write-read-write operations through the slow bus to convert planar to chunky is better than a 50 MHz 030 with fastmem.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Considering that akiko c2p cost almost nothing to implement, I'd say it has been mostly underrated.

It would've been better to just have proper chunky modes

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Gloom c2p rendering times:-

Stock CD32 with akiko is:-
2.5 times faster than 68020 without FastRAM.
2.3 times faster than 68020 with FastRAM.
0.9 times 50MHz 68030 with FastRAM.

CD32 with akiko and FastRAM is 1.2 times faster than a 50MHz 68030!

Real-world results: Sega CD to Amiga port of Heart of the Alien (standard Amiga version needs 50Mhz 030 for 100% speed, runs 50% speed on A1200 with FastRAM):-


Considering that akiko c2p cost almost nothing to implement, I'd say it has been mostly underrated.

Pinch of salt required. C2P routines improved rather a lot since Gloom Deluxe. I would rather see it compared to the best software routines. Using the Akiko sucks up a lot of bus time because you have to transfer 8 longwords from your chunky buffer to the registers, then move them again from there to the chip ram. Conversely a good C2P routine loads data, converts entirely in the CPU and writes it out. Careful pipelining allows a lot of this transfer to overlap calculation with writing.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Thorham

It would've been better to just have proper chunky modes

Obviously, but given Commodore’s track record, the choice was most likely between AKiKo C2P or ” nothing”

[TCD]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Obviously, but given Commodore’s track record, the choice was most likely between AKiKo C2P or ” nothing”

[oscar_ates]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Gloom c2p rendering times:-

Stock CD32 with akiko is:-
2.5 times faster than 68020 without FastRAM.
2.3 times faster than 68020 with FastRAM.
0.9 times 50MHz 68030 with FastRAM.

CD32 with akiko and FastRAM is 1.2 times faster than a 50MHz 68030!

Real-world results: Sega CD to Amiga port of Heart of the Alien (standard Amiga version needs 50Mhz 030 for 100% speed, runs 50% speed on A1200 with FastRAM):-


Considering that akiko c2p cost almost nothing to implement, I'd say it has been mostly underrated.

This says that if commodore had been able to release the Amiga 1200 with 030/25MHz, chunky graphics, 2mb chip/1mb fast, HD, it would be a 386 killer machine.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by oscar_ates

This says that if commodore had been able to release the Amiga 1200 with 030/25MHz, chunky graphics, 2mb chip/1mb fast, HD, it would be a 386 killer machine.

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Gloom c2p rendering times:-

c2p Gloom 1x1 256 colors

68020/14 - 61.6 ms
68020/14+fast - 54.6 ms
68020/14+akiko - 24.2 ms
68030/50+fast - 21.7 ms
...
68020/14+fast+akiko - 17.6 ms

Stock CD32 with akiko is:-
2.5 times faster than 68020 without FastRAM.
2.3 times faster than 68020 with FastRAM.
0.9 times 50MHz 68030 with FastRAM.

CD32 with akiko and FastRAM is 1.2 times faster than a 50MHz 68030!

Real-world results: Sega CD to Amiga port of Heart of the Alien (standard Amiga version needs 50Mhz 030 for 100% speed, runs 50% speed on A1200 with FastRAM):-


Considering that akiko c2p cost almost nothing to implement, I'd say it has been mostly underrated.

the times quoted are for just converting 1x320x256 screen c2p I assume? cos there is no way a CD32 with a 68020/14+fast+akiko could do the entire game loop and the c2p at 50fps.

[Karlos]

One of the original claims regarding the Akiko was that it could do c2p at least as fast as a 68040. This is likely true but I have no idea if that statement takes into consideration the klunky way you have to use it. Add to this mix the fact that software c2p has improved significantly on 040+ since the days those claims were made and I'm not sure how true it is today.

Maybe we should add support in AB3D2...

[Gorf]

Akiko is really just a "better than nothing" solution, which would have been fine two years earlier for the A1200 ...

For the CD32 to stand any chances, it would have needed an additional 1MB VRAM screen buffer with its own CLUT for chunky graphics, that would co-opt as FastRAM.

Both digital video outputs would be merged and send to a DAC.

This would give the CD32 a 3rd playfield that could be displayed below or above the AGA output, depending on some priority settings and declaration of transparency value.

With this and an 28MHz CPU the CD32 might have been quite successful until the arrival of the PlayStation in Europe ..