03 July 2024, 05:41 | #5261 | |||||
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The Amiga was used by Hollywood etc. for its 'dazzling 3D graphics manipulation and animation powers'. Perhaps it was stretching the truth a little to associate this with a stock A500. But hey... I remember using my 512k A1000 to generate 3D images with Sculpt 3D in 1987, and it was pretty 'dazzling' - even if the machine did have to be left on overnight to do a single frame. Quote:
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MOS Technology CIA Quote:
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Oh golly a typo! At least it wasn't 'Type some shit in here'. IMO this was one of Commodore's better adverts. The only nitpick I might have is the drawing of an ST as a windup toy. I get it, but I have never been a fan of adverts denigrating the competition. What's worse is you have to examine it closely to understand the reference. |
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03 July 2024, 06:23 | #5262 | |
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Mind you, it wouldn't be the only time that an ad campaign left me scratching my head. Even today it's not uncommon to not figure out what a TV ad is about until the last second - if at all! Computer magazines in the 80's were full of clangers pushing some theme that barely related to the product. |
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03 July 2024, 09:29 | #5263 | |
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Neither PS1's GTE nor 3DO's MADAM's matrix math coprocessors are designed for IEEE-754 FP32 3D. 3DO MADAM's matrix math coprocessor's best feature 4 x 4 matrix multiply of 16bit values with 32bit results. A RISC CPU with 1-clock 16x16 MUL single pipeline would need 8 clock cycles to match. A RISC CPU with 1-clock 16x16 MUL dual pipelines would need 4 clock cycles to match. A RISC CPU with 1-clock 16x16 MUL single 64-bit SIMD pipeline would need 2 clock cycles to match. Back to 3DO MADAM's matrix math coprocessor, ARM60 CPU must pre-load all required initial values into the appropriate place in the stack. The CPU must also pre-set the control bits. Once the initial settings have been done, the CPU starts an operation by writing the appropriate value to the 'StartProcess' register. The CPU must then poll the status register in order to know when the process is completed. Missing interrupt feature. It's a rush job CPU PIO driven matrix math coprocessor. It reminds me of Akiko's C2P. ARM60 CPU loading values into MADAM's matrix co-processor's stack and the 2MB 80 ns access rate FP DRAM would be the major bottleneck. There's a setup cost with an external custom chip method compared CPU's integrated SIMD implementation. Intel i860 has 64-bit SIMD MMX-like feature with 16KB+16KB L2 cache. Pentium III, each SSE vector is either four 32-bytes, eight 16-bytes or sixteen 1-byte values. Intel quickly ramped-up Pentium's clock speed and recycled i860's 64-bit MMX-like feature for Pentium MMX. HP PA-RISC has MAX v1 32-bit SIMD and MAX v2 64-bit SIMD. PS1's GTE is not IEEE-754 FP32 3D. Commodore selected DSP3210 due to IEEE-754 FP32 3D. Evans & Sutherland ESV workstation used an array of DSP3210 like SGI's array of i860 for RealityEngine. DSP3210 is a dual pipeline RISC CPU/DSP i.e. separate 32-bit integer and floating-point pipelines. DSP3210 has zero-wait state 8KB local on-chip memory for full-speed MUL processing. --------- During Amiga's golden era, stock A500 was able to play contemporary 2D games with comparable 2D gaming experience as Sega Genesis and superior multi-platforms 2D gaming experience when compared Atari ST. For the western markets, SNES was released for North America in 1991 and EU in 1992 and Sega Genesis was released for North America in 1989 and EU in 1990. Stock A1200 didn't run contemporary "full 32-bit" texture-mapped 2.5D/3D games from the "full 32-bit" gaming PCs. AGA didn't have enough user base to compete against strong 2D games competitor SNES which started to build its user base from 1990. Last edited by hammer; 03 July 2024 at 09:45. |
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03 July 2024, 10:30 | #5264 |
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I loved the A1200, but found in retrospect that it wasn't as good as it could have been if Commodore let the r&d department do their work earlier. By the time Wolfenstein 3d rolled out and adventure games on cd-rom became popular, it was game over. But I learned all the computer and design skills I could ever need on the A1200, and it's still working to this day. So no. Not dissapointed, but what a difference a better gfx chip, a true AGA and some more omph to play Wing Commander and 3d games would have done.
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03 July 2024, 12:39 | #5265 | |
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Catacomb 3-D released in November 1991... Catacomb 3-D is a landmark title in terms of first-person graphics. It is the first example of the modern, character-based first-person shooter genreAmiga system requirements - 68020, ECS, 2MB ChipRAM Catacomb 3D on Amiga CD32 [ Show youtube player ] Wolfenstein 3D released on May 5, 1992... Wolfenstein 3D was a critical and commercial success and is considered one of the greatest video games ever made. It garnered numerous awards and sold over 250,000 copies by the end of 1995. It has been termed the "grandfather of 3D shooters"Amiga system requirements:- 68020, AGA, +1MB Fast officially, but I have run it on a stock A1200 and it had 680k free RAM. Legends of Valour released by U.S. Gold and Strategic Simulations in 1992 for the Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS... Legends of Valour is played in a first-person perspective, being one of the first RPGs to use a smooth-scrolling three-dimensional environment engine in the style of Wolfenstein 3D... "Theoretically the Amiga version should be playing [like] on an 8MHz 286 PC but using this technique we've developed it's more like playing on 16MHz 386".Amiga system requirements:- 68000, 1MB, OCS. These 3 examples show that a stock A1200 was quite capable of running contemporary 2.5D texture-mapped games. Of course a stock A1200 couldn't run Doom because it needed more RAM, same as a typical contemporary 386SX PC (which had 1-2MB). But Doom was released in December 1993, only 4 months before Commodore went bankrupt. By that time accelerator cards were available that could run Doom at a good frame rate for a lot less money than a 486 'gaming' PC. |
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03 July 2024, 12:44 | #5266 | |||||
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They all were dedicated chips for the Amiga, since you could not use the Amiga CIAs in an C64 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Original_Chip_Set https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_custom_chips Quote:
I might have an excuse, since English is not my native language ... and I am not trying to sell a product here. As the quality of an advertisement usually intends to reflect the quality of the product, such things do matter. Here it is even more ironic, since they claim the Amiga enables you to do "word process with faultless professionalism". Quote:
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Comparative advertising can be fun, but here it misfires. (Such ads were also banned in Germany at the time ...) Last edited by Gorf; 03 July 2024 at 21:30. |
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03 July 2024, 13:57 | #5267 |
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I dunno, people had much lower expectations back then. Nobody was expecting PlayStation level graphics, the fact you could run stuff like Castle Master at a reasonable rate was pretty much what we all expected of "3D" at the time.
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03 July 2024, 18:30 | #5268 |
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To be honest, no one really cared if systems were merely 'quite capable' of running state-of-the-art games. It was always the presentation on a high-end PC-DOS machine that got people cheering. Back then, PC users were confident that upgrading their machines in the future would improve performance, rather than having to buy an entirely new computer.
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03 July 2024, 18:31 | #5269 |
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Yep, in the 80s 3D was 'filled polygon' and not 'texture mapped'. The Amiga was pretty good at 'filled polygon' as countless demos prove
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03 July 2024, 21:00 | #5270 | |
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03 July 2024, 21:08 | #5271 |
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For the vast majority of people I knew, PCs were boring AF in 1992/1993, simply because most of them were just work related units and not remotely cutting edge by PC standards then. I knew people that still had monochrome displays and bloody beepers. Things began to change when faster 386 and 486 began to become more affordable. In late 1993, the one guy I knew with a 486 (SX 25) got doom which ran playably fast but probably not more than 15-20fps on his system. It was undoubtedly the shape of things to come but I had a ton of fun 2D games that ran at 50fps and other fun stuff.
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03 July 2024, 21:10 | #5272 | |
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It was not really that much better than the the ST, despite it lacking the blitter: [ Show youtube player ] And the Amiga was much worse at doing 3D polygons than e.g. the Archimedes as Virus or Frontier show. All of course a far cry from what a 68010 based SGI IRIS could do in 1985: [ Show youtube player ] Last edited by Gorf; 03 July 2024 at 21:16. |
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04 July 2024, 01:40 | #5273 | |
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04 July 2024, 02:12 | #5274 | ||
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"The amazing Amiga 500, has no better 3D graphics than an ST and much worse than an Acorn Archimedes or SGI workstation!". They'd be shown the door before the day was out. Advertising Quote:
The SGI IRIS 2400 in your video was creating some 3D wireframe graphics and then animating it in 8 colors (according to my count). The Amiga could easily do the same - perhaps not quite so smoothly but then the SGI cost over $20,000 which was 20 times more than the A500! The polygon animation in this A500 demo looks pretty smooth to me... [ Show youtube player ] |
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04 July 2024, 02:52 | #5275 | |
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How did you upgrade a typical 386SX to get more performance? The CPU was soldered onto the motherboard so you couldn't swap it for a faster one - you had to replace the whole board. Might need new RAM too since 386SX boards used 30 pin 8 bit SIMMs. Then you found that the case wasn't big enough and the power supply wasn't powerful enough, and the graphics card would still be holding you back. Also your hard drive was nearly full so you wanted a bigger one. Oh, and your old monitor might not handle the new higher resolutions either! Of course all that assumes that you had a typical clone made from 'standardized' parts. If it was a proprietary design like Amstrad or Acer then you were probably screwed. In many cases it was cheaper and easier to just buy a new machine and sell or trade in the old one (assuming the CMOS battery hadn't leaked and the machine was still working properly). I'd say A1200 owners were more confident that our machines could be upgraded. After all the Amiga had been designed to take accelerator cards from the start (only the A600 and CDTV were not officially upgradable). Even just adding more RAM doubled the speed! By 1993 you could get a 50MHz 030 and FPU with up to 128MB RAM, and by 1995 a 40MHz 040 or 50MHz 060. |
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04 July 2024, 03:28 | #5276 | ||||
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Catacomb 3D CD32 port was released around 2016. https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=4017 Quote:
Can you see the pattern? PC's ground texture mapped Formula 1 Grand Prix (PC/DOS) "World Circuit" from 1991 runs in 256 color VGA mode. The texture map is missing on the Amiga version. PC's 1990 release Wing Commander's render runs in VGA's 256 color chunky pixels. PC's 1992 release Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss has texture-mapped 3D in 256 color VGA mode. PC's 1993 release IndyCar Racing has texture-mapped 3D in 256 color VGA mode. IndyCar Racing is a follow from the 1989 Indianapolis 500 game. PC's 1993 release Frontier: Elite II has texture-mapped 3D in 256 color VGA mode. The texture map is missing on the Amiga version. Amiga AGA's Magic Carpet port was scrapped by BullFrog. For the "full 32-bit" gaming PC platform, there was a flood of texture-mapped 3D in 256 color VGA mode games in 1994 year that was in development in 1992 and 1993 date range. SNES's Mode 7 and PC's VGA provide the BASELINE STANDARD for 256 color 8-bit chunky pixels. The keyword is consistency. Quote:
Amiga didn't have "Michael Abrash" Mode X software optimizer evangelist during the critical 1992 to 1993 date range and VGA provides baseline 256 color 8-bit chunky pixels standard. PC's Mode X is from Mode 13h with minor VGA registers change and PC's Mode X avoids Amiga's C2P issues. "Game ready" optimized C2P wasn't a baseline standard on the Amiga. The keyword is consistency. For Windows NT 3.x development, Microsoft hired Michael Abrash before IDsoftware. Microsoft is the platform holder for MS-DOS and Windows. After Quake's development, Microsoft rehired Michael Abrash for natural language research and the Xbox team until 2001. In 2002, Abrash went to RAD Game Tools where he co-wrote the Pixomatic software renderer, which emulates the functionality of a DirectX 7-level graphics card. At the end of 2005, Pixomatic was acquired by Intel. When developing Pixomatic, he and Mike Sartain designed a new architecture called Larrabee. AVX-512 has GPU style gather and scatter instructions which is important for software render's texture mapping and raster. Amiga's Legends of Valour port is a 16 color version that needs 4 bit planes. The developers for Amiga's Legends of Valour port didn't evangelise their C2P solution while SNES's Mode 7 and PC's VGA provides the BASELINE 256 color 8-bit chunky pixels hardware functions. Can you see the pattern? PC's Legends of Valour has 256 color version. Commodore's official position on A1200's 256 color 8-bit chunky pixels issue from https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/b...t.aspx?id=1604 Quote:
The timeline could have changed i.e. if AGA platforms had a game-centric SDK with "game ready" optimized C2P OR 256 color 8-bit chunky pixels mode as BASELINE standards in 1992. Release timings matter in the commercial world. Sony has a good game-centric SDK for PS1. R&D time was wasted on moonshot AAA's chunky pixels mode instead of focusing on modest AGA's 8-bit chunky pixels mode! Doing the basics and mastering it. Last edited by hammer; 04 July 2024 at 09:28. |
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04 July 2024, 04:33 | #5277 | |||
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If your R&D approach is to respond to competitor's released product, you're too late. Texture map 3D games were in development in late 1980s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima..._Stygian_Abyss Quote:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-1989-PUB-...3139140?_ul=IN From 1989, General Electric Aerospace Simulation & Control Systems' texture mapped 3D advert from US DoD's F16 flight simulator. This texture mapped technology was used in Sega's arcade game products. https://segaretro.org/Press_release:...S_BREAKTHROUGH Quote:
Last edited by hammer; 04 July 2024 at 05:15. |
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04 July 2024, 05:35 | #5278 | ||
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The problem with the 386SX motherboard is the 16-bit memory bus which gimps math processing. Upgrading from a 16-bit memory bus motherboard to a 32-bit memory bus motherboard is okay. --- With a desktop PC clone, AT standard size motherboard can be swapped out for newer AT standard size motherboard. Existing ISA cards, case, PSU, keyboard, mouse, SVGA monitor are then recycled for the new machine. Both CPU and partitioned video card are upgraded out-of sync with each other. I could have recycled my ET4000 ISA card for my Pentium 150 build, but a no-name OEM S3 Trio 64UV+ PCI card is cheap. For AGA upgrade, my entire A3000 (68030-25/68882-25) needs to be dumped for A4000 upgrade or A1200 side grade with 030 accelerator purchase. "Big box" Amiga has a game console-style boat anchor. Dave Haynie wanted AA3000+ motherboard upgrades for existing A3000 owners. An A500 owner with GVP A530 (or any full 32-bit 68K accelerator), the entire machine and 030 accelerator dumped for A1200 side grade and buy another 030 accelerator. An A500 owner with GVP A530 couldn't join AGA gaming in 1992-1994. Any desktop PC owner can join VGA gaming with an SVGA card upgrade. Selling A500/GVP A530 to another person doesn't expand AGA's user base. An A2000 owner with full 32-bit 020 accelerator, the entire machine and CPU accelerator are dumped for A4000/030-25 upgrade/side grade or A1200 side grade and buy another 030 accelerator. Any desktop PC owner can join VGA gaming with an SVGA card upgrade. Selling the A2000 with full 32-bit 020 accelerator to another person doesn't expand AGA's user base. A4000's motherboard is not compatible with A2000's case. An A2000 owner with full 32-bit 040 accelerator, the entire machine and CPU accelerator are dumped for A4000/040 side grade or A1200 side grade and buy another 040 accelerator. 040 is usually socketed. Does Commodore sell unpopulated A3640 card? Does Commodore sell A4000s with unpopulated CPU/FPU? Selling A2000 to another person doesn't expand AGA's user base. A4000's motherboard is not compatible with A2000's case. Only Amiga made it possible for a "full 32-bit 68030-25 and 68882-25 FPU" to be thrown away. This is like dumping 386DX-25 and 387-25 just for a video card upgrade. CD32's cost is about $299 USD. For A3000T/040's case, an entire machine is dumped just for a video card upgrade. A3640 card can be recycled for A4000/030 The Amiga platform couldn't leverage its existing full 32-bit 68k Amiga ECS evolving into AGA while existing full 32-bit CPU PC users can upgrade into fast SVGA upgrades. Amiga AGA starts from ground zero, game console style. Lower cost gaming PC breaking away from PC workstations with a single fast graphics slot destroys the Amiga's mass production models. Lower cost VLB motherboards has few VLB slots and ISA slots while PC workstation has higher VLB and E-ISA slots. Quote:
What a joke. 486DX50 class CPU in 1995.... For 1996 Quake, my 1996 era Pentium 150 (overclocked to 166)/S3 Trio 64UV+ PCI PC destroys Warp1260 with RTG (not gimped by Super Buster) and 100 Mhz 68060 Rev 6. SysInfo shown why 68060's 4 bytes fetch per cycle from L1 cache has gimped 68060. AC68080 V2 has fixed this Motorola stupidity. You're in dreamland. Last edited by hammer; 04 July 2024 at 06:51. |
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04 July 2024, 06:58 | #5279 | ||
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Amiga's Dread is faster due to blitter accelerated C2P and displaying more than 16 colors due to hardware sprites and copper. https://www.blitter.com/~nebulous/ot...85(JMiner).pdf Quote:
Last edited by hammer; 04 July 2024 at 07:15. |
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04 July 2024, 13:21 | #5280 | ||
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AMAZING SCIENCE FACT!It would be totally fine without this specific term - and much more accurate: AMAZING SCIENCE FACT!By just leaving out this two characters. Especially since it claims to be scientific... Quote:
The IRIS can move the flat shaded model in all angles in real-time. |
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