An unbiased comparison of Megadrive vs A1200 graphics?

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Thx, this is very good reminder where everything was easier in A1000 times and everything was more difficult in A3000 times - to squeeze performance you need to go for very complex solutions just to gain 10%.
This is also another nail to Commodore coffin - at some point you can't do product in random garbage way as cost growing enormously.

Quoted for truth.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

This is key. RAM was bloody expensive in those days (the 2MB of chip RAM was the single most expensive part of the A1200), so while these boards may have cost a bit, it was nothing compared to the price of a chunk of RAM. A standard 4MB SIMM in 1993 was about £130.

That was also another nail in the Falcon's coffin. It could handle 1 MB of RAM, which was far too little for a machine with a multitasking OS and high-colour graphics, but 4 MB was so expensive that cash-strapped Atari owners could hardly consider that much memory.

2 MB, which hit a sweet spot price-wise, was not possible with the Falcon's memory controller.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by idrougge

It would have been a real shame for Commodore, considering how sluggish Doom is on my A4000 with graphics card. It certainly wouldn't have made the A4000 shine next to a cheaper PC.

Riight. More Commodore bashing?

This thread is about Mega Drive vs A1200, not A4000 vs PC. However the existence of the A4000 meant A1200 owners might want to match (or exceed) its performance for games that required it. Doom was one of those games, and could easily have been ported to the Amiga. We know this because when the Linux source code was finally open-sourced it only took 3 days to produce the first port.

The Mega Drive didn't get Doom either, for the simple reason that it didn't have the required hardware and no way to upgrade it. An A1200 with fast RAM can play it slowly, like a 386SX (which many people had back then). Playing slowly was better than not playing at all, and provided a big incentive to upgrade. It would have been a big incentive for Amiga owners too, had it been released for the Amiga. That's why I say it was a shame that Carmack refused to do it.

I'm sure they didn't, or they would have at least put a SIMM socket in the A1200.

You have to know that it would take more than just a SIMM socket, which would significantly increase the price.

The A1000, A500, A600 and A2000 were all designed to take RAM expansion boards, so this was the traditional way to do it on the Amiga. Why wouldn't Commodore expect A1200 owners to do what other Amiga owners did?

[sokolovic]

Doom run fairly well on an expanded 68030/50. I suppose it runs even better on a 68040 A4000.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The Mega Drive didn't get Doom either, for the simple reason that it didn't have the required hardware and no way to upgrade it.

You took the worst example. The Megadrive hardware could be expanded to play Doom (and had an official conversion of it).

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The A1000, A500, A600 and A2000 were all designed to take RAM expansion boards, so this was the traditional way to do it on the Amiga. Why wouldn't Commodore expect A1200 owners to do what other Amiga owners did?

Totally agree on that. I'll add that the A1200 was also designed to have an HD, and was officially released by Commodore with an HD right from the start. Saying that adding fast ram on an A1200 is cheating is absolute nonsense.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

You took the worst example. The Megadrive hardware could be expanded to play Doom (and had an official conversion of it).

Same for Amiga - you could imagine some simple custom RISC CPU (simpler even than ARM2) made by CSG (as CSG was capable to do 1 micron on 5 inch wafer) capable to do 12..20MIPS and with some hardware capable to convert 16/24bit color to HAM8 and push this by DMA to CHIP RAM in A1200 - i think such module may give AGA second breathe over other non 3D platforms, it could be done probably for around 100..200$ depends on RAM size.

[sokolovic]

Of course the Amiga is expandable. It is a computer !

My answer was related to the affirmation saying that you could'nt expand a Megadrive to play Doom.
As a matter of fact, you could.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

That's why I say it was a shame that Carmack refused to do it.

He just didn't know how.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

The Megadrive hardware could be expanded to play Doom (and had an official conversion of it).

Please tell us more about this 'official' Doom conversion for the Mega Drive.

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by Thorham

He just didn't know how.

He was an x86 programmer and knew how to make that hardware tick.
We all know the Amiga didn't have much presence in the US so financially it wouldn't make much sense.

Its a shame Doom wasn't released on the Amiga, it would have forced people to upgrade and maybe increase the number of games with higher requirements(PC games of the time that skipped Amiga)

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Please tell us more about this 'official' Doom conversion for the Mega Drive.

That's written on the box. "Megadrive 32x".

[Trunchis]

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

He was an x86 programmer and knew how to make that hardware tick.
We all know the Amiga didn't have much presence in the US so financially it wouldn't make much sense.

Its a shame Doom wasn't released on the Amiga, it would have forced people to upgrade and maybe increase the number of games with higher requirements(PC games of the time that skipped Amiga)

As much as I dislike Carmack, he's an all-around tech genius. He can make any hardware tick, not just x86 machines. BTW, Doom was programmed using NeXT computers, which were 68K based.

I agree that the main reason the game wasn't ported to the Amiga was that there no economic incentive to do so.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Trunchis

I agree that the main reason the game wasn't ported to the Amiga was that there no economic incentive to do so.

Wolfenstein 3D was ported to the SNES by id in three weeks because the person they contracted to do it couldn't manage (in time). I don't think that 'Carmack couldn't do it' is the reason why there was no Amiga port.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

That's written on the box. "Megadrive 32x".

Still waiting how you're gonna tell me that it isn't an official doom conversion on the Megadrive that you could play by expanding your hardware.

[sokolovic]

Btw, I'm currently playing Castle of Illusion on the Megadrive which is a great game, but I don't understand how is it possible to ask if an A1200 could'nt do it. There is nothing technically spectacular in that game.

[vulture]

@sokolovic

Yeah, I don't get it either.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Still waiting how you're gonna tell me that it isn't an official doom conversion on the Megadrive that you could play by expanding your hardware.

Because it's not for the Mega Drive, it's for the 32x.

If that is just expanding the hardware, then so is the A2386SX bridgeboard for the Amiga 2000/3000/4000, which was released in 1991, or the A2088XT bridgeboard with Roßmöller's 386si 16MHz 386SX upgrade (released in 1990), or a Golden Gate with 50MHz 80486SLC2 (released in 1994).

Unlike the 32x 'Doom' which only had 2/3 of the actual Doom game levels, was missing many textures and had other limitations like enemies always facing you and no save, an Amiga with bridgeboard and VGA card could play the full original Doom in all its glory.

However I consider that cheating, just like adding all the circuitry needed to turn a Mega Drive into the equivalent of a Saturn is cheating.

Some other facts about the 32x:-
- The PAL version was released in 1995. It was cancelled the next year.
- It initially cost £169.99, more than the console itself cost at that time.
- Only 800,000 were made. That means 30 million Genesis / Mega Drive owners were unable to play the 32x version of Doom.

Now as we all know the Amiga did eventually get Doom when it was open sourced in 1997. The Mega Drive never did though, it only got this cut down extended demo version that only ran on an addon that they only produced for a very short time years before the Mega Drive had run its course. The vast majority (97%) of Mega Drive owners couldn't run it.

[sokolovic]

I generally agree with most of your post but this level of bad faith is absolutely absurd.
You claimed that Megadrive owners didn't have the possibility of expanding their hardware to play Doom then I show you an official Doom conversion (We don't care the quality level of this port, that is irrelevant to the question) for the Megadrive recquiring an expansion (because hey, without a Megadrive you cannot use a 32X you know...).
How are we supposed to exchange if even in plain facts showing you're obviously doesn't know what you're speaking about you cannot admit that you are maybe a little wrong.

Also the 32X was released in packagé with Doom


(In case you didn't know, Genesis was the name of the Megadrive in the US).

The fact is : if you had a Megadrive by 1995 you could play Doom on it by expanding your hardware. It wasn't possible on the Amiga up until 1998.

[Aulapatchuc]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

(In case you didn't know, Genesis was the name of the Megadrive in the US)

Hilarious...

[TCD]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

How are we supposed to exchange if even in plain facts showing you're obviously doesn't know what you're speaking about you cannot admit that you are maybe a little wrong.

That's an interesting question

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by Aulapatchuc

Hilarious...

It's written on the the box " the 32bit arcade upgrade for the Genesis". He will probably tell me that the Genesis isn't a Megadrive and therefore he was right saying that you could'nt upgrade a Megadrive to play Doom...