Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[hammer]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

All this power and style comes at a price–the $1,799 iMac is a far cry from a sub-$1,000 consumer Mac for the masses.
In 2002 that's $3,924 NZD.

After iMac G4's release, eMac was also released in 2002 for US$1,099. eMac was later made available as a cheaper mass-market alternative to Apple's iMac G4.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Have we?
Today desktop PCs are declining in popularity because nobody wants a big box huffing and puffing away in the living room where there's nowhere to put it. That's why most people today have a laptop or even just a tablet, and game consoles like the PlayStation 5 are popular even though they cost more than a typical PC (quite the change from the 90's when they were far cheaper).
[...]

The iMac was a breath of fresh air in a market crowded with boring boxes. My favorite iMac design is the G4 'Sunflower' - a bitch to work on but so stylish and practical in use. One day I hope to own one.

Why iMac G4 is still the greatest Mac ever made 20 years later

You could frame it as a template for "what to say when you hate PCs"

How convenient it is to forget that (as mentioned above) the main and obvious reason for the decline in big box PC sales is primarily the fact that smartphones (aka mini computers) exist, and also that laptop prices tumbled down to the level where they cost as much as cheap smartphone.


Meanwhile, PC games have generated more revenue than console games for the past 10 years, so there's that.

It's also extremely convenient to forget the Macs' prices when gushing over their stylistics but they are a fact of life, as grelbfarlk mentions, and one of the reasons why despite its wondrousness (ie thorugh-the-roof hype cause by iPhone worship) Apple has only 10% PC market share worldwide - a few percent increase from the old days - despite being allegedly such a visionary trailblazer which changed everything.

Now, I don't begrudge anybody liking nice design, but it's a undeniably sad truth that large part of that in real world scenarios is driven by snobbery and elitisim, since the exorbitant prices make Apple devices into status symbols (and clever marketing adds "coolness" factor). Nah, thanks, I will take the boring box any time of the day. Because the box is only as boring as its user, and the only thing that really matter is what you can do with it and what appears on the screen.

I can see how some Amiga fans might be captured by the allure of Apple and seek similarities, but imo it's a blessing in disguise that Commodore has folded when it did. Because if it didn't and somehow survived and became Apple, I'd hate its operational model just as much as I hate the real world one.

Taking a piss out of Macbook wielding coffeshop hipsters who studiously ponder their never-happen screenplay/book is just a silly, unimportant pastime. The real problem, aside from pricing, is the walled garden approach both regarding hardware and software. For all its faults and "boringness" (well these days you can stick some gaudy RGB lights on it thou) PC is still the king when it comes to openness and doing whatever the hell you want with it, while paying still fairly reasonable prices for it (ok ok, I too hate the new GPU pricing, but still). And that's how it should be and why I have never looked back with sorrow since leaving Amiga back in the days.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by pandy71

ROTFL - you are not Jack Nicholson and i'm not (luckily) Tom Cruise - nevertheless this is all about your argumentation... poorly selected quotes of someone else...

Your attempts to equate 8514 with Amiga 2D acceleration are misleading.

Originally Posted by pandy71

Sophistics (IMHO quite poor).

Your attempts to equate 8514 with Amiga 2D acceleration are misleading.

Originally Posted by pandy71

And your point is? What are you trying to prove with those numbers?
Inflation rate? Gould greed?

It's the opposite. Bill Sydnes executed the IBM "PCJr" mindset.

Read https://www.landley.net/history/mirr...re/haynie.html

Dave Haynie:
When he got to Engineering, he hired a human bus error called Bill Sydnes to take over. Sydnes, a PC guy, didn t have the chops to run a computer, much less a computer design department. He was also an ex-IBMer, and spent much time trying to turn C= (a fairly slick, west-coast-style design operation), into the clunky mess that characterized the Dilbert Zones in most major east-coast-style companies. He and Ali also decided that AA wasn t going to work, so they cancelled both AA projects (Amiga 3000+ and Amiga 1000+, either one better for the market than the A4000 was), and put it all on the backburner, intentionally blowing the schedule by six+ months. They cancelled the A500, which was the only actively selling product ever cancelled in C= history, to my knowledge, and replaced it with the A600. The A600 was originally the A300, George Robbins's idea of a cheaper-than-A500 Amiga; a new line, not a replacement. Sydnes added so much bloat, the A600 was $50 more than the A500, $100 over the goal price.


Gould wasn't directly involve, but he did hire Ali. Ali hired Bill Sydnes. Ali didn't factor in Bill Sydnes' IBM PCJr failure record.

Ali fired Bill Sydnes after A300(A600) debacle.

Ali hired Lew Eggebrecht.

David Pleasance's Commodore the Inside Story book has Amigas must be hardware capable directive's origin and A300's resulting cost blowout, blames Commodore Germany.

Bill Sydnes is the person who decides between Commodore UK's and Commodore Germany's information.

https://www.landley.net/history/mirr...re/haynie.html

When he got to Engineering, he hired a human bus error called Bill Sydnes to take over. Sydnes, a PC guy, didn t have the chops to run a computer, much less a computer design department. He was also an ex-IBMer, and spent much time trying to turn C= (a fairly slick, west-coast-style design operation), into the clunky mess that characterized the Dilbert Zones in most major east-coast-style companies. He and Ali also decided that AA wasn t going to work, so they cancelled both AA projects (Amiga 3000+ and Amiga 1000+, either one better for the market than the A4000 was), and put it all on the backburner, intentionally blowing the schedule by six+ months. They cancelled the A500, which was the only actively selling product ever cancelled in C= history, to my knowledge, and replaced it with the A600. The A600 was originally the A300, George Robbins idea of a cheaper-than-A500 Amiga; a new line, not a replacement. Sydnes added so much bloat, the A600 was $50 more than the A500, $100 over the goal price.


A1000Jr (ECS) doesn't have Gayle (replacing Fat Gary, add PCMCIA and IDE controllers) and Budgie (cost-reduced Buster/Ramsey, PCMCIA 16 bit buffered link). https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/b...a5b59146b4.jpg

AA3000+ doesn't have Gayle and Budgie chips. AA500 variant would have Fat Gray, Ramsey, and Super Buster chips. No BOM cost on the PCMCIA slot.


[ Show youtube player ]
David Pleasance Interview 2015,

25:46, the 500 did and because the Germans had unbeknown to us the Germans had said to Med we're not going to sell anything that hasn't got hard drive in it so the the idea of a low cost entry level machine was immediately gone and um it was completely utter nonsense that day you know we killed the sales of the 500 by releasing the 600 which was not as good a product um and and then of course not long after that um uh they they I think it was around that time well if if you


David Pleasance's Commodore the Inside Story book has this information.

Originally Posted by pandy71

So many things can go wrong between out of the box and using product "mostly" out of the box... - out-of-the-box experience is not "mostly" out-of-the-box experience

That's bullshit. There is no absolutes.

Originally Posted by pandy71

So true, especially nowadays when no one use HW graphic acceleration and everything is made on fast CPU...

You're wrong with "nowadays when no one use HW graphic acceleration and everything is made on fast CPU".

At some point, every 2D/3D accelerator becomes decelerator. It happens when a software solution becomes faster than the hardware-assisted one.

De-acceleration is mocked in the gaming PC world. Hardware accelerated solution needs to keep pace ahead of the CPU software solution.

My point is with the late 1980s into early 1990s i.e. A1200's release and R&D phase.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Today desktop PCs are declining in popularity because nobody wants a big box huffing and puffing away in the living room where there's nowhere to put it. That's why most people today have a laptop or even just a tablet, and game consoles like the PlayStation 5 are popular even though they cost more than a typical PC (quite the change from the 90's when they were far cheaper). A full-size gaming PC with all the extra stuff is just too unwieldy, as well as too expensive for all but the most hardcore gamer to justify.

It depends on the market segment.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pc-ga...research-pzvse


The Global PC Gaming Hardware market is anticipated to rise at a considerable rate during the forecast period, between 2023 and 2030. In 2022, the market is growing at a steady rate and with the rising adoption of strategies by key players, the market is expected to rise over the projected horizon.


https://newzoo.com/resources/blog/de...umers-to-spend

PC gaming is huge. The market will generate $35.9 billion in 2021, driven by 1.4 billion PC gamers. As a result of the pandemic and other factors, demand for PC gaming hardware has skyrocketed at a time when supply is short.

Laptops Are Also Popular Among Dedicated PC Players
Thanks to quickly evolving mobile chip technology, laptops are a viable option for many dedicated PC gamers. Around 38% of the group uses a laptop as their main gaming PC.



https://www.techradar.com/computing/...al-winner-here
Another crypto-mining boom threatens CPU prices, with AMD’s Ryzen 7950X now sold out – and Intel could be the real winner here

Enter stage left the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X, a 16-core processor which excels at those kind of mining workloads, thanks to the AMD CPU’s support for AVX(512) instructions (which Intel Core CPUs don’t offer since Alder Lake) and its plentiful L3 cache.



https://www.extremetech.com/computin...-crypto-mining

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X CPUs Are Out of Stock Thanks to Crypto Mining
The CPUs are now more coveted than an RTX 4090.

We all remember when the pandemic joined forces with a cryptocurrency boom to make GPUs impossible to buy. Those were dark days, but crypto eventually crashed, GPU prices returned to normal, and we figured that was the end. Not so, as crypto prices are skyrocketing again, but miners are buying CPUs instead of GPUs this time. They've already cornered the market on one particular CPU—the Ryzen 9 7950X—which is reportedly more profitable for mining than an RTX 4090.

If you glance at online retailers right now, you will see that the Ryzen 9 7950X is out of stock everywhere, and it's apparently due to revitalized mining operations. AMD's flagship Zen 4 CPU offers AVX512 instructions, which is reportedly useful in mining a currency named Qubic, according to Wccftech, and thus has led to the current shortage. Intel no longer supports AVX512 on its CPUs, as it began disabling it starting with Alder Lake, making AMD CPUs more desirable for specific mining operations. The reason it's also a better option than a powerful GPU is due to recent bans in China on cards like the RTX 4090, which have driven up prices and made those cards unaffordable and hard to find.
...
For now, we just have to wait and see what happens with crypto, as it's again experiencing a meteoric rise in value. Bitcoin crashed to around $20,000 per coin a few years ago but was recently selling for as much as $73,000 per coin. Ethereum is also on the move and has more than doubled in value in the past six months, though it can no longer be mined with GPUs. We also looked up Qubic, as it's reportedly responsible for this current CPU outage, and it, too, is on a trip to the Moon.


Complex algorithms can gimp GpGPUs and benefit wide vector-equipped CPUs.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by hammer

a human bus error

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Thorham

[ Show youtube player ]

40 PC engineers vs 7 Amiga engineers at Westchester. Blame Bill Sydnes.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

How convenient it is to forget that (as mentioned above) the main and obvious reason for the decline in big box PC sales is primarily the fact that smartphones (aka mini computers) exist,

A smartphone is great to have in your pocket, but the screen is a bit too small for general computing work and they're not great for gaming. A laptop can be used on the table or on your lap, and can also have have a screen, keyboard and mouse plugged in and still take up less room than a conventional PC. Most modern 'desktop' computers have the guts of a laptop in the screen, so they take up even less room. This is why people prefer them, not because they are cheaper (the higher-end models aren't).

There are two large department stores and one office supplies store here that sell computers. I had to hunt to find a single PC with a conventional case. Everything else was a laptop or all-in-the-screen machine. Apple's 'elitist' design has become the norm because that's what people actually want.

Only hardcore gamers prefer a separate box, because then they can install a more powerful graphics card, overclock the CPU, and put in a water cooling system with lots of LEDs to make it look pretty. Then they look down on the unwashed masses who just buy a computer and use it, blissfully unaware of how poorly it performs without the very latest top-end CPU and graphics card etc. Why, most of them don't even know what a Ryzen 9 7950X is, let alone how much faster it is than their low budget P.O.S.

Now, I don't begrudge anybody liking nice design, but it's a undeniably sad truth that large part of that in real world scenarios is driven by snobbery and elitisim, since the exorbitant prices make Apple devices into status symbols

Snobbery exits in the PC world alright - we're seeing it right here. But it's not Macs that the elitists gush over.

Here is Harvey Normans's only gaming PC:-

HP Victus Gaming Desktop - Intel Core i7 16GB-RAM 1TB-SSD NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB Graphics

Clearance
While Stocks Last
NZ$3,007

And here's an Apple iMac:-

Apple iMac 24" M1 8-Core CPU & 8-Core GPU 8GB-RAM 256GB-SSD with Retina 4.5K Display

NZ$2,749

$258 cheaper than the 'clearance price' gaming PC. Granted the PC has more RAM and a bigger drive, but only a hardcore aficionado frets about that stuff.

Their Mac laptops are a lot cheaper:-

Apple MacBook Air 13" with M2 Chip 8-Core CPU/8-Core GPU 8GB-RAM 256GB-SSD

NZ$1,799

But PC laptops are all much cheaper than elitist Apples, right?

HP Pavilion Aero 13.3" Laptop - AMD Ryzen5 8GB-RAM 512-SSD

Clearance
NZ$1,813

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I can see how some Amiga fans might be captured by the allure of Apple and seek similarities, but imo it's a blessing in disguise that Commodore has folded when it did. Because if it didn't and somehow survived and became Apple, I'd hate its operational model just as much as I hate the real world one.

I agree that it was a blessing, but for a different reason. The next models would have a different architecture when I had hardly begun to explore the current one. That was one whirlwind I didn't want to get caught up in.

Nah, thanks, I will take the boring box any time of the day. Because the box is only as boring as its user, and the only thing that really matter is what you can do with it and what appears on the screen.

I guess that was another reason to be disappointed with the A1200 - it had style instead of coming in a boring metal box with bland beige front panel.

Well I for one appreciated Commodore giving the A1200 a nice look and improved ergonomics. And it was cheaper too! The only thing I'm a little disappointed about is that after 30 years it's become very slightly yellowed. But the classy silver-on-white nameplate still has the protective plastic over it and still looks brand new!

Strange that Amiga fans today get upset about yellowing - don't they know that looks don't matter? Perhaps they are elitists...

Here's my latest gaming PC. Case? Case??? We haven't got a case. We don't need any stinking case!

[hammer]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Let's take A1200 + fastram as a base machine. Has it been exploited 100%? This is the question...

Commodore UK MD and UK game developers pushed for upgraded CD32 hardware with minimal cost increase.

As the strongest Commodore division, Commodore UK can pay for upgrades.

The extent of the upgraded CD32 is unknown.

1 MB Fast RAM equipped CD32 would have allowed 68EC020 14 Mhz CPU to run at full performance mode and bring CD32's total RAM on par with 3DO's 3 MB and nearly Saturn's 3.5 MB.

2 MB Fast RAM equipped CD32 opens the door for 386's 4 MB PC games.

Fast RAM also enables $20 DSP3210 into the mix.

The $2 to $3 price difference between 68EC020-16 and 68EC020-25 is very minor.

Commodore already has a 25 Mhz 020/030 32-bit memory bus capable Ramsey.

Cost-reduced Buster and Ramsey was integrated into Budgie. Two CIAs, Gayle, and Budgie were integrated into Akiko.

The Akiko chip has cost-reduced Buster, Ramsey, Gayle, and two CIAs.

Commodore was on the path to creating an integrated "Super IO" chip for the AGA. CD32 is the cheapest "A1200".

The cheapest A1200 chipset is CD32 plus Fast RAM.

http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/amigahi...ggebrecht.html
Lew Eggebrecht has DSP3210 in the roadmap for all Amiga models.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Here is Harvey Normans's only gaming PC:-

From https://www.harveynorman.com.au/comp...+desktops/1065

In Australia, we have 11 gaming PC selections from Harvey Norman.

https://www.harveynorman.com.au/msi-...top-black.html
$2179 AUD for a pre-built gaming PC with 13700F CPU and TX 4060.

One of Australia's largest PC seller is pccasegear.com.au

https://www.pccasegear.com/products/...4070-gaming-pc
$1999 AUD for Ryzen 7 5700 CPU + GeForce RTX 4070 Windforce OC.

Harvey Norman doesn't understand PC gaming when the bias for limited-budget PC build should be GPU 1st.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Only hardcore gamers prefer a separate box, because then they can install a more powerful graphics card, overclock the CPU, and put in a water cooling system with lots of LEDs to make it look pretty.

From owning a Ryzen 9 7950X and switching from 280 mm AIO to 360 mm AIO coolers, the CPU will auto boost until it reaches the 95C TDP limit for the full 32 threads AVX2/AVX-512. There's very little need for manual overclocking when the CPU is smart enough to sense its cooling capability.

AIO = All-in-One Liquid Coolers.

In terms of case size (e.g. Lian-Li O11D EVO XL) Gaming PC with fat X86-64 CPUs and RTX 4090s have effectively replaced SGI workstations e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Octane

PS; RTX 4090 can enable its ECC GDDR6X mode for workstation use cases.

The all-in-one keyboard gaming PC case like A1200 wouldn't fit the RTX 4060 card. Laptop RTX GPUs could fit inside A1200's case. System 54 PowerPC has Radeon GCN drivers. The way forward is Emu68, PRi 5(ARM Cortex A76), single-chip FPGA CD32, Radeon GCN support and System 54 ported to 68K.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by hammer

Your attempts to equate 8514 with Amiga 2D acceleration are misleading.

Your attempts to equate 8514 with Amiga 2D acceleration are misleading.

Obviously you are playing fool using this argument as i explicitly told you earlier that i'm not put equation mark between Amiga HW graphic acceleration and IBM 8514 - they are designed with completely different target - Amiga was STANDARD and as such software commonly USE HW acceleration (except poorly done software ports) - 8514 was not standard but per se begin standardization process (this process took in PC almost 10 years). 8514 is important on PC as foundation of some process - process started by 8514 never created standard HW acceleration on PC but created different, software centric approach where standard software API allow to use different HW.

Originally Posted by hammer

It's the opposite. Bill Sydnes executed the IBM "PCJr" mindset.

Read https://www.landley.net/history/mirr...re/haynie.html

Dave Haynie:
When he got to Engineering, he hired a human bus error called Bill Sydnes to take over. Sydnes, a PC guy, didn t have the chops to run a computer, much less a computer design department. He was also an ex-IBMer, and spent much time trying to turn C= (a fairly slick, west-coast-style design operation), into the clunky mess that characterized the Dilbert Zones in most major east-coast-style companies. He and Ali also decided that AA wasn t going to work, so they cancelled both AA projects (Amiga 3000+ and Amiga 1000+, either one better for the market than the A4000 was), and put it all on the backburner, intentionally blowing the schedule by six+ months. They cancelled the A500, which was the only actively selling product ever cancelled in C= history, to my knowledge, and replaced it with the A600. The A600 was originally the A300, George Robbins's idea of a cheaper-than-A500 Amiga; a new line, not a replacement. Sydnes added so much bloat, the A600 was $50 more than the A500, $100 over the goal price.


Gould wasn't directly involve, but he did hire Ali. Ali hired Bill Sydnes. Ali didn't factor in Bill Sydnes' IBM PCJr failure record.

Ali fired Bill Sydnes after A300(A600) debacle.

Ali hired Lew Eggebrecht.

Once again - my assumption is that you will not find anyone on EAB having different opinion than yours on this but this happened and this happening all the time when big names are hired and all they bring is misery...
Strangely those big names are covered with dome PTFE coating so they are never get responsibility for flop and they are again and again hired in other companies. But this will not made Amiga faith different so beating dead Gould or anyone else with biggest bat you can find will not change time.

Originally Posted by hammer

David Pleasance's Commodore the Inside Story book has Amigas must be hardware capable directive's origin and A300's resulting cost blowout, blames Commodore Germany.

David is living legend - cool guy but i share TCD point of view: https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...84&postcount=4
This overall thread is interesting.

Originally Posted by hammer

That's bullshit. There is no absolutes.

Perhaps - but real life is sometimes nasty "beach".

Originally Posted by hammer

You're wrong with "nowadays when no one use HW graphic acceleration and everything is made on fast CPU".

At some point, every 2D/3D accelerator becomes decelerator. It happens when a software solution becomes faster than the hardware-assisted one.

De-acceleration is mocked in the gaming PC world. Hardware accelerated solution needs to keep pace ahead of the CPU software solution.

My point is with the late 1980s into early 1990s i.e. A1200's release and R&D phase.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GraphicsPro...han/?rdt=53051

HW acceleration using same technology as CPU will be always faster than CPU. Your observation can be true only in case where HW acceleration (and overall system architecture) is severely delayed technologically when compared to CPU.
Today we observe that GPU's are more powerful than CPU's (simple transistor count, silicone area etc shows this).
So yeas we all know that Amiga HW severely lagged behind overall technological progress.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by pandy71

HW acceleration using same technology as CPU will be always faster than CPU. Your observation can be true only in case where HW acceleration (and overall system architecture) is severely delayed technologically when compared to CPU.
Today we observe that GPU's are more powerful than CPU's (simple transistor count, silicone area etc shows this).
So yeas we all know that Amiga HW severely lagged behind overall technological progress.

I'm guessing he means something like when CPUs became more powerful than the GPU - for example, we can emulate a Voodo 3DFX card in pure CPU now, faster than the actual hardware itself was. Happened to our Amiga Blitter, did it not?

Todays GPUs are blisteringly fast but it doesn't mean that in the future the CPU won't be faster.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Dunny

for example, we can emulate a Voodoo 3DFX card in pure CPU now, faster than the actual hardware itself was

Is that true? Software rendering still looks much worse than Voodoo 1 on my PC

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Todays GPUs are blisteringly fast but it doesn't mean that in the future the CPU won't be faster.

Maybe, although GPU performance has been increasing a lot faster than CPU performance and it's not clear that isn't inherent in their design.

[Promilus]

@alexh - just try linux, llvm-pipe maybe ain't actual speed demon but runs well on multicore CPUs and definitively faster than voodoo 1. I think that was the point although extremely stupid argument as it's hardly practical to wait 20 years or so to get CPUs fast enough to challenge old GPUs in old games. Right? So... Did amiga during it's lifetime received by official expansions CPUs which did better job than blitter inside the chipset? Sure, but that was 3k/4k line which was quite expensive (and also 4000T was quite large - remember that Bruce? How did the regular home PC box fare against A4000T when it comes to size? Why A1200 users were towerizing their computers like E/Box 1200? Yeah, exactly, to fit all the new expansions like... Mediator PCI!!!! Damn! Going that bloody PC route against Commodore's wishes...

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Dunny

I'm guessing he means something like when CPUs became more powerful than the GPU - for example, we can emulate a Voodo 3DFX card in pure CPU now, faster than the actual hardware itself was. Happened to our Amiga Blitter, did it not?

Todays GPUs are blisteringly fast but it doesn't mean that in the future the CPU won't be faster.

Well - i'm not guessing as this is ridiculous comparison - using modern, multicore CPU with silicone budget 13140 millions of transistors to perform graphic faster than 3 million transistors Voodoo doesn't sound reasonable (4300 times more transistors clocked 80..100 times faster - 320000 more resources).
This is why i insist to compare apples with apples not with space shuttle...
If blitter in Amiga will grow same as CPU then it will be faster than corresponding CPU generation. Amiga problem was that blitter was same as in 1984 - IBM after 8514 relatively quickly introduced XGA, later XGA-2 - every time hardware was faster than CPU's and preceding gen of graphic HW.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Well - i'm not guessing as this is ridiculous comparison

Of course it's a ridiculous comparison - CPUs have moved to a very different beat to GPUs after all. GPU cores aren't particularly powerful and they clock in well under the speed of a decent CPU; there's just a hell of a lot more of them.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Obviously you are playing fool using this argument as i explicitly told you earlier that i'm not put equation mark between Amiga HW graphic acceleration and IBM 8514 - they are designed with completely different target - Amiga was STANDARD and as such software commonly USE HW acceleration (except poorly done software ports) - 8514 was not standard but per se begin standardization process (this process took in PC almost 10 years). 8514 is important on PC as foundation of some process - process started by 8514 never created standard HW acceleration on PC but created different, software centric approach where standard software API allow to use different HW.

[ Show youtube player ]
Hardware smooth scrolling on an 8086 with a VGA upgrade with Double Dragon 3. VGA has a page flip function and four ALUs (Arithmetic Logic Units) to assist the CPU during display memory writes.

VGA clones can improve these hardware functions further than IBM VGA.

PC would need CPU power for the Blit function. 3.5 Mhz Blitter is not a hard target to hit.

With MIPS like a coprocessor, Rendition Verite v1000 emulates VGA and it's not performance-competitive with other SVGA cloners with 3D acceleration.

VGA is more than Atari ST's graphics capabilities.

For these kinds of 2D game experiences, the Amiga 500 has the "power without the price" entry point. Amiga 1200 extends these kinds of 2D experiences beyond 32 colors without tricks, but it doesn't have a large install base e.g. Lion King AGA sales are limited by A1200's install base and attachment rates.

While the port is good, Lion King AGA wasn't a PC VGA /SNES version. [ Show youtube player ]

For 256-color artwork from PC VGA, Turrcian 2 AGA needs Fast RAM.

[ Show youtube player ]
Final Fight AGA Alpha v1.5 from EAB ABIME from Leathered. Final Fight AGA Alpha v1.5 needs Fast RAM. https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=81505
Leathered has passed away.

A1200/CD32 with Fast RAM has the foundation for a strong 2D gaming experience, but the under 1 million install base is a major problem and Commodore doesn't have 1st party game developers to solve the chicken vs egg problem.

Originally Posted by pandy71

David is living legend - cool guy but i share TCD point of view: https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...84&postcount=4
This overall thread is interesting.

DavidP executes his role is good for Commodore UK and it's Amiga's strongest Commodore division.

Escom and Amiga Technologies GmBH stacked ex-Commodore Germany personnel didn't advance the Amiga when the Amiga custom chipset's technical effort was from the USA.

Originally Posted by pandy71

Perhaps - but real life is sometimes nasty "beach".

Escom's Amiga Technologies GmBH was in partnership with Phase 5's PowerPC direction. Phase 5 is not proven for low-cost mass production and it shows.

Raspberry Pi Foundation has shown its competency in mass production with a good business plan.

Competency is a major factor.

Originally Posted by pandy71

https://www.reddit.com/r/GraphicsPro...han/?rdt=53051

HW acceleration using same technology as CPU will be always faster than CPU. Your observation can be true only in case where HW acceleration (and overall system architecture) is severely delayed technologically when compared to CPU.
Today we observe that GPU's are more powerful than CPU's (simple transistor count, silicone area etc shows this).
So yeas we all know that Amiga HW severely lagged behind overall technological progress.

It depends on the use case and market segment e.g. gaming GPUs are less suitable for FP64.

RTX 4090's FP64 has 1409 GFLOPS from ADIA 64's benchmark. It doesn't have performance/watt and performance/dollar for such a use case when compared to the Ryzen 9 7950X's AVX-512's 1375 GFLOPS.

AIDA64 benchmark
Double Precision FLOPS
RTX 4090 = 1400 GFLOPS
Ryzen 9 7950X = 1357 GFLOPS

AES-256
RTX 4090 = 154,603 MB/s
Ryzen 9 7950X = 379,724 MB/s

Double Precision Mandel
RTX 4090 = 341.9 FPS
Ryzen 9 7950X = 635.1 FPS

GpGPU runs on OpenCL. X86-64 version runs on native.

For FP64 acceleration, there's NVIDIA's costly H100/H200/B100.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

The way forward is Emu68, PRi 5(ARM Cortex A76), single-chip FPGA CD32, Radeon GCN support and System 54 ported to 68K.

Amiga is now retro. If some fans want a 'way forward' that's fine, but for many of us the more 'forward' you take it the less of an Amiga it becomes. Why would we want Radeon GCN support? What the hell is 'System 54'? Second thoughts don't answer that, I don't want to know. The reason I still use my A1200 is to continue experiencing a simpler time when we didn't have to be concerned with all that crap.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Amiga problem was that blitter was same as in 1984 - IBM after 8514 relatively quickly introduced XGA, later XGA-2 - every time hardware was faster than CPU's and preceding gen of graphic HW.

And 6 years later (in 1996) PC games were still being coded for standard VGA, introduced 9 years earlier. That's a similar time span to the Amiga (1985 + 9 = 1994).

Extended Graphics Array

The XGA was introduced at $1095 with 515K VRAM and additional $350 for the 512 KB memory expansion (equivalent to $2600 and $820, respectively, in 2023). As with the 8514/A, XGA required a Micro Channel architecture bus at a time when ISA systems were standard...

The VESA Group introduced a common standardized way to access features like hardware cursors, Bit Block transfers (Bit Blt), off screen sprites, hardware panning, drawing and other functions with VBE/accelerator functions (VBE/AF) in August 1996. This, along with standardised device drivers for operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, eliminated the need for a hardware standard for graphics.

I was knee deep in PCs at that time and I don't recall ever seeing an XGA card. 90% of PCs had a crappy ISA bus 'Super VGA' card such as Trident or Oak - whatever was cheapest. Game developers certainly couldn't rely on customers having anything better. The situation was just like the Amiga, only worse because you needed a much faster CPU to get acceptable results.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

And 6 years later (in 1996) PC games were still being coded for standard VGA

Were they? I remember playing Under a Killing Moon and System Shock (along others) in 640x480 in 1994.