AGA or RTG

[Seiya]

Wipeout 2097 is PPC and require RTG because is 3D accelerated only. Descent Freespace is PC porting that require RTG because on Windows side required accelerated 3D gpu or good 2D (so, impossibile to play with AGA). Idem Earth 2140.

If you notice every RTG Amiga games are PC porting by fans and games that on Windows side required 3D GPU or very good 2D acceleration that was impossibile to do with AGA. Myst, Quake, Napalm, instead run very good with AGA (and also these ones are RTG compatible).

Maybe we could compare old games not directly PC porting by fans. Many 2020/2021 native Amiga games are OCS and AGA.

[daxb]

I also remember as an A1200 040/40 (7MB/sec. chipram access) AGA user that many software requires RTG (starting in mid '90). So with AGA you are limited and we all know how slow it is.

[Daedalus]

Earth 2140 was written for 16-bit screen depths, where the graphics quality wasn't compromised to try and make it compatible with 8-bit modes. And if you've played Napalm, Foundation and Payback on AGA, you'll know how limited and slow they are compared to RTG (and, of course, they're not PC ports). People making games nowadays that deliberately target the chipset are a different story - they're choosing to target OCS or AGA specifically. And that's fine, especially with the retro revival going on at the moment, most people will have non-RTG systems, and will develop games to fit within the limitations of the chipset.

But, once again, just because something also runs on AGA, doesn't mean RTG has no advantage. Of your examples, Myst is probably the only one that isn't dramatically improved by moving to RTG. Quake and Napalm are both so much faster, smoother and more playable both in terms of framerate and resolution when you use RTG.

[Seiya]

i talk about this things many years ago and so i don't want to re-enter in this chaos, but watch this 3 videos.

Quake on Warp560 with 68060@75 Mhz, RTG 320x240
[ Show youtube player ]

Quake on 1260@66 AGA
[ Show youtube player ]

Quake on 1260@80 AGA
[ Show youtube player ]

here EAB thread where there is performance AGA/RTG
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=64697&page=3

[jbenam]

The thing is, RTG is "free" with emulation and it's a no-brainer when you can just toggle a flag - but is it really worth hundreds of euros on a real machine to just play PC ports?

I also find it kinda diminishes the uniqueness of the Amiga platform - you are just slapping a PC SVGA chipset in your Amiga and calling it a day.

I remember selling my Picasso II with no regrets at all for the same reasoning. It just didn't feel very "Amiga" to me.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by daxb

I also remember as an A1200 040/40 (7MB/sec. chipram access) AGA user that many software requires RTG (starting in mid '90). So with AGA you are limited and we all know how slow it is.

I remember as an A3000 RTG user that many software requires AGA (starting in early '90). So with RTG you are limited and we all know how it is when a program opens on an AGA screen but your machine doesn't have it.

I have an A600 with Vampire RTG and it's awesome but having to connect two screens was a pain and I prefer using my A1200 on TV in composite so the A600 is currently sitting in the cupboard until I can find a suitable home for it (too many retro computers, not enough space!). If only I had an 80MHz 060 or Vampire in the A1200...

AGA might be 'limited' and 'slow', but it does have certain advantages over RTG, including things that are dismissed as not needed anymore because that's the Amiga way. "No no, you can't possibly prefer sliding screens to forcing everything to run in a window on a ridiculously high resolution desktop!". "You like the big low res mouse pointer and 4 color icons? What's wrong with you?". "You think copper bars and overscan are cool, and you enjoy using software that doesn't run in 24 bit color and need a PowerPC processor? Why do you hate progress?".

[Thomas Richter]

P96 does have sliding screens and hi-res pointers, and why you need copper bars if every pixel can get its own color without palette limitations is probably another question....

[ImmortalA1000]

Always amazed me that there was a 24bit internal graphics "card" for any Amiga with a Denise socket, the Avideo/24.

I actually have one now but I don't think it would work in my A1000 so I lost interest and later it wasn't compatible with my launch day A1200 so I kinda forgot about it.

Don't know if there was any way to ever make that RTG but it boggles the mind to think A500s with 24bit internal upgrades existed back then.

[daxb]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I remember as an A3000 RTG user that many software requires AGA (starting in early '90). So with RTG you are limited and we all know how it is when a program opens on an AGA screen but your machine doesn't have it.

Hmm... I thought that RTG is "only" an addon that adds RTG screenmodes that can be used beside the AGA modes. So you have AGA and RTG and I don't see why that will limit you because you can use both. Is that not the case?

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

This is due to the rather poor "philosophy" of some (mostly games) authors of considering the Amiga has a games console, and approaching its programming as such, namely go directly to the hardware. This, of course, does not work anymore as soon as you go generic RTG hardware you can only access through the Os, and not hack directly.

I can understand the "Amiga as a console" thing (obviously) which mainly is vanilla A500 and A1200, and I get the "Amiga as a productivity machine" thing.

The problem is that one side often does not understand or accept the other here, although both sides could happily coexist.

The Amiga as a games machine is tons more interesting when banging the chipset.
But it's also fun for me to use RTG and tune your workbench to feel as modern as possible, like I do on my A1200 with its Vampire card.

Both things can easily coexist.

[crazyc]

Originally Posted by daxb

Hmm... I thought that RTG is "only" an addon that adds RTG screenmodes that can be used beside the AGA modes. So you have AGA and RTG and I don't see why that will limit you because you can use both. Is that not the case?

Yes as long as your machine is aga capable. I think he had a a3000 that wasn't. For people with a1200s and a4000s AGA was a default and rtg an add on.

[malko]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Always amazed me that there was a 24bit internal graphics "card" for any Amiga with a Denise socket, the Avideo/24.

I actually have one now but I don't think it would work in my A1000 so I lost interest and later it wasn't compatible with my launch day A1200 so I kinda forgot about it.

Don't know if there was any way to ever make that RTG but it boggles the mind to think A500s with 24bit internal upgrades existed back then.

I wished to be able to test one on my A2000 BitD.
Was it compatible with the games ?

[redblade]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Always amazed me that there was a 24bit internal graphics "card" for any Amiga with a Denise socket, the Avideo/24.

I actually have one now but I don't think it would work in my A1000 so I lost interest and later it wasn't compatible with my launch day A1200 so I kinda forgot about it.

Don't know if there was any way to ever make that RTG but it boggles the mind to think A500s with 24bit internal upgrades existed back then.

Hi, you have a link on bboah ? or amigaresource.cx ? Thanks

[Rotzloeffel]

Originally Posted by redblade

Hi, you have a link on bboah ? or amigaresource.cx ? Thanks

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/avideo24

[redblade]

Originally Posted by Rotzloeffel

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/avideo24

Thank you, I was having trouble finding it, Looks good, although might have been a wasted upgrade on a plain 68k, but still good to see that there was an options for the A500. Even 12bit chunky display for A500 would have been a good upgrade, but most probably non os-friendly software (games/demos) wouldn't have worked.

[rzookol]

RTG allows to use Fusion/ShapeShifter and tons of Mac 68k software without frameskip and without interlace (on anything better than Zorro2).

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by Rotzloeffel

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/avideo24

This card is amazing! Goes in the A4000 AGA but only via Zorro adapter, which bring me back to the original ask of adding a Zorro slot inside the 1200.

Shame that 1200 is the only one with such limited RTG options. It seems to be the final frontier to overcome on one of the most popular Amigas.

Seems like this could be something that can be added into a flicker fixer too to avoid the Zorro slot adapter add-on requirement.

[Chucky]

And where would you have space for a zorrocard in the 1200??
thereis one. called "the cpuslot"

[grelbfarlk]

I almost never do this, but today I'm going to approve of Chucky building a mini-PCI or maybe a PCI-E x1 expansion bus that clips on top of Lisa and maybe Alice or at most one other chip.

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by Chucky

And where would you have space for a zorrocard in the 1200??
thereis one. called "the cpuslot"

With all that can be done to the Amiga, are you really going to argue that there is no space for a Zorro card inside a standard A1200 case?

Even a full length card if the floppy drive is removed in favour of a floppy drive emulator.

There is simply no will, but OnBoard 1200 was the first step, just needed to be minimized and slot put on a ribbon. Perhaps someone like iComp could do it, by also making a smaller sized accelerator option in combination with it?