Amiga Animation and CHIP RAM versus FAST RAM

[shoggoth]

JetRacer wrote:
Fun fact: even modern PC's have major difficulties working under similar conditions (read: massive MB 320x200 raw animation replayed with flawless 60hz fps). It's ofcourse the OS of Win/Linux/Mac that bogs down performance and nothing else.

I beg to differ. Having programmed low level VGA stuff, I can assure you that this is not an issue. Maybe if you're running XP with little memory and virus scanners and {bleep}, but well... that's not a proper comparison.

[shoggoth]

bloodline wrote:
And the addition of 2 PCM audio channels isn't really much of an improvement over the original ST... Certainly nothing on the Amiga's 4 PCMs :-)

Most true, no offence, didn't you sort of miss the point with the original post?

[shoggoth]

Rowbeartoe wrote:
Now when I had side by side comparisons I noticed that the Amiga 500 never could do 60fps animations?

Ofcourse it could. Maybe you watched som early Amiga material or something, because it definitely could. I remember some older games being completely crap on the amiga, since they were basically straight off ports from the ST (and bad ones, too) (for example, Bubble Bobble has a horrible framerate at times, when in fact it could run perfectly if using the sprite hardware). And for the record - I'm an Atari geek.

[shoggoth]

Rowbeartoe wrote:
Spectrum 512- well believe it or not this graphic program gave the Atari ST some advantages over Amiga HAM-6.  Spectrum 512 wasn't the standard way (Apple IIGS like) to achieve lots of colors 16 per scan line.  

I wouldn't call it an advantage over HAM at all. It's about HBL interrupts and code running synchronized with the electron beam. It chews up like 75% of the CPU, if not more, which is not the case with HAM.

Rowbeartoe wrote:
The enginneers hooked an oscilloscope to teh Atari ST MMU chip and reverse-enginneered its timers.  Using this information, they designed a method to manipulate those times and stuff more colors into extra simlulated bit planes, before the signal even gets to that Atari ST's graphic Shifter chip.

You're making it sound like rocket science, which it is not. The MMU has no timers, maybe you're referring to the MFP.

O- to understand the memory in the Atari ST- I read that the engineers gave the ST 16 MHz unified RAM- giving 8-MHz to Video, and 8-MHz to the 68000.  The ST didn't have anything fancing like CHIP RAM and FAST RAM.

Well, the TT and Falcon (and any 020+ machine) made a distinction between ST-RAM and Fast Ram, where the former could be accessed by the SDMA, blitter and shifter, and the latter could not.

Thanks everyone for still trying to resolve this.  I'm starting to accept that perhaps software engineers didn't feel pressed to push the Amiga to 60fps with there animation software.

Dude, you've got it wrong. The Amiga, and the software for it, was able to do 60fps. You've watched some old software which couldn't, and based your opinion on that. When people claim you've got it wrong, you still return to your perception from the old days. That's silly, no offence, but it really is. I'm an Atari guy too, for the record.

[shoggoth]

Rowbeartoe wrote:
My question once again was why did Juggler, Sculpt 3D, and this Demo of CAD 3D on the Amiga never allow speeds to go faster than 30fps as they did on the Atari ST?  

Perhaps because the Amiga versions of those apps were crap?
Just a theory.

[shoggoth]

Rowbeartoe wrote:
Spectrum 512 and other paint programs that followed on the ST did offer some advantage over Ham-6.  But Ham-6 had advantages 2.  But this isnt about spectrum 512 versus Ham-6.  

Spectrum 512 is not even a videomode, whereas HAM is. It cannot be compared. The Amiga could do the same thing even without using the CPU (Copper). You're talking apples and oranges.

Ok, not quotes, but anyway:
"Can the Amiga display animations at 60FPS? I've only seen 30FPS".
 - Yes.

"But I've only seen 30FPS. Can it really play at 60FPS."
 - Yes.

"But I've only seen 30FPS."
 - But it can.

"No it can't, I've only seen 30FPS."
 - Sure it can.

"But I watched this app 1988 which couldn't."
 - It can.

"No, are you sure?"

Get a grip, dude.

[shoggoth]

bloodline wrote:
Ok, then... on topic...

The Original poster states, from memory, he felt that the Amiga seemed to only play at 30fps when the Atari ST appeared to play at 60fps.


First off, this statement is based on apparent observation, not a testable examination, of an event that happened 18 years or more in the past.

Secondly, no one seems to be able to test this... are there really that few Atari ST's around? Does no one have the software in question?

Well, my bad. I replied to your post before having read all of his posts. I tend to agree with you in this case. The topic in itself is off topic. The whole discussion is silly imo.

[shoggoth]

Rowbeartoe wrote:
I have a hard time just accepting people saying it could.  But I'll just take the word of everyone here. The Amiga could, the software demos just sucked at achieving 60fps, and move on.  

Dude, why ask a question if you don't want to trust the answers you get anyway?

[shoggoth]

Rowbeartoe wrote:
Because I'm a skeptic, and must be convinced. Some people are just so biased, that they will say it can.  I know you understand that.  I was hoping to hear someone say, for example, that old ANIM players were limited to 30fps then improved.  

If you're so desperate for proof, why not get an Amiga to try it out for yourself? It won't matter what anyone says here, because that won't be proof enough anyway. If someone replies "Yes, the Amiga can do 60FPS" that could just as well be bias to you. So why ask?

No offence dude, but you deliver a fair amount of bias in your own posts. And that's an understatement. Being a skeptic is one thing. Asking a question and not accepting the answer because you didn't like it is another. At some point it gets silly and annoying.

I'm mainly an Atari user, with an interest in the Amiga scene. Even though I have a preference for Atari machines, I recognize that the Amiga 500 always beat the ST when it came to animation and graphics. You most likely tried an old animation player which was limited to 30FPS, or watching an animation in an interlaced screen mode (in which case 60FPS isn't applicable due to obvious reasons). Later ones didn't have that limitation.