Am I the only one who doesn't hate AGA?

[AmigaNG]

I think most of us agree that AGA was not quite enough to put the Amiga back in the lead in graphics, but it kept Amigas in the race a lot longer than OCS or ECS could of done if the Amiga had stade at them.

Its a shame that AGA was under used in games but I think some people on here are forgetting that when it was used properly the gaphics blew away what could be on OCS/ECS.

Slam Tilt, Microcosm, Capital Punishment, super stardust, Theme Park, Myst, simon the sorcerer, sim city 2000, gloom, onEscape, napalm etc

Even to this day I still think the best pin ball game in feel, looks and stlye is Slam Tilt, its a MUST for any AGA owner out there!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXaAfLJuhrs (might have to load it up for a quick go!)

[runequester]

I think most of us agree that AGA was not quite enough to put the Amiga back in the lead in graphics, but it kept Amigas in the race a lot longer than OCS or ECS could of done if the Amiga had stade at them.

Its a shame that AGA was under used in games but I think some people on here are forgetting that when it was used properly the gaphics blew away what could be on OCS/ECS.

Slam Tilt, Microcosm, Capital Punishment, super stardust, Theme Park, Myst, simon the sorcerer, sim city 2000, gloom, onEscape, napalm etc

Even to this day I still think the best pin ball game in feel, looks and stlye is Slam Tilt, its a MUST for any AGA owner out there!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXaAfLJuhrs (might have to load it up for a quick go!)

Slam Tilt is pretty damn awesome, and the music is rad too


Good responses btw guys. I think most of us have the same perspective on things.

[Crom00]

One of the stragest quirks with AGA...

Non flicker free display as standard, thus requiring a TV or scart enabled tv (outside of Europe these didn't exist)

PC's came with a Flikcer free display as standard.

So this hurt the brand. Instead of the preivuous luxury computing for a commodore price... you now settled for something that was almost as good as the PC.

And yes let's not kid ourselves. You needed a Full 386 33 mhz or ideally a 486dx2 66mhtz to play doom and all the games. I waited for those to come out before I got one of the PC's even then I still picked up a A4000/ 030 for $750 to run alongside the PC.

[desiv]

As one of the people who went A500 to A1200, I was very please with AGA at the time.
Yes, there were some incredible OCS/ECS games, but I loved AGA.

And even now, when I look at some of the demos by TBL and such for AGA Amiga's with 060's, I think the problem was more processor than graphics....

desiv

[qwerty40001]

Aga works terribly slow.  Even the Atari, in 1992, had 16-bit  chunky pixel mode in Falcon.  The biggest problem with this shit, is that it is regarded as something that must be in the Amiga.  Makes me want to puke at the thought of writing complex algorithms, whose sole purpose is to be fast spreading bits after bitplans.  Plus ham mode where the pixels depend on the previous pixels as a whole also unnecessarily complicated. Especially when compared with PC / Mac / Atari of those years where, thanks to chunky pixel 16bit modes, everything was getting pretty fast and straight.

[runequester]

As one of the people who went A500 to A1200, I was very please with AGA at the time.
Yes, there were some incredible OCS/ECS games, but I loved AGA.
 
And even now, when I look at some of the demos by TBL and such for AGA Amiga's with 060's, I think the problem was more processor than graphics....
 
desiv

It always amazes me when people look at a 1200 with an 030 running Doom, and blame AGA for it being pokey, when the same game running on a PC needed a 486 to actually move at a decent clip.
 
Same deal for stuff like Wing Commander really. People ran it on their 486 with tons of RAM, and then complained that the amiga 500 ran it slow.
Really ?

[yssing]

Well after AGA, the only real option was/is to go RTG. Maybe with some sort of AGA emulation, much like UAE which can do both.

[Franko]

It always amazes me when people look at a 1200 with an 030 running Doom, and blame AGA for it being pokey, when the same game running on a PC needed a 486 to actually move at a decent clip.
 
Same deal for stuff like Wing Commander really. People ran it on their 486 with tons of RAM, and then complained that the amiga 500 ran it slow.
Really ?

Reckon some folk just like to try and put the Amiga down by unfairly comparing it to a PC with higher specs... pointless really...

[motorollin]

Well after AGA, the only real option was/is to go RTG. Maybe with some sort of AGA emulation, much like UAE which can do both.

Emulating AGA on an RTG card would break compatibility with hardware-banging AGA software, making it pretty useless for games. UAE doesn't even do this; RTG and AGA are separate just like on real hardware.

[desiv]

It always amazes me when people look at a 1200 with an 030 running Doom, and blame AGA for it being pokey, when the same game running on a PC needed a 486 to actually move at a decent clip.

Exactly my point...

The big problem was that it cost much more to accelerate the Amiga..

I was able to buy a complete PC with a fast (at the time) 486 for less than the cost of the an accelerator for the 1200....

desiv

[runequester]

Exactly my point...
 
The big problem was that it cost much more to accelerate the Amiga..
 
I was able to buy a complete PC with a fast (at the time) 486 for less than the cost of the an accelerator for the 1200....
 
desiv

Maybe this is regional cost, but my first PC was just over 1500 US dollars for the cheapest junk machine the store had, compared to a bit under 500 dollars for my 1200. In 93 or 94, did an 030 card with a bit of RAM really cost that much ?
I never had one as a kid, so I don't know what they cost back then.
 
This was in Denmark, so I don't know if costs on PC's were noticeably cheaper in the US or UK.

[Fairdinkem]

I loved AGA I felt the Amiga 1200 was hindered by the lack of chip memory and under powered CPU. A1200 should have come with 040 and the A4000 should have come with 060, I know cost was the issue but I would have paid.

Games like Flashback, Zool, Banshee, Pinball Fantasies etc looked sexy in that era

[Digiman]

Reckon some folk just like to try and put the Amiga down by unfairly comparing it to a PC with higher specs... pointless really...

The problem was not with Amiga it was with the way they sold it and the only 3 models for sale. There was a huge price gap between 4000/030 and A1200 14mhz crippled to 7mhz speeds with no Fast ram but not much performance difference. Blizzard made a 28mhz 68020 accelerator for peanuts and it made the A1200 faster than the A4000/030 see? And that's where the money was in 93/94, something faster than A1200 but cheaper than A4000/030 or entry level PC which is where the Amiga A1400 prototype came into it.

Most people buying Amigas didn't need Zorro slots at all, waste of money. Even Commodore knew this and that's why the A1400 protoype motherboard was designed, but never sold thanks to the CD32 being chosen (another turkey of a business decision). It's not my fault people saw Doom and Ridge Racer and thought "want!" but Amiga gave them no viable option to play the type of games they wanted to play, Lotus II is good, Sega Rally on Saturn is better. Without constant improvement Amiga was dying a slow horrible death and some of us knew it. I wanted Amiga to be around forever, how the hell did Apple survive with their crap from 1994 to invention of low-fi iPod??? Their computers were shit AND overpriced without any multitasking FFS.

In 1992-94 I had purchased new...

486 PC - because I wasn't going to spend £700 on an 060 just to emulate Windows for my studies via a card that would be worth sweet FA as soon as I bought it. Telling people to upgrade was a dead end for this reason, who knew I could have retired on the sale of a PPC Amiga 15 years later thanks to ebay :confused:

A1200 - well it was AGA and the only version remotely value for money with AGA. Sod rip-off 4000/030 prices. I did a lot of great things with it, hell I even did games testing for Acid Software


Playstation - Because it was the future and Ridge Racer is light years ahead as far as any other home racing game before goes.

Saturn - Might as well, after all Sega made the best coin-ops and Playstation would never see them.

And that's it really. If Commodore had sold the A1400 prototype during Xmas 93 instead of the rubbish CD32 joke then I would have got that too for £600 with a CD drive, 28mhz 020 at full speed and 4mb of RAM but no Zorro slots (who cares!). Because if every A1400 could be programmed the same way as a console (something DOS PC games programmers can never do) because all machines were identical we would have seen a lot more games like TFX (given away FREE by Ocean on a magazine CD because not enough 4000/030 machines ever sold to make it worth marketing it to Amiga-A1200 just too damned slow for TFX!)

Commodore should have learned from the mistake made by Cinemaware, investing in CD gaming is a waste of time and leads to bankruptcy (and after disastrous CDTV AKA an A500+CD ROM was a flop for the same reason CD32 AKA A1200+CD would be. The games are the same!) unless you have seriously powerful hardware like Saturn and Playstation to back it up with cutting edge games not bloody A1200 games+cheesy CD music. Super Stardust CD32 is actually worse than the A1200/4000 disk version because of the CD soundtrack. Yuck!

All Commodore did is kill Amiga and it's technology, the reason it took 9 years for bankruptcy is because Amiga 1000 was lightyears ahead of EVERTHING. But they still managed it because once Jack Tramiel left Commodore didn't have a clue how to run a computer company (canning Commodore LCD, not marketing the A1000 for a year waiting for 2000/500, making Commodore 16 and Plus4 and 128 rubbish). Trouble is as much as Commodore deserved to tank Amiga deserved to outlive all of the competition.

@ others - As for comparing an A500 with a 486 PC nope, I was comparing something like F1GP on an A4000/030 and a 486 PC costing the same price, I think if you actually try this too you will see with your own eyes the PC playing speed runs rings around the Amiga version FOR THE SAME PRICE

[Digiman]

I loved AGA I felt the Amiga 1200 was hindered by the lack of chip memory and under powered CPU. A1200 should have come with 040 and the A4000 should have come with 060, I know cost was the issue but I would have paid.

Games like Flashback, Zool, Banshee, Pinball Fantasies etc looked sexy in that era

Except a 33mhz 040 A1200 with 2mb Fast ram (essential!) would have cost you an extra £400+. I don't think you would have bought an A1200 for 800 bucks! An entry level machine was needed, but something above it and cheaper than the 4000/030 was needed too. Funny thing is the A500 was £499+VAT+modulator at launch making it pretty much 600 quid and 700 for 1mb version! And with 5 years worth of inflation then probably an EC040 @ 25mhz would have been the true successor to an A500 if you factor in inflation from a cost point of view. Desperation makes companies do funny things and not take high risk gambles like that. They had decided £399 was the limit and offered us the choice of 2mb RAM OR HD floppy drive on A1200. Games programmers said 2mb ram was better than 1mb A1200 and 1.76mb HD floppy. No reserve cash for Commodore after never improving the chipset for 7 years as far as games programming goes. Better sound was never even talked about!

Trouble is a SNES cost bugger all in 1992 with a superb version of SF2 for adults to play soon enough :madashell:

[magnetic]

Well I am enjoying this thread, but you guys are all geared towards gaming. AGA Chipset was A HUGE DEAL for Video Toaster 4000 and Flyer users. Many new effects, faster ram, color previews, etc etc... also you get HAM 8 in programs like Vista Pro for example. AGA really shines in these ways..

[Digiman]

Maybe this is regional cost, but my first PC was just over 1500 US dollars for the cheapest junk machine the store had, compared to a bit under 500 dollars for my 1200. In 93 or 94, did an 030 card with a bit of RAM really cost that much ?
I never had one as a kid, so I don't know what they cost back then.
 
This was in Denmark, so I don't know if costs on PC's were noticeably cheaper in the US or UK.

Ummm well in the Xmas 1994 issue of Amiga Format, cheapest branded 040 I could find was £425 for EC040 and nearly £700 for an 060. That's 2.5 years after A1200 launch nearly.

An A1200+80mb HDD+ 4mb RAM+040 25mhz would have cost more than my 4mb 486/25 PC (less cost of monitor) if it even existed in 1993. Plus a PC is worth more a year later than 5 seconds after you have broken the seal on a boxed circuit board for your Amiga If Commodore had any sense they would have made a cut down 040 machine like the Macintosh LC40 (which was actually cheaper than Amiga 4000/040 and closer to the 4000/030 machine in price)

I priced up an 060+RAM for my A2000 and also a PPC card and it was cheaper to actually buy a PC both times I worked it out (94-96ish). And seeing as all I wanted to do was run Windows for my university studies guess how I spent my limited grant money...yep a Pentium PC with PCI graphics that had a more powerful blitter than AGA (and PCI bandwidth on PC bus was a massive improvement for PC gaming and emulation actually).