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[Agent X]

surprised no one has done a USB 2 button joystick kinda replicate the old amiga ones

You can get a joystick for TheC64 and TheC64 Mini, which has a USB connection, and also works on computers.

THEC64 Micro Switch Joystick - Retro Games

Accessories for THEC64 range including THEC64 Joystick.

retrogames.biz

 

[beatdowniidx]

You can get a joystick for TheC64 and TheC64 Mini, which has a USB connection, and also works on computers.

THEC64 Micro Switch Joystick - Retro Games

Accessories for THEC64 range including THEC64 Joystick.

retrogames.biz

oh sweet awesome was looking for one for an amiga retropi build

 

[Nitty_Grimes]

I remember my dad picking up the cartoon classics pack back in the day still makes me laugh EA made a painting program

But it was the best painting program. Deluxe Paint IV was the best at the time.

 

[Nitty_Grimes]

There should be an Amiga Power website bit like how you have sites dedicated to Sega...

There is. And more besides.

Amiga Magazine Rack - The ultimate Amiga magazines resource

Amiga Magazine Rack contains reviews, previews, cheats, coverdisks, public domain, covers, trivia and thousands of page scans from Amiga mags. Popular mags like Amiga Format, Amiga Power, AUI, CU Amiga, The One, Zero, Zzap and more are available.

amr.abime.net

 

[Fredrik]

Finally got my Raspberry Pi 400 after waiting for it since March! Did some comparisons between original Amiga 1200 (with some modernized upgrades) and a Pimiga RPi setup. As a nostalgic person I’d say it’s still better to play on original hardware but with a Pi400 and a retronic design joystick adapter to use original joysticks things are getting really really close. The included mouse is too sensitive but you have a keyboard and things just work. I’m impressed!

Pimiga

Original Amiga 1200 (smaller image since I run the Indivision card in 800x600 100hz to get 50hz working on a modern screen)

 

[rnlval]

Agreed, they seriously messed it up. There’s a really great interview with David Pleasance on YouTube where he goes into detail how Commodore messed up and their CEO got greedy and just jumped the gun.

The A500 was a superb machine but the A600 was worthless, the CDTV was pointless and the A1200 was just underpowered and rushed. The CD32, while ambitious, was again based on old tech and they should have just pushed the AAA chipset instead of the slightly beefed up AGA.

Oh well. We have emulation now

AGA with 68LC040 or AGA with 68LC060/68060 would have delivered better 3D gaming results when compared to AAA with 68030.

The cheap AT&T 3210 DSP in the Amiga 3000+ prototype has a fast 25 MFLOPS FP32 support which is just under 68060 FPU @ 50Mhz's 27 MFLOPS.

AAA wouldn't solve the 3D issue.

Amiga CD32 with AT&T 3210 DSP would be better than SNES SuperFX2 (16-bit Integer DSP, about 8 MIPS).

AT&T 3210 DSP supports INT16, INT24, and FP32 datatypes. FP32 is enough for geometry, INT16 or INT24 enough for pixel shading/texture processing. 68EC020 CPU handles the game logic workload.

 

[JCK75]

My best friend had an Amiga back in my early days of high school and it was incredible..
I was poor so I didn't have one.. did not run into them again until I was working in television many years later and we had one running toaster than handled all of our video overlays.

 

[Dithadder]

It’s amazing to think how much of a parallel universe Europe felt in the days of the US NES boom. Every gamer kid in Italy except the son of pretty well-doing families played on the Amiga 500, that thing was Italy’s NES for all intents and purposes. Yet I never saw one in person during my childhood. We weren’t rich, but several of my schoolmates were and they all had an NES so that’s what I went with. Unsurprising, really, when you consider the price of NES games vs easily piratable Amiga software. Console gaming didn’t really take off in my country until the PlayStation came in with cool 3D graphics and CD-based software. Almost nobody bought original games, lol.

Amiga games are a strange world to me. The European approach to game design, from graphics to interface, is so incredibly different from what Japan

 

[Thanati]

AGA with 68LC040 or AGA with 68LC060/68060 would have delivered better 3D gaming results when compared to AAA with 68030.

The cheap AT&T 3210 DSP in the Amiga 3000+ prototype has a fast 25 MFLOPS FP32 support which is just under 68060 FPU @ 50Mhz's 27 MFLOPS.

AAA wouldn't solve the 3D issue.

Amiga CD32 with AT&T 3210 DSP would be better than SNES SuperFX2 (16-bit Integer DSP, about 8 MIPS).

AT&T 3210 DSP supports INT16, INT24, and FP32 datatypes. FP32 is enough for geometry, INT16 or INT24 enough for pixel shading/texture processing. 68EC020 CPU handles the game logic workload.

All really good points.

Commodore though just messed up and there's was absolutely zero chance of what you mentioned ever happening. They wanted to push the underpowered CD32 to try and capture the market but it was just too expensive and offered nothing over the A1200. The original goal was to have the AAA chipset be a new launchpad for their "next-gen" platform. Even the AGA chipset was weak and just a slight bump over the ECS/OCS in the A500. I know it had 2Mb of chip ram, the 020 CPU, which wasn't that much of an improvement over the stock A500 CPU (the 68000) but that was pretty much it. The goal was to have the 030 as the stock CPU for the AAA, which would have been a worthwhile upgrade over the A500.

They shouldn't have bothered with the A600, scrapped the CD32 and focused on what the A1200 should have been.

Oh well. What could have been, eh?

 

[veterangamerUK]

Owning a ZX Spectrum at the time and seeing an Amiga running the Newark Demo Reel 2 in my local computer shop was a jump in tech I’ve never experienced since. I got one as soon as I could

 

[rnlval]

All really good points.

Commodore though just messed up and there's was absolutely zero chance of what you mentioned ever happening. They wanted to push the underpowered CD32 to try and capture the market but it was just too expensive and offered nothing over the A1200. The original goal was to have the AAA chipset be a new launchpad for their "next-gen" platform. Even the AGA chipset was weak and just a slight bump over the ECS/OCS in the A500. I know it had 2Mb of chip ram, the 020 CPU, which wasn't that much of an improvement over the stock A500 CPU (the 68000) but that was pretty much it. The goal was to have the 030 as the stock CPU for the AAA, which would have been a worthwhile upgrade over the A500.

They shouldn't have bothered with the A600, scrapped the CD32 and focused on what the A1200 should have been.

Oh well. What could have been, eh?

As a dumb raster frame buffer, AGA is enough for Quake-type games when there's 68060 @ 63 to 100Mhz level CPU which renders Amiga Hombre PA-RISC @ 100Mhz non-SIMD capability nearly pointless.

Amiga Hombre's PA-RISC innovation is the 64-bit MMX like SIMD instruction set @ 100 Mhz single CPU core, coupled with 3D texture mapping engine, Gouraud shading, and Z-buffering hardware. PA-RISC's dual integer SIMD pipelines can handle pixel shading and game logic workloads while fully pipeline FPU handles geometry. Commodore's selection for HP PA-RISC 71xx CPU is mostly due to about 1 million transistor budget for CGS (Commodore Semiconductor Group) fabrication capabilities.

68060 has a 2.5 million transistors budget, FPU wasn't pipelined. Motorola has balkanized the 68K micro-computer market.
Pentium has a 3.1 million transistors budget with an FPU pipeline. Intel has large economies of scale with a unified X86 PC clone army.
MIPS R4000 has 1.2 million transistors budget.
MIPS R4400 has 2.3 million transistors budget.

For Atari Falcon, Motorola 56001 DSP was integer-based DSP (INT16 and INT24) gimped on the 16-bit memory bus.

Pentium MMX was released against RISC competition with 64-bit integer SIMD since HP PA-RISC was attracting NextStep and Windows NT R&D ports.

Intel Pentium Pro and Pentium II were against Advanced Computing Environment (ACE)'s MIPS R4000 64 bit direction. Key supporters from the EISA and VESA group (broke IBM's MCA and XGA direction) + Microsoft supported Advanced Computing Environment and it was crushed by Intel's Pentium Pro and Pentium II almost single handily. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Computing_Environment

Advanced Computing Environment (ACE)'s MIPS R4000 64 bit direction also selected ARC (Advanced RISC Computing) as the firmware (boot BIOS) environment. Intel has other ideas such as EFI for Itanium which later evolved into UEFI.
-----
IPC difference between 68020 and 68030 is minimal e.g.68020 @ 25 Mhz has similar MIPS as 68030 @ 25 Mhz.

 

[Hoddi]

Owning a ZX Spectrum at the time and seeing an Amiga running the Newark Demo Reel 2 in my local computer shop was a jump in tech I’ve never experienced since. I got one as soon as I could

I made a similar jump from ZX Spectrum to Amstrad CPC to Amiga. The Amstrad wasn't exactly a generational leap (though still a big improvement over the Spectrum) but I still haven't forgotten how massive it was when getting the Amiga.

I was only 12 at the time and I still remember my friend commenting about it having an RGB SCART monitor. I had no idea what he meant back then but I've become a total RGB fanboy since I got into retrogaming a couple of years ago.

 

[Fredrik]

I was only 12 at the time and I still remember my friend commenting about it having an RGB SCART monitor. I had no idea what he meant back then but I've become a total RGB fanboy since I got into retrogaming a couple of years ago.

Yeah the Commodore computers ruined me regarding image quality. Me and my brother bought a Philips 8833-II monitor quite early for Commodore 128, to use the 80 character mode, which was way sharper than what most had for their C64 and NES connected to a TV with composite or even worse RF. Everything looked worse everywhere else.

We used that same monitor for Amiga 500 too later, never used that bulky RF generator people had. And I was ruined. When getting the SNES, PS1, and everything thereafter I had to have a RGB scart cable, was looking at the pins on the scart cables, full RGB became a thing, many (all?) consoles would use the Scart connector but actually just sent through composite video which was pure trash in comparison.

I still have this Philips 8833-II monitor by the way, it still works and this has to be 35 years old now. Impressive!

Out with the old and in with the…older! A500+8833 monitor

It’s almost impossible to take a photo of this screen by the way, the camera is out of sync with the screen refresh rate, had to swap to PAL 25 on iPhone and film and then choose a frame from the video with no oddities and screendump it. There is still some moiré pattern going on, looks crisp irl, but the 50hz flicker is noticeable.

 

[Fredrik]

Since I had it plugged in. This is in 25fps to somewhat sync with the PAL Amiga. 30 and 60fps looks like crap.

Turrican on Amiga 500 - Everything here is 30+ years old. Floppy disc, Amiga 500, Philips 8833 old tube monitor, Wico joystick. And it still works!


It’s a bummer I can’t record in PAL 50, this era of actual good european gaming history will soon only exist on a Wikipedia page.

 

[Thanati]

As a dumb raster frame buffer, AGA is enough for Quake-type games when there's 68060 @ 63 to 100Mhz level CPU which renders Amiga Hombre PA-RISC @ 100Mhz non-SIMD capability nearly pointless.

Amiga Hombre's PA-RISC innovation is the 64-bit MMX like SIMD instruction set @ 100 Mhz single CPU core, coupled with 3D texture mapping engine, Gouraud shading, and Z-buffering hardware. PA-RISC's dual integer SIMD pipelines can handle pixel shading and game logic workloads while fully pipeline FPU handles geometry. Commodore's selection for HP PA-RISC 71xx CPU is mostly due to about 1 million transistor budget for CGS (Commodore Semiconductor Group) fabrication capabilities.

68060 has a 2.5 million transistors budget, FPU wasn't pipelined. Motorola has balkanized the 68K micro-computer market.
Pentium has a 3.1 million transistors budget with an FPU pipeline. Intel has large economies of scale with a unified X86 PC clone army.
MIPS R4000 has 1.2 million transistors budget.
MIPS R4400 has 2.3 million transistors budget.

For Atari Falcon, Motorola 56001 DSP was integer-based DSP (INT16 and INT24) gimped on the 16-bit memory bus.

Pentium MMX was released against RISC competition with 64-bit integer SIMD since HP PA-RISC was attracting NextStep and Windows NT R&D ports.

Intel Pentium Pro and Pentium II were against Advanced Computing Environment (ACE)'s MIPS R4000 64 bit direction. Key supporters from the EISA and VESA group (broke IBM's MCA and XGA direction) + Microsoft supported Advanced Computing Environment and it was crushed by Intel's Pentium Pro and Pentium II almost single handily. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Computing_Environment

Advanced Computing Environment (ACE)'s MIPS R4000 64 bit direction also selected ARC (Advanced RISC Computing) as the firmware (boot BIOS) environment. Intel has other ideas such as EFI for Itanium which later evolved into UEFI.
-----
IPC difference between 68020 and 68030 is minimal e.g.68020 @ 25 Mhz has similar MIPS as 68030 @ 25 Mhz.

Oh, I agree 100% If Commodore had made a bigger jump in a CPU for the A1200, the 060, for example, it would have been a different story. Once Motorola could mass-produce them, it would have brought the costs down. I've played Quake on an 060 and it runs pretty damned great.

The problem is, as I mentioned before, is that the 020 was severely underpowered and was already pretty much obsolete when it was launched, with only a tiny number of games and apps built for it. Even those that are AGA specific are not that much different at all, TBH. Also the sound capability wasn't upgraded that much, if at all.

Again, this is all the greed of the Commodore CEO's who thought they could make a quick buck with the CD32 and the A1200.

 

[Fredrik]

Oh, I agree 100% If Commodore had made a bigger jump in a CPU for the A1200, the 060, for example, it would have been a different story. Once Motorola could mass-produce them, it would have brought the costs down. I've played Quake on an 060 and it runs pretty damned great.

The problem is, as I mentioned before, is that the 020 was severely underpowered and was already pretty much obsolete when it was launched, with only a tiny number of games and apps built for it. Even those that are AGA specific are not that much different at all, TBH. Also the sound capability wasn't upgraded that much, if at all.

Again, this is all the greed of the Commodore CEO's who thought they could make a quick buck with the CD32 and the A1200.

All of this makes me sad, the ”what if” scenarios. C64 was great and Amiga 500 just built on that, then Commodore stumbled and stumbled year after year until people had either stopped gaming or moved to PC or SNES/MD.
I don’t know what was the final nail in the coffin. I just know I had already moved elsewhere even as a huge fan once Commodore wasn’t around anymore.

 

[veterangamerUK]

We all have our own pinnacles of gaming, but the Amiga will always be mine. THAT sound chip, polished 2D games and pick up and play games. I didn’t actually like the first 3D gen after that, almost felt too early, everything looked rough, clipping and horrendous pop in too

 

[Fredrik]

More old school gaming, I recorded a video of The Last Ninja today, or Ninja Remix as it’s called on the Amiga. I prefer the C64 version of The Last Ninja but I still like this version too. Worth a play-through for the music alone! Frustrating game until you learn the jumps. Rick Dangerous is still worse though!

 

[rnlval]

Oh, I agree 100% If Commodore had made a bigger jump in a CPU for the A1200, the 060, for example, it would have been a different story. Once Motorola could mass-produce them, it would have brought the costs down. I've played Quake on an 060 and it runs pretty damned great.

The problem is, as I mentioned before, is that the 020 was severely underpowered and was already pretty much obsolete when it was launched, with only a tiny number of games and apps built for it. Even those that are AGA specific are not that much different at all, TBH. Also the sound capability wasn't upgraded that much, if at all.

Again, this is all the greed of the Commodore CEO's who thought they could make a quick buck with the CD32 and the A1200.

As for A1200, Commodore configured the system with shared 32-bit memory hence 68EC020 @14 Mhz could not reach 4X over A500's 68000 @ 7.09 Mhz 16-bit, hence 68EC020 CPU performs like 7Mhz 32-bit instead of 14 Mhz 32-bit. Adding CPU's dedicated memory pool enables 4X over A500's CPU and AGA to perform better.

Commodore is aware of PC's chunky pixel format for Doom-type games, hence CD32's Aikiko chunky pixel to planar pixel hardware, but Commodore gimped CD32's 68EC020 CPU like on A1200.

IBM original VGA with Athlon XP 1.8Ghz CPU is slower than Amiga's AGA.


Results of timedemo were:
360x480 - 3,2FPS
320x240 - 7FPS
320x200 - 8,6FPS
Tested on Athlon XP 2200+, Soltek SL75-KAV (Via KT133A), 512MB SDR CL3.


IBM's original VGA is a slow frame buffer. Amiga AGA and PC clone VGA/SVGA chipsets like Tseng Labs ET4000 are faster.

16-bit audio would have placed an extra burden on the shared CHIP RAM bus. Amiga 500 already has four 8 bit DACs while competition has two or one 8-bit DACs.Amiga 500's Paula chip is missing DSP to mix extra audio channels. On the PC, low-cost AC97 or HD Audio provides the DACs with CPU MMX/SSE/AVX SIMD provides DSP mixing.


CD32's Aikiko chunky pixel to planar pixel hardware has problems with 68030's Data Cache.




(CD32 playing Doom with Aikiko and 68030 @ 50 Mhz. vs A1200 playing Doom (Doom Attack port) with 68030 @ 50Mhz




Amiga 500 with 68030 @ 50 Mhz with Graffiti (dumb frame buffer chunky pixel format) attached on RGB port.


PC's VGA standard has both chunky pixel and planar pixel modes.

------------------
As stock configured and Doom game, A1200 is unable to match PC 386DX33 + ET.4000 ($129 USD in Q3 1993) , 486SX25 + VLB SVGA and SNES with SuperFX2.

Amiga 4000/040 was expensive which cost more than 486SX @25-33Mhz and 486DX @Mhz 25-33 in Q1-Q4 1993.

For 1993, Commodore's asking price for Amiga 4000/030 @25 Mhz is higher than 486SX @25-33Mhz + ET.4000 configured PC. 68030 is inferior to Havard pipelined Intel 80486 CPU which is a 68040 class CPU. Apple's Quadra 605 has $1000 USD entry price with 68LC040 @25 Mhz.

Both Motorola 68040 and Intel 80486 have "Havard" pipelined integer ALU/AGU and an FPU unit.

Intel's management was superior when compared to Motorola's.

 

[rnlval]

Since I had it plugged in. This is in 25fps to somewhat sync with the PAL Amiga. 30 and 60fps looks like crap.

Turrican on Amiga 500 - Everything here is 30+ years old. Floppy disc, Amiga 500, Philips 8833 old tube monitor, Wico joystick. And it still works!


It’s a bummer I can’t record in PAL 50, this era of actual good european gaming history will soon only exist on a Wikipedia page.

PC 486 running 256 color Turrican 2





Amiga AGA running PC's MS-DOS 256 colors Turrican 2 port.

 

[Fredrik]

PC 486 running 256 color Turrican 2





Amiga AGA running PC's MS-DOS 256 colors Turrican 2 port.

Wild! I didn’t even know there was a PC version of Turrican 2. Main character looks odd but otherwise it’s looking nice.

 

[Fredrik]

For the Pimiga fans, might’ve been posted already in the thread but check out Odyssey, a game by 2 people for the Amiga 500. Really impressive animations, smooth, they’ve thought about the character always holding the sword in the right hand no matter which direction he’s facing, usually characters are just mirrored.

 

[Redneckerz]

AGA with 68LC040 or AGA with 68LC060/68060 would have delivered better 3D gaming results when compared to AAA with 68030.

Agreed. Various ports to the system, such as Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior, require an 68060. The Demoscene relies on AGA/060 with 64 MB ram as a standard, providing processing power at just about a Pentium 1.

Amiga CD32 with AT&T 3210 DSP would be better than SNES SuperFX2 (16-bit Integer DSP, about 8 MIPS).

It should be noted that Terriblefire was/is working on a 68060 accelerator for the CD32 called the TF360. If released and capable of being stored inside, it would have been a worthy PSX/N64 competitor.

As a dumb raster frame buffer, AGA is enough for Quake-type games when there's 68060 @ 63 to 100Mhz level CPU which renders Amiga Hombre PA-RISC @ 100Mhz non-SIMD capability nearly pointless.

Agreed. And it is interesting to note that Hombre would include SIMD - The concept is living on in the Vampire V4 Standalone and accelerators by Apollo Team. Using a softcore on a FPGA, their 68080 processor is incredibly fast for Amiga, and it includes a new graphics core, SAGA.

What's more, with AMMX they implemented SIMD support, with fascinating results. A Doom port made for Vampire V4 would easily be one of the most performant Doom clones for Amiga.

As stock configured and Doom game, A1200 is unable to match PC 386DX33 + ET.4000 ($129 USD in Q3 1993) , 486SX25 + VLB SVGA and SNES with SuperFX2.

Whilst i can respect the PC comparison (A fast 386/slow 486 is what an A1200 at stock is), the comparison with SNES is less accurate considering the SNES relies on a custom engine and drops significant detail to achieve a Doom-like experience on the hardware.

Having said that, thanks to the wonderful Doom community we can actually simulate some of the visual settings seen in that port on PC hardware of the time, with FastDoom, which is a source port designed to run as fast as possible on 386/486 equivalent hardware. Achieving the SNES look was an interesting forte.

Lastly, Outside of relatively known Doom ports for the Amiga such as DoomAttack, the platform did play host to various source ports - Sometimes with rather unique features. In recent years, programmer NovaCoder has also ported several PC engines to the platform - Odamex, ZDoom 1.x, Boom and Chocolate Doom. Find a list of these here.

Note: FastDoom and Amiga list links written by me, covered most of the Doom ports for Amiga.

 

[rnlval]

Agreed. Various ports to the system, such as Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior, require an 68060. The Demoscene relies on AGA/060 with 64 MB ram as a standard, providing processing power at just about a Pentium 1.

1. It should be noted that Terriblefire was/is working on a 68060 accelerator for the CD32 called the TF360. If released and capable of being stored inside, it would have been a worthy PSX/N64 competitor.

2. Agreed. And it is interesting to note that Hombre would include SIMD - The concept is living on in the Vampire V4 Standalone and accelerators by Apollo Team. Using a softcore on a FPGA, their 68080 processor is incredibly fast for Amiga, and it includes a new graphics core, SAGA.

3. What's more, with AMMX they implemented SIMD support, with fascinating results. A Doom port made for Vampire V4 would easily be one of the most performant Doom clones for Amiga.

4. Whilst i can respect the PC comparison (A fast 386/slow 486 is what an A1200 at stock is), the comparison with SNES is less accurate considering the SNES relies on a custom engine and drops significant detail to achieve a Doom-like experience on the hardware.

Having said that, thanks to the wonderful Doom community we can actually simulate some of the visual settings seen in that port on PC hardware of the time, with FastDoom, which is a source port designed to run as fast as possible on 386/486 equivalent hardware. Achieving the SNES look was an interesting forte.

5. Lastly, Outside of relatively known Doom ports for the Amiga such as DoomAttack, the platform did play host to various source ports - Sometimes with rather unique features. In recent years, programmer NovaCoder has also ported several PC engines to the platform - Odamex, ZDoom 1.x, Boom and Chocolate Doom. Find a list of these here.

6. Note: FastDoom and Amiga list links written by me, covered most of the Doom ports for Amiga.

1. I have TF1260 and I'm aware of TF360 for CD32, but it's too late at 1993. Commodore didn't release official SKU to counter $1000 Quadra 605 (with 68LC040 @ 25 Mhz) and $800--$1000 486SX25 in H2 1993 time period. Amiga was caught between SNES from the bottom and falling price 486SX25 PC from the top.

I agree with CD32 with a TF360-like solution would be a worthy PSX/N64 competitor. This is like a classic Pentium in a game console.

2. Apollo's Vampire near SoC cards have a German Phase 5 style expensive price tag.

3. Apollo's Vampire lacks OpenGL acceleration which is included with Amiga Hombre. SGI designed N64 was released in 1996. Amiga Hombre's PA-71xx CPU was compliant with Windows NT. MS pre-"Xbox" partnership with Commodore effectively started before Sega Dreamcast. Actually, PowerPC with Altivec SIMD already reached and exceeded Amiga Hombre's CPU specs, but Phase 5 wasn't interested in A500/A1200's price segment.

For 1996, I purchased Pentium 150 + S3 Trio 64 based PC instead of upgrading my Amiga 3000 with non-price competitive Phase 5's Cyberstorm 060 and Cybergraphics 64 (S3 Trio 64). My Amiga 500/3000 and 386DX33+ET.4000 PC were purchased by my Dad's bank account.

4. SNES has an official Doom port without ceiling and floor textures. Can-it-run Doom tick box marketing has been ticked which enabled Nintendo to release N64 in PC Quake's release year 1996. Commodore didn't respond against John Carmack's mindshare attack on the Amiga platform.

Stock Amiga 1200 with fast ram's DOOM performance is like 386DX @ 20Mhz with slowish VGA.



Stock Amiga 1200 (with fast ram)'s DOOM performance via Doom Attack port.

VS

PC 386DX33 with ET4000's DOOM performance



5. FYI, I'm using DoomAttack-AIO on my Amiga 1200/TF1260.

 

[Fredrik]

Commodore didn't respond against John Carmack's mindshare attack on the Amiga platform.

What’s this about? I like Carmack, am I going to have to dislike him now?

 

[West Texas CEO]

For the Amiga fans out there. This is mine

Wow. I love those Amiga 500's, as the good air down there keeps them nice and clean. You want a threesome then let me know, I'll be on the first flight out.

 

[TLZ]

I never had these but I used to see them in magazines and was always curious about them. No nostalgia for them of course, but I'm still curious. So luckily they've made The C64 which I'm thinking of getting even though it's on the pricey side, and they're making the Amiga 500 mini which I've pre-ordered. Not cheap though.

Regarding The C64, I could go for the mini, but I watched a review from the 8bit guy and I'm not liking the sound lag it has. The C64 doesn't have that. Can the mini be hacked with The C64's firmware instead?

 

[Markio128]

This thread has brought back some great memories. Sensible Soccer was probably my fave Amiga game. As crazy as it sounds, my favourite Commodore computer will always be the Vic 20, just because it introduced me to programming. I wrote so many crappy text adventures and quizzes for family and friends on that thing.

 

[rnlval]

What’s this about? I like Carmack, am I going to have to dislike him now?

From https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.amiga.games/c/MZb9cC0FMhw?pli=1

From jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com Sun Sep 4 02:52 EST 1994
From: John Carmack <jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 94 11:50:23 -0600
To: G.San...@ais.gu.edu.au
Subject: amiga doom

The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full
speed of a 68040 to play the game properly even if you have a chunky
pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill
it even on the fastest amiga hardware, not to mention the effect it
would have on the majority of the amiga base.

John Carmack
---------------------



1. SNES's official DOOM port has missing ceiling and floor textures.




2. Amiga with 68030 @ 50 Mhz with optimized C2P run DOOM with lower pixel settings



Commodore didn't pull a SNES SuperFX2 DOOM stop-gap marketing tickbox tactic i.e. release official A1200 SKU with 68EC030 @ 50 Mhz or 68LC040 @ 25Mhz CPU card.

A lot of posters in https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.amiga.games/c/MZb9cC0FMhw?pli=1 that supported John Carmark's argument was debunked. Based on Amiga's Doom Attack port on stock Amiga 1200 with fast ram, it can play SNES's missing ceiling and floor textures DOOM port.

 

[Agent X]

Regarding The C64, I could go for the mini, but I watched a review from the 8bit guy and I'm not liking the sound lag it has. The C64 doesn't have that. Can the mini be hacked with The C64's firmware instead?

Both TheC64 Mini and TheC64 full-size have been using a single common firmware for the last few updates. I haven't noticed any sound lag on the Mini, but I don't have a full-size TheC64 to compare. I believe Fredrik has both of them, so he might be able to share his experience.

 

[TLZ]

Both TheC64 Mini and TheC64 full-size have been using a single common firmware for the last few updates. I haven't noticed any sound lag on the Mini, but I don't have a full-size TheC64 to compare. I believe Fredrik has both of them, so he might be able to share his experience.

Thanks mate.

Fredrik help!

 

[Trimesh]

As a dumb raster frame buffer, AGA is enough for Quake-type games when there's 68060 @ 63 to 100Mhz level CPU which renders Amiga Hombre PA-RISC @ 100Mhz non-SIMD capability nearly pointless.

Amiga Hombre's PA-RISC innovation is the 64-bit MMX like SIMD instruction set @ 100 Mhz single CPU core, coupled with 3D texture mapping engine, Gouraud shading, and Z-buffering hardware. PA-RISC's dual integer SIMD pipelines can handle pixel shading and game logic workloads while fully pipeline FPU handles geometry. Commodore's selection for HP PA-RISC 71xx CPU is mostly due to about 1 million transistor budget for CGS (Commodore Semiconductor Group) fabrication capabilities.

PA-RISC always struck me as a strange choice for that application - it had decent performance but it was a real pig in power consumption terms. One place I worked at had a two-cabinet HP9000 Superdome in the machine room with a big 'DO NOT TURN ON" label on it. When I asked what it was about, it turned out that the machine worked fine - but it too so much power that when run in conjunction with the other equipment that had been installed after it was taken out of service it would overload the electrical supply. They were waiting for it to become fully capitalized so they could scrap it.

 

[Fredrik]

Both TheC64 Mini and TheC64 full-size have been using a single common firmware for the last few updates. I haven't noticed any sound lag on the Mini, but I don't have a full-size TheC64 to compare. I believe Fredrik has both of them, so he might be able to share his experience.

Thanks mate.

Fredrik help!

Yeah I’ve seen his review with the sound latency, I haven’t done any comparisons myself but he seemed more professional than I could ever be so definitely go with his words over mine here. I could do a rough comparison to an original C64 on my old CRT monitor if I have time but I think if you haven’t had a C64 back in the days then both TheC64 models are good. Personally I’m not bothered by the latency, I’m just glad I can game on a modern screen and use a USB stick for games, using original hardware today comes with lots of hurdles and generally isn’t worth the money or effort to get right.
It’s the full sized one I’m using and would recommend though, it’s big but the real keyboard makes things better in my opinion.

I want the full size A500 as well but I understand their thinking here regarding releasing the mini, the original 500 is so big that even a fan might be put off by the size…

 

[TLZ]

Yeah I’ve seen his review with the sound latency, I haven’t done any comparisons myself but he seemed more professional than I could ever be so definitely go with his words over mine here. I could do a rough comparison to an original C64 on my old CRT monitor if I have time but I think if you haven’t had a C64 back in the days then both TheC64 models are good. Personally I’m not bothered by the latency, I’m just glad I can game on a modern screen and use a USB stick for games, using original hardware today comes with lots of hurdles and generally isn’t worth the money or effort to get right.
It’s the full sized one I’m using and would recommend though, it’s big but the real keyboard makes things better in my opinion.

I want the full size A500 as well but I understand their thinking here regarding releasing the mini, the original 500 is so big that even a fan might be put off by the size…

Thanks

If you can compare the sound lag between the mini and the maxi that'd be great. No need for the original hardware. I just want to decide which one to get. The sound lag on the mini is pushing me towards the maxi.

Also, are there many games that use the keyboard? Total Amiga noob here. If yes, I'd rather use the maxi's keyboard than connect another keyboard to the mini.

And ouf that original a500 really is massive!

 

[rnlval]

PA-RISC always struck me as a strange choice for that application - it had decent performance but it was a real pig in power consumption terms. One place I worked at had a two-cabinet HP9000 Superdome in the machine room with a big 'DO NOT TURN ON" label on it. When I asked what it was about, it turned out that the machine worked fine - but it too so much power that when run in conjunction with the other equipment that had been installed after it was taken out of service it would overload the electrical supply. They were waiting for it to become fully capitalized so they could scrap it.

HP 9000 Superdome PA-RISC models can scale beyond a single CPU socket e.g. https://www.touchpoint.com.au/shop/a5201a-hp-9000-superdome-32-proccessor-sx1000-chipset-server/
32 processor server.

Amiga Hombre was a single CPU core low-cost version.

PA-RISC 1.0 and 2.0 instruction set has 64-bit SIMD running on GPR (General Purpose Registers).

For comparison, my Ryzen 9 3900X has 12 cores with 24 threads and 48 256-bit AVX v2 units. Each Zen 2 core has quad 256-bit AVX units. X86 MMX runs on X87 registers. X86 SSE/AVX runs on SIMD registers.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_9000#Workstation_models
For HP Unix workstations, PA-RISC replaced Motorola 68K powered Unix workstations.

Incidentally, AmigaOne A1222's PowerPC-based P1022 has its non-Altivec 64-bit SIMD running on GPR. Normal PowerPC's 128 bit Altivec SIMD runs on SIMD registers.

 

[rnlval]

Yeah I’ve seen his review with the sound latency, I haven’t done any comparisons myself but he seemed more professional than I could ever be so definitely go with his words over mine here. I could do a rough comparison to an original C64 on my old CRT monitor if I have time but I think if you haven’t had a C64 back in the days then both TheC64 models are good. Personally I’m not bothered by the latency, I’m just glad I can game on a modern screen and use a USB stick for games, using original hardware today comes with lots of hurdles and generally isn’t worth the money or effort to get right.
It’s the full sized one I’m using and would recommend though, it’s big but the real keyboard makes things better in my opinion.

I want the full size A500 as well but I understand their thinking here regarding releasing the mini, the original 500 is so big that even a fan might be put off by the size…

A1200 is smaller than the A500. A1200's case is effectively a full-size keyboard A600.

 

[Fredrik]

A1200 is smaller than the A500. A1200's case is effectively a full-size keyboard A600.

Yup, a full size A1200 would probably be a better idea.
I have an original A1200 with DVI out and CF card, so in theory I’m already set, but I always worry that these old computers will die any second so I’d still be there day 0 if Retro Games launched a modern full size version.

I have to say though, the Pimiga on Pi400 isn’t too bad, it’s close enough that I can accept a few issues. I experienced slow down in Turrican though, don’t remember the original having that, happened in the jetpack stage (3?). Haven’t looked into the UAE settings much though, maybe it’s fixable.

 

[Redneckerz]

1. I have TF1260 and I'm aware of TF360 for CD32, but it's too late at 1993. Commodore didn't release official SKU to counter $1000 Quadra 605 (with 68LC040 @ 25 Mhz) and $800--$1000 486SX25 in H2 1993 time period. Amiga was caught between SNES from the bottom and falling price 486SX25 PC from the top.

But so is the 68060 at 1996. Then again a CD32 with 68060 could have happened atleast in terms of parts. The pricing however would be unobtainium, even more so for a console, unless Commodore would want to deal with massive losses. Losses they couldn't attain at that point either way.

AGA was good, but it was also too much focussed on 2D. 3D texturemapping basically only came about with faster processors, brute forcing it. Atleast Dread shows us that a reasonable Doom clone is possible on Amiga 500:

2. Apollo's Vampire near SoC cards have a German Phase 5 style expensive price tag.

The Vampire V4 Standalone comes in a very small self-contained unit. At 699 euro's, its a Rolls Royce machine, but in terms of classic Amiga, its best-in-class, with its true potential still to be unlocked.

3. Apollo's Vampire lacks OpenGL acceleration which is included with Amiga Hombre.

Hmm. It includes a OpenGL ''library'', but it does not mention actively making use of acceleration. I would go along with the most obvious choice that they do mean acceleration, but one can have a OpenGL library, but not accelerate it - OpenGL can be rendered in software.

For 1996, I purchased Pentium 150 + S3 Trio 64 based PC instead of upgrading my Amiga 3000 with non-price competitive Phase 5's Cyberstorm 060 and Cybergraphics 64 (S3 Trio 64). My Amiga 500/3000 and 386DX33+ET.4000 PC were purchased by my Dad's bank account.

Meh, it could have worked, but just like how the PC98 ended up going from a PC-like machine to an actual PC clone, so did Amiga.

4. SNES has an official Doom port without ceiling and floor textures.

Yes, but what does that mean in relation to what i said?

5. FYI, I'm using DoomAttack-AIO on my Amiga 1200/TF1260.

One of the fastest Amiga ports, not the most feature-rich. ADoom has DeHacked support and can handle crazy-for-amiga resolutions (1600x1280).

A port to SAGA would be interesting to see.

What’s this about? I like Carmack, am I going to have to dislike him now?

Carmack has stated the Amiga couldn't run Doom for the reason its graphical sub system differed so much with what Doom needed.

That the Amiga, evidently, was and is capable of running Doom, is another discussion.

 

[rnlval]

1. But so is the 68060 at 1996. Then again a CD32 with 68060 could have happened atleast in terms of parts. The pricing however would be unobtainium, even more so for a console, unless Commodore would want to deal with massive losses. Losses they couldn't attain at that point either way.

2. AGA was good, but it was also too much focussed on 2D. 3D texturemapping basically only came about with faster processors, brute forcing it. Atleast Dread shows us that a reasonable Doom clone is possible on Amiga 500:



3. The Vampire V4 Standalone comes in a very small self-contained unit. At 699 euro's, its a Rolls Royce machine, but in terms of classic Amiga, its best-in-class, with its true potential still to be unlocked.


4. Hmm. It includes a OpenGL ''library'', but it does not mention actively making use of acceleration. I would go along with the most obvious choice that they do mean acceleration, but one can have a OpenGL library, but not accelerate it - OpenGL can be rendered in software.


5. Meh, it could have worked, but just like how the PC98 ended up going from a PC-like machine to an actual PC clone, so did Amiga.

6. Yes, but what does that mean in relation to what i said?


7. One of the fastest Amiga ports, not the most feature-rich. ADoom has DeHacked support and can handle crazy-for-amiga resolutions (1600x1280).

A port to SAGA would be interesting to see.

8. Carmack has stated the Amiga couldn't run Doom for the reason its graphical sub system differed so much with what Doom needed.

That the Amiga, evidently, was and is capable of running Doom, is another discussion.

1. 68060 was released in 1994. 68060 has a similar socket infrastructure as 68040/68LC040. 68LC040 or 68040V (3.3V 68LC040 variant, introduced in 1995) is enough for DOOM.

2. Dread's C2P process is hardware accelerated via the Blitter. Dread's frame rate is about 20-to-25 fps range on stock Amiga 1200.

Dread's recent texture improvements


It shows the importance of platform holders having a good 1st party games studio.


3. $699 EURO translates into $820.57 USD. Vampire V4 (Intel Cyclone V FPGA) repeats the same pricing mistakes as Phase 5 (designed in Germany)'s.

5CEFA9 CYCLONE V FPGA Core Development Board System Board...

5CEFA9 CYCLONE V FPGA Core Development Board System Board...

aus.grandado.com

Cyclone V FPGA Core Development Board System Board has $124.29 AUD or about $89.65 USD price tag.

P0150 Terasic Inc. | Development Boards, Kits, Programmers | DigiKey

Order today, ships today. P0150 – Cyclone V GX series FPGA Evaluation Board from Terasic Inc.. Pricing and Availability on millions of electronic components from Digi-Key Electronics.

www.digikey.com.au

Terasic Inc. P0150 (Cyclone V FPGA) with $232 AUD or about $167.56 USD

For comparison, Vampire V4 (Cyclone V FPGA) PCB

Both CS-Labs (Warp A1260) and Apollo Accelerators (designed in Germany) "gold plated" hardware cost like Phase 5.

The cost for TF1260 with 68LC060 is closer to 68030 based A1230 accelerators. Then there's Buffee accelerator for A1200 i.e. TI's ARM-based OSD335x System-in-Package with 68K bus. Buffee is named to slay Vampire. Buffee accelerator is similar to PiStorm(with Raspberry Pi Model 3A+), but TI's ARM SoC has a 68K bus interface. TI's OSD335x is designed for legacy 68K machines.

Vampire V2/V4 is missing 68K MMU, hence unable to run Linux Debian 68K.

4. Amiga Hombre's IGP has hardware-accelerated texture units and Z-buffer. Parts of OpenGL that are useful for real-time render can be hardware accelerated e.g. refer to 3DFX's Glide kitbash example.

5. Quake was released in June 1996. I was aware of Quake via magazines' previews prior to June 1996.



I was also aware of 1995 era Fight Unlimited on 2nd gen classic Pentium, hence I planned for Pentium PC build during 1995. Crytek's Crysis wasn't 1st instance that driven gaming PC hardware sales.

2nd gen classic Pentium 0.6 μm =75 Mhz to 120 Mhz
3rd gen classic Pentium 0.35 μm =120 Mhz to 200 Mhz

Pentium 150 was released on January 4, 1996.

6. John Carmack allowed a cutdown Doom port for SNES with SuperFX2 add-on carriage while condemned the Amiga.

7. Performance is a priority. Essential performance is important over "gold plated" features.

8. John Carmark's argument was debunked.

 

[rnlval]

Yup, a full size A1200 would probably be a better idea.
I have an original A1200 with DVI out and CF card, so in theory I’m already set, but I always worry that these old computers will die any second so I’d still be there day 0 if Retro Games launched a modern full size version.

I have to say though, the Pimiga on Pi400 isn’t too bad, it’s close enough that I can accept a few issues. I experienced slow down in Turrican though, don’t remember the original having that, happened in the jetpack stage (3?). Haven’t looked into the UAE settings much though, maybe it’s fixable.

My A1200's IDE port has the boot AmigaOS and Work partitions CF card while TF1260's IDE port has the CF slot in the rear breakout panel.

I re-capped my A1200 with Panasonic caps. Both of my Surface Pro 4 (Core i5-6300U, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB NVMe + 256 GB mSD ) and Lenovo Thinkpad L14 (Ryzen 7 4750U, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB NVMe) handles retro-emulation including WinUAE. I'm running beta WinUAE that emulates Voodoo 3 3D RTG and PowerPC AmigaOS 4.1 FE setup.

 

[Fredrik]

My A1200's IDE port has the boot AmigaOS and Work partitions CF card while TF1260's IDE port has the CF slot in the rear breakout panel.

I re-capped my A1200 with Panasonic caps. Both of my Surface Pro 4 (Core i5-6300U, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB NVMe + 256 GB mSD ) and Lenovo Thinkpad L14 (Ryzen 7 4750U, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB NVMe) handles retro-emulation including WinUAE. I'm running beta WinUAE that emulates Voodoo 3 3D RTG and PowerPC AmigaOS 4.1 FE setup.

I’m out of the loop on the TF1260. Could you take a photo of that rear CF slot setup? Can you swap CF cards without opening it up?
Sounds awesome if it is like I imagine it right now.

 

[rnlval]

I’m out of the loop on the TF1260. Could you take a photo of that rear CF slot setup? Can you swap CF cards without opening it up?
Sounds awesome if it is like I imagine it right now.

For the CF slot back panel for the A1200, refer to https://amigakit.amiga.store/a1200-compact-flash-back-plate-adapter-p-1216.html

I can use either a CF-to-PCMCIA adapter or CF slot back panel on A1200. TF1260's IDE port has MacOS 8.0 for ShapeShifter VM.

 

[Trimesh]

HP 9000 Superdome PA-RISC models can scale beyond a single CPU socket e.g. https://www.touchpoint.com.au/shop/a5201a-hp-9000-superdome-32-proccessor-sx1000-chipset-server/
32 processor server.

Amiga Hombre was a single CPU core low-cost version.

PA-RISC 1.0 and 2.0 instruction set has 64-bit SIMD running on GPR (General Purpose Registers).

For comparison, my Ryzen 9 3900X has 12 cores with 24 threads and 48 256-bit AVX v2 units. Each Zen 2 core has quad 256-bit AVX units. X86 MMX runs on X87 registers. X86 SSE/AVX runs on SIMD registers.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_9000#Workstation_models
For HP Unix workstations, PA-RISC replaced Motorola 68K powered Unix workstations.

Incidentally, AmigaOne A1222's PowerPC-based P1022 has its non-Altivec 64-bit SIMD running on GPR. Normal PowerPC's 128 bit Altivec SIMD runs on SIMD registers.

From what I remember, this machine was either 64 sockets or 64 cores (probably the latter) and a had a lot of memory - but it also had an absurd power consumption. Of course, the Superdome was high end at the time, so the high power was understandable. However, we also had a number of HP9000 PA-RISC deskside workstation machines and they made highly effective heaters too. Even the little "pizza box" desktops kicked out a lot of hot air. I just have a very strong association with PA-RISC being an architecture that ran very hot in most cases.

Very nicely made machines, though - it's quite depressing to compare them with what passes for a "HP Computer" now.

 

[rnlval]

From what I remember, this machine was either 64 sockets or 64 cores (probably the latter) and a had a lot of memory - but it also had an absurd power consumption. Of course, the Superdome was high end at the time, so the high power was understandable. However, we also had a number of HP9000 PA-RISC deskside workstation machines and they made highly effective heaters too. Even the little "pizza box" desktops kicked out a lot of hot air. I just have a very strong association with PA-RISC being an architecture that ran very hot in most cases.

Very nicely made machines, though - it's quite depressing to compare them with what passes for a "HP Computer" now.

https://unixhq.com/websgt/712-60-80-100.pdf

HP 9000 Models 712/60 , 712/80 , and 712/100 Workstations using PA7100LC from 66 Mhz to 100Mhz, 70 watts to 110 watts

PA7100LC (900,000 transistors) @ 80 Mhz, MIPS: 92.0, MFLOPS DP: 27.6, Includes MAX-1 64 bit integer SIMD.
PA7100LC (900,000 transistors) @ 100 Mhz, MIPS: 125, MFLOPS DP:34, Includes MAX-1 64 bit integer SIMD.


For comparison,

Amiga 1200 (with 68060 rev 1 @ 66 Mhz, 2.1 million transistors) has about 25 watts system total, MIPS: 88, MFLOPS DP: 29 (close to SysInfo's benchmark results). Amiga 1200 uses a low-power laptop hard disk type.

68060 rev 4/5/6 @ 75 Mhz has MIPS: 110, MFLOPS DP: 32


MIPS and MFLOPS comparisons are theoretical.

In modern terms, 70 watts to 110 watts range are Desktop Replacement Laptops (e.g. H series X86-64 CPU and powerful mobile-desktop GPUs), Xbox One, and Xbox Series S.

HP has licensed PA-RISC 7150 design to Commodore's semi-custom PA-RISC-based Amiga CD64. PA7100LC's transistor budget vs preformance ratio is good.

 

[Trimesh]

https://unixhq.com/websgt/712-60-80-100.pdf

HP 9000 Models 712/60 , 712/80 , and 712/100 Workstations using PA7100LC from 66 Mhz to 100Mhz, 70 watts to 110 watts

So where did you get those numbers from? The document you linked says:

2.7 Amps RMS max @ 120V
1.2 Amps RMS max @ 240V

So using the 120V rating you get 324W - which is pretty high for a pizza box and perfectly consistent with the memories I have of them blowing noticeably warm air.

 

[Fredrik]

For the CF slot back panel for the A1200, refer to https://amigakit.amiga.store/a1200-compact-flash-back-plate-adapter-p-1216.html

I can use either a CF-to-PCMCIA adapter or CF slot back panel on A1200. TF1260's IDE port has MacOS 8.0 for ShapeShifter VM.

Ah okay, that’s where I have the DVI out :/
For moving files I use the PCMCIA slot and a Compact Flash adapter. It works but I don’t like how it’s sticking out.

 

[rnlval]

So where did you get those numbers from? The document you linked says:

2.7 Amps RMS max @ 120V
1.2 Amps RMS max @ 240V

So using the 120V rating you get 324W - which is pretty high for a pizza box and perfectly consistent with the memories I have of them blowing noticeably warm air.

Maximum power input 110 watts max.

I don't use PSU's max specs which doesn't reflect the real power consumption. With your logic, I could use Amiga 3000's PSU numbers and argue that as the Amiga's power consumtpion but that's not applicable for the Amiga 1200.

 

[rnlval]

Ah okay, that’s where I have the DVI out :/
For moving files I use the PCMCIA slot and a Compact Flash adapter. It works but I don’t like how it’s sticking out.

I'm using Dell U2410 series monitor with 15 khz VGA. I remove A1200's RF modulator to make way for any future HDMI port.

 

[Fredrik]

This will be off topic but it’s Commodore at least, I just enjoy these old computers, I’m amazed that they’re still functional, started up an old Commodore 128 on the Philips 8833 monitor I posted about earlier, 80 column mode, no prob, it just works!

1977 Microsoft copyright notice, time flies lol

 

[Redneckerz]

1. 68060 was released in 1994. 68060 has a similar socket infrastructure as 68040/68LC040. 68LC040 or 68040V (3.3V 68LC040 variant, introduced in 1995) is enough for DOOM.

Okay. I am not sure what you want to highlight here. I suspect a date correction?

2. Dread's C2P process is hardware accelerated via the Blitter. Dread's frame rate is about 20-to-25 fps range on stock Amiga 1200.

Dread's recent texture improvements


It shows the importance of platform holders having a good 1st party games studio.

I have covered Dread on DoomWorld, here.

3. $699 EURO translates into $820.57 USD. Vampire V4 (Intel Cyclone V FPGA) repeats the same pricing mistakes as Phase 5 (designed in Germany)'s.

Vampire V4 is a niche device. It does not sell in the millions. Thus, manufactuering costs are significant, hence the high price. Then again a full Standalone system has a case, includes OS, memory, and custom Apollo core.

The cost for TF1260 with 68LC060 is closer to 68030 based A1230 accelerators. Then there's Buffee accelerator for A1200 i.e. TI's ARM-based OSD335x System-in-Package with 68K bus. Buffee is named to slay Vampire. Buffee accelerator is similar to PiStorm(with Raspberry Pi Model 3A+), but TI's ARM SoC has a 68K bus interface. TI's OSD335x is designed for legacy 68K machines.

Has Buffee specific software? Does Buffee contain a new graphics processor or is it just brute forcing it through its Cortex cores?

Vampire V2/V4 is missing 68K MMU, hence unable to run Linux Debian 68K.

But why would you, when the V4 is meant to propel AmigaOS 3.2 to new heights? Its not in the scope of the machine.

4. Amiga Hombre's IGP has hardware-accelerated texture units and Z-buffer. Parts of OpenGL that are useful for real-time render can be hardware accelerated e.g. refer to 3DFX's Glide kitbash example.

Do you have a link to that example? Unfortunately Hombre IGP has no real world performances figures last i checked.

I was also aware of 1995 era Fight Unlimited on 2nd gen classic Pentium, hence I planned for Pentium PC build during 1995. Crytek's Crysis wasn't 1st instance that driven gaming PC hardware sales.

Or how about 1993's Strike Commander? Pushing 3D worlds in 1993. Basically needs a Pentium.

6. John Carmack allowed a cutdown Doom port for SNES with SuperFX2 add-on carriage while condemned the Amiga.

Which is baffling really. I reckon that seeing the SuperFX2 co-processor, being programmable, he figured it was more flexible than AGA.

7. Performance is a priority. Essential performance is important over "gold plated" features.

The 1600x1280 never really made sense - Even a PPC Amiga would struggle, requiring a rather fast PPC to pull it off. Or a Sam440EP.

EDIT: Ironically, the Sam440EP one was available as a prebuild - Relec: The Red One. Pretty nifty machine, 512 MB RAM built-in, as did a Radeon Mobility 9000.

8. John Carmark's argument was debunked.

It sure did! What's more, some Amiga ports had some unique/advanced features - ZhaDoomPPC was able to do 800x600 on a PPC Amiga in 1998 - Not a small feat.