The Amiga Smart File System • Hacker News Board

Re: The Amiga Smart File System

#31

Post by toyg » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

T-hawk wrote: post #29

toyg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most PCs couldn’t play Doom either, but they could be extended pretty cheaply with a better graphics card. That is what made the difference on the gaming side. The Amiga was kneecapped by mismanagement of its commercial side, including substantial opposition to third-party add-ons at a time when the PC side had standardized and unleashed the taiwanese. In the pro market, Commodore didn’t even know how to play - they…

That first part isn't right. Doom was entirely CPU-bound software rendering, and 3d rendering cards didn't exist yet. You couldn't upgrade a 386 or 486 PC to play Doom better, short of replacing the entire motherboard with a new CPU platform. What you're saying was fairly true by the time of QuakeGL and Quake 2 around 1997, but not Doom in 1993.

You could still add ram and better HDs, which would have helped. It was much more difficult and expensive to do that with the Amiga.

Re: The Amiga Smart File System

#32

Post by rasz » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 1:12 AM UTC

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #20

toyg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Argh, that link is cringeworthy. Amiga wasn't killed by piracy, but rather committed suicide thanks to atrocious commercial and stategic moves by Commodore's various owners. The DOS market had the same amount of piracy and none of the hardware manufacturers had any problem surviving.

I prefer to tell people amiga went out of business because they built the best computer in the world, and decided close down so everyone else could have a fair chance.

'they built the best computer in the world' yes, but then decided thats it we are done, and kept selling this one and the same computer for 9 years.

Re: The Amiga Smart File System

#33

Post by rasz » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 1:30 AM UTC

toyg wrote: post #31

T-hawk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That first part isn't right. Doom was entirely CPU-bound software rendering, and 3d rendering cards didn't exist yet. You couldn't upgrade a 386 or 486 PC to play Doom better, short of replacing the entire motherboard with a new CPU platform. What you're saying was fairly true by the time of QuakeGL and Quake 2 around 1997, but not Doom in 1993.

You could still add ram and better HDs, which would have helped. It was much more difficult and expensive to do that with the Amiga.

No amount of VGA, ram or HD upgrade would help with Doom. The difference between absolutely the worst 8bit ISA VGA cards (Realtek, RTG) and one of the fastest 16bit ones (ET4000) was 1-2fps on 386DX40, a whooping 10-30% of overall unplayable unless you are really stubborn The way you made Doom playable was swapping motherboard/cpu/ram/vga for a 40-66MHz 486/localbus ones at a cost of multiple A1200s, not exactly what one would call 'extended pretty cheaply'.

Re: The Amiga Smart File System

#34

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 1:36 AM UTC

T-hawk wrote: post #29

toyg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most PCs couldn’t play Doom either, but they could be extended pretty cheaply with a better graphics card. That is what made the difference on the gaming side. The Amiga was kneecapped by mismanagement of its commercial side, including substantial opposition to third-party add-ons at a time when the PC side had standardized and unleashed the taiwanese. In the pro market, Commodore didn’t even know how to play - they…

That first part isn't right. Doom was entirely CPU-bound software rendering, and 3d rendering cards didn't exist yet. You couldn't upgrade a 386 or 486 PC to play Doom better, short of replacing the entire motherboard with a new CPU platform. What you're saying was fairly true by the time of QuakeGL and Quake 2 around 1997, but not Doom in 1993.

> You couldn't upgrade a 386 or 486 PC to play Doom better, short of replacing the entire motherboard with a new CPU platform.

Yes, you could; CPU+chipset (and, in some cases, + RAM, IIRC) processor upgrades which plugged into an expansion card (to power some of the support hardware) and the processor socket existed.