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Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) is the third generation Amiga
Amiga

The Amiga is a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer....
 graphic chip set, first used in the Amiga 4000
Amiga 4000

The Commodore International Amiga 4000, or A4000, was the successor of the Amiga 2000 and Amiga 3000 computers. There are two models, the A4000/040 released in October 1992 with a Motorola 68040 Central processing unit, and the A4000/030 released in April 1993 with a Motorola 68EC030....
 in 1992. AGA was codenamed the Pandora chipset by Commodore International
Commodore International

Commodore, the commonly used name for Commodore International, was a United States electronics company based in West Chester, Pennsylvania which was a vital player in the home computer/personal computer field in the 1980s....
 internally.

AGA was originally called AA for Advanced Architecture in the United States. The name was later changed to AGA for the European market to reflect that it largely improved the graphical subsystem, and to avoid trademark issues.






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Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) is the third generation Amiga
Amiga

The Amiga is a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer....
 graphic chip set, first used in the Amiga 4000
Amiga 4000

The Commodore International Amiga 4000, or A4000, was the successor of the Amiga 2000 and Amiga 3000 computers. There are two models, the A4000/040 released in October 1992 with a Motorola 68040 Central processing unit, and the A4000/030 released in April 1993 with a Motorola 68EC030....
 in 1992. AGA was codenamed the Pandora chipset by Commodore International
Commodore International

Commodore, the commonly used name for Commodore International, was a United States electronics company based in West Chester, Pennsylvania which was a vital player in the home computer/personal computer field in the 1980s....
 internally.

AGA was originally called AA for Advanced Architecture in the United States. The name was later changed to AGA for the European market to reflect that it largely improved the graphical subsystem, and to avoid trademark issues.

AGA is able to display graphics modes with a depth of up to 8 bit per pixel. This allows for 256 colors in indexed display modes and 262144 colors (18-bit) in HAM
Ham

Ham is the thigh and rump of pork, cut from the haunch of a pig or boar. Although it may be cooked and served fresh, most ham is Curing in some fashion....
-8 (Hold-And-Modify
Hold-and-Modify

Hold-And-Modify, usually abbreviated as HAM, is a display mode of the Commodore International Amiga computer. It uses a highly unusual technique to express the color of pixels, allowing many more colors to appear on screen than would otherwise be possible....
) modes. The palette for the AGA chipset has 256 entries from 16777216 colors (24-bit), whereas previous chip sets (OCS and ECS) only allowed 32 colors out of 4096. Other features added to AGA over ECS were super hires smooth scrolling and 32-bit fast page memory fetches to supply the graphics data bandwidth for 8 bitplane graphics modes and wider sprites.

AGA was an incremental upgrade, rather than the dramatic upgrade of the other chipset that Commodore had begun in 1988, AAA
AAA chipset

The AAA chipset was intended to be the next-generation Amiga multimedia system designed by Commodore International. Initially began as a secret project, the first design discussions were started in 1988, and after many revisions and redesigns the first silicon versions were fabricated in 1992-1993....
, lacking many features that would have made it competitive with other graphic chip sets of its time. Apart from the graphics data fetches, AGA still operated on 16-bit data only, meaning that a lot of bandwidth was wasted during register accesses and copper and blitter
Blitter

In a computer system, a blitter is a co-processor or a logic block on a microprocessor that is dedicated to rapid data transfer within that computer's RAM....
 operations. Also the lack of a chunky graphics mode was a speed impediment to graphics operations not tailored for planar modes. In practice, the AGA HAM
Ham

Ham is the thigh and rump of pork, cut from the haunch of a pig or boar. Although it may be cooked and served fresh, most ham is Curing in some fashion....
 (Hold-And-Modify
Hold-and-Modify

Hold-And-Modify, usually abbreviated as HAM, is a display mode of the Commodore International Amiga computer. It uses a highly unusual technique to express the color of pixels, allowing many more colors to appear on screen than would otherwise be possible....
) mode was too slow to be useful except for displaying static images. Also, Workbench in 256 color AGA was of concern, being much slower than ECS operation modes for normal application use. AGA also lacked flicker free higher resolution modes; being only able to display 640x480 at 72Hz flicker-free operation. 800x600 mode was left useless as it could only operate at a flickering 60Hz. In contrast, PC systems of this era would easily operate 1024x768 at 72Hz with a full 256 color display. This left the AGA systems appear amateurish at a time when PCs were being priced more affordably than a comparable Amiga.

These missed opportunities in the AGA upgrade may have contributed to the Amiga
Amiga

The Amiga is a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer....
 ultimately losing technical leadership in the multimedia
Multimedia

Multimedia is media and content that utilizes a combination of different content format. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms....
 area. AGA was to be succeeded by the Hombre chipset
Hombre chipset

HistoryIn 1993, Commodore International cancelled the development of the AAA chipset and began to design a new 64 bit multimedia system with 3D computer graphics graphics chipset including fully RISC architecture that would once again bring the Amiga back into the limelight....
, after the long delayed AAA was finally shelved, which was ultimately cancelled due to Commodores bankruptcy.

AGA was used in the CD32
Amiga CD32

The Amiga CD32, styled "CD32", was the first 32-bit CD-ROM based video game console released in western Europe and Canada. It was first announced at the Science Museum in London, United Kingdom on 16 July 1993, and was released in September of the same year....
, Amiga 1200
Amiga 1200

The Amiga 1200, or A1200, was Commodore International's third-generation Amiga computer, aimed at the home market. It was launched in October 21, 1992, at a base price of ?399 in the United Kingdom and $599 in the United States....
 and Amiga 4000
Amiga 4000

The Commodore International Amiga 4000, or A4000, was the successor of the Amiga 2000 and Amiga 3000 computers. There are two models, the A4000/040 released in October 1992 with a Motorola 68040 Central processing unit, and the A4000/030 released in April 1993 with a Motorola 68EC030....
.

See also

  • OCS
    Original Amiga chipset

    The Original Chip Set was a chipset used in the earliest Commodore International Amiga computers and defined the Amiga's graphics and sound capabilities....
  • Amiga Ranger Chipset
    Amiga Ranger Chipset

    Amiga Ranger is a prototype computer that was supposed to be the second generation Amiga chipset prior to ECS release,designed by the orignal Los Gatos Amiga team including Jay Miner.however Commodore International didn't release this chipset due to its high cost...
  • ECS
    Enhanced Chip Set

    Enhanced Chip Set is the name used for the enhanced version of the Amiga computer's original chipset . ECS was introduced in 1990 debuting in the Amiga 3000....
  • AAA
    AAA chipset

    The AAA chipset was intended to be the next-generation Amiga multimedia system designed by Commodore International. Initially began as a secret project, the first design discussions were started in 1988, and after many revisions and redesigns the first silicon versions were fabricated in 1992-1993....
  • Hombre chipset
    Hombre chipset

    HistoryIn 1993, Commodore International cancelled the development of the AAA chipset and began to design a new 64 bit multimedia system with 3D computer graphics graphics chipset including fully RISC architecture that would once again bring the Amiga back into the limelight....
  • List of home computers by video hardware
    List of home computers by video hardware

    This is a list of home computers, sorted alphanumerically, which lists all relevant details of their Video Display Controller.A home computer was the description of the second generation of desktop computers, entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s....