alt Hacker NewsI missed out on the Amiga (introduced in 1985) at the time, being an early PC adopter. Went from CGA (1981) directly to VGA (1987).
In terms of colors the most popular VGA modes (320x200 or 320x240, 256 color palette, 18 bit color depth) are superior to the most popular Amiga graphics modes (320×200 or 320x256, 32 color palette, 12 bit color depth).
But somehow Amiga graphics is still often nicer.
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The cost between an A500 and a VGA-enabled PC in 1987 ($699 vs $3500-ish?) would have put them in such different categories and customer segments that they would rarely interact.
I remember seeing a PC one of the rich kids brought to boarding school in 1990 and realising it was just crisper than my A500. The PC’s in the school lab were all green and orange screens with one colour CGA, so this was quite a surprise. Still took me some time to accept reality :)
15khz 320x200 with proper CRT scanlines (like in arcade games and home consoles and computers on a standard TV) is immensely more pleasing to the eye than the same resolution displayed on a PC monitor.
You had VGA in 1987?! That was very rare. You must have been an early adopter. Amiga users in '92 and '93 had great color and many PC users were still on EGA.
You're comparing 1987 VGA to 1985 Amiga? Not a realistic comparison.
Technology advanced much more rapidly in those days. Similar to how hard drive capacity seemed to double every six months for a while, or how there's a new bleeding edge AI model every three months today.
Also, VGA had 256 colors. The Amiga had 4,096 simultaneously.
It's because of the artists. The Amiga was a much more affordable art-making machine, so many artists made graphics ON the Amiga FOR the Amiga. There were even some good-looking VGA games that under utilized the PC's capabilities because they were essentially converted Amiga games.
Now for the shameless plug... My game's protagonist is an Amiga fan and the Amiga has a little cameo in it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3040110/Outsider/