The Amiga AGA Chipset

The AGA chipset formed the basis of the third generation of Amiga hardware. In the USA it was known as the AA chipset (Advanced Amiga), however the name was changed in Europe to avoid confusion with a certain motoring company.

The AGA chipset was released in August, 1992 as the new graphics processor for the A4000 high-end system, and later, in October, for the entry level A1200. It allowed screens to be opened that had 256 colours on screen from a palette of 16.8 millions (24-bit graphics), or over 640,000 in HAM8 mode. It was quite an advancement over the ECS.

Graphics Resolutions

The AGA chipset could display resolutions varying from 320 x 200 pixels non-interlaced 50 Hz up to:

1280 x 512 pixels interlaced 50 Hz.

640 x 480 pixels non-interlaced 60 Hz.

640 x 400 pixels non-interlaced 70 Hz.

It could also be expanded through a number of programmable modes. These came in the form of Monitor drivers such as VGAOnly, allowing the display of any system friendly program to "sync up" to the 31KHz used by PC monitors.

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