Amiga Graphic Card Guide

Amiga Graphic Card Guide

All of the graphic cards released for Amiga hardware can be found here from the very beginning until now. I have also put graphic cards for Amiga hardware that dont have AmigaOS support.

[table id=9 /]

Some of these cards were sold as different versions. VRAM here is only saying the maximum of VRAM MEM that the card can use. There are also support for more modern graphic cards like Voodoo 3DFX and ATI Radeon. AmigaOS got 3D support for some of them. They are all PCI cards.

Amiga Graphics Capabilities without a Graphic Card inserted

The Amiga is capable of displaying various screen resolutions. All monitors and CRT TV’s got a picture aspect ratio of 4:3, but the pixel aspect ratio varied greately. The ratios in the lists are pixel aspect ratios and the are rounded to the nearest neighbour. In reality PAL pixels are a tiny bit wider than they are tall (16:15) and NTSC pixels are a bit taller than they are wide (8:9).

So here we go thru all of the Amiga chipsets that’s been released from 1985 to 1992 (OCS, ECS and AGA)

OCS (Original Chip Set – released with Amiga 1000 in 1985)
The hardware used in the very first generation of Amigas had the Original Chip Set as main graphics:
Amiga 500, Amiga 500+, Amiga 1000, Amiga 1500, Amiga 2000 and Amiga CDTV

The screenmodes on these Amiga machines were ment to be very closely to the television standards NTSC and PAL. This also meant that the screen modes varied depending on what type of Amiga you had and where you had it.

TV Compatible
LowRes
320×200 @ 60Hz (NTSC)
320×256 @ 50Hz (PAL) up to 32 colors, EHB, HAM
4096 color palette

LowRes Laced
320×400 @ 60Hz (NTSC)
320×512 @ 50Hz (PAL) up to 32 colors, EHB, HAM
4096 color palette

HiRes
640×200 @ 60Hz (NTSC)
640×256 @ 50Hz (PAL) up to 16 colors
4096 color palette

HiRes Laced
640×400 @ 60Hz (NTSC)
640×512 @ 50Hz (PAL) up to 16 colors
4096 color palette

ECS (Enhanced Chip Set – released with Amiga 3000 1990)
New screen modes were added to support higher resolutions offered by multisync monitors but at the same time sacrificing color depth. ECS was found in these Amigas:
Amiga 600, Amiga 3000 and Amiga 3000T

TV Compatible
Super-HiRes
1280×200 @ 60Hz (NTSC)
1280×256 @ 50Hz (PAL) up to 4 colors
64 color palette

SuperHiRes Laced
1280×400 @ 60Hz (NTSC)
1280×512 @ 50Hz (PAL) up to 4 colors
64 color palette

Multiscan Productivity
1280×200 @ 60Hz up to 4 colors
64 color palette

Productivity Laced
1280×400 @ 60Hz up to 4 colors
64 color palette

A2024
1024×800 @ 10Hz (NTSC)
1024×1024 @ 10Hz (PAL) up to 4 colors
64 color palette

Euro36 LowRes
320×200 @ 72Hz up to 32 colors, EHB, HAM
4096 color palette

LowRes Laced
320×400 @ 72Hz up to 32 colors, EHB, HAM
4096 color palette

HiRes
640×200 @ 72Hz up to 16 colors
4096 color palette

HiRes Laced
640×400 @ 72Hz up to 16 colors
4096 color palette

Super-HiRes
1280×200 @ 72Hz up to 4 colors
64 color palette

Super-HiRes Laced
1280×400 @ 72Hz up to 4 colors
64 color palette

Euro72 Productivity
640×400 @ 72Hz up to 4 colors
64 color palette

Productivity Laced
640×800 @ 72Hz up to 4 colors
64 color palette

Super72 HIRES
400×300 @ 72Hz up to 16 colors
4096 color palette

HiRes Laced
400×600 @ 72Hz up to 16 colors
4096 color palette

Super-HiRes
800×300 @ 72Hz up to 4 colors
64 color palette

Super-HiRes Laced
800×600 @ 72Hz up to 4 colors
64 color palette

AGA (Advanced Graphics Architecture – released 1992)
Further screen modes where added, the color palette was extended to 24bit and resolutions with up to 256 colors. All resolutions could now be used with all color modes. AGA was released for:
Amiga 1200, Amiga 4000, Amiga 4000T and Amiga CD32

LowRes
320×200 @ 60Hz (NTSC)
320×256 @ 50Hz (PAL) up to 256 colors, EHB, HAM, HAM8
16777216 color palette

LowRes No Flicker
320×400 @ 60Hz (NTSC)
320×512 @ 50Hz (PAL) up to 256 colors, EHB, HAM, HAM8
16777216 color palette

LowRes Laced
320×800 @ 60Hz (NTSC)
320×1024 @ 50Hz (PAL) up to 256 colors, EHB, HAM, HAM8
16777216 color palette

HiRes
640×200 @ 60Hz (NTSC)
640×256 @ 50Hz (PAL) up to 256 colors, EHB, HAM, HAM8
16777216 color palette

HiRes No Flicker
640×400 @ 60Hz (NTSC)
640×512 @ 50Hz (PAL) up to 256 colors, EHB, HAM, HAM8
16777216 color palette

HiRes Laced
640×800 @ 60Hz (NTSC)
640×1024 @ 50Hz (PAL) up to 256 colors, EHB, HAM, HAM8
16777216 color palette

Source:
Amiga Hardware Database
Big Book of Amiga Hardware