@ppcamiga1

Quote:

still no 256 color sprites

You posted this so many times.... which makes me wonder

Why ???

Why do you ask for such an usual feature?
Do you really think 256 color sprites are important or desirable?


Lets look at this:

What are sprites?

Sprites are "small" graphics which are blended / positioned by the hardware on the screen.

Why are Sprites useful?

Could you not just paint in the background image?
Yes you could do this - and there are Computer Systems not having hardware Sprites.
But if you paint/draw in the background this is slower and eats more time than a hardware sprite.
This means a hardware Sprite for Mouse pointer are pretty useful and make the system more agile.

The Amiga has 8 hardware Sprites Channels
Each Amiga Sprite channel can display more than one sprite.
With Super-AGA you have not 8 channels but 16 channels
So you display more sprites and Sprites can have more features
as indirection, more colors and extra bonuses.

But how many colors do you need for a good Sprite?
If you recall the Amiga 500 workbench this was per default 4 colors.
And the mouse pointer is a hardware sprite = with 4 different colors = Red/Black/white/transparent
This was perfectly fine for Amiga OS.

In theory you could on Amiga have a hardware workbench Sprite with 16 colors.

Who of use used 16 color mouse pointer on Amiga?
Probably not many.
Because its not needed.


You asked many times now for 256 color sprite.

Why ?

How much better would your workbench work with a 256 color mouse pointer,
than with 4 or 16 color pointer?



If you understand typical Atari /Amiga games then you know that

Atari ST games are max 16 colors total.
And many Amiga games are 16 or 32 color total.

So having 16 color for a Sprite is actually a lot.
Dont you agree?


Lets look around and see what others offer.
The most successful Arcade System like Capcom hardware or Neogeo use Sprites a lot and on they also limit the Sprite colors.
For example Neo Geo Sprites support 4 planes=16color
This means a NeoGeo has the same limit as Amiga.

People can have different opinion what Size and colors are optimal for a Mouse pointer.

On Amiga Sprites were often use for bullets or Score overlays and similar effect.
For bullets or Score overlays 16 colors is in my opinion already overkill

So I not see the 16 colors are a serious limitation of Amiga.

Yes Super-AGA gives generally more colors to Sprites
Each Sprite can have more colors and can pick its own palette and Sprites have own Colors register not need to share with Plains - while this is all verynice.

I personally feel that the Amiga OCS / AGA Sprites already very useful if used well.

Last edited by Gunnar on 02-Mar-2024 at 06:11 PM.

@Gunnar

Quote:

Gunnar wrote: Some people wine and complain and bash about the Amiga chipset ... Why? Do you guys feel betrayed?

Yes. You see, they bought an A500 because it was light years ahead of any other computer you could buy in every respect. They laughed at those poor lamers with C64s, ZX Spectrums and IBM Xts, and then... they discovered that PCs had gotten better since 1985. This quickly deflated their egos, and they needed someone to blame - Commodore! If only Commodore had this, or that, or something else, the Amiga would still (?) be ruling the World and they would still be laughing at all those lamers who didn't have an Amiga!

So what should Commodore have done? For a start they shouldn't have bought that flawed design from Amiga corp with its 'crippled' bitplane graphics and no text mode. Instead they should have stuck to their original plan, which was to upgrade the C64 / make a Z8000 based Unix system / clone PCs. No Amiga would mean no butt-hurt Amiga fans and everybody happily playing on their PC clones! The World would be a duller place, but nobody would know what was missing so it would be fine!

I've been into home computers from the start (since 1978) and enjoyed every minute of it without feeling the need to slag off the machines I bought or played with. They all had their quirks and limitations, as you would expect from an emerging technology. That was a big part of their charm - and still is. Anybody who complains about it should just buy a new PC and leave us alone.

There's nothing wrong with speculating over what could have been done to improve the Amiga - even better if someone actually does it (eg. Vampire). Being able to do that is one of the things I love about home computers of that era. But bashing the design and the people who made it is just pathetic, especially coming from people who are great armchair engineers but never actually produced anything worth having.

Quote:

The Amiga 1200 AGA was an solid entry level Computer. The Amiga 1200 has an elegant to program chipset, that is pretty good for Giana Sisters like 2D games. And you got it with a swift and fast OS and you can run many nice programs like DPaint or Music programs. Was this not a fair deal? In my opinion it was.

It sure was - a better deal than many fans deserved.

BTW here's the results of a test I did yesterday to see how much not having chunky pixels 'crippled' AGA. A1200 with Blizzard 1230IV (50MHz 030) and 60ns RAM, running DoomAttack timedemo at standard window size (2 steps down from full-screen):-

"c2p_optimized" (normal AGA c2p routine) - 10.1 fps
"fake chunky" (copy FastRAM to ChipRAM) - 10.85 fps, 7% faster.

We see that with a CPU fast enough to do Doom justice, c2p overhead is barely noticeable.

This site has a collection of various tests (including Doom) on different machines, showing that it was not a given that your PC would be much faster:-

i386 SX25 WDC VGA ISA - 3.4 fps
Am386 DX40 (MX83) ISA - 8.24 fps
486DX2/66 miro 1H10AD VLB - 10.02 fps
486DX2/66 CL-GD5428 1MB VLB - 10.3 fps
P100 TVGA 8800CS 512KB ISA - 11.82 fps
P100 Stealth II S220 4MB PCI - 15.71 fps

The closest in general specs to my A1200 would be the Am386 DX40, which was 8% slower. But two 486 DX2/66s with VL bus graphics cards were the same speed!

Of course there are plenty of faster PCs on that list too, but who cares? What's important is that I can run Doom at a playable frame rate on my A1200 hooked up to the big-screen TV in composite just like I used to back in the day, and enjoy it more than on the 386DX-40 I used to have (especially since DoomAttack has mouse look which enhances the experience).

Would it have been nice to have a chunky mode built into AGA? Sure, but not having it wasn't a deal breaker. So what if some other machine could do better? I had an A3000 with 50MHz 060 and RTG card, and still enjoyed using the A1200 just as much. In 2001 I sold my A3000 and kept the A1200 because it was enough for me.

Last edited by bhabbott on 02-Mar-2024 at 06:17 PM.

@bhabbott

Quote:

This site has a collection of various tests (including Doom) on different machines, showing that it was not a given that your PC would be much faster:- i386 SX25 WDC VGA ISA - 3.4 fps Am386 DX40 (MX83) ISA - 8.24 fps 486DX2/66 miro 1H10AD VLB - 10.02 fps 486DX2/66 CL-GD5428 1MB VLB - 10.3 fps P100 TVGA 8800CS 512KB ISA - 11.82 fps P100 Stealth II S220 4MB PCI - 15.71 fps The closest in general specs to my A1200 would be the Am386 DX40, which was 8% slower. But two 486 DX2/66s with VL bus graphics cards were the same speed!

For 1993, the problem is the total price for 68030 @ 50 Mhz accelerator with A1200 against a similarly priced 486SX-33-based PC.


https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/pdf/PC_World_9306_June_1993.pdf
Gateway Party List, Page 72 of 314

4SX-33 with 486-SX 33Mhz, 4MB RAM, 170 MB HDD, Windows Video accelerator 1MB video DRAM, 14-inch monitor for $1494 USD

4DX-33 with 486-DX 33Mhz, 8MB RAM, 212 MB HDD, Windows Video accelerator 1MB video DRAM, 14-inch monitor for $1895 USD

Page 128 of 314
Polywell Poly 486-33V with 486SX-33, 4MB of RAM, SVGA 1MB VL-Bus, price: $1250 USD


https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/pdf/PC_World_9308_August_1993.pdf
Gateway Party List, Page 62 of 324

4SX-33 with 486-SX 33Mhz, 4MB RAM, 212MB HDD, Windows Video accelerator 1MB video DRAM, 14-inch monitor for $1495 USD

4DX-33 with 486-DX 33Mhz, 8MB RAM, 212 MB HDD, Windows Video accelerator 1MB video DRAM, 14-inch monitor for $1795 USD


Page 292 of 324
From Comtrade
VESA Local Bus WinMax with 32-Bit VL-Bus Video Accelerator 1MB, 486DX2 66 Mhz, 210 MB HDD, 4MB RAM, Price: $1795 USD



https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/pdf/PC_World_9310_October_1993.pdf
October 1993, Page 13 of 354,
ALR Inc, Model 1 has a Pentium 60-based PC for $2495 USD



https://archive.org/details/amiga-world-1993-10/page/n7/mode/2up
Amigaworld, October 1993, Page 66 of 104
Amiga 4000/040 @ 25Mhz for $2,299 USD
Amiga 4000/030 @ 25Mhz for $1,599 USD


Page 82 of 104
M1230X's 68030 @ 50Mhz has $349
1942 Monitor has $389
A1200 with 85MB HDD has $624
A1200 with 130MB HDD has $724

A1200/HD+M1230X+1942 = $1,362 USD.

The Amiga solution is beaten by the Gateway solution.

Quote:

But two 486 DX2/66s with VL bus graphics cards were the same speed!

Gateway 2000 4SX-33 has a WD90C31A-LR SVGA chipset.

https://youtu.be/oJgQJaqmPx4?t=795
Doom (low detail setting) on 386DX-40 with 128K cache
Tseng ET4000 ISA = 26.751 fps
Trident 8900CL ISA = 23.0088 fps
WD90C32 = 26.838 fps (Diamond Speedstar 24X)




https://youtu.be/39pNCEKJK3Q?t=485
Doom benchmarks
486DX-33 with 256 KB L2 cache
VLB CL-GD5428 = 14.7 fps
ISA Teseng ET4000AX = 13.8 fps
ISA Diamond Speed Star 24X WD90C32 = 13.9 fps


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7cm5CFFbvk
486DX2 66MHz + Tseng ET4000/W32P VLB 1MB playing smoother frame rate Doom results, it's superior to A1200 with 50Mhz 68030 accelerator.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U3Kdj4K0pM
Doom running on A1200 with Blizzard 1230MkIV.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B1jKjrRUmk
Doom on A1200's TF1230 68030 at 50 Mhz vs PC's Am386-40 Mhz with Teseng Labs ET4000 ISA with similar results.


https://youtu.be/17X-BvFKk8s
Gateway 2000 (P4D661) 486DX-66 running Doom.


Doom doesn't use FPU hence 486DX's FPU is useless.

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_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@Gunnar

Quote:

Gunnar wrote: Comparing Copper and PS3, really? This is very bad comparison. PS3 is difficult but Amiga copper is easy. Could it be that you never coded Amiga? I think I can compare both. I was in the IBM Cell team, and I wrote even demos for the Cell. And I coded games, cracktros and demos on Amiga. And from my experience the Amiga Copper is very logical and very easy to program. Thousands of Amiga games and thousands of Amiga demos make good use of the Copper. If you never coded on Amiga then I would invite you to try it. Its a lot fun and its not hard.

Have you programmed Amiga games like Elf Mania? Many Amiga games like Mortal Kombat 2 didn't reach Elf Mania's technical features.

FYI, AMD's CEO Lisa Su interfaced between IBM's CELL team and Sony's team.

For PS4, Mark Cerny has explained why Sony switched to AMD.

https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/25/4264222/mark-cerny-interview-ps4-technical-details
Mark Cerny:
"We didn't want the hardware to be a puzzle that programmers would be needing to solve"

The biggest thing is we didn't want the hardware to be a puzzle that programmers would be needing to solve in order to make quality titles

here was huge performance there, but in order to unlock that performance, you really needed to study it and learn unique ways of using the hardware."


Under Mark Cerny's leadership and experience, Sony fired IBM's CELL.
Mark Cerny's team directed AMD to modify GCN with 8 async compute front ends which led to AMD's Hawai, Tonga, and Liverpool ASICs.

Btw, CELL'S SPU is unable to perform a pointer swap with the host CPU. This is not the case for Xbox 360's PPE and ATI's Xenos.


That's six Jaguar cores at 1.6 Ghz (PS4) vs five SPU cores (PS3) at 3.2 GHz.

AMD's near-recycled K8/cutdown K10 known as Jaguar beats CELL's SPE on real-world IPC (instructions per clock).

Jaguar maintained K10's 128-bit SIMD-like units with additional AVX compatibility.


AMD GCN's origins are from Xbox 360's Xenos




Which ideological design won? It's not CELL.

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_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@Gunnar

Quote:

Boy are are difficult. What did you not understand on my point? I said that Amiga 1200 was a entry level, low cost computer. It was to replace the Amiga 500 as entry model, giving you more memory, faster CPU and upgraded chipset for same or less price. Didn't you just say the same as me?

You didn't factor in the inflation difference.

Stock A1200 didn't deliver the "new 32-bit" 2.5D and 3D game experiences, hence it wasn't enough to differentiate itself from the late 16-bit SNES competition let alone Sony's original PlayStation's western Q4 1995 release.

The Amiga AGA platform was pushed out by SNES from the low-cost price segment and the falling 1993 price 486SX-based PCs from the mid-price range segment.

Apple's Quadra 605 / LC 475 / Performa 475's $999 (about $2000 in 2022) asking price countered PC's 486SX price range in the important Xmas Q4 1993 time period. Apple made sure its customers remained in Apple's ecosystem and bridged the gap with the PowerPC Macs' 1994 release.

I spend about $2000 for my Ryzen 9 7900X CPU/X670E motherboard/RTX 4080 GPU.

Video Toaster / A4000 sales can not maintain the Amiga platform.

My point, A1200's $599 price point in 1992 wasn't A500's 1987 $699 ($863 in 1992) replacement for 1992.

To cripple 68EC020 32 bit @ 14 Mhz into real-world 7 Mhz is LOL. Only Amiga Makes It Possible.

Last edited by Hammer on 03-Mar-2024 at 01:36 AM.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@Gunnar

Quote:

Gunnar wrote: @cdimauro Quote: However, .. Cesare you posted hundreds of complains about AGA.

I can post even a billion: what's the problem with this? Lese-majesty?
Quote:

WHY exactly do you do this?

Why? If I've something to say about a topic and I've time and willing to do, why I shouldn't?

I can also share technical information which might be useful for other people.

If I shut-up then this will be missing.
Quote:

And WHY do you think you need to argue with me for AGA not being what you wish?

What's not clear to you that I'm reporting real information about AGA whereas you, that never developed a game for Amiga neither for AGA, are just blindly listing some AGA features and hiding on purpose the most important information on how it really worked out on concrete products?

Let me guess... it's because AGA is at the foundation of your SAGA. So, the product that you're selling and from which you're earning money...
Quote:

Did you think AGA was the wonder weapon? It is not.

Oh, finally one thing were we agree.
Quote:

Commodore planned AAA chipset as wonder weapon with tons a new features.

LOL! That chipset was still late and definitely NOT a wonder weapon when it would have been released.

The ONLY wonder weapon which arrived in time was the original chipset / machine. Dot.
Quote:

As it had to many features to debug the AAA chipset was not market ready.

Well, it wasn't ready even when Commodore went bankruptcy...
Quote:

And Commodore made something more simple, as upgrade = AGA.

Here I agree.
Quote:

AGA is an upgraded Original AMIGA chipset. It offers all what OCS and ECS can do, and a lot more.

A lot? Seriously?
Quote:

What are AGA goals? (1) have not to much changes = not to much to debug. (2) stay with the programming concept of OCS/ECS (3) be able to play OCS/ECS games

Nothing to say here.
Quote:

(4) improve some features: + 16 Million color palette

That you can basically set at the beginning of the frame generation and then forget, since changing them requires TWO Copper instructions plus another one for switching the "colour component" part of.

Read: you can forget changing AS MANY COLOURS AS an OCS game was doing (unless it changed only a few of them at the beginning of the raster line).
Quote:

+ 64 pixel sprites

AGAIN?!? Do you UNDERSTAND that by enabling the horizontal scrolling then ALL but JUST ONE 4 (FOUR! Three, in reality) colours sprite remained?

Using 4 x fetch mode for the display, of course, because that's what was REQUIRED to do with AGA, otherwise you're using it like the OCS/ECS.
Quote:

+ 8 Planes

AGAIN?!? Do you UNDERSTAND that any regular OCS/ECS game using 32 colours CANNOT be upgraded to 256 colours moving the EXACT amount of graphics (same numbers of BOBs and same size)?

I've already PROVED you that you can upgrade to max 128 colours.

If you want to use 256 colours you can do it, but then you'll move LESS amount of graphics on screen.
Quote:

and more gimmicks

More? Please, no! Don't continue because it's evident that you're again acting like an ARMCHAIR QUARTEBACK: you just list features without knowledge about how the machine works in REAL WORLD, with REAL games.

BTW, AGA had nothing else to give, eh! NOTHING! Since ALL other components remained THE SAME from the OCS time...
Quote:

AGA is exactly all what was planned for it.

No, AGA wasn't planned! At all! It came as a quick & dirty patch over ECS just to give something "new" to Commodore's customers. That's it!
Quote:

AGA can play A500 games and can play better looking games. AGA 16 Million colors make a big difference

See above: you don't know of what you're talking about. That's because you had ZERO experience on developing Amiga games at the time and you don't know all issues and constraints.

You talk only because you've a keyboard and you're using it by repeating like a PARROT the same things.

Why don't you just continue doing VHDL coding and leave the discussions about game development to people which had experience with that? You did NOTHING! And from what you write it's evident that you LACK THE KNOWLEDGE!


@FairBoy

Quote:

FairBoy wrote: @Gunnar Quote: @FairBoy You misquote me. Or you misunderstand me. No, I didn't misquote you at all and there was nothing to misunderstand. You clearly made this exact claim and it's wrong and all of what I wrote in response to it was and remains true. At least admit it when you talk bull instead of falsely accusing others, just before adjusting your claim to fit your needs. But well, fits the overall picture you're painting of yourself here. Everything else you wrote is just bla, once again. E.g. it simply does not matter at all if any AGA design goals were achieved or not. It also doesnt matter that the Amiga was no pure gaming machine - AGA also lacked any significant improvements in pretty much all aspects which are not necessarily related to gaming, e.g. crappy hires support, unusable Workbench at 256 colors (higher number of colors on the Workbench also painfully reveal the outdated slow blitter in combination with the planar architecture when you e.g. scroll shell content). All that does not change but merely underlines the fact that AGA was underpowered and not special at all when it was released and that it even had a hard time to compete in 2D gaming. And no, it also also doesn't matter if you can spend $$$ on NeoGeo games when the talk was clearly about the base device costs (although it originally was just used as an example for good sprite hardware before you blew it up, the typical distraction strategy of yours). Quote: The Amiga sprites with max 16 colors is very good. If you compare this to state of the art Arcade systems like Capcom Streetfigther or NEOGEO then 16 color sprites is good. 16 colors for a Sprite is actually good. It really becomes absurd now: Comparing one of the weakest sprite hardwares of the time with that of a machine designed around sprites and then claim that the former was very good, implying that it was playing in the same league in any way. And to top it: in other posts you complain about a comparison between NeoGeo and Amiga being unfair (Ferrari vs Golf). Only Gunnar makes it possible. Quote: 16 colors for a Sprite is actually good Yes, but once again you "forget" most of the true weak AGA picture here, most importantly that it's the same 16 color palette for all sprites and that it's just up to 4 such sprites max. If you had mentioned those "tiny" details (which is just the tip of the iceberg of AGA's sprite limitations) then your "state of the art Arcade systems / NeoGeo" statement from above would sound quite different. Quote: This means AGA can show pretty big Sprites like Streetfigther. And this statement of yours would immediately reveal as equally absurd too. You do that all the time: you post some totally incomplete info from the AGA specs and use that as an argument pro AGA (to silence people who rightfully question AGA's qualities), even though it would quickly turn out to be an argument against AGA if you'd also mention all the limitations that surround this feature. And to be clear: I have no problem with AGA being what it is. I happily accept that it is just a small improvement over OCS/ECS. But I have a problem with guys who make false statements to harshly cancel others. And which even lie to make others look bad. Alright, enough precious weekend time wasted with you for now. Fairwell!

This. Another post to frame...

@Gunnar

Quote:

Gunnar wrote: Regarding how many MIPS do you need to mimick Amiga hardware features with a CPU And do you need an 68040 or x386 or x486 or Pentium? Of course it depends a lot on "what" Amiga hardware feature you want to mimick. * The Amiga can do smooth scrolling with 50 FPS and on multiple playfields. * The Amiga can show a lot more than 256 colors on Screen with the Copper. * The Amiga can scroll with very fine resolution up to even 1/4 pixel Every cheap Amiga 500 can run the game Lionheart What do you think what type of PC do you need to make such a game?

Ah, now from "only the 486 or Pentium" you've included the 386... AFTER that I've reported it!

Because, no: you definitely do NOT need a MIPS monster for a game like that (which is very complicated to emulate. Nothing to say about that: they squeezed well the OCS).
Quote:

Gunnar wrote: @FairBoy Quote: You clearly made this exact claim and it's wrong and all of what I wrote in response to it was and remains true. Could it be that you simply miss the point? What was my point? The Amiga hardware allows you to do many effects in hardware, without the need to spend huge amounts of CPU power on it. Some examples: - The Amiga can scroll the screen - without the need for the CPU to do expensive memcopy

The PC can do it as well since 1984 (one year before that the first Amiga was sold).
Quote:

- The Amiga can fluently scroll several screen layers - without expensive memcopy.

That's the only concrete point here.
Quote:

- The Amiga can put extra layers like Score and Live display on top of the game using Sprites - without needing to spend CPU on expensive memcopy.

Depends on the game, because sprites were primarily used for the main character and maybe some other stuff.

So, they were NOT free to be used as you wish.

That's exactly the reason why many games used a top or bottom panel/screen to display "service information" (score, energy, etc.) instead of overlaying on the regular graphics.

In this case, this can be easily done with PC as well, and even an 8088 with an 8 bit VGA ISA card can do it with only a few instructions executed per object to displayed (IF you know how to do it in an efficient way, OF COURSE!).
Quote:

Is my point correct? Yes You can do these effects with minimal amount of instructions on Amiga. So you are saving thousands of instructions compared to some other systems.

Actually only for emulating complicated things with dual playfield.

Anyway, your comparison is meaningless.

In fact, on Amiga the CPU was used mostly as the Blitter's slave: to set its registers and let it do the real job. However, Amiga used the stupid planar graphics, so it required to setup the Blitter MANY times (AND waiting him to finish the work: other instructions executed!) for rendering a single object.

On a PC the CPU had to do most of the things by itself. However EGA and VGA had some hardware features for helping on some scenarios. Again, only if YOU know them and NOT using the 0xA0000 aperture size as a dumb framebuffer.

So, and to recap, from one side you're mostly using the Blitter and the CPU is executing a few instructions, yes, but it's because it can do basically nothing else. From the other side, the CPU is doing most of the job and hardware was less used.

Does it matter? No. At all! Because the most important is and should always be: the job should be done, whoever is the real executor.
Quote:

If you compare the Amiga to other Computers like e.g. Atari ST or the Apple/MAC Then on other system you can create such effects but you need to "spend" a high price in using the CPU for this. You need to pay with thousands or tens of thousands of executed instructions per frame to create this. = You spending a lot CPU power on them. So from an Amiga you can get this with minimal effort If you can do an effects with 1 instruction instead spending 10,000 CPU instructions on it - Is this then not in comparison "For free" ? Without you having to spend significant amounts of your available CPU power on this?

Yes: see above. Who cares if the CPU is executing only a few instructions if IN THE REAL WORLD (read: by developing a game) then you cannot use it for anything else?

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @Gunnar https://youtu.be/NLEByo2du0Y?t=132 Lotus 3 running on a 286-16 MHz PC with Trident 8900. IBM VGA is not recommended. Using 386DX-33 with ET4000 is overkill for Lotus 3.

Indeed. Many games could have been possible for PCs without requiring top notch systems.

Even on 8086, yes. Depending on the game, of course. And from the programmer's skills.

@Hammer

I find it very sad that you can never stay topic

@cdimauro


Quote:

- The Amiga can put extra layers like Score and Live display on top of the game using Sprites - without needing to spend CPU on expensive memcopy.

Quote:

Depends on the game, because sprites were primarily used for the main character and maybe some other stuff.

Because you claim Sprites on Amiga are not usefull

Let us look at some Amiga games And look how they are used:


Sprites are often used on Amiga for complete full screen size background level graphics.


Tiny Slug the whole scrolling "Cave" background layers is done with Sprites


RTYPE2
All the scrolling yellow machines background playfield is done with Sprites


RISKY WOOD
The Scrolling Background layer is done all with Sprites


VIDEO KID
The Scrolling Background layer is done all with Sprites


RESHHOT R
One of the Scrolling Background layer is done all with Sprites

And Reshoot not only creates one game layer with sprites it also creates all Player laser shoots with sprites.

Good old HYBRIS
The score / High Score / Lives Display is all done with Sprites
And ALL the Enemy fighter waves are sprites. Those can be very many on Screen.



Every computer has limitations.
Also the Amiga has limitations.
Also AGA has limitations.
And Amiga sprites also have limitations.
But still you can do a lot with Amiga sprites.

As you see above you can with Amiga Sprites create parallax scrolling full screen backgound layers
Reshoot creates a full background layer, and places dozens of bullets on the screen with AMIGA sprites.


Hybris

Hybris
- Creates the game overlay
- the player sprite
- and often 16 and more enemy fighters on the Screen
all using Amiga Sprites.


While you spend your time complaining since years how useless you think AGA is,
other people create nice games with AGA and show you what you can be done.

Last edited by Gunnar on 03-Mar-2024 at 08:46 AM.

@Gunnar

Quote:

Gunnar wrote: @cdimauro Quote: - The Amiga can put extra layers like Score and Live display on top of the game using Sprites - without needing to spend CPU on expensive memcopy. Quote: Depends on the game, because sprites were primarily used for the main character and maybe some other stuff. Because you claim Sprites on Amiga are not usefull

Gunnar, why do you continue to spread lies? I've NEVER said that!

I also used the sprites are much as I can on my games!

I've stated SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

Could you please tell me when do you plan to read AND understand what people are writing BEFORE replying with non-sense/lies?!?

@Hammer

Gunnar:
Quote:

Why do you call my point wrong? What was not clear on my point? I said that Amiga 1200 was a entry level, low cost computer. The Amiga 1200 replaced the Amiga 500 as entry model, giving you more memory, faster CPU and upgraded chipset for same or less price.

Hammer:
Quote:

You didn't factor in the inflation difference.

So you say the Amiga 1200 was even much cheaper than the Amiga 500.
So it gave more features for less money.

But this is 100% my point ??

@Cesare Di Mauro


Quote:

However, Amiga used the stupid planar graphics, so it required to setup the Blitter MANY times (AND waiting him to finish the work: other instructions executed!) for rendering a single object.

WRONG
You can do a blitter jobs both for background or Bobs over as many Planes as you want in 1 Go
Many games do this!



Quote:

Amiga the CPU was used mostly as the Blitter's slave: to set its registers

NOT CORRECT
You don't have to use the CPU to wait for the Blitter on Amiga .
You can if you want let the Copper manage the Blitter
Many Amiga game actually do this.

For example Tiny Bubble uses the Copper to manage the Blitter

Last edited by Gunnar on 03-Mar-2024 at 08:15 AM.

@cdimauro

Gunnar:
Quote:

and more gimmicks

Cesare Di Mauro:
Quote:

BTW, AGA had nothing else to give, eh! NOTHING! Since ALL other components remained THE SAME from the OCS time...

I think AGA has a lot of gimmicks that can be useful.
Let me give you some examples:

1) On AGA your Sprites colors can be programmed which they use.
This gives program a lot more freedom in using the colors.

2) On AGA you can preload colors into several banks and
with 1 single copper instruction you can switch the bank.
I find this very handy.

3) On AGA you can activate SPRITE double Scan mode in the FMODE register.
This will makes every sprite appear twice on screen.
This is very useful for making a scrolling background layer out of sprites.

Many Amiga games use Sprites to create a nice looking independ scrolling background layer

Last edited by Gunnar on 03-Mar-2024 at 08:32 AM.

@Gunnar

Quote:

Gunnar wrote: @Cesare Di Mauro Quote: However, Amiga used the stupid planar graphics, so it required to setup the Blitter MANY times (AND waiting him to finish the work: other instructions executed!) for rendering a single object. WRONG You can do a blitter jobs both for background or Bobs over as many Planes as you want in 1 Go Many games do this!

Using interleaved graphics (which is the most demanding and used operation) you CANNOT do it for cookie-cut operations.

UNLESS you're using a big mask with as many lines repeated as the number of bitplanes. Which obviously you don't want...

Fightin' Spirit and USA Racing both used interleaved graphics, BTW, and using a single bitplane for masks -> the Blitter had to be programmed SIX and FIVE times, respectively, for cookie-cut operations.
Quote:

Quote: Amiga the CPU was used mostly as the Blitter's slave: to set its registers NOT CORRECT You don't have to use the CPU to wait for the Blitter on Amiga . You can if you want let the Copper manage the Blitter Many Amiga game actually do this. For example Tiny Bubble uses the Copper to manage the Blitter

What's not clear to you about the "MOSTLY" which I've used before?

Yes, you can also do as you stated, but... you need to program the Copper -> the SLOW (on memory accesses) 68k had to write proper instructions on the Copper list to achieve this.
So, you wasted much more cycles and memory because of:
- 68k has to spend time and instructions for doing it;
- Copper has to spend time and instructions for doing it.

I also assume that the game was programming the Blitter using the Copper -> the above two things had to be repeated also for this.

So, basically you're wasting A LOT of resources instead of directly using the CPU when it's needed.

And for doing what? What the 68k can do much better / faster than the Blitter? Nothing!

If you wanted to squeeze the most from the machine, then this was the protocoll:
- BLITHOG bit always ON (Blitter takes ALL availables cycles -> None to the CPU);
- CPU programs the Blitter and start it;
- CPU waits it (it's anyway stuck there, since there are no cycles for it).
Quote:

Gunnar wrote: @cdimauro Gunnar: Quote: and more gimmicks Cesare Di Mauro: Quote: BTW, AGA had nothing else to give, eh! NOTHING! Since ALL other components remained THE SAME from the OCS time... I think AGA has a lot of gimmicks that can be useful. Let me give you some examples: 1) On AGA your Sprites colors can be programmed which they use. This gives program a lot more freedom in using the colors.

But ALL sprites share the same palette: if you change their bank, you do it for all of them.
Quote:

2) On AGA you can preload colors into several banks and with 1 single copper instruction you can switch the bank. I find this very handy.

Same as above.

Plus, that's ok if you've screen with less than 256 colours (which should be the case: see above my previous comments).
Quote:

3) On AGA you can activate SPRITE double Scan mode in the FMODE register. This will makes every sprite appear twice on screen. This is very useful for making a scrolling background layer out of sprites. Many Amiga games use Sprites to create a nice looking independ scrolling background layer

That's ok. For games that make use of it.

@cdimauro

Quote:

Using interleaved graphics (which is the most demanding and used operation) you CANNOT do it for cookie-cut operations.

But the truth is that many Amiga games do BOB blitting = cookie-cut = using 1 GO.

@cdimauro

Quote:

So, you wasted much more cycles and memory because of: - 68k has to spend time and instructions for doing it; - Copper has to spend time and instructions for doing it.

Cesare Di Mauro,

the same pattern :

first you make a wrong claim.
- DOOM would paint from left to right
- BLITTER could not do a BOB in one go

When you are explained that the reality is different.

Then you make up a story that it would not matter.
- rendering top to bottom would not affect MMU speed. (wrong)
- MMU would prefetch the entry (wrong)
- No one would use the Blitter in 1 Shoot mode
- Copper programming the Blitter would be slow and make no sense

And when your "excuse" gets prooven wrong again.

Then you start name calling.




Cesare Di Mauro,

your friend allowed you to watch him while he coded an Amiga game..

You inflate this story ... until you think you would a real coder.

Instead of coding anything on Amiga yourself,
you spend years online to scholar people how bad you think AGA is.

You write even essay to the topic and you "mathematically" proof limits of the Amiga.
Many of your "scholar" posts are incorrect and they can immediately be proven wrong.


Instead coding on Amiga, you prefer to post in Amiga forums about it.
And most of your post are incorrect.

Why do you do this?
Can you maybe not code?



Was the TINA project not the same?

You and your friend made a hoax Website, using stolen PCB pictures from other websites
advertising a Hardware that you and your friend claimed to work on.
Nothing was true on the TINA project.
All was fake.


Why dont you learn coding?
And make something real on Amiga?

@Gunnar

Quote:

Gunnar wrote: @cdimauro Quote: Using interleaved graphics (which is the most demanding and used operation) you CANNOT do it for cookie-cut operations. But the truth is that many Amiga games do BOB blitting = cookie-cut = using 1 GO.

Many? Which games? List them. I want to know how were the idiots that almost DOUBLED the space occupied by a BOB on the precious Chip Mem.
Quote:

Gunnar wrote: @cdimauro Quote: So, you wasted much more cycles and memory because of: - 68k has to spend time and instructions for doing it; - Copper has to spend time and instructions for doing it. Cesare Di Mauro, the same pattern : first you make a wrong claim. - DOOM would paint from left to right

I wasn't recalling it. To me it was obvious to use render from left to right, as it usually happens.
Quote:

- BLITTER could not do a BOB in one go

Well, the problem is here that for an experience programmer it OBVIOUS to do NOT duplicate the mask so many times as the bit depth, because then you're WASTING a lot of Chip Mem.

So, while theoretically possible, only a COMPLETE IDIOT would have wasted so much memory when you've only 512kB of Chip Mem where you have to fit everything (framebuffer
/ double or triple buffers, BOBs, sprites, audio samples and buffers for loading from disck).

A complete idiot OR the usual ARMCHAIR QUARTERBACK which has no experience on developing a game on Amiga..
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When you are explained that the reality is different.

The reality that you're missing, since you NEVER developed a game for the Amiga, right?
Quote:

Then you make up a story that it would not matter. - rendering top to bottom would not affect MMU speed. (wrong)

NEVER STATED THIS! LIAR!
Quote:

- MMU would prefetch the entry (wrong)

I've also reported the proper section from Intel's System Architecture Manual which is exactly stating this.

Do you want to teach Intel's engineers how their processors are working?
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- No one would use the Blitter in 1 Shoot mode

That's a completely invented thing: a PURE LIE, since I've stated SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
Quote:

- Copper programming the Blitter would be slow and make no sense

Exactly. Because you've to waste memory AND time / cycles on BUILDING the copper list and THEN the Copper has to execute those instructions.

That's something that an experienced Amiga game developers knows (or should know, at least) very well.

So, NOT your case, of course.
Quote:

And when your "excuse" gets prooven wrong again.

Where? SHOW IT, LIAR!
Quote:

Then you start name calling.

Yes: the PROPAGANDA OF LIE that YOU usually use and for which your're well known.
Quote:

Cesare Di Mauro, your friend allowed you to watch him while he coded an Amiga game.. You inflate this story ... until you think you would a real coder.

Again, the PROPAGANDA OF LIE of Gunnar THE LIAR.

Let me copy it again:

https://www.retro-gamers.it/fightin-spirit/
In Italian:
Cesare di Mauro: aiuto programmatore di Fightin’ Spirit e programmatore di USA Racing

In English:
Cesare di Mauro: assistant programmer of Fightin' Spirit and programmer of USA Racing.

In German:
Cesare di Mauro: Assistenzprogrammierer von Fightin' Spirit und Programmierer von USA Racing.

But you can always go to FB and ask Dario Merola (the main coder) on the Commodore Amiga group if that was true or not. It's very simple, right? Why don't you do it?
Quote:

Instead of coding anything on Amiga yourself,

What's not clear to you that I did it?

Whereas YOU DID NOTHING FOR THE AMIGA!

You are NOBODY in the Amiga land, because you did NOTHING!
Quote:

you spend years online to scholar people how bad you think AGA is.

Maybe because you're writing TONs of wrong and misleading information on AGA and someone (not only me, as you got other replies) has to correct them?
Quote:

You write even essay to the topic and you "mathematically" proof limits of the Amiga. Many of your "scholar" posts are incorrect and they can immediately be proven wrong.

Oh, yes, it's so immediate that NOBODY did it!

Why don't you do it? Is it immediate, right? Then go on.
Quote:

Instead coding on Amiga, you prefer to post in Amiga forums about it.

What's not clear to you that I did it?

Whereas YOU DID NOTHING FOR THE AMIGA!

You are NOBODY in the Amiga land, because you did NOTHING!
Quote:

And most of your post are incorrect.

Oh, yes, I see, I see. Then quote me and PROVE it! It should be "immediate", right?
Quote:

Why do you do this?

Because I'm very well informed whereas you're the ARMCHAIR QUARTERBACK which only list numbers and features, since YOU DID NOTHING FOR THE AMIGA?
Quote:

Can you maybe not code?

Yes, I don't code. Because I've done it so long that now I prefer to do other things.

But you take the chance and start coding a AAA game for the Amiga, instead of wasting your time writing in the forum, right?
It would be A BIT LATE and USELESS now, but... at least you can learn something.
Quote:

Was the TINA project not the same? You and your friend made a hoax Website, using stolen PCB pictures from other websites advertising a Hardware that you and your friend claimed to work on. Nothing was true on the TINA project. All was fake.

And here, as usual, Gunnar entered Goebbles's Propaganda of Lies mode: continuously repeating the same lies, pretending to sell them as the truth, and without giving a single fact supporting it, of course: people should trust him only by his word, because he's "BigGun".

Well, as I've said before, I've already rebutted every single thing on the previous thread, so I just copy & paste my writings (like you did).

Oh, poor Gunnar: you are so desperate that you aren't able to sustain the discussion that you entered again the Goebbles' propaganda of lies to defend your crappy 68080, miserably trying to avoid talking about it and moving everything towards me.

As usual, because you've already done it here:
https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=44169&forum=17&start=100&viewmode=flat&order=0#855068
and continued all over the thread.

However I've already punctually and precisely replied to all your pile of LIES starting from here:
https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=44169&forum=17&start=100&viewmode=flat&order=0#855074
and all over the thread until my last comment:
https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=44169&forum=17&start=240&viewmode=flat&order=0#855444

After that you disappeared, as it happens with you when you recognize that you're able to sustain the PURE LEIS that you report to sully what you identified as your enemy.

And here you start with your personal attacks offending your "enemy" to discredit his reputation, with the clear purpose of invalidation his statements.

Needless to say, it's a very well know logic fallacy, the Poisoning the well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

But you've already proved several times that logic is not your friend, and there's PLENTY of proof in the links that I've provided above.

@cdimauro


Cesare Di Mauro:
Quote:

The Amiga requires to setup the Blitter MANY times .. for rendering a single object.

But this is NOT required!
You can if you want setup the Blitter several times.
But many Amiga games NOT do this and use the 1 shot mode.

Cesare Di Mauro:
Quote:

but only a COMPLETE IDIOT would use Blitter in one go mode

Many Amiga games do exactly this.
So maybe Amiga coders are all idiots?
Same as Amiga engineers and Commodore?


Gunnar
Quote:

Cesare you first claim its impossible and when shown that its possible - then you claim no one would use the Blitter in 1 Shoot mode.

Cesare Di Mauro:
Quote:

That's a completely invented thing: a PURE LIE - I did never said this.

Really?
How about you read your own post again?

You contradict yourself even in the same post you do.

Last edited by Gunnar on 03-Mar-2024 at 01:40 PM.

Gunnar:
Quote:

Was the TINA project not the same? You and your friend made a hoax Website, using stolen PCB pictures from other websites advertising a Hardware that you and your friend claimed to work on. Nothing was true on the TINA project. All was fake. [quote] Cesare Di Mauro [quote] And here, as usual, Gunnar entered Goebbles's Propaganda of Lies mode:

Where is the lie?

The TINA Amiga project was a hoax.
The whole was a lie.

Did you not even spoke about that you would use our NATAMI CPU in some posts?

Did the TINA project not post about 400Mhz CPU?

Did the TINA project not post about using 128bit memory?

All of the TINA post from you and your friends are lies and incorrect.