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      /  SkillGrid (formerly SPEEDGRID) - new AGA game in the works
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NutsAboutAmiga 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 11-Nov-2017 14:29:12
#21 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 9-Jun-2004
Posts: 12795
From: Norway

@Georg

Well Amiga has planes, so that modifying a screen position, is does not affect all bits on that position, because etch bit has own layer/plane, and combining of layers are done by the hardware.

This is real benefit of dual playfields, so basically you are change thing without effacing other things, at no CPU costs. Ideal for foreground / background effects, with combination of cooper, you nice skyline or nice colored mountain, so all you set side is maybe 1 bit plane, for nice effect.

I guess it mostly useful if the screen is overs scan, so you not need to redraw the foreground, so just scroll the foreground, but not redraw it. if you waking forest you see the same trees over and over.
So if you have 64 colors, you have 32 colors and 2 colors foreground or background on OCS.
but 2 colors foreground or background can be coopered, can be coopered to five you the impression of more colors. Sprites share the colors on the screens and but if upper colors is not used, I guess, you might be able pull of some tricks, as you can maybe use the 8 sprites per scanline I believe.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 11-Nov-2017 at 02:33 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 11-Nov-2017 at 02:31 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 11-Nov-2017 at 02:30 PM.

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saimo 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 11-Nov-2017 14:47:15
#22 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Mar-2003
Posts: 2450
From: Unknown

@NutsAboutAmiga

You missed Georg's point. What he wrote is correct and doesn't contradict what you wrote.


@Georg

Quote:
For some reason it seems large palette is/was costly hardware wise, otherwise things like EHB would not have made much sense either (why not a full 64 entry colormap?)

This. And also:
* (all chipsets) separate color registers for sprites;
* (AGA) instead of the banking + LOCT mess, additional 256 24-bit registers, with the first 32 registers mirroring the OCS/ECS registers when the latter get written and until the former are written directly.

Last edited by saimo on 11-Nov-2017 at 02:47 PM.

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Hypex 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 11-Nov-2017 15:29:20
#23 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@saimo

Quote:
* (AGA) instead of the banking + LOCT mess, additional 256 24-bit registers


I think at this point any preset register locations would be too rigid still. And would need more allocated space. The best I think would have been to create a palette pointer. So 24-bit data would be stored in chip ram. With possibly a 12-bit option.

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saimo 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 11-Nov-2017 15:52:59
#24 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Mar-2003
Posts: 2450
From: Unknown

@Hypex

Quote:
Quote:
* (AGA) instead of the banking + LOCT mess, additional 256 24-bit registers


I think at this point any preset register locations would be too rigid still. And would need more allocated space. The best I think would have been to create a palette pointer. So 24-bit data would be stored in chip ram. With possibly a 12-bit option.

Your solution would have stolen a lot of CHIP RAM bandwidth. Only additional 32*12 bits (i.e. 48 bytes) would have been needed with respect to the solution adopted for AGA (AGA does have 256 24-bit registers, with the first 32 coinciding with the OCS/ECS ones for the high 12-bit part).

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Hypex 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 16-Nov-2017 14:40:27
#25 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@saimo

Quote:
Your solution would have stolen a lot of CHIP RAM bandwidth.


A lot of things were already stored in chip ram along with bit plane data so to me it would be consistent with the present design. It also would not have required any more registers. Since the data would be pushed to chip. The way it was done looked like it was trying to be as close to the previous 12-bit design as much as possible. And in this case 24-bit RGB could not be dealt with directly but used the old 8-bit Commodore style bank switching. It just looked cumbersome that 8 banks needed to be switched in seperately to fill the whole 256 palette entries. And just for 12-bit RGB. For 24-bit 16 bank switches were needed for a full palette. Perhaps it would have used bandwidth but it could have only read in the palette from chip ram when needed and cached it into internal registers.

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saimo 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 16-Nov-2017 16:47:08
#26 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Mar-2003
Posts: 2450
From: Unknown

@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote:
@saimo

Quote:
Your solution would have stolen a lot of CHIP RAM bandwidth.


A lot of things were already stored in chip ram along with bit plane data so to me it would be consistent with the present design.

The present design is based on color registers, so keeping on using color registers (as it's been done) would have been consistent. It's your idea to be inconsistent But consistency is quite irrelevant: what matters is a better solution, and a better solution might require breaking consistency.
That said, the point here is that your solution is not better.
If the colors had been stored in CHIP RAM instead of registers, an additional 32-bit CHIP RAM access would have been needed to draw each pixel to ensure that any change made by the CPU would take place instantly - that would require additional memory transfers equal to those needed by a 24-bit true color chunky screen!
Also, the Copper would have not been able to change the colors anymore, unless through the Blitter (terrible solution) or by getting CHIP RAM write capabilities.

Quote:
The way it was done looked like it was trying to be as close to the previous 12-bit design as much as possible.

Not "looked like": the intent was precisely to keep things 100% identical for the first 32 registers.

Quote:
And in this case 24-bit RGB could not be dealt with directly but used the old 8-bit Commodore style bank switching. It just looked cumbersome that 8 banks needed to be switched in seperately to fill the whole 256 palette entries. And just for 12-bit RGB. For 24-bit 16 bank switches were needed for a full palette.

Yes, that's why I said that the adopted solution isn't optimal and that a new flat address range of 256 registers + mirroring of the first 32 registers would have been so much better: registers usage would have been easy and efficient, and compatibility would have been preserved. All at just the cost of 48 bytes of registers more. But, as Georg pointed out, maybe registers were expensive, or maybe the mirroring logic was too more complicated than the logic for switching (well, not really I'd say), or maybe they didn't have time to implement this solution (after all, the AGA chipset is a rushed and temporary design), or maybe they simply didn't think of this solution.

Quote:
Perhaps it would have used bandwidth

Not perhaps: for sure - having the palette in CHIP RAM requires additional memory fetches.

Quote:
but it could have only read in the palette from chip ram when needed and cached it into internal registers.

Such design would be quite complicated:
* Denise should react to changes to the palette with data fetches and caching;
* Denise should be granted quick/immediate DMA access to ensure that changes to the palette would reflect in a decent time on the screen;
* Denise would steal additional CHIP RAM bandwidth;
* Copper would need to be given CHIP RAM write capabilities.

All of the above would need quite a lot of additional logic and thus be much more expensive than what I proposed (besides being more taxing on memory and less responsive).

Moreover, as you wrote yourself, *also* internal registers would be needed, thus matching the cost in terms of registers of the actual AGA chipset. So then, what would be the advantage of having the palette in CHIP RAM? The only potential advantage would be the ability of changing the palette with a single write to the palette base address register that tells where the palette is located. But would it be worth the additional costs mentioned above? For such a feature, here's a much simpler and efficient alternative: additional 256 registers. In practice, there would be two banks of registers that can be switched at will, thus providing a means for palette buffering that allows almost everything that having the palette in CHIP RAM would.

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saimo 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 6-Dec-2017 14:28:43
#27 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Mar-2003
Posts: 2450
From: Unknown

SPEEDGRID - PREVIEW #2

Development slowed down a bit due to work done on other projects and some real-life issues, but it didn't stop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1og-4VjkbgE&vq=hd1080

This video demonstrates the new features (in particular, the audio engine):
* 3 channels allocated dynamically for one-shot sounds;
* 1 channel allocated for the afterburner looping sound;
* variable afterburner sound frequency, depending on the ship Y speed (calculated taking into account also the scrolling);
* music cell: when caught, music kicks in; as long as music plays, the cells layer is green, meaning that the maluses do not hurt anymore (they award points, instead; the X/Y swap maluses also remove the X/Y swapping);
* music in the form of a 14 bit PCM sample, played at ~28.9 kHz;
* the new way that the BRAKE cell works (before it brought the scrolling speed to the minimun, now it halves it);
* the new BOOST cell (it doubles the scrolling speed);
* slightly different color scheme;
* other minor changes.

Notes:
* music requires two channels; while playing, the other two channels can be freely used for other sounds;
* music playback supports looping (not demonstrated in the video; will be used during bossfights);
* the afterburner sound is off while music plays to allow enjoying the music better and leaving a channel free for the more important events-related sounds;
* the afterburner sound volume is kept low so that it does not become annoying;
* the music is a temporary placeholder; it is an excerpt from Multiball by Machinae Supremacy (a cover of the Pinball Dreams tracker module by Olof Gustafsson);
* despite the high quality of the original video, the compression applied by YouTube causes the quality to degrade steadily after a key frame and until the next one is reached (I guess); anyway, when key frames are displayed and/or the scrolling isn't too fast, it is almost possible to see the actual graphics (especially in the last final seconds).

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OlafS25 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 6-Dec-2017 16:44:38
#28 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-May-2010
Posts: 6321
From: Unknown

@saimo

looks good

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pavlor 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 6-Dec-2017 19:29:07
#29 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 10-Jul-2005
Posts: 9578
From: Unknown

@saimo

Looks good!

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Doofus 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 14-Feb-2018 18:53:41
#30 ]
Member
Joined: 13-Feb-2018
Posts: 50
From: Unknown

@saimo

I like the concept. CD-Rom?

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saimo 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 14-Feb-2018 21:44:55
#31 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Mar-2003
Posts: 2450
From: Unknown

@ OlafS25 pavlor Doofus

Thanks, guys!


@Doofus

Very unlikely: it was meant to be a small game right from the start and, moreover, I'm afraid it will be even shorter because I can hardly find time for it - in fact, I couldn't work on it since the last preview as I had to take care of MAH and BOH, and other things happened in the meanwhile. I but definitely want to finish and release it.

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PR 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 15-Feb-2018 22:06:01
#32 ]
Super Member
Joined: 1-Sep-2004
Posts: 1961
From: Suomi-Finland

Nice music scene.

Must put two Tac-2:s at the A1200

AllRight, Edgar M.Vidgal still is here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCRlReGAFQ4

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saimo 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 15-Feb-2018 22:36:07
#33 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Mar-2003
Posts: 2450
From: Unknown

@PR

Quote:
Nice music scene.

Not sure what you mean by "scene".

Quote:
AllRight, Edgar M.Vidgal still is here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCRlReGAFQ4

Just to kill wrong expectations: this is not going to be a Galaga-like game.

Last edited by saimo on 15-Feb-2018 at 10:36 PM.

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PR 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 16-Feb-2018 0:29:19
#34 ]
Super Member
Joined: 1-Sep-2004
Posts: 1961
From: Suomi-Finland

@saimo

Like Rock'n Roll Heavy Style so liked the music style. (Scene maybe wrong my bad english sorry)

Played the game (DG) a few times and many different versions. Not expecting the same.

There could be something different. You know.

More than happy to buy a new good game. Something different from Worms,Supercars,Tanks,CannonFodder,GianaSisters+ 1000 very difficult.

Car Games are my thing. SuperCars IV ?

With NG?


Last edited by PR on 16-Feb-2018 at 12:43 AM.
Last edited by PR on 16-Feb-2018 at 12:35 AM.
Last edited by PR on 16-Feb-2018 at 12:34 AM.
Last edited by PR on 16-Feb-2018 at 12:30 AM.

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saimo 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 16-Feb-2018 8:34:14
#35 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Mar-2003
Posts: 2450
From: Unknown

@PR

Quote:
Like Rock'n Roll Heavy Style so liked the music style. (Scene maybe wrong my bad english sorry)

Ah, OK. Please note that the music is a placeholder (see my post #27 for more information).

Quote:
SuperCars IV ?

With NG?

I'm afraid I don't understand this as well. I don't know if this answers, but:
* it isn't a car game;
* it isn't for next generation Amiga systems.

Last edited by saimo on 16-Feb-2018 at 03:29 PM.

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PR 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 16-Feb-2018 15:10:56
#36 ]
Super Member
Joined: 1-Sep-2004
Posts: 1961
From: Suomi-Finland

http://jotd.pagesperso-orange.fr/supercars3/index.html

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saimo 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 16-Feb-2018 15:30:12
#37 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Mar-2003
Posts: 2450
From: Unknown

@PR

I know Super Cars (well, I've only played the first one on C64), but I can't see how it fits here...

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Hypex 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 16-Feb-2018 15:55:26
#38 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@saimo

Quote:
It's your idea to be inconsistent


LOL.

Quote:
If the colors had been stored in CHIP RAM instead of registers, an additional 32-bit CHIP RAM access would have been needed to draw each pixel to ensure that any change made by the CPU would take place instantly - that would require additional memory transfers equal to those needed by a 24-bit true color chunky screen!


Such as if the palette was modified during rasterisation? Well the CPU could already do that to the registers.

Quote:
Also, the Copper would have not been able to change the colors anymore, unless through the Blitter (terrible solution) or by getting CHIP RAM write capabilities.


I don't see why not. Plenty of chipset registers can be written to from a copper list. A write into a palette pointer could have caused an immediate read of the palette to be cached in the internal registers. So would have provided backwards compatibility. Sure that would required a read from chip ram but a copper list sets the palette for each entry and chip needs to be read for each line. So there is a tradeoff but in the usual case it would only happen when the screen is redrawn.

Quote:
All of the above would need quite a lot of additional logic and thus be much more expensive than what I proposed (besides being more taxing on memory and less responsive).


With my example the palette would only be fetched with a write to the palette pointer. All else would be internal and handled as it was. No "self modifying palettes" would be supported.

Quote:
Moreover, as you wrote yourself, *also* internal registers would be needed, thus matching the cost in terms of registers of the actual AGA chipset. So then, what would be the advantage of having the palette in CHIP RAM?


Internally the normal registers would be used, since it stores 256 by 24-bit palette entries. The advantage would have been true colour screens!

A copper list could sequentially update the pointer. So a palette could be used as a frame buffer. With a bitmap to map it out. Things like copper chunky could have been done at high resolution with 12 and 24 bit precision. Workbench could have had advanced screen modes.

Quote:
But would it be worth the additional costs mentioned above?


I think it would if limited by design to causing an immediate full palette load from chip into the internal registers. After all, a copper list must be in chip ram. So the palette is also in chip ram. This just shifts it to a more organised place. Seperate from copper list doing single palette entries one by one.

Last edited by Hypex on 16-Feb-2018 at 03:58 PM.

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PR 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 17-Feb-2018 14:31:58
#39 ]
Super Member
Joined: 1-Sep-2004
Posts: 1961
From: Suomi-Finland

@saimo

Try Amigaversions 1-3..

Does not fit here but suggestions for the what is hoped for to purchase.

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saimo 
Re: SPEEDGRID - new AGA game in the works
Posted on 18-Feb-2018 1:45:34
#40 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 11-Mar-2003
Posts: 2450
From: Unknown

@PR

Quote:
Try Amigaversions 1-3..

Does not fit here but suggestions for the what is hoped for to purchase.

Sorry, not from me.

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