�Warp3D�for PiStorm!

Up to now 3D Games on PiStorm equipped Amiga Computers were limited to pure software rendering despite a Pi4/CM4 having a good 3D Chip (Videocore VI).

The goal of this project is to change this. The developer Dennis Boon (Inventor of the sonnet.library a G3/G4 PPCcard Driver for Zorro Amigas) offered to create, for a certain payment, a Warp3D.library for PiStorm systems equipped with Pi4 and Pi CM4.

3D Hardware Acceleration will give you higher resolution, faster fps and more stunning looking visuals for 3D Gaming on PiStorm-equipped Amiga systems.

Additionally it will offer making new ports of games possible which would require 3D Hardware acceleration (or would be too slow in pure software rendering on a PIStorm equipped Amiga).

For more answers please check the FAQ on the Campaign Site

Please support this Campaign over at IndieGOGO

Last edited by zErec on 17-Jan-2025 at 08:16 PM.
Last edited by zErec on 17-Jan-2025 at 04:02 PM.

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@zErec

Woah it's zoomed past it's goal!

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Strange that A-EON Technology Ltd as the owner of Warp3D has had no contact about this.

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@amigakit

Don't they own the Nova fork?

Besides which, literally anyone could produce a compatible library. You don't need to implement a driver for the existing framework and if anything I'd advise against it. Just produce a single library replacement for the main Warp3D.library that implements the key functionality that everything higher up expects. The legacy W3D components for the RTG system and such are probably full of issues by now since 3.x has moved on significantly.

Last edited by Karlos on 17-Jan-2025 at 05:28 PM.

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@Karlos

A-EON Technology Ltd own Warp3D since 2014 as well as the more recent Warp3D Nova.

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@amigakit

Regardless of which the documentation and library headers are all public domain. If someone were to create a library from scratch that implements the Warp3D API described in those resources for the video core, what's the problem? It's the underlying legacy internals and NDK that was under NDA.

Last edited by Karlos on 17-Jan-2025 at 06:00 PM.

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@Karlos

They could of course do that as long as they don’t have visibility of the original Warp3D source code and do not call it Warp3D. They would have to select a different name.

The NDK for developing drivers is not public domain

Last edited by amigakit on 17-Jan-2025 at 06:00 PM.

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@amigakit

You'd be mad to want to write a new HW driver for the old framework. All it does is tie you to unmaintained old bric-a-brac that is probably less than compatible with the latest RTG and OS components. It was all over engineered then, literally how many users have more than one graphics card, let alone more than one with 3D acceleration ?

If I were doing this, I'd just implement the main library from scratch and rely on compile time abstractions for future expansion of other GPU drivers are to be built.

You don't see the authors of other libraries going through this level of runtime indirection. Especially for something performance critical

Last edited by Karlos on 17-Jan-2025 at 06:10 PM.

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@amigakit

This is NOT going to be a real Warp3D Driver as you might think.
This is hardware banging assembler lowlevel stuff made
Warp3D compatible. Quiet like a Wrapper.

We should be happy that there are people like talented Dennis
willing to do the job!

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Karlos Quote:

Don't they own the Nova fork? Besides which, literally anyone could produce a compatible library. You don't need to implement a driver for the existing framework and if anything I'd advise against it. Just produce a single library replacement for the main Warp3D.library that implements the key functionality that everything higher up expects. The legacy W3D components for the RTG system and such are probably full of issues by now since 3.x has moved on significantly.

Warp3D was software A-Eon obtained from Hyperion around the time of an "accounting error" resulting in Hyperion Entertainment's non-bankruptcy, the first time. Hyperion can not go bankrupt because of legal misdealings benefiting A-Eon which is why it has more recently avoided bankruptcy again with business saving cash likely coming from the same source.

The Warp3D.library would not need to be replaced or the P96/CGFX render libraries unless to optimize them for performance which they need even on the 68k. Driver libraries like W3D_chipset.library would be needed is all. A-Eon owns Warp3D but has not provided any 68k version updates to my knowledge despite having severe bugs including memory trashing bugs, being a major version behind the PPC version of Warp3D and having some of the worst 68k code quality I have ever seen. Warp3D would be a good candidate to open source but it is monetized like other Hyperion, A-Eon, AmigaKit (HAA Alliance) software, including sometimes indirectly, to sell noncompetitive hardware which is likely why AmigaKit is complaining here and it would not be surprising for Warp3D to appear for the A600GS now. Fortunately, Alain Thelliers's Wazp3D is better at this point as it supports the functionality of the newer PPC v5 Warp3D, has fewer bugs, is open source and has better debugging support. It can already render using hardware within WinUAE and AROS so adding PiStorm support may easier than from scratch.

http://thellier.free.fr/Wazp3D.htm

For Amiga users with existing buggy and poorly optimized 68k Warp3D software with no support, there is the "unofficial" option too.

https://warpclassic68k.blogspot.com/2013/

It should contain bug fixes and optimizations I made too. It is error prone to work without the sources so it is possible other bugs were introduced. Alain's way is preferable and he has done a great job making Wazp3D better than Warp3D. Expect the HAA Alliance to make threats to stop the competition rather than investing in superior hardware though.

@matthey

Some developers was not paid, resulting in some assets being sold, like ExecSG and Warp3D I guess.

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@matthey

You are missing the point. If the whole library framework was actively maintained for 68K, I'd probably say it's worth working with.

As it stands, I see absolutely zero benefits of trying to make an actual W3DHW driver implementation for the existing framework. You'll get dragged into all kids of technical and nontechnical nonsense.

A clean room implementation of the main library targeted at the video core and aware of the latest iterations of the RTG implementations used on the PiStorm completely sidesteps all these problems and allows working with the core in a way that doesn't have to worry about things like memory management being in a separate library that's not particularly aware of your hardware's requirements.

Sure you might have to do a bit more work to implement things like the built-in screen mode requester and such but not much software relied on that.

I'd start by implementing the V4 vertex array code. Simply because the majority of the older V3 routines can be built on them.

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Reading the description on the page, they are doing it the pragmatic way: a single library replacement.

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