Heretic II AmigaOS4 - mini-review

Heretic II was originally released in 1998 on PC, and two years later, thanks to Hyperion, a version for Amiga (PowerPC/WarpOS) also came out. For decades, Heretic 2 was among those Amiga applications that could not be run on machines with AmigaOS4 (well, I managed to finish the demo under WinUAE/OS4), the new port directly for OS4 aims to repay this debt. Steffen Häuser (TheMagicSN) played a crucial role here, this port is essentially his work. The game uses the Quake 2 engine and brings some improvements compared to the original Amiga version (multitexturing - whatever it is - should bring some acceleration) and support for a whole range of graphics standards - from GL4ES (Radeon HD/Radeon RX), through classic MiniGL to software rendering for those of us who have to do without 3D.


Purchase and transport
I bought Heretic II at Alinea Computer (45 EUR + 15 EUR shipping and handling, total 60.96 EUR). The well-packed box with the game was handed over by the German carrier to the Czech Post, but I did not receive any email (or SMS) from it. However, through the tracking of the German carrier's shipment, it was possible to get to postaonline.cz and find out where the package had arrived (it ended up at the post office).


Execution
The shipment includes a classic box (not just a DVD booklet), a cover with two CDs (game and music) - getting the CD out was a bit more difficult... - and a printed manual. Everything in perfect quality.


Installation
I converted both CDs on my laptop using Daemon Tools Lite and ImgBurn to disk images (ISO for the game and BIN/CUE for music).
The installation under QEMU was without problems (the disk image was used as a CD drive), I did not test the functionality of the music.
On Pegasos 2, I transferred the disk images via a USB flash drive and mounted the ISO game via diskimage.device. The installation went smoothly. I mounted the CD with music (via CUE) as ICD0 in the diskimage.device GUI, in the game settings (sound settings) it is then necessary to change the CD unit to 4 (CD music is in diskimage.device unit 4). Heretic 2 started in 640x480 software rendering, it was necessary to switch to MiniGL in the settings (video settings) - the graphic quality and speed thus jumped significantly.


Game configuration
The layout of the keys is quite archaic, but can be freely configured (I changed to WASD etc.). I also accelerated the mouse look.
When switching to MiniGL, the screen is quite dark, the brightness can be set to taste.


Benchmarks
To the command line (just like in Quake):
"timedemo 1"
and then
"demomap standard"

everything without CD music

QEMU 8.2.0 on Core i3-5005U 2 GHz:
640x480 - 8.3 FPS (1343 frames, 162.6 seconds; fullscreen; software rendering)
This test must be taken with a grain of salt, the hosting computer is over 7 years old cheap notebook and FPU emulation in QEMU is slooow.

Pegasos 2, G4 1266 MHz, 1 GB RAM, Radeon 9250 128 MB:
640x480 - 20.1 FPS (2504 frames, 124.7 seconds; fullscreen; software rendering)
640x480 - 52.9 FPS (6606 frames, 124.9 seconds; fullscreen; MiniGL)
800x600 - 44.7 FPS (5580 frames, 124.9 seconds; fullscreen; MiniGL)
1024x768 - 35.4 FPS (4423 frames, 124.9 seconds; fullscreen; MiniGL)
1280x1024 - 23.6 FPS (2948 frames, 124.9 seconds; fullscreen; MiniGL)

I play in 1280x1024 (so in Andoria I will probably have to lower the resolution...).


The game itself
In short, it's a 3D action game in a fantasy world that combines close combat, long-range (weapons and spells), jumping, and light puzzles (environment puzzles). In 1280x1024 MiniGL, everything looks very nice (well, for a game more than 25 years old...), CD music pleasantly enhances the atmosphere. The stability of the game is relatively good - I've changed the settings and screen resolution variously, repeatedly quited and started the game - so far without problems. During the game, I recorded a few system freezes, especially when destroying an explosive barrel, but fortunately, it is not too frequent. Under QEMU, the game froze once even when loading a saved position. As always with this kind of a game, save often.
Review of the original Amiga version in Amiga Review 56: https://amigareview.amiga.sk/amiga-review-56/heretic-ii
There are plenty of PC version reviews on the internet: https://www.mobygames.com/game/673/heretic-ii/reviews/


Possible issues
On some configurations with R200 graphics cards, there are faulty textures probably when using multitexturing (new improvement in the OS4 version), an update of the R200 driver should be available soon (but the origin of the error is not yet clear), for now, it is possible to turn off multitexturing: https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb...=45207&forum=9
--With MiniGL in 640x480 I didn't have this error, in 800x600 yes, in 1024x768 no and 1280x1024 again no - but the error is so far only on the console screen (I guess I'm lucky). It is possible that the problem is only in 800x600, without this problem I got to 1280x1024 all the way to Andoria.
The supplied video player doesn't like G4 emulation under QEMU (it needs to be changed to G3/750CXe).
In software rendering and MiniGL, the amount of remaining ammunition for hellstaff and other weapons is not visible.
The author responds quickly to comments, so we probably won't have to wait long for any fixes.


Rating
Pros:
+Professional execution
+Relative stability
+Support for various graphics standards (software rendering, MiniGL, GL4ES)
+It is possible to play without a CD and with music
+Speed

Cons:
-Price
-Need for additional configuration (keyboard, MiniGL, CD unit)
-Certain graphic problems on R200 and in software rendering

As for me, I'm looking forward to the next project from the author of this port (SiN).

@pavlor

Core i3-5005U.... a Broadwell mobile...

On single thread Cinebench R15, Core i3-5005U is 24% of Intel Core i9-14900K or 26% of AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D mobile.

I have allocated a Ryzen 5 7600X for QEmu 8.2's and WinUAE's AmigaOS 4.1 FE installs.

My WinUAE's AmigaOS 4.1 FE setup has 3DFX Voodoo 3, 1.2 GB Fast RAM via C:Bootloader COMMANDLINE "AllowBasepageAccess GREX NORAMPAGER".

I haven't gotten around to PCIe passthrough for QEmu 8.2 and Radeon HD 7970.

Have you tried with WinUAE?

Last edited by Hammer on 22-Apr-2024 at 07:01 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 22-Apr-2024 at 03:01 AM.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@pavlor

On 27th April 2024 starting 19.00 German time we will be holding a Multiplayer-Event for Heretic II, in cooperation with H2 Vault and Paul Gagnon (who handles the H2 Multiplayer Servers of H2 Vault).

The Server we will be using is:

MyDedServer - 71.84.56.38:28910

Should this server at some point during the event already be "full" there will be a second server prepared at:

Bladerunner's Server - 66.108.89.119:24910

Paul told me that the PC H2 Modding Community was very active the last years and the servers require some extra material to be able to play at them.

I prepared installers for these extra materials and uploaded them to os4depot.

I am not sure if the small archive (400 MB) will be enough to play without H2 saying "I need to download further material now" at some point. Paul recommended the big archive (1.7 GB). Which contains all maps, models, skins etc. the H2 Modding community produced in 20 years. Awesome stuff.

h2_extramaps.lha -> smaller Version, already on os4depot
h2_Big_Data.lha -> huge Version, will be available today

If you have the big file you do not need the small file anymore.

The two archives also optionally offer to install a new config.cfg which already sets the H2 Servers into the addressbook.

It also sets the cl_maxspeed to 60 and cl_yawspeed to 300 which is the typical setting on H2 PC Multiplayer Gaming appearently (probably more fair if all have the same values here, can also be done by game console if not taking the config.cfg:

set cl_maxfps 60
set cl_yawspeed 300

).

I hope a lot of Amiga users will join on 27th April!!!

_________________
AmigaOne X1000 1,8 Ghz/2 GB Ram + Radeon 6670 2 GB + AmigaOS4.1
A4000T CyberstormPPC 604e-200Mhz/060/128MB+CybervisionPPC 8MB + AmigaOS4
and anymore other Amigas...

@pavlor

>--With MiniGL in 640x480 I didn't have this error, in 800x600 yes, in 1024x768 no and 1280x1024 >again no - but the error is so far only on the console screen (I guess I'm lucky). It is possible >that the problem is only in 800x600, without this problem I got to 1280x1024 all the way to >Andoria.

The R200 thing is in my opinion a Graphics Driver Issue where I cannot do much. Note that 800x600 is a bit of a special case as while other screens in 16 Bit have a 2*width bytesperrow this is not the case for 800x600. Maybe the Driver (or the GL Implementation ?) gets confused by this (H2 does not make any assumptions on BPR).

note you might try to not disable multitexturing completely but only gl_sortmulti, does this change anything ? (though gl_sortmulti is what gives the big speedup of multitexturing).

>The supplied video player doesn't like G4 emulation under QEMU (it needs to be changed to >G3/750CXe).

Yes, this is I think a known issue in QEmu. Note that the config change does not influence performance (I tested it myselves), at least not with H2. It is appearently an issue of SDL and all SDL2 using ports have this issue with QEmu in Pegasos2 setup.

>In software rendering and MiniGL, the amount of remaining ammunition for hellstaff and >other weapons is not visible.

And in gl4es this does not happen ?

Best regards,
Steffen

@MagicSN

Quote:

It is appearently an issue of SDL and all SDL2 using ports have this issue with QEmu in Pegasos2 setup.

This is not true. AFAIK issue is limited to 16-bit bitmaps in SDL1 when running on QEmu (Pegasos). SDL1 doesn't care if you are running on Pegasos or AmigaOne.

https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=144695#forumpost144695

https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=144817#forumpost144817

AFAIK the current guess the issue may be in graphics.library.

@Hammer

Quote:

Core i3-5005U.... a Broadwell mobile...

Yeah, my notebook is slow, but serves well its purpose (light webbrowsing, office and old games - with Civilization 3, Skyrim and Mount and Blade Warband being most played). Not something you would use for PowerPC emulation.

Quote:

Have you tried with WinUAE?

CPU speed should be similar on both emulators. I used WinUAE only to convert in-game taken screenshots from ppm to png via Gimp (only application I was able to find able to do this).

@AmigaPapst

Hope you will enjoy the fight! However, multiplayer is nothing for me as I'm barely able to beat even computer controlled opponents.

@MagicSN

Quote:

And in gl4es this does not happen ?

No GL4ES for Pegasos 2 or emulation, so I can't test this.

Here is how the bug looks: https://www.amigaportal.cz/filedata/fetch?photoid=167406

Interesting enough, demo I replayed (via timedemo) shows the number of ammunition correctly.

@pavlor

My WinUAE's emulated PPC has 3DFX Voodoo 3 PCI enabled.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Hammer

Quote:

My WinUAE's emulated PPC has 3DFX Voodoo 3 PCI enabled.

Last time I checked Voodoo3 emulation, 3D was unusably slow. Maybe emulation improved and I will try it again. However, I doubt Heretic 2 will be faster on my notebook/WinUAE/OS4 than on Pegasos 2.

@pavlor

Thanks for your little report about Heretic2 and also the comparison between Qemu/Pegasos2 and real Pegasos2 hardware.

Briefly about Heretic2, Heretic2 uses the OpenSource Mediaplayer MPlayer for playing the videos. An older version was used for the game which leads to graphical artifacts under Qemu/Pegasos2. I was able to solve the problem with MPlayer 1.5 from Os4Depot, as this player was adapted to Qemu and the SDL problems.

I also bought the game to be able to support the last AmigaOs4.1 and have not regretted it.

Here you have a short comparison that Heretic2 can be run very fast on very current hardware. If you have already seen the video, ignore it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nj8gYVQ99w

@Maijestro

Nice!

44.2 FPS in 640x480 software rendering - that is much faster than Pegasos 2 (again in software rendering). MiniGL is of course even faster and looks much better, but this result is really good. With dedicated Radeon HD card in PCIe (and maybe other cards via PCIe/PCI adapter), QEMU will become best hardware for OS4. If only the setup was not so hard...

@pavlor

Note the speed Maijestro gets out of his Mac QEmu setup is around the same speed as on a real Amiga x1000 (with software rendering, on 3D Hardware the x1000 is of course much faster).

I get on my x1000 42 fps in software rendering 640x480, and using RadeonHD 7770 in gl4es renderer I get in 1920x1080 97 fps (there is not much difference in lower res though).

On a x5000 with RadeonRX card the game runs in around 180 fps.

@pavlor

Example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IpYDj6qnW
Wipeout 2097 on AmigaOS 4.1 FE/CyberStormPPC/Voodoo 3/WinUAE 5 on Ryzen 5 7600X.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Hammer

Youtube tells me the video is no longer available. Not that it matters annyway, I will install new WinUAE and try for myself (don't expect miracles on my slow host hardware ).

@Hammer

Good news is... it works. Bad news... no speed up on my hardware (same speed as in software render):

WinUAE 5.2.0 on Core i3-5005U 2 GHz (guest: 604e, 640 MB RAM, Voodoo 3 PCI)
640x480 - 4.9 FPS (1248 frames, 252.4 seconds; fullscreen; software rendering)
640x480 - 4.6 FPS (1248 frames, 269.2 seconds; fullscreen; MiniGL)

Host CPU usage was probably not at max, so there may be few more FPS.


Note bundled mplayer caused H2 to crash, MickJT mplayer works OK (well, I skipped the movie).

@pavlor
URL copy and paste problem
https://youtu.be/4IpYDj6qnWc

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@pavlor

Using Hyperion's old Heretic II Demo with inserted Heretic II PC's ssdocks.bsp and timedemo standard.

WinUAE 5.2.0 on Ryzen 5 7600X (via guest: PPC 604e, 1208 MB RAM, Voodoo 3 PCI) with RTX 3080 Ti (MSI Gaming X OC variant)
Effect detail in default, Audio active.

640x480 - 31.5 FPS (3938 frames, 124.9 seconds; fullscreen; software rendering)
640x480 - 49.3 FPS (5474 frames, 124.8 seconds; fullscreen; MiniGL / Warp3D)

PS; I can extract BSP files from PC's PAK files.

WinUAE's CPU idle setting set to the right side.

My German is rusty from high school.

Last edited by Hammer on 01-May-2024 at 03:09 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-May-2024 at 03:05 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-May-2024 at 03:02 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-May-2024 at 02:55 PM.
Last edited by Hammer on 01-May-2024 at 02:54 PM.

_________________
Amiga 1200 (rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32/RPi CM4/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (rev 6A, ECS, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 4B/Emu68)
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB

@Hammer

Nice! It seems the performance is mostly CPU dependent (there is much bigger speed increase on a real hardware when using Warp3D).

@pavlor

Yep, being stuck at 640x480 must be a bit annoying.

I guess what is shows is hardware hypervisor + JIT can do miracles, but its not going to happen.

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