Back on topic, I've been reworking some of the sillier parts of level C. Fans of the original AB3D may find this place.... Familiar...

https://youtu.be/S075EGOFc6o

@Hammer

You might not want to watch it as it may induce trauma memories of playing AB3D1 and getting bullied over blocky pixels :)

Last edited by Karlos on 04-Jul-2023 at 09:24 AM.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: Unlike Amithlon, Intel has released an X86S white paper to completely remove legacy 16bit X86 and is pushing for UEFI Class 3. Intel has executed multiple attempts to kill legacy 16bit X86.

Again, you don't know of what you talk about. I've shared an article which I've written, but maybe it was too much complicated to understand for you.

Spoiler: this move makes absolutely sense and I bet that, if other vendors embraces it, AMD will do as well because... rolling drum... it's just reflecting the status quo of the x86/x64 ecosystem.
Quote:

Emu68 is focused on CPU instruction set translation like Transmeta's Code Morph software.

I've already told you in the past that your statement it plainly wrong, but you continue (like above with X86S).

It's crystal clear that you have no clue about how the Transmeta's ecosystem worked.

Another spoiler: Code Morph was PART (a good part) of the product, but NOT the only one.

Care to STUDY it and finally understand it?
Quote:

Amithlon tried to be Apple style migration approach with the X86-64.

Wrong again. Apple's Rosetta had much LOWER requirements to be satisfied.

No spoiler here: it was just running user-mode applications in a sandbox and absolutely nothing else.

Amithlon was/is a completely different beast IF you study it and/or have read what his author reported, even recently here in some threads.
Quote:

Emu68 follows Transmeta's Code Morph software approach while AMD/Intel has hardware-accelerated CPU instruction set translation.

See above: plainly wrong. Again, you continue talk of this where you have no clue. AT ALL!

You've to STUDY instead of reporting complete BS!
Quote:

FYI, AMD's and NVIDIA's latest GPUs still support legacy VGA BIOS. Intel's ARC does not support legacy BIOS VGA and is dead for retro PC. Fuk Intel.

For pure (not emulated) retro gaming there are PLANTY of old PCs which could do the job and that you can find with a few buckets.

If I've to play old PC games, emulation is the way to because It allows to concrete ad hoc configuration that are simply impossible with a modern PC.

Here it doesn't matter if the modern PC has or not a legacy VGA BIOS: who cares!
Quote:

Intel's Itanium mentality still exists with Intel.

Again, wrong example. With Itanium Intel wanted to kill everything.

Which is NOT the case with X86S and removing the VGA BIOS, which are only a very small part of the entire x86/x64 platform.
Quote:

AGA is Amiga's legacy just like the latest AMD/NVIDIA GPUs have legacy VGA.

Wrong again. Commodore didn't even published AGA's hardware registers because wanted that programmers AVOIDED directly hitting the hardware and used the o.s. (included the provided low-level libraries).

So, the last legacy was ECS. In fact, AAA was supposed to be only ECS backward-compatible.

Besides that, Amiga programmers didn't care about Commodore guidelines and statements and reverse-engineered the copperlists produced by the graphics library to see which new registers were added and new bits used, so that it was still possible to continue hitting the hardware even with the AGA (which, again, it was a requirement due to the limited resources of the Amiga 1200).


@Karlos: sorry, but it's not possible for me to see complete BS reported as facts.

P.S. No time read again.

@cdimauro

Quote:

Again, you don't know of what you talk about. I've shared an article which I've written, but maybe it was too much complicated to understand for you.

Bullshit.

Quote:

Spoiler: this move makes absolutely sense and I bet that, if other vendors embraces it, AMD will do as well because... rolling drum... it's just reflecting the status quo of the x86/x64 ecosystem

Spoiler: AMD's latest AM5 still has VBIOS and UEFI Class 2 CSM support. RX 7600, RX 7900 XT, 7900 XTX still has VBIOS support.

NVIDIA's latest RTX 4070, 4080, and 4090 still have VBIOS support.

Intel has removed VBIOS support from ARC A750 and A770. Intel is a tiny minority in the discrete PC GPU market.

Quote:

I've already told you in the past that your statement it plainly wrong, but you continue (like above with X86S).

You can't handle the truth when Intel has hated 16bit X86 from iAPX 432, Pentium Pro's degraded 16bit X86 performance, anti-X86 Itanium, and the "X86S" initiative.

Quote:

It's crystal clear that you have no clue about how the Transmeta's ecosystem worked. Another spoiler: Code Morph was PART (a good part) of the product, but NOT the only one. Care to STUDY it and finally understand it?

Read https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs6120/2019fa/blog/transmeta/

The CMS includes a software x86 interpreter which runs programs accurately while also monitoring performance statistics. Once it notices a particular code region has run more than some threshold number of times, it stops interpreting, commits the current state, and tries running a just-in-time compiled version of the code region. The compiled code is stored in a "translation cache" or Tcache.

The JIT will reorder instructions in order to get an efficient schedule on the VLIW architecture.

Conclusion
The Transmeta CMS system is a compiler solution to a hardware problem.


You don't know shit about Transmeta CMS.



Quote:

See above: plainly wrong. Again, you continue talk of this where you have no clue. AT ALL! You've to STUDY instead of reporting complete BS!

Fuckoff.

Last edited by Hammer on 06-Jul-2023 at 08:02 AM.
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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)

@cdimauro

Quote:

Wrong again. Apple's Rosetta had much LOWER requirements to be satisfied. No spoiler here: it was just running user-mode applications in a sandbox and absolutely nothing else. Amithlon was/is a completely different beast IF you study it and/or have read what his author reported, even recently here in some threads.

Wrong. Apple's 68K emulation for PowerPC operates at the MacOS level, not under MacOS.

Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_68k_emulator

All versions of this emulator emulated the "user" subset of the 68EC040 instruction set with a 68020/68030 exception stack frame


Apple launched Rosetta in 2006 upon the Mac transition to Intel processors from PowerPC and Steve Jobs demonstrated Rosetta in 2005 (Ref 1).

Rosetta 1 was embedded in the Intel version of Mac OS X v10.4.4 "Tiger".

AmigaOS 4.0 was originally released in April 2004 (Ref 2). AmigaOS 4.x' 68K emulator operates at the OS level. For AmigaOS 4.0, Hyperion followed Apple's 68K userland emulation to the PowerPC transition model.

Silicon Graphics announced QuickTransit's first availability in October 2004 on its Prism visualization systems. HAHAHAH

You got the dates wrong i.e. you're jumping the gun with 2005 demonstrated Rosetta 1's PPC to X86 app migration when Apple has 68K to PowerPC transition.

Reference
1. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/the-brains-behind-apples-rosetta-transitive/
Date: June 8, 2005

2. https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90:amigaos-40-developer-pre-release-goes-gold&catid=36:amigaos-4x&Itemid=18
AmigaOS 4.0 Developer Pre-release goes gold
Date: April 16, 2004.


Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTransit
QuickTransit technology is associated with legacy OS/CPU to target OS/CPU.

https://www.linux-kvm.org/images/9/98/KvmForum2008%24kdf2008_2.pdf
Transitive offers two translation models
1. Application-level translation.
Foreign application calls are translated to native OS.
Foreign application's userland CPU instruction translated to host CPU.

2. Machine-level translation i.e. full OS translation, translate everything.

For Rosetta 1's PPC to X86-64, Apple selected 1st option with modification i.e. just the userland CPU translation. Rosetta does NOT emulate PowerPC MMU.

Your "Transitive example" is useless when AmigaOS 4.0's 68K emulation model existed before Rosetta. HAHAHAHAHA.

Stop drinking laxatives, it's bad for your health.

Amithlon is like UAE (hosted on Linux) with degraded backward compatibility. It's a good bet that Vampire's 10,000 units shipment is more than DraCo's. I stayed with WinUAE and Amiga Forever. Bernie Meyer: "Who cares about games". https://youtu.be/cUcE12W15Aw?t=139

Cloanto's Amiga Forever Plus Edition CD can also boot into Linux lite/UAE combo. https://www.amigaforever.com/screenshots/kxlight-boot/

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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)

@Karlos

Quote:

Karlos wrote: Back on topic, I've been reworking some of the sillier parts of level C. Fans of the original AB3D may find this place.... Familiar... https://youtu.be/S075EGOFc6o @Hammer You might not want to watch it as it may induce trauma memories of playing AB3D1 and getting bullied over blocky pixels :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXWrLX2I3es
Alien Breed 3D on Commodore Amiga CD32.

Do you think this subpar experience will attract new users to the Amiga CD32 platform?

In terms of the game design targeting specific hardware specs, which one would you prefer i.e. Dread/Grind or Alien Breed 3D?

One can argue Alien Breed 3D can do more things when compared to Doom with a comically bad presentation while 386DX-33/486SX PC has 1995 Star Wars Dark Forces.

Do you know why Dread/Grind has a better response from Amiga campers? Dread/Grind runs pretty smooth on stock A1200 or CD32 and at full screen.

Escom's A1200 1995 return has the same specs as Commodore's A1200 specs and the developer for Skid Marks/Gloom 3D complains about it in Amiga magazines.

Last edited by Hammer on 06-Jul-2023 at 08:36 AM.
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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)

@Hammer

AB3D runs on an unexpanded A1200 / CD32 in much the same way Quake ran on a 486/25. It works and that's about all you can say. Try AB3D1 on an A1200 with some fast memory. The difference is significant. On a 28MHz 020 with fast memory, it's pretty fluid. The gameplay is great, blocky pixels aside. Every other 3D FPS game for the Amiga at that time had similar visual limitations as we were still very much in the era of using the copper to emulate chunky pixel displays with various levels of fidelity. Chunky to planar just wasn't a widespread technique in 1995 and what examples existed were probably considered too slow for unexpanded machines. Also, the game was basically developed by a bunch of students in their spare time. It was remarkable that it was ever released.

Grind is a different kettle of fish. It has been designed around proven BSP principles and written for the limitations of the A500 with 25+ years worth of additional optimisation expertise behind it. It's an engineering marvel, without a doubt.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

@Hammer

Quote:

Do you think this subpar experience will attract new users to the Amiga CD32 platform?

How else were we going to sell SX-1/SX32 boards to give a good experience? Upgrading Amigas was possible and the products were there! It's just the A500 owners only wanted pirated games and weren't interested in upgrading (that killed the A1200's launch and scuppered the CD32 later) other than to a PC for a pirated or shareware version of Doom! Oh yeah, and an A500 owner definitely couldn't run AB32...at least a CD32 owner had some options!

Last edited by BigD on 06-Jul-2023 at 08:01 PM.
Last edited by BigD on 06-Jul-2023 at 08:00 PM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@Karlos

Quote:

AB3D runs on an unexpanded A1200 / CD32 in much the same way Quake ran on a 486/25. It works and that's about all you can say.

In Australia, I faced this problem in 1996's Quake. Many of my school friends upgraded to Pentium-based PCs at this point.

The Pentium @ 150 Mhz + S3 Trio 64UV + Yamaha 16bit sound card-based + PcPartner Intel 430VXmotherboard PC clone + KTX 14 inch SVGA monitor is close to the 1989 Amiga 500 with a 1084S monitor's cost.

I overclocked Pentium 150Mhz into 166 Mhz with a simple FSB jumper. Lower-clocked Pentium PCs are cheaper.

The budget is between $1000 to $1600 AUD for both 1989 and 1996.

Australian 1996 prices for Amigas
https://archive.org/details/Australian_Amiga_Review_Volume_13_Issue_1_1996-01_Storm_Front_Studios_AU/page/n9/mode/2up

Amiga 1200 with 170 MB HDD = $1245 AUD
DKB Cobra 40 (68030 @ 40Mhz with 4MB RAM) = $549 AUD

VS

https://archive.org/details/ea1996_201906/EA%201996-10%20October/page/n87/mode/2up?view=theater
Electronics Australia October 1996
Page: 88 of 132
Motherboard 430VX = $199
Diamond Stealth S3 Trio 64 1MB = $149
Pentium 150 = $569
ESS 16-bit sound card = $55

Page: 86 of 132
1GB HDD = $268
Two 4 MB EDO RAM = $90 ($45 x2)

Total = $1,330 (add or recycle keyboard, mouse, ATX case, and 14-inch SVGA monitor).

Phase 5's CyberStorm 060 @ 50Mhz ($2595) and CyberVision 64 (S3 Trio 64U, $995) don't come close to that budget.

Dollars in AUD.

Quote:

Try AB3D1 on an A1200 with some fast memory. The difference is significant. On a 28MHz 020 with fast memory, it's pretty fluid. The gameplay is great, blocky pixels aside. Every other 3D FPS game for the Amiga at that time had similar visual limitations as we were still very much in the era of using the copper to emulate chunky pixel displays with various levels of fidelity. Chunky to planar just wasn't a widespread technique in 1995 and what examples existed were probably considered too slow for unexpanded machines. Also, the game was basically developed by a bunch of students in their spare time. It was remarkable that it was ever released.

1996-era Gloom Deluxe and Nemac IV have C2P and both games run ECS-based Amiga 3000 or any 32-bit CPU-accelerated Amigas.

AB3D1 only runs on AGA equiped Amigas.

It's strange why the Australian CD32 price is $299 to $399 price range while bare bone A1200 is around $900.

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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)

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @Hammer Quote: Do you think this subpar experience will attract new users to the Amiga CD32 platform? How else were we going to sell SX-1/SX32 boards to give a good experience? Upgrading Amigas was possible and the products were there! It's just the A500 owners only wanted pirated games and weren't interested in upgrading (that killed the A1200's launch and scuppered the CD32 later) other than to a PC for a pirated or shareware version of Doom! Oh yeah, and an A500 owner definitely couldn't run AB32...at least a CD32 owner had some options!

Any OCS/ECS Amigas with full 32-bit CPU accelerators were road-killed by AGA game requirements and uncompetitive entry AGA price points.

I have A3000/030 @ 25Mhz with 4MB FastRAM and 2 MB Chip RAM in 1992 and AGA requirement is a major problem. CD32's AGA mainboard doesn't fit in the Zorro III slot!
$399 AGA on a Zorro III card would be acceptable.

For AGA requirement, any OCS/ECS Amiga owner with 68020/68030 @ 25 Mhz+ accelerator will need to purchase a baseline A1200 and then purchase another 68020/68030 @ 25Mhz+ accelerator. Many OCS/ECS Amiga owners with GVP A530/A500 and A2000/G-Force 030 combos are pissed off with the situation and bought 32-bit X86 PC clones instead. Many Amiga owners like me walked away from this situation.

At its peak, GVP reached half a billion dollars in revenue which is half of Commodore's.

Dumping the entire A3000/030 @ 25mhz with 2 MB Chip RAM and 32-bit 4 MB Fast RAM for baseline A1200 is a bad situation. We can't reuse the full 32-bit 68030 CPU in the A3000 or from A2000's 68030 accelerators or from GVP A530. VT2000 that doesn't fit in A3000's case situation was LOL.

IF A1200's side expansion bus was compatible with GVP A530, then the situation is acceptable. A1200's internal expansion bus is based on Zorro II with 32-bit extensions which is close to A500's Zorro I/II side expansion bus (hint: ACA500Plus that supports A1200 CPU accelerators).

Baseline A1200 wasn't able to leverage the existing GVP A530 owners. PCMCIA slot can be placed in the back. Commodore wreaked GVP. That ex-IBM Jr Bill Sydnes needs to be pushed under the bus.

How many times does the moderately cashed-up Amiga owner need to purchase the 68030 accelerator?

An Amiga user can reuse RPi 3A+ for either A500 (with PiStorm gateway adapter) or A1200 (with PiStorm32 Lite gateway adapter). I only reason why purchased RPi 4B is due to a substantial performance increase.

For the Doom era 1993, the Amiga doesn't have a price vs performance advantage.
Apple's Quadra 605 with 68LC040 @ 25Mhz is cheaper than C= A4000/030 or rivals A1200 with 68030@ 50Mhz accelerator prices. Quadra 605 is a mass-produced single board with a 68LC040 CPU on it.

SX-1 was released in 1994 and allows Fast RAM (~2.1 MIPS).
SX-32 Mk1 was released in 1995 and allows Fast RAM (~2.1 MIPS).
SX 32 Pro was released in 1996 with a 68030 @ 50 Mhz accelerator. This is like the 386DX-40 level performance being sold in 1996 with a Pentium CPU pricing!

Beware of the timeline.

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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)

@Hammer

But the SX-32 (Pro especially)DID provide an upgrade path for CD32 owners to get AB3D working smoother which was my point!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@Hammer

Quote:

AB3D1 only runs on AGA equiped Amigas.

Not for much longer. There's already a partially working RTG version. The biggest challenge with it specifically is that, like AB3D2, the display resolution is hardcoded into many places, not just basic constants but into table sizes and so forth.

However, AB3D1 is a perfect fit for RTG as it has a 15-bit render path. It's definitely on my bucket list to have a look at.

Last edited by Karlos on 07-Jul-2023 at 12:55 PM.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

@BigD

The Level C changes are now merged into main, so you can download the zip file from GitHub as usual. This version has updated binaries for 060 using work paraj over at EAB has contributed.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

@Karlos

Thanks! When do you think an Aminet release will happen? I guess we need a working HUD under RTG for that? No small feat I'm sure! Love the changes to level C, can't wait to play!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

All the HUD and other code related fixes are part of a separate project regarding the engine. This thread ended up talking about both that and my game mod for it.

Regarding level C, the game is totally done holding your hand at this point. You can complete it from a pistol start but it's a bit more difficult than the previous levels. Thanks to the current state of the RTG engine I'm basically playing it hudless. No idea if Im about to die or run out of ammo at every turn.

Last edited by Karlos on 07-Jul-2023 at 11:46 PM.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

@Karlos

It's a shame the game doesn't have a red filter when you approach very near death. That would have been fine and played to the survival horror atmosphere!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

It does, it's just not working at the moment.The original shaded the palette towards red as you took damage. It's on the list of things not quite working.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

Once the red filter is fixed I think we should add a different one for being underwater.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @Karlos Thanks! When do you think an Aminet release will happen? I guess we need a working HUD under RTG for that? No small feat I'm sure! Love the changes to level C, can't wait to play!

Tried it yet?

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

@Karlos

So tired of this annoying way of getting software on my SD card having to disassemble the case all the time! I'll have to configure my Squirrel and SCSI peripherals before getting this new version onto my A1200 I'm afraid!

You said it was more optimised for 060s now? Maybe I'll have a go on that!

Last edited by BigD on 12-Jul-2023 at 12:27 AM.
Last edited by BigD on 12-Jul-2023 at 12:26 AM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

There are, but they aren't "mainstream" yet.

Do you not have a network card? I got a PCMCIA one years ago. I may nor be thr fastest but its still super useful.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...