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Heimdall 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 26-Jan-2025 12:54:23
#21 ]
Member
Joined: 20-Jan-2025
Posts: 47
From: North Dakota

@thellier

Quote:

thellier wrote:
Just here to say that there is Wazp3D for Maggie/Vampire that is also currently developped
So programs coded for Warp3D/Amiga/680x0 will also run on it
Not perfect yet but should be enough to run your game without problem

Maggie ! That's a rabbit hole I will resist till after I release the game, as otherwise, that effort could have resulted in a released game.

However, I don't think Warp3D/Wazp3D codepath should prove so destructive.

Does your current version of Wazp utilize some Vampire-specific AMMX/Maggie features perhaps ?


Thinking about it some more, I could spend a week or two playing with the API - I mean I do have a fully working SW rasterizer engine, so all I really need to do is open the library and convert the Integer/FxP coordinates into floating point and call the method - that shouldn't be a dark rabbit hole...

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Heimdall 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 26-Jan-2025 12:58:00
#22 ]
Member
Joined: 20-Jan-2025
Posts: 47
From: North Dakota

@thellier

Quote:

thellier wrote:
@Heimdall

Also have a look at
https://www.aminet.net/package/dev/src/StarShipW3D
that is an example minimal code to draw with Warp3D
Oh, wow ! Minimum working example - that's exactly what I need!

Thank you

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Heimdall 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 27-Jan-2025 13:56:42
#23 ]
Member
Joined: 20-Jan-2025
Posts: 47
From: North Dakota

Setting Warp3D up under WinUAE isn't as straightforward as I was hoping for.

I got the Warp3D-4.2a.lha from Aminet.

Of course, installer script doesn't work and won't install it.

Reading up on it a bit, Warp3D requires a hierarchy of directories inside Libs and this is where it probably halted when running the script. When attempting to MkDir from within the DirOpus at Libs:, I get the error 221 Disk Is Full.

I'm guessing it's some kind of write protection of system directories or something ?

Alternatively, I copied warp3D.library into the same directory of my engine executable, but when I try opening the library from within the code, it fails to open it (returns 0). My guess is because it's searching for one of the additional libraries.

Since I am using CGX4, that's the one I copied into the same local dir, but that didn't help (neither did trying any of the other libs - W3D_CyberGfx.library or W3D_Picasso96.library)

This is why I hate setting up the dev environment. The script never just runs...

It would probably have helped if my alternate past included ever working (or at least seeing in person) with an actual Amiga HW (so I could have learnt the OS intricancies) - but it's foolish to wish for a past that never could have happened in the first place...

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thellier 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 29-Jan-2025 7:45:39
#24 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 2-Nov-2009
Posts: 270
From: Paris

@Heimdall

If you use WaZp3D in WinUAE you dont need to install real WaRp3D at all


WaZp3D ReadMe:

INSTALLATION
Wazp3D-Prefs should be copied to your SYS:Prefs directory
Rename existing LIBS:Warp3D.library to LIBS:Warp3D.library-save

If you are using WinUAE 68k then
copy Wazp3D.library-winuae TO LIBS:Warp3D.library
copy soft3d.library TO LIBS:soft3d.library
and PC side copy soft3d.dll to the WinUAE directory
WinUAE need "Miscellaneous panel/Native code execution" to be enabled
(note that renderer:hard only works on 32 bits screeenmode)

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Heimdall 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 29-Jan-2025 9:58:42
#25 ]
Member
Joined: 20-Jan-2025
Posts: 47
From: North Dakota

@thellier
I would love to try that but I can't copy any file into LIBS

I just spent two hours reading up on yet-another-OS of my lifetime (Amiga OS in this case) and ruled out the following:

- DH0: is not locked
- Libs directory has "rwed" access privileges, so it should be fine
- info shows that the DH0: is actually 100% full

Further check shows that under WinUAE, it is someting called a hardfile (that is 61 M large).
3906/1/32, 124992/125000 blocks, 61.0MB/61.0MB

It looks like it should be repartitioned as there is no space left on that partition. Whichever MF created it, it was a deliberate choice so that nothing could ever be installed into the system !

I tried changing the block/sector size under the Properties Tab in WinUAE but obviously that broke it and the system didn't load. So, it does need repartitioning...

So, very clearly, the actual drive is full. I didn't create the HDF. I don't know if the HDF is a WinUAE-specific extension or if it's an Amiga thing, but I am so aggravated right now that I categorically refuse to even enter that nonsensical term into a google search, because this will most likely be a rabbit hole with two hundred additional dependencies and it's going to take 2 weeks to get it to work under my specific OS installation, and in the process it'll break dozen other things that I'll only find out about six months later.
And I could create 6-10 gameplay features for my game in the same time It'd take to address this issue properly...


Are there any different developer HDF files that I could download somewhere ? Preferably with at least 0.5 MB free space ? Perhaps even 0.97 MB free space so I can fit one bloody library there ?


This just gave me a workaround idea - since I ruled out password-locked partition, I should be able to just delete something random from the OS and deal with it (if it becomes issue) later (will keep backup of the HDF). I noticed there is gcc installed on the HDF - I'm sure I won't need that as I code in ASM anyway.

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Heimdall 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 29-Jan-2025 11:33:57
#26 ]
Member
Joined: 20-Jan-2025
Posts: 47
From: North Dakota

So, recreating the required directory structure as per the Warp3D readme didn't help and the Warp3D.library still won't open.

I'm guessing there has to be a proper configuration under WinUAE too. I'm currently using Zorro III UAE as the board.

Maybe I should try Virge or Permedia, as Warp3D seems to have those ones implemented...


As a next step I could try Wazp


EDIT: Nevermind, got the library to finally open. What a clusterfuck to configure...

Last edited by Heimdall on 29-Jan-2025 at 11:59 AM.

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thellier 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 29-Jan-2025 17:01:01
#27 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 2-Nov-2009
Posts: 270
From: Paris

@Heimdall

Delete some stuff in your hardfile then install Wazp3D like I told you = easy

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Karlos 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 29-Jan-2025 19:03:24
#28 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 24-Aug-2003
Posts: 4843
From: As-sassin-aaate! As-sassin-aaate! Ooh! We forgot the ammunition!

@thellier

Just add a directory as a hard drive, create a new Libs directory in there and edit the user startup on the hard file to Assign ADD the new directory to LIBS: also.

_________________
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MagicSN 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 30-Jan-2025 8:12:19
#29 ]
Hyperion
Joined: 10-Mar-2003
Posts: 728
From: Unknown

@Heimdall

I think technical questions have been more or
less answered right?

As to pledge you should be able to enter a custom value
instead of the 10. no predefined ones as indiegogo is
only able to do this if you specify a price for the product
bigger than 0 - and on opensource the price naturally is 0.

Btw as to „nova“ it is a completely different api only
having the name in common.

Also as to „driver“ - the suggested path is not a driver
but a reimplemented library. I know, not really
relevant to the enduser, but on legal grounds big
difference.

Steffen

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Heimdall 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 30-Jan-2025 22:17:20
#30 ]
Member
Joined: 20-Jan-2025
Posts: 47
From: North Dakota

@thellier
Does the Wazp support 24/32-bit color depth in SW ?

I'm debugging why my W3D_CreateContext call is failing and it looks like it's returning W3D_UNSUPPORTEDFMT

I've tried most of the GFX boards under WinUAE, but without any success.

Which, on a second thought, is probably correct, since it took quite a few generations of GFX chipsets till we got 24-bit support in good framerate.

Even early 3DFX had issues with 15/16-bit color depth (wasn't it just Voodoo 2 that introduced 16-bit?).

Unfortunately, even under CGX, it's not as simple as switching to a different flag (tried that, that's not how it works unfortunately).
Non-24-bit RTG CGX modes require a completely different initialization, which is why I don't have it implemented yet.

Besides, from what I heard, 16-bit RTG is way too slow on 060 anyway to be useable, so no point - really. Meaning - might as well just stay with Vampire.


And, obviously, there's no point in wasting effort on implementing 8-bit color depth, unless I have the C2P implemented, as 8-bit RTG under P96 is allegedly ridiculously slow compared to C2P approach.

It's a lovely Catch-22

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Heimdall 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 30-Jan-2025 22:24:06
#31 ]
Member
Joined: 20-Jan-2025
Posts: 47
From: North Dakota

@Karlos

Quote:

Karlos wrote:
@thellier

Just add a directory as a hard drive, create a new Libs directory in there and edit the user startup on the hard file to Assign ADD the new directory to LIBS: also.
Thanks for the hint. I'll try that approach once I run of things to delete. For now, I deleted enough to manually copy Warp3D libraries to LIBS:

@MagicSN
I was mostly wondering if there was a way to still become a Beta Tester, but since I don't really have the HW required to run Warp3D, I guess this is a moot point anyway...

Also, I won't go into the legalise. I'm a coder, I just wanna code :)

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Heimdall 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 31-Jan-2025 0:28:15
#32 ]
Member
Joined: 20-Jan-2025
Posts: 47
From: North Dakota

Back to the issue of 16-bit color depth.

My engine internally supports all 3 bitdepths: 8, 16, 24

Standard approach via CGX's WritePixelArray () can only handle RECTFMT_ARGB - meaning just 24-bit

For 16-bit, the RECTFMT_RGB16 is an AROS-only extension, so that's basically useless (it has to work everywhere, not just on AROS).

For 8-bit, there's WriteLUTPixelArray (), but I haven't tried it, because again - there's no point, if we can't have all 3 bitdepths using same approach.


Potentially, switching to P96, might fix this - does anybody know for sure that P96 does directly support 16-bit too when using an equivalent of WritePixelArray () ?

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matthey 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 31-Jan-2025 5:45:12
#33 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 14-Mar-2007
Posts: 2460
From: Kansas

Heimdall Quote:

Does the Wazp support 24/32-bit color depth in SW ?


Alain's Wazp3D page has some hints.

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

The Wazp3D.library FAQ

Why prog xxx builtin renderer is faster than Wazp3D?

Often built-in software renderer use only 8bits textures . Wazp3D use 32bits coloring/texturing ==> 4 time slower


It sounds like Wazp3D uses RGBA32 internally and other formats are converted.

Heimdall Quote:

I'm debugging why my W3D_CreateContext call is failing and it looks like it's returning W3D_UNSUPPORTEDFMT

I've tried most of the GFX boards under WinUAE, but without any success.

Which, on a second thought, is probably correct, since it took quite a few generations of GFX chipsets till we got 24-bit support in good framerate.

Even early 3DFX had issues with 15/16-bit color depth (wasn't it just Voodoo 2 that introduced 16-bit?).


The Voodoo 3/4/5 only support 16-bit LE and BE modes for 3D. P96 has some bugs with BE modes so 16-bit 565 LE/PC mode was the best choice as I recall. Also, textures are limited to 256x256 pixels.

Permedia2 also has limitations.

https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/UserDoc:Warp3D#Unsupported_features Quote:

Unsupported features

The Permedia2 lacks direct support for the following Warp3D features

o Multitexturing
o MIP Mapping
o Stencil buffer
o Blend functions other than alpha blending and a partial additive blend implementation
o Fog functions other than interpolated
o Gouraud shaded vertex alpha values


Permedia2 supports higher resolution textures up to 2048x2048 and maybe 24/32 bit modes but the Amiga boards only supported 8 MiB of memory which is less than most Voodoo 3 cards with 16 MiB. Emulating these early cards is likely to give the same limitations using the old Warp3D drivers. This has the advantage of developing software for the old hardware without having the hardware. Wazp3D instead likely tries to create a more modern but generic driver for WinUAE by translating Warp3D function calls into Windows 3D API calls. Wazp3D also has a software renderer which Warp3D lacks and does not seem to be wanted by A-EonKit along with 68k support. PPC hardware is threatened by 68k Amiga virtual machines that offer better CPU and GPU performance and value. Instead of making better value hardware, they sabotage the competition by restricting their software defensively.

Heimdall Quote:

Unfortunately, even under CGX, it's not as simple as switching to a different flag (tried that, that's not how it works unfortunately).
Non-24-bit RTG CGX modes require a completely different initialization, which is why I don't have it implemented yet.

Besides, from what I heard, 16-bit RTG is way too slow on 060 anyway to be useable, so no point - really. Meaning - might as well just stay with Vampire.


It depends. RTG modes use more bus bandwidth to transfer each frame to the GPU where a 3D card generally does not have to retransfer the textures after they have been sent to the card. True color 32-bit chunky modes use twice the bandwidth of 16-bit modes which use twice the bandwidth of 8-bit modes. CBM never bug fixed and optimized ZorroIII to reach its full potential and most bus boards do not even reach ZorroIII max performance. There are 68060 Amigas with ZorroII cards which are much worse in this regard.

Performance for the 68060 can vary substantially depending on many factors. Some accelerators are higher performance, some 68060s are clocked faster, the 68060.library used can make a difference, OxyPatcher/CyberPatcher/MuRedox type utilities can make a large different depending on the compiler which leads to the importance of the compiler and code. The 68060 received poor compiler support but it is a very powerful in-order CPU for the resources, especially for integer performance (you said your 3D engine uses fixed point integers). Even with the 68060 compiler handicap including no 68060 specific instruction scheduler, the 68060 outperforms the Pentium by 40% in integer performance at the same clock speed.

https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=44391&forum=25&16#847418

The 68060 FPU is not fully pipelined but FPU performance was close to that of the pipelined Pentium FPU, likely due to the x86 FPU poor stack based FPU also being a problem for compilers. Quake performed better on the Pentium but this is likely due to many hand assembly optimizations and much of the data being streamed from memory where the Pentium has a 64-bit data bus and the 68060 has a 32-bit data bus. The 68060 is a very good design but the silicon is old, the caches are only 8kiB I+D and the FPU and 32-bit.data bus are embedded market compromises. The 500nm chip process 68060 holds up better than the Amiga chipset that uses much older 5000nm NMOS silicon from the mid 1970s even for AGA in the 1990s.

Heimdall Quote:

And, obviously, there's no point in wasting effort on implementing 8-bit color depth, unless I have the C2P implemented, as 8-bit RTG under P96 is allegedly ridiculously slow compared to C2P approach.

It's a lovely Catch-22


It is not easy doing 3D on 2D museum hardware. Frankenstein treatment still has bottlenecks. We want the ease of programing and elegance of operation of the 68k Amiga but Trevor loves his dead PPC abomination and the remaining Amiga optimists are satisfied with emulation. Honestly, x86-64 Windows is more elegant than a 68k Amiga virtual machine now. Why 3D on the 2D 68k Amiga 30 years after the Amiga died?

Last edited by matthey on 31-Jan-2025 at 03:58 PM.
Last edited by matthey on 31-Jan-2025 at 03:49 PM.

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Karlos 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 31-Jan-2025 15:46:07
#34 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 24-Aug-2003
Posts: 4843
From: As-sassin-aaate! As-sassin-aaate! Ooh! We forgot the ammunition!

@matthey

Technically, the Permedia2 supports a 1 bit stencil buffer at the expense of halving the Z Buffer precision. However, the API is somewhat geared towards 8-bit as a minimum and you can't allocate the stencil buffer without the Z.

I did contemplate adding it however, as I have seen implementation of stencil shadows that can work with 1 bit.

_________________
Doing stupid things for fun...

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matthey 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 31-Jan-2025 16:48:04
#35 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 14-Mar-2007
Posts: 2460
From: Kansas

Karlos Quote:

Technically, the Permedia2 supports a 1 bit stencil buffer at the expense of halving the Z Buffer precision. However, the API is somewhat geared towards 8-bit as a minimum and you can't allocate the stencil buffer without the Z.

I did contemplate adding it however, as I have seen implementation of stencil shadows that can work with 1 bit.


Feel free to update the wiki at https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/UserDoc:Warp3D if you have permission. The amigaos.net wiki is one of the best Amiga documentation sites that almost has the documentation newcomer developers need but it came up short. The "unsupported features" section is a good idea considering the hardware limitations of early cards but it only has it for the Permedia2 and nobody has improved the information since 2013. Also, there is mention of the 68k Warp3D AmigaOS 3 development but then the documentation appears to be AmigaOS 4 specific. The wiki is "Copyright (c) Hyperion Entertainment and contributors" from when Hyperion abandoned and discarded 68k support even though recently the 68k AmigaOS has kept them alive, they no longer own Warp3D and they can not get 68k Warp3D support from the owner for their ported game business. The Warp3D owner, A-EonKit, was their former PPC AmigaNOne ally but they have more to gain from becoming a 68k Amiga ally with Amiga Corporation now. Hyperion can not count on A-EonKit continuing to bail them out. If the 2009 agreement between Amiga Inc and Hyperion is ended or Trevor gives up on selling off his PPC dead inventory, then Hyperion is history. A-EonKit already uses their AmigaOS replacement in the A600GS, owns Exec SG and owns or licenses graphic card drivers, Warp3D and Warp3D Nova.

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Karlos 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 31-Jan-2025 17:53:06
#36 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 24-Aug-2003
Posts: 4843
From: As-sassin-aaate! As-sassin-aaate! Ooh! We forgot the ammunition!

@matthey

I don't think you read my post properly. 1 bit stencilling just isn't a fit for the API, so it's not implemented, so updating the documentation is moot.

Incidentally, I wrote that particularly wiki entry, but I have no idea if I still have write access.

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matthey 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 31-Jan-2025 18:16:17
#37 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 14-Mar-2007
Posts: 2460
From: Kansas

Karlos Quote:

I don't think you read my post properly. 1 bit stencilling just isn't a fit for the API, so it's not implemented, so updating the documentation is moot.

Incidentally, I wrote that particularly wiki entry, but I have no idea if I still have write access.


The wiki probably could have been improved with separate "hardware limitations" and "driver unsupported features" with the latter updated as driver development progresses. Warp3D development is dead though, killed by A-EonKit. It probably was not worth it for a few hundred users anyway the same as Ben discovered about PPC AmigaOS 4 software development. A-EonKit still blocks development in desperate protection of their failed noncompetitive hardware. RIP Amiga.

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Karlos 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 31-Jan-2025 18:27:37
#38 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 24-Aug-2003
Posts: 4843
From: As-sassin-aaate! As-sassin-aaate! Ooh! We forgot the ammunition!

@matthey

The wiki entry only exist at all because I wrote it while working on the drivers mentioned.

It's irrelevant now. If you want 3D for 68K, put your efforts behind the proposed monolith replacement.

Last edited by Karlos on 31-Jan-2025 at 06:28 PM.

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thellier 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 31-Jan-2025 22:49:51
#39 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 2-Nov-2009
Posts: 270
From: Paris

Yes Wazp3D use internally RGBA32 textures and also have functions to directly write to RGBA32 screen but it also can convert the pixels to many 15/16/24/32 bits screen formats = so you can use any RTG screen format, up to 2048x2048, but not 8bits modes

It also support all the texture formats, all zbuffer operators (equal, greater or equal, etc...) all blend functions
Certainly WaZp3D is more compatible(*) than any existing WaRp3D drivers

The main thing that WaZp3D dont support is stencil, 8 bit mode and dithering
Also the OS4 version dont really support multitexturing


* So beware that a program coded on Wazp3D and working on Wazp3D may not works on some real hardware WaRp3D drivers that dont implement some features

Last edited by thellier on 31-Jan-2025 at 10:53 PM.

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Heimdall 
Re: Integrating Warp3D into my 3D engine
Posted on 1-Feb-2025 10:21:55
#40 ]
Member
Joined: 20-Jan-2025
Posts: 47
From: North Dakota

@matthey

Quote:

matthey wrote:

Alain's Wazp3D page has some hints.

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

The Wazp3D.library FAQ

Why prog xxx builtin renderer is faster than Wazp3D?

Often built-in software renderer use only 8bits textures . Wazp3D use 32bits coloring/texturing ==> 4 time slower


It sounds like Wazp3D uses RGBA32 internally and other formats are converted.

That actually works for me because I already have 32-bit codepath and since I couldn't get to configure the WinUAE to get any HW gfx board to draw at 32-bit, Wazp is the only way I can actually implement the Warp support, considering the only HW I got is Vampire V4SA.
Which is also the reason why I stayed with 32-bit, because V4 has fantastic bandwidth and 60 fps full redraw is not a problem.


Quote:

matthey wrote:
The Voodoo 3/4/5 only support 16-bit LE and BE modes for 3D. P96 has some bugs with BE modes so 16-bit 565 LE/PC mode was the best choice as I recall. Also, textures are limited to 256x256 pixels.

Permedia2 also has limitations.

https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/UserDoc:Warp3D#Unsupported_features Quote:

Unsupported features

The Permedia2 lacks direct support for the following Warp3D features

o Multitexturing
o MIP Mapping
o Stencil buffer
o Blend functions other than alpha blending and a partial additive blend implementation
o Fog functions other than interpolated
o Gouraud shaded vertex alpha values


Permedia2 supports higher resolution textures up to 2048x2048 and maybe 24/32 bit modes but the Amiga boards only supported 8 MiB of memory which is less than most Voodoo 3 cards with 16 MiB. Emulating these early cards is likely to give the same limitations using the old Warp3D drivers. This has the advantage of developing software for the old hardware without having the hardware. Wazp3D instead likely tries to create a more modern but generic driver for WinUAE by translating Warp3D function calls into Windows 3D API calls. Wazp3D also has a software renderer which Warp3D lacks and does not seem to be wanted by A-EonKit along with 68k support. PPC hardware is threatened by 68k Amiga virtual machines that offer better CPU and GPU performance and value. Instead of making better value hardware, they sabotage the competition by restricting their software defensively.

Since I primarily use flatshading, I don't care for any texture functionality missing or being buggy.
There is so much that can be done with just flatshading, that I don't think I'd run of games to release in next decade, for sure.

Quote:

matthey wrote:

It depends. RTG modes use more bus bandwidth to transfer each frame to the GPU where a 3D card generally does not have to retransfer the textures after they have been sent to the card. True color 32-bit chunky modes use twice the bandwidth of 16-bit modes which use twice the bandwidth of 8-bit modes. CBM never bug fixed and optimized ZorroIII to reach its full potential and most bus boards do not even reach ZorroIII max performance. There are 68060 Amigas with ZorroII cards which are much worse in this regard.

I have no idea how many of the original-era RTG cards are still being used. For me, the point of using RTG is mainly because of rPI4 and emu68.

Now, it'd be nice if a generic 060 system could pull off 32-bit fast, but that's unreasonable to ask from a half century old machine - I always knew I would have to spent 2 weeks on C2P routine and that's not a deal breaker. It's just that I don't have it yet, but I guess I'm getting closer to the point where I will have to bite the bullet, most likely next month, actually...

Then, all my code will finally run fast on 040/060.

Quote:

matthey wrote:

Performance for the 68060 can vary substantially depending on many factors. Some accelerators are higher performance, some 68060s are clocked faster, the 68060.library used can make a difference, OxyPatcher/CyberPatcher/MuRedox type utilities can make a large different depending on the compiler which leads to the importance of the compiler and code. Even with the 68060 compiler handicap including no 68060 specific instruction scheduler, the 68060 outperforms the Pentium by 40% in integer performance at the same clock speed.

I'm coding in ASM, so compiler quality does not thankfully apply to my situation :)

Quote:

matthey wrote:
The 68060 received poor compiler support but it is a very powerful in-order CPU for the resources, especially for integer performance (you said your 3D engine uses fixed point integers).

That's correct. The entire engine was first written to use just Integers. Then I started refactoring to use FxP (at various precision points, though mostly 24:8 and 16:16)

To experiment with floating point, I have coded a secondary scanline traversal routine that uses FP and it's performing significantly faster (than integer one) on V4SA, and was tested to work on V2 too, so I kept it, but it's a single compile-time flag away from not being used - which is why I keep saying it's Integer-only.


Quote:

matthey wrote:

It is not easy doing 3D on 2D museum hardware. Frankenstein treatment still has bottlenecks. We want the ease of programing and elegance of operation of the 68k Amiga but Trevor loves his dead PPC abomination and the remaining Amiga optimists are satisfied with emulation. Honestly, x86-64 Windows is more elegant than a 68k Amiga virtual machine now.

Museum HW !!!! How dare you
I honestly believe that long-term, emulation is the only way. I wanted to get A1200 recently, but the eBay auction for NTSC A1200 with 06LC ended at $1,700 few weeks ago.
That's not happening.
I understand that for many people it is worth that kind of money, but that's unsustainable long-term anyway.

Quote:

matthey wrote:

Why 3D on the 2D 68k Amiga 30 years after the Amiga died?

I've done it all on PC/XBOX. Started with OpenGL 2.0 around PII/PIII era, gradually upgraded engine all the way up to Shaders, released few games, but the satisfaction I get from retro coding in ASM is unbeatable.

Got some experience in industry, but even being on the Minecraft team for ~2 years only proved that it's nothing even remotely comparable to satisfaction from this kind of coding. It was almost imperceptibly identical to working on any generic SW backend (meetings, sprint planning, github, QA, office politics, regular corporate lay-offs, ugh...) - well at least I have the experience so I don't regret NOT trying that path...

And, because the Jaguar community is so savage, I just stopped coding for Jaguar and switched to Amiga - and that was before I had any idea that things like V4SA,PiStorm, Emu68 even existed.

Very clearly, as evidenced by the last year's development in Amiga land, there's bright future, so I am glad I jumped ship from Jaguar

Of course, whether people will appreciate new 68k code remains to be seen, but I already got 100% of the satisfaction through creating it , so I'm good both ways

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