Mesa OpenGL 68k RTG

[NovaCoder]

I got a bit bored recently and started to port my old 3D engine over to 68k, I made some good progress but hit a bit of a wall with the triangle rendering along with the 8bit AGA color depth limitations.

I was thinking about using my old engine to do a little space shooter game.

Anyway, I decided to look for alternatives to my old DirectX render target (which my engine was using before) and of course started looking at OpenGL and more specifically Storm. I've tried to compile the old Storm sources a few times over the years but always got stuck on something, this time I actually managed to get (a cut down) build building

Here's the code that generated the attached output:

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
	ULONG modeId = INVALID_ID;

	atexit(exitT);

	CyberGfxBase = OpenLibrary((UBYTE*)"cybergraphics.library", 0);

	// Choose the best mode.
	modeId = BestCModeIDTags(CYBRBIDTG_Depth, DEPTH, CYBRBIDTG_NominalWidth, WIDTH, CYBRBIDTG_NominalHeight, HEIGHT, TAG_DONE);

	_hardwareScreen = CreateHardwareScreen(modeId, WIDTH, HEIGHT, DEPTH);

	_hardwareWindow = CreateHardwareWindowFullScreen(WIDTH, HEIGHT, _hardwareScreen);

	context = AmigaMesaCreateContextTags(AMA_Window, (ULONG) _hardwareWindow, AMA_Width, WIDTH, AMA_Height, HEIGHT,
	AMA_RGBMode, GL_TRUE, TAG_END);

	drawTriangles(500);

	return 0;
}

void drawTriangles(int num) {
	int count;
	struct timeval startTime, stopTime;
	double secs;

	/* we have changed the context (maybe the buffer too, so
	 * make it the current again
	 */
	AmigaMesaMakeCurrent(context);

	glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST);
	glEnable(GL_DITHER);
	glShadeModel(GL_SMOOTH);
	glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT);

	glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
	glLoadIdentity();

	glOrtho(-400.0, 400.0, -300.0, 300.0, 500.0, -500.0);

	srand(42);

	gettimeofday(&startTime, NULL);
	for (count = 0; count < num; count++) {
		glBegin(GL_TRIANGLES);
		glColor3ub(rand() % 256, rand() % 256, rand() % 256);
		glVertex3i(rand() % 800 - 400, rand() % 600 - 300, rand() % 1000 - 500);
		glColor3ub(rand() % 256, rand() % 256, rand() % 256);
		glVertex3i(rand() % 800 - 400, rand() % 600 - 300, rand() % 1000 - 500);
		glColor3ub(rand() % 256, rand() % 256, rand() % 256);
		glVertex3i(rand() % 800 - 400, rand() % 600 - 300, rand() % 1000 - 500);
		glEnd();
	}
	glFlush();
	gettimeofday(&stopTime, NULL);

	secs = (double) stopTime.tv_micro / 1000000 + stopTime.tv_secs;
	secs -= (double) startTime.tv_micro / 1000000 + startTime.tv_secs;
	if (secs == 0.0)
		secs = 0.1;

	printf("%g triangles/s (%g secs)\n", (double) num / secs, secs);
}

As you can see it's pretty easy to use.

I'm thinking that this could be use to add basic opengl support to some stuff or maybe even to do my space shooter (if I can find the energy)

Does anyone know if Storm Mesa was ever actually used for any 68K games?

[alexh]

I don't remember seeing any. The ones I came across were all PPC and required Warp3D.

Having a look on Aminet there are these homebrew (?) games for 68k + StormMesa

https://aminet.net/package/game/think/Crates_68k
https://aminet.net/package/game/think/DragonMemory_68k
https://aminet.net/package/game/wb/ImuBox
https://aminet.net/package/game/shoot/Orbit_68k
https://aminet.net/package/game/actio/osgg_68k
https://aminet.net/package/game/actio/pacifi3d_68k
https://aminet.net/package/game/actio/pacdudehero_68k
https://aminet.net/package/game/think/BeastieWorker_68k
https://aminet.net/package/game/think/TC4_68k
https://aminet.net/package/game/think/LettersFall_68k

I think they were all written for Amithlon but might perform ok on PiStorm32 lite.

Plus lots of examples.

https://aminet.net/package/gfx/3d/PaperBox
https://aminet.net/package/util/libs/SM_Bounce_68k
https://aminet.net/package/util/libs/SM_Morph3D_68k
https://aminet.net/package/util/libs/SM_Olympic_68k
https://aminet.net/package/util/libs/SM_Wave_68k
https://aminet.net/package/dev/src/3d-fraktal
https://aminet.net/package/gfx/3d/Microbe3D-demo

[NovaCoder]

Cool, thanks Alex

Yes I was thinking about piStorm as a target for Storm

I think it might just be powerful enough for some simple 3D rendering.

[alexh]

It would be good to keep in mind that ultimately PiStorm should get a 68k Warp3D driver for VideoCore VI. Yes it might be years in coming but I am hopeful.

Would it be possible to write your work so as to be able to target both SW renderer and HW renderer if it became available in the future?

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by alexh

It would be good to keep in mind that ultimately PiStorm should get a 68k Warp3D driver for VideoCore VI. Yes it might be years in coming but I am hopeful.

Would it be possible to write your work so as to be able to target both SW renderer and HW renderer if it became available in the future?

Maybe, I've only just got this working so don't know what I'll do next. I'll try and build a simple 3D test and see what kind of performance is possible on a piStorm first using software rendering.

[alexh]

There are several examples of people using wazp3D which IIUC is a Warp3D software render driver. It's performance is "ok" but I don't know much about it.

https://aminet.net/package/driver/video/Wazp3D
http://thellier.free.fr/Wazp3D.htm

[ Show youtube player ]
[ Show youtube player ]

[Seiya]

Warp3D emulation (software) should be much faster than Wazp3D (software).
Emu68 is much faster than WinUAE because it emulates only CPU and not all computer hardware, de facto should be fast as Amithlon in cpu speed.
Warp3D is the best solution.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Seiya

Warp3D emulation (software) should be much faster than Wazp3D (software).

That doesn't make any sense. Surely if there was a Warp3D software renderer then there would be no-need for Wazp3D would there? I suspect there isn't one (or it was terrible) but I'm probably wrong.

Originally Posted by Seiya

Emu68 is much faster than WinUAE because it emulates only CPU and not all computer hardware, de facto should be fast as Amithlon in cpu speed.

Again that makes no sense. WinUAE can be faster than Emu68 because it can run on the latest Intel/AMD processors which are roughly 10x the performance over an RPi4's 2.2GHz ARM Cortex A72. Not to mention that WinUAE Warp3D can utilise HW acceleration.

[Hedeon]

StormMESA currently needs warp3d.library. It's sitting on top of Warp3D for HW 3D. StormMESA is gfx card agnostic.

[Hedeon]

Also, StormMESA has a software rendering option through an ENV

[Seiya]

Originally Posted by alexh

Not to mention that WinUAE Warp3D can utilise HW acceleration.

i have some doubts that works in this way.
Dosbox emulate Glide and you can run Windows 98 with Direct3D support and play any 3DFX game, but OpenGL and Direct3D are emulated by cpu
Gallium in VWMare use the cpu to emulate OpenGL/DirectX

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Seiya

i have some doubts that works in this way.

I hope this dispels them.

https://github.com/RobDangerous/QuarkTex

Wazp3D in WinUAE can also do something similar.

[arti]

Cool little example, no SDL used.

I use StormMesa with SDL since 2010. It was available all time on amiga sourceforge.
I've compiled many games with it like HexenGL,Cube1,Cube2 recently WipEout:

[ Show youtube player ]

I was also trying to compile it with gcc6 many years without success.
And using that old one was not working with SDL compiled with gcc6.
Just recently I decided to link also that old libSDL and to my big suprise it works!

So I could compile more complex source code like this :

[ Show youtube player ]

Linkable libGL is available in SM archive. It links all needed GL funcs from SDL.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by arti

Cool little example, no SDL used.

I use StormMesa with SDL since 2010. It was available all time on amiga sourceforge.
I've compiled many games with it like HexenGL,Cube1,Cube2 recently WipEout:

[ Show youtube player ]

I was also trying to compile it with gcc6 many years without success.
And using that old one was not working with SDL compiled with gcc6.
Just recently I decided to link also that old libSDL and to my big suprise it works!

So I could compile more complex source code like this :

[ Show youtube player ]

Linkable libGL is available in SM archive. It links all needed GL funcs from SDL.

Cool, nice work Arti

It's interesting that emulated 68K makes this kind of thing possible theses days.

I used the old Storm Mesa 3.0 code off Aminet, early days but hopefully I can use it for something cool.

[davec]

How did you compile the code? With which compiler?

Sent from my SM-F731U1 using Tapatalk

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by davec

how did you compile the code? With which compiler?

Sent from my sm-f731u1 using tapatalk

gcc 6

[alexh]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

It's interesting that emulated 68K makes this kind of thing possible theses days.

I don't think it's so much the speed of the emulated processor as the direct access to native HW accelerated OpenGL We won't see this kind of performance on PiSTorm (with Emu68) until there is a Warp3D driver

I used the old Storm Mesa 3.0 code off Aminet, early days but hopefully I can use it for something cool.

Looking forward to it

[tomcat666]

Thank you for working on this guys (I know a few people work on different parts of pistorm GL stuff currently, if you are interested in pistorm GL implementation do join us on the discord #software-amiga channel, so maybe there can be some collaboration and duplicate work could be avoided.)

[thellier]

* StormMesa is an OpenGL
* It got a software renderer or use Warp3D as 3D driver for hardware rendering
* So it can also use Wazp3D or Quarktex (WinUAE only) that are Warp3D compatible libraries
* Both can also use hard rendering inside WinUAE via OpenGL32.dll
* Quarktex package also have a full replacement agl.library (=stormmesa) with hard rendering inside WinUAE via OpenGL32.dll
* StormMesa has been rebuild/debugged :new sources are here :
https://aminet.net/package/util/libs/StormMesa2010

Note: Microbe3D library is NOT using StormMesa but Warp3D directly
http://thellier.free.fr/Docs/Microbe3D.html