new amiga 500 doom like !

[Tigerskunk]

Amazing news, isn't it...

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

@hammer
You're a bit late for that answer, as that guy is banned,

And thanks god for that. What a pain in the ass that guy has been.

[KK/Altair]

This is very interesting to hear. To be honest I've never been quite clear on the overhead of chunky-to-planar for Amiga. On the one hand it's always considered a big problem, on the other we get talented coders like yourself (and others, though they tend to target higher specced Amiga's) pointing out that the overhead is real, but not as cripplingly so as we've been led to believe.

Exactly - the problem is real, but you can design around it. For example, the "New World Order" demo by The Electric Knights features amazing 3bpp full screen textured rotating cube (running 50FPS, IIRC) by incorporating C2P into the scanline routine itself.

But once you get around the chunky issue, the real issue comes out - Amiga OCS/ECS uses 7MHz CPU with 16-bit bus and no instruction cache. Having ton of registers helps... but keep in mind that Doom required 486 DX4 100MHz to run smoothly with the target 35 FPS.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by KK/Altair

Amiga OCS/ECS uses 7MHz CPU with 16-bit bus and no instruction cache.

Newb alert question:
What does an "instruction cache" do?

[rabidgerry]

Looking forward to seeing the new video.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by KK/Altair

Exactly - the problem is real, but you can design around it. For example, the "New World Order" demo by The Electric Knights features amazing 3bpp full screen textured rotating cube (running 50FPS, IIRC) by incorporating C2P into the scanline routine itself.

I'll be sure to check that demo out, thanks!

Originally Posted by Steril707

Newb alert question:
What does an "instruction cache" do?

An instruction cache is a small amount of memory the CPU has built into itself. This memory runs at the same speed as the CPU, so never slows the CPU down. When reading instructions from memory, a CPU with such a cache also stores the instructions (plus any operands) in the cache, overwriting the oldest entry if no space is left. This mechanism allows the CPU to execute instructions that are already in the cache without having to read them from main memory again.

This does not speed up purely sequential code, but code that loops can become significantly faster that way, as long as it fits in the cache.

[KK/Altair]

Ok, the new video is up!
Have fun!

[ Show youtube player ]

[ross]

Originally Posted by KK/Altair

..the "New World Order" demo by The Electric Knights features amazing 3bpp full screen textured rotating cube (running 50FPS, IIRC) by incorporating C2P into the scanline routine itself.

25FPS, but absolutely mind blowing

Originally Posted by Steril707

Newb alert question:
What does an "instruction cache" do?

For the technical answer see what roondar wrote.
Even though it's tiny (256bytes on 020/030) it makes a difference when you have machines with chip memory only, since the instruction fetch doesn't have to access the bus.
Of course you have to know how to exploit it, writing the code so as not to jump around too much and maximize use when you have other DMA channels that access the chip mem

[Amigajay]

Looks fantastic as always, but don’t let this project burn you out, let people help with testing etc

Maybe go the Doom route and release a shareware demo first and make some add on level packs as you go?

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by KK/Altair

Ok, the new video is up!
Have fun!

[ Show youtube player ]

Awesome - great to see the progress, thanks for sharing!

[KK/Altair]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Looks fantastic as always, but don’t let this project burn you out, let people help with testing etc

Testing is least of my concerns right now.
Top problem currently are video scripting, recording, animating & editing.

Maybe go the Doom route and release a shareware demo first and make some add on level packs as you go?

That's the plan. As soon as one-level demo is out, I'm working on streamlining the map editing and loading. Yes, map is compiled INTO the executable right now.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by KK/Altair

Top problem currently are video scripting, recording, animating & editing.

You did amazing job here mate.
For years, I do motion graphics in AE (part of my regular job, and workflow), and what you did, is done very well, very precise, and the motion was good.
It's so well done, that I maybe could find you a job. to do some motion graphics.
But I won't do that.

'cos I want you to stay focused on the game.

I believe you're very inspired in the "new world" of motion graphics you found, but I assure you, that's something is really easy to master, unlike programming asm for Amiga.

Keep it up bro.

[Mathesar]

Originally Posted by KK/Altair

Ok, the new video is up!
Have fun!

[ Show youtube player ]

Nice update!
The improvement on the weapons sprite is huge! Also, the test map you are using, with an outside wall with portals in it looks really nice. I am still surprised by the way this engine manages to create a real doom look on such a lowend machine.

One question after watching it:
The weapons sprites are using the same screen palette and are drawn/blitted in the screen itself if I understand correctly. You mention hardware sprites are not used for the weapons yet but is this indeed on the roadmap?

update:
Watched again and that answered my question

[ESC]

Looks like the game is coming along, is that the final palette I see there in Dreadtool or is more changes coming down the line?

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by ESC

Looks like the game is coming along, is that the final palette I see there in Dreadtool or is more changes coming down the line?

Many more changes are coming down the line. Virtually all the free-doom assets used (including the palettes) have already been reworked and custom tweaked/repixelled for this engine, so expect more updates in the future on this front

*edit: for the sake of clarity I should mention that the talk is about a tech demo KK might release. There are no definitive plans or work done for a brand new game at this point.

[Mathesar]

Originally Posted by Tsak

Many more changes are coming down the line. Virtually all the free-doom assets used (including the palettes) have already been reworked and custom tweaked/repixelled for this engine, so expect more updates in the future on this front

Can't wait. I think the game (or tech demo) already looks good as it is. Although it might be a "group of pixels" in some places as KK tends to call it, somehow it "feels good". The level design, smoothness, the effects of the weapons, tricks in the engine giving open sky, shadows, portals, etc, etc. It feels like a proper game already. Optimized graphics would be the icing on the cake

PS: Oh, and sound + music But that might be pushing the RAM envelope..

[ESC]

Originally Posted by Tsak

Many more changes are coming down the line. Virtually all the free-doom assets used (including the palettes) have already been reworked and custom tweaked/repixelled for this engine, so expect more updates in the future on this front

*edit: for the sake of clarity I should mention that the talk is about a tech demo KK might release. There are no definitive plans or work done for a brand new game at this point.

Sound great!

Originally Posted by Mathesar

Can't wait. I think the game (or tech demo) already looks good as it is. Although it might be a "group of pixels" in some places as KK tends to call it, somehow it "feels good". The level design, smoothness, the effects of the weapons, tricks in the engine giving open sky, shadows, portals, etc, etc. It feels like a proper game already. Optimized graphics would be the icing on the cake

PS: Oh, and sound + music But that might be pushing the RAM envelope..

KK said that he wanted two track music for this game so he could have two channels open for SFX.

I believe you could get some great music with just two tracks but it needs some specialized work (baking samples into eachother etc), as a musician I would love to help with this but I haven't used a tracker in over 20 years so I'm the wrong person for this job.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

@hammer

You're a bit late for that answer, as that guy is banned, because he constantly trashes other works, without anything then million times repeated " Amiga needs chunky pixels".
For all I care, I don't even bother replying to these trolls, because it gives them fuel.
Constructive criticism is one, negativity and trolling is another thing.

I don't shy away from trolls when KK's Dread is superior to Wolf3D.

[ Show youtube player ]
Cyberwolf (Wolf3D clone) runs pretty good on stock Amiga 500 with 1MB already.

New games for the Amiga is always welcome.

For LOL, I purchased $5 68010 for my A500. 68010 has a tiny 6 bytes instruction cache. I have Amiga 1200 (rev 1D4, AF KS 3.X ROM, 16GB SD-to-IDE) with incoming add-on hardware parts (slow parcel delivery).

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Tsak

Many more changes are coming down the line. Virtually all the free-doom assets used (including the palettes) have already been reworked and custom tweaked/repixelled for this engine, so expect more updates in the future on this front

*edit: for the sake of clarity I should mention that the talk is about a tech demo KK might release. There are no definitive plans or work done for a brand new game at this point.

If 3D engine is available for mod'ing, then other artwork content producers and artists can get involved e.g. the Unreal Engine approach.

New game content on the Amiga platform = better.

[KK/Altair]

It's so well done, that I maybe could find you a job. to do some motion graphics.
But I won't do that.

Thankfully, because I still prefer coding.

'cos I want you to stay focused on the game.

Me: rolls eyes
Geralt: smiles

But there is progress, so we are good.

I am still surprised by the way this engine manages to create a real doom look on such a lowend machine.

I wouldn't expect it either. But since my Wolf3D mockup in the Wildcat demo worked nicely and I still felt there are somethings to optimize there, full 2.5D environment was worth a shot.

Looks like the game is coming along, is that the final palette I see there in Dreadtool or is more changes coming down the line?

There will be no such things as the final palette. Eventually, palette for the level should be specified in the map itself.

Although it might be a "group of pixels" in some places as KK tends to call it, somehow it "feels good".

We (with Tsak) have found a way to double the perceived resolution at a distance, so they might not be that bad in the end.

PS: Oh, and sound + music But that might be pushing the RAM envelope..

I have about 64k of chip RAM reserved for that. Hopefully it should be enough.

KK said that he wanted two track music for this game so he could have two channels open for SFX.

My current ideal solution would be to have a custom sound player with virtual voice channel allocator that would be able to play sfx upon requests and manage that. And this hopefully will be coming relatively soon. This could ideally play in either 2-channel stereo config or 4-channel mono.

Building on top of that, we could also just add the song sounds to the system, so all things could allocate depending on voice priority. Of course that would be useful only for the 4-channel mono config.

I believe you could get some great music with just two tracks but it needs some specialized work (baking samples into eachother etc), as a musician I would love to help with this but I haven't used a tracker in over 20 years so I'm the wrong person for this job.

One problem I have with MOD trackers is that they don't support wavetable playback, which would be ideal for the RAM size constraints. Also see the sound manager idea I mentioned above.


EDIT:

For LOL, I purchased $5 68010 for my A500.

Nice. I had 68010 back in a while but sold it to a friend because I want to keep my A500 in the "stock + 512k slow" config.

The 68010 doesn't improve performance too much (instruction cache for just two instructions?), anyway.

If 3D engine is available for mod'ing, then other artwork content producers and artists can get involved e.g. the Unreal Engine approach.

That's exactly the plan. And until too much people come in with differing visions, I'd definitely be up to some coordination to put together the first game or two.

[E-Penguin]

Incredible!