new amiga 500 doom like !

[sparhawk]

Originally Posted by vulture

STe has a blitter yes. AFAIK it's overall a weaker design than amiga's, but it's an improvement for the ST

Never heard that before. Interesting though.

Originally Posted by tomcat666

Not every ST has a blitter... actually most of the ST's sold back in the day did NOT have one, so not many games actually supported it.

That's actually what I remembered and what was touted as one of the big improvements of the Amiga over Atari.

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Maybe KK is preparing to give final blow to Atari users...
He is working on Dread port, and suddenly announces: "No, it's not possible for Atari ST(e)".

(joke aside, I never had anything against Atari and it's users, on the contrary, I consider them more like a Motorola brothers ).

Actually my comment was also meant as a joke. Just to be clear. Back then I didn't like the Atari, but nowadays I enjoy all the memories of the different machines still existing.

[AmiBoy]

Actually the STE had a blitter. The ST models either didn't have it at all or in some revision had the slot available. The MegaST for instance did have it. The TT didn't have a blitter, either.

[LongLifeA1200]

Atari forums are abuzz now and already they're talking about how the 1989 [four years late] Atari ST(Amiga)E(mulator) upgraded to the hilt with RAM, is going to show the "True Power™®©" of what it can do.

[frank_b]

Originally Posted by vulture

@sparhawk

STe has a blitter yes. AFAIK it's overall a weaker design than amiga's, but it's an improvement for the ST

Not weak at all, just different. It’s an absolute beast for masking 32 wide sprites if you use it right. It’s also very fast at bitblit when the ratio of fringe columns to opaque area favours the opaque area. Amiga is better at arbitrary masking though. Extra sources makes more complex blits more efficient on the amiga. The ST one is better at simpler types of blit.

It was standard in the Mega ST except for very early models, the STe, ST book, Falcon and Stacy. It was an upgrade option on any ST from 87 onwards. There were boards available to retro fit it to the original 520 ST machines.
Full 24 bit addressing range is nice too.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by frank_b

Not weak at all, just different. It’s an absolute beast for masking 32 wide sprites if you use it right. It’s also very fast at bitblit when the ratio of fringe columns to opaque area favours the opaque area. Amiga is better at arbitrary masking though. Extra sources makes more complex blits more efficient on the amiga. The ST one is better at simpler types of blit.

Yeah, the STE Blitter has some very neat tricks. As an Amiga coder, I'm quite jealous of the fringe optimisation (such a logical optimisation to do, but very nice)

I've also always liked the idea of the 'half-tone' memory (I hope I got the term right here, I've not programmed the ST(E) Blitter, just read up on it). Both ST/E and Amiga have some very nice stuff in them and I'm happy to see that Dread is coming to both

[frank_b]

Originally Posted by roondar

Yeah, the STE Blitter has some very neat tricks. Both ST/E and Amiga have some very nice stuff in them and I'm happy to see that Dread is coming to both

Yup. They both rock. I’m looking forward to seeing the game on both

[LongLifeA1200]

Should never have to feel jealous of the Atari ST/FM/TT/E/tc. etc. etc.

I cherish my experiences with ECS and AGA.

[AmiBoy]

Originally Posted by LongLifeA1200

Atari forums are abuzz now and already they're talking about how the 1989 [four years late] Atari ST(Amiga)E(mulator) upgraded to the hilt with RAM, is going to show the "True Power™®©" of what it can do.

Not really, the Atari forums understand what an Atari computer is capable to do -or not do. The ST/STE upgraded with 14MB RAM (10MB max in MegaSTE but you can easily have an VME/ISA graphics card in there), 4MB of which can be used by the chipset is a nice option to have and becomes quite common. This indeed opens a new door to better graphics and music. They are not hallucinating though in their attempt to get more juice of their boxes. They are quite good for what they are.

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by AmiBoy

Not really, the Atari forums understand what an Atari computer is capable to do -or not do... They are quite good for what they are.

Yes, they really do make a quite pretty door stop, don't they ?

[Tigerskunk]

I always liked the STs a lot.

All of that sweet 68k power for a nice price. Almost got one back in the day instead of an Amiga. Most of the games that interested me back in 1988 had ST versions that were as good as the Amiga ones. If not better.

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I always liked the STs a lot.

All of that sweet 68k power for a nice price. Almost got one back in the day instead of an Amiga. Most of the games that interested me back in 1988 had ST versions that were as good as the Amiga ones. If not better.

That still doesn't mean the Amiga and STE couldn't have done better if they weren't both hobbled by the ports being designed for the ST.

[Cyprian]

Originally Posted by KK/Altair

Still, I was kind of disappointed with how C2P has to be done. The usual ST trickery wasn't even close to what I did with Blitter, and having extra LUT reduced logical pixel color combinations from 256 to 64, mostly destroying the new extra resolution trick.

can you write more about your C2P? e.g how textures are organized, blitter passes etc.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Samurai_Crow

That still doesn't mean the Amiga and STE couldn't have done better if they weren't both hobbled by the ports being designed for the ST.

And I didn't say that.
Also, isn't there a thread about this subject already?

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by Steril707

And I didn't say that.

Also, isn't there a thread about this subject already?

Probably. I unsubscribed to it.

[AmiBoy]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

Yes, they really do make a quite pretty door stop, don't they ?

Well, I've seen a Compaq Proliant ML530 Gen2 server being used as door stop and it couldn't even perform well as one as it had rollers underneath and the roller brakes had failed. I'd say an ST would make a pretty good door stop. It had the power without the price.
Joke aside, I have huge respect for any Atari 68k machine post the STE.

Originally Posted by Samurai_Crow

That still doesn't mean the Amiga and STE couldn't have done better if they weren't both hobbled by the ports being designed for the ST.

I think it has to do with the fragmentation of the market and the momentum each machine had to allow developers to make some money. I mean, had Atari -the original one, before Tramiel- believed a bit more to what they had, had the Amiga Team worked with them at the time, we may had an Atari branded Amiga with the good of the two worlds. In reality now, Software companies, back then, should abandon the lower spec machinery from the very first day a better version was out, like they do today, where software leads the hardware market. I believe we could have better software overall, not just games had they followed this directive.

Originally Posted by Steril707

Also, isn't there a thread about this subject already?

Which one is this?

[rothers]

Originally Posted by Cyprian

can you write more about your C2P? e.g how textures are organized, blitter passes etc.

He made a video about how he did it. It's at the start of the thread I think. Then in this thread (if you read it all) you can mostly understand how it's being done.

[turrican3]

too late for the augustus demo !!! just kidding.

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by turrican3

too late for the augustus demo !!! just kidding.

Well, let's just call it an early September demo then
New video and the demo release is coming very, VERY soon! Watch this space!

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by Tsak

Well, let's just call it an early September demo then
New video and the demo release is coming very, VERY soon! Watch this space!

You know you will break EAB now with that... people will just sit by the monitor and press F5 every 3 seconds

[d4rk3lf]

If I understand correctly (correct me if I am wrong) , this demo won't come with the tools to build our own levels.

However, are we going to be able to at least change the textures on the existing level in the demo? Only changing textures would give me enormous fun and way to explore how all works, and look.