Vampire Games

[Djole501]

I would like to see Command and Conquer: Red Alert.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Photon

There are more than 10 games coming out annually, actually, it's just about willingness and interest to run them. Most require accelerated A1200 and some are for RTG modes, and some are of course not as good as our favorites (that's why they are our favorites), but if you have the specs you can try them. I don't know if the Vampire can run them.

I interpreted the original question as "what kind of original games would you like to see". If we exclude ports of Linux games mainly made for UAE and Backbone games, I think ten is close to the annual output.

Originally Posted by Photon

If you mean specifically made for Vampire, I guess something like texture-mapped polygons on RTG would show it off the best?

Actually, I think something using loads of bobs and sprites using the SAGA chipset would be more impressive. And unique.

[Overflow]

Originally Posted by idrougge

I interpreted the original question as "what kind of original games would you like to see". If we exclude ports of Linux games mainly made for UAE and Backbone games, I think ten is close to the annual output.



Actually, I think something using loads of bobs and sprites using the SAGA chipset would be more impressive. And unique.

Fair point, but Red Pill game creator is in active development, so will be intresting to see what comes of that as its optimized performancewise.

[Dunny]

For me, the only reason I'd buy a Vampire is the same reason I had for buying a 1230-IV back in the day - to accelerate those games that the Amiga struggled with. Things like Breathless and AB3D to name two, and also to make things like Workbench that bit more fluid, smoother paint packages and 3D rendering less excruciating to wait for.

Games that didn't require an accelerator might also sometimes benefit too - things like FA-18 Interceptor, Freescape, Carrier Command etc were greatly enhanced by acceleration, and noticeably so.

[UberFreak]

Originally Posted by Cylon

Whatever game, but make sure you don't limit it running only on Vampire, even if it's faster than 060/RTG.

This.

[Sinphaltimus]

Vampire only games are fine as well.

Not unlike when aga cane it and I couldn't play any because I had an A500.

If I washed to play AGA games I needed to but an AGA Amiga.

If you want to play Vampire only games, but a Vampire.

Would it have made sense to ONLY make ocs/ecs games after AGA became available? NO.

Making such a demand is ludicrous.

And besides, unlike when aga came out, you have emulation to mimic a Vampire board for performance and ram. We did not have such options back then. It was AGA or gtfo. So I gtfo.

[Amiga1992]

You speak from the standpoint of a Vampire owner. It would be kind if you didn't ignore non owners.



Some can't have it, some don't want it, but most importantly, let's not make it yet another platform divider, or am I too late to ask for that? ☹



68K games that are enhanced for Vampire would be cool, but will it happen?



PS: There were plenty of ECS games coming out by the time AGA was out. They ran on AGA too and at times had extra stuff for AGA. AGA-only stuff is not that much, get on HOL and find out.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Sinphaltimus

And besides, unlike when aga came out, you have emulation to mimic a Vampire board for performance and ram. We did not have such options back then. It was AGA or gtfo. So I gtfo.

You're kinda negating your point there. You only have the emulation option if the Vampire team don't use any Vampire-specific code. This is the point people are trying to make - games that require a Vampire purely because the programmer has used some funky AMMX code or CPU registers, won't be available to play on emulation or any NG system. On the other hand, games that require a Vampire purely because of the extra speed, RTG and AHI capabilities it offers will also be playable under emulation, and probably under OS4 and MOS too.

Your AGA comparison is pointless in this regard. Back then, using the AGA chipset was the only way of getting those extra colours and sprites on screen. That's no longer the case - RTG means that the same effects can be done in a system-friendly, cross-platform way, so requiring Vampire hardware to run is an artificial limitation purely for the sake of it.

[Sinphaltimus]

Anyone developing ocs/ecs/aga/rtg games all these years would still be doing so. With or without vampire. It would be stupid not to have vampire exclusive games to show case the product. Period.

[idrougge]

Yes, but who would play them?

[Overflow]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Yes, but who would play them?

Considering the number of Vampires sold, quite a few.

That said; I do share your concern about divided community developmentwise, which is why I mentioned the developmentchain that Daytona/Cherry Darling has set up for himself. Where compiling for different flavours are done with minimal fuzz.

Create the game for several flavours, and enhance for those with extra horsepower/features. If thats too much hassle, dont, since we still have the extra speed available from the raw power of the card.

Anyhow; the OP asked about Vampire Games, not the merits of the audience.

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

What Kind of game would you like to see on that Card? Can would be possible to do?

To answer your second question, what would be possible, some of the unique features of the card include YUV screen encoding for chunky modes, 8 voice audio with better-than-CD quality sampling rates in 16 bits each, and a modern CPU.

[drHirudo]

The Vampire for Amiga is like the SuperCPU for C64, or the Falcon for the Atari ST, and I think it will face the same fate, software wise. I was drooling when I saw the SuperCPU advert back in 1996. But now 21 years, I see only one game is developed especially for it (Metal Dust), there are bunch of adapted games, and some games that benefit from SuperCPU, but that's it (link).

The Atari Falcon dir better, while getting very good games, they were mostly PD stuff (link).

Even, if the Vampire has the number of boards installed as the Falcon it still won't get as much games, because of the huge fragmentation of the Amiga hardware bases.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Sinphaltimus

It would be stupid not to have vampire exclusive games to show case the product. Period.

Absolutely, I agree. Every piece of hardware needs its purpose. It's the "exclusive" part that is of concern though - do you mean exclusive in that you need Vampire levels of grunt to run them, or do you mean using Vampire-only features to ensure it doesn't work on any other hardware, regardless of capability?

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Absolutely, I agree. Every piece of hardware needs its purpose. It's the "exclusive" part that is of concern though - do you mean exclusive in that you need Vampire levels of grunt to run them, or do you mean using Vampire-only features to ensure it doesn't work on any other hardware, regardless of capability?

It would be great to have a game that runs only on Vampire and using its capabilities to show what it's really made of, like Metal Dust did with the SuperCPU as mentioned above. But it'll be hard in the current dev community to come up with a game of that capability and quality.

Sandruzzo, the OP, has been working a lot in converting Rygar to ECS, for years now, with complications especially in getting assets, and we're talking about a conversion. He is sadly pretty much alone on working on it. I don't see how he could enjoy having to fill up those "big shoes" that come with increased performance. Also there's the issue that without a Vampire, you can't code for it, because there's no emulation for things like AMMX. And is there any assembler package that works with this new stuff?

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by Akira

It would be great to have a game that runs only on Vampire and using its capabilities to show what it's really made of, like Metal Dust did with the SuperCPU as mentioned above. But it'll be hard in the current dev community to come up with a game of that capability and quality.

Sandruzzo, the OP, has been working a lot in converting Rygar to ECS, for years now, with complications especially in getting assets, and we're talking about a conversion. He is sadly pretty much alone on working on it. I don't see how he could enjoy having to fill up those "big shoes" that come with increased performance. Also there's the issue that without a Vampire, you can't code for it, because there's no emulation for things like AMMX. And is there any assembler package that works with this new stuff?

VAsm supports AMMX. Sadly, few compilers do.

[Pyromania]

I think it would be cool if some new games were Vampire only and showed off it's full capabilities. We need new things like this to push the Amiga forward into the future.

[Amiga1992]

Not
again
!!

[Overflow]

Originally Posted by matthey

There is a limited "forward into the future" with the Apollo Core. The tracks end with a FPGA CPU hyper-optimized for low end FPGAs. The ISA limits the future to the past. The SIMD unit with shared integer and SIMD registers makes no sense to widen to modern SIMD widths or add floating point like modern SIMDs (MMX is practically stuck with ancient integer only 64 bits). CPU feature identification is as primitive as '90s CPUs. No other 68k (FPGA) CPU is likely to support Apollo Core enhancements (no attempt to make open standards). The ISA enhancements are the creation of one man which I expect most teams of peers would disagree with.

How does this translate into the merits of the original poster's question(s)?

[DamienD]

matthey; agree with others, please stay on topic.