Does the AGA chipset has been fully exploited ?

[saimon69]

Honestly Super Stardust is more BLasteroids than Asteroids, plus the warp sequences and bonuses
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[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Putty Squad and Aladdin seems to use the same engine that Global Gladiators and Cool Spot, also coded by John Twiddy. AGA seems only used to add extra colors.

AGA also had quarter pixel scrolling, being able to scroll a low res screen with super hi res coordinate, making scrolling smoother. I doubt this was much used back in the day (Marvin's Marvellous Adventure use that features I think)

I seem to recall Aladdin also is one of the few games that used AGA's enhanced wider sprites.

Worms: Director's Cut was famous at the time for using the subpixel scrolling feature.

[sokolovic]

Don't know for Aladdin but that's the case for Lion King, which use a different engine and wasn't coded by John Twiddy.

And yep, Worm's DC is a good example of a game thought for the Amiga.The AGA version is technically much better than Megadrive or SNES ones.

[sandruzzo]

Pushing Aga to its limits meand Only 2D games?

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Pushing Aga to its limits meand Only 2D games?

Technically, yes, because 3D games rely more on CPU power than AGA hardware power.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by DanScott

Technically, yes, because 3D games rely more on CPU power than AGA hardware power.

It's a shame the game makers never EVER considered (to my knowledge) making games for high-end 68040s or even 060s. There have been a few since the 1990s, but I suppose that's to show how capable they are.

I've already seen 3D on Amiga on high-end systems in the Demoscene, and believe me, it's more than capable.

[sandruzzo]

@DanScott

What about 3D-polygons with blitter aid? Could we call it Pure Aga?

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

@DanScott

What about 3D-polygons with blitter aid? Could we call it Pure Aga?

The Blitter's not going to help much on anything 020+ (actually It's yet to be proven that the blitter is an advantage on vanilla 68k, given that most of the faster game engines used CPU rendering... and I'm talking about complex scenes, not blitter filled glenz objects in demos)

I guess the best use of blitter would be clearing the screen on AGA

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by Foebane

I've already seen 3D on Amiga on high-end systems in the Demoscene, and believe me, it's more than capable.

Although highly impressive, demos can tune the code to be as optimal as possible for any particular scene in a demo.

3D engines have to be a bit more generic, allowing the freedom of movement and view that a demo doesn't have... having said that, the high end Amigas are very capable of rendering a complex scene at a decent frame rate

[sandruzzo]

Since 3D game like Doom only pushes cpu to the limits, we left with only 2d game for Aga...

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Since 3D game like Doom only pushes cpu to the limits, we left with only 2d game for Aga...

Unfortunately, 2D was going the way of the dodo, after Doom, the shift was towards 3D, and the PlayStation, which was designed for 3D, cemented 2D's fate.

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Unfortunately, 2D was going the way of the dodo, after Doom, the shift was towards 3D, and the PlayStation, which was designed for 3D, cemented 2D's fate.

And the End of Games' With heart!

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

And the End of Games' With heart!

Explain, please.

[alain.treesong]

Indeed the AGA is dedicated to 2D. Finally it is only an OCS++ (OCS+=ECS) .
However in terms of 2D games, we are far from having done the trick. I'm still waiting for the beast like AGA, the turrican 2 like AGA, the lotus like AGA etc...
So there's a lot to do without the need for an AGA 020++

[sandruzzo]

@Foebane

Since 3d era, few games has been very impressive, since it seems more like gfx race.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

@Foebane

Since 3d era, few games has been very impressive, since it seems more like gfx race.

I don't agree.

Take racing games, the vast majority on Amiga that are basically 2D like Lotus, are hardly representative of a real-world racing environment, it's simply dips, rises, and various bends left and right at regular intervals for poor simulation, with perspective tricks to simulate speed, but it's all 2D, and I'm not talking about those top-down racers.

On the other hand, games like Stunt Car Racer and Geoff Crammond's F1GP are true 3D, or at least very close to modern 3D racing games. When I saw Sega Rally in the arcades and Demolition Derby on the PS1, I was blown away, or at least impressed with the true 3D aspect of the tracks. I mean, back in the day, Gran Turismo looked AMAZING.

I go for 3D games for realistic depictions of real-world spaces, not some 2D tricks for trying to achieve the same thing. The fact that they look better and better with time is down to improving technology.

[sandruzzo]

@Foebane

Like I said, with few exceptions....

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by alain.treesong

Indeed the AGA is dedicated to 2D. Finally it is only an OCS++ (OCS+=ECS).

But it can adapt quite well, given enough CPU power.

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

@Foebane

Like I said, with few exceptions....

Thinking back, I think I always preferred 3D games even on Atari 8-Bit. Like Doom, Mercenary, Fractalus and other such games were a revelation to me, and I always preferred them to the 2D platform games.

On my ST, the only games I spent hours on and enjoyed were 3D games like Carrier Command and Damocles.

On my Amigas, Battle Command, Stunt Car Racer and F1GP, among other 3D games, were again the only ones I loved.

When I saw Doom on a friend's PC, my... mind... was... BLOWN. Here, in front of me, not only was a 3D game, but one with DETAIL that was FAST, and was FUN to play.

Even when I look back at my Amiga demo collection, it's usually those demos with 3D routines that I appreciate, and there are many more towards the higher-end CPUs on Amiga.

[alain.treesong]

Originally Posted by Foebane

But it can adapt quite well, given enough CPU power.

Yes of course. And I like Stunt Car Racer a lot too :-)
Nevertheless, the 2D aspect of the aga has not been well exploited in games. And perhaps never will be.

Moreover and unfortunately, due to the lack of innovation of the aga, a too powerful 680x0 finally transforms the Amiga into the PC of the 90s, that is to say an archi quasi monoprocessor. The aga becomes a simple display system then.

But maybe in the same way, a 500 vanilla (with 512K) is back in fashion for games and demos, a 1200 vanilla (with 2 mega of fast?) will one day become fashionable again. Who knows..?

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Thinking back, I think I always preferred 3D games even on Atari 8-Bit. Like Doom, Mercenary, Fractalus and other such games were a revelation to me, and I always preferred them to the 2D platform games.

3D games on old hardware are technically very impressive. Doing things the hardware was clearly not meant to do is always interesting

Anyway, I did want to add one small reply here: 2D games on the Amiga are not limited to platform games. Most Amiga 2D games are, in fact, not platform games

Tongue in cheek reply set aside, my personal favourite genres on the Amiga were/are strategy, RPG, adventure and only then the action stuff (and even there it was mostly non-platformers I played).