Questions about the relation of Amiga and 3dfx

Hello

I have just joined to this forum and it is "the first time" that I read/write about Amiga but I have too many doubts about the Voodoo in Amiga.

To get 3D in Amiga, you need Warp3D, and this was a response of the Glide in PC. Unfortunaly, Amiga dead and the developement went to the scene. After that we got a TonyGL (MiniGL for Amiga) and Warp3D Nova with Shaders... and this is my first For what did Amiga need Shaders?

I know that you need a Mediator, DCE G-Rex 4000D, or Matay Prometheus to get ports PCI (Amiga has only Zorro II or III). In this expansion cards you can connect network cards, tv cards, sound cards and graphics cards of ATI/3dfx/S3. 3dfx and S3 works in OS 3.x but ATI need OS 4.x.

Those items are too expensive and the CPU of the Amiga is low to get a good perfomance. For that, if you put components of PC you are "pcing" the Amiga. What is the point to do this? I know people that they see this like a heresy.

Is this correct? Any comments?
Thanks

[grelbfarlk]

No it is not correct.

There are a few reasons to add PCI slots to an Amiga.
Add up the costs of an Amiga Zorro sound card, network card and a video card, for a long time between 2000-2015 buying a Mediator and the PCI equivalents were cheaper by hundreds of dollars. Lately Voodoos have been going up in price but they are mostly still cheaper than the best Amiga-only Video cards and in many cases still faster.

The ATI Radeon 9200 does not require OS 4.x, it is supported in 2D mode on AmigaOS 3.x. However Warp3D is not supported on OS 3.x with a Radeon.

Warp3D takes advantage of many of the Hardware accelerated features of a Voodoo and for the applications which use Warp3D the result is a better looking and faster game. This is arguably the point behind Graphics Processors, to offload some of the graphics calculations to a processor which is designed to accelerate those features. "TonyGL" I'm guessing is a special version of OpenGL by-I'll guess-Toni Willen. But TinyGL is just an abstraction layer to Warp3D to make porting easier. The answer is a little longer than that but it will serve the purpose.

Shader support is again taking advantage of features available on more modern GPUs to again accelerate video output or improve the visual quality of graphics. The answer again is a little more complicated but that should basically explain why it is there, and Shader support is only available on OS 4.x machines.

"Too expensive" doesn't mean anything in TYOOL 2019 for anything related to the Amiga. A pristine A500 selling for $100 is too expensive for a 7MHz machine with 1MB of RAM, but for someone who wants an A500 this would be considered a good price. $4 for a cup of coffee might be too expensive but for someone who wants that particular cup of coffee it is acceptable.

Here's a helpful hint, any time someone says doing X is heresy or mentions the ramifications to your immortal soul (of yourself or your Amiga) is usually a moron, trying to sell you something, or a zealot. In all cases whether talking about you living your life or using your Amiga, you can safely ignore them.

[debiani386]

I could honestly care less if putting PC hardware into an Amiga "PCs'" the Amiga. Its a computer and installing the hardware adds capabilities to the Amiga. For me, installing a 3dfx card boosted the performance of Doom from 3 - 5 FPS to 20 - 30 FPS (I also upgraded the stock A3640 to A3660 which also helped with the performance). I also have other games which utilize the 3dfx card.

The 3dfx card also adds true colour support, so programs such as ArtEffect or Lightwave can render a true colour image without colour fringing like you would get with HAM modes.

Using a 3dfx card with warp3d gives the Amiga the ability to directly render 3d objects rather than having to software render those objects.

Having a 3dfx card with an ethernet adapter allows me to gather sample data from my oscilloscope and store/process that data over ethernet. It would be quite difficult for me to do this on my Amiga without the PC hardware being installed.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by debiani386

Having a 3dfx card with an ethernet adapter allows me to gather sample data from my oscilloscope and store/process that data over ethernet. It would be quite difficult for me to do this on my Amiga without the PC hardware being installed.

I'd like to know more about this. Do you just download pictures from the scope or VNC'ing into it or what?

Thanks for the comments

When was the last card graphics relased in Amiga?

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by kaiser77_1982

Thanks for the comments

When was the last card graphics relased in Amiga?

There was the MNT VA2000 in the last few years:
https://shop.mntmn.com/


They have a new version in the works with a lot more stuff on it.


Then before that there was the Matze Picasso-II remake.
https://webstore.kryoflux.com/catalo...products_id=56

[debiani386]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

I'd like to know more about this. Do you just download pictures from the scope or VNC'ing into it or what?

Right now, it only grabs a screenshot from the scope. The scope can also send sample data as CSV (and other formats as well which I can't remember off the top of my head), so I am also working on the functionality to download the CSV to a file, as this can be imported into GNU Plot.

I also want to make a MUI interface later on to control and gather data from the scope as well.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by debiani386

Right now, it only grabs a screenshot from the scope. The scope can also send sample data as CSV (and other formats as well which I can't remember off the top of my head), so I am also working on the functionality to download the CSV to a file, as this can be imported into GNU Plot.

I also want to make a MUI interface later on to control and gather data from the scope as well.

Sorry about derailing the thread but that sounds awesome-I want this. What scope is it?

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by debiani386

IFor me, installing a 3dfx card boosted the performance of Doom from 3 - 5 FPS to 20 - 30 FPS

Wow. So it went from running like shit to still running like shit.

[Daedalus]

Or went from unplayable to playable. 20-30fps was considered playable in the Doom era. Helpful comment as always...

Anyway, to answer the OP, as said, at the time it was by far the cheapest option to build a high end Amiga machine. The Voodoo 3 at the time was pretty cheap, and PCI sound and network cards could be had for peanuts. And while running things like Quake GL, Descent: Freespace and other 3D accelerated games was an obvious advantage, the boost to 2D performance was a much bigger thing for me. Running a 24-bit Workbench screen at 1600x1200 was simply not possible with any Amiga-native graphics card. The Picasso-IV could just about do 1600x1200, but only in 16 bit and IIRC only interlaced. And no Amiga graphics card could touch it for speed. It meant productivity applications went from painful to being a dream, so web browsing (still reasonably acceptable at the time), coding, word processing, image editing and so on could all be done with full colour and high resolution. It made massive improvements to the playability of many 2D games too: Foundation, Payback, Napalm, Exodus and so on (as well as the PC ports like Earth 2140 of course) all went from horribly clunky or not working at all to being a joy to play.

[HardStep]

Good points by Daedalus.
Just wanted to add, that Payback also supports hardware 3D on voodoo3

[Hewitson]

There's a big difference between something being "playable" and something running well. This is why I don't understand the obsession with running these games on the Amiga. People could have a far better gaming experience enjoying these games on their PC.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by HardStep

Good points by Daedalus.
Just wanted to add, that Payback also supports hardware 3D on voodoo3

Indeed, Payback does support hardware 3D acceleration, though I've always preferred the 2D version (but on a graphics card of course). That's probably just me though

Originally Posted by Hewitson

There's a big difference between something being "playable" and something running well.

"Running well" is entirely subjective. You might consider 60FPS as running well, yet there are people out there who complain that 60FPS is far from "running well", and don't like playing games at less than 90, 120 or even 144FPS.

This is why I don't understand the obsession with running these games on the Amiga. People could have a far better gaming experience enjoying these games on their PC.

Why do anything on the Amiga, when it can almost always be done better on the PC? Besides, I listed a few Amiga-only games there that also benefit greatly from RTG.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

There's a big difference between something being "playable" and something running well. This is why I don't understand the obsession with running these games on the Amiga. People could have a far better gaming experience enjoying these games on their PC.

But then you'd have to get a PC in the first place.

[Estrayk]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

This is why I don't understand the obsession with running these games on the Amiga. People could have a far better gaming experience enjoying these games on their PC.

neither I don't understand the obssession running Amiga games in WinUAE in a PC. People could have a far better gaming experience enjoying these games on a real Amiga with a real 1084S.