Best Doom-clone on vanilla A500?

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by s2325

You can try Project Battlefield [ Show youtube player ] or Project Intercalaris https://youtu.be/lRmJR18jVaQ?t=284 I had both games on my A500, it's playable but it's hard to aim.

I usually translate to "between 25 and 60 FPS" when I encounter the adjective "playable" but an unexpanded A500 seems way too underpowered to match this definition for these two games.

If by "playable" you mean "reacts to user input by modifying the visuals" then I would be less surprised.

Does anyone know how the coders achieved the very nice [ Show youtube player ] on the Master System? I assume that they are relying on tile-based techniques but if not then the effect might be transposable to an OCS Amiga. That does not exactly fit the Doom-like definition but that is reasonably close given the hardware.

Update:

Originally Posted by Samurai_Crow

Adding to what Sandro said, most PC 3D FPS ports run like crap on an Amiga specifically because they use texture mapping. Compare ADoom to DoomAttack and you'll see that the latter is nearly twice as fast because it limits the texture maps to only part of the palette depth on an AGA system and uses the blitter to do filled polygon depth shading in native planar. If the same technique were applied to the others mentioned, they would've been faster as well.

I am not sure I understand what you mean by "to only parts of the palette depth", could you elaborate? This definitely seems interesting but I cannot wrap my head around what it means technically in that context.

[Samurai_Crow]

A bit-planar display is essentially a screenmode made up of multiple monochrome bitmaps stacked to yield multiple bits per pixel (assuming there is more than one bitplane). By rendering 3 bitplanes of shading and 5 bitplanes of texture mapping, the amount of computation lost to the chunky-to-planar conversion of the texture mapping is cut to 5/8 the normal amount of time. In addition to that, the other 3 bitplanes get a speed boost by letting the blitter do its polygon-filling while the CPU is doing other things.

In this context, a standard 8-bitplane chunky-to-planar routine like ADoom uses takes more CPU time and gets no boost from the blitter. Splitting the duty between the CPU and blitter makes a big speed improvement as in our 5 bit and 3 bit split mentioned in the example in the previous paragraph. It essentially is a compromise between dithered pattern fills by the blitter like Walls 1.7 linked in my previous post and Doom's 8-bit chunky routines.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Samurai_Crow

By rendering 3 bitplanes of shading and 5 bitplanes of texture mapping, the amount of computation lost to the chunky-to-planar conversion of the texture mapping is cut to 5/8 the normal amount of time. In addition to that, the other 3 bitplanes get a speed boost by letting the blitter do its polygon-filling while the CPU is doing other things.

Oh, now my inner kitten has grasped it! Thanks!
That is very neat and I'm feeling a bit jealous not to ever have thought of such a technique.

I feel like I would have dozens (read thee or four) other technical questions or remarks about this method but I guess it would be more appropriate to create a dedicated thread wouldn't it ?

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Oh, now my inner kitten has grasped it! Thanks!
That is very neat and I'm feeling a bit jealous not to ever have thought of such a technique.

I feel like I would have dozens (read thee or four) other technical questions or remarks about this method but I guess it would be more appropriate to create a dedicated thread wouldn't it ?

I would be open to such a thing. Start a thread in the Coders forum.

[Photon]

90 deg turns is not a Doom clone It's a Dungeon Master clone, i.e. slideshow adventure game, not action shooter.

No, you wouldn't even play a 40x256 truecolor game. Well, for 5 minutes and then uninstall it.

Surely if Quake runs at subpar framerates on Amiga, Doom can be special-cased to run at par framerates? There's quite a difference in horsepower required.

Just some thoughts, I hope they don't sound too "realistic".

Special-cased Quake type maps (without game logic, explosions, frags, enemies and 3D weapons) run at 25Hz in demos. I think that's some kind of reference to start from - regarding expectations.

Certainly ID software spent lots of time on their well-made software renderer, but it's all about ideas. Soon the renderer was obsolete and other ideas were asked for. I.e. I would not rule out new ideas for textured 3D on Amiga.

And in response to what I think the original question was about: for me, Eye of the Beholder (90 deg D&D type) and then I was out of it so other ones may have appeared.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Photon

90 deg turns is not a Doom clone It's a Dungeon Master clone, i.e. slideshow adventure game, not action shooter.

Are you referring to the Phantasy Star dungeons? If so then I agree but it is an interesting alternative to the textured but fixed walls of Dungeon Master.

Originally Posted by Photon

No, you wouldn't even play a 40x256 truecolor game. Well, for 5 minutes and then uninstall it.

You know... I can't be affirmative but I have the feeling that provided the low resolution still affords an interesting gameplay then suspension of disbelief would still take place and allow players to enjoy the game (as well as the colours!). As I mentioned, a higher resolution central window might be needed to give more precision to the action where it matters but I would not exclude the possibility that some good gameplay might come out of it.
Now, what exact form that gameplay would have to take I am not too sure.

Originally Posted by Photon

Surely if Quake runs at subpar framerates on Amiga, Doom can be special-cased to run at par framerates? There's quite a difference in horsepower required.

Oh, that's a very good point. Something like using separate colours for the floors and walls would allow copper based distance shading on the horizontal surfaces and reduce the number of bitplanes to draw for each. Obviously, that is going to restrict artistic freedom but the artistic kittens's creativity usually erupts when given constraints.

Originally Posted by Photon

Just some thoughts, I hope they don't sound too "realistic".

I think you are fair and measured, I am a bit more optimistic (idealist?) but I certainly could not prove I'm right if I had to. I guess only experimentation will tell eventually.

Originally Posted by Photon

Certainly ID software spent lots of time on their well-made software renderer, but it's all about ideas. Soon the renderer was obsolete and other ideas were asked for. I.e. I would not rule out new ideas for textured 3D on Amiga.

Same here. Although I appreciate the efforts and the results of those who run Quake I & II on their heavily accelerated AGA Amigas I think the real challenge lies in extracting every bit of available power from the good ol' 500.

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Although I appreciate the efforts and the results of those who run Quake I & II on their heavily accelerated AGA Amigas I think the real challenge lies in extracting every bit of available power from the good ol' 500.

Stock or acclerated? It's really hard to milk a stock A500 and still use texture mapping, especially with minimal RAM.

[eXeler0]

Somehow they did this on the Mega Drive with 64k video ram

[ Show youtube player ]

I suppose its a given that a vanilla 500 (or maybe a 500+ and 600 1MB version) would need to rely on ALL the tricks and hacks you can possibly shake out of the 68000, the Copper and the Blitter.

But therein lies the challenge and the fun, doesnt it? ;-)

[vulture]

@exeler0

I'm not the biggest expert around here, but I see no reason why miggy couldn't match this on the right hands.

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Somehow they did this on the Mega Drive with 64k video ram

[ Show youtube player ]

I suppose its a given that a vanilla 500 (or maybe a 500+ and 600 1MB version) would need to rely on ALL the tricks and hacks you can possibly shake out of the 68000, the Copper and the Blitter.

But therein lies the challenge and the fun, doesnt it? ;-)

something like that could be possible, i guess, presuming you prescaled the height of all wall textures for all lighting levels.

[Megol]

[ Show youtube player ]

Atari 8bit @ 80x100 ~256 colors (software driven graphics mode) looks smooth and playable (if it was ever made into a game at least!).

[ Show youtube player ]

Atari 16bit (AKA ST). Haven't found a video capture running on a plain ST so imagine it actually being a bit slower.

If one could do Doom or Duke Nukem 3D style graphics without texture mapping (some kind of shading would be nice though - would feel more 3D) I personally think that would be enough. Better a fluid game than a slow tech demo IMHO.
Perhaps there already is such a game, have never been much of a gamer...

[eXeler0]

The 8-bit Atari stuff was damn impressive, after checking some forums, it caused quite a stir back in 2010 when that video was released. But the man behind the code was seen on the same forums at least as recently as may/june this year.
After seeing these fairly impressive efforts on various obsolete hardware,
I'm expecting to see Doom running in HAM6 on the A500+.

[britelite]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

After seeing these fairly impressive efforts on various obsolete hardware, I'm expecting to see Doom running in HAM6 on the A500+.

You better start coding one then

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by britelite

You better start coding one then

Yea... no... that would benefit absolutely no one in Amigaland. ;-)
Im a graphics guy though, Ill gladly provide whatever gfx is needed. ;-)

You know, all these guys who did the stuff on 8-bit Atari, the guy whos rewriting quake for the Falcon, the ppl doing wolfenstein clones on the Speccy... no one forced them. They just did it to prove a point. I just find it slightly curious that no Amiga wizard (and we all know there are some real wiz kids out there) tried to push the hardware to its veeeery limits in this particular genre.

[britelite]

And just to be clear, most examples posted here are not Doom-clones, but Wolf3d-routines. There actually is a big difference.

Anyway, I made a wolf3d-routine on a stock A500 that runs in 80x90 resolution with 12bit colors (in copperchunky). It runs at 25fps, so adding enemies and game logic would most certainly slow it down even more. But considering a lot of people seem to think something running at 10-15fps is playable, it shouldn't be a problem

[britelite]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

I just find it slightly curious that no Amiga wizard (and we all know there are some real wiz kids out there) tried to push the hardware to its veeeery limits in this particular genre.

I'm guessing no one has been interested in making one (and I can't blame them).

[s2325]

This is newest preview of Wolfenstein 3D engine for Atari 8-bit [ Show youtube player ] It was used earlier in some demo but now you can control player with joystick.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by britelite

I'm guessing no one has been interested in making one (and I can't blame them).

Ye, you cant reeeeally justify stuff like it this.. it just happens when the right person decides its time to prove someone wrong ;-)

@Britelite, seems a couple of other guys were willing to discuss the technical challenges in another thread. I'm sure your input from your previous experiences would be valuable / appreciated.

[britelite]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Ye, you cant reeeeally justify stuff like it this.. it just happens when the right person decides its time to prove someone wrong ;-)

Sure. But it's much more fun to do the techdemo/proof-of-concept, than an actual playable game. And most of the other 8/16bit-versions have also got stuck on the techdemo level

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by britelite

Sure. But it's much more fun to do the techdemo/proof-of-concept, than an actual playable game. And most of the other 8/16bit-versions have also got stuck on the techdemo level

Ye but Id say thats fair enough. Its about the concept. To push the hardware beyond what most ppl assumed was even remotely possible. For that, a tech demo is fine. No one really expects a new full game on a vanilla A500/+ these days.