Could an Amiga with an 030 do Virtua Fighter?

[roondar]

Originally Posted by robinsonb5

This is, roughly speaking, 40Mhz '030 territory.

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Thanks, I like flat shaded 3D and that runs very nicely. It also is interesting to see this is an 030 demo because that does show very well what you can't expect on 030 (Virtua Fighter) and what you can (characters with even less polygons than shown there).

Next stop: can an 030 run Crysis?

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by roondar

It also is interesting to see this is an 030 demo because that does show very well what you can't expect on 030 (Virtua Fighter) and what you can (characters with even less polygons than shown there).

Yep, two of these basic characters with background graphics and a game engine running in the background would look terrible and likely be measured in SPF instead of FPS.

I said from the very beginning there was zero chance. I'm very familiar with this game

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Yep, two of these basic characters with background graphics and a game engine running in the background would look terrible and likely be measured in SPF instead of FPS.

That's an extremely pessimistic view. You're essentially saying that adding a character/background means the framerate goes down by factor of about 100. This is really unlikely to be true even if we brute force it.

Edit: it also seem to flies in the face of games we already have. There are plenty of 3D games out there on the Amiga that have more complex 3D environments than this demo show that run far better than your claim even on an A500.

I said from the very beginning there was zero chance. I'm very familiar with this game. I own Virtua Fighter Remix, arcade version.

I still don't get why you want to make this argument. I don't doubt your knowledge of the game, nor your claim that it can't run on a 68030 based Amiga (indeed, I agreed this was likely true 12 or so pages ago ). But that doesn't seem to translate well to knowledge of the Amiga with 68030 and what it can do, as witnessed in the first sentence of your post.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by roondar

That's an extremely pessimistic view. You're essentially saying that adding a character/background means the framerate goes down by factor of about 100. This is excessively unlikely to be true even if we brute force it all.

Edit: it also flies in the face of games we already have. There are plenty of 3D games out there on the Amiga that have more complex 3D environments than this demo that run far better than your claim even on an A500.

I still don't get why you want to make this argument. I don't doubt your knowledge of the game, nor your claim that it can't run on a 68030 based Amiga (indeed, I agreed this was likely true 12 or so pages ago ). But that doesn't seem to translate well to knowledge of the Amiga with 68030 and what it can do, as witnessed in the first sentence of your post.

Sorry if it wasn't clear, but I was joking! Realistically I think we could expect to see several fps at best.

That demo is probably using all sorts of tricks that wouldn't be suitable for an actual game. I think we could assume in a game situation, the CPU time required (per fighter) would be at least 1.5x what the demo shows. So that's 3x just for two fighters. Add a detailed 3D background, you've probably got at least 6x. The logic to run the game, let's say 8x. So already, we're up to "fps of demo" / 8, and I think that's probably being pretty conservative.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Sorry if it wasn't clear, but I was joking!

No problem, it's sometimes hard to tell in text communication

Realistically I think we could expect to see several fps at best.

That demo is probably using all sorts of tricks that wouldn't be suitable for an actual game. I think we could assume in a game situation, the CPU time required (per fighter) would be at least 1.5x what the demo shows. So that's 3x just for two fighters. Add a detailed 3D background, you've probably got at least 6x. The logic to run the game, let's say 8x. So already, we're up to "fps of demo" / 8, and I think that's probably pretty being conservative.

Honestly, I still think that is overly pessimistic. But I'll admit to not having exact figures so I can't be 100% sure.

But still, looking at other 3D games running on the A1200 (with a 68030), it doesn't seem correct. A game like Guardian seems to me to have more complicated geometry than what we're talking about here and runs just fine on an 030 based system. Same for games like Frontier or the many simulators out there.

[robinsonb5]

Realistically you're not going to have a detailed 3D background. In the interests of not having to update the entire screen's contents every frame, I think the background would have to be a copperlist - at least sky to horizon. Maybe draw something below the horizon, but it might have to be just bands of colour, still using the copper - as long as they're updated convincingly with perspective changing this could still be quite effective.

As for whether it would look terrible - done clumsily, yes it would. Done skilfully it could be actually be pretty cool. (And obviously not even remotely comparable to Virtua Fighter!)

[roondar]

Originally Posted by robinsonb5

Realistically you're not going to have a detailed 3D background. In the interests of not having to update the entire screen's contents every frame, I think the background would have to be a copperlist - at least sky to horizon. Maybe draw something below the horizon, but it might have to be just bands of colour, still using the copper - as long as they're updated convincingly with perspective changing this could still be quite effective.

As for whether it would look terrible - done clumsily, yes it would. Done skilfully it could be actually be pretty cool. (And obviously not even remotely comparable to Virtua Fighter!)

I thought by now we were discussing the "stick figure/simple 3D characters" idea? That obviously won't look anything like Virtua Fighter, but that's done and dusted at this point

Anyway, you could also opt for a Dual Playfield setup. I know it sucks to have 16 colours for the fighters, but you do get a "free" 2D background. Or perhaps use a sprite background layer, with AGA 64 pixel wide sprites that can look quite nice.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by roondar

Honestly, I still think that is overly pessimistic. But I'll admit to not having exact figures so I can't be 100% sure.

You may be right.

Originally Posted by roondar

But still, looking at other 3D games running on the A1200 (with a 68030), it doesn't seem correct. A game like Guardian seems to me to have more complicated geometry than what we're talking about here and runs just fine on an 030 based system. Same for games like Frontier or the many simulators out there.

Compared to Virtua Fighter, Guardian is a pretty basic 3D engine. Little to no rigging, and limited physics involved as far as I'm aware.

I'm no mathematician but I would have thought that a remake of Virtua Fighter would require far more calculations than something like Guardian or Frontier.

[Juz400]

There is no 3D background in the 32X version.
Its just a picture that scrolls a bit for the top half of the screen
There arent too many changes to the lower half of the screen, copper tricks/ pre rendered single colour box background graphics?

[coder76]

The background is static in virtua fighter, it just scrolls around. You could have sprites or dual playfield technique used for background, it would then cost almost nothing. The 3D characters would only need a clear buffer operation for the bitplanes they are drawn in. Also 5-6 bitplanes could be used for front playfield and 2-3 for background, and getting it somehow to work with scroll registers. But a lot could be done already with just 2 colors for background + copper gradients and all 8 sprites.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Compared to Virtua Fighter, Guardian is a pretty basic 3D engine. Little to no rigging, and limited physics involved as far as I'm aware.

I'm no mathematician but I would have thought that a remake of Virtua Fighter would require far more calculations than something like Guardian or Frontier.

Ah, I think I see the problem now... See, I was not talking about Virtua Fighter anymore but a much more simplified 3D fighter with fighters more like the demo footage shown by robinsonb5. Those should be much easier to handle.

So to be clear, I don’t think a Virtua Fighter clone is feasible on any 68030 based system. I was purely thinking about the earlier ‘stick figure’ fighter idea.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by roondar

Ah, I think I see the problem now... See, I was not talking about Virtua Fighter anymore but a much more simplified 3D fighter with fighters more like the demo footage shown by robinsonb5. Those should be much easier to handle.

So to be clear, I don’t think a Virtua Fighter clone is feasible on any 68030 based system. I was purely thinking about the earlier ‘stick figure’ fighter idea.

I was also referring to the demo. When I said "Virtua Fighter", I meant a heavily cut down version of the game.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I was also referring to the demo. When I said "Virtua Fighter", I meant a heavily cut down version of the game.

In that case, I don't really see it as a problem. You're probably right it's harder to do than Guardian in some areas (like animation calculations), but equally I think it'll be easier in others (less geometry to transform). Swings and roundabouts if you ask me.

[VladR]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

The idea of throwing around "tons of flat shaded polygons" on the Amiga is a very interesting one. This is something that, to my knowledge, hasn't been done before. Not in a game, anyway.

On Jaguar, I toyed around with the idea to release a public benchmark, though you only had 2 HW models - NTSC and PAL, so it didn't really make much sense - they would both show the same performance per second (only difference would be per frame - e.g. 50 vs 60).


On Amiga, though, the HW landscape is so fragmented, it would actually make sense to have a benchmark centered around flatshaded polygons.


We are still seeing new HW being created for Amiga (Warp 560, Vampire V4, etc.) and only god knows how many more will be created in next decade(s).

I'm thinking having one 3Dmark-like score, but also a detailed breakdown of all 3D pipeline stages (transform, triangle set-up, scanline traversal, pixel fill, C2P) so there would be an easy direct comparison between various CPUs.

It's really easy to recreate certain tests from 3dmark - like the high-poly test (just make a loop ).
Perhaps I could even include a Game Test (from the game I'm working on) so it wouldn't be completely synthetic.



I've got lots and lots of 3D meshes from various projects on multiple platforms that I could just import and make some simple test scene around it.



Just gotta finish the darn game first and stop introducing new delays there

[Havie]

No sure anyone mentioned this (running on an 030 40mhz):

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Will have a try on my 030 50mhz.

Not saying it's Virtua Fighter but it is 3D Fighting game programmed at the dawn of time (1991). Programming has come a long way in the last 30 years so I'm pretty certain a better, faster and prettier version would be possible?

[Havie]

Have played 4d Boxing on my 1200 and it is a bit slow but actually really good fun and really well done (for the time). Lots of camera angles and even some basic optimization options!

Then I had a go on UAE on the PC (used my programming environment which is a 1200 at maximum speed JIT) and it was a bit faster but not significantly which you would expect as UAE Amiga is running considerably faster so maybe there is a frame limiter built in? Even tried changing from PAL to NTSC.

What this shows me is that a 3d fighter is possible and could be good fun.

[VladR]

Possible and fun? Sure!

30 fps on 030? Not at requested polycount.

[eXeler0]

Also, I don't see much "shading" going on, it looks like "unlit" polygons. That saves a bunch of CPU time.

[VladR]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Also, I don't see much "shading" going on, it looks like "unlit" polygons. That saves a bunch of CPU time.

That's a great point, actually.

Did we even consider this feature so far?

Does Saturn version have real-time face lighting or is it just pre-baked? Can't say I noticed.

Computing diffuse lighting for 1,000 faces each frame sure ain't free...

[d4rk3lf]

That 4D boxing actually looks amazing to me.
They even did a nice design of very few polygons they had.
There is also A500 version - I've gotta try it.
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Is this really a 3D, or drawn vectors in 3D space?