SuperAGA or AAA?

[zevs]

Is it possible to enhance the AGA emulation to support more then 8 bit planes?

Graphic cards and AHI drivers are great. But I am wondering if we could also get 24 bit bit plane graphics and 16 bit 44.1Khz paula audio? Now that would be REALLY coooool :-)

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by zevs

Graphic cards and AHI drivers are great. But I am wondering if we could also get 24 bit bit plane graphics and 16 bit 44.1Khz paula audio? Now that would be REALLY coooool :-)

Then we'll have people making Amiga software that doesn't even work on an actual Amiga.

[Toni Wilen]

I am not going to do any kind of core chipset extensions.

Even if it existed, no one would use it (except for one or two simple demos). No one would agree on single implementation. Not going to happen.

Just use RTG and AHI.

[zevs]

Thanks for th reply, Toni!

But would'nt a new screen-mode 'just work' (TM), like the different AGA modes work today? Some non-RTG apps like DPaintV or Brilliance works great with larger resolutions and 8 MB chipmem. So therefor I was woundering if it also is possible to add more bitplanes in the mix ;-)

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by zevs

But would'nt a new screen-mode 'just work' (TM), like the different AGA modes work today? Some non-RTG apps like DPaintV or Brilliance works great with larger resolutions and 8 MB chipmem. So therefor I was woundering if it also is possible to add more bitplanes in the mix ;-)

Those programs can't use more than eight bits per pixel.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by zevs

But would'nt a new screen-mode 'just work' (TM), like the different AGA modes work today?

No. No program, no graphics.library, no software would support them. It would be same as using KS2.x or older on AGA system and expecting AGA modes "just work"...

[turrican3]

Hi guys,
Toni knows me to ask anything possible,
and toni is great to make real some of my ideas but i don't see the point this time.
There is nearly nothing which will use an enhanced aga or enhanced paula.
I don't see coders doing stuffs just for winuae !

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by turrican3

There is nearly nothing which will use an enhanced aga or enhanced paula.
I don't see coders doing stuffs just for winuae !

It depends - those enhancements can be reimplemented in FPGA in same fashion as Minimig is UAE implementation.

Some function can be added without changing general principle - for example 16 bit audio can be achieved by combining samples from 2 audio channels, increase sample rate in same fashion, side to this compression such G.721 can be added.

[Toni Wilen]

Of course they can be implemented but no one is going to use it without support driver software. New stuff that can be only used by direct hardware access and can't be used (and developed) with any existing hardware: Why would anyone use it?

It seems every FPGA implementation with (planned) extensions will have same problem: who does the software? (and how? it is practically impossible to extend existing graphics.library stuff) No one is going to do it if it is not going to be standard. Single standard implementation + Amiga? Not going to happen!

Hardware implementation is the easy part... Solving other problems is the difficult part, part which seems to be forgotten by most Amiga hardware designers.. (EDIT: I mean hardware that need driver support to be usable, not hardware that emulates existing hardware which of course just works)

[kamelito]

it is not true in the C64 land, look at C64 DTV hacks.

Kamelito

[Toni Wilen]

Obviously I meant Amiga land, where most of the complex stuff is kept secret, "not invented here" syndrome is everywhere, everyone's design is obviously the only and best one, everyone else's stuff is crap and shouldn't exist, hardware and emulation are mutually exclusive, driver support is usually someone else's problem because only hardware matters. Only Amiga makes it possible.

EDIT: forgot few more things: lots of hype first, then nothing will happen.

Sorry but you asked for it

[chaos]

I agree with Toni here. Why would you want to 'simulate' something that the real hardware never had? If you want something different than an Amiga, why would you even base it on Amiga in the first place?

The Amiga architecture is not that extendable for modern purposes as some people believe - if you want something modern, why not start from scratch? Even the Commodore engineers were talking about emulating ECS/AGA features in the next gen chipset, obviously they didn't think that simply extending ECS/AGA with new features made much sense, and that was years ago, it makes even less sense now.

I get it - we all love our Amigas and hope that Commodore would still be around and make new models (which in my opinion wouldn't be much different from current PCs), but it is what it is, the Amiga was - and still is - great for what it does, and as far as I'm concerned, I don't need some SuperAGA UberAAA++++ features to still use it today. It's not an all-purpose machine, sure, but I have a PC for that.