Amiga games coded in Amiga E / E-VO?

A500 · 23 August 2023, 13:35

According to the Aminet description of the latest version of Amiga E-VO, E is mainly aimed for application development (https://aminet.net/package/dev/e/evo ).

This may be just an academic question, but I was wondering whether E has been used as the main language for any commercial (or PD) games. Also, what makes it less suitable for games development, and how does it compare to C compilers on the Amiga in this respect?

Samurai_Crow · 23 August 2023, 16:28

E has a very small runtime. That means it relies very heavily on the operating system to do its stuff. The startup code is much smaller than Blitz but it doesn't have many of the helps that AmiBlitz has.

On the other hand, inline assembly is transparently supported as part of the language and the E-VO compiler has fixed several problems that the original E compiler had in code generation.

Its code generation is better than AmosPro by a fair amount but the optimizer is peephole-style only. GCC does extensive optimizations that E doesn't yet do.

Phantasm · 23 August 2023, 18:18

its less optimal even than C compilers from back in the day. E was originally written by one person in assembler and then others have taken it further (including myself - the developer of the current E-VO project) but usually again as individual developers. Its hard to compete against such a project as GCC.

There's no reason why you could not develop a game in E (theres this one that someone started http://aminet.net/package/dev/e/ufo_src) but its not aimed at delivering highly optimal code or the type of projects that take over the system and access the hardware directly. You certainly could do this if you really wanted to - there's not a huge benefit in using E for that really.

Samurai_Crow · 24 August 2023, 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Its hard to compete against such a project as GCC.

If you'd rather get involved with improving E compilers, there's a tutorial being rewritten for making a GCC frontend parser on current versions of GCC. Maybe GCC 13 will be a good backend. See https://github.com/GCC-Tiny for example code. @Phantasm and I am also involved in the EEC project. Unlike E-VO, EEC is written in E itself and could be potentially rewritten to use GCC. See also https://github.com/EEC-Developers if you are interested in joining or looking at other options.

A500 · 26 August 2023, 09:50

Thanks for your replies! I also found another thread on the topic:
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=100330

mahen · 26 August 2023, 20:47

Dynamite by Amigazeux (online multiplayer bBmberman), I seem to recall ?

23 August 2023, 13:35	#1
A500 Registered User Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Finland Posts: 369	Amiga games coded in Amiga E / E-VO? According to the Aminet description of the latest version of Amiga E-VO, E is mainly aimed for application development (https://aminet.net/package/dev/e/evo ). This may be just an academic question, but I was wondering whether E has been used as the main language for any commercial (or PD) games. Also, what makes it less suitable for games development, and how does it compare to C compilers on the Amiga in this respect?

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23 August 2023, 16:28	#2
Samurai_Crow Total Chaos forever! Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Waterville, MN, USA Age: 49 Posts: 2,200	E has a very small runtime. That means it relies very heavily on the operating system to do its stuff. The startup code is much smaller than Blitz but it doesn't have many of the helps that AmiBlitz has. On the other hand, inline assembly is transparently supported as part of the language and the E-VO compiler has fixed several problems that the original E compiler had in code generation. Its code generation is better than AmosPro by a fair amount but the optimizer is peephole-style only. GCC does extensive optimizations that E doesn't yet do.

23 August 2023, 18:18	#3
Phantasm Not a Rebel anymore Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: UK Age: 51 Posts: 505	its less optimal even than C compilers from back in the day. E was originally written by one person in assembler and then others have taken it further (including myself - the developer of the current E-VO project) but usually again as individual developers. Its hard to compete against such a project as GCC. There's no reason why you could not develop a game in E (theres this one that someone started http://aminet.net/package/dev/e/ufo_src) but its not aimed at delivering highly optimal code or the type of projects that take over the system and access the hardware directly. You certainly could do this if you really wanted to - there's not a huge benefit in using E for that really.

26 August 2023, 09:50	#5
A500 Registered User Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Finland Posts: 369	Thanks for your replies! I also found another thread on the topic: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=100330

26 August 2023, 20:47	#6
mahen Registered User Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: France Age: 41 Posts: 473	Dynamite by Amigazeux (online multiplayer bBmberman), I seem to recall ?

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