Would you rather have Doom or Grind running on standard A500?

[abu_the_monkey]

Grind.

Obviously because it is something new.

but when it is released (and providing it has easy enough tooling) anyone that wants 'DOOM' levels for the engine could put in the work, no?

[Karlos]

"Well, these results are a surprise!", said noone ever.


As far as I can tell, GRIND doesn't have varying height floors simply because the feature is incomplete/buggy. It does have varying height ceilings/open spaces.

Since the floors aren't textured, there are some potential benefits to having a fixed level.

As for DOOM levels in the engine on an A500, people are forgetting the obvious fact that DOOM required around 4MB of RAM. A standard A500 isn't going to cut it, no matter how fast the engine is.

[Karlos]

I'd like to see Alien Breed 3D on a standard A500...

[abu_the_monkey]

that's a fair comment.

when people say they want DOOM on the A500 do they mean an original 512k, kickstart 1.2 machine?

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by Karlos

I'd like to see Alien Breed 3D on a standard A500...

now that would be cool

[ Show youtube player ]

AB3D (demo) on an expanded A600

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

now that would be cool

[ Show youtube player ]

AB3D (demo) on an expanded A600

I still love the aesthetic of that level, although the depth cue is a bit too extreme.

[Whitesnake]

Originally Posted by Karlos

"Well, these results are a surprise!", said noone ever.


As far as I can tell, GRIND doesn't have varying height floors simply because the feature is incomplete/buggy. It does have varying height ceilings/open spaces.

Since the floors aren't textured, there are some potential benefits to having a fixed level.

As for DOOM levels in the engine on an A500, people are forgetting the obvious fact that DOOM required around 4MB of RAM. A standard A500 isn't going to cut it, no matter how fast the engine is.

Just because the floors are not textured doesn't mean steps become invisible or not beneficial. The steps and multiple floor heights still have vertical textures like SNES Doom. I'll just say you can be a lot more creative with your maps with multiple heights. If you just have one floor height it becomes a maze.

[Karlos]

Floors can easily become invisible unless they are shaded differently and/or walls are carefully textured to make the bottoms obvious.

As I said, I'm pretty sure there is support for varying floor heights in the engine but it's not complete/has bugs. As for being a maze, well, that's all 2.5D games pretty much

[Adropac2]

Originally Posted by Whitesnake

I haven't seen any maps with multiple "floor" heights in GRIND yet. I suspect the reason you aren't seeing them as all that A500 performance might vanish as a result.

yeah I would rather suspect so but what do I know. It would be more reasonable to expect that running at a more acceptable rate on A1200 of course but maybe there's some last miracle we will witness from the engine that does allow the A500 just a little more

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by Whitesnake

I haven't seen any maps with multiple "floor" heights in GRIND yet. I suspect the reason you aren't seeing them as all that A500 performance might vanish as a result.

With regards to Doom, SNES Doom is basically what an A500 Doom would look like, I think you would still need some more performance cheating techniques but I suspect GRIND will end up looking close to SNES Doom if floor heights are added.

What would be really impressive is room over room support, I think the easiest way to implement this would be via silent instant teleportation like Hexen

SNES Doom use a special dedicated processor.
You can play Doom on an A500, you just need the recquired hardware. (Like every Doom versions) More ram and a better CPU.
The Amiga is a computer designed to be expanded from the start.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Whitesnake

I haven't seen any maps with multiple "floor" heights in GRIND yet.

Originally Posted by Karlos

As far as I can tell, GRIND doesn't have varying height floors simply because the feature is incomplete/buggy.

Here is where KK showcase Dread/Grind engine capable of variable heights, and it shouldn't affect performance on A500 in any drastic way.

Watch from 5:55

[ Show youtube player ]

As for "incomplete/buggy"... from what I remember, KK mentioned once that it's implemented pretty nicely, but only issues was implementing enemies (as 2D images) when he used variable heights, and that he had few ideas how to solve it.

Doom on A500?
On video above, I think it's pretty much max we can expect, and considering hardware limits, I think it's pretty damn amazing!
(anyone show me similar Doom demo on 286, and with even more then 7Mhz)

[Tsak]

Some answers in regards to variable heights:
As @Karlos mentioned, the Dread engine (which Grind uses) already has the ability for variable height floors. There are 2 renderer versions available right now:

V1) This is the current stable renderer used. It does not support variable height floors but does support variable walls heights already (albeit in a somewhat limited fashion).

V2) This has full variable height floor and walls support. But the renderer is incomplete as it does not support yet proper objects clipping and interactivity. Also it does not enjoy the amount of finetuning and optimization that was put into V1.

In regards to performance (and as we have confirmed from various test) V2 while completely unoptimized is still playable on a500. But with worse performance than V1, even in completely flat areas and (of course) without containing any objects yet. According to KK though (Dread engine's original coder) that could very well change if the renderer is properly optimized like V1, reaching similar performance numbers. It is worth noting also that the 'variable floors' feature is not that much of a big contributing factor to performance per se. I.e. 2 rooms with the same amount of sectors but one flat and the other with different elevations should perform similarly.

Does that means a Doom port would be doable and playable on a500 f.e. using this engine?
With some modifications (and further concessions) probably yes (granted V2 would be completed and performing similarly to V1). Simplifications to the maps, enemy count and geometry would also have to be made to keep things playable (this has been the case with many other Doom ports to other systems anyhow). Probably the biggest challenge here would be converting the gfx cause the slope from 256 colors to 16 is pretty steep indeed.

So overall doable (albeit with a lot of asterisks). Perhaps some day

[CCCP alert]

Dread on A500 looks to be running at twice the framerate of Grind on A500. 10fps for a Doom clone is going to play like ass.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Seiya

Doom has better fascination and a thousand of mods. Of course Engine must be remade for A500, but what i saw in Citadel, it cannot be so difficult. Grind is good and for sure worth to play with it. But Doom is Doom.

Sure, Doom is Doom, but you can also play it on a bazillion other platforms.

I'll always take an original Amiga game over a port, even if the game is 3D Pong.

[Megalomaniac]

Did anybody complain about 10fps for a 3D game back in the day, did it really ruin the feeling of immersion?

If you'd asked this question in 1994 I'd've said Doom, because the name had such cachet. Today though, I'd say Grind, largely because it won't be possibly to perfectly port Doom's gameplay to the A500, and we can all play it through a PC now, so I think I'd rather see something original that's been designed around the A500's capabilities.

[Adropac2]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Here is where KK showcase Dread/Grind engine capable of variable heights, and it shouldn't affect performance on A500 in any drastic way.

yeah that would be more than acceptable considering and just about the most astonishing achievement on the A500. People maybe forget that games are often still playable at something like 5 frames. Not ideal or enjoyable maybe even for some but still playable in the actual sense and to see the engine doing this as a finished product would be remarkable. Adding just a little extra acceleration if you wanted. It really would be quite something

[DisasterIncarna]

remember doom wasnt exactly full quality/full speed for most pc users when it first came out, yeah it became much better when better hardware came out but i recall my uncle played it and he couldnt run even 1:1 pixel/resolution mode decently, he had to F5 that shit to get it running better, he also needed more ram in the end.

Considering the a500 hardware grind is targeted to, its sheer witchcraft what has been done and continues to be done, and best of all, its not a straight port you can play on anything/everything.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Adropac2

People maybe forget that games are often still playable at something like 5 frames.

That heavily depends on the game.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

remember doom wasnt exactly full quality/full speed for most pc users when it first came out

What does that have to do with which game you are personally more interested to see in 2024 for a stock A500?

[Adropac2]

Originally Posted by Thorham

That heavily depends on the game.

sure that's why I said often but anyway you can drop that right down and maintain what you must from most games at this framerate