19 April 2023, 09:43 | #21 |
Thalion Webshrine
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Karlos says, double buffering in FastRAM should get approx 32 FPS if the game is not CPU limited? The limitation being by the copy speed of the 6bpl screen from FastRAM to ChipRAM?
The 680x0 CPU in PiStorm32 running Emu68 is significantly faster than any PC of the day. |
19 April 2023, 10:07 | #22 | |
Alien Bleed
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If the game runs fine in UAE, where chip memory access speed penalty can be eliminated, then it's almost certainly something like that. |
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07 May 2023, 14:45 | #23 |
Retro Freak
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Are you sure. Authors of Pistorm's FW have optimised it now to hit the theoretical MAX of chip ram write transfer rate:
Yes, that is the max amiga's chip ram is capable of, but we still get very low refresh rates and when I run the performance test inside the TFX configuration utility I get VERY slow transfer rates of 1.4Mb/s , while the system is actually capable of transfering 7Mb to chip ram: I wonder if the game ever run smooth on ANY accelerator ? |
07 May 2023, 14:52 | #24 |
Thalion Webshrine
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I think it has to do 32-bit long word access to get 7mbs
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07 May 2023, 14:56 | #25 |
Alien Bleed
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The speed of TFX leads me to believe there's something fundamentally wrong with it on the Amiga I doubt that it's CPU bound given how the PiStorm utterly crushes other CPU bound tasks.
I'd be looking for artificial frame caps, dodgy game timer code, trying to be clever with interrupts or something else like that. |
07 May 2023, 16:32 | #26 | |
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07 May 2023, 17:27 | #27 |
Alien Bleed
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First, and most obviously, how does it perform under UAE,and which emulation parameters affect performance most strongly?
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07 May 2023, 18:15 | #28 | |
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07 May 2023, 19:00 | #29 |
Alien Bleed
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Well, that tells us something about what's wrong with it. What happens if you use cycle exact mode? I believe memory delays are modelled on 020+
I've not read all the threads around tfx but my guess is, it's got data in chip ram that shouldn't be there. |
07 May 2023, 19:53 | #30 |
Retro Freak
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Yes, it is even worse with WinUAE and Cycle Exact mode than with pistorm32 It gets around 430Kbytes/s even with the fastest CPU possible...
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07 May 2023, 22:08 | #31 |
Alien Bleed
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This sounds like a job for someone with a good disassembler/reassembler suite. The mis-located data could be almost anything, it could be lookup tables, meshes, whatever. The only thing that should be in chip ram is the on screen graphics and sounds (assuming it just uses vanilla Paula playback).
Lol, I must be going senile. I said the same thing a few posts further up. Last edited by Karlos; 07 May 2023 at 22:20. |
08 May 2023, 00:22 | #32 |
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The latest version of TFX needs data in chipmem (bad hunk merging), but it could probably be relocated in fastmem, with exceptions done for copperlists, ... Not really a big job.
But not all executables have this particular issue. For instance the 040 compatible one (the one which has symbols) is okay. |
08 May 2023, 10:41 | #33 |
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I wonder why never an RTG version was released. It would solve certain issues for sure, including low bandwith of Chipram.
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08 May 2023, 10:49 | #34 |
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very few games had a RTG version... Devs targetted a wide audience. TFX can run on a 68020...
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08 May 2023, 11:00 | #35 |
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I know that but nowadays when Chip ram is more likely a bottleneck and several rtg based configs are all around it would worth it to release one... not all games really deserves an RTG versions, but something with this gfx-environment would deserve one. If I compare RTG vs AGA in games like Doom and other fps ports, framerate is significantly better on RTG, due to the obvious reason of the advantages of the gfx cards.
But this is just an idea of mine. |
08 May 2023, 11:42 | #36 |
Thalion Webshrine
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The Amiga source code is lost. Arguably the game was never completed (certainly never sold). I imagine shoe-horning RTG back into a pre-compiled binary isn't trivial.
As to why they never did it back in the day... because RTG cost the equivalent of £1000+ |
08 May 2023, 11:53 | #37 |
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AFAIK there was a pack of new executables a few years(?) back, so I presume someone still has the codes. But that needs to be checked to be sure.
Yes, noone ever believed that RTG will be so common as nowdays. |
08 May 2023, 12:07 | #38 | |
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The source code was never released. |
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03 June 2023, 20:25 | #39 |
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03 June 2023, 23:05 | #40 |
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nope. Tornado is full fastmem. It's just too ambitious.
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