Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[sandruzzo]

Yes, Yes, I've read that statement, I just wonder if they could have done better. I don't think so..

[sandruzzo]

Dread/Grind wich is awesome, isn't 1x1 c2p

[hammer]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Dread/Grind wich is awesome, isn't 1x1 c2p

SNES/SuperFX2's Doom version wasn't 1x1.

1x1 Doom needs fast 486SX level preformance.

You either have $20 DSP3210 @ 50 Mhz or figured out a cheap hardware glue for $100 68EC040-25 or convince Motorola to release a modified 68EC040 with 68030's cache behavior.

Intel released RapidCAD (486DX without L1 cache) for the 386DX socket market and Intel's fastest CPU solution for the 386DX socket which is faster than 386DX-33/387-33. AMD had 386DX-40/387-40. 486DLC clones are available for 386DX sockets.

[sandruzzo]

No argue about performance, Isn't 1x1 c2p the real problem but the actual operation for more pixels..

With Dread/Grin they prove the actual Amiga power, which is fascinating even today after 30 years...

[hammer]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

No argue about performance, Isn't 1x1 c2p the real problem but the actual operation for more pixels..

With Dread/Grin they prove the actual Amiga power, which is fascinating even today after 30 years...

Sega Mega Drive's Wolf3D port had Grind's skip lines trick. The difference with software engineering talent from Sega camp.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

No argue about performance, Isn't 1x1 c2p the real problem but the actual operation for more pixels..

With Dread/Grin they prove the actual Amiga power, which is fascinating even today after 30 years...

Did you know SNES's Doom port was developed on the Amiga?

For the SNES Doom project, PC Doom was reverse-engineered and a new Doom engine was created for SNES with SuperFX2.

The SNES was connected to Amiga's parallel port. The Amiga hosted the custom dev environment for the SNES.

Nintendo is not obligated to support the Amiga.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by hammer

https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/b...t.aspx?id=1604
Games like Dread/Grind has disproven Commodore's software engineer Ken Dyke. Grind runs pretty smooth on stock A1200. Fast RAM equipped A1200 with Grind is very smooth.

Did it? From what I can see he was saying it's a pain point that most developers didn't have the time and resources to work around. That it's taken dedicated developers over twenty years to produce a single highly optimized engine pretty much proves his point entirely.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Did it? From what I can see he was saying it's a pain point that most developers didn't have the time and resources to work around. That it's taken dedicated developers over twenty years to produce a single highly optimized engine pretty much proves his point entirely.

Well... dedicated developpers yes but It is still hobby on a very little niche platform
One can imagine that a dedicated and paid team of engineers/developpers when the Amiga was still strong could have come up with this solution.
There isn't any magical tool used here, just the same hardware as it was back then.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Well... dedicated developpers yes but It is still hobby on a very little niche platform
One can imagine that a dedicated and paid team of engineers/developpers when the Amiga was still strong could have come up with this solution.
There isn't any magical tool used here, just the same hardware as it was back then.

This is a huge "what if", so no right or wrong answers here, but the fact the modern devs have 3 decades of hindsight cannot be discounted.

[Turrican_3]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Did it? From what I can see he was saying it's a pain point that most developers didn't have the time and resources to work around. That it's taken dedicated developers over twenty years to produce a single highly optimized engine pretty much proves his point entirely.

I can see your point but I think context is also important: yes, it took decades, but it was a comparatively globally low effort since the amount of developers is nowhere near what it was when the Amiga was backed by professional publishers (and heck, it could be argued even then it was often a second class citizen, likely due to the financially deadly combination of relatively small install base and hugely widespread piracy)

In other words, I'm quite sure an army of dedicated, professional developers would have likely found those tricks way earlier.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

This is a huge "what if", so no right or wrong answers here, but the fact the modern devs have 3 decades of hindsight cannot be discounted.

It cannot be discounted either that modern devs are working on their spare time with no, or little, financial retribution, for a niche platform and not any market perspective.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

It cannot be discounted either that modern devs are working on their spare time with no, or little, financial retribution, for a niche platform and not any market perspective.

I agree, it can not. Did anybody do that?

[TEG]

Originally Posted by hammer

Commodore doesn't have 1st party game studios like Nintendo to promote near-uniform SNES game optimizations.

Good remark. They never tried to push the advantage of the machine where it excelled. Mired in the idea that the games market was not for Commodore Business Machines.

However, they did not push any further to acquire a studio to promote professional software for I what know.

[sandruzzo]

With a huge "what if", they could have clocked both blitter and copper at 14 mhz without hurting the retrocompatibility!

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by TEG

Good remark. They never tried to push the advantage of the machine where it excelled. Mired in the idea that the games market was not for Commodore Business Machines.

However, they did not push any further to acquire a studio to promote professional software for I what know.

They did release some games thought, but they were more opportunities than real marketing vision.
An internal game studio with two dozen of coders/artist/musician would'nt have been too costly for such a big company in theory, not only to develop games but also tools to help others developpers.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

You can even have a copper without any "registers" inside and do load and store at faster speeds like this:

Load datas ---> Store Datas
-------------------Load Datas ---> Store Datas
---------------------------------------Load Datas ----> Store Datas

You can't do that without a complete redesign:
Storing data (to register in Lisa) and loading different data (from ChipRAM) can not happen at the same time, since it uses the same data lines on the board!

But anyways: you would not save any bandwidth or be faster with your method, since the actual way looks like this:

Load Command ---> put Data from RAM on Datalines
------------------Store Data in Register  -----> Load Command ---> put Data from RAM on Datalines
-------------------------------------------------------------------Store Data in Register  ------> Load Command

[sandruzzo]

I don't think, if copper could point directly into "ram" that we call registers, if you have some sort of "dedicated" bus. I don't see the problem, since they already did it with blitter, you can "mask" some load operations, sure you have to rethink copper, but 4 registers at once is a lot better than one by one...

Let me see:

Lea $dff000,a5
lea.l Datas,a4
move.l (a4)+,$180(a5)

It doesn't seem impossible..

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by TEG

Good remark. They never tried to push the advantage of the machine where it excelled. Mired in the idea that the games market was not for Commodore Business Machines.

However, they did not push any further to acquire a studio to promote professional software for I what know.

Amiga Vision and Amiga Vision Professional is the only exception I know of.

This program had a lot of potential ...

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Cos chunky-copper is free and doesn't require more chip, more complex motherboard.

This would be a total waste of bandwidth!

A much more simple and elegant solution: 16bit chunky BYPASS:
Read from RAM and but the 16bit chunky colour values directly on the DAC pins.
Co Copper, no Lisa, no CLUT - just RAM-->DAC

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

I don't see the problem,

I am aware of that....

since they already did it with blitter, you can "mask" some load operations,

no ... you are NOT doing it already with the Blitter ... this is NOT how Copper works!

sure you have to rethink copper,

The Copper approach was fine in 85 ... in the early 90s you would use a different concepts.

You are trying to put lipstick on a pig ...