13 October 2021, 06:22 | #41 | |
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You seem confused. So, the native chipset has of course a linear frame buffer, providing direct access to the memory of the frame buffer. Quite unlike some ancient VGA chipsets such as the one of the Retina Z2. Second, the "Native" P96 driver is not a monitor driver in the strict sense because creating the screen modes and the screen, and loading the frame buffer to the display is still run by the operating system. Getting this done through P96 would povide no advantage anyhow. What "Native" does is that it enables the blitter emulation, so all blitter operations are performed through the CPU (and hence typically faster), which also allows to place non-displayable bitmaps in FastMem. Bitmaps you want to display of course still have to go in chip mem (and no matter whether there would be a P96 driver or not) simply because that's where the custom chips need them to be able to create an RGB output. |
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13 October 2021, 08:08 | #42 | |
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As for direct access by user code: both P96 and CGX docs say bitmap locking may fail so in theory user code needs to have a fallback for when direct access fails. Of course there will be mostly games/demos which ignore that ... |
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13 October 2021, 10:09 | #43 | |
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Btw: You forgot mentioned Warp between mentioned solutions. Yes, Warp have FPGA in function of card controller and also graphic card. This is THAT FPGA which lack of stopped Warp production. So if SAGA would be open-source it could be used also with Warp. But as I mentioned before I don't think it happens in near future. |
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13 October 2021, 11:02 | #44 |
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13 October 2021, 11:03 | #45 |
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13 October 2021, 11:24 | #46 |
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No, because that was only part of the internal driver API, but not of the API between user and P96. Non-linear frame buffers went away already in ancient times (before the P96 2.0 release, before 2000).
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13 October 2021, 11:28 | #47 | ||
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P96 does not have a lock-mechanism, but a "hook" mechanism which calls your code and the address of the current frame buffer. |
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13 October 2021, 18:44 | #48 |
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@Thor, offtopic did you got my privates messages?
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13 October 2021, 19:10 | #49 | |
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You can make assumptions, or... maybe you could just ask them? Last edited by clebin; 13 October 2021 at 19:20. |
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14 October 2021, 08:24 | #50 |
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14 October 2021, 09:30 | #51 |
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Well, perhaps a little logical thinking can help here. Wouldn't it be much better for general acceptance of SAGA if all those minimigs, misters, pistorms etc. supported the same new set of features? Wouldn't that help sell Vampires if there were more software making use of the new features? Wouldn't this address precisely what most van Helsings critisise about SAGA: hardly any software available for it anyway? To summarise: wouldn't it make an awful lot of sense to open-source or license SAGA to other products once it is finished and offers a defined set of features?
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14 October 2021, 11:09 | #52 |
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The trouble is that you seem to assume that this is some kind of "one-way road". Gunnar defines what it has to be, other people just implement and pay. However, this is not how the world works. Gunnar has been reluctant to accept advice from outside, on compatibility or interoperatbility, and this is not a solid ground on which cooperation(!) can work.
Instead of definiing a particular "chipset" (that is, a hardware interface), it is generally much more advisable to define a software interface how to drive a chipset. That includes mechanisms how to find a chipset (we have one for that already, it's called Autoconf), and a series of interface functions to talk to the chipset, abstracting the features away and provide those functions to users. This was, just to remind you, the way how the PC operated. While there was initially a "VGA standard chipset", it became soon enough too limiting, and instead of restricting chips to this legacy, vendors agreed on a software interface (back then, the "VESA bios", today, the "linux kernel interface" or the "MS driver architecture). This turned out to be a much more viable approach, and one that scales a lot better. It also allows competition between vendors, to the advantage of the user... |
14 October 2021, 18:11 | #53 | |
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This is supposed to be an enhanced Amiga chipset, programmed like the classic chipset, banging the hardware, coexisting and mixing with OCS/AGA modes, playfields, etc. Abstract that away behind a software interface like you describe and there is no USP, no reason for SAGA to exist. EDIT: And I mean no offence to P96 and your work on it. P96 is a vital, well established piece of software. That's why there's no need for them to reinvent that wheel. This is something different. Last edited by clebin; 14 October 2021 at 18:37. |
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14 October 2021, 22:01 | #54 | ||
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As I said, there was a reason why the PC world moved away from "defining an interface through chipset registers". It is considerably less flexible than a software defined interface. Software allows competition between hardware vendors, and that is a *good* thing. The problem of the Amiga graphics is that is too much bound to the chipset capabilities - just continuing with this error does not sound very smart to me. |
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14 October 2021, 22:29 | #55 | |||
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Last edited by clebin; 14 October 2021 at 22:42. |
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15 October 2021, 10:51 | #56 | |
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If people like old platforms, why they need a new chipset? Or, to put it differently, why not bang the hardware of a raspi, alternatively? Or call a software function, alternatively? |
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15 October 2021, 12:52 | #57 |
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The "bang the hardware" coders are usually game makers and demo scene people. They usually use OCS/ECS/AGA. As far as I can see nearly nobody is interested in direct SAGA coding except some rare exceptions. I would say SAGA comes at least 20 years to late. However, you can use SAGA over RTG. Hence SAGA isn't completely useless.
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15 October 2021, 13:56 | #58 |
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I use the Amiga to relearn 68k assembler with direct hardware addressing. I don't wanna any abstraction of the chipset. But when a coder like c programming on an Amiga, abstraction and libs are fine.
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15 October 2021, 14:57 | #59 | |
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It’s a bit like the ZX Spectrum Next. There’s a definite split in opinion and even some backlash (mild in Amiga terms) on that machine too. My favourite Next game so far, Delta’s Shadow, shown against the 128k Speccy version shows how some creative, interesting projects can emerge from the mix of old and new constraints. Take the sound - as the Next offers 3 AY chips instead of one, they keep the same music but beef it up with extra bass etc. It’s cool stuff IMO. Last edited by clebin; 15 October 2021 at 15:15. |
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15 October 2021, 15:13 | #60 | |
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SAGA needs to be good enough and stable enough, first to get any kind of support in emulators and hardware, and second to win developers over to actually want to use it. I don’t believe that the appetite for SAGA conceptually-speaking has been proved one way or the other yet. Even the failure of SAGA may not answer the question if it were done badly. Although on that, I’m encouraged to see Thomas Hirsch on board. |
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