new amiga 500 doom like !

[rothers]

Theoretically could the explosions (or part of them) be done with sprites to give a bit more colour (palette) to them? Same for blood? Thus freeing up the main palette for textures?

I too can't wait to see this with textures made for the game, it's going to look amazing!!

As for accelerators, won't the fact you've got an 020, 030 etc. be enough?

[d4rk3lf]

I think KK already mentioned that faster Amiga's and accelerator will make the game double the speed, but not above that, because of the way is programmed (to run fairly fast on A500), and there is a bottleneck with something, that is on every Amiga (maybe blitter, but I might be wrong).

It's somewhere written on previous pages.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by rothers

Theoretically could the explosions (or part of them) be done with sprites to give a bit more colour (palette) to them? Same for blood? Thus freeing up the main palette for textures?

I too can't wait to see this with textures made for the game, it's going to look amazing!!

As for accelerators, won't the fact you've got an 020, 030 etc. be enough?

One of the updates shows that the game already uses Hardware Sprites for the gun graphics (which is very smart as it allows them to have a separate palette). It probably isn't possible (or if it is, it'll be very hard) to also do the explosions/blood with them.

[Tsak]

Thanks @d4rk3lf

I agree on dithering. Currently walls and other assets are being worked on with a new palette for a much cleaner result. Regarding modding tools: yes, a release of the tool for level design is on the way. This will come much sooner than the 'final' game. Probably once the very first demo gets released as well (but KK can confirm that).

Regarding accelerators and performance. Basically the current build that I tried on my 1200 feels like it maxes out with only some extra fast. Which makes Dread the fastest, smoothest Doom like experience on vanilla 1200 machines and in full screen (I've seen or played) by FAR

Another thing worth mentioning is that we found a way to double the percieved horizontal in-game resolution from 2x2 to 1x2 (with zero performance overhead). Given varying floors and foor/ceiling textures will (or could) be added in the future, the game has the potencial not only to play faster but also look way better than most fps games that came for stock 1200/cd32 back then. Stay tuned for more news on this cause this shit is super exciting!

@rothers

Nope, as @roondar mentioned all sprite channels are currently used for player guns. We still can use sprites above or below weapons height though. And while we cannot use them for explosions and such (because there is an overlap in-game) KK currently does use them to display extra text messages at the top of the screen. This will be explained and showcased in due time.

Oh and one extra note: Currently all effects (including blood, projectiles, explosions e.t.c.) have already been remade from scratch (i.e. completely new designs which we might use in the final game as well) and do have many more colors than current ones.

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

I think KK already mentioned that faster Amiga's and accelerator will make the game double the speed, but not above that, because of the way is programmed (to run fairly fast on A500), and there is a bottleneck with something, that is on every Amiga (maybe blitter, but I might be wrong).

It's somewhere written on previous pages.

Yes, it is probably the chip memory speed on OCS, ECS that have its limits.

[d4rk3lf]

@Tsak
Everything you say, sounds amazing.
Looking forward to future updates.

@nikosdis
Here is the quote I was referring:

If you get to a level of a stock A1200, expect stable 25 FPS (tested on PAL) with an occasional frame drop. At this level, the CPU just gets things done and Blitter C2P becomes the bottleneck. You might get there or close with just 14MHz and some Fast RAM (A1200 without cache), and definitely should hit it with 24 MHz.

https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...&postcount=155

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

@Tsak
Everything you say, sounds amazing.
Looking forward to future updates.

@nikosdis
Here is the quote I was referring:


https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...&postcount=155

Yes, thanks for link and info. The ACA500+ have 68000 clocked at 14MHz or more but no cache like 020. 68000 clocked 28MHz it should at least be as fast as standard 14MHz 68020.

25fps is way faster than Doom runs on my A1200/030 50MHz.

I hope and think that 25fps might be fast enough for my taste. I stated before in this thread that 30fps is kind of minimum for me but I might be wrong about that, at least running PAL 50 Hz.

How cool is this!! Just with some fast RAM you will be able to play at around 25 fps on standard A1200!! Whow!!

This game is soooo exiting. Can not wait to try it out on my machines

[d4rk3lf]

When I do SysInfo, Aca500+ (default 14Mhz) is around the same speed as vanilla A1200.
Now, maybe SysInfo isn't accurate, and 2MB of Chip Ram definitely helps a lot (I only got 1MB Chip (+7MB slow) on my Amiga 500).

But when I play Frontier, or Wing Commander, it feels kind of similar speed like when I was playing it on my Vanilla A1200 back in the day.

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

When I do SysInfo, Aca500+ (default 14Mhz) is around the same speed as vanilla A1200.
Now, maybe SysInfo isn't accurate, and 2MB of Chip Ram definitely helps a lot (I only got 1MB Chip (+7MB slow) on my Amiga 500).

But when I play Frontier, or Wing Commander, it feels kind of similar speed like when I was playing it on my Vanilla A1200 back in the day.

Yes, that is not accurate. 68020 introduced faster bus speed, 32-bit + 256 byte cache.

Sure this is not everything. It might very well be possible that the games you mention run as fast on your ACA as A1200.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

When I do SysInfo, Aca500+ (default 14Mhz) is around the same speed as vanilla A1200.
Now, maybe SysInfo isn't accurate, and 2MB of Chip Ram definitely helps a lot (I only got 1MB Chip (+7MB slow) on my Amiga 500).

But when I play Frontier, or Wing Commander, it feels kind of similar speed like when I was playing it on my Vanilla A1200 back in the day.

the ACA500plus should give you FastRAM and not SlowRAM - that could make up for the difference very well

[d4rk3lf]

Ahh sorry... fast...
I am a hardware noob.

[rothers]

Originally Posted by Tsak

Thanks @d4rk3lf

@rothers

Nope, as @roondar mentioned all sprite channels are currently used for player guns. We still can use sprites above or below weapons height though. And while we cannot use them for explosions and such (because there is an overlap in-game) KK currently does use them to display extra text messages at the top of the screen. This will be explained and showcased in due time.

I did mean above the gun sprite, I was more thinking blood particles and such and bits of an explosion (particle stuff), just added extras I guess which could use the sprite palette.

[b0lt-thrower]

I gotta say I haven't been pumped up like this about a native Amiga FPS project since the very early 1990s, when it seemed like every bedroom coder was trying to out-DOOM DOOM!

Honestly, this could compel me to get a stock A500 again, if any show up on eBay...

[roondar]

The new update looks great by the way (finally got time to watch it). Clever way of optimising the title/menu graphics for sure! Like the texture/font of the menu too

As for the various dithering methods, I think all of them have their pro's and cons. Strangely, I found both 'check mark style' options to be both an improvement and a detraction from the base. Some parts looked better to me, others looked clearly worse (particularly the enemies). Looking forward to seeing your next changes, it sound rather intriguing.

Also, it still does look smoother than it really is somehow. Not entirely sure why it is (all I can think of it that it's an illusion caused by the smooth animations of the gun sprites), but I'm certainly not complaining

[KK/Altair]

Are you planning on doing some sort of multiplayer mode, either trough internet or serial-cable? I would love to set up a few Amigas and play some deathmatch

Already thought about it quite a bit and I even have a clear idea how to do it simply.

But like you, I learned this the hard way .

More like, I forgot it just on this one. My day job is embedded programming, so I guess I'm using "volatile" more than I'm using "const".

[quote]Hey I have a question, hope I haven't missed the answer buried somewhere amongst the posts on here, but what kind of controls are you going to implement?[/quote}
I'm open to any suggestions. WASD+mouse is now implemented, and I definitely would like to add joystick and/or some kind of joystick+mouse options. Any suggestions are more than welcome - as well as links to pad schematics, as I never owned one.

When you are playing different screen modes, you could make one for us who have accelerator.

What mode exactly would you like to see?

Did you know that FreeRTOS (used in embedded programming) generates a Guru Meditation when it crashes

Nice. But I never used FreeRTOS - I prefer to do it myself from ground up. Full control is awesome.

Not even AGA is required! That will say every Amiga ever created

Exactly. But if you have Fast RAM or a faster CPU, then things scale nicely.

I am a little bit sad because that awesome drawing of the skull will not make it to the final, but maybe it can be use as an box art, or something...

It will not make it to the first demo. We are a long way from the final.

When the demo is released, are we going to be able to create our own levels? Will you export "modding tools" with it, or it is something you like to release only for final release of the game?

Demo will be prebaked, so not yet, but adding mod support will be one of the next steps.

Theoretically could the explosions (or part of them) be done with sprites to give a bit more colour (palette) to them? Same for blood? Thus freeing up the main palette for textures?

To do this, we have to make sure that blood and/or explosions never can appear on the same scanline as weapon sprite - which we can't do, because blood and explosions can appear next to the player any time.

Probably once the very first demo gets released as well (but KK can confirm that).

The toolchain generates a text file in C with table declarations, which get compiled into the main code. This was simplest approach, because it saved me from writing a map and asset loaders and allowed me to change all data structures on the fly. I'll still have to decouple some of that and trackload maps and assets from FDD - then it will be possible.

Yes, it is probably the chip memory speed on OCS, ECS that have its limits.

It's the Blitter doing chunky 2 planar work. It's completely driven by interrupts and works in parallel with the CPU (Blitter converts last frame while the CPU renders next one), and this approach gives really cheap chunky 2 planar on A500. But if you speed up the CPU, at one point it will outpace the Blitter and the latter will become the limiting factor.

I gotta say I haven't been pumped up like this about a native Amiga FPS project since the very early 1990s, when it seemed like every bedroom coder was trying to out-DOOM DOOM!

That quite sums up how Dread came to be. I didn't have good enough skills back then, of course, but still tried. And even the name "Dread" dates back to then.

Looking forward to seeing your next changes, it sound rather intriguing.

And considering what I'm most inclined to do next, at this point - they might sound... literally.

[Cobe]

Originally Posted by KK/Altair

I'm open to any suggestions. WASD+mouse is now implemented, and I definitely would like to add joystick and/or some kind of joystick+mouse options. Any suggestions are more than welcome - as well as links to pad schematics, as I never owned one.

Cd32 pad, strafe on shoulder buttons?

Btw, astonishing achievement!

Btw2, keep the scanline option, might come in handy on non crt screens.
Maybe lighten up the pallette a bit in that mode?

[utri007]

Originally Posted by KK/Altair

What mode exactly would you like to see?

1X1 pixelmode, with floor and ceiling textures.

[d4rk3lf]

Yeah, 1x1 would be...

One very stupid question:
You said that Blitter is doing C2P work, and it would be bottleneck for faster processors. Would it be impossibly hard, that game detect processor, and then just give C2P to processor, if it detects that processor is fast enough?
I know you can't throw code parts just like that, and it needs to be probably rewritten completely, or even impossible, but I just ask out of curiosity.

Btw, to be clear - I am all for the ultimate goal - A500 optimization as max as possible. That's the most important!

[khph_re]

Didn't gloom deluxe hsve different plugin engines? Or did i just make that up?

[KK/Altair]

1X1 pixelmode, with floor and ceiling textures.

You said that Blitter is doing C2P work, and it would be bottleneck for faster processors. Would it be impossibly hard, that game detect processor, and then just give C2P to processor, if it detects that processor is fast enough?

Both above would probably be possible, but require considerable amount of code I'm not willing to get into right now. Priorities are calling, among which I can see:
- adding sound FX, finishing the map and releasing the demo,
- implementing modding support (to allow others making cool content for all),
- implementing true varying floor/ceiling heights,
- null-modem multiplayer,
- ... etc ...