Could an Amiga 500 run Doom?

[Not Here Long]

Hi

Just wondering. I noticed sometime ago that the ADoom texture mapping engine has colour modes which remap Doom's 256 colour visuals down to a smaller palette for the ECS graphics chip.

The ADoom read me file explains that these colour modes theoretically shouldn't work on OCS Amigas, but that the author had received feedback from users who had had success running Doom on such machines.

Could an Amiga 500 run Doom if equipped with something like a GVP accelerator (with an 030 processor, the required RAM and a hard drive), and perhaps also a later Kickstart ROM and Workbench version?

[Foebane]

I thought the A1200 (which is graphically capable of showing Doom as it should be) replaced the A500 as the stock Amiga model when it came out?

After all, why bother to support an ageing machine when the latest and greatest model was just out?

Why bother downgrading such a game as Doom for one type of Amiga, when another type of Amiga can run it better, and which has more readily available means of doing so, too?

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Not Here Long

Hi

Just wondering. I noticed sometime ago that the ADoom texture mapping engine has colour modes which remap Doom's 256 colour visuals down to a smaller palette for the ECS graphics chip.

The ADoom read me file explains that these colour modes theoretically shouldn't work on OCS Amigas, but that the author had received feedback from users who had had success running Doom on such machines.

Could an Amiga 500 run Doom if equipped with something like a GVP accelerator (with an 030 processor, the required RAM and a hard drive), and perhaps also a later Kickstart ROM and Workbench version?

Yes,
seems EHB mode works "just fine" but on a 030 its not exactly a great experience..
Here's some short video of Doom running on an A500 with just 0.5MB chip and with a TF536 accelerator (probably 50MHz 030)
[ Show youtube player ]

[zipper]

No problems on my A500 - but it is towerized and runs Blizzard 2060@ 60 MHz and CV64/3d or PicassoIV. Quite far from original A500...

[Matt_H]

Yes, the color limitation of the 500/2000 is not the barrier to running Doom on such a system. Throw enough CPU and memory at it and it’ll work fine. I used to run ADoom on a GVP/030 2000 in 64-color EHB. DoomAttack is faster, but I don’t recall whether it supports ECS.

There was no serious technical reason why the Amiga couldn’t have received a commercial Doom port in the mid 90s (like every other platform). Granted, the c2p conversion complicated things, but the main issue was that publishers targeted stock 500/1200 systems instead of accelerated systems, probably because they didn’t think the market of accelerator owners was large enough to generate enough sales (or weren’t aware of the accelerator-owning market at all). Remember that we got a *lot* of cut-down ports between 1992-1996. I think they would have been a lot better if they had been coded with a hard drive and some fast RAM (and maybe an 030) in mind.

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by Not Here Long

Could an Amiga 500 run Doom

Yes, see this thread:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=98654

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by Not Here Long

The ADoom read me file explains that these colour modes theoretically shouldn't work on OCS Amigas, but that the author had received feedback from users who had had success running Doom on such machines.

Could an Amiga 500 run Doom if equipped with something like a GVP accelerator (with an 030 processor, the required RAM and a hard drive), and perhaps also a later Kickstart ROM and Workbench version?

The 64-color EHB mode was in OCS, in every single version of Denise except the very first revision used in the first run of A1000s. Later A1000s and every single Amiga after that can do EHB.

An 030 can run Doom on an OCS/ECS Amiga, but not very well. The 030 is barely fast enough to run Doom, but the slow chip memory access in lores 6 bitplane mode will add extra waitstates. The A3000 can handle it better thanks to 32-bit chip memory access.

If you have one of those rare 040 cards for the A500 it can run Doom playably.

[TjLaZer]

Originally Posted by Not Here Long

Hi

Just wondering. I noticed sometime ago that the ADoom texture mapping engine has colour modes which remap Doom's 256 colour visuals down to a smaller palette for the ECS graphics chip.

The ADoom read me file explains that these colour modes theoretically shouldn't work on OCS Amigas, but that the author had received feedback from users who had had success running Doom on such machines.

Could an Amiga 500 run Doom if equipped with something like a GVP accelerator (with an 030 processor, the required RAM and a hard drive), and perhaps also a later Kickstart ROM and Workbench version?

Yes it runs with a 030, but pretty slow. And with a Vampire 2 with ECS 64 color HB mode it runs amazing!

[d4rk3lf]

Yes, and I personally like that ECS A500 Doom look.
Sort of unique look, with limited palette.

I actually managed to run it through Winuae in ecs, as I was curious too see it closer then on youtube links, and it worked - no problem (of course, I had to bump up the cpu and ram).

So, you can try it yourself in Winuae.

Originally Posted by Not Here Long

Could an Amiga 500 run Doom if equipped with something like a GVP accelerator (with an 030 processor, the required RAM and a hard drive), and perhaps also a later Kickstart ROM and Workbench version?

It can run, probably even on 020, but just run...
030 (for todays standard) isn't good enough even for A1200.... it's pretty slow...
040 is way better experience.

Originally Posted by Foebane

I thought the A1200 (which is graphically capable of showing Doom as it should be) replaced the A500 as the stock Amiga model when it came out?

After all, why bother to support an ageing machine when the latest and greatest model was just out?

Why bother downgrading such a game as Doom for one type of Amiga, when another type of Amiga can run it better, and which has more readily available means of doing so, too?

Why bother answering question, OP didn't asked at all?

[amiman99]

I run Doom on A600 with 030 25Mhz, and it's OK on smaller window.
At minimum you should have at least 030 with 50MHz.
So, it works, but should you do it?

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by amiman99

So, it works, but should you do it?

In 2021, no.
In 1995, I probably would...

[wazza]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Yes,
seems EHB mode works "just fine" but on a 030 its not exactly a great experience..
Here's some short video of Doom running on an A500 with just 0.5MB chip and with a TF536 accelerator (probably 50MHz 030)
[ Show youtube player ]

Something is not set up optimally in this video as it seems to take a long time to load and the performance is a lot more sluggish than I've had it running on my A500+ with the TF536. Perhaps the ROM has not been mapped to fast memory, which speeds the TF card up massively.

[redblade]

maybe in 2-16 colours with no textures on roof and floor and no 8 way enemy sprites?

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by redblade

maybe in 2-16 colours with no textures on roof and floor and no 8 way enemy sprites?

Literally Wolfenstein 3D then! o_O

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by redblade

maybe in 2-16 colours with no textures on roof and floor and no 8 way enemy sprites?

I'm not so sure if that is where the true limitation is going to be, even Citadel could do textured floors and ceilings. I would say the pain is in the BSP stuff.