TFX on a PiStorm32

[Karlos]

If the entry points to the polygon and other 2D primitives can be identified, updating TFX to a chunky to planar implementation could result in a big speed increase.

[Seiya]

but beeing an incomplete games, could benefits of patches?

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by Seiya

but beeing an incomplete games, could benefits of patches?

I'm sorry, I didn't understand the question.

[alexh]

He's implying that because the Amiga version of TFX might not be as complete as PC version because development was stopped before the end that it might benefit from patches from the PC version.

I don't think that is feasible. At least not in the short term. The best we can hope for is that one of these guys takes on the challenge to change the existing TFX renderer.

[Karlos]

If there are any dual x86 and 68k gurus here the PC version source is available, isn't it?

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Karlos

If there are any dual x86 and 68k gurus here the PC version source is available, isn't it?

chatGPT?

[paraj]

Originally Posted by mschulz

Short spans are horrible in terms of performance (read/modify/write for every plane of every pixel) just as is the gouraud shaded conversion. Long spans are better, but combination of this all is a perfect way to waste at least of 50% bandwidth of chip memory.

Since you look at disassembly - can you have a look if maybe tfx is using data cache on chip memory? If it had did that in copy back mode and if it had flushed it regularly then it would have a chance to work reasonably good after enabling data cache for chip in Emu68 …

As far as I can see it makes no changes to the cache settings, and I doubt ANY program that also uses the blitter has attempted such a thing (of course it would be possible, but I doubt anyone considered it seriously until later).


On 060 at least RMW is extra bad as the store buffer also has to be emptied on every read (and it's much too small anyway for these cases).

Originally Posted by Karlos

If there are any dual x86 and 68k gurus here the PC version source is available, isn't it?

On x86 it's not called being a "guru". Instead the proper term is "blue screen wizard".


Big issue here (not that I consider myself a master of either) is that you'd also need to actually know the game.

[jotd]

Originally Posted by Karlos

If there are any dual x86 and 68k gurus here the PC version source is available, isn't it?

Tornado source (x86 asm), not TFX AFAIK

Good luck transcoding so much code and expecting that it runs slightly better than the original amiga version...

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by jotd

Tornado source (x86 asm), not TFX AFAIK

Good luck transcoding so much code and expecting that it runs slightly better than the original amiga version...

Rats. I thought it was TFX that had x86 source code (albeit assembler).

[jotd]

the exe with the symbols at least gives the function names. That plus some debugging can help a lot.

[tomcat666]

Just for the kicks. Here is the Playstation version running under FPSE emulator on A1200 Pistorm32 rpi4 2.2Ghz Full sound and everything.

[ Show youtube player ]

[jotd]

not bad / impressive! An emulator (or a port) probably does what Karlos mentions: renders everything using c2p instead of drawing pixel by pixel in each bitplane.

On a fast machine it achieves a good result.

[Captain_ Kal]

Originally Posted by Seiya

i'm interested

Due to Zone upload size limit, I was not able to upload it there. So I have just created a dropox link:


TFX for PSX (Japan Version) (.chd image)

On a slighter off topic (to the point of derailing this thread ), you may be interested in the open source space sim Vega strike. I have compiled, mithe the help of vega-strike community a very rough windows version. If anyone is interested:

Vega-strike 0.8 for Windows (Very Early)

[paraj]

Experimental whdload slave (based on JOTD's latest code) for TFXAGA in the zone. Only changes "040" version, so start with Custom3=4
Rectangle and line drawing functions are NOPed out, so there are some visual glitches (and missing lines).
If it complains about missing fpsp0x0 then copy it to the data directory.
Number in upper right corner is number of vblanks/frame.
I'll only bother with the other missing stuff if it's noticeably faster (seemed a bit faster on 060, but PI storm should benefit more).

[alexh]

Many thanks. Working today but free to try tomorrow.

[tomcat666]

WOW !

[ Show youtube player ]

I guess this prooves everything It is as smooth as baby's behind now! Thank you paraj !!! Great proof of concept!

It went from unplayable to butter smooth.

Originally Posted by paraj

Experimental whdload slave (based on JOTD's latest code) for TFXAGA in the zone. Only changes "040" version, so start with Custom3=4
Rectangle and line drawing functions are NOPed out, so there are some visual glitches (and missing lines).
If it complains about missing fpsp0x0 then copy it to the data directory.
Number in upper right corner is number of vblanks/frame.
I'll only bother with the other missing stuff if it's noticeably faster (seemed a bit faster on 060, but PI storm should benefit more).

[Seiya]

Originally Posted by Captain_ Kal

Due to Zone upload size limit, I was not able to upload it there. So I have just created a dropox link

thnk you.

[Karlos]

*puts nerd sniper rifle back into case, closes latches and walks away quietly....*

[tomcat666]

And here is the comparison video between the "normal" version and the paraj mod, for anyone that doesn't know the issue

[ Show youtube player ]

The biggest thing (apart from missing stuff) not working with the patched version is the Map (M key) ...

[abu_the_monkey]

nice