Does the AGA chipset has been fully exploited ?

[kremiso]

the original ocs has been squeezed like a lemon at time, graphics and audio talking
do you think has been the same for the AGA one, or something is remained hidden/ not completely understood/discovered etc ?

wondering ie about a Shadow of the beast 1 or a Lionheart AGA dedicated releases, maybe developed at time from the same programmers

they would have been just more colorful, or maybe not even that, or maybe...
something even better ?

[d4rk3lf]

Back in the day, definitely not.
And part of the reason is Commodore being bankrupt, or software companies assuming it's the machine with no certain future.
These days with titles like Reshoot R, or Rygar, it's probably making Aga machines squeezing their real power.

I'd say, even more then AGA, ECS is highly underrated, and didn't had enough love. It's double the color then OCS, and imho, much bigger difference in look is between OCS and ECS, then ECS and AGA.
If we ignore the gradients, of course, where you can most clearly see the difference in color modes.

Btw, Lionheart is so well done, that even if it was dedicated AGA version, I doubt it will look much improved.... improved - yes, but not sure it would be drastic change.
Unless they change resolution to higher, but if I understud correctly, Aga is pretty slow at higher res.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

It's double the color then OCS

ECS doesn't provide more colors than OCS. I suppose you are referring to EHB but that was, with the exception of very early A1000 models, available right from the beginning.

[Foebane]

I'd say the Demoscene brought out the best that AGA has to offer, so many countless demos that look amazing compared to OCS/ECS.

My favourite demos are the ones that use HAM8 for effects, and they really do look outstanding in most cases. Sure, for each frame, the internal rendering has to be processed in chunky format in memory and then converted to planar for display like a frame buffer, but that doesn't detract from the final image at all.

[kremiso]

do you think an AGA machine could handle/make run at decent speed
one of the old gems (Turrican 2, Shadow of the beast, Lionheart,etc) in overscan/full screen mode?
like ie Assassin or SuperFrog does on original chipset?

this one should have been also in op sorry, always curious about AGA real potential lol

[Steve]

I'm sure games like Breathless and Alien Breed 3D II pushed the AGA chipset further than even the original chip designers had planned.

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by Steve

I'm sure games like Breathless and Alien Breed 3D II pushed the AGA chipset further than even the original chip designers had planned.

They are not really pusing the AGA chipset though...

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by DanScott

They are not really pusing the AGA chipset though...

What is considered pushing such a chipset, then?

[khph_re]

To push the chipset it needs fast ram, otherwise it's running slow.

Breathless and AB3D, I think they mostly avoid the AGA bitplanes and use chunky modes?
I guess the palette depth and greater colour index's are from the chipset upgrade though.

[Master484]

do you think an AGA machine could handle/make run at decent speed
one of the old gems (Turrican 2, Shadow of the beast, Lionheart,etc) in overscan/full screen mode?
like ie Assassin or SuperFrog does on original chipset?

Yes, on AGA you could easily run these games at least on full screen (320*256 pixels).

Also all those three games could be improved a lot on AGA.

For example Turrican 2 runs in 16 color mode, so in AGA we could make it a 16+16 color dual playfield game, and use the extra playfield to add an extra 16 color background parallax layer to all levels. So it would look something like Super Turrican on the SNES.

And Lionheart and SOTB use 8+8 dual PF, so in AGA 16+16 dual PF they would get 8 extra colors to both playfields, which would be useful especially for the enemies and other foreground objects, which often "sink" into the background graphics in 8+8 dual PF games.

[hitchhikr]

If i remember well the game "Brutal Football" was enhanced for A1200 (more colours) and that version ran slower than the OCS one.

(Edit: OCS not OSC).

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by Foebane

What is considered pushing such a chipset, then?

I would say similar to what would be considered pushing the chip set on OCS/ECS machines, but making full use of the AGA capabilities (16+16 dual playfield, clever use of the wider hardware sprites etc..)

These "Doom" style games are not really pushing the chipset... they are pushing the CPU, as that is what is doing the C2P (or a combination of CPU & Blitter, where the Blitter is not really improved from non-AGA machines)

This is only my opinion though, others may disagree...

[lmimmfn]

I think 16 colour & 16 colour dual playfield is the lazy way to use aga. For parrallax in AGA the sprites displayed can be wider and more colourful. Quite sure this is used in Rygar.

I dont think AGA has been maxed out yet like Lionheart, but its getting there.

Back in the day there was 0 interest in AGA, why bother when your game could be sold to A500, A600 and A1200 users(excluding big box Amigas)

[britelite]

Originally Posted by Foebane

I'd say the Demoscene brought out the best that AGA has to offer, so many countless demos that look amazing compared to OCS/ECS.

Most AGA-demos looking amazing has pretty much zero to do with AGA though

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by britelite

Most AGA-demos looking amazing has pretty much zero to do with AGA though

True, it takes talent and skill to do that.

[Tigerskunk]

I haven't seen any 2D game really going to the max what I think would be possible in AGA.

[duga]

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

I think 16 colour & 16 colour dual playfield is the lazy way to use aga. For parrallax in AGA the sprites displayed can be wider and more colourful. Quite sure this is used in Rygar.

I dont think AGA has been maxed out yet like Lionheart, but its getting there.

Back in the day there was 0 interest in AGA, why bother when your game could be sold to A500, A600 and A1200 users(excluding big box Amigas)

To compete with VGA you "needed" AGA and a powerful CPU.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

I think 16 colour & 16 colour dual playfield is the lazy way to use aga. For parrallax in AGA the sprites displayed can be wider and more colourful. Quite sure this is used in Rygar.

I dont think AGA has been maxed out yet like Lionheart, but its getting there.

Back in the day there was 0 interest in AGA, why bother when your game could be sold to A500, A600 and A1200 users(excluding big box Amigas)

Rygar doesn't run in Dual Playfield mode as it needed 32/8 colour split to look any good. 8 bitplanes are enabled and I blit the background 3 planes in 32x fetch mode while fiddling the palette to mimic dual playfield.

I don't think AGA is anywhere near being fully exploited, I don't think it ever will in my opinion.

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

I think 16 colour & 16 colour dual playfield is the lazy way to use aga. For parrallax in AGA the sprites displayed can be wider and more colourful.

I'll have to disagree with you there... Clever use of 16/16 dual playfield and hardware sprites could result in the most amazing & technically accomplished AGA games that really push the use of the chipset to the limit. There is certainly nothing lazy about using dual playfield to create interesting visuals.

[roondar]

Indeed, just look at the "Misadventures of Flink". That game runs in Dual Playfield mode and looks really, really nice - even though it's essentially a Mega Drive port.