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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Topic started by: NovaCoder on May 07, 2013, 05:16:20 AM

Title: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 07, 2013, 05:16:20 AM
And now for some Amiga news....

I'm currently working on a  new SDL library which is a cut-down version specifically made for good old AGA Amiga's (like mine!).

As people know I've ported a few games now and usually I have to rip out all of the SDL code and replace it with my own Amiga AGA code. This can be a very time consuming process so I decide to give an SDL library port one more try.

I've managed to knock together a working AGA SDL library which I'm using it to port Descent Rebirth to AGA.

[youtube]hhRxSw6IMa8[/youtube]


Restrictions:

   1. Only AGA 8 bit full-screen modes supported (320x200 -> 640x480).
   2. No CDROM support
   3. No OpenGL (obviously)
   4. No hardware accelerated graphics (again, kind of obvious)


This library is already being used to port NetSurf to AGA :)

If I can get this working properly it should make it much easier to port a lot of new stuff to AGA quickly.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 07, 2013, 04:37:32 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;733965
And now for some Amiga news....

I'm currently working on a  new SDL library which is a cut-down version specifically made for good old AGA Amiga's (like mine!).

As people know I've ported a few games now and usually I have to rip out all of the SDL code and replace it with my own Amiga AGA code. This can be a very time consuming process so I decide to give an SDL library port one more try.

I've managed to knock together a working AGA SDL library which I'm using it to port Descent Rebirth to AGA.

[youtube]hhRxSw6IMa8[/youtube]


Restrictions:

   1. Only AGA 8 bit full-screen modes supported (320x200 -> 640x480).
   2. No CDROM support
   3. No OpenGL (obviously)
   4. No hardware accelerated graphics (again, kind of obvious)


This library is already being used to port NetSurf to AGA :)

If I can get this working properly it should make it much easier to port a lot of new stuff to AGA quickly.

This is great news!!!! Hey man, can you please try to see if this game works with this new AGA SDL: http://aminet.net/package/game/role/Zelda3T-68k-US and can you make a youtube video of it?? PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!! Oh...one more...please!!
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: polyp2000 on May 07, 2013, 04:44:57 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;733965
And now for some Amiga news....

I'm currently working on a  new SDL library which is a cut-down version specifically made for good old AGA Amiga's (like mine!).

As people know I've ported a few games now and usually I have to rip out all of the SDL code and replace it with my own Amiga AGA code. This can be a very time consuming process so I decide to give an SDL library port one more try.

I've managed to knock together a working AGA SDL library which I'm using it to port Descent Rebirth to AGA.

[youtube]hhRxSw6IMa8[/youtube]


Restrictions:

   1. Only AGA 8 bit full-screen modes supported (320x200 -> 640x480).
   2. No CDROM support
   3. No OpenGL (obviously)
   4. No hardware accelerated graphics (again, kind of obvious)


This library is already being used to port NetSurf to AGA :)

If I can get this working properly it should make it much easier to port a lot of new stuff to AGA quickly.



This is really great news - will this become part of the official SDL library do you think ? It would be awesome if (hardware permitting) any new games built with SDL could be only a few tweaks and a compile flag away from an AGA 68k port.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: fishy_fiz on May 07, 2013, 06:30:14 PM
@AmigaClassicRule

It's a linklib, not a system library. Those Zelda games are highly portable though (I did a few myself), so recompiling shouldnt be difficult if youre interested in it. If memory serves correctly though they use Timidity, so a bit of work might be required there.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on May 07, 2013, 06:31:23 PM
@Nova

Excellent news, thanks for the hard work you've put into it. :)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: ByteRyder on May 07, 2013, 10:23:06 PM
Congrats on yet another amazing achievement. When speaking about AGA you now have to mention the period before or after NovaCoder. :D
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Crumb on May 07, 2013, 10:25:33 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;733965

   1. Only AGA 8 bit full-screen modes supported (320x200 -> 640x480).
   2. No CDROM support
   3. No OpenGL (obviously)
   4. No hardware accelerated graphics (again, kind of obvious)


http://code.google.com/p/unitedstatesofamiga/This library is already being used to port NetSurf to AGA :)

If I can get this working properly it should make it much easier to port a lot of new stuff to AGA quickly.


Good job! :-)

1.- What about those 15bit/16bit C2Ps? these aren't fast but could be useful for some of your ports. Kalms published some sources and there are more from Rune Stenslad
http://code.google.com/p/unitedstatesofamiga/
http://membres.multimania.fr/amycoders/opt/fasttruec2p.html

4.- Blitter could speed up bitblits in screen although having 060 it probably doesn't worth it.

It's a pity that Chaozer never released the sources of his WarpSDL library. http://www.algonet.se/~chaozer/warpsdl.shtml
Not even the developer archive to be able to use it so it was an effort with not much fruits.

Perhaps somebody who knows him could try to get in touch with him to see if he's willing to release the developer archive or even better, the sources
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on May 07, 2013, 10:58:22 PM
Quote from: Crumb;734060
1.- What about those 15bit/16bit C2Ps? these aren't fast but could be useful for some of your ports. Kalms published some sources and there are more from Rune Stenslad
http://code.google.com/p/unitedstatesofamiga/
http://membres.multimania.fr/amycoders/opt/fasttruec2p.html

Bookmarked. Thanks! :)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 07, 2013, 11:16:20 PM
Quote from: fishy_fiz;734034
@AmigaClassicRule

It's a linklib, not a system library. Those Zelda games are highly portable though (I did a few myself), so recompiling shouldnt be difficult if youre interested in it. If memory serves correctly though they use Timidity, so a bit of work might be required there.

Fishy_fiz..please...is there anyway you can recompile it for AGA please??!!

Pleeeeeasse!? I will donate you for your work!!
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 08, 2013, 12:39:18 AM
Cool thanks for the support guys :)

This will only be a very cut down library to start with, I may add more features if I find I'm missing things later.  Not sure about advance modes like 15bit HAM8, probably be too slow to be of much use on AGA.
I've actually tried to port the old RTG SDL to AGA a couple of times in the past and never got anywhere, this time it's actually coming together nicely.

I just hope it means more new stuff on AGA, already it looks like it will give us a new web browser and Fishy_fiz is working on a new MegaDrive port.



Latest version of the library is already a bit quicker than BETA 1.

[youtube]1COt73zsxpU&NR[/youtube]
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: magnetic on May 08, 2013, 02:04:32 AM
NOva

This is the most excellent news! I saw your thread on EAB and potential games like Ultima 7 being ported. That would be really fun, as i'm no big fan of fps games.

To me probably the most exciting thing is the Netsurf port i'm dying for decent browser for my a1200.

The only thing i'm concerned about is how slow SDL will be. Considering how slow it is even on Amiga NG platform with powerful (relatively) processors...

Kalms is the man. He's the coder behind a lot of scene demos right?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 08, 2013, 02:12:16 AM
Kalms is Mr TBL ;)

I don't think this new SDL library will be much slower than just doing the same thing in straight C, it should only slow a 68k port by a couple of percent.

It will only support what AGA can do so I'm currently removing features that will slow it down too much.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 08, 2013, 02:15:26 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;734083
Kalms is Mr TBL ;)

I don't think this new SDL library will be much slower than just doing the same thing in straight C, it should only slow a 68k port by a couple of percent.

It will only support what AGA can do so I'm currently removing features that will slow it down too much.

NovaCoder, like lighting and shading for example? Hey NovaCoder...can I donate a petition to port that Zelda game to AGA the one Fishy_fis replied to my post?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: magnetic on May 08, 2013, 02:15:34 AM
TBL thats right. One of the best amiga demo crews imho. He worked with other crews to sometimes like keiro did/does.

Do you have an projected time to complete the port?

Its amazing all you have done for AGA amigas. If we had 3 more devs like you wow!
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 08, 2013, 04:18:39 AM
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;734085
NovaCoder, like lighting and shading for example? Hey NovaCoder...can I donate a petition to port that Zelda game to AGA the one Fishy_fis replied to my post?


Yes, at the moment I'm only including the bare minimum to port Descent Rebirth to AGA (and obviously talking into consideration good performance).

I think I might need to make some changes to accommodate NetSurf AGA, not sure yet.

Not sure about that Zelda game, I'm too busy at the moment.   Maybe someone else can have a look at porting it using this new library.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: bbond007 on May 08, 2013, 05:48:40 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;733965
This library is already being used to port NetSurf to AGA :)

my A1200 has 80MB of RAM. do I need to figure out a way to add more? any idea how much RAM it will need?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 08, 2013, 05:57:32 AM
Quote from: bbond007;734120
my A1200 has 80MB of RAM. do I need to figure out a way to add more? any idea how much RAM it will need?

You have way more than I do or could ever imagine! I need to cough up 300 bucks to get an additional 32 MB to maximize to 64 MB. Oh...I am going to save up so much money to make my A1200 have 64 MB..I will finally be able to play Quake 2 :D :D
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: fishy_fiz on May 08, 2013, 05:59:33 AM
Just thinking about this some more, this is a really cool thing to have for AGA machines. I understand that at the moment Novacoders motivation in doing this AGA SDL version is to make it easier for doing other software ports, but it really has potential to develop over time.
Im not the worlds greatest amiga os "native" coder, but I do have a fair bit of experience with porting SDL apps to AmgaOS/AROS, and Im sure Im not the only one with the knowledge to do the same. If even a handful of people are interested enough to give Novacoder feedback that he decides is worthwhile looking into (or even anyone else with the skills to work on the "core" AGA SDL), we have a potential inroad to quite a bit of new software.
Granted there's a lot of "average" SDL software out there, and hardware requirements would also need to be considered, but it still opens up a nice selection of potential "new" games and apps for AGA machines.

@AmigaClassicRule
I'm busy with DGen (megadrive emu) at the moment, but I'll try to find some time later tonight to have a look at least.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: bbond007 on May 08, 2013, 06:03:05 AM
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;734121
You have way more than I do or could ever imagine! I need to cough up 300 bucks to get an additional 32 MB to maximize to 64 MB. Oh...I am going to save up so much money to make my A1200 have 64 MB..I will finally be able to play Quake 2 :D :D


The problem is finding RAM that fits in the Blizzard1260 and SCSI module. Now I have a 64 and a 16 in the SCSI. both are difficult to find fitting RAM.

Was not expensive though. I think the 64 was $20 or so... I really dont run out, but I could see a browser using more than 80mb.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 08, 2013, 07:50:10 AM
Quote from: fishy_fiz;734122
Just thinking about this some more, this is a really cool thing to have for AGA machines. I understand that at the moment Novacoders motivation in doing this AGA SDL version is to make it easier for doing other software ports, but it really has potential to develop over time.
Im not the worlds greatest amiga os "native" coder, but I do have a fair bit of experience with porting SDL apps to AmgaOS/AROS, and Im sure Im not the only one with the knowledge to do the same. If even a handful of people are interested enough to give Novacoder feedback that he decides is worthwhile looking into (or even anyone else with the skills to work on the "core" AGA SDL), we have a potential inroad to quite a bit of new software.
Granted there's a lot of "average" SDL software out there, and hardware requirements would also need to be considered, but it still opens up a nice selection of potential "new" games and apps for AGA machines.

@AmigaClassicRule
I'm busy with DGen (megadrive emu) at the moment, but I'll try to find some time later tonight to have a look at least.

Thank you Fishy_fiz. That is all I am asking. I swear I will donate you money when you manage to port that Zelda (from aminet) to AGA!
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: utri007 on May 08, 2013, 08:27:10 AM
What you need to rewrite depends a game. I would say that with Descent there will be quite fwe SDL stuff left, you will need to rewrite 3D routnes anyway, with Zelda it could be much easier and more meaningful.

But please note, that 68k is very weak cpu nowadays, so every frame counts. I really wish that you succeed, but I have some doubts how it will perform.

Nothing is more annoying that app/game that works... almost. They are just proof of consepts, not a usefull games/apps. Another point is that you purpose is port software for real amigas and is not meaningful to have game that requires 060/64mb when it should work just fine with 030/16mb
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: apj on May 08, 2013, 09:14:33 AM
I have quickly compiled Zelda 3T as I already have sources because I've released it for RTG.
So far opens black screen only, need to look more.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: OlafS3 on May 08, 2013, 10:18:06 AM
I do not see it so pessimistic even if would have higher hardware requirements. There is the FPGA Arcade with 060 daughterboard and I think the hardware base even at real classic hardware users will rise from what it is now (I think 030 + AGA). Many others use emulation where speed is not a real problem. I have some of (or better almost all :-) ) "Amiga-Magazin" and even at that time (1990-1997) there were games who needed higher than average hardware (expecially 3D games) or AGA (in a time where A500 still was standard for gaming. I think the need that games had to run on slow hardware decently (because most users had A500 with two disc drives and no HD) was one of the reasons for the decline of the amiga-platform (perhaps even the most important one). We should not do the same mistake again.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 08, 2013, 12:32:05 PM
Quote from: apj;734132
I have quickly compiled Zelda 3T as I already have sources because I've released it for RTG.
So far opens black screen only, need to look more.


Thank you apj. :) I really appreciate the effort in converting it to AGA!
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 08, 2013, 12:56:32 PM
Quote from: apj;734132
I have quickly compiled Zelda 3T as I already have sources because I've released it for RTG.
So far opens black screen only, need to look more.

Cool, another one using the library :)

Are you using my latest one from this thread -> a thread (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=886668)

It's still very early in development, probably loads of bugs :)

For the next release I'll do a special DEBUG build with logging enabled so you can see what's going on.

First thing I would check though is to call SDL_GetError() after you call SDL_Init()

Code: [Select]
if( SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) < 0 ) {
fprintf(stderr, &quot;Could not initialize SDL: %s\\n&quot;,
SDL_GetError());
  return -1;
}

There's also an example program on the project thread over on EAB, that will give you some ideas.


I've just been looking at NetSurf AGA, got a few things to try and speed it up.   The killer is going to be resolution, you can't got for big screen sizes in AGA without it grinding to a halt.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: OlafS3 on May 08, 2013, 12:59:09 PM
I had a blank screen on aros vision too (when starting the test program). It would be fine if some of your great applications would work on aros 68k too.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 08, 2013, 01:01:35 PM
Quote from: OlafS3;734147
I had a blank screen on aros vision too (when starting the test program). It would be fine if some of your great applications would work on aros 68k too.


That's odd, the test program really isn't doing much.   Does any of my recent AGA stuff work on AROS 68k, can you see if you get a blank screen with AmiQuake?

Is the screen grey or black?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: OlafS3 on May 08, 2013, 01:09:56 PM
I have the newest version at home (and not in office) and will test it then and report
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: chris on May 09, 2013, 02:37:08 PM
Quote from: magnetic;734081
To me probably the most exciting thing is the Netsurf port i'm dying for decent browser for my a1200.


Sadly it'll be the crappy framebuffer interface.  It's a step in the right direction, at least.

A decent AGA version of SDL is pretty cool though.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: apj on May 09, 2013, 06:57:20 PM
Nova is sound enabled in your lib ?
Zelda gives me :
"SDL_AudioInit: Select the proper audio driver"
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 09, 2013, 09:22:32 PM
Nope, no sound, timer or threads.

Try it without initializing sound.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 09, 2013, 09:40:24 PM
as this sdl lib is particularly meant for genuine hardware (why port sdl programs to aga to run them under winuae that provides rtg by default?) leaving out sound is mostly neccessary as it is anyway too heavy a load for hardware in question.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nyteschayde on May 09, 2013, 09:52:09 PM
One thing that would help future updates, if/when you give up on the project, is when you post it someplace (you are going to post it someplace like aminet, right?) then make sure you document the changes made to your stock version of the SDL code. This way people can do a diff of what needs to be changed when porting to newer updated versions of SDL.

Encapsulate these changes and document them while they're fresh in your mind. Oh, and great work!
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 09, 2013, 09:57:07 PM
I'm currently adding timer and threading support, I might add sound next week.

Looks like I am going to have to make some tweaks to make NetSurf quicker.

Yep I'll upload the finished lib to AmiNet.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 09, 2013, 10:00:29 PM
also although more complicated one could consider compiling this (optionally) as amiga shared lib. this would allow to make ports ready and update the library later, without the necessity of recompiling the ports. how about that?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 09, 2013, 10:29:40 PM
Quote from: wawrzon;734298
as this sdl lib is particularly meant for genuine hardware (why port sdl programs to aga to run them under winuae that provides rtg by default?) leaving out sound is mostly neccessary as it is anyway too heavy a load for hardware in question.

That is for people who own the real Amiga and does not desire WinUAE! You know not everyone and I mean not EVERYONE likes using emulators. I know we had this discussion earlier about how good WinUAE is and how you cannot tell the difference between it and the real thing and so on and so on...STILL for people who desire the obsession and need to use the real thing...people like me who prefer the real hardware over emulation...even if it means cluttering my desk with additional hardware and so on.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: royalcrown on May 09, 2013, 11:05:45 PM
@magnetic...Hi, I wanted to say hello and I am glad that there are other crabby old farts besides me on here :) I saw all your "doomy" stuff on EAB and wanted to give you a nod when I joined up here...glad you are un-banned man.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 09, 2013, 11:08:41 PM
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;734305
That is for people who own the real Amiga and does not desire WinUAE! You know not everyone and I mean not EVERYONE likes using emulators. I know we had this discussion earlier about how good WinUAE is and how you cannot tell the difference between it and the real thing and so on and so on...STILL for people who desire the obsession and need to use the real thing...people like me who prefer the real hardware over emulation...even if it means cluttering my desk with additional hardware and so on.

i wasnt bashing genuine amiga hardware. i use and prefer it too to uae. i was just making a technical hint, since i have done few sdl ports to run on real amigas.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: magnetic on May 10, 2013, 12:48:03 AM
hey royal crown hows it going man? What do you mean "doomy" not that tosser from oregon? Look man i've been heavy involved in this platform on a few different levels. I really care and the way  I was treated by both EAB and Amibay is a damn shame. (Life ban first offense both sites... so looks like they themselves proves my theory about their Gestapo/Stasi like tactics!

@Nova

I'm so excited for netsurf aga!! w000ttt
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 10, 2013, 01:17:10 AM
Quote from: wawrzon;734302
also although more complicated one could consider compiling this (optionally) as amiga shared lib. this would allow to make ports ready and update the library later, without the necessity of recompiling the ports. how about that?

Sorry but I'm waaaay to lazy to do that :)

This was only meant to be a quick hack to help me to port stuff to AGA but it turns out there are other projects that want to use it.

I'm now going to try and make it a little more flexible for other projects but this library will always be a bit of a hack I'm afraid :)

I'll see how I go, my priority at the moment is just to get NetSurf AGA working faster with this library, after that I'll try and add some kind of sound module to it.

I still haven't decided which way to go with the sound support.  I'm thinking I might attempt to do two versions.   One version would not support Timers or Threading and would use the Quake 2 sound engine (TM), the other slower version would be like the usual SDL with Timers and Threaded sound.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 10, 2013, 01:58:15 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;734326
Sorry but I'm waaaay to lazy to do that :)

This was only meant to be a quick hack to help me to port stuff to AGA but it turns out there are other projects that want to use it.

I'm now going to try and make it a little more flexible for other projects but this library will always be a bit of a hack I'm afraid :)

I'll see how I go, my priority at the moment is just to get NetSurf AGA working faster with this library, after that I'll try and add some kind of sound module to it.

I still haven't decided which way to go with the sound support.  I'm thinking I might attempt to do two versions.   One version would not support Timers or Threading and would use the Quake 2 sound engine (TM), the other slower version would be like the usual SDL with Timers and Threaded sound.


You know what your NetSurf will do to the Amiga classic community??  Especially for AGA? It will open abundance of NEW GAME libraries like no tomorrow and even applications. All these HTML 5 games or Apps that run on browser can finally run in the classic Amiga. NO more worry about porting..we can even have our very own MMORPG game in the classic Amiga. Maybe 95% of to 98% of them will not work on AGA Amiga...but if even 2% does work.....IT IS UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME!! Also it means for us Amiga classic users may need to seriously consider porting our Amiga hardware to RTG Amiga classic thus Amiga 4000 may sound way more appealing now...with that...we can have the 80% of the apps and games that comes from browser.

Am I wrong? If I am not wrong and you can confirm to me that it is possible and if I see it in youtube running as I was expecting, html games and apps in A4000 using RTG...Amiga classic...then when I see all of that...I will start hunting down an Amiga 4000 and sell my A1200 instead. I will try my A1200 for an A4000 with the following specs, a 68060 @ 80 Mhz Amiga 4000 or at least 70 Mhz with 128 Mb of RAM and RTG for my Amiga 1200 with internet support of course. If not trade when I sell my Amiga 1200 I will pay the difference to get that machine! Otherwise if FPGAReplay Arcade can compete over the A4000 and do better I will go for that...either way I am seeking the MOST fastest classical Amiga hardware with the highest of specs possible for classic Amiga to enjoy: Movies, Browsing (NetSurf with all the perks that comes with it such as Javascript, CSS, HTML 5 support with it's games), games of course and SDL applications and games. This to me would be the alternative to Windows and finally possible...or at least my second choice of most common used OS.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on May 10, 2013, 02:00:09 AM
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;734330
You know what your NetSurf will do to the Amiga classic community??  Especially for AGA? It will open abundance of NEW GAME libraries like no tomorrow and even applications. All these HTML 5 games or Apps that run on browser can finally run in the classic Amiga. NO more worry about porting..we can even have our very own MMORPG game in the classic Amiga. Maybe 95% of to 98% of them will not work on AGA Amiga...but if even 2% does work.....IT IS UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME!! Also it means for us Amiga classic users may need to seriously consider porting our Amiga hardware to RTG Amiga classic thus Amiga 4000 may sound way more appealing now...with that...we can have the 80% of the apps and games that comes from browser.

Am I wrong?

Yes you are wrong.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: magnetic on May 10, 2013, 02:10:39 AM
lulz
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 10, 2013, 02:11:19 AM
NetSurf is not my project, Arti has done all the hard work.   I'm just helping him out with an AGA version.

Read all about it right here -> NetSurf AGA (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=68055)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 10, 2013, 03:02:09 AM
Quote from: nicholas;734331
Yes you are wrong.

* sigh * Oh well.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on May 10, 2013, 03:33:06 AM
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;734337
* sigh * Oh well.


If you want HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript etc Netsurf is not the right tool for the job right now, what you need is a WebKit based browser such as Origyn/OWB to be ported to 68k Amiga OS.

It wouldn't be very usable though as the machines are so slow. It would be OK under emulation on a fast PC though.

Start here: http://aros-exec.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7745
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: royalcrown on May 10, 2013, 08:09:43 AM
Quote from: magnetic;734324
hey royal crown hows it going man? What do you mean "doomy" not that tosser from oregon? Look man i've been heavy involved in this platform on a few different levels. I really care and the way  I was treated by both EAB and Amibay is a damn shame. (Life ban first offense both sites... so looks like they themselves proves my theory about their Gestapo/Stasi like tactics!

@Nova

I'm so excited for netsurf aga!! w000ttt


Yeah, that is what I meant by doomy, or whom rather. I saw some stories on lemon Amiga I had to check out regarding board repair and ended up in an EAB thread that made me laugh when I read your replies. Too much politically correct sweetness, we need some "salty dogs" around or things get dull :D
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Crumb on May 10, 2013, 10:11:49 AM
Quote from: nicholas;734338
If you want HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript etc Netsurf is not the right tool for the job right now, what you need is a WebKit based browser such as Origyn/OWB to be ported to 68k Amiga OS.

It wouldn't be very usable though as the machines are so slow. It would be OK under emulation on a fast PC though.

Start here: http://aros-exec.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7745


It would be interesting to use amiga libraries to replace them later with different/faster versions (like RapidXML, written in C++ -we would need to do a plain c interface for it- or taking a look at how asm-xml does his job), there are XML parsers written in x86 assembly that run ten times faster than C implementations (disabling some advanced features of course) so I think there's room for improvement in these newer browsers.

http://tibleiz.net/asm-xml/benchmark.html

I wonder how Netsurf libraries compare to these in speed:
http://xmlbench.sourceforge.net/results/benchmark/
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 10, 2013, 01:26:08 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;734326
Sorry but I'm waaaay to lazy to do that :)

i see, same as bernd was. seems sdl has something to do with lazy coding;)

perhaps you can put your project up on a repository once n advanced stage. others might implement and improve it where you lack motivation. but first things first of course.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: yssing on May 10, 2013, 08:20:04 PM
Maybe I am blind, but where is the download link for the new SDL aga?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 10, 2013, 08:31:37 PM
Quote from: yssing;734435
Maybe I am blind, but where is the download link for the new SDL aga?

I think it is not released yet.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: yssing on May 10, 2013, 08:35:24 PM
One never knows.. :) I am not that young any more, so eye sight is not as it once was :P
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on May 10, 2013, 08:58:42 PM
Quote from: wawrzon;734372
i see, same as bernd was. seems sdl has something to do with lazy coding;)

perhaps you can put your project up on a repository once n advanced stage. others might implement and improve it where you lack motivation. but first things first of course.


Speaking of Bernd, has anyone seen him about recently? He's not logged into here since last December.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 10, 2013, 09:13:07 PM
Well, actually I am not so focused now on the browser's javascript or html5 or css3 ....I am really just hoping Zelda will be ported :D :D
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 10, 2013, 10:27:54 PM
Quote from: nicholas;734441
Speaking of Bernd, has anyone seen him about recently? He's not logged into here since last December.


i think he has lost patience even with aros. ocassionally he still reacts if i point him to something or need some help, but i think he moved on realizing this all leads to nothing.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on May 10, 2013, 11:42:24 PM
Quote from: wawrzon;734453
i think he has lost patience even with aros. ocassionally he still reacts if i point him to something or need some help, but i think he moved on realizing this all leads to nothing.


:(
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 13, 2013, 12:20:01 AM
just when a person gets mentioned... bernd has just requested me to test netsurf aga or real hardware.;) so not all is lost it seems..
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on May 13, 2013, 12:30:15 AM
Quote from: wawrzon;734666
just when a person gets mentioned... bernd has just requested me to test netsurf aga or real hardware.;) so not all is lost it seems..

Ah another case of the old Amiga addiction story I see.  It's like heroin or nicotine, it never leaves you! :)

Tell him "welcome back" from me.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 13, 2013, 01:14:49 AM
Quote from: wawrzon;734666
just when a person gets mentioned... bernd has just requested me to test netsurf aga or real hardware.;) so not all is lost it seems..



NetSurf AGA, cool, hope it works ok for you (crosses fingers), make sure you get the latest version from Arti.

:)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: jj on May 13, 2013, 01:33:43 PM
taking of lost people, has anyone seen piru on here in a long time ?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on May 13, 2013, 01:47:07 PM
Quote from: JJ;734723
taking of lost people, has anyone seen piru on here in a long time ?

I believe he (and others) left because Pyro shutdown the domain for a day as a protest about something.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 14, 2013, 01:55:13 AM
opening this site on my 060-50 system with netsurf-aga takes more than thirty seconds. the browser has wrong colors currently. it is laggy but not that much more laggy than rtg version. with some patience no proiblem to navigate. now testing if posting works. cheers.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: magnetic on May 14, 2013, 02:32:55 AM
Quote from: nicholas;734725
I believe he (and others) left because Pyro shutdown the domain for a day as a protest about something.

why are you assuming to know why Piru hasnt been around? He's probably crazy busy the guy is a real life programmer.


@warwazon

Thanks for the update. Very exciting. I hope it becomes usable soon becuase nowadays I download a lot of stuff on my laptop dump to pcmcia reader and then into my a1200 from there. I'd like a usable browser for 68k.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 14, 2013, 02:49:59 AM
Quote from: wawrzon;734808
opening this site on my 060-50 system with netsurf-aga takes more than thirty seconds. the browser has wrong colors currently. it is laggy but not that much more laggy than rtg version. with some patience no proiblem to navigate. now testing if posting works. cheers.


That's awesome news, I know people have complained about the lack of an AGA browser for almost as long as they've complained about the lack of an AGA SDL :)

What version are you using, I did do some updates to my SDL which should improve the speed for Arti but I don't know if he did a new build or not.

Do you mind updating the EAB thread with your findings?

EAB thread (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=886868#post886868)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: mongo on May 14, 2013, 03:26:58 AM
Quote from: magnetic;734817
why are you assuming to know why Piru hasnt been around? He's probably crazy busy the guy is a real life programmer.


Piru was very clear about why he left.

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?p=702149#post702149
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: magnetic on May 14, 2013, 03:34:23 AM
Mongo I see sorry Nicholas

Wow for PIru to be pissed like that it takes a lot. He seems like a really easy going guy. (unlike me lol)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Pyromania on May 14, 2013, 06:03:26 AM
Quote from: nicholas;734725
I believe he (and others) left because Pyro shutdown the domain for a day as a protest about something.


The site was down for about 40 minutes tops. I'm the one that got the site back up. The one that took the site offline no longer owns Amiga.org.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Pyromania on May 14, 2013, 06:16:09 AM
Quote from: nicholas;734725
I believe he (and others) left because Pyro shutdown the domain for a day as a protest about something.


The site was down for about 40 minutes. I'm the one that got the site back up. The one that took the site offline no longer owns Amiga.org.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Crumb on May 14, 2013, 09:15:23 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;734680
NetSurf AGA, cool, hope it works ok for you (crosses fingers), make sure you get the latest version from Arti.

:)


I just hope it doesn't use SDL at all as Netsurf for OS4 works in 8bit screens.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 14, 2013, 09:36:03 AM
@crumb
this netsurf aga uses sdl library from novacoder. none has volunteered to rewrite chris netsurf for amiga. im sorry.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: jj on May 14, 2013, 01:29:17 PM
Quote from: magnetic;734833
Mongo I see sorry Nicholas
 
Wow for PIru to be pissed like that it takes a lot. He seems like a really easy going guy. (unlike me lol)

Piru easy going? lol , are we on about the same guy :)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Crumb on May 14, 2013, 06:29:38 PM
I don't think using a ClassAct/Reaction GUI requires a "total" rewrite.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 14, 2013, 09:19:51 PM
@crumb
there are threads over threads on this subject. almost none volunteered. nova looked at it but failed. i cant do it. artur cant do it. if someone just did it instead of giving valuable advises we would have it already. bernd suggested to adapt itix mui frontend, but itix will not do it either. so what for all that talk? we get what we can and be content with it.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Crumb on May 14, 2013, 11:12:59 PM
Quote from: wawrzon;734941
@crumb
there are threads over threads on this subject. almost none volunteered. nova looked at it but failed. i cant do it. artur cant do it. if someone just did it instead of giving valuable advises we would have it already. bernd suggested to adapt itix mui frontend, but itix will not do it either. so what for all that talk? we get what we can and be content with it.


years ago I did a small tool to create full sourcecode of Reaction GUIs (I didn't know C nor makefiles so real code is in C files...), the tool sources were crap but the generated code was acceptable. http://sourceforge.net/projects/cuaz/files/latest/download
xml2reaction was buggy but more or less functional, I could create ready to compile C guis with a gui.c file with main() and all the stuff and an "events.c" file ready to fill by the user (kinda visual basic with all that myButton_Clicked() functions). I then realized that MUI was more elegant and started to write a xml2mui but got bored and forgot about it. Some time later I looked at the tool sources and I think those are useless. It required expat.library, tons of stack, had memory leaks everywhere, null pointers and it probably won't work on os4. it worked on morphos 1.4.x thought (iirc I even did a native version, it was kinda funny because MorphOS lacks real Reaction and I used OS3.9 Reaction for that). If you want to learn to write Reaction guis fast the generated sources may help you. Look inside xml/ directory and you'll find some examples. There's even an xml/ide.xml that defines ide.c and an events.c file that can build ide.exe file, if you launch it you'll see an example app with menus. I also did small guis for my own basiliskII for os4 (i had hangs handling the hardfiles in the gui so that's the reason I never released it), etc... nowadays I lack time to code.

My advise is using the OS4 port as base and not the SDL one. And about ixemul... get rid of it, specially the nasty 6x versions
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 15, 2013, 12:41:59 AM
Quote from: Crumb;734957
My advise is using the OS4 port as base and not the SDL one. And about ixemul... get rid of it, specially the nasty 6x versions

Yes everybody already knows that is the way to do it (see above), are you volunteering?

I already spent a couple of months trying to do it the 'right way' but kept hitting road blocks so I decided to switch my limited hobby time back to doing what I know (porting games).

I did suggest to Arti that he ditches ixemul (my new AGA SDL doesn't need it) but I don't know if he's tried to compile without it or not.   I suspect most of the libraries he's using need ixemul unfortunately.

Another why to do it is to use Reaction for the window frame and menu items but use the SDL frame buffer to render everything within the frame.   I'm not sure how hard that is to do.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Crumb on May 15, 2013, 11:48:18 AM
as I have stated in my previous message I lack time for real coding. My point is that doing reaction guis is not a big problem, check out my old tool and you'll see how to create a gui really fast and easily with almost no Reaction knowledge. Check out in the xml/ directory ide.xml, basilisk and others. You'll need to use fd2pragma to adapt the OS3.9 includes, I included a script to adapt these to MorphOS and it will probably require changing some parameter. If you wanted you could create a Reaction GUI to your ports in a just a few minutes.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: utri007 on May 15, 2013, 06:20:16 PM
Crumb: Would money change your mind? I belive it would be possible collect a boynty?

You do agree that Netsurf is only realistic browser to real 68k Amigas? How much time you would need to at least to say how hard/time hungry it would be to port
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Crumb on May 15, 2013, 06:36:47 PM
@utri007

I lack time :-( (and programming skills for sure) working+studying leaves me not much time to troll&code.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: chris on May 15, 2013, 10:59:33 PM
Quote from: Crumb;734927
I don't think using a ClassAct/Reaction GUI requires a "total" rewrite.


It doesn't, it just needs the OS4 specifics ripped out/replaced/back-ported/whatever.

Some light reading:
Roughly what needs to be changed for OS3 (http://wiki.netsurf-browser.org/Todo/AmigaOS_frontend#OS3_Support)
Build log for OS3 (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=68233) (what actually needs to be fixed) - I see you have already found this one.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on May 16, 2013, 01:40:21 PM
http://aminet.net/package/dev/c/netsurf-morphos-src

Backporting Itix' Netsurf MUI source to 3.x might be easier, but it's not as up to date a Chris' Reaction port so it would need a fair bit of love and attention to bring it up to feature parity.

No, I'm not volunteering. ;)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 16, 2013, 04:42:28 PM
so.. since none is volunteering can we come back on topic here, which is aga sdl.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Crumb on May 16, 2013, 06:22:11 PM
Quote from: nicholas;735193
http://aminet.net/package/dev/c/netsurf-morphos-src

Backporting Itix' Netsurf MUI source to 3.x might be easier, but it's not as up to date a Chris' Reaction port so it would need a fair bit of love and attention to bring it up to feature parity.

No, I'm not volunteering. ;)


Netsurf MUI runs way slower than even the first OWB version in my machines (My 604e/180 running OWB is faster than NetSurf2.0 in my 1.5Ghz Mac Mini) and it acts weird, if I type netsurf http://www.google.com it works but if I open it without URL it doesn't do anything when I type URLs.

About libc there are various choices:
-clib2 by olaf barthel. I think it's no longer maintained
-libnix, no longer maintained
-ixemul pre v60, unmaintained but compatible with OS4&MorphOS
-ixemul post v60, incompatible but maintained.
-newlib (would need to be ported to classic)

and there are various GCC branches generating incompatible static libraries:
-GCC2.95.x
-GCC3.x
-GCC4.x

If we used shared amiga libraries at least coders could choose their prefered compiler&clib, now it's quite chaotic and trying to compile your own netsurf version requires setting up exactly the same GCC & libc. The worst thing is that people who could help (MorphOS and OS4 coders) won't be able to even run the binary due to the choice of evil ixemul v6x. Does it really help? couldn't older versions be enough?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: matthey on May 16, 2013, 06:52:38 PM
Quote from: Crumb;735220
Netsurf MUI runs way slower than even the first OWB version in my machines (My 604e/180 running OWB is faster than NetSurf2.0 in my 1.5Ghz Mac Mini) and it acts weird, if I type netsurf http://www.google.com it works but if I open it without URL it doesn't do anything when I type URLs.

About libc there are various choices:
-clib2 by olaf barthel. I think it's no longer maintained
-libnix, no longer maintained
-ixemul pre v60, unmaintained but compatible with OS4&MorphOS
-ixemul post v60, incompatible but maintained.
-newlib (would need to be ported to classic)

You should probably add PosixLib which is currently maintained by Frank Wille and works with several AmigaOS flavors (not AROS as vbbc can't target AROS). I don't know if anyone has tried to use it for GCC although it should be possible to compile GCC link libs as the source is included.

http://aminet.net/dev/c/vbcc_PosixLib.lha http://aminet.net/dev/c/vbcc_PosixLib.readme

Quote from: Crumb;735220
and there are various GCC branches generating incompatible static libraries:
-GCC2.95.x
-GCC3.x
-GCC4.x

If we used shared amiga libraries at least coders could choose their prefered compiler&clib, now it's quite chaotic and trying to compile your own netsurf version requires setting up exactly the same GCC & libc. The worst thing is that people who could help (MorphOS and OS4 coders) won't be able to even run the binary due to the choice of evil ixemul v6x. Does it really help? couldn't older versions be enough?

A shared clib/POSIX lib and SDL lib for all AmigaOS flavors would be great but isn't so easy to do now. The incompatibility kills Amiga cross development and there aren't any easy answers.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on May 16, 2013, 06:54:54 PM
Quote from: matthey;735221
A shared clib/POSIX lib and SDL lib for all AmigaOS flavors would be great but isn't so easy to do now. The incompatibility kills Amiga cross development and there aren't any easy answers.

An OpenJDK bounty. j/k! ;)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 16, 2013, 08:05:45 PM
so far i can tell aros brings posix compataiblility as well as amiga compatibility. you can prepare stuff to compile against aros and you will almost automatically get 68k stuff for amiga stable as soon as aros v1 is final. or even sooner, but unstable. staf is working on this. so no need to introduce another c library tp amiga-m68k.

what concerns the objections voiced here by crumb and also by chris against netsurf sdl frontend. almost every time someone does anything on 68k, which is maybe not so smart (admittedly), voices from mos or os4 camp try to tell us how wrong it is and that we should do that another way, compatible with theirs. a good example is bernds ixemul library debate. i acknowledge the authority of experienced coders like piru, but on the other hand we are given what we can get. if piru had backported mos ixemul improvements to 68k there wouldnt be the necessity for bernd to hack it. if chris or crumb, or itix would backport netsurf frontend to 68k, arti could put his sdl frontend away (perhaps). quarreling about that takes probably the amount of time it would take to implement it.

im sorry i have no knowledge of programming and no capacity to learn it adequately. im an artist and my (amiga) time is limited too. im doing what i can. maybe im wrong, but except of all the noobs, 50% of people here work and are educated in it branche. why (for heavens sake) do i try to do that all, and those who can, dont even move a finger but complain?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Crumb on May 16, 2013, 09:06:18 PM
@matthey

thx!*I used vbcc years ago and tried phxass+gcc but I don't remember ever trying posixlib. anyway I don't think it's easy to recompile on GCC. Sometimes code is not very portable and only compiles correctly with certain GCC versions (e.g. using \ at the end of defines on GCC2.95.x usually doesn't work but works in later versions)

@wawrzon
Quote from: wawrzon;735224
so far i can tell aros brings posix compataiblility as well as amiga compatibility. you can prepare stuff to compile against aros and you will almost automatically get 68k stuff for amiga stable as soon as aros v1 is final. or even sooner, but unstable. staf is working on this. so no need to introduce another c library tp amiga-m68k.


ATM aros68k stuff can use ELF binaries and can avoid using classic ABI. I mean:*you can do aros 68k apps that won't work on AmigaOS3.x.

Quote

what concerns the objections voiced here by crumb and also by chris against netsurf sdl frontend. almost every time someone does anything on 68k, which is maybe not so smart (admittedly),


I love classics and that's why I point to a tool I did to help development of Reaction GUIs.

Quote
voices from mos or os4 camp try to tell us how wrong it is and that we should do that another way, compatible with theirs.


Sharing code with current OS4 port would mean much less work maintaining the OS3.x port. SDL+ixemul is alien unix and slow platform. Working on the same amiga branch means much less work in the long term. Chris is already helping pointing the parts that should be modified, I think he even modified some parts to make it easier to port to 68k.

Quote
a good example is bernds ixemul library debate. i acknowledge the authority of experienced coders like piru, but on the other hand we are given what we can get. if piru had backported mos ixemul improvements to 68k there wouldnt be the necessity for bernd to hack it.


Perhaps instead of breaking compatibility he should have renamed his version newixemul.library or something like that.

Quote
if chris or crumb, or itix would backport netsurf frontend to 68k, arti could put his sdl frontend away (perhaps). quarreling about that takes probably the amount of time it would take to implement it.


When I grow up I want to be like Chris, Itix. I haven't done any big project for Amiga, sorry. Hats off to both Arti and Novacoder for trying to actually do stuff. I'm not trying to stop them doing what they like, just trying to help them pointing to tools that could help them with Reaction GUI. If they want/like/have time they could take a look once the SDL part works.

Quote
im sorry i have no knowledge of programming and no capacity to learn it adequately. im an artist and my (amiga) time is limited too. im doing what i can. maybe im wrong, but except of all the noobs, 50% of people here work and are educated in it branche. why (for heavens sake) do i try to do that all, and those who can, dont even move a finger but complain?


I'm not complaining of Arti&Novacoder efforts! I don't think anybody complains about that... perhaps it looks like I don't move a finger but I'm quite frustrated with ixemul&clib2&libnix, damn GCC compilers and crappy non-portable unix code that don't compile or crash. There are many ready to use libnix static libraries but if you want to use ixemul these are useless. If people spent more time doing amiga shared libraries we wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel everytime. I say that because take a look at aminet, you'll see same static libraries recompiled n times for stormc, for gcc2.95 with libnix, for gcc2.95 with ixemul, damato MCCs require clib2 to compile (that's why some people couldn't recompile them for plain 68000)... if someone did a proper amiga shared library port then people using E/powerD/Blitz/SASC/StormC/vbcc/GCC+libnix/GCC+clib2/GCC2.95+ixemul/GCC3+ixemul v60... all them could use the same and we wouldn't need n times the same static code. Doing amiga shared libraries is not so easy, of course but what we get with static lib ports? nothing in the mid/long term because people uses other compilers and c libraries. Of course maintenance can be harder, but more people can collaborate. And if we share the interface with OS4/MorphOS guys there's more room for improvement and easier maintenance in the long term.

In order to avoid frustration working in the Reaction port will be better because when the SDL*AGA*port is ready you can be sure a lot of people will moan about speed (and they won't offer you reaction tools to speed up the gui part, they will just moan). SDL port is ok as an internal test "ok, everything compiles and network works, now let's do the Reaction/MUI*gui".

If I use classics & morphos is due to Amiga/MorphOS software and/or good ports, it's not due to quickly recompiled Unix CLI tools or a quickly recompiled SDL video player without even overlay support. I'm typing this from MorphOS Oddisey and you can bet that if I had to use a SDL*OWB port I would probably be using IBrowse. I respect and admire people who keeps using classics everyday.

PS:*I think you did a picture of a pegasos with a text "Pegasos ready for destruction" but don't know where I could find it (at good quality, I just saw a few Ambient backdrops).
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 16, 2013, 09:53:01 PM
Quote

Sharing code with current OS4 port would mean much less work maintaining the OS3.x port.

Quote

Perhaps instead of breaking compatibility he should have renamed his version newixemul.library or something like that.

Quote

if someone did a proper amiga shared library port then people using E/powerD/Blitz/SASC/StormC/vbcc/GCC+libnix/GCC+clib2/GCC2.95+ixemul/GCC3+ixemul v60... all them could use the same and we wouldn't need n times the same static code.


if.. if.. if...... believe me, id prefer the same like you but neither from os4 nor mos camp there is enough good will to synchronize. aros and genuine amiga people (68k) would come along but usually lack skills. and when you complain about bernd, id prefer he renamed the lib, but since he didnt everybody is free to resign on soft compiled against it and stay with 48.x (already a trouble). i myself always tried to go for libnix first, whatever...

Quote

In order to avoid frustration working in the Reaction port will be better because when the SDL*AGA*port is ready you can be sure a lot of people will moan about speed (and they won't offer you reaction tools to speed up the gui part, they will just moan). SDL port is ok as an internal test "ok, everything compiles and network works, now let's do the Reaction/MUI*gui".

i trust you sdl is slow but have not seen any proof. depends on implementation i guess.
Quote

PS:*I think you did a picture of a pegasos with a text "Pegasos ready for destruction" but don't know where I could find it (at good quality, I just saw a few Ambient backdrops).

its not mine. i did no graphics for morphos. im not a good graphician, sorry. being an artist is usually a different kind of deal even if basics may be the same.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 17, 2013, 12:49:37 AM
Using SDL AGA is not going to be much slower than just coding it without the SDL :)

[youtube]KFtTNsPJ7Zs[/youtube]

Descent Rebirth AGA is not optimized on the game side yet so it will get quicker then this (I hope).  My SDL is already as optimized as I can get it (and doesn't need ixemul.lib to link either!).

I've managed to get threaded sound working now, I didn't really want to go down that route as interrupt based sound is a bit quicker but it will do. You can always roll your own interrupt based code if you need to and just choose not to enable it in the SDL library (which means the library won't create any threads).

Timers have been disabled, I got them working fine but didn't really like the way it was coded as it would slow things down too much.   Most ports don't need Timers anyway so it's not a big deal.

After I've got it working properly with Descent Rebirth, I'll test it out with another couple of SDL ports to make sure it's working ok before I release it to AmiNet along with some example applications.

Please note that as I've mention many times before, this will not be a full AGA implementation of the SDL, it's just a hack to help games to be ported to AGA.

:)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: magnetic on May 17, 2013, 02:02:05 AM
Man, just when I thought we were close to Netsurf AGA for classics... :(  Surely a bounty would inspire someone to do this?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: yakumo9275 on May 17, 2013, 02:29:58 AM
would it be hard to hack the lib to do say 32 colour ecs 320x200 instead of 8bit?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 17, 2013, 02:45:14 AM
Quote from: magnetic;735264
Man, just when I thought we were close to Netsurf AGA for classics... :(  Surely a bounty would inspire someone to do this?

Actually I was hoping for Zelda for classic Amiga AGA but I guess I am dreaming here too.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: chris on May 17, 2013, 09:40:57 AM
Quote from: wawrzon;735241
i trust you sdl is slow but have not seen any proof. depends on implementation i guess.


I have faith that Novacoder's SDL won't be slow.  That's not the problem here - the issue is that NetSurf's Framebuffer GUI is not designed for operating systems with a proper GUI toolkit.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Crumb on May 17, 2013, 09:53:17 AM
Quote from: wawrzon;735241
if.. if.. if...... believe me, id prefer the same like you but neither from os4 nor mos camp there is enough good will to synchronize.

Perhaps you have a distorted view because Chris is trying to help and he even performed changes in his code to make it easier to adapt to OS3.x. Itix and Fab are always helpful, Fab for example always helps porting his apps to other OSes like AROS and OS4.x. Put some lines of classic amiga code and Piru will always help to optimize and iron out bugs. I don't think Kas1e doesn't have good will helping OS3.x users. But keep in mind they already did a choice and you can't force them to compile code for OS3.x specially if they no longer use these systems.

Quote
aros and genuine amiga people (68k) would come along but usually lack skills.

Until Jason and Toni Willen there were quite a lot of users who didn't care much about 68k nor compatibility with it.

Quote
and when you complain about bernd, id prefer he renamed the lib, but since he didnt everybody is free to resign on soft compiled against it and stay with 48.x (already a trouble). i myself always tried to go for libnix first, whatever...

The problem is that he created an artificial incompatibility because OS4&MOS have the most active coders and now you can be sure they won't help debugging any v60 ixemul app. Adapting AROS posix library to AmigasOS3.x would have been much less harmful. Don't get me wrong, it's great than someone codes for OS3.x and I can understand he choose to release his own version but that caused more fragmentation in our already fragmented community.

Quote
i trust you sdl is slow but have not seen any proof. depends on implementation i guess.

Just open SDL OWB on OS4 and compare it to OWB-MUI. Or just open Netsurf SDL on a real 060+RTG miggy. Download my tool and play with it and you'll see how easy is creating a Reaction GUI. To compile stuff you'll probably have to write:
gcc mygui.c events.c -o mygui.exe -noixemul
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 17, 2013, 01:03:06 PM
Quote from: chris;735289
I have faith that Novacoder's SDL won't be slow.  That's not the problem here - the issue is that NetSurf's Framebuffer GUI is not designed for operating systems with a proper GUI toolkit.


you mean like the framebuffer gets wholly rerendered when something within the content chenges? like an animation or text input into a form? this is of course an angument, but then as you see there is none who can implement your frontend on 68k.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Fab on May 17, 2013, 01:18:54 PM
Quote from: wawrzon;735312
you mean like the framebuffer gets wholly rerendered when something within the content chenges? like an animation or text input into a form? this is of course an angument, but then as you see there is none who can implement your frontend on 68k.

That's what makes scrolling or anything dozen times slower than it should be...
When i started OWB porting, i had a try at the SDL backend of OWB for fun, and it was absolutely terrible (on PPC), since it was also rendering the whole buffer for any damaged area.

Even if you keep SDL, you should at least do it properly and modify it to only updated damaged areas, that would really increase performance.

Apart from this, i think you really overestimate the work to do to adapt it to MUI or Reaction (they already exist! And the Reaction version is recent and more optimized). So just go for it, one step at a time.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on May 17, 2013, 01:20:05 PM
Quote from: Crumb;735291
Perhaps you have a distorted view because Chris is trying to help and he even performed changes in his code to make it easier to adapt to OS3.x. Itix and Fab are always helpful, Fab for example always helps porting his apps to other OSes like AROS and OS4.x. Put some lines of classic amiga code and Piru will always help to optimize and iron out bugs. I don't think Kas1e doesn't have good will helping OS3.x users. But keep in mind they already did a choice and you can't force them to compile code for OS3.x specially if they no longer use these systems.
no, im quite calm about it actually. i have had good contact to most of the people you mentioned and while they have not much interest in original amiga left, they were always open, helpful and collegial, i value them and the attitude, including kas1e. if only the whole scene were like them. i am also not demanding anything from them or you for that matter. their and your comments may be a guidance, but all of us must comprehend the reality of the situation. and this is that for instance with all the help of the above people i hardly can code a line, even if i helped up and help in a number of projects. lately i tried to compile odyssey for aros 68k with the help of deadwood, jason and fab. and what came out of it? nothing!

Quote
Until Jason and Toni Willen there were quite a lot of users who didn't care much about 68k nor compatibility with it.
its still like this, but it is wrong, aros could be a great repleacment for the original os but it still needs improvements.

Quote
Just open SDL OWB on OS4 and compare it to OWB-MUI. Or just open Netsurf SDL on a real 060+RTG miggy. Download my tool and play with it and you'll see how easy is creating a Reaction GUI. To compile stuff you'll probably have to write:
gcc mygui.c events.c -o mygui.exe -noixemul

may look at it but pretty much know that i cant handle it. its not only the gui. netsurf needs also to have chris' plotter to work on 68k.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 17, 2013, 01:35:48 PM
Quote from: Fab;735313
Even if you keep SDL, you should at least do it properly and modify it to only updated damaged areas, that would really increase performance.


Yep, done this already.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: chris on May 17, 2013, 01:59:34 PM
Quote from: wawrzon;735312
you mean like the framebuffer gets wholly rerendered when something within the content chenges? like an animation or text input into a form? this is of course an angument, but then as you see there is none who can implement your frontend on 68k.


I have no idea whether that is the case or not.  What I meant was it doesn't support multiple windows, menus, drag'n'drop, window resizing, loading/saving(?), clipboard(?), etc.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: OlafS3 on May 17, 2013, 03:57:12 PM
we discovered the same with the z.library where obvious 68k and AmigaOS are identical, whereas MorphOS created a incompatible one (AROS devs solved it by creating a new one with different name). The mess is not only caused by classic people but also by NG people. Developers are not very interested in Crossplatform compatibility because they (in most cases) develop only for one platform.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 26, 2013, 05:33:36 AM
First NetSurf AGA BETA released which uses this new SDL library  ;)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 26, 2013, 07:05:25 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;736008
First NetSurf AGA BETA released which uses this new SDL library  ;)

BETA Thread (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=890705#post890705)


I cannot get it from that website specified and I cannot find it in aminet.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on May 26, 2013, 07:26:38 AM
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;736009
I cannot get it from that website specified and I cannot find it in aminet.


http://eab.abime.net/index.php (http://eab.abime.net/index.php)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 26, 2013, 07:51:13 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;736010
http://eab.abime.net/index.php

I do not have rights to The Zone.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: kamelito on May 26, 2013, 09:56:20 AM
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;736011
I do not have rights to The Zone.

 You need to create an account and log in.  Kamelito
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 26, 2013, 05:21:48 PM
Quote from: kamelito;736013
You need to create an account and log in.  Kamelito

You do not get it...I already have account. It just these files are located in The Zone and The Zone have special privileges that I do not have with my current account. In the end I just need to wait until NovaCoder releases it into Aminet that is all.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: guest7029 on May 26, 2013, 06:10:40 PM
How to access The Zone over at EAB: http://eab.abime.net/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_thezone_faq_item
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on May 27, 2013, 12:27:28 AM
Quote from: zack_mk1;736027
How to access The Zone over at EAB: http://eab.abime.net/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_thezone_faq_item

I download the program...I run it...nothing happens. I even run it from CLI shell and nothing happens.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: magnetic on May 27, 2013, 04:46:37 AM
Wow this is really exciting finally a newish browser for 68k classics. I'll have to try it. It looks pretty darn slow but lets hope for some optimizations.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Retrofan on June 04, 2013, 11:57:45 PM
I've got the idea that NetSurf will be updated very soon, as Nova sent Arti his latest SDL files right after the Beta.

I suposse Nova's files will mean a faster NetSurf. Also Arti was looking about how to get rid of Ixemul. My best wishes to him/that.

I'm planning to add NetSurfAGA to my next AmiKit Real update, 04 :razz:

Great work here with this development :banana:
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: adrian82 on June 05, 2013, 12:56:25 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;733965

I'm currently working on a  new SDL library which is a cut-down version specifically made for good old AGA Amiga's (like mine!).


What version of SDL is this based on? And where can I get the source of your Amiga port?

Cheers,

Adrian
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on June 05, 2013, 01:04:27 AM
Quote from: adrian82;736834
What version of SDL is this based on? And where can I get the source of your Amiga port?

Cheers,

Adrian

It's a bit of a hack, based on the old 68k RTG SDL + Arti's updates + some vanilla v1.2.15 and then Amiga AGA specific optimizations added + hacked to death by yours truly.

So far it's been used to port NetSurf, Descent Rebirth, DosBox v0.74 to AGA and now being used to attempt to port Ultima 7.   If all goes well I'll upload it to AmiNet with some simple demo programs.   It will support most of the basic SDL functions but to get the max performance out of a port you'll need to do some updates.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: adrian82 on June 05, 2013, 01:39:13 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;736836
It's a bit of a hack, based on the old 68k RTG SDL + Arti's updates + some vanilla v1.2.15 and then Amiga AGA specific optimizations added + hacked to death by yours truly.
(...)
If all goes well I'll upload it to AmiNet with some simple demo programs.   It will support most of the basic SDL functions but to get the max performance out of a port you'll need to do some updates.


Nice! Please don't forget to include the sources then, the 1.2 version is still LGPL-licensed and the sources therefore have to be provided with the binaries.

Will be nice to see what people do with the code!

Adrian
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: cunnpole on June 05, 2013, 09:20:18 AM
Quote from: adrian82;736840
LGPL-licensed and the sources therefore have to be provided with the binaries.


The Lesser GPL doesn't require that at all. It can be used in commercial proprietary ways without any source code release. You either release your modified binary or the source (or both if you are feeling generous). Full fat GPL describes what you indicate.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: adrian82 on June 05, 2013, 10:02:29 AM
Quote from: cunnpole;736866
The Lesser GPL doesn't require that at all. It can be used in commercial proprietary ways without any source code release. You either release your modified binary or the source (or both if you are feeling generous). Full fat GPL describes what you indicate.


True, the little "L" somehow didn't show at first glimpse ;). Well, I still hope a full source disclosure then. The more people have access to the source, the better. The Amiga needs open source software.

Cheers,

Adrian
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: cunnpole on June 05, 2013, 11:14:29 AM
Quote from: adrian82;736870
The Amiga needs open source software.


Agreed, too much has been lost already as devs lives change. Although I know how difficult it can be to let your baby go :D
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: adrian82 on June 05, 2013, 11:19:08 AM
Quote from: cunnpole;736876
Although I know how difficult it can be to let your baby go :D


Why? You're not losing anything. It's rather the opposite, you can only win. The more people can work with the code, the better.

I disclose every source code I have ever written and I never had any bad experiences. I even had people pick up the code and send me patches which dramatically boosted development.

The largest software projects in the world are all open source and the Amiga is one of the platforms profiting from that (current versions of Linux still run on the Amiga :)).

Adrian
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: wawrzon on June 05, 2013, 01:18:44 PM
@adrian82

very good attitude. hpw about helping out to polish up aros68k? aros is open source by definition and platform independant. with aros you can have both amiga backwards binary compatibility and certain posix compatibility afaik so ports  from linux world can be easier without the need of ixemul libs.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: adrian82 on June 05, 2013, 01:26:56 PM
Quote from: wawrzon;736886

hpw about helping out to polish up aros68k? aros is open source by definition and platform independant.


Well, no. AROS is open source, but they have weird license which isn't considered really free as far as I know. On top of that, I'm rather a Linux guy (being a Debian Developer) and having Debian on my Amiga is much more fun and useful.

Adrian
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Fats on June 05, 2013, 07:00:49 PM
Quote from: adrian82;736887
Well, no. AROS is open source, but they have weird license which isn't considered really free as far as I know.


It is the Mozilla license with Mozilla replaced with AROS. Don't see why it is not free.
Staf.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: chris on June 05, 2013, 07:50:05 PM
Quote from: adrian82;736877
Why? You're not losing anything. It's rather the opposite, you can only win. The more people can work with the code, the better.

I disclose every source code I have ever written and I never had any bad experiences. I even had people pick up the code and send me patches which dramatically boosted development.


I do that on occasion, and people still send me bug reports rather than patches.
I've actually had more success with closed source projects - people ask for the source code, I provide it, and stuff actually gets done.

Having said that, it does annoy me when I find something on Aminet that I want to update, there's no source code and the developer is long gone.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: magnetic on June 05, 2013, 10:13:13 PM
Quote from: Retrofan;736826


I suposse Nova's files will mean a faster NetSurf. Also Arti was looking about how to get rid of Ixemul. My best wishes to him/that.




Retro you REALLY NEED TO GET AN FPU lmao
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on June 21, 2013, 11:32:38 AM
Ok I've now released it to AmiNet -> http://aminet.net/package/dev/lib/SDL_AGA (http://aminet.net/package/dev/lib/SDL_AGA)

Now go create some cool new AGA games with it :)


Future plans:

I think I might add the SDL Mixer to it one of these days, from my initial look at the source code it looks ok.  
When I get the time, I'd also like to try and add RTG support (copy the code over from the existing SDL).
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: psxphill on June 21, 2013, 12:35:42 PM
Quote from: adrian82;736887
Well, no. AROS is open source, but they have weird license which isn't considered really free as far as I know.

MAME has a weird license, but AROS seems fine.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: tolkien on June 21, 2013, 01:30:32 PM
Good news! I would like to know how fast is this baby.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on June 21, 2013, 11:29:39 PM
Quote from: psxphill;738475
MAME has a weird license, but AROS seems fine.

I had never read any of the MAME License until now.  interesting, basically open source but absolutely no distributing it for commercial uses.  

More on topic;

Awesome!  SDL for AGA should help make a lot of things that are open source be easier to port.

I'm probably going to be creating a separate post for this, but I'm working on some details.  But I have been thinking about ways in which we can improve the Amiga community as a whole and get more software written for the platform(s).  I'm wanting to dive into learning programming, and would prefer to do it on my Amiga, but there are so many road blocks to doing so.  Namely setting up a development environment isn't exactly easy.

I want a development environment much like Qt, where you can write once, and compile for multiple platforms.  How nice would it be to add AmigaOS 3.x, AmigaOS 4.x, AROS, MorphOS and others to the QtCreator, so that we can just select which OS to compile for, and push a button and let it build binaries.

Especially with SDL being available, it should be fairly simple to have a 'write once run everywhere' like Java attempted to accomplished.  (well okay, fairly simple is probably very subjective... but still... :D )

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on June 21, 2013, 11:43:30 PM
Quote from: slaapliedje;738495
I had never read any of the MAME License until now.  interesting, basically open source but absolutely no distributing it for commercial uses.  

More on topic;

Awesome!  SDL for AGA should help make a lot of things that are open source be easier to port.

I'm probably going to be creating a separate post for this, but I'm working on some details.  But I have been thinking about ways in which we can improve the Amiga community as a whole and get more software written for the platform(s).  I'm wanting to dive into learning programming, and would prefer to do it on my Amiga, but there are so many road blocks to doing so.  Namely setting up a development environment isn't exactly easy.

I want a development environment much like Qt, where you can write once, and compile for multiple platforms.  How nice would it be to add AmigaOS 3.x, AmigaOS 4.x, AROS, MorphOS and others to the QtCreator, so that we can just select which OS to compile for, and push a button and let it build binaries.

Especially with SDL being available, it should be fairly simple to have a 'write once run everywhere' like Java attempted to accomplished.  (well okay, fairly simple is probably very subjective... but still... :D )

slaapliedje


http://www.softwareandcircuits.com/division/amiga/products/cubic/index.html and http://www.geit.de/eng_sdi.html :)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on June 22, 2013, 07:03:13 PM
Quote from: nicholas;738496
http://www.softwareandcircuits.com/division/amiga/products/cubic/index.html and http://www.geit.de/eng_sdi.html :)

Awesome!  How did I miss Cubic IDE in my searches.  Would be nice if EVERYTHING was on Aminet... :D

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on June 24, 2013, 12:37:52 PM
[youtube]FaMuopipN7o[/youtube]
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: ChaosLord on June 24, 2013, 02:24:40 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;738473

When I get the time, I'd also like to try and add RTG support (copy the code over from the existing SDL).


I have no interest in SDL for AGA but an optimized SDL for RTG could be really nice!!!

In the olden days when I looked at SDL it called a subroutine for EVERY SINGLE PIXEL in a blit.  It was mind bogglingly slow.  So I threw it overboard like a dead body and forgot about it.  But that was 10 years ago and hopefully things have improved now?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: ChaosLord on June 24, 2013, 02:51:04 PM
Quote from: Crumb;735232
@matthey

Perhaps instead of breaking compatibility he should have renamed his version newixemul.library or something like that.


There are a grand total of 0 apps that look for "newixemul.library".  There are hundreds of apps that look for "ixemul.library".  Bernd named it the only logical name that he could possibly name it.

If you don't like the name you are free to rename the file yourself to any name you want.  I have done this myself back in the old days when ixemul was a bug ridden pile of trash, (back before Bernd rescued ixemul from oblivion): I renamed it to ixesux.library.

I have never tested Bernd's new version and hopefully never will. :)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: asymetrix on June 24, 2013, 02:52:55 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;738705
I have no interest in SDL for AGA but an optimized SDL for RTG could be really nice!!!

In the olden days when I looked at SDL it called a subroutine for EVERY SINGLE PIXEL in a blit.  It was mind bogglingly slow.  So I threw it overboard like a dead body and forgot about it.  But that was 10 years ago and hopefully things have improved now?


You could have just fixed it or report the error. Why deprive the users of something that could be so great.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: ChaosLord on June 24, 2013, 03:13:33 PM
Quote from: asymetrix;738708
You could have just fixed it or report the error. Why deprive the users of something that could be so great.


It didn't need a "fix".  It needed a "total complete rewrite from the ground up".   SDL back then had innumerable interconnected problems.

Every time I have ever looked at Linux code it is always coded in the most totally inefficient manner possible.

I am hoping/assuming that all the problems have been fixed these days.

I have no pressing need for SDL at the moment but if an intelligent being such as NovaCoder stated that an SDL existed for RTG that was coded in a nonridiculous manner then I would at some point reinvestigate the possibility of using it.  The better it works, the more I want to use it.  But for right this exact second I can code in straight AmigaOS3.x (+- P96 and/or CGX)

One thing I need to look into is can SDL ports have Arexx ports?  Or something to the same effect?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on June 24, 2013, 03:25:07 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;738705
I have no interest in SDL for AGA but an optimized SDL for RTG could be really nice!!!

In the olden days when I looked at SDL it called a subroutine for EVERY SINGLE PIXEL in a blit.  It was mind bogglingly slow.  So I threw it overboard like a dead body and forgot about it.  But that was 10 years ago and hopefully things have improved now?


Did you ever try the old WarpSDL?

http://www.algonet.se/~chaozer/warpsdl.shtml
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: chris on June 24, 2013, 06:43:04 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;738710
One thing I need to look into is can SDL ports have Arexx ports?  Or something to the same effect?

Given the two things are entirely unconnected... sure, why not?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on June 24, 2013, 07:18:29 PM
I think what he's asking is if there are some Arexx bindings that support SDL.  There are for other languages.  SDL is just an API, Arexx a scripting language.

There are perl bindings for it, so why not?  

What I'd like to see is Mesa ported to AGA... :D  of course that would probably perform horribly, but could allow for some other stuff to work.

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on June 24, 2013, 07:34:04 PM
Quote from: slaapliedje;738734
I think what he's asking is if there are some Arexx bindings that support SDL.  There are for other languages.  SDL is just an API, Arexx a scripting language.

There are perl bindings for it, so why not?  

What I'd like to see is Mesa ported to AGA... :D  of course that would probably perform horribly, but could allow for some other stuff to work.

slaapliedje


IIRC Brian Paul wrote the first version of MESA on his Amiga.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: ChaosLord on June 24, 2013, 08:22:15 PM
Quote from: slaapliedje;738734
I think what he's asking is if there are some Arexx bindings that support SDL.  There are for other languages.  SDL is just an API, Arexx a scripting language.

I should have elaborated more :)

I wasn't asking about Arexx the language.  I accept input from Arexx but I don't give that language any special treatment.

When I said "arexx" I meant the Interprocess Communication API part of arexx.

Games and apps need to be able to accept commands from other tasks running on the same computer.  SDL supposedly allows programs to run and perform the same functions on multiple platforms.  Interprocess Communication (like with arexx) is a function my game needs for scripting language support.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on June 24, 2013, 08:30:25 PM
Interesting.  I did a search and it looks like you could be right (I didn't find the actual article that says it's where it started).  I found quite a few useful things about Mesa, the Amiga and 3D rendering engines.  Specifically that at one point Crystal Space ran on an Amiga.

http://www.3dengines.de/hard_amiga.html

I would love to see OpenGL running on my Radeon.  

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: nicholas on June 24, 2013, 08:53:54 PM
Quote
Amiga 3000 - 1991 to 1995
3MB RAM, 16 MHz 68030, 10MB disk. The first bits of Mesa were written on this computer. Used HAM mode to approximate a normal RGB (non-indexed) framebuffer.

http://www.mesa3d.org/brianp/home.html
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on July 08, 2013, 05:27:43 AM
The SDL strikes again :)


It's very early days (only a few hours work), not sure how it will run real hardware yet.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: magnetic on July 08, 2013, 09:55:55 AM
Nova you are an AGA MEGAHERO!
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on July 08, 2013, 11:57:10 AM
Quote from: magnetic;740172
Nova you are an AGA MEGAHERO!



Thanx :)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on July 08, 2013, 02:51:28 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;740162
The SDL strikes again :)


It's very early days (only a few hours work), not sure how it will run real hardware yet.


Since there isn't any "we're not worthy!" smiley, I'll give you a dancing banana!

:banana:

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on July 09, 2013, 01:13:04 PM
It's alive (said in your best mad scientist voice)

(http://www.amiga.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=3038&stc=1&d=1373372170)

[youtube]nffOaex-R8Q[/youtube]


:)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on July 09, 2013, 04:51:34 PM
Need testers?  :D

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on July 10, 2013, 01:00:40 AM
Quote from: slaapliedje;740363
Need testers?  :D

slaapliedje


Thanks, yes I will at some point :)

This is only after a day's effort so lots of work to do before I can release something worth beta testing.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: magnetic on July 10, 2013, 01:22:51 AM
Hey nova
Congrats. Looks like the speed is decent. After some optimization it should be totally playable right?

To all the 030 whiners GET AN 060 :)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: ChaosLord on July 10, 2013, 01:53:41 AM
So what is the story with SDL and RTG?

Many many years ago I was going to port all my games over to SDL/RTG.

But SDL was megatremendously sloooooooooooow.  It had been out for a few years yet nobody had ever optimized the algorithms at all so it was totally completely worthless. :(

Now that a gazillion years have passed, is SDL a good option for RTG gamecoding now?

In a few months from now I am going to be in need of a properly working SDL that performs reasonably well on RTG cards with 128MB VRAM.  Does such a SDL currently exist?

Will SDL RTG for example on one of those Radeon 256MB gfx cards everybody buys these days: will SDL use the Radeon SUPERDUPER BLITTER from hell to do high speed blitting?  Or does it still use the CPU to move each pixel one at a time like it used to do?
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on July 10, 2013, 02:00:13 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;740436
So what is the story with SDL and RTG?

Many many years ago I was going to port all my games over to SDL/RTG.

But SDL was megatremendously sloooooooooooow.  It had been out for a few years yet nobody had ever optimized the algorithms at all so it was totally completely worthless. :(

Now that a gazillion years have passed, is SDL a good option for RTG gamecoding now?

In a few months from now I am going to be in need of a properly working SDL that performs reasonably well on RTG cards with 128MB VRAM.  Does such a SDL currently exist?

Hiya,

If I ever get the time I'd like to add RTG support to my AGA SDL and use it to do a new port of ScummVM for RTG Amiga's.

From what I've read, Amiga RTG pixel formats are a mess (non-standardized), that is why blitting can be very slow, esp when you mix color formats.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on July 10, 2013, 05:25:18 AM
Quote from: NovaCoder;740437
Hiya,

If I ever get the time I'd like to add RTG support to my AGA SDL and use it to do a new port of ScummVM for RTG Amiga's.

From what I've read, RTG pixel formats are a mess, that is why blitting can be very slow, esp when you mix color formats.

I can test that too!  :D

Is there any of the old SDL/RTG software out there?  I know there is an old version of Exult, but I'm not sure if the Amiga port used SDL or not.  Maybe I'll give it a shot and find out, then report.

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on July 10, 2013, 05:58:50 AM
Quote from: slaapliedje;740444
I can test that too!  :D

Is there any of the old SDL/RTG software out there?  I know there is an old version of Exult, but I'm not sure if the Amiga port used SDL or not.  Maybe I'll give it a shot and find out, then report.

slaapliedje


Hiya,

Yes the old 68k port of Exult and DosBox would have used the SDL.

I think there is also a 68k port of Red Alert that uses the SDL.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on July 10, 2013, 06:05:02 AM
Just 'tested' the version of Exult on Aminet (0.93) and it said to put the data files in the Blackgate folder, well, there wasn't one, but I copied my blackgate folder over from my Linux box, and tried running the exult preferences (that say they require OS3.5+) and that did nothing.  So with the Blackgate folder in there, I ran Exult and... it gave me a screen with 1 quarter of it gray, the rest black and a GIANT mouse cursor and locked up!

So much for that....

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on July 10, 2013, 06:46:05 AM
Quote from: slaapliedje;740448
Just 'tested' the version of Exult on Aminet (0.93) and it said to put the data files in the Blackgate folder, well, there wasn't one, but I copied my blackgate folder over from my Linux box, and tried running the exult preferences (that say they require OS3.5+) and that did nothing.  So with the Blackgate folder in there, I ran Exult and... it gave me a screen with 1 quarter of it gray, the rest black and a GIANT mouse cursor and locked up!

So much for that....

slaapliedje



I am soooooooooooooo glaaaad that no one replied to your issue because it gives me great pleasure to do this "
The game requires a 68020 CPU or better, an FPU, AmigaOS 3.0 or higher, a graphics card, AHI for sound and the AMidi.device for music. "

Oh one more thing that date it is posted in Aminet is at "Date:2008-02-05" Which you know we are not in that year, date and month anymore...after all we are on the 07/09/2013 as you can see.

Oh finally...to conclude the situation ones and for sure...HE NEVER ANNOUNCED HE RELEASED IT!


Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: spirantho on July 10, 2013, 09:59:41 AM
In 2008, when that was written, SDL required a graphics card - hence the readme saying a graphics card is required.
The whole point of this thread is that SDL has been ported to AGA, so programs which used to require a graphics card can now be run on AGA (presumably as long as the colour depth is ok - which Exult should be as it ran on VGA).

If Exult doesn't run then it must be doing something which AGA can't handle, or there's a bug in SDL AGA (more likely, given it's still under development - and I don't think there's anything demanding likely in Exult)

Either way, it's a perfectly valid program to try - I think SDL AGA should be able to handle it eventually (given the very good work I believe has been done so far!)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on July 10, 2013, 01:04:33 PM
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;740451
I am soooooooooooooo glaaaad that no one replied to your issue because it gives me great pleasure to do this "
The game requires a 68020 CPU or better, an FPU, AmigaOS 3.0 or higher, a graphics card, AHI for sound and the AMidi.device for music. "

Oh one more thing that date it is posted in Aminet is at "Date:2008-02-05" Which you know we are not in that year, date and month anymore...after all we are on the 07/09/2013 as you can see.

Oh finally...to conclude the situation ones and for sure...HE NEVER ANNOUNCED HE RELEASED IT!


If you read my Sig, it does say I have an 060, Radeon, etc.  I missed the AMidi.device though.  Thanks.  I expected it to be buggy, crash, or incomplete.  I didn't expect it to just freeze and not do anything but make a giant cursor on my screen!

I also did notice that it said something about "the page disappeared and so I threw it up on aminet", which was a bit odd.

It's nice that you showed such things in bold caps when I had simply said "I'll test it and see what happens" then posted what happened.  It's not like I was pissed and said "Fix it, wtf?  My free stuff doesn't work, OMG!!!  No, my house is on FIRE now 'cause I can't get my injection of Ultima right MEOW!!!"

I'll just wait 'til NovaCoder spreads some Ultima love with his AGA port of Ultima 7.  Maybe once he gets the time to fix up the SDL for RTG as discussed earlier, we can get AGA or RTG Exult, or ScummVM or whatever working.

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on July 10, 2013, 01:10:38 PM
Quote from: spirantho;740460
In 2008, when that was written, SDL required a graphics card - hence the readme saying a graphics card is required.
The whole point of this thread is that SDL has been ported to AGA, so programs which used to require a graphics card can now be run on AGA (presumably as long as the colour depth is ok - which Exult should be as it ran on VGA).

If Exult doesn't run then it must be doing something which AGA can't handle, or there's a bug in SDL AGA (more likely, given it's still under development - and I don't think there's anything demanding likely in Exult)

Either way, it's a perfectly valid program to try - I think SDL AGA should be able to handle it eventually (given the very good work I believe has been done so far!)

Exactly, I was trying out the old version that is on Aminet, simply to see if it worked, how well it worked, if it was playable, etc.  Couldn't get the prefs to launch, and the game crashed the system.  No problem, we have the AGA version coming :D

Not to mention the version was 0.93 and apparently 1.5.x 'Snapshots' is the latest version.  I'm sure there is a whole lot of development that's been in place between then and now.  

I never did finish Ultima 7 (pretty sure I ran into a weird bug where I couldn't get to a cave that I needed to), so I'm really looking forward to this AGA version.

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on July 23, 2013, 03:10:50 AM
Update:

I've just added (limited) SDL Mixer support to my library.

It's useful for porting games that need SDL Mixer support.   I've only given it a very quick test but it seems to work, not sure how slow it would be on real hardware.


I'll upload it to AmiNet when I get the time.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on July 23, 2013, 12:35:21 PM
You are awesome!  

There was another thread on porting Atari ST games to the Amiga, and I was thinking... I believe the Hatari emulator uses SDL, and a new release hasn't been made for the Amiga in quite some time... it probably also requires mixer support.  

I really need to get my development environment set up.  Stupid life got in the way....

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on February 02, 2015, 03:44:19 AM
Yet another port using my little SDL 'hack' :)

[youtube]Wsc2_mzIM2Y[/youtube]
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: trekiej on February 02, 2015, 03:25:21 PM
Looks good.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on February 02, 2015, 05:18:29 PM
Nice!  Do you take requests?

A newer version of Hatari would be an awesome port (there is one on Aminet, but it's pretty old).  I believe it uses mostly SDL, though recently they tacked on a python interface, if the Nokia N900 version is any indicator, it could be removed fairly easily, or replaced maybe by something more Amiga-ish?

I was also thinking some other SDL based emulators, I am pretty sure all of the newer Mame builds are, as well as things like gens.

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on February 02, 2015, 10:26:34 PM
Quote from: slaapliedje;782847
Nice!  Do you take requests?

A newer version of Hatari would be an awesome port (there is one on Aminet, but it's pretty old).  I believe it uses mostly SDL, though recently they tacked on a python interface, if the Nokia N900 version is any indicator, it could be removed fairly easily, or replaced maybe by something more Amiga-ish?

I was also thinking some other SDL based emulators, I am pretty sure all of the newer Mame builds are, as well as things like gens.

slaapliedje

Thanks :)

These 68k ports take a huge amount of time, not necessarily to get up and running but to get them fast enough to be of some use on real hardware takes a lot of effort.   As an example, Odamex took about 2 days to get running then another 3 months (effort) to get it running well enough to release it ;)


I've uploaded my SDL hack to AmiNet so someone else can give some new ports a go.

:)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on February 22, 2015, 09:06:19 AM
Wow a 68k SDL port the runs reasonably quickly on real hardware, would have thought ;)


[youtube]RgzTGIV41a4[/youtube]
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on February 22, 2015, 07:23:18 PM
I did notice a week ago that a new copy of ADE had been uploaded to Aminet, and inside that has the SDL libraries.

I need to set that one up instead of the older version that is on the geek gadgets CD.  

I was going to attempt compiling a newer version of perl, no such luck yet though.  According to the perl page, they stopped supporting it due to dropping vfork(), but it looks like newer versions of ixemul have substitutes for that, from what little I've been able to find.

I figure after I get a bit more knowledge under my belt, I'll make some attempts myself to get things ported and/or up to date.

slaapliedje
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on February 22, 2015, 11:14:44 PM
Quote from: slaapliedje;785180
I did notice a week ago that a new copy of ADE had been uploaded to Aminet, and inside that has the SDL libraries.

I need to set that one up instead of the older version that is on the geek gadgets CD.  

slaapliedje

Hiya,

Yep I saw that, it might be OK but you'd probably be better off just using AmiDevCpp (http://amidevcpp.amiga-world.de/index.php?HR_LANG=english) which uses gcc 3.4 and really simple to get running.

That ADE thing looks like it's non-graphical and uses gcc 2.9.3 by default.

Apparently gcc 4.x is also floating around for 68k but it hasn't been integrated with AmiDevCpp yet.

The version of SDL included with that ADE install is probably the really old 68k RTG only build.

I've now built a new updated SDL library using 1.2.15 which is the last one before they went all OpenGL.

I haven't heard of anyone using my SDL AGA library but it's had 460 downloads from AmiNet so you never know.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on April 17, 2015, 04:10:13 PM
Now also with MT-32 MIDI support (CAMD)

[youtube]ShVvAVELTQM[/youtube]

Yes this game is SDL based :)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: xboxOwn on April 17, 2015, 06:26:33 PM
Quote from: NovaCoder;787895
Now also with MT-32 MIDI support (CAMD)

[youtube]ShVvAVELTQM[/youtube]

Yes this game is SDL based :)

I saw in your previous form that you where running Ultima VII in AGA...slow but playable but you where busy developing it and you have not released it yet because it is incomplete. Can you release what you did so far? Looking at the video it is have decent frame rate and it is playable (as long as you can save your game) I see no reason why you should not release ExultAGA to aminet.

Please consider it NovaCoder. Thanks in advance.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on April 17, 2015, 11:56:54 PM
Quote from: xboxOwn;787897
I saw in your previous form that you where running Ultima VII in AGA...slow but playable but you where busy developing it and you have not released it yet because it is incomplete. Can you release what you did so far? Looking at the video it is have decent frame rate and it is playable (as long as you can save your game) I see no reason why you should not release ExultAGA to aminet.

Please consider it NovaCoder. Thanks in advance.


Don't worry, I haven't given up on Ultima 7 AGA/RTG...just need to find the time.   Also have my Duke Nukem port to release and ScummVM with real MIDI support ;)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on November 03, 2015, 12:17:57 PM
Finally getting around to uploading my old Ultima 7 SDL AGA port to AmiNet.

No guarantees how this will run, I only had time to give it the bare minimum of testing.
 
[youtube]MFVemoYtCSs[/youtube]
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: Primax on February 24, 2016, 09:22:23 AM
As I have seen, the archive on Aminet includes version for 040 and 060.
Does your version of SDL in theory also works with an 030?
Thanks!
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on April 23, 2019, 02:09:17 PM
My SDL hack in action again  8)

http://youtu.be/xZH8DG3kTEs (http://youtu.be/xZH8DG3kTEs)

Both AGA 060 and RTG 040 versions of this library released and obviously working well.

After all these years I'm actually quite proud of this SDL hack now, it has quite a few advanced features and a viable way to port software to 68K.


Features:

Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: guest11527 on April 23, 2019, 02:34:55 PM
After all these years I'm actually quite proud of this SDL hack now, it has quite a few advanced features and a viable way to port software to 68K.

While you are at it.... could you please have a critical look at the HWSURFACE support, in particular for RTG graphics? A common problem (actually, a real problem in some current SDL ports) is proper handling of bitmap locking, in particular of the screen->pixels pointer.

The problem some ports face here is that both P96 and CGfx do not necessarily keep bitmaps in graphics card memory, but can also keep them off-loaded in regular CPU RAM. Both P96 and CGfx can also relocate bitmaps at any time, that is, copy them from the board to host memory, or back, depending on the memory load of the system. That has the consequence that if you allocate a bitmap, then get its bitmap pointer, it is not guaranteed that this bitmap pointer stays constant throughout the lifetime of the program. Unfortunately, SDL seems to keep such a pointer in its screen->pixels structure, which is then prone to fail.

Instead, before you can use this pointer, it is *necessary* and *important* that you lock the bitmap (e.g. by Cgfx/LockBitmapTags() or similar calls of the Picasso96API.library), then operate on the bitmap, and then release the lock again to give the system "some air to breath" as it requires the bitmap lock from time to time as well.

I have recently faced some problems with SDL-based ports due to the fact that some branches of SDL do not perform bitmap locking correctly, and for that reason do not show graphics in some situations, or crash the system on screen switches.

If you need further details, please let me know.
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: slaapliedje on April 23, 2019, 04:13:20 PM
I tried the Ultima VII port a while back, but couldn't get it to be more than terribly slow on my 060@50.  Gonna try it again though now that I have a Roland SC88 Pro and The Phantom MIDI device.  That one supports MIDI output, right?  I know ScummVM does, I'll give that one a shot as well!
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on April 23, 2019, 08:26:48 PM
Yep, exult, dune2 and scummVM all support MIDI :)
Title: Re: New AGA SDL Development
Post by: NovaCoder on April 24, 2019, 01:28:49 AM
Quote from: Thomas Richter

While you are at it.... could you please have a critical look at the HWSURFACE support, in particular for RTG graphics? A common problem (actually, a real problem in some current SDL ports) is proper handling of bitmap locking, in particular of the screen->pixels pointer.

The problem some ports face here is that both P96 and CGfx do not necessarily keep bitmaps in graphics card memory, but can also keep them off-loaded in regular CPU RAM. Both P96 and CGfx can also relocate bitmaps at any time, that is, copy them from the board to host memory, or back, depending on the memory load of the system. That has the consequence that if you allocate a bitmap, then get its bitmap pointer, it is not guaranteed that this bitmap pointer stays constant throughout the lifetime of the program. Unfortunately, SDL seems to keep such a pointer in its screen->pixels structure, which is then prone to fail.

Instead, before you can use this pointer, it is *necessary* and *important* that you lock the bitmap (e.g. by Cgfx/LockBitmapTags() or similar calls of the Picasso96API.library), then operate on the bitmap, and then release the lock again to give the system "some air to breath" as it requires the bitmap lock from time to time as well.

I have recently faced some problems with SDL-based ports due to the fact that some branches of SDL do not perform bitmap locking correctly, and for that reason do not show graphics in some situations, or crash the system on screen switches.

If you need further details, please let me know.


I'm not going to be doing much else to my SDL 68K port but if I ever get back to it then I'll consider those updates for sure :)

I do remember debugging the SDL blitting code years ago and finding out that it was sometimes doing double the work it needed to ;D