WHDLoad game question - performance

[blakespot]

I see indications in the ReadMe's accompanying some WHDLoad profiles that delay loops were inserted to preserve timing on faster-than-68000 machines. Some games are synced to vblank, and can benefit from extra CPU horsepower, without going "too fast" - they just get "smoother" at the same core rate of action.

Do all WHDLoad games run, say on a 030 50, at the exact speed as the 68000, or do some get a benefit / extra smoothness? If it's the former, how are the varying speeds of accelerators accounted for? Are folks running a little benchmark up front and then using the result as a variable for the delay loop multiplier?

I have an A2000 '020, btw.

Thanks.




bp

[LaserBack]

I see indications in the ReadMe's accompanying some WHDLoad profiles that delay loops were inserted to preserve timing on faster-than-68000 machines. Some games are synced to vblank, and can benefit from extra CPU horsepower, without going "too fast" - they just get "smoother" at the same core rate of action.

Do all WHDLoad games run, say on a 030 50, at the exact speed as the 68000, or do some get a benefit / extra smoothness? If it's the former, how are the varying speeds of accelerators accounted for? Are folks running a little benchmark up front and then using the result as a variable for the delay loop multiplier?

I have an A2000 '020, btw.

Thanks.




bp

it depends of the game
some games have been fixed and runs like on a 68000 but some game not very well coded still have timming issues
also some games will works better and smoother if you have an accelerator...but only a few like formula 1 grand prix...elite,frontier

[Leffmann]

Do all WHDLoad games run, say on a 030 50, at the exact speed as the 68000, or do some get a benefit / extra smoothness? If it's the former, how are the varying speeds of accelerators accounted for? Are folks running a little benchmark up front and then using the result as a variable for the delay loop multiplier?

Almost all games will run in the speed they were designed to run in, regardless of any accelerators installed, and they will almost always use the display frequency as a clock source, and won't need to take the speed of any installed accelerators into account.

Boosting your Amiga with an accelerator and lots of RAM is well cool, but for just playing WHDLoad games it's money in the lake.

[doctorq]

Boosting your Amiga with an accelerator and lots of RAM is well cool, but for just playing WHDLoad games it's money in the lake.

As far as accelerator goes, yes, if you got a 68010 or better, but the more ram the better. It's not much fun playing games with less than 2 mb ram.

[fishy_fiz]

The original StreetFighter2 port for amiga is one example of non vector based games that speeds up considerably with a faster machine to a point its unplayable on my 40mhz '040. Not that its particularly playable on a standard a1200 either. Seems most playable on a stock 68000 cpu.

[blakespot]

Boosting your Amiga with an accelerator and lots of RAM is well cool, but for just playing WHDLoad games it's money in the lake.

Well, I've got an A2000 w/ a 68020. 2MB 32-bit FAST + 4MB 16-bit FAST + 1MB CHIP. Not too much $$ spent on acceleration, and I guess a decent amount of RAM.


bp

[Leffmann]

I've got an accelerated A1200 myself, and with a hobby like this it doesn't make sense to question why we soup up our Amigas like we do.

It was just meant as an advice in general to people who are looking to get into WHDLoad, as some are easily led to believe that they must get a 28 MHz 68030 with 16M RAM or whatever, to play the same game that ran on their 512K Amiga 500.