Natami

[kolla]

This is exactly the problem that RTG already solved in 1993.

But RTG never solved the problem, it just worked its way around it. RTG never _replaced_ native displays, it just added more on the gfx board, never would the gfx board run the native displays. With SuperVGA however, you do replace native displays, and the new ones you add also run on the very same chipset. RTG is pointless since there is just one chipset to worry about here, unlike gfx cards of which there are so many.

I'm not saying don't expose the hardware to metal bashers who want to do so for fun, but for OS clean stuff, using RTG seems logical. Pick either P96 or Cybergraphics and make a clone API that runs on SAGA.

But why bother with CGfx and P96? Here you at last have capable native Amiga hardware, why would you want to toss a layer of drivers systems with dubious licensing issues in between?

Then you get to run all the RTG compatible software. The same applies to AHI and SAGA's improved Paula.

Geh - no! This is exactly the opposite of what this project is about :laughing:

There is no 3D engine for AmigaOS that runs on native chipset AFAIK, Warp3D at al all require RTG in form of CGFx or P96. On the other hand I dont know of a single game or piece of software that uses Warp3D and that is really worth the extra effort it would require to be compatible. IMO, Natami does the right thing when ignoring whatever happened after 1993

[kolla]

And how much current software is going to be able to take advantage of the new screenmodes?

Depends how it's written. Some software will happily gobble up the extra chipram and faster graphics, for example DPaint might be able to happily animate fast in 1080x720 HAM8 modes. How does that work on UAE?

Now, I may be wrong on this, but I thought the whole point of using something like cgfx or p96 was to avoid this very issue - you write to allow the use of APIs without having to worry about the underlying chipset. Thus, when you upgrade you get more features at a much lower cost in terms of hardware development.

Correct. But you seem to forget what Natami is about. Doesnt it strike you somewhat strange to argue about chipsets when the Natami will use a 68k processor? It's very much a souped up Super MiniMig, not a SAM or Pegasos replacement, for crying out loud.

Indeed many of the problems with the Amiga and not being able to shed the "classic" chipset is down to people writing direct to the hardware.

And that is exactly what Natami is about, letting people have some hardware to write directly to again

Quake runs on AGA, poorly, but it runs.

Is that really the best you can think of? :laughing:

Question is, is it worth the effort of learning to bang the hardware (again) when there are APIs that are current on the Amiga and already have software to use on them.

Again, you seem to have forgotten (or never grasped) what Natami is about. It's for those who already know how to bang hardware, and would like to keep banging hardware, and for those of us who can enjoy what comes out of it all, and can afford it.

The rest of you should rather look for better hardware for OS4.x and MorphOS instead of wasting time on this useless debate

I have to be honest, the way you're describing it... Certainly from a user's perspective you just made the whole deal that much less appealing. The idea of purposefully disallowing a huge amount of software (or at the very least, hobbling it) does seem very counter-productive. It's like taking all the shortcomings of Amithlon but with much less of the benefit.

Correct - you're learning now

[kolla]

Citation?

Open up your nearest Cisco router and have a peek :laughing:

[kolla]

I wouldn't know, I stopped using DPaint about the time I first picked up PPaint. Having a graphics card on the A3k it simply didn't make any sense to continue to use it.

I used both alot, but animating in PPaint was pain compared to DPaint.

I'm not arguing chipsets.

You were arguing that they should use RTG for SuperAGA.
But then, what would be the point of SuperAGA?

Indeed, why isnt the Natami project rather about building a PowerPC machine with common graphics card etc?

And here was me thinking that was to allow users to actually use their software on hardware that wasn't over a decade old.

That still applies though, as most software also runs just fine on native AGA chipset without any RTG around.

[kolla]

I wonder how long it'll be before people look back and laugh at the concept of non programmable hardware.

Not too long I hope, fast softcore CPUs and chipset will solve all our current  hardware problems

Also means that pretty much the last gasp of market space that the ppc occupied is under attack.

PowerPC has been in the middle of this all the time, it's been common for years to use FPGAs with integrated PowerPC cores.

[kolla]

1) cgx/picasso96 applications won't work

As expected.

2) no truecolor modes

I remember I used to run HAM8 screen for IBrowse back in the days

3) no chunky modes, for example updating single pixel on 256 colour screen requires 8 read-modify-write cycles

What software would benefit from chunky modes anyways, apart from quake/doom ports and mac emulators?

Even if you would optimize the blitter and memory accesses processing everything in planar would still be horribly ineffective.

But it would be the fastest thing around for DPaint! :laughing:

[kolla]

Nothing is stopping a cgx/picasso96 driver from being written that will handle these cases, and it would integrate seamlessly with native modes, sprites, draggable screens and all.

Wanna bet? I see lots of legal stuff standing in the way along with a bunch of nay-sayers :hammer: