AmiQuake 2 - new 68k Quake 2 Port

[ByteRyder]

Awesome. This is getting better everyday!

@nova I'm wondering would it be possible to use some of the techniques you're using to make AmiQuake 2 faster on AmiQuake and make that a little faster aswell?

[utri007]

When I can download this new version? Is brightness bug fixed?

[Fransexy_]

Finally getting some good speed out of this sucker :blink:

video of v1.06

Seems much nicer to play now too

Back in the day i remember ID software saying Amiga was not captable of run games like DOOM. Today even Quake 2 can run on a classic Amiga. ID software how wrong you were, or how you looked for bad excuses  to not port your games

[NovaCoder]

When I can download this new version? Is brightness bug fixed?

Yep brightness ok now, probably upload it next week.

[NovaCoder]

Awesome. This is getting better everyday!

@nova I'm wondering would it be possible to use some of the techniques you're using to make AmiQuake 2 faster on AmiQuake and make that a little faster aswell?

Yes I do hope to add some Quake 2 code to AmiQuake (eg gun sights) and should also be able to boost the speed a little now.

[utri007]

You start to be quit experienced now You have probably checked many sources when you looked possible game ports? Could you share that information to us? What ports could be possible, what would need to do, what experince would be needed? Do you have some kind of list? Like Alien Breed 3D - TKG code is ASM and completely mess, almost impossible. etc? That would be helpfull, for those who are looking for possibilities.

[NovaCoder]

You start to be quit experienced now You have probably checked many sources when you looked possible game ports? Could you share that information to us? What ports could be possible, what would need to do, what experince would be needed? Do you have some kind of list? Like Alien Breed 3D - TKG code is ASM and completely mess, almost impossible. etc? That would be helpfull, for those who are looking for possibilities.

Yep I've done this a few times  now so this is what I've learned when choosing some older (open source) PC software to port to AGA 68k.

1) Needs to support 8bit obviously
2) Resolution should be 320x240 max (320x200 is better)
3) Obviously needs to use a software rendering engine (no 3D hardware required)
4) Must provide C code and not rely on X86 assembler
5) Must support big endian

It's best to choose an open source project where someone has already gone to the trouble of cleaning the nasty old X86 code up and making it system independent (most of those old DOS games are a bit scary).

Most of the time the thing you want to port will use the SDL so this is currently the steps I typically perform for porting a project using gcc 3.4 (AmiDevCpp).

1) Try and get it working using the old 68k RTG SDL, replace any missing UNIX functions with Amiga equivalents (eg DOS functions).
2) Once it's basically working using the SDL, I replace each SDL area (sound, input, timing, graphics) with Amiga/AGA equivalents (obviously test each stage as it's removed).
3) Remove all debugging/test code that might slow it down (writing to the console or log files is very slow) .
4) Remove any features that would be too slow under AGA (eg multi-player network support, fancy graphical effects, CDROM support).
5) If possible remove multi-threading and run-time type checking (C++).
6) If possible replace any core rendering functions with assembler (my Quake ports only use a tiny bit of assembler but they use it in the right places).
7) Replace memory copy functions and memory allocation functions with their Amiga equivalents.


I'm currently trying to develop a very basic AGA SDL, if I can get this working it would really help with porting more stuff to 68k AGA.

[AmigaClassicRule]

NovaCoder if you do manage to get a full functioning 100% AGA SDL does that mean games in Aminet that I want so badly to run on my Amiga 1200 AGA will be able to be ported and run on AGA without the need of RTG anymore? Like Zelda and so on?

[NovaCoder]

NovaCoder if you do manage to get a full functioning 100% AGA SDL does that mean games in Aminet that I want so badly to run on my Amiga 1200 AGA will be able to be ported and run on AGA without the need of RTG anymore? Like Zelda and so on?

Not sure, might make it a bit easier possibly.

Like I said it will be a very basic implementation of the SDL so not all features will be supported.

[AmigaClassicRule]

Not sure, might make it a bit easier possibly.

Like I said it will be a very basic implementation of the SDL so not all features will be supported.

Can't functions and features in SDL be ported and converted to work in the hardware of the Amiga? Say for example graphics that usually requires RTG in that function will convert the colors and bits and the way it displays it to work in 100% optimization yet maintain the most possible colors in AGA and maintain decent speed? Thus this SDL will only run on AGA as the MOST MINIMUM requirement and RTG card is recommended and the AGA SDL will function better on RTG ? What about sound functions? Can those again be converted to run on PAULA? The function names of the SDL remain the same just the property behind them designed to work on AGA system and the minimum requirement for speed is a 68060 card?

There could be a possibility that maybe not 100% but at least 80% of the SDL function possibly ported and the programmer who is porting SDL games will have to deal with just 20% on their own. Maybe if you could achieve that it would make porting SDL games and even apps much easier on 68k AGA system.

[kickstart]

Back in the day i remember ID software saying Amiga was not captable of run games like DOOM. Today even Quake 2 can run on a classic Amiga. ID software how wrong you were, or how you looked for bad excuses  to not port your games

At this times no one worry about doom games on amiga with the huge amiga game library.

[Hattig]

Back in the day i remember ID software saying Amiga was not captable of run games like DOOM. Today even Quake 2 can run on a classic Amiga. ID software how wrong you were, or how you looked for bad excuses  to not port your games

To be fair they were talking about 14MHz 68020s, not 80MHz 68060s. Even the high-end Amiga was shipping with a 25MHz 68040, which could probably run Quake 2 at around 2 FPS (has anyone tried with this release?).

[matthey]

To be fair they were talking about 14MHz 68020s, not 80MHz 68060s. Even the high-end Amiga was shipping with a 25MHz 68040, which could probably run Quake 2 at around 2 FPS (has anyone tried with this release?).

There is a video on youtube of 68040@40MHz with Mediator+Voodoo 3 running Q2 with Warp3D at probably 10-15fps. I expect this could be 15-20fps with better optimization (the 68k Warp3D code is a disgrace in optimization and Q2 is probably compiled for the 68060 with plenty of room for assembler optimizations). I think 2-5 fps is probably about right on a stock 3640 with 68040@25MHz although it wouldn't run with only the 16MB of memory on the motherboard (another problem). The high end 68040 (with heavy optimizations) and most 68060 accelerators were capable (FPU and memory) but were unusual and often didn't have RTG let alone 3D capabilities. The 68k compilers never optimized as well for the 68040 and 68060 as they did for the 68020/68030. The 68040 and 68060 can do a lot in parallel but code optimization was never really emphasized by Motorola like Intel did for the x86 (or aggressive clock increases). The 68040 could outperform the 486 at a lower clock and the 68060 could outperform the Pentium at a lower clock. The 68060 is absolutely amazing in the hands of a capable assembler programmer. It can do 2 integer instructions (or 1 integer + 1 FPU instruction), 1 FPU instruction and 1 branch instruction in parallel while folding away predicted branches for no cost loops (the decrement and branch is free). The 68060 was probably the best all around processor of that time (and a few years after) but it was doomed from the start as the big users were already planning moves to the RISC promised land (slower for several years without thousands of dollars of memory). Motorola knew then that the PPC would dominate the future and x86.

P.S. Wolfenstein and Doom are another story and could have made money on the Amiga (would have sold a lot of accelerators for the 1200).

[Cosmos]

I remember one Amiga coder who said to me that CodeWarrior on Mac68k is a good C/C++ compilator...

Don't know if it's true or not, I need to check and see...

[Hattig]

There is a video on youtube of 68040@40MHz with Mediator+Voodoo 3 running Q2 with Warp3D at probably 10-15fps. I expect this could be 15-20fps with better optimization (the 68k Warp3D code is a disgrace in optimization and Q2 is probably compiled for the 68060 with plenty of room for assembler optimizations).

That is with a graphics card running the rendering, a slightly different proposition than this AGA implementation of Q2.

P.S. Wolfenstein and Doom are another story and could have made money on the Amiga (would have sold a lot of accelerators for the 1200).

Very true - an accelerator is a lot cheaper investment than a full new PC to play a game, if that game exists.

[Khephren]

I have to disagree, By 1993 could you could buy a PC for less than an A1200 and 030. And get a monitor, CDROM and soundblaster into the bargain. It would be faster as well.

As much as I love my Amiga, let's not try to change history here.