Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?

[Thorham]

Probably. I have a 64 megabyte stick in my A1200, and it's very useful when using Brilliance and Adpro together with large images. I used to have 16 megabytes, and that wouldn't be enough here.

[Thorham]

Total Chaos AGA takes 32MB.  But that is only because so many people starve their Amiga of memory.  So I had to make the game all cut down and squished into only 32MB.

I don't see how something like Total Chaos actually needs 32 megabytes. The graphics can be done in lowres with a lower number of colors, for example, and still look good, while at the same time increasing the speed. This makes the same game accessible to more people.

If everyone had a proper 3GB of RAM.  Or maybe say 2GB Fastram + 256MB gfx card ram then game coders could make better games.

Wrong. A quality game depends on the quality of the game engine, not all the hoopla around it. Take games like Advance Wars and Fire Emblem for example. Can be done properly on an A1200 with a hard drive and some fastmem in the trapdoor.

Also, what kind of a game are you thinking of that needs 3 gigabytes on an Amiga? Sounds crazy.

If ppl insist on keeping their Amigas in the 1980s with 1980s memory levels then Amiga gaming will get stuck.

Amigas need some fastmem and maybe a '030 for good games.

I can't imagine trying to get by with only 4MB in 2012.

For the more serious persuits, more is obviously better, yes.

Amiga: Sporting a 4096MB memory map since 1985.

Not really. The 68000 has a 24 bit address bus, and can therefore only address 16 megabytes. Same for the 680ec20 in the A1200. Further more, AmigaOS may have issues with anything above 2 gigabytes

[Thorham]

Our latest artist made his first monster animation.  It had like, 1200 frames of animation.  So that is 1200 x 1152 bytes on AGA.  Multiply by 16 for gfx card, lets say 20MB.  That is 1 little monster. 1.  There are thousands of monster anims in the game.

And how exactly does that make a game good? Does a good game need 1200 frames of animation for a single monster, or does it need a good game engine with good AI and good controls? Also, quantity isn't the same as quality. Those 1200 frames won't do you any good if they don't look good.

[Thorham]

Well, for starters, the better game artists actually understand the constraints of digital art and are willing to work within them.

Indeed. Anyone and their cat can create thousands of crappy looking hires frames of animation, but it takes tremendous skill to produce something good looking in lowres and only five frames.

[Thorham]

Its an Amiga.  It does gfx.  Why limit it?

Because it reduces requirements, and well made lowres, low frame graphics will still look good if made by a skilled artist.

There are also things like variables, AI, Scripting Language, the game records itself while playing,   etc.

Sure, but that doesn't need many megabytes.

There are 8 screenbuffers of the size of the screen for calculating special fx.  That is a big chunk of RAM all by itself.   I would like to use a lot more but then I break the 32MB barrier. :/

Perhaps you should try to write highly optimized routines in assembly language so that you wouldn't need eight screen buffers. Show me a video of where this is really required.

Also, technically u can shoehorn the game to just barely run on a 24MB Amiga.

Technically, you can do an equivalent game without excess graphical weight with around four megabytes of fastmem. It's not about the graphics, it's about the game. Games like this don't need highres graphics with dozens of frames. Graphics like that should be an option.

[Thorham]

As I already explained in the other thread:

NewAllocMem()
The old AllocMem() suxxored.  This NewAllocMem() r0xx0rz.  Use it to allocate all the ram you want in the upper 2GB of the Amiga's memory map. KTHANXL8RBYE :banana:

And which OS version is NewAllocMem part of? 3.9? I don't have 3.9 and don't want it. Software should work on KS2+, unless it needs AGA.

Also, most software uses AllocMem or AllocVec, and unless those are patched, you can forget more than two gigabytes (which isn't needed anyway).

[Thorham]

Since you, and various other people in various threads are morally opposed to having 4GB of ram on the Amiga Megacomputer I have decided to stop harping on it.  I will stop talking about the 4GB limit if you do?

> OK

Ok.

I'm not morally opposed to filling up the address space completely. It would be cool for the novelty factor alone, but if the OS, by default, only supports half of that, then there's no point in having it... which actually sucks massive turds

Which leads me back to NewAllocMem and NewAllocVec: Which OS revision are they part of, and can they work with KS2/3?

[Thorham]

If PS3 games can use 256MB then Amiga games should be allowed to use 256MB, right?

Of course, but could you give an example of a hypothetical Amiga game that would need 256 megabytes?

[Thorham]

A unlimited number of games can be written in the future that need 256MB or more.

I have a hard time with comming up with anything. Can you give me a concrete example of a hypothetical game that would need 256 megabytes of ram?

[Thorham]

Its this kind of thinking that hinders us. Its ridiculous to code for the least common denominator when accelerators and ram expansions are plentiful.

It depends on the game. For some games, high specs aren't needed. If a game truly requires higher specs, then it's obviously no problem, because it simply can't be done on lower specs anyway, and there's no reason at all to not make something just because it can't be done on low end machines.