Cybervision 64 3D questions

[utri007]

I'm interested to know is there any use of 3D chip of that card?

I know that there is virge version of descent, but how about other games? Warp3d?

How about general performance with that card in zorro II mode and how about fast zorro (IV)? Is there noticeable difference?

[Damion]

There's not a huge difference in 2D between Zorro 2 and Zorro 3, but Warp3D is horribly slow in a Zorro 2 machine. I was able to play the Warp3D version of Payback with the card in my A3000, it was playable using a low resolution screen.

[utri007]

So scrolling  hires screen isn't smooth with this card even with zorro III machines??

[matthey]

So scrolling  hires screen isn't smooth with this card even with zorro III machines??

Do you mean with Warp3D? With 2D this card scrolls fast with Zorro II or Zorro III and P96 even on a 68030. It's many times faster than AGA. The Cybervision 64/3D is really a nice card for the Amiga. As for 3D, the Virge is weak and lacks many features but it's still way better than not having 3D. Payback and Quake will probably be too slow unless you have a 68060 and Zorro III but Descent worked on the Virge using hardware where it didn't on my Voodoo4. You should check out the Vague Warp3D magazine (Aminet) too. It's a good example of using Warp3D that doesn't require much CPU power...

http://aminet.net/demo/mag/the_vague_1.lha

A big part of the reason why Warp3D is so slow is that it has horrible optimization. It's so bad that I'm surprised it works at all. I tried to get Hyperian to do a recompile but I didn't get a response. Now I'm going to have to embarrass them. I am disassembling some of the libraries and optimizing them better by hand and reassembling. I have done the LE Voodoo driver 1st and it's being tested. I am working on the Warp3D.library next. It should benefit everyone using Warp3D if I'm successful. It's so bad that it will take a while longer though. I don't have any plans to optimize the Virge specific library so the overall speedup will be modest. The Voodoo driver showed a 14% improvement in 1 test and is 45k smaller.

[utri007]

I know that 2D scrolling isn't fast with this card with zorro II

Games like napalm are better play with 320x256, I quess there is no way that any card wouldn't get better performance with zorro II

[matthey]

@utri007
Did you try with P96 or CGFX? P96 is quite a bit faster in ZII mode for some reason. I thought the scrolling was pretty snappy in a 2000 at 800x600 using IBrowse. Again, that might not seem fast if comparing to Quake on a much faster machine. I would consider it fast for ZII though.