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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: fishy_fiz on February 14, 2011, 12:00:06 PM
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Firstly to save anyone the time, I'll mention this is a sort of hypothetical thread, so if they normally bug you, this one probably will too :) That said, I'd like it to mostly be grounded in feasible ideas.
For years I've had a bit of a fixation in wanting to know what sorts of results can be obtained in a game tailored to the amigas hardware with an expanded aga machine. We have many Doom/Quake clones, a few racers, and a couple of RTS games that will utilise a faster system, but to my knowledge nothing tailored specifically to the amigas hardwares strengths. All the games that utilise the extra hardware, while still often decent games, are more suited to a pc style hardware (including rtg/rta/etc based systems here). While this is fine, it doesnt satisfy my curiousity about AGA coupled with a faster cpu and fast ram.
Now granted AGA only has limited bandwidth itself, so I dont expect a faster cpu to remove other bottlenecks, but as even a stock a500 machine demonstrated (Shadow Of The Beast, Brian The Lion, LionHeart, Elfmania, Stardust, etc, etc.) it's how you us that bandwidth, and its possible to create nice effects without eating into it. Now couple this with a little extra cpu speed for extra graphical effects (not necessarily extra gfx (ie. not putting much extra strain on gfx output) and extra ram to temporarily store gfx and sound, and the cpu power to use that data fairly seemlessly and in theory we couldve seen some much more impressive 2d games for upgraded amigas than we did.
Unfortunately it appears all classic amiga games developers with the resources to find out have gone the way of the Dodo. I have fantasies of winning the lottery one day going all out and trying to find out, but for now I'll have to settle for wondering. I really see no reason the results shouldnt be closer to the the 32bit consoles of the era than the 16bit ones for 2d.
In a hypothetical scenario, what gamestyles would people like to see that take advantage of an expanded AGA machine?
Game styles I think could work very well are things like Snes style RPGs. Even a stock a1200 can do a reasonable attempt (Speris Legacy), so throw in some decent storage space, speach, some nice over the top gfx effects for spells and so on, and there's really no reason an expanded AGA machine couldnt outdo a Snes in that style game.
A point 'n click style game is another that could be a lot more modern vs. what amiga original p 'n c adventures we have from yesteryear.
I'd also personally like to see a beefed up Shadow Of The Beast, particularly in the style of no.3.
I'd also love to see a polygon based racer with the polygon count up a little vs. what was available in the amigas heyday.
Anyway, I'll leave the rambling there. This is half nostalgia, half wishful thinking I think :)
Who knows, if I stick to one of my projects long enough I might get to a point that I answer my own curiousity :)
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This thread wouldn't have been influenced by the recent news of the NatAmi would it? :hammer:
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Heh, I can see why it might seem that way, but it's actually something Ive thought about for a long time, pretty much since the era of every 2nd amiga coder doing thier own attempts at doom :) It (the thread) was inspired by a combination of that, and a few threads here recently that made me realise that the average classic amiga setup these days is capable of games much "better" than most of what is available to it. I guess with things like Natami, expanded minimigs, actual classics (of which these days aga+ at least '030 and fast ram seems to be the norm) there might be hope for some brave souls to have a crack at developing games a little more reflective of the hardware its running on :)
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The NatAmi's SuperAGA functionality should remove most limitations that AGA had, especially regarding chip set speed for functions like the blitter.
Even the FPGAArcade should be able to clock the chipset bus faster than the Amiga's 3.5MHz, which would increase capability significantly, and better match the ~50MHz 68030 performance the soft-CPU has.
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Sure, but the idea isnt to remove limitations, it's to see what's possible within the limitations. Classic Amigas already have more powerful graphics subsytems available to them, but my interest is in seeing what aga is capable of given the opportunity in a game (which is never really was)
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Iv'e often wondered this as well. I remember AGA games as being tweaked ECS versions, or attempts to copy PC style games.
Now I hanker for updates in the style of games I loved, perhaps higher res, or more effects and colours, and using the HDD as default. Also, I played some NeoGeo shooters with rotaing sprites. I'm sure an 030 could do that, the same with a lot of the fighting games.
so...
A proper fighter for 030 with more than two button support.
A nice RTS with hand drawn artwork, rather than renders (something that looks a bit like the Bitmaps 'Z', perhaps. )
something like 'cybercon 3', but more detailed. with lots of line and filled vectors. I might be weird, but I like plain filled polys. Probably why I love 'rez' on the dreamcast. Actualy, more filled poly games in general. I remember a lot of sims on the A500/A1200 using dithering on a 16colour screen -we could now do away with that, and add more detail into the bargain.
A nice first person RPG, lie EoB or DM. on a nice fat HAM8 screen, with lovely renders done in a modern 3D program. That would look lovely!