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Author Topic: Curse of the SDL  (Read 24792 times)

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Offline fishy_fiz

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Re: Curse of the SDL
« on: August 05, 2011, 04:19:53 AM »
While I do agree that it's a shame that there's little entertainment software that takes advantage of more "powerful" 68k Amigas I do understand why SDL and other less native api ports have become the main source of software for amiga based systems.
 There's simply not enough coders left that know how to program specifically for the Amiga, not to mention it's more work to do so, and it's not easy to find good documentation to make amiga "native" software. SDL, Allegro, etc. however have a plethora of examples, tutorials and so on plastered all over the net. Things like gfx.lib, ahi, and so also often require more work due to the need to write a lot more own functions and whatnot vs. something like SDL (especially when it comes to games).

There's also the simple fact that more advanced games (stuff beyond stock a500/a600/a1200/etc) is a lot of work. If commercial companies from back in the day rarely made things that wouldnt today be called very retro, then its going to be hard for Joe Public to do it from his bedroom. On top of this it's *very* difficult to find people to work with that stick with things and maintain conviction. The sheer volume of work required to make a game to match the specs of a nicely upgraded amiga is either something beyond 1 person, or something that will take years.

All this said and done however, with the advent of things like minimig, natami, fpga arcade, and the fact that most people using 68k amigas have a higher base spec than yesteryear I still have hopes that maybe us 68k fans might still see a nice "amiga native" game or 2.   :)
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline fishy_fiz

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Re: Curse of the SDL
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2011, 04:23:15 AM »
Oh, and in regards to ScummVM, latest 68k ports dont use sdl.

It's a shame I lost the warpsdl sdk though. Its both much faster and works with aga.
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline fishy_fiz

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Re: Curse of the SDL
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2011, 04:01:29 PM »
Having recently set up amithlon again Im thankful for SDL and the software it bring to a more powerful "68k amiga" system, but I love my a1200+40mhz appollo '040+32 meg as well.
 While such a system is humble in modern terms there's still potential there that was unfortunately never really tapped. Yes there's games that can take advantage of faster hardware, but only really fps and other 3d games, nothing to push the strengths of an '030 upwards +fast ram based aga machine in the way shadow of the beast, elfmania, super stardust,etc. push a 7-ish mhz 68000 +ocs/ecs or 14ish mhz 68ec020  +aga respectively.

There's plenty of gaming styles that the amigas hardware lends itself nicely to. Just look at its catalogue. Chances are there's at least a few classic amiga games that everyone would like to see (for more random examples) upped from 16/32 colors to 64/128, sound enhanced, a few extra nice gfx effects, full speech, extra animation and a bunch of other quite feasible "enhancements".  

If nothing else maybe this untapped potential (for games) of expanded aga machines will motivate me to make a "serious" classic amiga game  :)
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline fishy_fiz

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Re: Curse of the SDL
« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2011, 07:41:11 AM »
Sorry for the off topic-ness, but:

Curse Of Monkey Island,... awesome game  :)  I didnt really like it much at 1st seeing as I was stuck at the start and it at 1st appears different to the 1st 2, but once I worked out how to get off the boat it quickly became (and still is) one of my fav. ever games. The fact that Id not played it (along with many scummvm games) before helped it feel like a "new" amiga game to me too (played it on my a1200)  :) Wish I could go back in time a few years to a time Id not played it and experience it all again :)

I even own 2 (original) copies, just incase something bad should hapen to one of them :)

@Novacoder

Any particular reason youve only supported certain games in your ScummVM builds? I recently got a copy of Broken Sword that Id love to play on my Amithlon box :) If it's not too much of a chore is there any chance you could do a full build please ?
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.