The fall of amiga, just a thought :)

[bloodline]

Not really.

Hardware is the biggest limiting factor at all times. The Amiga for example had no 16bit or 24/32bit graphic mode with instantly eliminates a whole class of effects.

The better the Hardware the harder it gets pushed.

[bloodline]

Crumb wrote:
But it has ham8, and used with care it allows you to have low-res pseudo truecolor screens (just check some TBL demos)

Don't get me started about HAM-8 :-D

It's a horrible horrible mode, it's only use is as a memory saving device.

I spent ages trying to get it to do something useful, but to no avail, The amount of CPU time required to workout each pixel is so large that there is no time left for anything else :-(

Anyway, with proper 16 and 24/32 bit modes you can do transparencies and other Alpha effects, not to mention the speed at which you can manipualate Chunky graphics ;-)

[bloodline]

8megs!!! you had 8megs!!!... in my day we had to make do with a bucket... ;-)

Yes, HAM was a great memory saver for Still images and Anims, but try to do any clever coding and you quickly run out of CPU cycles :-(

[bloodline]

saimo wrote:
@Crumb

Now this does get me started :-p
You see, for years I have been working hard on a freeware library that pushes AGA & M68k to the max (at least, the max I could) to create new and fast video modes to be used for demos and games for - guess what - classic Amigas.
After the release I got some feedback, yet I never heard of any production that makes use of it, which felt a bit sad... does anybody know anything about this? The piece of software in question is the tcs.library, which, among a lot of features, offers fast c2p (320x256 at 50+ FPS on an A1200+Bz1230) and things like dual playfield made of 2 separate and indipendent 8-bit screens blended with freely selectable degree of transparency (yes, that makes 65536 colors on screen)... listing all the features would be too long here, but this should be enough for identification.
I admit it: this is a piece of self-advertising :-p but anyway is an example (just one of the many) of how our beloved HW can be twisted, differently from what happens today with standard HW and libraries (please note that I'm not saying that they are bad - at most, I'm complaining about the programmers' attitude).

Well, I guess you all have enough of this, so I'd better sign off.
saimo

But if you think about what you are saying you realise I'm right :-)

Your library is using the Amgia Chipset as nothing mroe than a LowRes Frame buffer (and  lame one at that). You are moving more and more work on to the CPU, which in turn requires you to upgrade the CPU.
Your argument has the illusion of working because we are able to upgrade the CPU. but if you tried to do any complex modern effects with a Stock A1200, you would soon realise the hardware is a massive limitation.
And for the record, Lowres displays are not suitable for modern effects. I'm embarrased if I see anything less than 800*600 now.

Yes the Amigas hardware was great. But it was designed for the 2D era. Commodore never put money into the AAA chipset (which work started on once the A1K was released). If the AAA chipset had been released with it's 3D friendly design, the computing world as we know it would be very different now.

@minator

Flood is a reclusive music producer who has produced the majority of Albums in my music collection. I just happened to meet him in a club one night.

[bloodline]

[NITPICKING/KIDDING MODE]

I wonder which software that displays graphics on screen does not use part of the Amiga chipset as a frame buffer

[ENOUGH OF THAT MODE]

I mean not using any of the Chipset features :-D

Do you say so because it's what the hints I gave suggest to you, because it's what you think in general of c2p engines or because you have seen the library in action and you did not like it (in that case, were you using HW that supported SHRES? A 15 kHz monitor or a suitable scandoubler? For example, the Picasso IV output is not good)?
I'm just asking - if that's criticism, it's very welcome.

No, I was not talking about your software. I mean the Amiga chipset makes a very poor frame buffer. It has limited memory, limited resolution and useless bandwidth. Modern AGP cards make very good frame buffers :-)

If you had read (carefully) the posts I did in this thread or the documentation I distributed with the library, you would not have said so (I guess), because the primary goal of my library is exactly providing c2p for free (i.e. _no_ CPU calculations), and it succeeds in that. Thus, I'll assume that your comments came from the concept of c2p in general.
It's true, however, that for better visuals than the ones of no-CPU modes (because of intrinsic HW limitation) the CPU (+Blitter, optionally) must be used - but, again, that is _not_ strictly necessary.
Still, the aim is having a fast c2p just because of the slowness of M68ks, and so the library tries to relieve the CPU from the load as much as possible by using what the HW offers.
Note that if I had relied on CPU upgrades I would have had no reason to sweat so much on my c2p engine.

I'm sorry, I haven't looked at your code. I thought about c2p myself and the only why I could do it was using the CPU alone.
My idea was to take an 8bit chunky buffer and turn it into 8 1-bit buffers that correspond the the bitplanes of the AGA amiga hardware, then coppy them over in one go to the chipram. It was very CPU intensive.

What? Absolutely not!
Believe it or not, the library was entirely coded on a A1200+Bz1230... I could never afford a 060 card!
That is exactly what made me try so hard and produce that library: trying to squeeze everything I could out of my weak (but flexible) HW.

:-) That is fun. But you did upgrade your CPU :-D

[bloodline]

saimo wrote:
@bloodline

:-) That is fun. But you did upgrade your CPU :-D

Huh! I missed this bit, before! - IE (don't blame me, I'm at the office ;-)) rendered everything until ":-)" and then stopped... a bug of XOOPS, maybe? :-?

Anyways: the library was started when I already had the card, but its main objective was CPU-free c2p so that even an unexpanded A1200 could do well with it - and given that it does offer CPU-free modes, the 020's little CPU time can be used for other things ;-)



saimo

So how does your C2p work without the CPU then?