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Author Topic: The fall of amiga, just a thought :)  (Read 6224 times)

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Offline Waccoon

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Re: The fall of amiga, just a thought :)
« on: April 26, 2004, 10:24:00 AM »
I miss the funky effects that could only be done in software, like making fur grow on cubes, lightshows, home-grown antialiasing, realtime halftone filters, voxels, etc.  I also miss smoothness.  Just about every game these days boasts about getting 100+ frames per seconds, but they still keep VSync turned off to make their benchmarks look good, and studdering and tearing are the result.  I don't think anybody realizes that if you're getting framrates higher than your refresh rate, you're just wasting electricity and making your graphics look WORSE.  If you're going that fast, you might as well turn on VSync and kill the tripple buffer.  That's probably the only reason why I still think consoles can compete against PCs.  PCs are all about raw numbers and features, but consoles are all about smooth motion.  Ratchet and Clank for the PS2 still amazes the hell out of me, even though Need for Speed Underground and Far Cry on the PC have a million times as many special effects in their engines (plus, R&C is a lot more fun!)  ;-)

A few things I really wish you saw more in demos are realtime fractals, and textures generated on the fly.  64K demos are still pretty amazing for making do with pure math, but you don't see mandelbrots spinning and zooming all over the screen.  A pure, animated fractal demo would rock.  I have an animated fractal for my screensaver (JuliaFractal), and it really amazes me how fast you can generate these objects on modern hardware.
 

Offline Waccoon

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Re: The fall of amiga, just a thought :)
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2004, 01:03:57 AM »
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I wish I could quote, but this browser (handheld stuff) does not seem to be capable.

To quote, type "[ quote ]" (minus the extra space) to start the quote, then "[ / quote ]" to end the quote.  Just make sure it parses correctly.

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As for triple buffering, a good implementation does perform VB synchronization... actually I think that without it is entirely spoiled of its meaning.

Lag is still a problem, but then, I dont' think in terms beyond 72 Hz and 64MB frame buffers.  I suppose if you can spare the memory.  I still prefer playing games on consoles, though.  Knowing the exact performance limits of your hardware is a very helpful (if lazy) thing.  ;-)