Did Akiko ever get used?

[stefcep2]

gloom had an option to use it, i believe. Maybe the racing game by Siltunna software forget its name.. Akiko allowed chunky graphics in hardware ie doom-type games. One of the reason the Amiga got sidelined as a games machine was Doom on the PC and the prohibitive cost to expand an Amiga an accelerator to do doom-type games.  You know if the A1200 had Akiko it would've made 3d games easier to run for the many users who just had RAM cards, 28 mhz '020 or even slower '030, meaning many people could play them out of the box.

[stefcep2]

alexh wrote:

You know if the A1200 had Akiko it would've made 3d games easier to run for the many users who just had RAM cards, 28 mhz '020 or even slower '030, meaning many people could play them out of the box.

I am pretty sure that is inaccurate.

The Akiko was invented as an alternative to (at the time) expensive FastRAM not CPU power.

Add just some FastRAM to an AGA Amiga and becomes as fast if not faster to use the EC020 than to use an Akiko.

No i am 100% sure that Akiko was provided a chunky graphics option in hardware which meant it was the closest to a 3d chip that commodore made and would have made 3d doom type games run faster as there did not have to be an chunky-planar graphics conversion in software by the CPU.  I am 99.99% sure that Akiko was not alternative to fast ram as evidenced by the fact that the CD32 has 2 meg of chip ram and no more, the same as all AGA machines without akiko.

[stefcep2]

Yes of course the Akiko did do C2P conversion that was it's job. What alexh is trying to say is that if the 68EC020 in the CD32 had access to a little bit fast RAM it would have enough computing power to do ,what Akiko does in hardware, in software.
While I have a fealing that it still takes an 68030 to beat the Akiko with software C2P conversion the bottomline is still Akikos hardware acceleration was not that groundbreaking.

Yes understood but it was my point that an '020 (and probably a slow '030 as well) with fast ram would do C2P slower than the akiko.  it wasn't I think a question of just achieving 020 plus fast ram performance without the fast ram.  to do what the akiko could do out of the box (for little cost) you need an accelerator probably at least 40 mhz '030 in addition to the fast ram. None of which were cheap at the time.  Not ground breaking performance but I bet it could've meant the mass exodus of Amiga gamers to PC may have been delayed that bit longer because people might have been able to play something resembling doom without paying $700 to get an '030 AND 4 meg ram or a $2000 pc.  And don't discount the ability of Amiga programmers to wring out the last drop of performance from amiga hardware..

[stefcep2]

OT Multiplayer death match is fantastic on golden eye.

If you liked goldeneye you'll probably love timesplitters, its by a few of the same guys that did goldeneye.  played it on the gamecube, a lot of fun

[stefcep2]

JLF65 wrote:

Jupp3 wrote:
I think both Shapeshifter and Fusion had akiko enabled video drivers. Never tried, probably they didn't help too much.

Yes, they did, and on a CD32 they were a HUGE help. Remember what kind of system you're talking about there.  ;-)

For what it's worth, back before Doom was open sourced, I had been working on some code to play Doom on the Amiga. I had a number of c2p routines that covered everything from using nothing but the CPU, to using AKIKO, to CyberGfx. One of the routines did one pass with the CPU to reorder the data, then used the blitter to do the c2p. If the app could render in columns (like Doom), the CPU pass could be skipped leaving the blitter to do everything. I could break 20 FPS (at 320x200) on a stock A1200 with that.

And with Akiko?

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Cammy wrote:
There was a really interesting thread on another forum about C2P and DOOM speeds on different Amiga systems. I tested it myself on two of my Amigas, running the DOOM Benchmark, and these are the results I got:

A1200 030/50Mhz 32Mb (Optimised 020 C2P) - 8481 realtics (8.8 fps)
Amiga CD32 68020/14Mhz 8Mb (Optimised 020 C2P) - 18971 realtics (3.9 fps)
Amiga CD32 68020/14Mhz 8Mb (Optimised Akiko C2P) - 12872 realtics (5.8 fps)

I hope this helps clear up some peoples ideas of exactly how fast each of these CPU/C2P combinations are.

The bottom line I guess is this: Akiko DOES work, and DOES make 3D games run smoother (if it's utilised, obviously), but the increase isn't drastic, not as much as adding a 030 at least. I have not tried to run DOOM on the CD32 without Fast RAM (I have a SX32), and I'm not sure if it's possible in only 2MB Chip RAM, but if someone is willing to try writing a startup sequence or something to get it booting, I'll gladly give it a go and report how a CD32 runs the game using Akiko WITHOUT Fast RAM.

Oh, and obviously the Akiko routines for Shapeshifter and Fusion wouldn't be great on a standard CD32, but they might help out if you have a SX32 Pro 030/50Mhz with 32MB RAM or something, with slightly faster screen updates it might be alright to run some older 2D games in colour. Maybe

These figures especially for the 50 mhz '030 seem low to me.  I could remember-I think- doing better than that with optimized versions of Adoom.  I could be wrong as I had a 40 mhz '030 and later a 40 mhz Apollo 1240 '040, so may be I'm confusing the two cards I had.

If they are right then assuming 50 mhz '030 is twice as fast as 25 mhz '030, the Akiko does better than an 25 mhz '030 with fast ram, for a lot less $$