Did Akiko ever get used?

[Jupp3]

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

[bloodline]

@stefcep2

Think of the Akiko c2p as little more than a buffer, the CPU writes the chunky data to the buffer from the chip ram, and then reads it back to the chip ram in a different format... As Alexh has pointed out an 020 with some fast ram and an optimized c2p fast ram to chip ram copy routine can easily outpace the much cheaper Akiko approach :-)

Remember, Akiko's main role was really CDRom stuff.  

Thinking about Commodore would only have needed to add two new modes to Lisa to have remained competitive at the time... A 256 colour packed pixel 640*256 (200 for NTSC) mode and a 256 colour packed pixel VGA mode (640*480)... That would have bought the Amiga at least two more years!!!!

[itix]

@bloodline

Thinking about Commodore would only have needed to add two new modes to Lisa to have remained competitive at the time... A 256 colour packed pixel 640*256 (200 for NTSC) mode and a 256 colour packed pixel VGA mode (640*480)... That would have bought the Amiga at least two more years!!!!

With 68020 at 14MHz without fast ram? Yeah, sure.

[Lorraine]

/

[Tension]

Lorraine wrote:

bloodline wrote:
@stefcep2

Think of the Akiko c2p as little more than a buffer, the CPU writes the chunky data to the buffer from the chip ram, and then reads it back to the chip ram in a different format... As Alexh has pointed out an 020 with some fast ram and an optimized c2p fast ram to chip ram copy routine can easily outpace the much cheaper Akiko approach :-)

Remember, Akiko's main role was really CDRom stuff.  

This is why I say the CD32 is fine as it is. They added a workaround for the sake of making a true console, which its simplistic nature would probably be better if the game supported it.

Adding accelerators and keyboards to a CD32 is just messing around if you ask me. You can't fault what the CD32 does on its own, and accelerators are expensive anyway.

Thinking about Commodore would only have needed to add two new modes to Lisa to have remained competitive at the time... A 256 colour packed pixel 640*256 (200 for NTSC) mode and a 256 colour packed pixel VGA mode (640*480)... That would have bought the Amiga at least two more years!!!!

Isn't that the case? Sad really. Maybe a little fastram but screenmodes were definitely the big thing missing that competitiors had, looking at it historically. (Extra power would be nice but PCs were well behind for a long time)

Someone mentioned the software and games which is always a factor. I remember Goldeneye 007 selling 64s in the masses!

TRUE!!

Gondeneye is the best game for any console ever!!

Its the only reason I got an N64, and the only game I ever really got in to.

[bloodline]

itix wrote:
@bloodline

Thinking about Commodore would only have needed to add two new modes to Lisa to have remained competitive at the time... A 256 colour packed pixel 640*256 (200 for NTSC) mode and a 256 colour packed pixel VGA mode (640*480)... That would have bought the Amiga at least two more years!!!!

With 68020 at 14MHz without fast ram? Yeah, sure.

The Amiga (as in the technology), not the A1200... :-)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Tension wrote:
Gondeneye is the best game for any console ever!!

Its the only reason I got an N64, and the only game I ever really got in to.

Urgh, I never got passed level 1 out of pure boredom. FPS'es on gameconsoles, that's like cycling on a bike with yer hands instead of your feet.
On the other hand, especially race games rule on gameconsoles.

[Lorraine]

/

[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

[JLF65]

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.

[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?

[Crom00]

Well regarding the Akiko Doom routines, have my cd32 connected again. gotta source an at keyboard for my sx-1 and see how Adoom plays again on that hardware. Just for sh*ts and grins.

[JLF65]

stefcep2 wrote:

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?

If you interleaved the writes to chipmem just right, you could go faster. It's like the c2p done with the 030/040 and fastmem - you want enough time between writes to chipmem that you didn't stall waiting on a time slot. The moment you had the first long ready, you wrote it and then continued doing c2p to make time before you wrote the next long.

With AKIKO, too many programmers just looped over the entire screen sending eight longs to AKIKO, then writing back the eight long from it. While that works, they're wasting time that could be spent doing something else. Most of the time in such a loop is spent waiting for free chipmem slots.

[Cammy]

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

[stefcep2]

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 $$