Amiga demo won at Assembly 2006!

[Hyperspeed]

ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2006/assembly06/demo/tbl-starstruck-partyversion.zip

This refuses to download with IBrowse... is this due to limitations of IB2.3 (demo version) or is it not doing FTP properly?

Currently downloading on Voyager 2.95...

If the music was an integral part of the demo experience and it was created on a PC and played back via ADPCM then that's cheating a little.

It's like claiming you painted the Mona Lisa after drawing a moustache on it. Or Something...

:-D

[Piru]

If the music was an integral part of the demo experience and it was created on a PC and played back via ADPCM then that's cheating a little.

No, really it isn't. C64 demo graphics was made on Amigas for years. Today they probably use photoshop etc. I doubt anyone is pissed at the C64 ppl for not using their C64 to create the content...

IMO you can use whatever tools and computers you have while creating the demo/intro, but in the end the thing must run on the target platform.

[Hyperspeed]

by Piru:
IMO you can use whatever tools and computers you have while creating the demo/intro, but in the end the thing must run on the target platform.

I'll warm to that argument only when I find out that a PC demo was helped along with Lightwave, Deluxe Paint or Octamed Soundstudio!

;-)

Did StarStruck use your '060 optimiser as used on some other impressive demo with a waterfall?

Anyway, I downloaded the demo and it is very nice. I'm sure they've used the floating woman and fish-style animation before on a previous demo though.

The landscape thing was clever and the robots nicely animated. The 3D in general was very impressive, especially on AGA.

To take up nearly 35MB though is not in keeping with the Amiga ethos and it would have been cooler to keep the soundtrack as a module.

It loaded nice and quick but I thought it was too short (maybe because everything was so cool!).

Well done to them for coding it for AGA and keeping the Amiga a subject of hot conversation. If only some of these 3D routines made it into AmigaOS4 games!

[Piru]

@Hyperspeed

Did StarStruck use your '060 optimiser as used on some other impressive demo with a waterfall?

I doubt it. Speedychip is obsolete with any recent 68060 library (I managed to convince the library author that it was a safe modification).

[Leo_69]

Guys, I need your help. How do I load a starstruck.exe into WinUAE ? Do I have to mount it as a floppy ? Or what ?
I've got workbench 3.1 and I have no idea how to load this exe...Please explain this to me  :-(

[Karlos]

Hyperspeed wrote:

To take up nearly 35MB though is not in keeping with the Amiga ethos and it would have been cooler to keep the soundtrack as a module.

Why? The ADPCM audio probably wasn't even decompressed into RAM. I have a 4 bit ADPCM style routine that reads 32-bit words (containing 8 4-bit delta values) into a register and in a series of shifts and adds, writes out 8 16-bit samples directly to the destination and it's faster than decompressing everything in advance and playing it, simply because you move less data per output sample. ADPCM is almost like the sonic equivalent of HAM :-P

Anyway, how many people with a 68060 powered AGA and/or RTG system have less than 64MB now?

[Karlos]

Leo_69 wrote:
Guys, I need your help. How do I load a starstruck.exe into WinUAE ? Do I have to mount it as a floppy ? Or what ?
I've got workbench 3.1 and I have no idea how to load this exe...Please explain this to me  :-(

I assume you have your 3.1 install on a hard disk (be it real, a folder or a hardfile) under UAE?

Make sure you are running with AGA emulation enabled. I found 320x240 32-bit is the best fullscreen mode for watching this partcular one. You dont need collision detction or cycle exact blitter emulation, so you can turn that off if you want a bit more speed.

For the sound, the demo pumps out 22kHz mono, so anything at least 22kHz mono is sufficient.

For the CPU, set up 68040/JIT emulation (I suspect 020+fpu might work too). Make sure you set it to "fastest possible but maintain chipset timing".

Make sure you have at least 64MB fast RAM set up (Z3 fast in the memory settings). You'll also need 2MB chip ram set up.

To get the demo into UAE, mount a folder on your PC as a hard drive, having extract the zip file into it.

Boot your UAE with all the above settings, open a shell and go to the drive you extracted the zip to and be sure to cd into whatever folder was created when you extracted the zip. More than likely zip has trashed the file protection bits. In your shell, type "protect Startstruck.exe +e". Then run it :-)

[Leo_69]

@Karlos

Thanks mate.. I actually did everything as you said and I get this:



Something is still not right here I guess. Any idea ?

[Karlos]

Hmm. Are you absolutely sure you have it set to 68040 emulation? The only time I saw that was when I accidentally left it set to basic 68020 with no FPU.

Which version of UAE is this?

[InTheSand]

Karlos wrote:
how many people with a 68060 powered AGA and/or RTG system have less than 64MB now?

Oh, just me then! AFAIK, my A1200's ol' 68060 accelerator will only take a 32Mb SIMM :violin:

 - Ali

[Karlos]

It's not an Apollo 1260 by any chance is it?

[InTheSand]

Yep! That's the one, bought from eBay at great cost several years ago!

And it no longer keeps the clock backed up... I guess the battery is part of the white thing next to the EPROM, but I don't really feel like de-soldering it, unless it's in danger of leaking...

 - Ali

[Leo_69]

@ Karlos

I finally managed to enjoy the demo. :-)

Thanks a lot,mate. I couldn't have done it without your help..  

[Hyperspeed]

The demo reminds me of the Manga animation 'Ghost in the Shell'!

To load it quick I use a Project icon (TBL_Starstruck.info) with C:IconX as it's default tool, a text file called TBL_Starstruck then does:

CD Demos:TBL_StarStruck/
Run >NIL: StarStruck.exe

It's a good way to load it quick, I'm not a big fan of Shell. Wonder if it should have a high stack value or something... I occasionaly get a bit of judders when the robot spider runs under those girders...

Also, it needs a reboot after watching as it doesn't free all the memory.

I think it's topped my favourite demos list though!

:-D

[jmbattle]

Just boot without startup-sequence, run setpatch, CD to the directory and run the executable.

James
x

[Hyperspeed]

No, no no!

The CLI is completely banned from my entertainment routine. I want to double click and watch.

:-D