PC still playing Amiga catchup

[Hammer]

Have you seen typical driver sets for things like graphics cards these days?

Thanks to direct support for CUDA, PhysX, OpenGL1.0 - 3.0, Direct X (up to v10), Pure Video etc, the drivers for my card alone weigh in at around 100 MB, not including tweaking tools.

The linux drivers aren't much smaller.

NVIDIA drivers includes NVAPI i.e. it enables some of Direct3D 10.1 *like* features on current CUDA processors e.g. FarCry2 PC.

[Hammer]

Someone just gave me an XBOX for $4.  I guess it's not 360, but probably same controllers.

They are not the same controllers.

 Controllers are fancy looking, but they are still analog and confusing due to so many buttons.  Perhaps, they were trying to replace the keyboard with the joystick.  Tried a few games and still ended up doing eenie, meenie, minie moe...I guess they forgot to put in a help button.

If you can handle a PC keyboard, you should be able to handle a well known gaming controller.

Vibration feedback-- is that the propellors that come out of the joystick when player does something wrong and attack the user like Maximillian in the movie Black Hole?

Refer to steering feedback on real life car.

[amigaksi]

Software abstraction layer enables the PC to adapt and not being stuck with a boat anchor.
...

As I said, you can have both APIs and hardware level compatibility.  For PCs, that's a big problem nowadays.

>Most console-to-PC game ports(e.g. Games For Windows) includes support for the Xbox 360 controller.
 
Which port are you referring to as the "console-to-PC" game port?

>I recall Street Fighter II Amiga port didn't capture the arcade feeling i.e. the 1 button joystick standard is one of these issues.

Majority of games don't require the analogicity (can be done with digital joysticks) and don't require 10+ buttons.  They just have to be programmed to use one or two buttons.  Amiga joystick port can handle up to 3 buttons if you use the POTs as buttons as well, but it's easier to use a game with lesser buttons.

>IF there's a direct hardware access, what happens to the security objects?

First you need the hardware compatibility so you have a choice for hardware access.  Then there's obviously the IOPM in intel's processors to implement protection for ports for security purposes.

[jkirk]

As I said, you can have both APIs and hardware level compatibility.  For PCs, that's a big problem nowadays.

actually that is not an issue. if you allow direct hardware access then when the hardware changes you have to emulate the old chips. after a few generations that will be unwieldy as heck. this is why commodore was moving away from this idea of direct access before they died. they were trying to force everyone to create os friendly games and apps. this is so they could phase out hardware compatibility for older software. that was the first phase to allow retargetable graphics and sound.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

If you can handle a PC keyboard, you should be able to handle a well known gaming controller.

Hmno, with some games, digital control is just better, and those well known gaming controllers don't handle that very well, and mostly ends up as a secondary 'analog' controller, or for the use to change weapons, or browsing through inventory.
And with arcade games, use a digital arcade controller (IIRC there's one available, with connectors for quite some gameconsoles and computers). It's just better.

[Daedalus]

Come on, you need more than one button for some games, no amount of programming can make that easier. I don't like the other extreme - the PS1/2/3 controller still annoys me due to the number of buttons. Best controller I've used so far? The Gamecube. Just the right number of buttons, a nice big "Go" button under your thumb, and analogue shoulder buttons that can also be used digitally. But come on, 3 buttons is probably a bare minimum for a lot of games these days to avoid reaching for the keyboard from time to time. I remember hating the Amiga version of Street Fighter compared to the SNES because of the lack of buttons. Less than three might make it easier to play, but imposes tough limits on the flexibility of the game. Hell, I remember Spy Hunter on the Atari 800 had support for a special 2-button joystick (was actually wired as a second joystick's fire button), so you could use 2 different weapons and drive at the same time. It was great!!

[Speelgoedmannetje]

I was referring to this controller: http://www.xgaming.com/two-player.shtml

[DonnyEMU]

It's obvious that people who are responding here about "Games for Windows" here have never done any real DirectX, Managed DirectX, Or XNA Game Studio programming at all and they are just talking out of their proverbial hats.. If you want to talk about support for more than just game controllers and want to add Windows Live and Xbox live including multiplayer over network (IP), and voice and instant messaging  and headset communication, not to mention the upcoming facial recognition and other technologies..

I suggest you visit the following URLs:

http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/AboutGFW/Pages/DirectX10.aspx

http://creators.xna.com/en-US/

I don't think about programming a pots unit anymore, please that's done all for me in a standardized kind of way.. I think more about creating a game for the PC and deploying it on the X-box 360 and Zune (all of which cross port via the free XNA game studio 3.0).. And if you look at creators.xna.com there are all sorts of nice 3d and 2d multi-scroller games with (some are free), or I can program my own and sell it directly on X-box live and they are as good as any Amiga game I had back in the day..

Check out catalog.xna.com and get back with me about this discussion..

[koaftder]

It's obvious that people who are responding here about "Games for Windows" here have never done any real DirectX, Managed DirectX, Or XNA Game Studio programming at all and they are just talking out of their proverbial hats.. If you want to talk about support for more than just game controllers and want to add Windows Live and Xbox live including multiplayer over network (IP), and voice and instant messaging  and headset communication, not to mention the upcoming facial recognition and other technologies..

I suggest you visit the following URLs:

http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/AboutGFW/Pages/DirectX10.aspx

http://creators.xna.com/en-US/

I don't think about programming a pots unit anymore, please that's done all for me in a standardized kind of way.. I think more about creating a game for the PC and deploying it on the X-box 360 and Zune (all of which cross port via the free XNA game studio 3.0).. And if you look at creators.xna.com there are all sorts of nice 3d and 2d multi-scroller games with (some are free), or I can program my own and sell it directly on X-box live and they are as good as any Amiga game I had back in the day..

Check out catalog.xna.com and get back with me about this discussion..

How often do you read from the controller class in XNA (; I bet it's once per render loop.

Done a little bit XNA stuff on the 360 myself. It's a pretty nice environment.

[amigaksi]

actually that is not an issue. if you allow direct hardware access then when the hardware changes you have to emulate the old chips. after a few generations that will be unwieldy as heck. this is why commodore was moving away from this idea of direct access before they died. they were trying to force everyone to create os friendly games and apps. this is so they could phase out hardware compatibility for older software. that was the first phase to allow retargetable graphics and sound.

Hardware is not supposed to suddenly change-- it's suppose to retain backward compatibility like for example 8253 is still in modern PCs although they added other means for timing things.  It's more efficient to do ASM instructions that directly read/write I/O ports than go through API calls.

[bloodline]

Hardware is not supposed to suddenly change-- it's suppose to retain backward compatibility like for example 8253 is still in modern PCs although they added other means for timing things.  It's more efficient to do ASM instructions that directly read/write I/O ports than go through API calls.

Have you ever read the errata page of a modern chip?

[jkirk]

Hardware is not supposed to suddenly change-- it's suppose to retain backward compatibility like for example 8253 is still in modern PCs although they added other means for timing things.  It's more efficient to do ASM instructions that directly read/write I/O ports than go through API calls.

let me come at this from a different perspective.

how many chipsets are there currently?
vid cards?
sound cards?
lan cards?
each brand has their own way of addressing the hardware. there is no one generic hw codeset to directly address all brands of control chips. there is always some functions that will be manufacturer dependant.
now would you really want to program for each one individually or program for 1 api built into the os that does the translating for you?

now to compound this each generation of each manufacturer the direct means of addressing the chipset will change. are you willing to rewrite your program with each new piece of hardware release or would you rather program to a non-changing api that the manufacturer creates interface drivers for.

you see the original amiga and aga amiga had the advantage of being the same hardware regardless of machine so people were able to get away with banging the hardware while programming. this also stiffled what commodore could have done with their chipsets since they had to maintain hardware backwards compatibility. this is why commodore was trying to move people away from doing that.

[Hammer]

As I said, you can have both APIs and hardware level compatibility.

In Windows NT, there are only two I/O privilege levels used i.e. level 0 & level 3. Usermode programs runs in privilege level 3. All usermode programs should talk to a device driver that arbitrates access i.e. to minimise conflicts.

 For PCs, that's a big problem nowadays.

Define this "big problem nowadays." in terms of numbers.  One could write a kernel mode driver for I/O level 0 access. Most PC games talks to DirectInput or xInput APIs i.e. userland programmers do not have worry about specific implementations i.e. makes development easier.  

Refer to ease of development with Xbox 360 vs PS3's "design to be hard development".

IF STI(CELL) has been proper GPU vendor, they would have abstracted SPEs and RSX in similar ways to Direct3D9’s split vertex (a type of stream processor) and pixel shader (a type of stream processor).

IF you notice with PC GPU(a type of stream co-processor array) market, they annually change their micro-architecture i.e. they went from SIMD(Geforce 4 TI), VLIW (Geforce FX), SIMD (Geforce 6/7),  SIMT(Geforce , MIMT**(Geforce GT300). “Hitting the metal”  requires userland software rewrites.

**Rumoured to be MIMT.

>Most console-to-PC game ports(e.g. Games For Windows) includes support for the Xbox 360 controller.
 
Which port are you referring to as the "console-to-PC" game port?

Mostly from Xbox 360 targets (i.e. games installed on my laptop) for example, Fallout3, Devil May Cry, Dynasty Warriors 6, Burnout Paradise IUB, Far Cry2, GRID Race Driver, Gears Of War, Mirror's Edge,  Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., The Last Remnant, Two Worlds (V1.5), Assassin's Creed, Dead Space, Lost Planet, Turning Point (Fall Of Liberty).  Any console/PC games that supports XInput API (i.e. Games For Windows and Xbox 360).

>I recall Street Fighter II Amiga port didn't capture the arcade feeling i.e. the 1 button joystick standard is one of these issues.

Majority of games don't require the analogicity (can be done with digital joysticks) and don't require 10+ buttons.  They just have to be programmed to use one or two buttons.  Amiga joystick port can handle up to 3 buttons if you use the POTs as buttons as well, but it's easier to use a game with lesser buttons.

The Xbox 360 controller assumes lack of PC keyboard access. Note that, the mouse is one form of analogue control.

On Xbox 360 controller
LS = analogue direction e.g. I use it in Grid, Burnout Paradise, H.A.W.X.
RS = analogue POV (changes user's view) e.g. I use it in Grid, Burnout Paradise, H.A.W.K. digital PAD = digital direction
LT = analogue trigger e.g. deceleration.
RT = analogue trigger e.g. acceleration.
LB = digital trigger e.g. E-Brake.
RB = digital trigger.
Y,X,B,A = digital buttons.
Start = start game button.
Back = back button.

In real world controls, analogue controls reigns supreme.

Anyway, AmigaOne, SAM and Peg supports USB type devices.

[Hammer]

Hmno, with some games, digital control is just better, and those well known gaming controllers don't handle that very well, and mostly ends up as a secondary 'analog' controller, or for the use to change weapons, or browsing through inventory.
And with arcade games, use a digital arcade controller (IIRC there's one available, with connectors for quite some gameconsoles and computers). It's just better.

Both PS3 and Xbox 360 controllers must support all type of games at minimal cost.

[Arkhan]

It's obvious that people who are responding here about "Games for Windows" here have never done any real DirectX, Managed DirectX, Or XNA Game Studio programming at all and they are just talking out of their proverbial hats.. If you want to talk about support for more than just game controllers and want to add Windows Live and Xbox live including multiplayer over network (IP), and voice and instant messaging  and headset communication, not to mention the upcoming facial recognition and other technologies..

I suggest you visit the following URLs:

http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/AboutGFW/Pages/DirectX10.aspx

http://creators.xna.com/en-US/

I don't think about programming a pots unit anymore, please that's done all for me in a standardized kind of way.. I think more about creating a game for the PC and deploying it on the X-box 360 and Zune (all of which cross port via the free XNA game studio 3.0).. And if you look at creators.xna.com there are all sorts of nice 3d and 2d multi-scroller games with (some are free), or I can program my own and sell it directly on X-box live and they are as good as any Amiga game I had back in the day..

Check out catalog.xna.com and get back with me about this discussion..

Thats what im sayin.  Theres alot of *classic console*-esque games on the 360, Wii and PS3!

XNA is pretty fun.  We got a game that finally went live recently (a puzzle game), and are looking into what to do next.

[Jpan1]

I think the whole idea of speed is completely relative, to the user...
In my opinion drawing a simple picture is as fast on Dpaint as it is on any modern graphics package, in fact maybe faster on an Amiga because there were less complicated options and less pixels to push around!
The 'feel' of Amiga was definately faster because the programmes were smaller and much more 'economical' and out of the box, ready to use. There are a lot of labour saving devices on the PC but the more complicated and convoluted it gets the less attractive it is to work with. The modern PC is great at processing vast amounts of information but does that make it more enjoyable? hmmm Amiga wins for simplicity and user friendliness