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Running OCS/AGA/RTG Demos

Demo Scenepage  1 2 3 

Nikos Tomatsidis

Posts 66
14 Oct 2020 12:12


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

 
nikos tomatsidis wrote:

  If you kickstart this,
 

 
  Personally, I would NOT kickstart anything in Amiga land.
 
  I believe people should develop what they want.
  And when they finished it and when they did something GOOD, then you should honor this and you should buy it.
 
  Reward people that did something good.
 
 
 

 
  Well, maybe kickstart is the wrong word.
  Do you like me to make a thread about this?
  If people are interested I could talk with Richard?
 
  I know the game "Proxima III" will be released for A1200, CD32.
 
  EXTERNAL LINK 
  This is of cause PAL low res. As said it should work in high-res, RTG on Vampire. Maybe 24-bit 1024x768 and 16 bit-sound.
 
  It is just an idea. Maybe they are not interested.
 
  The most important thing is that the Vampire users would like it to happen. It would be a collective thing. As said it will not be for free but it might kickstart more interest into what can be done on the Vampire. I'm sure it will sell more hardware too.
 
 


Mr Niding

Posts 459
16 Oct 2020 07:37


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

 
Mr Niding wrote:

  Gunnar was the child in this thread tbh   
 

     
  I'm sorry that you feel this way.
  But I think its our job to answer correctly here.
  Please help me understand why you think that correcting wrong posts and busting myth is childish?
   
     
  Some people like for example Matt Hey, or Thomas Richter post a lot fake-news about the Vampire.
  But do you know that none of them has a Vampire or has ever coded on it?
  You will find hundreds of posts of these people about Vampire - posts which are pure fiction.
   
   
  I think its our responsibility to correct fake-news and to post correct information here.
 

 
Oh, I agree with you that the Vampire is a well established platform, and that the concerns demoscene coders have are overblown, from my point of view.
 
THAT said; there have been threads on other forums, where coders has said that they want a platform they know will behave exactly as the original platform, with the same limitations etc.
You also see that the C64 demoscene is alive and well, with amazing releases.
My guess is that many of the demoscene coders do development on modern mainstream platforms as their dayjob, and enjoy the strict limitations of the hardware from their youth. So even if Team Apollo make available a excellent product which is fairly priced considering the unitcount, they still look at it thru their "nostalgica glasses". Thats my impression anyhow.
 
I realise that the compability of the Vampire is excellent, and I already got the V600 and V4 standalone.
 
My "childish" comment was just that you "arrested" Olaf when he made a observation, rather than making his own judgement.
  Olaf might not share the coders point of view, but that doesnt matter, since its not Olafs view we need to change, its the coders ;)
 
So hopefully my comment wasnt too offensive :)
 


Nick Fellows

Posts 176
30 Oct 2020 12:19


As a follower of Demoscene and someone going back to demo programming on the C64 . Im very much looking forward to seeing what i can do with my trusty Amiga 1200 when i get my V1200.

Writing demos is more than just props or winning competitions. Its about doing the seemingly impossible, crafting an art piece through clever programming, making art, writing music and combining these things. Its about learning and keeping old hardware alive and proving it still has uses today.

We should not get caught up in whether or not Vampire counts as a legitimate demo competition platform or not and just get on with making new content. If it has the Wow factor it has the Wow factor regardless . It is us , here on these forums that will decide the future of Vampire and how it shapes the future of the Amiga platform - without the confines dictated to us by the mainstream.

Im 100% sure we havent seen anything even beginning to stretch the Vampire to the limits yet - but i sure as hell want to find out ? Dont You ?


Nick Fellows

Posts 176
30 Oct 2020 15:28


"C64 Hardware does not support samples"

EXTERNAL LINK 
EXTERNAL LINK 
SID chip is way more versatile than you are giving credit for.

OCS quality pictures though - no way.


Mr Niding

Posts 459
30 Oct 2020 17:09


Holy! Antonio Savona sure shows off the C64 :-O


Roger Andre Lassen

Posts 150
30 Oct 2020 20:23


nick fellows wrote:

As a follower of Demoscene and someone going back to demo programming on the C64 . Im very much looking forward to seeing what i can do with my trusty Amiga 1200 when i get my V1200.
 
  Writing demos is more than just props or winning competitions. Its about doing the seemingly impossible, crafting an art piece through clever programming, making art, writing music and combining these things. Its about learning and keeping old hardware alive and proving it still has uses today.
 
  We should not get caught up in whether or not Vampire counts as a legitimate demo competition platform or not and just get on with making new content. If it has the Wow factor it has the Wow factor regardless . It is us , here on these forums that will decide the future of Vampire and how it shapes the future of the Amiga platform - without the confines dictated to us by the mainstream.
 
  Im 100% sure we havent seen anything even beginning to stretch the Vampire to the limits yet - but i sure as hell want to find out ? Dont You ?

Well put !! AMEN



NoXLar - DemoSceneLover

Posts 63
03 Nov 2020 21:59


beautiful said bro, yea.. i really REALLY want to withness this before i die lol


Antony Coello

Posts 153
04 Nov 2020 09:28


nick fellows wrote:

 
  OCS quality pictures though - no way.

Well Nick, Im sure there are more examples in the wild, but I would argue that the below image is pretty close to OCS, considering the less than stellar C64 palette.

Have a look at the picture of the girl here:
EXTERNAL LINK at about 4:52.

That image reminds me of the early Newtek demo pictures for the Amiga. It would also look much better on a 'softer' analog CRT, but Youtube and a flatscreen panel will probably have to do.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
04 Nov 2020 09:43


Antony Coello wrote:

 
nick fellows wrote:

   
  OCS quality pictures though - no way.

 
Well Nick, Im sure there are more examples in the wild, but I would argue that the below image is pretty close to OCS,

I see a blurred video, of a low resolution picture showing a girls face.
While the girl face looks nice we can not see the quality of the picture in this video here and we can not see if the C64 screen flickers like hell.

A common trick you can do to create more colors is showing 2 images with slightly different colors after each other... So between a Dark green and light green you can "flicker-mix" a middle green tone this way.
Of course such tricks are not limited to C64 but also Amiga could create more colors this way ... with flicker-mixing ..

 
How about we argue about this with technical facts?
 
  * C64 has 16 fixed colors.
 
  * AMIGA OCS chipset support 4096 colors.
  A picture can either show 64 colors defined in Palette (2 colors always related with EHB mode) or up to 4096 using HAM mode.
 
  A 320x512 screen with 64 colors would need 120 KB memory.
  The C64 does not even has the needed memory for this.
 
  If you just look at the technical facts about supported resolutions, colors, and modes. Then C64 and Amiga are not in the same ballpark.
 
 
  If you compare Amiga Audio and SID then you clearly see that Amiga audio is designed with sample support and SID not.
  SID can not play samples.
 
  On the C64 you can franticly poke with the CPU into the SID to change the tone... But this is not the same as real audio sample playback.
 


Antony Coello

Posts 153
04 Nov 2020 10:02


You are missing the point Gunnar.

I KNOW the C64 cannot stand a chance against the Amiga and Im not bashing the Amiga.

Im just pointing out how coders/artists when in abundance for a very long time on a fixed computer system can find 'features' in the system, unknown to the original hardware designers which can produce much better graphics/sounds than the original system was intended for. I could have said 'close to' Atari ST/etc, but this forum is primarily Amiga /Vampire focused.

An Amiga example of what I mean is (IIRC) 14-bit audio from Paula. You could say that an AKAI S950 is better than the Amiga in this regard, because it plays (12 bit) samples 'properly', rather than a hack.

Sample playback, whether by sending clean values to a DAC or by switching volume/waveform amplitudes is still playing samples though.




Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
04 Nov 2020 10:11


Antony Coello wrote:

Im just pointing out how coders/artists when in abundance for a very long time on a fixed computer system can find 'features' in the system, unknown to the original hardware designers which can produce much better graphics/sounds than the original system was intended for.

 
I can understand that if you are not a coder then from the outside this might look like this...
 
But I feel that these are all old tricks which are just nicely used.
Flicker-mixing for example is not a new feature.
And its a trade-off you make and the picture gets a lot flickering.
Many people did this before, even I did this in 1984 on the C64.
And also some Amiga games did this. For example on Amiga in Copper backgrounds rainbows this was sometimes used to create more colors.
 
The frantic SID poking is also a very old feature.
How to play samples this way was documented and known from the start. And many old games used this, you will surely recall the "Another Visitor stay a while, stay forever ..." 
While this SID poking was often used it has also many drawbacks.
It eats lot CPU and samples in good quality quick eat all your C64 memory.
 
My point really is that these are all old tricks we all did in the early 80th.
 
Yes these demos use them well and do esthetically nice demos.
But I feel that in reality no new features in the C64 HW were found...


A1200 Coder

Posts 72
04 Nov 2020 11:55


Agreed. You are not in a good company with the C64. The graphics looked crude even back then. A bit like someone would have thrown up on the screen. And those cracking and hissing sounds. And also the very inefficient 8-bit machine code that is even much worse than MIPS assembly. You'll spend a day even writing a 64kB memory copy routine, when it could be done in a few lines on a m68k. No thanks. I owned a C64 back in the days, and do not look back for it this day.

Still art is another matter - but here I get more amazed by some rare artwork made in 640x512 and 256 colors on AGA Amigas. Yeah, I think we should also maybe forget the A500 and the 320x256 resolution and move on, like the rest of the world. For artists - a 640x512 resolution with 256 colors is more than enough for optimizing the pixels and a lot of work, if done by hand. And also enough to most people even by modern standards, if we now ignore 3D games which require much more colors for lighting effects.


Antony Coello

Posts 153
04 Nov 2020 12:13


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

 
  I can understand that if you are not a coder then from the outside this might look like this...
 
  But I feel that these are all old tricks which are just nicely used.
  Flicker-mixing for example is not a new feature.
  And its a trade-off you make and the picture gets a lot flickering.
  Many people did this before, even I did this in 1984 on the C64.
  And also some Amiga games did this. For example on Amiga in Copper backgrounds rainbows this was sometimes used to create more colors.
   
  The frantic SID poking is also a very old feature.
  How to play samples this way was documented and known from the start. And many old games used this, you will surely recall the "Another Visitor stay a while, stay forever ..." 
  While this SID poking was often used it has also many drawbacks.
  It eats lot CPU and samples in good quality quick eat all your C64 memory.
   
  My point really is that these are all old tricks we all did in the early 80th.
   
  Yes these demos use them well and do esthetically nice demos.
  But I feel that in reality no new features in the C64 HW were found...

Well, because I am a coder, I appreciate how technically impressive the actual effects/techniques are; a 'layman' watching a technically superior demo on most systems bar a PC will probably wonder what all the fuss is about.

I think you are perhaps giving the demoscene coders a little less credit than they deserve.

Granted, most of the effects are useless for practicality in real world applications (e.g. games), but I do think the experience and knowledge of the intimacies of the ICs, and how they transact with the machines as a whole, along with their quirks (e.g. illegal/undocumented instructions) bring a better understanding and hence quality of software overall as well as helping boost system emulation accuracy; an area Im sure you would agree is helpful. 



Antony Coello

Posts 153
04 Nov 2020 12:19


A1200 coder wrote:

Agreed. You are not in a good company with the C64. The graphics looked crude even back then. A bit like someone would have thrown up on the screen. And those cracking and hissing sounds. And also the very inefficient 8-bit machine code that is even much worse than MIPS assembly. You'll spend a day even writing a 64kB memory copy routine, when it could be done in a few lines on a m68k. No thanks. I owned a C64 back in the days, and do not look back for it this day.
 
  Still art is another matter - but here I get more amazed by some rare artwork made in 640x512 and 256 colors on AGA Amigas. Yeah, I think we should also maybe forget the A500 and the 320x256 resolution and move on, like the rest of the world. For artists - a 640x512 resolution with 256 colors is more than enough for optimizing the pixels and a lot of work, if done by hand. And also enough to most people even by modern standards, if we now ignore 3D games which require much more colors for lighting effects.

Ok, again, not the point Im making, and I rarely look at the C64 these days myself, but have you actually looked at the audio/demo links? They are not as crude as the 'base' system before the techniques used were in use.

I think I will leave it there.




Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
04 Nov 2020 13:03


Antony Coello wrote:

I rarely look at the C64 these days myself, but have you actually looked at the audio/demo links? They are not as crude as the 'base' system before the techniques used were in use.

 
This is fully correct.
The music plays 1.5 minutes and sounds actually unbelievably good.
This is pretty awesome what he achieved.
 
Of course he did not only use a normal C64.
The smart coder used the C64 plus a memory expansion of 1024 KB extra. This memory is needed to store the music file.
 
The C64 did had 64KB memory.
Its clear that this amount of memory limited the possibilities.
In this example, without the memory expansion he could only play like 4-5 seconds of music.
 
I find it interesting to see what nice tricks you can do if you add a lot more memory.

At the same time of course you could watch a complete
cinema STAR WARS movie in reasonable VHS quality on your Amiga 500 ..
If you only add some gigabytes of memory to it and playback a HAM slideshow.

Saying that I find the music player idea super cool.
Its its hard warming to see.




Stephan Hamers

Posts 22
04 Nov 2020 16:54


Well, I actually wanted to agree with everyone... but that nice picture was unexpected.
I hope it looks the same on the original screen because I actually think it looks better than most of the HAM pictures I have ever seen.
With the HAM pictures I actually expected to see a nice picture, but the blur and distortion actually annoyed me.. I think it is better for abstract images.
And by the c64 I didn't know what to expect, and I saw a picture of a girl, that actually looks like a photo and gives me a better feeling than those HAM pics.
We should have had such quality back in the day with all the XXX rated pics! ;)


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
04 Nov 2020 19:02


Stephan Hamers wrote:

We should have had such quality back in the day with all the XXX rated pics! ;)

So true
Best post so far!


Antony Coello

Posts 153
04 Nov 2020 19:37


Stephan Hamers wrote:

Well, I actually wanted to agree with everyone... but that nice picture was unexpected.
  I hope it looks the same on the original screen because I actually think it looks better than most of the HAM pictures I have ever seen.
  With the HAM pictures I actually expected to see a nice picture, but the blur and distortion actually annoyed me.. I think it is better for abstract images.
  And by the c64 I didn't know what to expect, and I saw a picture of a girl, that actually looks like a photo and gives me a better feeling than those HAM pics.
  We should have had such quality back in the day with all the XXX rated pics! ;)

lol

Thanks for actually looking!

I must sound like a real C64 fanboy. Im not really... just wanted to make a point. Im as passionate with the Amiga.

Recently stayed up to watch Breakpoint 2020 online for the Amigaaa demos. Once the PC ones came on, I went to bed! ;)


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