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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

PC-Based Copper. Maybe Could Be Used for Vamp RTG?

Amiga Noob

Posts 33
11 Nov 2020 09:32


I recently stumbled upon a method to do rasters in PC by using VSYNC-OFF Tearlines:
EXTERNAL LINK 
This method is actually used on WinUAE called "Lagless Vsync Mode"

Maybe this could be useful for Vampire RTG to emulate copper?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
11 Nov 2020 09:36


SAGA on V4 has a real Copper ...
So all good.


Amiga Noob

Posts 33
11 Nov 2020 09:50


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

SAGA on V4 has a real Copper ...
  So all good.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, I thought V4 RTG is not yet controllable by copper due to P96. And I think even if V4 will be able to integrate Planar/RTG/PiP, this could still be useful for Vampire Accelerator RTG only?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
11 Nov 2020 10:18


Aldrin O. wrote:

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, I thought V4 RTG is not yet controllable by copper due to P96.

 
I would say, its the other way around. :-)
 
You can on V4 control both Planar and Chunky with the Copper.
And the same way you can open planar screen just using the Copper you can also open chunky screens just using the Copper, you not need P96 for this at all!
 
P96 is a legacy solution and is in my view not the right way for the future.
 

Your post about Rastereffects actually emphasis for me how good the Amiga design is compared to PC.
As you will know, any system could in theory create Rastereffects.
But doing this take usually 100% CPU time. As the CPU will be wasted waiting for this.

The clever idea of the Amiga Copper allows to do this for free.
This means only on AMIGA Rastereffect  cost you zero CPU time.
The same Rastereffect on PC cost you 100% CPU time.
 
So which solution do you want?
Zero CPU or 100% CPU?

;-)


Amiga Noob

Posts 33
11 Nov 2020 12:08


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

 
  So which solution do you want?
  Zero CPU or 100% CPU?
 

Yeah, I was wondering if 68080 on Vampire Accelerators could handle this method and I got my answer. Copper solution is still best of course.



NoXLar - DemoSceneLover

Posts 63
12 Nov 2020 09:56


just curious and admit i don't know alot how it all works, so don't kill me for raising the question:)

do vampire v4 or any other vampire support minigl/opengl ?
not alot on amiga side 68k/GL is ever made, but it some games that support it.

will these work on vampire ?



Thellier Alain

Posts 141
12 Nov 2020 13:23


About progs using hardware 3d on 68k Amigas:
EXTERNAL LINK


NoXLar - DemoSceneLover

Posts 63
23 Nov 2020 00:13


Thats very nice list Alain.  honestly did not know it was this much.

  so, i guess i will ask the question again in another way:)

is anything in the list that can run on vampire system?
or is it not compatible, and require 68k/3d hardware

tnx



Thellier Alain

Posts 141
23 Nov 2020 06:32


They all can run with the wazp3d software renderer but too sloooow to be usefull...




Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
23 Nov 2020 07:28


thellier alain wrote:

  wazp3d software renderer...
 

To me it looks like the wazp3d software renderer is several times slower than the 3d code used in games like Quake or Quake2.




Thellier Alain

Posts 141
23 Nov 2020 12:43


1) wazp3d was not created to be used with a real 68k but to allow to code for warp3d inside winuae then to play games inside winuae
2) most games with soft render only use 8 bits color mode but wazp3d render 32 bits pixels= more data, more complexful so sloow
3) wazp3d emulate ALL blend fonctions, ALL tex env-modes, ALL zbuffer fonctions so is much complexfull so slooow


Olaf Schoenweiss

Posts 690
23 Nov 2020 15:21


is it possible to have a Vampire optimized version of Wazp3D?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
23 Nov 2020 15:30


thellier alain wrote:

1) wazp3d was not created to be used with a real 68k but to allow to code for warp3d inside winuae then to play games inside winuae
  2) most games with soft render only use 8 bits color mode but wazp3d render 32 bits pixels= more data, more complexful so sloow
  3) wazp3d emulate ALL blend fonctions, ALL tex env-modes, ALL zbuffer fonctions so is much complexfull so slooow

 
Yes of course the number of options and how the code is constructed results in a slow execution.
 
My impression is that right now many options are checked inside the functions and these options are checked for each pixel, even when a program only uses some of the options.

I think that with different code structuring a program using just some options could be made to run a lot faster ... e.g. like Quake
 
My impression is that warpz3d library provides today a very good solution for easy testing of some 3D ideas - but its not tuned for performance  yet and is not designed to be used in production solutions.

And I dont think that this was the goal of this lib.


Thellier Alain

Posts 141
24 Nov 2020 21:19


@Olaf
I am not coding for the moment: other things to do
@Gunnar
No, there is no "check per pixel" but some effects need several fonctions to process the pixels buffer (but for simple case = one fonction)
Also there are often pixel format conversion as wazp3d use only RGBA32 pixels internally
So using any screen mode different than RGBA32 will be slower

Anyway I admit it: Wazp3D is slow, it was only fast enough inside winuae but winuae was the target



Antony Coello

Posts 153
24 Nov 2020 23:36


Well, that begs the question, can a Vampire specific (080/AMMX) 'subset' or cut down version of Warp3D be done? Perhaps less complete  functionality for the more superfluous options, and therefore faster.

Similar to what was done with miniGL for the PC version of Quake.



Thellier Alain

Posts 141
25 Nov 2020 05:53


This can be done but not now as I am not coding now


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
25 Nov 2020 15:12


To me Warpz3D is like a Swizz Army knife.
It can do almost everything and it is super versatile.
This is great.
 
Of course if you want to code a real game and need FPS,
this is like having to work your way through a jungle,
then an solution more optimized for this specific task.
e.g a machete will get you move a lot quicker.
 


posts 17