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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

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NoXLar - DemoSceneLover

Posts 63
26 Jun 2021 21:07


Hi, Congratulations with great progress. Vampire project is really becoming my dream Amiga i ever wanted. I'm very certain i will purchase V4S very soon.

I do have some questions,  be gentle with me, since I'm pretty nob

So on V4S video output (DIGITAL-VIDEO)  i notice most youtube videos is starting default game resolution in center of monitor, not using its full screen space 4:3, leaves large empty space around it's game output.  is this how it is?  or do everyone i have seen just haven't configured it or maybe capture device issue.  is it even possible to change that?

next is RTG question, found a list with RTG games

EXTERNAL LINK 
But they all was AGA as well (only found one game RTG only 68k  Heart of Darkness, this will not work then?)
If i got this correct RTG is not important to support when SAGA can be used right?  would SAGA have higher resolution support like RTG would? like for instance the game Foundation or other games.

last one, if i understand it all, when switching from 32bit 720p desktop into a game or demo, resolution can vary and this makes it harder to have one default 4:3 getting auto fill top/bottom?

is it possible to ask for a feature for vampire?  like screen scale
4:3 + option to stretch/auto fill 16:9 i really hate black border..  or is this not possible?  my tv dosent support custom screens size, but even if i was able to config tv settings, probably would need to change every time i return to desktop again.  it's just a question:))

thanks for answers..


Stefano Briccolani

Posts 586
27 Jun 2021 06:51


V4SA have both RGB/PAL and RTG (and audio) output on digital-out.
So every RTG game can work both in AGA or in RTG.
For the RGB/PAL output was decided to keep 4:3 as it keeps a more authentic aspect ratio on old games.
RTG as default outputs in 16:9



Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
27 Jun 2021 07:22


Hi,

noXLar -  DemoSceneLover wrote:

So on V4S video output (DIGITAL-VIDEO)  i notice most youtube videos is starting default game resolution in center of monitor, not using its full screen space 4:3, leaves large empty space around it's game output.  is this how it is?  or do everyone i have seen just haven't configured it or maybe capture device issue.  is it even possible to change that?


I think this depends on your settings of the video recording and also on the game. Not all games originally used the fullscreen.
Here is an example of a recorded game:

noXLar -  DemoSceneLover wrote:

next is RTG question, found a list with RTG games
 
EXTERNAL LINK 
But they all was AGA as well (only found one game RTG only 68k  Heart of Darkness, this will not work then?)

RTG is a "software" driver for the Hardware.
There are two common driver types on Amiga P96 and CyberGfx.
We have both drivers for SAGA. Coffin uses the P96 driver
and ApolloOS uses the CyberGfx driver version.

All these games including Heart of Daakness run great on Vampire.

noXLar -  DemoSceneLover wrote:

If i got this correct RTG is not important to support when SAGA can be used right?  would SAGA have higher resolution support like RTG would? like for instance the game Foundation or other games.

 
SAGA (super AGA) is the name of the chipset.
SAGA supports all old and many new features.

Here is a quick list of the features that SAGA supports:
* 8 Amiga planes including 256 colors AGA mode games.
* Special Amiga Modes: EHB,HAM6,HAM8
* Dual Playfield Amiga mode (often used in games)

New features that SAGA offers which Amiga previous not supported.

* ATARI ST PLANAR GFX modes
  For compatibility with ATARI OS and running ATARI games

* Enhanced Sprites
  With 256 extra Sprite colors
  With 16 color per sprite
  Sprite control list (makes Sprite animation much faster and easier)
  Sprite repeat playfield mode
  Enhanced Sprite collision detection

* Chunky Modes
  in Addition to the 8 Planar Planes, SAGA does support 2 Chunky plafields.
  The two Chunky playfield give Hardware support to Arcade and Amiga style Game effect even in Chunky games.
 
  Supported Chunky Video modes
  * 256 Color Chunky CLUT
  * 15 BIT (32000 color)
  * 16 bit (65000 color)
  * 24 bit (16 Million color)
  * 32 bit (16 Million color + transparency)
  * YUV    (16 Million color Video mode / a bit like HAM but better)

  * Hardware Picture in Picture mode.
  This is very cool feature

  New Audio features:
  * 8 Amiga Style Audio channels supporting Stereo and Hardware Panning.
  * Each channel can have fully independent sample rate
    including support for CD quality 44khz /48Khz and 56khz sample rate
  * Support for not only 8bit samples but also 16bit and 32bit(interleaved stereo16)
  * 24bit Audio mixing quality

  * 3D Acceleration unit
  (The 3D Texture unit is new and we currently work on demos)
 

* Enhanced Copper with 32bit copper instructions
  and Copperlist on Chunky modes.
  Yes Copperbars work also in Chunky Mode!

SAGA is the name of the new Amiga chipset.
You can access and code SAGA in 3 ways.
1) the classic Amiga demo/game coding style , directly access the hardware like described in the classic Amiga Hardware Reference Manuals.
2) Use the AMIGA OS and use the Amiga OS graphic functions
3) Use RTG functions of P96/CyberGFX

noXLar -  DemoSceneLover wrote:

  last one, if i understand it all, when switching from 32bit 720p desktop into a game or demo, resolution can vary and this makes it harder to have one default 4:3 getting auto fill top/bottom?

Originally Amiga Screenmodes are correctly displayed like it was in the old Amigas.
This includes SCANLINES to make the games look 100% like they did on your Commodore 1084 Monitor (Scanlines can also be turned off!)

The 4:3 display modes do already fill the whole screen height.
Using the whole Screen is called "overscan" on Amiga and whether each game uses the whole screen or maybe leaves a border does depend on each game individually.
The SAGA chipset does display the games as these games were designed to.


Kamelito Loveless

Posts 260
28 Jun 2021 10:03


@Gunnar
All enhancements are cool, are the ones regarding the sprites have documentation about how to use them?


NoXLar - DemoSceneLover

Posts 63
29 Jul 2021 11:06


nice summary. sorry my late reply, working at sea with often no internet for weeks.
 
  but made up my mind getting one, i sent mail of my interest with name and email. not sure if you got it. i am interested in that game pack, with mouse, keyboard, joypad.
 
  and want to order one now if possible


NoXLar - DemoSceneLover

Posts 63
10 Aug 2021 14:54


ordered it yeee. gamepack waits for me when i get home from work in a week.

does the realtime battery comes already plugged in or i need to open case.


NoXLar - DemoSceneLover

Posts 63
10 Aug 2021 23:06


just to add, I've reopen my discord account to join your discord channel, what is the name i search.  sorry if this has been mention before, just couldn't find it

posts 7