Overview Features Coding ApolloOS Performance Forum Downloads Products Order Contact

Welcome to the Apollo Forum

This forum is for people interested in the APOLLO CPU.
Please read the forum usage manual.
Please visit our Apollo-Discord Server for support.



All TopicsNewsPerformanceGamesDemosApolloVampireAROSWorkbenchATARIReleases
Information about the Apollo CPU and FPU.

Writing 3D Engine for 68080 In ASMpage  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 

Nixus Minimax

Posts 416
24 Dec 2019 12:41


Toni Wilen said that Apollo was still too much of a moving target to add support to WinUAE. I can understand bis POV.


Vladimir Repcak

Posts 359
24 Dec 2019 12:56


Well, at least he's not against it, which helps.

On a positive side, at least I won't fragment my filesystem with yet-another set of libraries :)

Could I at least use UAE in the meantime for learning the 060 Floating Point instructions ? Is 060's instruction set fully implemented ?

My only problem with 060 is that I'd rather start from scratch with 080 code (which, as it appears, the only way is to get the standalone board).
If I spend a lot of time creating 060 code now, there won't be too much incentive to scrap it and start from scratch...


Vladimir Repcak

Posts 359
24 Dec 2019 13:24


Is it possible to roughly estimate (as in - what's the potential market size):

1. How many Vampire boards (V2-V4) are out there already ?
2. How many more there will be by July 2020 ?
3. How many more there will be by end of 2020 ?

Is 500 boards a realistic number for end of 2020 ?


Stefano Briccolani

Posts 586
24 Dec 2019 13:35


You're kidding? There are at least 4000 Vampire sold already.. End of 2020 there will be 5000+
(if your question was about potential user base)


Vladimir Repcak

Posts 359
24 Dec 2019 13:46


Stefano Briccolani wrote:

You're kidding? There are at least 4000 Vampire sold already.. End of 2020 there will be 5000+
  (if your question was about potential user base)

Four THOUSAND ?!? Seriously ? Or are you just messing with me :)

I'm not kidding, I just had no idea :)

I should seriously reconsider coding full-time for Atari Jaguar then !

Even if only 10% of users would buy my game, I wouldn't have to mess with creating cartdridges, shipping, etc - as it all would be digital.

Damn, now you put a worm into my noggin' !



Kresimir Lukin

Posts 65
24 Dec 2019 13:53


as per this page
EXTERNAL LINK 
it is sold 3977, and this is only V2 500-600 up to today
without V4SA and V1200 what will just now start to sale


Vladimir Repcak

Posts 359
24 Dec 2019 14:10


Kresimir Lukin wrote:

as per this page
  EXTERNAL LINK 
  it is sold 3977, and this is only V2 500-600 up to today
  without V4SA and V1200 what will just now start to sale

Oh.
My.
God
:)

Thanks for the link. I was about to ask for it anyway.

What's the current best-looking or most complex 3d game that is Vampire-only?
YouTube search didn't really yield much beyond some basic demos.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
24 Dec 2019 14:13


Vladimir Repcak wrote:

What's the current best-looking or most complex 3d game that is Vampire-only?

There is none yet


Vladimir Repcak

Posts 359
24 Dec 2019 15:08


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

Vladimir Repcak wrote:

  What's the current best-looking or most complex 3d game that is Vampire-only?
 

  There is none yet

4,000 boards sold yet nobody took a bite?

I guess people just prefer clicking out the shovelware with stock assets onto Steam and PS Store...

Well, I had my doubts yesterday, but not after this, that's for sure.

Even if half of boards wasn't even unpacked or got packed after a month, it is still a considerable market. Especially with digital delivery (easy patches, instant delivery, etc.).

All the tools I created for Jaguar are fully reusable for Apollo:
- Higgs high level compiler
- 3dsmax real-time preview using target resolution and bitdepth
- music gets simpler as I can simply export fully mixed audio track given 512 MB Ram
- I may have to spend a week updating my personal Dev Emulator to recognize 080 instructions and configure Apollo resolutions but then I can prototype straight on PC

I can suddenly upgrade binaries from 2 MB to 512 MB without even using the OS filesystem. That's a factor of 256:1 !!!

Christmas in July :)
Wait, it actually is Christmas, it's 24th :- ))))))))))))))))


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
24 Dec 2019 15:25


Vladimir Repcak wrote:

  4,000 boards sold yet nobody took a bite?
 
  I guess people just prefer clicking out the shovelware with stock assets onto Steam and PS Store...
 

 
  Seems users survived, ASM coders moved on. Team has skilled people but they have core and drivers to do.

Aminet holds just
Zelda Roth Enhanced (uses RTG and MMX)
EXTERNAL LINK 
Crown Demo 2D proving what can be done with SAGA sprites
EXTERNAL LINK 
  Glad you will take a bite, we had just few conversions that used 080-MMX and few demos, but no real Vamp only titles abusing its power.


Vladimir Repcak

Posts 359
24 Dec 2019 17:55


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:
 
  Seems users survived, ASM coders moved on. Team has skilled people but they have core and drivers to do.
Of course the team doesn't have bandwidth to do fullblown demos on top of designing the whole thing. That requires financing and fulltime work. Like, say, at Intel or AMD.
I'm still happy they found time to do the demos they did, over weekends.

Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

  Glad you will take a bite, we had just few conversions that used 080-MMX and few demos, but no real Vamp only titles abusing its power.

Timing seems quite right. I was just taking a break after PRGE 7 weeks ago with the 4 KB demo and the Radiosity demo and reviving my VRBasic (which, BTW, could be eventually adapted to 080 too).

Thus, I haven't started creating final art assets yet. And while there's about 3 weeks of work on gameplay and HUD, that's nothing major.

Most importantly, unlike cart release, if there's a critical bug found, you can just reupload the executable. But since each and every vampire board is identical that shouldn't really happen much (hopefully never).
Besides, I am using TDD methodology - always keep running the latest executable overnight in self-test mode - which plays by itself, shoots enemies, loads levels, etc.

This way, it's easy to see if I broke something, when I get up in the morning but most of the time it's still running :)




Stefano Briccolani

Posts 586
24 Dec 2019 22:27


Vampire v2 is different from Vampire v4.
They share the same 68080 processor and AMMX opcodes, but v2 has 128Mb while v4 has 512MB, V2 uses the Amiga ChipSet while v4 uses a more powerful reimplementation so for graphics you better choose the common chunky rtg graphics. Amiga audio is 4 channels 8 bits, while v4 reimplementation, while backwards compatible, can have 8 channel 16 bit

To reach the broader audience you better aim your game to v2 specifications.


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
24 Dec 2019 22:41


Stefano Briccolani wrote:

  To reach the broader audience you better aim your game to v2 specifications.
 

 
  While RTG is best, with GOLD3 core, the SAGA abilities will blend (ability to access newer RTG like but chip-set banging feats - more gfx RAM for chip-set, 16-bit audio)
 
  V4 will offer stronger Full precision FPU and likely 3D so this might, beside amount of RAM, became a real diff and bring some v4 exclusives in future.
 
  Utilizing 080-AMMX-RTG will work on all Vamps. 128-512mb diff can be used like old "extra memory detected" where more levels/textures etc. would be loaded if 512mb (V4) is detected.
 


Martin White

Posts 85
24 Dec 2019 23:16


Vladimir Repcak wrote:

    4,000 boards sold yet nobody took a bite?
   
    I guess people just prefer clicking out the shovelware with stock assets onto Steam and PS Store...

I have pretty much sat on the outside of all of this because I did not have a 500 or 600 for a Vampire to go into and I did not want to be one of the people continually hassling about what was coming and when. So I patiently waited for a Vampire for my A1200. As it happens, as I learnt more details I decided that I preferred to go for the V4SA but that is another story.

So anyway, my point is that for the last few years I have seen a lot of people buying Vampire's for their 600's and 500's and of course this is not always true but a LOT of the time they buy it, they marvel at how fast it is, they then carry on playing the same old things they were playing before, just with a nicer workbench setup. It's really surprising how often I see people posting that they have maybe used their vampire'd machine twice in a year and so on. So a LOT of inactive users. Potential software sales of course, but inactive users all the same.

I think the standalone will be an entirely different prospect. Obviously it is more money, but even aisde from that you are far less likely to buy an entire machine unless you actually plan on using it. There is a huge potential for exciting times here and I'd really like to see some exclusive content. I would even if I didn't own one because the V series desrves to do well and software always helps that process.

If I had to guess I'd say sales of the A1200 could outstrip all the sales to date if supply is there. But I guess we need to wait and see.

Anyway, sorry, none of that is really related to writing ASM :)


Michael Borrmann

Posts 140
25 Dec 2019 07:20


@VladR: sounds amazing what you are about to do..
If I were you, I'd target the V2 cards though, since most sold Vamps are V2s.
So, go with 128 mb (which are more than enough if you are going for asm) and you are fine.

@Martin White: I guess people are a bit waiting for new stuff to use on the Vamp.


Vladimir Repcak

Posts 359
25 Dec 2019 08:38


Stefano Briccolani wrote:

Vampire v2 is different from Vampire v4.
  They share the same 68080 processor and AMMX opcodes, but v2 has 128Mb while v4 has 512MB, V2 uses the Amiga ChipSet while v4 uses a more powerful reimplementation so for graphics you better choose the common chunky rtg graphics. Amiga audio is 4 channels 8 bits, while v4 reimplementation, while backwards compatible, can have 8 channel 16 bit
 
  To reach the broader audience you better aim your game to v2 specifications.

128, Ouch :) Thanks for bringing this up. I'll have a lot of time to think about what to do about it.
The very first thing that comes to mind is having premixed audio in final bitrate - e.g. like samples. That would save me from having to implement a multi-channel MOD player - which in itself is a pretty extensive feature.
On Jaguar, I currently have that + simple mixing of sound FX. Not having to write MOD player (I was about to do that for jag) would be certainly huge relief.

The Chunky is certainly without question (that's what's in code right now anyway).


Vladimir Repcak

Posts 359
25 Dec 2019 08:49


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

Stefano Briccolani wrote:

    To reach the broader audience you better aim your game to v2 specifications.
 

 
  While RTG is best, with GOLD3 core, the SAGA abilities will blend (ability to access newer RTG like but chip-set banging feats - more gfx RAM for chip-set, 16-bit audio)
 
  V4 will offer stronger Full precision FPU and likely 3D so this might, beside amount of RAM, became a real diff and bring some v4 exclusives in future.
 
  Utilizing 080-AMMX-RTG will work on all Vamps. 128-512mb diff can be used like old "extra memory detected" where more levels/textures etc. would be loaded if 512mb (V4) is detected.
 

Alright, I'm getting confused now. Is V2 the only revision prior to V4 or is Gold3 another one ?
I'm just trying to figure out how fragmented is the HW of current potential user-base of 4,000 units.

Either way, it looks like I should do it PC-style - e.g. upon running the executable, the Config window comes up and there you will be able to select resolution, details, V2-V4, and all other options.
And then, one of the related codepaths will run the game itself.

I guess I better go and get me a V2 too. How much do they run for now ?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
25 Dec 2019 08:58


Yes lets look at the differences and the option.

Vampire V2
- 128 MB RAM

Vampire V4
- 512 MB RAM

Using S3-Texture compression, 128 MB can hold a lot of high quality textures.
For comparison: Playstation-2 has 32MB and the games look on PS2 pretty good IMHO.

MOD player for AMIGA.
Free MOD players for AMIGA are available.
Another option is to have an ADPCM compressed music file and decompress and play it in real time. The quality of this is very good, and storage space it much less than PCM and the decompression
takes only a few % of CPU time.




Vladimir Repcak

Posts 359
25 Dec 2019 08:59


Martin White wrote:

 
  I have pretty much sat on the outside of all of this because I did not have a 500 or 600 for a Vampire to go into and I did not want to be one of the people continually hassling about what was coming and when. So I patiently waited for a Vampire for my A1200. As it happens, as I learnt more details I decided that I preferred to go for the V4SA but that is another story.
 
  So anyway, my point is that for the last few years I have seen a lot of people buying Vampire's for their 600's and 500's and of course this is not always true but a LOT of the time they buy it, they marvel at how fast it is, they then carry on playing the same old things they were playing before, just with a nicer workbench setup. It's really surprising how often I see people posting that they have maybe used their vampire'd machine twice in a year and so on. So a LOT of inactive users. Potential software sales of course, but inactive users all the same.
 
  I think the standalone will be an entirely different prospect. Obviously it is more money, but even aisde from that you are far less likely to buy an entire machine unless you actually plan on using it. There is a huge potential for exciting times here and I'd really like to see some exclusive content. I would even if I didn't own one because the V series desrves to do well and software always helps that process.
 
  If I had to guess I'd say sales of the A1200 could outstrip all the sales to date if supply is there. But I guess we need to wait and see.
 
  Anyway, sorry, none of that is really related to writing ASM :)

Well, I'd hazard a bet that if a Vampire-exclusive 3D game was out, most would go through the effort of dusting it off :)

Besides, isn't V2 just an add-on board ? Meaning, you can't really have it dismantled in the bin (unless it's inside the Amiga itself) ? Or were there, perhaps, some external V2 boards that you could freely disconnect ?



Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
25 Dec 2019 09:01


Vladimir Repcak wrote:

Besides, isn't V2 just an add-on board ? Meaning, you can't really have it dismantled in the bin (unless it's inside the Amiga itself) ? Or were there, perhaps, some external V2 boards that you could freely disconnect ?

The V2 are accelerator cards for old AMIGA models.
Basically CPU upgrades.

The V4 is the only "standalone" new system.

posts 429page  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22