Id Software (Doom) responds!
George Sanderson
Yo... I wrote a plea letter to Id software for them to port Doom to
Amiga and got the usual "can't be done" response.
I would appreciate people out there who have coded anything texture
mapped and/or chunky2planar routines (or even copper screens) to convince
them otherwise... Their main concern is the speed of the game (they
say the 68040 is just enough) and that the c2p process would totally
kill that anyway.
The porting doesn't seem to be a problem ( 99% of Doom is written in C )
as they recently did a port to the SGI (Silicon Graphics) machine
(the market there isn't that great), and Doom was developed on the
NeXT... (btw, contrary to popular belief, Doom is still playable on a
40MHz 386 - not exactly a speed demon).
It would be good if your responses were mailed to me - i'd like to mail
as many responses to Id as possible in one hit, but if you decide to
mail Id software directly, be polite and explain your point of view
thoughtfully. The last thing we need is some Amiga fanatics abusing Id.
Anyway, below is my original letter to Id, and after that is their response.
----
[original letter to Id Software]
Hi. I would appreciate an answer to this letter from you or someone
who is able to do so... I noticed that you have recently released a
version of Doom for SGI, meaning that porting isn't a difficult task.
Perhaps a port of Doom for Amiga would also be a good idea ? I
realize that the Amiga lacks a chunky graphics mode and it is a
relatively limited market compared to IBM clones, but the game market
for Amiga is quite large. The lack of the chunky graphics mode has
been solved via fast conversion routines (which can be found in
ftp.wustl.edu:/pub/aminet or any other Aminet mirror) or as in the
case for Amiga CD32, the conversion routine is provided in hardware.
There are numerous texture mapping demos available showing that a
Doom-type game is possible on the Amiga. The market for Doom on Amiga
is also fairly large. The Amiga CD32, which is basically a games
console with a CD drive built in, together with the SX-1 expansion
unit could provide sufficient memory and speed requirements. Many
owners of Amiga 1200 have upgraded their systems with high speed
accelerators, bringing their machines performance similar to the
A4000, which has more than enough horse power to handle Doom. These
machines mentioned are the ones equipped with the AGA chipset, and by
including the old generation, (but still fast) A3000, the market is
large enough for a port of Doom to take place.
If you have any further specific questions, I would be happy to answer
them.
----
[response from Id software]
From jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com Sun Sep 4 02:52 EST 1994
From: John Carmack <jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com>
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 94 11:50:23 -0600
To: G.San...@ais.gu.edu.au
Subject: amiga doom
The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full
speed of a 68040 to play the game properly even if you have a chunky
pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill
it even on the fastest amiga hardware, not to mention the effect it
would have on the majority of the amiga base.
John Carmack
----
Maxwell Daymon
: [response from Id software]
: From jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com Sun Sep 4 02:52 EST 1994
: From: John Carmack <jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com>
: Date: Sat, 3 Sep 94 11:50:23 -0600
: To: G.San...@ais.gu.edu.au
: Subject: amiga doom
: The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full
: speed of a 68040 to play the game properly even if you have a chunky
: pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill
: it even on the fastest amiga hardware, not to mention the effect it
: would have on the majority of the amiga base.
What a joke! The 68040 is EASILY as capable as any 486 out there, and the
Amiga has additional hardware support. Furthermore, there ARE Spectrum,
Piccolo, Picasso II, Merlin, Rainbow II, Rainbow III, owners out there too.
My dealer says it's very difficult to get Picasso II's anymore because
his distributer is constantly selling out. Always on backorder.
--
//
// Maxwell Daymon
\\ // mda...@rmii.com
\X/
Stefan G. Berg
>: From: John Carmack <jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com>
>: The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full
>: speed of a 68040 to play the game properly even if you have a chunky
>: pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill
>: it even on the fastest amiga hardware, not to mention the effect it
>: would have on the majority of the amiga base.
>What a joke! The 68040 is EASILY as capable as any 486 out there, and the
>Amiga has additional hardware support. Furthermore, there ARE Spectrum,
You don't get it, do you? The 68040 has nothing to do with the fact that
the Amiga is having great difficulties with games depending on a chunky
pixel mode (well... of course a faster CPU always helps, but that's not
the point here). Games like doom render the frames in real time. Those
programs determine the color of each pixel on the screen individually.
Since the Amiga is using separate bit planes where one pixel is distributed
over several noncontinuous bytes, changing one pixel means you have to make
several accesses to chip memory. That is very very slow, especially since
chip memory is already slow to begin with.
There are some attempts at doing a quick conversing of a chunky pixel
screen to a bit mapped screen. Look in aminet for some really amazing
demos showing texture mapped user controllable dungeons in smooth motion
(on my A500/040 at least).
So in theory it should be doable, but here comes the problem. Doom was
written in C and id software would most likely just try to compile it
almost straight on an Amiga. They won't be doing any Amiga specific
optimizations (how could they when they have to support so many
platforms?). So if they just plug in one of the pretty darn fast c2p
conversion routines, it'll be dead slow. It would take a whole team
of Amiga programmers to optimize it to a point where you can play it
reasonably well on a fast Amiga (040 I would say... given that 386-40s
can barely play Doom and they have the advantage of direct support for
the chunky pixel mode). Then id software makes a small change to the
original C source code and this team of Amiga programmers would be
standing on their head trying to quickly adapt those changes in their
horibly optimized Amiga code.
I am not saying Doom will not happen for the Amiga. All I am trying
to say is that it takes more than a "Please id software, could you
not just try to do a quick port of Doom using this c2p routine I
have here?". I very much doubt that id software is willing to do much
more for the Amiga.
To tell the truth, I have the feeling that John doesn't even want
to support the Amiga platform. I mean... he already starts out by
saying that "the Amiga isn't powerfull enough" (is it proper to
quote in full with all the spelling errors?). It really has nothing
to do with "power". It more has to do with a different hardware
basis which happens to be badly suited for pixel based changes. On
the other the Amiga has enough power to have a smooth running GUI
even on a teeny 68000-7 processor (just think how Windows would run
on a 286-7!).
Just my 2 cents worth.
Stefan
--
,-------------------------------------------------------,
|Usenet sgb...@charon.bloomington.in.us Stefan G. Berg|
|Internet sgb...@cs.indiana.edu PGP & MIME // AMIGA |
|Bitnet sgberg@indiana GE_Mail s.berg5 \X/ w/ bms |
`-------------------------------------------------------'
Maxwell Daymon
: mda...@rmii.com (Maxwell Daymon) writes:
: >: The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full
: >: pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^2
: >What a joke! The 68040 is EASILY as capable as any 486 out there, and the
: >Amiga has additional hardware support. Furthermore, there ARE Spectrum,
: You don't get it, do you? The 68040 has nothing to do with the fact that
No, you don't. Let me explain:
See note 1, now look at note 2. Do you see a contradiction? Once you have
a chunky pixel mode in hardware (Picasso II) then you are down to bare
processors. In this case, the 68040 is fully capable of performing as
fast as a 486 or more. Furthermore, most Amiga boards let you write in
large chunks anywhere to the board - clones go through stupid little I/O
buffers. Therfore, the Amiga would outpace it easily.
He is saying "Even if you had chunky pixel mode in hardware (e.g. Picasso
II), you'd need all the processor time to convert."
WHY convert if you have the mode ALREADY? Furthermore, if you have
hardware assistance for chunky -> planar, why not?
: the Amiga is having great difficulties with games depending on a chunky
: pixel mode (well... of course a faster CPU always helps, but that's not
: the point here). Games like doom render the frames in real time. Those
: programs determine the color of each pixel on the screen individually.
My 68040/33MHz runs TextDemo5-ECS *TOO FAST* It's completely unplayable
until you get to absolute full screen. Once there, it feels okay. On my
68030 based system it isn't nearly as face-warpingly fast - but it still
performs. The uninformed person who stated that the 68040 would be
saturated was just WRONG.
Furthermore, my point was based on his statement of "the 68040 can't
handle it EVEN WITH a hardware based chunky pixel mode" (Such as the
Picasso II, Spectrum, etc). Hardware based chunky-to-planar CONVERSION is
a different story, though I can still see it happening.
: There are some attempts at doing a quick conversing of a chunky pixel
: screen to a bit mapped screen. Look in aminet for some really amazing
: demos showing texture mapped user controllable dungeons in smooth motion
: (on my A500/040 at least).
See my above reference.
: I am not saying Doom will not happen for the Amiga. All I am trying
: to say is that it takes more than a "Please id software, could you
: not just try to do a quick port of Doom using this c2p routine I
: have here?". I very much doubt that id software is willing to do much
: more for the Amiga.
I know of at least one software company that wants to do the port at no
charge to ID. They only want to share in the profits.
: To tell the truth, I have the feeling that John doesn't even want
: to support the Amiga platform. I mean... he already starts out by
: saying that "the Amiga isn't powerfull enough" (is it proper to
: quote in full with all the spelling errors?). It really has nothing
: to do with "power". It more has to do with a different hardware
: basis which happens to be badly suited for pixel based changes. On
: the other the Amiga has enough power to have a smooth running GUI
: even on a teeny 68000-7 processor (just think how Windows would run
: on a 286-7!).
I suppose my post wasn't very clear. I *DO* understand the complexity of
porting Doom to the Amiga. What made me angry was his statement about the
68040 EVEN WITH chunky based modes in hardware.
Frankly, I'd like to see a Doom KILLER, not Doom.
Stefan G. Berg
>Stefan G. Berg (sgb...@mango.ucs.indiana.edu) wrote:
>: mda...@rmii.com (Maxwell Daymon) writes:
>: >: John from id software wrote:
>: >: The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full
>: >: speed of a 68040 to play the game properly even if you have a chunky
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>: >: pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^2
>See note 1, now look at note 2. Do you see a contradiction? Once you have
>a chunky pixel mode in hardware (Picasso II) then you are down to bare
>processors. In this case, the 68040 is fully capable of performing as
>fast as a 486 or more. Furthermore, most Amiga boards let you write in
>large chunks anywhere to the board - clones go through stupid little I/O
>buffers. Therfore, the Amiga would outpace it easily.
I won't be able to play such a game and to tell the truth nobody I know
personally would be either. I don't know how many Amigas are equipped with
Picasso II boards (or other graphics board for that fact), but the day
programs start depending on significant 3rd party hardware (like graphics
cards, etc...) I am going to rethink my ideas about the Amiga platform. I
have enough problems on my 486 to get software support for each individual
piece of hardware that I would rather not want to have this happen for the
Amiga.
I did not "making Doom only compatible for special graphics cards" an
option in my discussion of why I believe the Amiga has so much trouble
with it. It might have been a hindsight on my part, but I wouldn't care
too much if they really did port Doom to Amiga w/ Picasso II. I cannot
expand my Amiga 500 with a Picasso II card, despite the fact that the
040 in it makes it feel like any highly accelerated Amiga out there.
>My 68040/33MHz runs TextDemo5-ECS *TOO FAST* It's completely unplayable
>until you get to absolute full screen. Once there, it feels okay. On my
>68030 based system it isn't nearly as face-warpingly fast - but it still
>performs. The uninformed person who stated that the 68040 would be
>saturated was just WRONG.
I mentioned that in my write-up just a couple lines later. I _know_ that
there are fast demos which have build-in c2p conversions. I also said why
I don't believe id software can easily incorporate those into Doom - go
back and re-read my posting (if you still have questions, come up to me
in private email).
BTW, I hope you did not expect to run Doom on a tiny 100x100 screen, did
you? It really takes a lot out of the action. So basically you have a
demo which runs just right on your very fast machine (and tell me... not
many people of 040-33's). Add in the _whole_ source code for Doom and the
fact that many people just don't have 040s and I very much doubt that it
is playable on larger playfields (anything is possible in tiny windows).
>I know of at least one software company that wants to do the port at no
>charge to ID. They only want to share in the profits.
I didn't know about that. Well, as I said, a team of programmers could
probably do the port with a bit of effort. I am not so sure though if
anybody can make a profit out of that deal. There are limits as to how
much resources should be put into a game.
>I suppose my post wasn't very clear. I *DO* understand the complexity of
>porting Doom to the Amiga. What made me angry was his statement about the
>68040 EVEN WITH chunky based modes in hardware.
That's exactly my point, too. :-) I might just feel it a little more
difficult task than you believe it is. In any case, I am not suprised
to see id software so reluctant at porting Doom for the Amiga. And
they do have some justification of being that way.
>Frankly, I'd like to see a Doom KILLER, not Doom.
I believe that to be more likely than having a port of Doom. Some team
should go and extend the TextDemo from aminet to a real game. It is
already blazingly fast like it is right now.
Zsolt Szabo
>What a joke! The 68040 is EASILY as capable as any 486 out there, and the
>Amiga has additional hardware support. Furthermore, there ARE Spectrum,
>Piccolo, Picasso II, Merlin, Rainbow II, Rainbow III, owners out there too.
The 68040 may easily do the computations, but the Amiga by itself has NO
HARDWARE WHATSOEVER which would aid it in this case! As for the chunky
graphics cards, how many Amiga owners actually also own chunky gfx cards
AND a 68040 Amiga? I would be that there's far less than 10,000 of them.
90% of these use them for "serious" work (as far as that is possible on
an Amiga anymore) and the other 1000 (90% of whom would pirate it) sure
as hell do not warrant all the hassle.
Zsolt Szabo
>On
>the other the Amiga has enough power to have a smooth running GUI
>even on a teeny 68000-7 processor (just think how Windows would run
>on a 286-7!).
What kind of power is that? Personally I would prefer an OS like Irix
which is a resource hog but (given the right hardware) runs FAR more
smoothly than Intuition could ever dream of! I have my Amiga 1200 (4 megs
RAM) crash daily because of stupid shit. Hell, I load up Viewtek and the
damn thing crashes because it couldn't load a gif type! On the contrary,
I've been working on an SGI Indigo for 3 months now, constantly. It
>>NEVER<< crashed!! It had a few core dumps but the OS did not even
wince! Now THAT is a REAL operating system! I don't give a rat's ass
about multitasking as long as the damn computer crashes constantly!
Also note: in the future ram prices go down. But Intutition NEVER looked
like it was going to have protected memory, etc. That's what you get for
having a hacker's computer. You can personally hack the living shit out
of it, but don't ever expect applications to run for more than one minute
without messing SOME memory segment up!
Maxwell Daymon
: >What a joke! The 68040 is EASILY as capable as any 486 out there, and the
: >Amiga has additional hardware support. Furthermore, there ARE Spectrum,
: >Piccolo, Picasso II, Merlin, Rainbow II, Rainbow III, owners out there too.
: The 68040 may easily do the computations, but the Amiga by itself has NO
: HARDWARE WHATSOEVER which would aid it in this case! As for the chunky
The message stated "EVEN WITH HARDWARE SUPPORT THE 68040/AMIGA COULDN'T
HANDLE IT"
: graphics cards, how many Amiga owners actually also own chunky gfx cards
: AND a 68040 Amiga? I would be that there's far less than 10,000 of them.
: 90% of these use them for "serious" work (as far as that is possible on
: an Amiga anymore) and the other 1000 (90% of whom would pirate it) sure
: as hell do not warrant all the hassle.
Perhaps not, but the point was whether or not a 68040 Amiga WITH A
HARDWARE CHUNKY PIXEL MODE could handle it. In this case I say yes,
without a doubt.
Zsolt Szabo
>My 68040/33MHz runs TextDemo5-ECS *TOO FAST* It's completely unplayable
>until you get to absolute full screen. Once there, it feels okay. On my
>68030 based system it isn't nearly as face-warpingly fast - but it still
>performs. The uninformed person who stated that the 68040 would be
>saturated was just WRONG.
Text Demo 5 is nothing compared to DOOM. I support the author's efforts
because he promised to add stuff eventually. But it's missing so many
aspects of Doom that you cannot possibly get away with comparing it to
the real DOOM!
>I know of at least one software company that wants to do the port at no
>charge to ID. They only want to share in the profits.
At no charge to ID? Are you NUTS?? With DOOM's tremendous success THEY
would have to pay ID for the rights to DOOM!!!
>Frankly, I'd like to see a Doom KILLER, not Doom.
You will see it soon enough--Doom II, Hell on Earth will be released shortly.
Byron Montgomerie
# In article <1994Sep4.2...@news.cs.indiana.edu> "Stefan G. Berg" <sgb...@mango.ucs.indiana.edu> writes:
# >On
# >the other the Amiga has enough power to have a smooth running GUI
# >even on a teeny 68000-7 processor (just think how Windows would run
# >on a 286-7!).
# What kind of power is that? Personally I would prefer an OS like Irix
# which is a resource hog but (given the right hardware) runs FAR more
# smoothly than Intuition could ever dream of! I have my Amiga 1200 (4 megs
# RAM) crash daily because of stupid shit. Hell, I load up Viewtek and the
# damn thing crashes because it couldn't load a gif type! On the contrary,
# I've been working on an SGI Indigo for 3 months now, constantly. It
# >>NEVER<< crashed!! It had a few core dumps but the OS did not even
# wince! Now THAT is a REAL operating system! I don't give a rat's ass
# about multitasking as long as the damn computer crashes constantly!
# Also note: in the future ram prices go down. But Intutition NEVER looked
# like it was going to have protected memory, etc. That's what you get for
# having a hacker's computer. You can personally hack the living shit out
# of it, but don't ever expect applications to run for more than one minute
# without messing SOME memory segment up!
Intuition is the system of windows and menus, exec is what you want to refer
to.
I don't like the lack of memory protection either, but you get what you pay
for. I wouldn't care if OS 3.1 were totally rewritten with memory
protection in mind but the god of backwards compatibility has to be
appeased, or has it?
Martin Blom
>mda...@rmii.com (Maxwell Daymon) writes:
>>: From: John Carmack <jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com>
>>: The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full
>>: speed of a 68040 to play the game properly even if you have a chunky
>>: pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill
>>: it even on the fastest amiga hardware, not to mention the effect it
>>: would have on the majority of the amiga base.
>>What a joke! The 68040 is EASILY as capable as any 486 out there, and the
>>Amiga has additional hardware support. Furthermore, there ARE Spectrum,
>You don't get it, do you? The 68040 has nothing to do with the fact that
>the Amiga is having great difficulties with games depending on a chunky
>pixel mode (well... of course a faster CPU always helps, but that's not
>the point here). Games like doom render the frames in real time. Those
>programs determine the color of each pixel on the screen individually.
This is not quite true. A C2P converer doesn't slow down a game that much.
I have a 7 bit C2P routine that converts a 320*220 pixel screen in one PAL
frame. Assume DOOM could run in 50fps on an A4000/040. Adding a c2p conv.
would make it run in 25fps. Even 17fps could be acceptable for this kind
of game.
>So in theory it should be doable, but here comes the problem. Doom was
>written in C and id software would most likely just try to compile it
>almost straight on an Amiga. They won't be doing any Amiga specific
>optimizations (how could they when they have to support so many
>platforms?). So if they just plug in one of the pretty darn fast c2p
>conversion routines, it'll be dead slow. It would take a whole team
Why would you have to optimize it for Amiga? It's not optimized for MS-DOS,
IFAK. Only the c2p conversion is different.
>have here?". I very much doubt that id software is willing to do much
>more for the Amiga.
Agreed. I think the problem is the number of 040-equipped Amigas. Today it's
not woth making a A4000/040 only game.
If the A1200 and CD32 had 4Meg FastMem and a 040/33...
--
+- Martin Blom - Linkoping institute -+ Proud owner of ABC 80, Commodore 64
| of technology, Sweden | Amiga 500, Amiga 4000'040
+---- Email to l...@lysator.liu.se ----+ NOTHING beats SID & VIC-II
Robert Goodlett
The only versions of doom that i've seen operating were pirated.
I have a friend that owns a dos box that cant get his cd to
run it. Something about windows hogging all the memory. I'm glad I
own an amiga. This buddy of mine is losing his hair over his newly
aquired dos box.
Jyrki Saarinen
> So in theory it should be doable, but here comes the problem. Doom was
> written in C and id software would most likely just try to compile it
> almost straight on an Amiga. They won't be doing any Amiga specific
> optimizations (how could they when they have to support so many
> platforms?). So if they just plug in one of the pretty darn fast c2p
> conversion routines, it'll be dead slow. It would take a whole team
> of Amiga programmers to optimize it to a point where you can play it
> reasonably well on a fast Amiga (040 I would say... given that 386-40s
> can barely play Doom and they have the advantage of direct support for
> the chunky pixel mode). Then id software makes a small change to the
> original C source code and this team of Amiga programmers would be
> standing on their head trying to quickly adapt those changes in their
> horibly optimized Amiga code.
DOOM has 3 assembler routines:
1) scale y
2) scale x
3) handle display & input devices
If we write those to fast assembly escpecially 1 and 2, and use
the fastest 040-c2p, it will be quite fast.. the fastest c2p
uses as much time as would be spend just copying screen from fast
to chip!
> --
> ,-------------------------------------------------------,
> |Usenet sgb...@charon.bloomington.in.us Stefan G. Berg|
> |Internet sgb...@cs.indiana.edu PGP & MIME // AMIGA |
> |Bitnet sgberg@indiana GE_Mail s.berg5 \X/ w/ bms |
> `-------------------------------------------------------'
--
Jyrki Saarinen - Nose / Stellar - A4000 - +358-0-8058003
Janie Lee Sherrill
> RAM) crash daily because of stupid shit. Hell, I load up Viewtek and the
> damn thing crashes because it couldn't load a gif type!
Maybe it says something about your ability to work with computers. I dont
know anyone who has ever had any problems like this. If you hate the amiga
so much why do you keep using yours and posting to this group constantly.
Procte...@dsto.defence.gov.au
not a DOOM killer..
in my opinion a DOOM killer would have to have the action etc that is in
DOOM now, but also add in an arcade adventure taste, so you can solve some
puzzles etc... like maybe do the scenario of the base is going to self
destruct in 20 mintues.. and you have to find the parts to repair the
damaged shuttle to get offworld etc..etc.. would make it a little more
interesting than just killing things..
Craig P.
Michael Robert Bromery
Zsolt Szabo <robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> wrote:
>In article <34eha0$c...@potogold.rmii.com> mda...@rmii.com (Maxwell Daymon) writes:
>
>>I know of at least one software company that wants to do the port at no
>>charge to ID. They only want to share in the profits.
>
>At no charge to ID? Are you NUTS?? With DOOM's tremendous success THEY
>would have to pay ID for the rights to DOOM!!!
>
has some in different places. Don't forget that TextDemo5 is the first to
use REAL Time light sourcing. Also, TextDemo5 is more capable of nearly
perfectly round corridors. About some other effects that some say are
missing, Most will be adhered to soon enough, but yes, we're more interested
in going a different direction and it just may be the next killer game.
Don't sweat it too fast, the engine behind Textdemo5 is simply the beginning,
it's just a very big project is all I can say. Expect a new world and expect
some good followups to it. If (I hope if) and when a TextDemo6 is released,
expect something Completely different. The main engine should, hopefully,
have 3 engines tied into one, when finished, also some more dynamic enemies
are incorporated.
ID or no ID, we are still finding more ways to improve the algorythm, as
for the regular DOOM-type engine, a magazine review of a comming-up Amiga
game release says that it has been done already.
-- Mike Bromery.
Email: dave...@wam.umd.edu
Michael Robert Bromery
Ok. But the game we've got in the works is a good bit better than this.
I just wish we can throw this all together faster than we can.
:)
Jyrki Saarinen
> The 68040 may easily do the computations, but the Amiga by itself has NO
> HARDWARE WHATSOEVER which would aid it in this case! As for the chunky
> graphics cards, how many Amiga owners actually also own chunky gfx cards
You are right about this. But, rendering would be anyway done to fast
ram and then copying to chip ram. As we know that chunky2planar on
a 040 takes as much time as plain copying from fast to chip, c2p
comes "free".
Maxwell Daymon
You have taken off on a tangent. The original letter from ID *stated*
that it would take a full 68040 to play the game at all even IF a
hardware chunky mode was present. THIS is the point I was arguing with. A
68040 with a hardware chunky mode (e.g. Picasso II) could EASILY run
Doom. That's it. That's the whole point. Whether or not this would be
WISE or profitable is a whole other discussion that I was not
particularly interested in pursuing, but I'm certainly open to it!
I was simply saying that the statement from ID is ignorant and WRONG, and
I still believe it is.
: I won't be able to play such a game and to tell the truth nobody I know
: personally would be either. I don't know how many Amigas are equipped with
: Picasso II boards (or other graphics board for that fact), but the day
: programs start depending on significant 3rd party hardware (like graphics
: cards, etc...) I am going to rethink my ideas about the Amiga platform. I
: have enough problems on my 486 to get software support for each individual
: piece of hardware that I would rather not want to have this happen for the
: Amiga.
The Amiga has a chance to "do it right" this time. EGS offers such a
standard which even functions on a standard Amiga. I don't necessarily
think this is the best choice, but it is an example of one.
: I did not "making Doom only compatible for special graphics cards" an
: option in my discussion of why I believe the Amiga has so much trouble
: with it. It might have been a hindsight on my part, but I wouldn't care
: too much if they really did port Doom to Amiga w/ Picasso II. I cannot
: expand my Amiga 500 with a Picasso II card, despite the fact that the
: 040 in it makes it feel like any highly accelerated Amiga out there.
With a $20 Slingshot you could. You could also buy an EGS Spectrum for
$349 and do the same thing, but these are other tangents. ;-)
: >My 68040/33MHz runs TextDemo5-ECS *TOO FAST* It's completely unplayable
: >until you get to absolute full screen. Once there, it feels okay. On my
: >68030 based system it isn't nearly as face-warpingly fast - but it still
: >performs. The uninformed person who stated that the 68040 would be
: >saturated was just WRONG.
: I mentioned that in my write-up just a couple lines later. I _know_ that
: there are fast demos which have build-in c2p conversions. I also said why
: I don't believe id software can easily incorporate those into Doom - go
: back and re-read my posting (if you still have questions, come up to me
: in private email).
I understand all that. We aren't even arguing the same point. I *AGREE*
with what you're arguing, but it's not what *I* am arguing. I suspect you
probably agree with my point too (a 68040 with a chunky graphics card can
easily run Doom).
: >I know of at least one software company that wants to do the port at no
: >charge to ID. They only want to share in the profits.
: I didn't know about that. Well, as I said, a team of programmers could
: probably do the port with a bit of effort. I am not so sure though if
: anybody can make a profit out of that deal. There are limits as to how
: much resources should be put into a game.
Personally, I'd like to wait for a system that can do more than
"posterboard" walls. When the walls are BUMP-mapped at LEAST - I'll be
impressed. As it is, Doom looks like cardboard walls with pixel-vomit (but
it is fun at the same time).
: >I suppose my post wasn't very clear. I *DO* understand the complexity of
: >porting Doom to the Amiga. What made me angry was his statement about the
: >68040 EVEN WITH chunky based modes in hardware.
: That's exactly my point, too. :-) I might just feel it a little more
: difficult task than you believe it is. In any case, I am not suprised
: to see id software so reluctant at porting Doom for the Amiga. And
: they do have some justification of being that way.
I think what we have here is a sledge hammer that we're trying to chop
down a tree with. Doom lends itself well to the particuar market it is
in. The Amiga (as is) just isn't "cut out" for Doom, but at the same time
I'd just like a game with CONTENT - even if it's "only" to the degree of
TextDemo5. Frankly, I'm amazed at what has been accomplished so far!
: >Frankly, I'd like to see a Doom KILLER, not Doom.
: I believe that to be more likely than having a port of Doom. Some team
: should go and extend the TextDemo from aminet to a real game. It is
: already blazingly fast like it is right now.
I agree. It may not have the nauseating up and down motion of Doom, but
if it offers some CONTENT I'll be delighted!
Maxwell Daymon
: Agreed. I think the problem is the number of 040-equipped Amigas. Today it's
: not woth making a A4000/040 only game.
Software pulls the hardware market. I didn't buy my A501 until Dragon's
Lair came out. 512K was quite enough for my word processing and
telecommunication needs.
When Term 3.4 came out, I bought a 68040/33, Picasso II, and 10 Megs of
RAM. See? Software causes people to buy hardware. ;-)
: If the A1200 and CD32 had 4Meg FastMem and a 040/33...
It may if there is software out there to use it. When Doom was started, a
486 wasn't even imaginable as a typical "home" computer. Now they are
sub $1000 (US). Windows bloated, and people bought more RAM and faster
machines.
Software always has and probably always will lead the hardware. It's very
simple, software provides the INCENTIVE for hardware. If there is no
supporting software, there will be NO incentive for hardware. The less
software out there that takes advantage of hardware, the less incentive
you have to buy, and the less incentive companies have to bring out
low-cost high performance hardware.
It's takes a daring company to push the envelope, but they they lead the
industry for a while. Look at ID for an example. Wing Commander ushered
in a flood of 386's because it NEEDED them.
Software must come first.
Christoffer Lernoe
> industry for a while. Look at ID for an example. Wing Commander ushered
> in a flood of 386's because it NEEDED them.
>
> Software must come first.
I agree! It's a pity that the amiga-market does not have the same kind of
direction.
Look at the hardware of the PCs today. They got there because the hardware
producers knew there was a market for better hardware, people wanted it
and the computer designers were just happy to give it to them.
Also, this growth encourages software producers too. A lot of people buying
better computers, means that the amount of cheap second hand computers
increase which opens the software market.
This is partly what has happened on the PC-side.
It's a pity that the development hasn't been pushed forward in a similar
way on the amiga. Who wants to buy a fancy new amiga if you can't do
anything fancy with it?
I say, encourage better computers! Why not include support for different
types of cards? It's not that hard adding another disk.. And make the
damn games installable on HD!
Christoffer.
MIKE
> graphics cards, how many Amiga owners actually also own chunky gfx cards
> AND a 68040 Amiga? I would be that there's far less than 10,000 of them.
^^^^^^
Like 10 000 is a top ten entry in the Amiga games charts at
the moment, I'm told that 20 000 games sold is enough to get the
companies breaking out the champagne nowadays.
> 90% of these use them for "serious" work (as far as that is possible on
> an Amiga anymore) and the other 1000 (90% of whom would pirate it) sure
> as hell do not warrant all the hassle.
Hmmmm, most people I know with chunky Amigas still like the
occasional blast on a game - so why wouldn't they buy the game ?
You'll also find that people with bigger machines also tend to have a
higher proportion of original software. They would buy the game.
Lastly - good games sell machines - its true, Doom is shifting
PCs faster than a dose of senna pods, Sonic did it for the Megadrive
and Shadow of the Beast did it on the Amiga. Give the punters
something that looks good on a rolling demo in the dealers and the
machines will be sold.
Mike.
--
You can reach Mike Richards at the following /@\ \|/
address ... (if you're that desperate). `-\ \ ______ - 0 -
\ \/ ` / \ /|\ _
m...@aber.ac.uk \_i / \ |\____//
| |==| |=----/
---- Why not drop me a line ...? -------------------hn/--hn/-----------
MICHAEL RICHARDS
>
> What kind of power is that? Personally I would prefer an OS like Irix
> which is a resource hog but (given the right hardware) runs FAR more
> smoothly than Intuition could ever dream of! I have my Amiga 1200 (4 megs
> RAM) crash daily because of stupid shit. Hell, I load up Viewtek and the
> damn thing crashes because it couldn't load a gif type! On the contrary,
> I've been working on an SGI Indigo for 3 months now, constantly. It
> >>NEVER<< crashed!! It had a few core dumps but the OS did not even
> wince! Now THAT is a REAL operating system! I don't give a rat's ass
> about multitasking as long as the damn computer crashes constantly!
1: Don't put `stupid shit' in your machine. It clogs up the heads.
2: Silicon graphics cost a teensie bit more than an A1200 (even with 4
Mb).
3: Viewtek is PD, there are plenty of other gif viewers out there for
free which do the job perfectly well, so why not choose another ?
4: OS 3.x is pretty damn stable in my opinion, I've been running it
for over a year with no crashes - guess I must be doing something
wrong then .....
> Also note: in the future ram prices go down. But Intutition NEVER looked
> like it was going to have protected memory, etc. That's what you get for
> having a hacker's computer. You can personally hack the living shit out
> of it, but don't ever expect applications to run for more than one minute
> without messing SOME memory segment up!
No, like I've had Imagine running for a day, and DPaint AND
Final Writer all simultaneously - no corrupt memory, no crashes, just
lots of lovely productivity. SGIs are great machines (do you think
they'll send me one if I say that often enough), but for the price
difference between them and the Amiga I would expect that ....
MICHAEL RICHARDS
In article <34ehgg$k...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>, robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Zsolt Szabo) writes:
> In article <34eha0$c...@potogold.rmii.com> mda...@rmii.com (Maxwell Daymon) writes:
>
> >My 68040/33MHz runs TextDemo5-ECS *TOO FAST* It's completely unplayable
> >until you get to absolute full screen. Once there, it feels okay. On my
> >68030 based system it isn't nearly as face-warpingly fast - but it still
> >performs. The uninformed person who stated that the 68040 would be
> >saturated was just WRONG.
>
> Text Demo 5 is nothing compared to DOOM. I support the author's efforts
> because he promised to add stuff eventually. But it's missing so many
> aspects of Doom that you cannot possibly get away with comparing it to
> the real DOOM!
1: Text *DEMO* 5 isn't quite like Doom eh ? I wonder why ?
Hmmmm thinkity thinkity, nope can't place my finger on it, but there
is definitely something about the word :
************** DEMO **************
that is bothering me .....
2: Does Text DEMO have 3D graphics - ummmmm actually it does,
does it have the ray casting - errrr I think so, curved walls - well
now that I mention it - yep, moving light sources - yes. What it
doesn't have at the moment are floors, sprites and layers of blocks.
The next version of Text DEMO may have some of those fixed,
remember - its one guy doing it for his own satisfaction - not a
company earning huge amounts in licence fees ....
3: Text *DEMO* actually exceeds Doom's resolution, it can run
in 1*1 pixel mode, Doom in hires runs at 2*2 pixels and lores at 4*4
Achieved by writing words (or long words respectively) to a chunky
display. This has an advantage - it fills the screen quicker with no
extra overhead than writing one byte at a time. If the author has made
any real mistakes, it is bothering to do 1x1 when as we all know, Doom
in its hires mode looks just fine and dandy.
So don't say `The Amiga can't do Doom, or if it can its only
on the A5000 dipped in liquid helium', just on the evidence of Text
DEMO. The program is obviously a lot closer to Doom than we ever would
have thought 6 months ago (when you were probably saying `the Amiga
can't do Wolfenstein'), Doom didn't appear overnight, the Amiga
version will take a bit of painful genesis, but I think we may all be
eating our words in another 6 months time .....
Juergen Rally Fischer
Perhaps a little more jump and run ? Might be more interesitng if there
was more than just shooting. Would be nice if Amiga versions went that way.
|>
|> Craig P.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
fisc...@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Juergen "Rally" Fischer)
=:)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zsolt Szabo
>Maybe it says something about your ability to work with computers. I dont
>know anyone who has ever had any problems like this. If you hate the amiga
>so much why do you keep using yours and posting to this group constantly.
Just to piss you off, man.
Zsolt Szabo
>Set Sony Flameman (tm) on [oven ready]
>
>In article <34ehgg$k...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>, robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Zsolt Szabo) writes:
>> In article <34eha0$c...@potogold.rmii.com> mda...@rmii.com (Maxwell Daymon) writes:
>>
>> >My 68040/33MHz runs TextDemo5-ECS *TOO FAST* It's completely unplayable
>> >until you get to absolute full screen. Once there, it feels okay. On my
>> >68030 based system it isn't nearly as face-warpingly fast - but it still
>> >performs. The uninformed person who stated that the 68040 would be
>> >saturated was just WRONG.
>>
>> Text Demo 5 is nothing compared to DOOM. I support the author's efforts
>> because he promised to add stuff eventually. But it's missing so many
>> aspects of Doom that you cannot possibly get away with comparing it to
>> the real DOOM!
>
> 1: Text *DEMO* 5 isn't quite like Doom eh ? I wonder why ?
>Hmmmm thinkity thinkity, nope can't place my finger on it, but there
>is definitely something about the word :
Son, your efforts are in vain. You ar ecompletely missing the point. He
was comparing Text Demo 5 to Doom. It has nothing to do with whether it's
a demo or not. First of all, it's version 5 so exactly how much faster do
YOU expect it to get? Secondly, Adding those features contained within
DOOM WILL INDUBITABLY slow it dow a HELL OF A LOT!
> 3: Text *DEMO* actually exceeds Doom's resolution, it can run
>in 1*1 pixel mode, Doom in hires runs at 2*2 pixels and lores at 4*4
Nonsense. DOOM runs in 1x1 (hi-res) and 1x2 (lo-res).
Simon Brown
Indeed. And if we're talking crash-prone, I've never seen ANYTHING as
crash-prone as Windoze. And it's supposed to watch for that sort of thing.
--
Simon "Fisty" Brown | E-Mail: si...@amdev.demon.co.uk
Ace A-Wing pilot, freelance software | Amazing Developments:
developer, and all-round nice bloke. | When we develop something, it's amazing.
"Let's just say that if total and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the
sort to stand on top of a mountain in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper
armour and shouting `All Gods are bastards'." - Rincewind
NIGEL HUGHES
Simon Austin
: Son, your efforts are in vain. You ar ecompletely missing the point. He
: a demo or not. First of all, it's version 5 so exactly how much faster do
: YOU expect it to get? Secondly, Adding those features contained within
: DOOM WILL INDUBITABLY slow it dow a HELL OF A LOT!
Yes, it's well known that once a program reaches version 5 it is
utterly impossible to make it go any faster. For example Wordperfect
6.0 is obviously no faster or better than version 5.1 and Microsoft
even skipped version 5.0 of Word to avoid this very problem.
--
+-+ Simon Austin +-+ Student Awards +-+ University of East London +-+
| `Stupid, Stupid Rat Creatures' - Fone Bone | aus...@uel.ac.uk //|
| `Hold tight and think of Lancashire Hotpot, Gromit' - Wallace \X/ |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Alan L.M. Buxey
: You don't get it, do you? The 68040 has nothing to do with the fact that
: the Amiga is having great difficulties with games depending on a chunky
: pixel mode (well... of course a faster CPU always helps, but that's not
: the point here). Games like doom render the frames in real time. Those
: programs determine the color of each pixel on the screen individually.
: Since the Amiga is using separate bit planes where one pixel is distributed
: over several noncontinuous bytes, changing one pixel means you have to make
: several accesses to chip memory. That is very very slow, especially since
: chip memory is already slow to begin with.
AGA chipset does 2 grabs per cycle.
AGA chipset is able to render a screen much faster than you are trying
to say. 1 pixel is represented by several planes, sure. But those planes
are shown simultaneously - the same speed as any VGA screen. The only
slow part is getting the CPU to write data to the chipRAM planes. This
is what the c2p programs do. Chip memory isnt "slow to begin with"
either. access can easily be over 2MB/s - and the access is ALL writing.
: There are some attempts at doing a quick conversing of a chunky pixel
: screen to a bit mapped screen. Look in aminet for some really amazing
: demos showing texture mapped user controllable dungeons in smooth motion
: (on my A500/040 at least).
they would be even smoother and faster on a full 32 bit Amiga - such as
the A1200 or A4000.
: So in theory it should be doable, but here comes the problem. Doom was
: written in C and id software would most likely just try to compile it
: almost straight on an Amiga. They won't be doing any Amiga specific
: optimizations (how could they when they have to support so many
: platforms?).
so many platforms? 3?
: So if they just plug in one of the pretty darn fast c2p
: conversion routines, it'll be dead slow. It would take a whole team
: of Amiga programmers to optimize it to a point where you can play it
: reasonably well on a fast Amiga (040 I would say... given that 386-40s
: can barely play Doom and they have the advantage of direct support for
: the chunky pixel mode).
386's are slow at DOOM because of many factors. one being that most of
the machines still are 16-bit BUS based.
: I am not saying Doom will not happen for the Amiga. All I am trying
: to say is that it takes more than a "Please id software, could you
: not just try to do a quick port of Doom using this c2p routine I
: have here?". I very much doubt that id software is willing to do much
: more for the Amiga.
- given time and understanding of the current market, they will.
: the other the Amiga has enough power to have a smooth running GUI
: even on a teeny 68000-7 processor (just think how Windows would run
: on a 286-7!).
exactly.
alan
From Alan, replies appreciated!___ __ _ __ ___ _ WWW - soon
.----------------------. ///\\ |\\ /| || // ' /\\ __ __ 32
| Alan Buxey | __ /// \\ | \\ /|| ||(( __ / \\ // ||\\
|kc...@solx1.susx.ac.uk| \\\///----\\| \/ || || \\_||/----\\ \\_ ||//
`-I use PGP...do you??-' \XX/Amiga - Now There's A Reason For Not Owning A PC.
-------I also read the InterNet Amiga magazine, "Amiga Report", do you?-------
Alan L.M. Buxey
: >graphics cards, how many Amiga owners actually also own chunky gfx cards
: >AND a 68040 Amiga? I would be that there's far less than 10,000 of them.
: >90% of these use them for "serious" work (as far as that is possible on
: >an Amiga anymore) and the other 1000 (90% of whom would pirate it) sure
: >as hell do not warrant all the hassle.
there are over 100,000 "DOOM capable" Amigas out there.
Having paid for the speed of their machines - and wanting to USE that
speed (especially 030 owning A1200 owners!!) I would expect a majority
of those Amiga users to pay for DOOM. Probably 30UKP...the other 40,000
_may_ copy it..
And as 030/040 based Amigas are not the most widespread, disk-disk
copying for friends will hardly go on. If they got it to run on a base
Amigas, however, this would be different - playground copying would
start up in no time at all.
Alan L.M. Buxey
: The next version of Text DEMO may have some of those fixed,
: remember - its one guy doing it for his own satisfaction - not a
: company earning huge amounts in licence fees ....
exactly
: 3: Text *DEMO* actually exceeds Doom's resolution, it can run
: in 1*1 pixel mode, Doom in hires runs at 2*2 pixels and lores at 4*4
: Achieved by writing words (or long words respectively) to a chunky
exactly, the author is making his forthcoming prodigy BETTER than DOOM
graphically - so the algorithm can be _degraded_ if extra speed is
required in the future..
: can't do Wolfenstein'), Doom didn't appear overnight, the Amiga
: version will take a bit of painful genesis, but I think we may all be
: eating our words in another 6 months time .....
Wolf and DOOM were developed secretly, because ID had new techniques.
Unfortunately, coders for the Amiga have had to try to fathom those
tech's out, and are just now proving that such things can be done.
I say less than 6 months. I say AGA Amigas with greater than 25MHz 030
power will have a great christmas present this year!! :)
Jyrki Saarinen
> Nonsense. DOOM runs in 1x1 (hi-res) and 1x2 (lo-res).
I have always thought DOOMs lo-res is 2x2..
Zsolt Szabo
>Yes, it's well known that once a program reaches version 5 it is
>utterly impossible to make it go any faster. For example Wordperfect
>6.0 is obviously no faster or better than version 5.1 and Microsoft
>even skipped version 5.0 of Word to avoid this very problem.
Assuming this is to be taken sarcastically, you should know that there is
quite a difference between applications software, which is written in
convenient programming languages, and a hyper-optimized texture mapping
routine. Unless the coder is an utter retard (and I assume he's not;
quite the opposite, matter of fact) or released all five versions within
a week, there is NOTHING which will speed the program up by more than say,
15%.
Alan L.M. Buxey
: > Nonsense. DOOM runs in 1x1 (hi-res) and 1x2 (lo-res).
: I have always thought DOOMs lo-res is 2x2..
it is...
Byron Montgomerie
# >: I agree! It's a pity that the amiga-market does not have the same kind of
# >: direction.
# > Yeah...if SW companies had produced more for higher spec Amigas, then
# > perhaps they would be more powerful today...it was only because SW needed
# > it that the Amiga becamse a 1 meg machine...
# Yep.. A friend of mine bought the expansion just to be able to play
# 'Champions of Krynn'.. :)
# > the Amiga could have gradually got a more powerful base as people
# > bought better HW for better SW ... but SW companies only produced
# > for the largest base. As a result, we are now in the position
# > where we cannot gradually "move up" with this method - we have to
# > make a masive leap if we are to move on, which many people cannot
# > afford. A lack of adventurous SW has caused great damage to our
# > platform, while PC developers' willingness to take a risk has
# > pushed *their* machine on to better things...
Hardly a big risk with that many machines in the market. The main thing
was lack of new products on the part of CBM in a timely fashion. When sales
decline to a certain point you have to come up with a new product or a new spin
on an old one to stay in business. Amiga clones would have established a base
for new products. So instead of other companies taking away their sales with
clones of their product they ended up with other companies taking over their
share of the market with a different product. Same idea as with BetaMAX and VHS.
In hindsight, what was the point of being proprietary?
# Another thing: By stimulating the hardware market the number of
# different companies producing similar hardware increases which
# in turn leads to competition and lower prices. That's what happened
# on the PC-side.
# >: I say, encourage better computers! Why not include support for different
# >: types of cards? It's not that hard adding another disk.. And make the
# >: damn games installable on HD!
<me too deleted>
Agreed, hd games are nicer.
A new Amiga company has to get into the business of producing new products or
it will die. In my opinion backwards compatibility should be only a software
issue, not a hardware one as has been the case.
Just my thoughts on the subject.
Regards,
Byron...
__ __
__ /// "Byron Montgomerie" Internet: by...@saturn.cs.mun.ca __ ///
\\\/// "Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? \\\///
\XX/ Remember how she said that we would meet again, \XX/
Amiga some sunny day..." -- Pink Floyd -- Amiga
Byron Montgomerie
# In article <34kehk$7...@beta.qmw.ac.uk> aus...@sunrae.uel.ac.uk (Simon Austin) writes:
# >Yes, it's well known that once a program reaches version 5 it is
# >utterly impossible to make it go any faster. For example Wordperfect
# >6.0 is obviously no faster or better than version 5.1 and Microsoft
# >even skipped version 5.0 of Word to avoid this very problem.
# Assuming this is to be taken sarcastically, you should know that there is
^^^^^^^^
You have doubts? :)
# quite a difference between applications software, which is written in
# convenient programming languages, and a hyper-optimized texture mapping
# routine. Unless the coder is an utter retard (and I assume he's not;
# quite the opposite, matter of fact) or released all five versions within
# a week, there is NOTHING which will speed the program up by more than say,
# 15%.
Not really. Version numbers are only meaningful to the programmer who uses them.
You are assuming he is just trying to implement a set algorithm and not trying
different approaches.
Richard Levy
: > It's takes a daring company to push the envelope, but they they lead the
: > in a flood of 386's because it NEEDED them.
: >
: > Software must come first.
: I agree! It's a pity that the amiga-market does not have the same kind of
: direction.
Yeah...if SW companies had produced more for higher spec Amigas, then
perhaps they would be more powerful today...it was only because SW needed it
that the Amiga becamse a 1 meg machine... the Amiga could have gradually got
a more powerful base as people bought better HW for better SW ... but SW
companies only produced for the largest base. As a result, we are now in the
position where we cannot gradually "move up" with this method - we have to
make a masive leap if we are to move on, which many people cannot afford. A
lack of adventurous SW has caused great damage to our platform, while PC
developers' willingness to take a risk has pushed *their* machine on to
better things...
: Look at the hardware of the PCs today. They got there because the hardware
: producers knew there was a market for better hardware, people wanted it
: and the computer designers were just happy to give it to them.
Exactly.
: Also, this growth encourages software producers too. A lot of people buying
: better computers, means that the amount of cheap second hand computers
: increase which opens the software market.
: This is partly what has happened on the PC-side.
: It's a pity that the development hasn't been pushed forward in a similar
: way on the amiga. Who wants to buy a fancy new amiga if you can't do
: anything fancy with it?
: I say, encourage better computers! Why not include support for different
: types of cards? It's not that hard adding another disk.. And make the
: damn games installable on HD!
Gere here! Well never get DOOM etc type games until more stuff is on
HD..there IS a very big Amiga HD market now, and even if there was not, as
we have said, the SW industry could MAKE the market - the only reason ALL PC
owners have PCs is because they NEED them..
As a result, they all have HDs so can have bigger better SW. You dont
need HDs on an Amiga as much, so were stuck with FD - anything big means
stupid disk-swapping. they should CREATE the market (although I think it is
already big enough, even if SW producers dont) by making everything HD
installable..
Ric.
Dave Mansell
years ago. Just before they went up everybody was expecting them to go
down. I wouldn't depend on memory get much cheaper for a while yet.
-------------------------------------------------------------
| Dave Mansell - Citadel Software Ltd, Cornwall, UK |
| This message brought to you via: |
| AMIGA CD32 with SX1, 6MB, 420MB Hard Disk, FMV, keyboard, |
| floppy drive and US Robotics Modem. Now try that on a 3DO |
-------------------------------------------------------------
Christoffer Lernoe
>: direction.
> Yeah...if SW companies had produced more for higher spec Amigas, then
> perhaps they would be more powerful today...it was only because SW needed
> it that the Amiga becamse a 1 meg machine...
Yep.. A friend of mine bought the expansion just to be able to play
'Champions of Krynn'.. :)
> the Amiga could have gradually got a more powerful base as people
> bought better HW for better SW ... but SW companies only produced
> for the largest base. As a result, we are now in the position
> where we cannot gradually "move up" with this method - we have to
> make a masive leap if we are to move on, which many people cannot
> afford. A lack of adventurous SW has caused great damage to our
> platform, while PC developers' willingness to take a risk has
> pushed *their* machine on to better things...
Another thing: By stimulating the hardware market the number of
different companies producing similar hardware increases which
in turn leads to competition and lower prices. That's what happened
on the PC-side.
>: I say, encourage better computers! Why not include support for different
>: types of cards? It's not that hard adding another disk.. And make the
>: damn games installable on HD!
> Gere here! Well never get DOOM etc type games until more stuff is on
> HD..there IS a very big Amiga HD market now, and even if there was
> not, as we have said, the SW industry could MAKE the market - the
> only reason ALL PC owners have PCs is because they NEED them..
Yep, it is pure stupidity to release those games on "disk only".
This is choking the amiga market. Who wants to have an amiga when
the games are on disks and don't support any better hardware than
A500?
> As a result, they all have HDs so can have bigger better SW. You
> dont need HDs on an Amiga as much, so were stuck with FD - anything
> big means stupid disk-swapping. they should CREATE the market
> (although I think it is already big enough, even if SW producers
> dont) by making everything HD installable..
I very much agree with you... My (hopefully) upcoming game _WILL_
be HD installable, I can promise that..
Christoffer.
Zsolt Szabo
>I have always thought DOOMs lo-res is 2x2..
No, it isn't. Regular resolution is 320x200, low-res is 2x1. I looked
closely and while switching to low-res, two horizontal pixels were
combined into one, while the vertical resolution stayed the same. Hence,
160x200.
Simon Brown
It depends on your version numbering system. If it's truly the fifth
version, instead of the fifth release, then there could still be a large scope
for improvement.
Anyway, what happened to Text Demos 1-4? I've never heard of them...
--
Simon "Fisty" Brown | E-Mail: si...@amdev.demon.co.uk
Ace A-Wing pilot, freelance software | Amazing Developments:
developer, and all-round nice bloke. | When we develop something, it's amazing.
"And be it well for a knowlessman that he should not be here, for he would
be taken from this place and his gaskin slit, his moules shown to the four
winds, his welchet torn asunder with many hooks and his figgin placed upon
a spike." - Supreme Grand Master, Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night
Jyrki Saarinen
> : > Nonsense. DOOM runs in 1x1 (hi-res) and 1x2 (lo-res).
>
> : I have always thought DOOMs lo-res is 2x2..
>
> it is...
Hey, Zsolt lied again..
> alan
Byron Montgomerie
# In article <1994Sep8.0...@cs.mun.ca> by...@cs.mun.ca (Byron Montgomerie) writes:
# >Not really. Version numbers are only meaningful to the programmer who uses them.
# >You are assuming he is just trying to implement a set algorithm and not trying
# >different approaches.
# Ok. Let ME find a different approach to my claim then: how much do you
# want to bet that any future version of Text Demo will be even twice as
# fast as Text Demo 5, while retaining at least the same amount of detail,
# etc?
So you are saying it won't get better indefinitely, fine, I can buy that. But
who is to say at what point along the path to diminishing returns he has
progressed?
Rowan Crawford
>No, it isn't. Regular resolution is 320x200, low-res is 2x1. I looked
So why are those pixels so damn big? It must be some sort of
illusion, because normal Doom resolutions looks just like (or similar
too) 2x2 on the Amiga.
Row.
MICHAEL RICHARDS
> Zsolt Szabo (robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu) wrote:
> : Son, your efforts are in vain. You ar ecompletely missing the point. He
> : was comparing Text Demo 5 to Doom. It has nothing to do with whether it's
> : a demo or not. First of all, it's version 5 so exactly how much faster do
> : YOU expect it to get? Secondly, Adding those features contained within
> : DOOM WILL INDUBITABLY slow it dow a HELL OF A LOT!
>
> Yes, it's well known that once a program reaches version 5 it is
> utterly impossible to make it go any faster. For example Wordperfect
> 6.0 is obviously no faster or better than version 5.1 and Microsoft
> even skipped version 5.0 of Word to avoid this very problem.
heheheh! The funny thing is that for the first time Zsolt may
be right - Word 6 is slower and more buggy than the preceding version.
maybe its some feature of the compiler that Zsolt knows about. Best go
to version 7 of the Text Demo to be sure ...
Eyvind Bernhardsen
[...]
I don't know what DOOM's resolution is, but the large pixels are due
to the 30kHz screen. Check out an A1200/A4000 running DBLPAL or
DBLNTSC in 320x2(00|56) mode, and you'll see the same effect.
--
// Eyvind Bernhardsen -- finger -l for PGP key -- eyv...@pvv.unit.no
\X/ This space unintentionally left blank. Stem JA 28. November!
Zsolt Szabo
>>No, it isn't. Regular resolution is 320x200, low-res is 2x1. I looked
>
>So why are those pixels so damn big? It must be some sort of
>illusion, because normal Doom resolutions looks just like (or similar
>too) 2x2 on the Amiga.
I thought this had been discussed about a million times before! Because
of the higher resolution SVGA monitors provide sharper images than the
1084. Furthermore, the 1084 is a 13" screen, while most SVGAs are 14" and
up. That is why the pixels appear larger and clearer.
If you don't believe me, e-mail ID. Of course after that you can still go
on claiming that they lied to you as well, but that can't be helped.
Zsolt Szabo
>Not really. Version numbers are only meaningful to the programmer who uses them.
>You are assuming he is just trying to implement a set algorithm and not trying
>different approaches.
Ok. Let ME find a different approach to my claim then: how much do you
want to bet that any future version of Text Demo will be even twice as
fast as Text Demo 5, while retaining at least the same amount of detail,
etc?
John Hendrikx
>>> I have always thought DOOMs lo-res is 2x2..
>> No, it isn't. Regular resolution is 320x200, low-res is 2x1. I looked
RC> So why are those pixels so damn big? It must be some sort of illusion,
RC> because normal Doom resolutions looks just like (or similar too) 2x2 on
RC> the Amiga.
Doom really uses 1x1 for Hi-res and 2x1 for Lo-Res. It only _looks_ like 2x2
pixels because most pc's use VGA monitors which tend to make the pixels look
kinda 'blocky'
That's because these monitors display EACH lores scan-line twice. This makes
the pixels look like they are 2 pixels in height. Try loading a LoRes picture
in HiresInterlaced mode and scale it to twice its size to get this effect on
Amiga.
Grtz John
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
John.H...@grafix.wlink.nl FIDO: 2:286/407.8 AMY: 39:153/201.8
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Via Xenolink 1.90
Scott - Maxwell
>closely and while switching to low-res, two horizontal pixels were
>combined into one, while the vertical resolution stayed the same. Hence,
>160x200.
>
+----------------------------------------------------+
| Scott Maxwell - sco...@cup.portal.com - Team OS/2 |
| Welcome to the Internet, future home of |
| The Techno-Babble Turnpike |
+----------------------------------------------------+
Zsolt Szabo
>>
>> : I have always thought DOOMs lo-res is 2x2..
>>
>> it is...
>
>Hey, Zsolt lied again..
You are OBVISOULY f*cking blind!
E-mail ID, DICK!
Richard Levy
: > As a result, they all have HDs so can have bigger better SW. You
: > big means stupid disk-swapping. they should CREATE the market
: > (although I think it is already big enough, even if SW producers
: > dont) by making everything HD installable..
: I very much agree with you...
Thankyou :)
:My (hopefully) upcoming game _WILL_
: be HD installable, I can promise that..
What game? you dont ned a musician/scriptwriter/bloke who has good ideas for
games all the time do you? =^)
R...@rlevy.demon/co/uk
RIC.
Puppy
>> No, it isn't. Regular resolution is 320x200, low-res is 2x1. I
>> looked closely and while switching to low-res, two horizontal
>> pixels were combined into one, while the vertical resolution stayed
>> the same. Hence, 160x200.
>>
Scott> Cool. It can be done on the C-64 now! 160x200 works just
Scott> fine. :-)
Hmmm... Think it could be done on a accelerated (8MHz) 64? Or maybe
the C65... Heh... That would be something :)
--
___
._|___|_,
Per Olofsson o-o "Zonked, but alive!"
-
%
John Hendrikx
>> Assuming this is to be taken sarcastically, you should know that there is
>> quite a difference between applications software, which is written in
>> convenient programming languages, and a hyper-optimized texture mapping
>> routine. Unless the coder is an utter retard (and I assume he's not; quite
>> the opposite, matter of fact) or released all five versions within a week,
>> there is NOTHING which will speed the program up by more than say, 15%.
SB> It depends on your version numbering system. If it's truly the fifth
SB> version, instead of the fifth release, then there could still be a
SB> large scope for improvement.
SB> Anyway, what happened to Text Demos 1-4? I've never heard of them...
TextDemo 1&2 were only released to a few people for beta-testing, but 3-5 were
all released (and also put on either Aminet or ADS/SAN).
Neil Brewitt
> >
> >Hey, Zsolt lied again..
>
>
> You are OBVISOULY f*cking blind!
>
> E-mail ID, DICK!
Playing safe again, Zsolt? If that's the pinnacle of your intelligence, you
don't have far to fall. :)
Neil.
--
**** ne...@melkfri.demon.co.uk ****
Alan L.M. Buxey
: The 68040 may easily do the computations, but the Amiga by itself has NO
: HARDWARE WHATSOEVER which would aid it in this case! As for the chunky
the CPU is the only aiding required.
: graphics cards, how many Amiga owners actually also own chunky gfx cards
: AND a 68040 Amiga? I would be that there's far less than 10,000 of them.
you dont need a chunky gfx card.
: 90% of these use them for "serious" work (as far as that is possible on
but PC's are used for serious work too!! ;)
: an Amiga anymore) and the other 1000 (90% of whom would pirate it) sure
^^^^^^^^^^^
dont try a flame bait.
: as hell do not warrant all the hassle.
what hassle?? to show someones coding skills on a different platform is
not a hassle, its a challenge -> as any programmer will tell you ;)
Alan L.M. Buxey
: >the other the Amiga has enough power to have a smooth running GUI
: >even on a teeny 68000-7 processor (just think how Windows would run
: >on a 286-7!).
: What kind of power is that? Personally I would prefer an OS like Irix
he said, a 0.5 MIPS processor running an OS and GUI environment smoothly
-> more smoothly than a 10 MIPS PC can do.
: smoothly than Intuition could ever dream of! I have my Amiga 1200 (4 megs
: RAM) crash daily because of stupid shit. Hell, I load up Viewtek and the
: damn thing crashes because it couldn't load a gif type! On the contrary,
what GIF picture?? ;) - honestly, i've never had VT crash on me and
i've viewed MANY things on it. GIF;'s JPEG's PCX files...
are you running the correct version?? dont be over-zaelous and use the
GVP Spectrum version! :)
: of it, but don't ever expect applications to run for more than one minute
: without messing SOME memory segment up!
ha ha ha -> i have run vista pro for MANY MANY hours (up to 3 days
constantly, and no memory problems what so ever.
Alan L.M. Buxey
: Just to piss you off, man.
well, there you go. the quota of a 2nd year college guy in america with
a bad-attitude. I'm sure you _really_ would like a nice expansive PC
that will be outdated by "its own family" within less than 3 months.. ;)
alan
ps - cant wait till you graduate!! :)
Alan L.M. Buxey
: Zsolt Szabo (robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu) wrote:
: : Son, your efforts are in vain. You ar ecompletely missing the point. He
: : was comparing Text Demo 5 to Doom. It has nothing to do with whether it's
: : a demo or not. First of all, it's version 5 so exactly how much faster do
: : YOU expect it to get? Secondly, Adding those features contained within
: : DOOM WILL INDUBITABLY slow it dow a HELL OF A LOT!
: Yes, it's well known that once a program reaches version 5 it is
: utterly impossible to make it go any faster. For example Wordperfect
: 6.0 is obviously no faster or better than version 5.1 and Microsoft
: even skipped version 5.0 of Word to avoid this very problem.
;)
damn. does that mean i shouldnt buy quarterback 6.0 as it will be the
same as version 5.0?? ;)
alan
Alan L.M. Buxey
: Hey, Zsolt lied again..
well, that _does_ suprise me! ;)
MICHAEL RICHARDS
>
> Ok. Let ME find a different approach to my claim then: how much do you
> want to bet that any future version of Text Demo will be even twice as
> fast as Text Demo 5, while retaining at least the same amount of detail,
> etc?
>
running close to 50 Hz already, does it need to run twice as fast ?
Alan L.M. Buxey
: convenient programming languages, and a hyper-optimized texture mapping
: routine. Unless the coder is an utter retard (and I assume he's not;
: quite the opposite, matter of fact) or released all five versions within
: a week, there is NOTHING which will speed the program up by more than say,
: 15%.
you dont know what you are talking about.
NOTHING my arse!!!
i know of several coders who - after taking a break from their projects
- have gone back and written a brand new module/algorithm that is at
least 100% faster!!
maybe the author has done the same, gone back to reading material to
improve his ideas..
Alan L.M. Buxey
: No, it isn't. Regular resolution is 320x200, low-res is 2x1. I looked
: closely and while switching to low-res, two horizontal pixels were
: combined into one, while the vertical resolution stayed the same. Hence,
: 160x200.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
is that all????
all of these amiga coders are going for 320x256 at least!!
James B. Atkins
:In article <34ne05$3...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>, robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Zsolt Szabo) writes:
:>
:> Ok. Let ME find a different approach to my claim then: how much do you
:> want to bet that any future version of Text Demo will be even twice as
:> fast as Text Demo 5, while retaining at least the same amount of detail,
:> etc?
:>
: Okay, its a dumb question I know, but, why when a program is
:running close to 50 Hz already, does it need to run twice as fast ?
Sure it does, so you can add a full screen and monsters and all that other
great stuff. I don't think a program can ever run 'too fast' :-)
--
-Brian Finger me for the Blade Runner FAQ
Zsolt Szabo
> Okay, its a dumb question I know, but, why when a program is
>running close to 50 Hz already, does it need to run twice as fast ?
I always use max. size, max. resolution when playing around with Text
Demo 5. I sure don't get 50 fps.
Zsolt Szabo
>ps - cant wait till you graduate!! :)
Sorry--already decided to get an Internet account after that.
MICHAEL RICHARDS
a: I said close to 50 fps.
b: What speed is your machine ?
These things matter.
MICHAEL RICHARDS
There is no need to make Poom twice as fast as it is already,
the routine is already working much harder than it needs to. The
window could be shrunk slightly - it may actually need to be shrunk to
get some decent stats info in the game, and the resolution could be
downgraded slightly.
Adding bad guys won't take that much effort.
And you can make a game run too fast - Superfrog's playability
was almost lost because of the gee-whizz superfast scrolling.
Mans Engman
>In article <351fhf$b...@acmex.gatech.edu>, gt4...@prism.gatech.edu (James B. Atkins) writes:
>> In article <1994Sep12....@aber.ac.uk> m...@aber.ac.uk (MICHAEL RICHARDS) writes:
>> : Okay, its a dumb question I know, but, why when a program is
>> :running close to 50 Hz already, does it need to run twice as fast ?
>>
Yes. If BspTextPoomXX runs at 50 Hz on your 50 mhz machine,
a twice as fast version could run twice as fast on a slow machine.
Or twice the resolution on your machine.
Or 50 Hz and cpu time left to render your favvo ray traced animation ;-)
>> Sure it does, so you can add a full screen and monsters and all that other
>> great stuff. I don't think a program can ever run 'too fast' :-)
> There is no need to make Poom twice as fast as it is already,
>the routine is already working much harder than it needs to. The
If Poom could be made twice as fast (which I'm not sure about anyway)
then I can only think of a few reasons NOT doing it:
* coder laziness/army/threats from ID ;-)
* if the engine must be restricted in order to increase speed
>window could be shrunk slightly - it may actually need to be shrunk to
>get some decent stats info in the game, and the resolution could be
>downgraded slightly.
> Adding bad guys won't take that much effort.
> And you can make a game run too fast - Superfrog's playability
>was almost lost because of the gee-whizz superfast scrolling.
It's a slight difference between the two types of games.
Making a 3d graphics engine faster doesn't mean speeding up the actual
game play. If the movement of monsters, players, etc. doesn't need much
cpu time in comparision to the graphics rendering (as is the case of
D**m) then these things could be handled by timer or VB interrupts,
letting the graphics engine render otherwise.
(I believe this is the case of Poom_0.2 - at least people have claimed so)
This means that a player could move, say, 3 distance units per second
regardless of computer speed and scene complexity.
A faster graphics engine and/or computer would make the graphics jerk less
but would not affect game play in other ways.
> Mike.
>--
>You can reach Mike Richards at the following /@\ \|/
>address ... (if you're that desperate). `-\ \ ______ - 0 -
> \ \/ ` / \ /|\ _
> m...@aber.ac.uk \_i / \ |\____//
> | |==| |=----/
>---- Why not drop me a line ...? -------------------hn/--hn/-----------
Mans Engman (mo...@lysator.liu.se, c92m...@und.ida.liu.se)
----Why not drop me a quadrilateral???----
Alan L.M. Buxey
: In article <351dua$2...@infa.central.susx.ac.uk> kc...@central.susx.ac.uk (Alan L.M. Buxey) writes:
: >ps - cant wait till you graduate!! :)
: Sorry--already decided to get an Internet account after that.
darn. ;)
alan
--Replies appreciated--|Info:Male21EnglishANLandCATCJBsupporterActiveontheNet
.-----Holiday--soon----.|foralmost3yearsUKcorrespondantforAmigaReportandinfoma
| Alan L.M. Buxey BSc. ||tiongiverformanytopicsKeeperofseveralAmigalistsWWWpag
|kc...@solx1.susx.ac.uk||esplannedforuseAmigaAffectionadoNowdoingaPhDhereinUK.
`-I use PGP--Do you??--'|The Amiga - Now There's A Reason For Not Owning A PC.
InterNet Amiga Magazine, "Amiga Report". Do you read it? Net.Holiday 23/9-3/10
Zsolt Szabo
>you dont know what you are talking about.
>
>NOTHING my arse!!!
Pardon me for disbelieving you, friend, but (coming from a guy who
predicted that within a few months we'd see 68060 cards for 1200, etc.)
this does seem pretty ridiculous.
Let me ask you this: in one year from now, when you realize that you were
wrong, do you permit me to rub it in your face?
Zsolt Szabo
>Zsolt Szabo (robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu) wrote:
>
>: No, it isn't. Regular resolution is 320x200, low-res is 2x1. I looked
>: closely and while switching to low-res, two horizontal pixels were
>: combined into one, while the vertical resolution stayed the same. Hence,
>: 160x200.
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>is that all????
>
>all of these amiga coders are going for 320x256 at least!!
First of all, DOOM _IS_ 320x200. If you got a slow 486 you switch to
160x200. But it IS 320x200 in regular mode.
Secondly, amiga coders are _not_ going for 320x256 at least, for two
reasons. First, until now the only texture mapping demos that I've seen
on the Amiga that did have full screen graphics (i.e. 320x200, _not_
320x252) were copper demos; but their pixel resolutions was around 3x3,
yielding a 106x66 resolution. Note: that _IS_ lower than even 160x200.
Secondly, I hope you're not implying high-res mode by saying "at least
320x252", as that is obviously way beyond the realm of AGA, even IF some
kind of Wolf 3D is eventually realized.
Rowan Crawford
>Let me ask you this: in one year from now, when you realize that you were
>wrong, do you permit me to rub it in your face?
Did someone say, "poom0.2" ??
Row.
John Kelly
robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Dolt Dumbo) writes:
#
# Let me ask you this: in one year from now, when you realize that you were
# wrong, do you permit me to rub it in your face?
I heard that you were into that sort of thing, Dolt, but you have it
a little backwards.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jk...@ragtime.vnet.net | ... heard a singer on the radio, late | Protect
SysOp, Ragtime East | last night; said he's gonna kick the | the
1:3654/7.0@Fidonet | darkness, 'till it bleeds daylight ... | Net!
John Kelly
# 160x200. But it IS 320x200 in regular mode.
You're saying here that the /fastest/ CPU you can find in common Clones
has to run this GAME in a tiny little window?
Dolt, How can you advocate such an obviously underpowered architecture?
Rod Prince
: robo...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Dolt Dumbo) writes:
: #
: # First of all, DOOM _IS_ 320x200. If you got a slow 486 you switch to
: # 160x200. But it IS 320x200 in regular mode.
:
: You're saying here that the /fastest/ CPU you can find in common Clones
: has to run this GAME in a tiny little window?
<confused> It runs happily at full screen.
Obviously youve yet to see DOOM?
--
---
Cheers,
Rod - immo...@zonk.geko.com.au
mj...@uno.edu
> There is no need to make Poom twice as fast as it is already,
>the routine is already working much harder than it needs to. The
>window could be shrunk slightly - it may actually need to be shrunk to
>get some decent stats info in the game, and the resolution could be
>downgraded slightly.
I've been vaugely following the random Doom-like discussions for quite a
long time. Here's some thoughts related to Poom in particular, and *oom in
general:
1. Bad guys, typically, seem to be handled, graphically, by the exact same
routines as objects. It's just that they move around and animate. If you
already have a "scale-n-shade random bitmap to random xyz" routine that
you're using for your objects, then you'll probably wind up doing the bad
guys with this same routine. With a routine that only wrote to any pixel
one time, you'd probably have to actually jam the bad guy objects into the
object lists at the appropriate points.
2. Score. I dunno, i think it'd be keen to have a doom-like game with
status superimposed on the display (sprites are always nice for this) for a
really, really, quease-inducingly large playfield. Complex object
management (such as in Hired Guns, the best dungeon game i've ever played)
would be a lot less nerve-wracking if it got superimposed over the screen
rather than replacing it, for instance. (although you could argue for the
seperate screen method there, FOR purposes of increasing tension...)
m...@mc.uno.edu "Why us? Why are we going cartoonist 'n.
-- actually my instead of someone else?" animator gN;''Hh'
mum's account! - Rez programmer `"u' O \+8w,
put ATTN:PAUL "Because... WE'RE amigafan .`.;,_-^~`=e\
or somesuch in SCIENTISTS!" - Dr. Radium raccoon. ;"v-" _, ,r```,
mail titles. ("It's Science" #1) [sig v3.0] ` ,/ /
Alan L.M. Buxey
: Secondly, I hope you're not implying high-res mode by saying "at least
: 320x252", as that is obviously way beyond the realm of AGA, even IF some
: kind of Wolf 3D is eventually realized.
zsolt, honey, 320x256 is low-res in the Amiga world...or did you forget
that!??
Zsolt Szabo
After seeing you spell "Dolt" all these days and wondering just who
exactly you might be addressing, I finally realized the truth:
recently I learned that after suffering from a stroke many people
exhibit the same symptoms as you: after reading a word, they are unable
to reproduce it, even if it is spelled right in front of them.
The sad thing is that I cannot really help you; since your orthographic
lexicon seems to have been disrupted severely (did your father beat you
on the head a lot, perhaps?), there really is nothing that can be done to
help you.
I really sympathize with your situation. Perhaps in the future physicians
will be able to replace partially lost brain tissue, so that people like
you will be able to live normal lives like everybody else, without being
looked down on.
For now, don't feel sad. Look at it this way: some people actually are
more affected than you.
Neil Brewitt
Yeah, but don't forget - the higher the version number, the worse it gets.
Honest, that's the truth, d00d!
Jake Envelopes
> George Sanderson (aiss...@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au) wrote:
> : [response from Id software]
> : From jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com Sun Sep 4 02:52 EST 1994
> : From: John Carmack <jo...@idcube.idsoftware.com>
> : Date: Sat, 3 Sep 94 11:50:23 -0600
> : To: G.San...@ais.gu.edu.au
> : Subject: amiga doom
> : The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full
> : speed of a 68040 to play the game properly even if you have a chunky
> : pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill
> : it even on the fastest amiga hardware, not to mention the effect it
> : would have on the majority of the amiga base.
> What a joke! The 68040 is EASILY as capable as any 486 out there, and the
> Amiga has additional hardware support. Furthermore, there ARE Spectrum,
> Piccolo, Picasso II, Merlin, Rainbow II, Rainbow III, owners out there too.
> My dealer says it's very difficult to get Picasso II's anymore because
> his distributer is constantly selling out. Always on backorder.
> --
> //
> // Maxwell Daymon
> \\ // mda...@rmii.com
> \X/
Your comments didn't age well, did they Max? I am now writing from the far future: November 1st 2021. 27 years after you wrote your comment, and 27 years of Amiga fans bawling about how easily Doom could be written for the Amiga and how much better than the PC version it would be because of how much more powerful was the Amiga (allegedly, never substantiated, contradicted by actual performance data). Even now there is Still no competing product for the Amiga. Not even with all those demo writers spending the intervening years trying to speed up Amiga graphics routines. Carmack was right. Being the original author of Doom he is also a far more educated and technically astute commentator on the issue than you are. Accept it: He was telling the truth. The fact you don't like it is irrelevant. Never in any issue is there a bigger case of "feelings over facts" than among the Amiga fan base. Doom was a final headshot to Amiga illusions, and still is. All there is left is the Zombie fan base. The stake through the heart is there is now no point in reviving the Amiga because there is nothing left to its name worthy of reviving.
Let's all come back in December 2023 and celebrate the 30 empty years of a "still nope" lack of anything on the Amiga that truly competes with Doom.
Pinku Basudei
http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/09/dread-wip-doom-clone-on-amiga-500-gets.html
--
/ Pinku
cbusylol
M Davydd Pattinson
> Let's all come back in December 2023 and celebrate the 30 empty years of a "still nope" lack of anything on the Amiga that truly competes with Doom.
Still nope.