From: oahvenla@snakemail.hut.fi (Osma Ahvenlampi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: Wing Commander Amiga
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Date: 02 Jan 93 22:12:37 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: lk-hp-4.hut.fi
In-reply-to: Steven_Hurdle@amusers.UUCP's message of 1 Jan 93 16:17:42 PST

In article <Steven_Hurdle.00ud@amusers.UUCP> Steven_Hurdle@amusers.UUCP (Steven Hurdle) writes:
> OA> I'd take high frame rate over high resolution in animation any time.
> OA> Of course,
> OA> if you could get both, it would be great, but...

>You're kidding?  I wouldn't sacrifice much detail for the sake of speed. 

Detail is not always the same thing as high resolution, and fast processor
is not the same as guaranteed fast operation. I'm all for variable detail
level, so you can choose between fast and high detail, if your computer
can't give you both. However, graphics need chip bus, which has always been
slower than the processor.
The following is from the top of my head, so it might not be totally accurate.
First, interlace is a no. On the other hand, rectangular pixels look better
than 320x512 or 640x200. At least 16 colors is needed to look good.
Lets see how fast we can go in various display modes.
ECS chip RAM bus is about 7MB/s. NTSC/PAL 320x200x5 (32 colors) takes about
3MB/s, leaving 4MB/s. Half of this is taken by the screen clears, so you've
got 2MB/s for drawing, audio, and possibly even the code (on chip only and
chip/slow ($c00000 RAM expansion) systems). That's just enough for 50 fps
and very smooth operation.
NTSC/PAL 640x200x4 (16 colors) takes about 5MB/s, leaving 2. Again, half is
for screen clearing. With 1MB/s left, you can get about 16 fps. Swift
movements start to be jerky, but it's not too bad. 640x400 is interlace,
and wouldn't take more bus, but there's twice as much data, so frame rate
is about 8 fps.
Using a smaller window would of course make things faster, and if the gfx
are very simple, the drawing won't take as long, so you might get higher
frame rates. The above, however, is the max with lots of stuff on screen.
Since the user base is ECS, or even older, that's what the games are for.
When I tried to calculate some figures for AGA, I got some pretty confusing
results compared to my short experiments with A1200, so I won't repeat them
here. Maybe someone with AGA knowledge could tell how high frame rate you
could get in 320x200x8, 640x400x4 and 640x400x8 deinterlaced, following the
same logic as above?

>your machine yet.  The Blizzard Board is good if you want a quality thing
>with the option of FastRAM, but if you can get an AdSpeed cheap then great.
>In truth, you want an '030 or better of course but if you're
>budget-conscious then a 14mhz 68000 may be the way to go.  You can't expect
>stock A500s and A2000s to be competitive any longer.  The A1200 will go a
>long way to correcting this.

I don't think the 14MHz hacks are worth the trouble. I agree that the current
base is slow, but that's where the games sell, so that's what they're made
for. Ideal would be user defined complexity level and screen resolution, but
making the code flexible enough to handle different resolutions costs a bit
in speed, and even a bit shows on the low-level.. 3D games could, however,
be done so that you could use any resolution you'd like.
A1200 is of course the future, and even though I don't have one, I hope game
makers will start supporting it and better models soon.

>   My other point is that I'll take detail over speed any day because
>eventually most we'll all get our next (and faster) Amigas someday (I don't
>think any of us expect to use A500s or even A3000s forever).  When and if
>you do get a faster machine, you'll be glad you had the emphasis on detail
>so you can then get the speed as well.  Look at Cinemaware's Wings, though.

Games don't last forever. You'll want them to be playable now, not in the
distant future...

>That's the perfect balance IMO.  Of course if the game was crap and not
>coded properly to work with the system and then won't run on future
>machines, why did you buy it anyway?  I've never bought games that wouldn't
>run under 2.0 or better, wouldn't run under accelerators, required you to
>disable hardware like external drives/printers, etc.  If people want to

Then you haven't been buying games for long...

>  And while I'm on the warpath, I might as well gripe about stubborn
>low-end peoples.  Personally, living in N.A. I have NEVER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE
>MET AN AMIGA USER WHO HAD LESS THAN 1 MEG!  I'll have to take people's word
>that apparently some euro-gamers really only own 512k, but I find it
>impossible to believe.  A501 cards are cheap, and ditto for second floppy
>drives (the only peoople you're likely to meet here with 1 floppy drive are
>those with large HDs for who it isn't necessary).  I'm all for supporting
>the lowest-common-denominator, but you have to be realistic about it!  It

I can't think of any new game that wouldn't run with 512KB chip/512 KB slow,
2 floppy drives system. On the other hand, some don't work on my 1MB chip,
2 MB fast, 1 floppy, HD system without degrading, or even after that, if it
requires 2 drives... That's why I want to try all software before buying...

>irks me to no end that games are often scaled-down just to accomodate 512k
>users, or at least that this was true until recently.  Since almost
>everyone has two floppy drives, and many have three, the fears of "horrible
>disk swapping" had never made much sense to me either until I discovered
>they were referring mostly to single-drive euro-gamers.  I would have never
>guessed that this was the case as these are inexpensive add-ons.... but I
>guess I should have seen it coming since they stuck with the C64

I don't know a single person with a 1 floppy only system, but I guess they're
around... I can't imagine game companies caring about them, since someone
who's too cheap to buy a freaking floppy drive probably won't buy games
either. On the other hand, 2 drives is common, and even though I couldn't
dream of using Amiga without at least 3 drives or a HD, I can understand
why Wing Commander is 3 disk. After booting, you can replace disk 1 with
disk 3 (so I'd imagine, never seen WC on Amiga), and forget about it, so
it's ideal for 2 drive people.

The European machine base is lower standard than the US one, but what do you
expect when the machines cost less in US?

Followups to c.s.a.misc..
--
Osma Ahvenlampi  -  oahvenla@snakemail.hut.fi
You mean you can see into my mind?  *  Yes.  *  And?  *  It amazes me how you
manage live in anything that small.   [The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy]