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Bulletdust

Posted Mon May 27, 2019 2:52 pm

twenty90seven wrote:What model of Dell monitor is this one? Is it 15 khz (can you hook it up via vga to rgb to the Amiga?)
It's a Dell 1707FP connected to my Amiga via DVI using an Indivision. It's the best LCD I've found for retro use as I believe it's an IPS monitor and the colours are amazing. I try to keep scaling on games to a minimum.

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Bulletdust

Posted Mon May 27, 2019 4:27 pm

A video demonstration of Zool OCS as well as Zool AGA running on a 32 bit Amiga. There is a version 2.0 slave for Zool AGA, however I can't get it to unpack on either my Amiga or my main Ubuntu Mate PC as the archive appears to be corrupt.

Game play is smooth with no slowdowns, if the floppy version runs any faster than that I stand no hope at beating the game.

68030 @ 40Mhz, 128MB fast ram.

https://youtu.be/eD1lU5ypqSQ

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon May 27, 2019 5:29 pm

This is a little off-topic, but I absolutely have played games on my A2000 with 030 @ 40Mhz, and they played too fast. Case in point: Ultima IV. The game was SO fast, it was unplayable. It really was coded specifically for an unaccelerated 68000.

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Bulletdust

Posted Mon May 27, 2019 6:53 pm

intric8 wrote:This is a little off-topic, but I absolutely have played games on my A2000 with 030 @ 40Mhz, and they played too fast. Case in point: Ultima IV. The game was SO fast, it was unplayable. It really was coded specifically for an unaccelerated 68000.
As stated, it depends on custom chipset usage and how the custom chipset is accessed. I can imagine Ultima would be using simple software rendering as it's not the sort of title to require the custom chipset so, yes, I can imagine Ultima would run fast under an 030 @ 40Mhz without additional wait states.

However, there's nothing to state the game wouldn't run perfectly under WHDLoad with wait states where necessary.

The problem with accelerating 16 bit Amiga's is when the custom chipset is accessed directly as you cannot speed up the custom chipset - Therefore wait states have to be inserted, not really to slow the system down, but to avoid timing issues as a result of a processor running far faster than the custom chipset. In this situation running WHDLoad the 16 bit bus becomes a bottleneck for a 32 bit processor and you have performance issues, I have experienced them and tested them extensively first hand and as soon as you place the accelerator in a 32 bit Amiga the issue is eliminated and all slowdowns disappear.

I have no slowdowns running WHDLoad on an Amiga 1200 with 128MB of fastram, ram is the important factor regarding WHDLoad, not necessarily processor speed and as you get closer to standard CPU clock speeds the more blitter waits actually become less of an issue.

Just to reiterate, blitter waits are really only noticeable on 16 bit Amiga's in my experience due to the issues mentioned interfacing a 32 bit processor to a 16 bit bus. Swap the 16 bit bus for a 32 bit bus and I've yet to see a blitter wait issue under WHDLoad. Therefore, Amiga A500's, A1000's and A2000's are more susceptible to the issue. To some degree the A3000 will be susceptible, but not as bad as the true 16 bit machines. I recommend a 32bit A1200/A4000 for the best WHDLoad experience with an 030 based accelerator, meaning the A1200/A4000's are actually more compatible than the OCS/ECS Amiga's once you take AGA into consideration under WHDLoad.

I dunno, the purists really seem to have an issue with such comments? I'm simply stating my findings as a result of fairly extensive testing regarding WHDLoad on 16 bit Amiga's and 32 bit Amiga's - And it has to be stated that only a handful of titles really suffer from the blitter wait issue on 16 bit machines. People don't seem to realize OCS/ECS and AGA has more underlying differences than just the custom chipset used.

All due respect my friend!

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Bulletdust

Posted Mon May 27, 2019 6:59 pm

Another interesting point. My friend who first noticed the blitter wait issue on specifically 16 bit Amiga's removed the ACA500/ACA1232 combo for a stock 68000 and more fastram/internal IDE board and the blitter wait slowdowns under WHDLoad considering 16 bit machines was, as far as I'm aware, eliminated.

Further isolating the 16 bit bus as the cause of the issue.

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oldbull

Posted Mon May 27, 2019 7:45 pm

I don't have a nice menu like that. Here's a video of what I have to do to start a game:

https://youtu.be/3Ut3rzUyRbU

Yes, I click through drawers until I find a DOT with the right name. No fancy icon. No clue how to change that dot to BE the game icon.

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Bulletdust

Posted Mon May 27, 2019 8:41 pm

oldbull wrote:I don't have a nice menu like that. Here's a video of what I have to do to start a game:

https://youtu.be/3Ut3rzUyRbU

Yes, I click through drawers until I find a DOT with the right name. No fancy icon. No clue how to change that dot to BE the game icon.
I do the same for demo's, I don't have demo's added to my iGame front end so I have alphabetized folders under a folder called "Demos" that I use to store all my WHDLoad demoscene files. To start a demo I do exactly what you do, I go to Games > Demos > [Alphabetized Folder] > [Demo Title] and the demo starts with a minimum of fuss.

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EzdineG
Springfield, MO

Posted Mon May 27, 2019 8:52 pm

Bulletdust wrote:Well OCS as well as AGA Zool appears to be running perfectly here, I know all about the apparent issues with Zool hence the reason I had it running. I'll make a video of Zool running today.

What are the specs of the Amiga you're using for WHDLoad?

If the OCS version of Zool runs any faster off floppy than what I'm seeing under WHDLoad than I'm really hopeless at the game!
68030 50mhz / 64mb A2000 (so yeah, 16 bit) in this case, but I've run it on just about every iteration of Amiga there is - although admittedly mostly ECS machines. While it may *seem* like it's running fine, the moment a few things start happening on screen at once it slows waaaaay down. When compared to running from floppy, it's night and day.

It isn't really whether or not it runs faster from floppy so much as that it doesn't bog down when things get going. Either the waits really are just a problem on 16 bit machines, or you may need to play a little further into the games than what was seen in your videos to see it.

[Edit] Just saw your later comments. Looks like what you've seen does correlate with what I've found (ie. expanded 16-bit machines, non-expanded AGA) with blit waits. Touche'

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Bulletdust

Posted Mon May 27, 2019 9:10 pm

EzdineG wrote:
Bulletdust wrote:Well OCS as well as AGA Zool appears to be running perfectly here, I know all about the apparent issues with Zool hence the reason I had it running. I'll make a video of Zool running today.

What are the specs of the Amiga you're using for WHDLoad?

If the OCS version of Zool runs any faster off floppy than what I'm seeing under WHDLoad than I'm really hopeless at the game!
68030 50mhz / 64mb A2000 (so yeah, 16 bit) in this case, but I've run it on just about every iteration of Amiga there is - although admittedly mostly ECS machines. While it may *seem* like it's running fine, the moment a few things start happening on screen at once it slows waaaaay down. When compared to running from floppy, it's night and day.

It isn't really whether or not it runs faster from floppy so much as that it doesn't bog down when things get going. Either the waits really are just a problem on 16 bit machines, or you may need to play a little further into the games than what was seen in your videos to see it.

[Edit] Just saw your later comments. Looks like what you've seen does correlate with what I've found (ie. expanded 16-bit machines, non-expanded AGA) with blit waits. Touche'
Exactly! I've experienced precisely what you're describing on my own A500 running an 030, the problem isn't present when I drop the same 030 accelerator into my A1200 using the same OS install and run the same titles. People are blaming WHDLoad as the source of the problem, my findings highlight that WHDLoad isn't so much the issue, it's the bottleneck created as a result of the 16 bit bus present on the OCS/ECS machines.

Just downloaded Untima IV for intric8, thought he'd like to see it running on an accelerated A1200 under WHDLoad! Seems to run fine as far as I can tell.

I have played Zool further than that and experienced no issues, I just didn't want to make a 2hr video of me playing Zool - My skills aren't that good!

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Bulletdust

Posted Mon May 27, 2019 9:24 pm

When diagnosing the issue, it's actually easier to use demo's as demo's tend to hit the chipset directly more often and the issue is easier to replicate over and over again for diagnosis.

However I have experienced the problem when playing games on 16 bit machines under WHDLoad, it's definitely not present on a 32 bit A1200.





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