@matthey

Quote:

Wipeout 2097 and Tower 57 look like quality PPC games which do not have 68k versions. Hyperion has some PPC only games for sale but giving credit card numbers to criminals is ignorant.

I don't see any flaws in your logic!

_________________
Indigo 3D Lounge, my second home.
The Illusion of Choice | Am*ga

pixie Quote:

I don't see any flaws in your logic!

Tower 57 is an Amiga Chaos Engine inspired indie game and is exactly the type of remake games which Amiga successors need and rarely receiving (Dungeon Master inspired Legend of Grimrock series is an example that didn't make it to any Amiga like hardware). Tower 57 is a labor of love because there isn't enough affordable Amiga like hardware to make it profitable.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/530950/view/4580680095902687955 Quote:

Hello again everyone, I am happy to announce that the Amiga version of Tower 57 is ready! Although I didn't write the port myself, this is one milestone that is particularly close to my heart, as the Amiga 500 was my gateway into game making. So I'm glad I can finally cross "releasing an Amiga game" off my bucket list, although I'm admittedly about 25 years late (and it only runs on "modern" Amigas ^_^#) Also, if you are active on Amiga forums / the Amiga scene, please help us spread the word! I would love to bring more games to the system that made me the gamer I am, so hopefully the reception will be good :)

The Amiga port is also a labor of love by Daniel Müßener (Daytona675x). This game is only available because the developers were sympathetic to the Amiga and they found someone to practically donate their time to port the game which most developers aren't going to bother with especially with NG hardware being embarrassing.

https://gamesfromtheblackhole.wordpress.com/2023/07/23/tower57/ Quote:

For years, I’ve watched these various attempts from afar, mostly because the options available were both ridiculously expensive and under supported. I can’t imagine who would buy 2016’s AmigaONE X5000, but it ain’t me. You’re talking £1,800 for an extremely niche system, and that’s if you can even find someone to sell you one! But there are some cheaper options out there, and that’s where MorphOS comes in…

The following link is the only place I noticed the Amiga version of Tower 57 for sale and it is only $11.99 USD.

https://benitosub.itch.io/tower-57

The requirement spec is just above what 68k hardware can manage. Comments by Daniel are interesting and hint that a 68k UAE version is likely possible and potential customers have asked for it (see comments at link above).

Daytona675x Quote:

It does, when I tried it ran on FS-UAE but was way too slow. *BUT*: it runs in latest WinUAE 3.6.1 (earlier versions had broken sound here) under AmigaOS4. Right now fullscreen-mode doesn't work (at least not with the std. PicassoIV emu, I will change that soon though), but window-mode works flawlessly. In fact, when running the game inside that WinUAE in a 480x270 window, then it runs almost as fast as the native official PC Steam version on my same PC (i7 4790K), which should give you a nice hint by how much I accelerated the original code...

It's surprising that there isn't a WinUAE version of Tower 57 for the 68k Amiga considering that WinUAE is likely the largest Amiga like user base that could run it. Maybe the idea is that lower spec x86-64 hardware couldn't run it but most hardware that is less than 15 years old likely could. Some cheap ARM hardware could run the game but probably not much while emulation the Amiga. A $35 USD 2015 Raspberry Pi 2 or a $99 USD 2013 Ouya budget console could likely run this game with native code. THEA500 Mini or the A600GS using emulation likely could not run this game. Emulation is not a developer target even if it is high enough spec with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of users. ARM 68k emulation is barely adequate if emulating retro Amiga games but a user base and hardware standard it does not create. Sub $100 USD 68k Amiga hardware which can play thousands of original Amiga games as well as more modern games like Tower 57 is certainly possible but there are road blocks by Amiga blockheads standing in the way who would rather waste money trying to resurrect a bastardized overpriced and dead Amiga for a few hundred users.

The new Atari VCS offers enough value to at least receive some indie and remake games which it calls a recharge of original Atari games.

Top 10 Games for your Atari VCS in 2022 (Part 1) (plus 7 new games coming to the VCS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j9_Yw5QIZU

The low end PPC AmigaNOne hardware is over 3 time the price and likely has less than 1/3 the performance of the new Atari VCS. That is like the Atari VCS having roughly 10 times the value of the A1222 measured in performance/$ yet the VCS isn't selling well. The reason is not enough games and too high of price relative to high performance consoles like the PS4/5. Most of the Atari VCS games would run on a $35 Raspberry Pi 4, even the retro Atari games which need to be emulated, so a much cheaper ARM based system would likely be more successful. The x86-64 AMD APU certainly simplifies development and offers advantages for more modern software and emulating newer systems but even a $299-$399 USD cost doesn't offer enough value to be competitive. The x86 AROS version of Tower 57 could easily be brought to the Atari VCS without licensing the Amiga IP or needing a 68k executable with emulation. Steampunk dystopia activated, Amiga assimilation complete.

@matthey

Quote:

It’s surprising that there isn't a WinUAE version of Tower 57 for the 68k Amiga considering that WinUAE is likely the largest Amiga like user base that could run it.

One can already launch Steam (and anything else) from within WinUAE, so… why?

_________________
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@kolla

Tower57 works great on the Mac. Wings Remastered works great on the PC. Re-Shoot Proxima III and Metro Siege are for 68k. What's the point of NG for gaming? Obviously Spencer is up there with Superfrog for a lot of people but it's not a killer app!

Last edited by BigD on 19-Sep-2023 at 09:17 PM.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

kolla Quote:

One can already launch Steam (and anything else) from within WinUAE, so… why?

Windows supports ARM now so x86(-64) can't be assumed.

https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/windows-on-arm-report-card-11-years-in-and-still-not-a-bulls-eye

Windows on ARM uses an x86(-64) emulator without a native ARM version of the program resulting in emulation overhead either way. The article above explores this emulation overhead as a result of the poor ARM support for Windows. A laptop with browser emulation significantly reduces the battery by hours compares to native browser (Chrome emulation vs native Edge).

Quote:

With the ThinkPad set up under the same conditions each time—one browser and then the other streaming NASA’s live YouTube channel with the screen set at 50% brightness, the computer on a Verizon Wireless 5G signal via a hotspot, and the battery left on the Windows defaults—the laptop lasted for 9 hours and 13 minutes with Chrome running the test. With Edge? More than 2 hours longer at 11 hours and 44 minutes.

The CPU wastes energy doing more work with emulation overhead and may use CPU polling of virtual hardware instead of using interruption driven hardware, hardware DMA and message based software waiting like the Amiga was designed for to reduce CPU usage. The same article above also measures the performance overhead of emulation.

Quote:

In our standard benchmark, converting a 12-minute 4K video to 1080p resolution, the Arm version of HandBrake needed 15 minutes and 6 seconds to do the job on the ThinkPad. The x64 version, meanwhile, suggested how much overhead processor emulation imposes with a 25-minute, 39-second time on the same laptop. However, recent Intel-based laptops running the x64 build of HandBrake have needed from 7:24 to 10:49 to complete that test, looking at our recent HP Dragonfly G4 review.

No, that's not a PPC G4 laptop but using a x86-64 CPU. The Windows ARM emulation performance is actually impressive compared to native ARM code but still wastes considerable time and energy. Maybe that is why Windows ARM has not been popular despite being out for a long time?

Quote:

Mozilla’s statistics show few people are enjoying its work to support multiple processor architectures. That spokesperson said about 57,000 people a month use the Arm release out of a monthly total of about 190 million browser clients.

Mozilla Firefox is supporting a Windows ARM version of Firefox with only 57,000 active users? Are Raspberry Pi users not using Windows? Maybe the Amiga could have an official Firefox port if we had standard Amiga hardware which was powerful enough like newer Raspberry Pi hardware. THEA500 Mini likely has hundreds of thousands of users and hardware which is good enough to run Firefox likely could be supported for a similar price or less than what it cost. The Amiga NG guys already discarded the 68k, Amiga chipset and are talking about discarding the Amiga microkernel to add Linux drivers in the kernel with their 68k emulator so might as well go all the way with ARM hardware and using Windows as an AmigaOS replacement. Put the hardware in an Amiga retro case with an Amiga like label on it and sell the even more bastardized Amiga system with WinUAE and the Amiga emulation non-standard? Is abandoning the Amiga spirit and philosophy while cutting as many corners as necessary to sell cheap hardware with an Amiga like label on it the way to resurrect the Amiga?

Last edited by matthey on 19-Sep-2023 at 11:52 PM.

@kolla

You also have pistorm, and vampire

_________________
Indigo 3D Lounge, my second home.
The Illusion of Choice | Am*ga

Quote:

kolla wrote: @matthey Quote: It’s surprising that there isn't a WinUAE version of Tower 57 for the 68k Amiga considering that WinUAE is likely the largest Amiga like user base that could run it. One can already launch Steam (and anything else) from within WinUAE, so… why?

CLEARLY I was asking about the proposed WinUAE version of Tower 57 - not ARM version (is there even WinUAE for ARM?), not pistorm version or anything else you guys have replied me with. WHY would a WinUAE (which implies arch supported by WinUAE) version make any sense, when one can launch native version from within WinUAE?

Last edited by kolla on 20-Sep-2023 at 07:00 AM.
Last edited by kolla on 20-Sep-2023 at 06:34 AM.

_________________
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@kolla

??? Winuae run 68k, there's no special code being used, what it has is grunt power, but so has pistorm, so why are you talking about arm? So re read from this point of view

_________________
Indigo 3D Lounge, my second home.
The Illusion of Choice | Am*ga

@pixie

Quote:

pixie wrote: @kolla ??? Winuae run 68k, there's no special code being used, what it has is grunt power, but so has pistorm, so why are you talking about arm? So re read from this point of view

Did you read what Matthey wrote? Starts out about ARM. I too would like an explanation to what he meant with “WinUAE version for 68k”, and why something like that would make sense over just launching native version from within emulated Amiga.

_________________
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@kolla
Quote:

Did you read what Matthey wrote? Starts out about ARM. I too would like an explanation to what he meant with “WinUAE version for 68k”, and why something like that would make sense over just launching native version from within emulated Amiga.

Quote:

Matthey: It’s surprising that there isn't a WinUAE version of Tower 57 for the 68k Amiga considering that WinUAE is likely the largest Amiga like user base that could run it.

68k code running on UAE (which runs at absurd speeds) which otherwise be too slow, demand too far resources, therefore “WinUAE version for 68k”?

My answer was aimed at
Quote:

not pistorm version or anything else you guys have replied me with

The logic is the same, there's no "pistorm version" per se, in the sense there's no arm exposed to AmigaOS, nor it is used standalone, therefore one might see it as a supper dupper CPU that allows far demanding games to run... why would one on it instead of running on windows? Most of these games you have to run it through emulation also, so why shouldn't you run in WinUAE if you can? What stays in WinUAE, remains in WinUAE

_________________
Indigo 3D Lounge, my second home.
The Illusion of Choice | Am*ga

kolla Quote:

Did you read what Matthey wrote? Starts out about ARM. I too would like an explanation to what he meant with “WinUAE version for 68k”, and why something like that would make sense over just launching native version from within emulated Amiga.

WinUAE
Win=Windows (supported ISAs: x86, x86-64, AArch32, AArch64)
UAE=Universal Amiga Emulator (default ISA: 68k)

The only ISA which can be assumed for WinUAE is the default 68k ISA emulation.

Ignore behind the curtain the tens of thousands of x86(-64) WinUAE users with higher performance emulated 68k Amiga systems than low end PPC AmigaNOne hardware. The 68k Amiga is only good enough to be emulated on low performance ARM CPUs while PPC AmigaNOne hardware is too good to be emulated. The 68k Amiga users should be satisfied with weak ARM emulation just like they should have been satisfied with a Bill Sydnes Amiga 600 with 68000+ECS instead of an Amiga 1200 with 68020+AGA. The high end of the Amiga market is already filled by an AmigaNOne replacement with a long queue of a few hundred customers after all.

@matthey and @pixie

You guys need to argue with each other rather than with me.

_________________
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@kolla

Argue? I was just trying to explain the obvious...

_________________
Indigo 3D Lounge, my second home.
The Illusion of Choice | Am*ga

@BigD

Quote:

Spencer is up there with Superfrog for a lot of people

How can you compare the two? Spencer isn't a bland Sonic wannabee that fails to deliver.

@Rob

Wow, point taken! It's criminal Spencer hasn't got a big Dave Pleasance style A1222+ bundle to get that elusive extra hardware sale!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

I did a game search on itch.io which has an indie focused game store kind of like Steam for the tag "Amiga" which gave 278 results.

https://itch.io/games/tag-amiga

I was impressed with the game quality of many games I had not seen before and the most common cost was "name your own price" or free. Common Amiga comments are asking for compatible .adf versions for THEA500 Mini and CD32 .iso versions which were already common formats. There were maybe 10% of the games that are emulated Amiga games packaged for other platforms but many are still playable on the Amiga. The "absolutely game oriented" PPC AmigaOS 4 platform is rarely even mentioned. I couldn't find a tag for AmigaOS 4, MorphOS or AROS and I only found 4 PPC AmigaOS 4 native games.

https://entwicklerx.itch.io/spencer (no 68k, Entwickler-X)
https://entwicklerx.itch.io/mace-tower-defense (no 68k, no Amiga tag, Entwickler-X)
https://inutilis.itch.io/ermentrud (Inutilis Software)
https://underground-arcade.itch.io/santa-run-amiga-os4 (Amiga Cammy)

There was one other Amiga RTG/AHI game that mentioned it was AmigaOS 4 compatible and I found one comment that asked if an RTG game was AmigaOS 4 compatible, likely meaning with 68k emulation but without UAE for the Amiga chipset. Most developers could care less about AmigaOS 4 because the hardware is so rare and expensive. Emulation can be run on other systems and there were more prepackaged downloadable "Amiga" games for Windows, Mac, Unix, Raspberry Pi and Android than for AmigaOS 4. If that's not embarrassing enough, there are far more downloadable Amiga CD32 games than there are PPC AmigaOS 4 games and the CD32 was only out for about 6 months nearly 30 years ago compared to AmigaNOne hardware being out for 20 years and still available. How long can AmigaNOne proponents stick their head in the sand while the rest of the Amiga community puts a bag over our heads in embarrassment? Are nostalgic toys with Amiga emulation using weak ARM CPUs the Amiga farewell for the masses?

Last edited by matthey on 23-Sep-2023 at 07:36 PM.

@Rob

Quote:

Rob wrote: @BigD Quote: Spencer is up there with Superfrog for a lot of people How can you compare the two? Spencer isn't a bland Sonic wannabee that fails to deliver

Superfrog may have been a Sonic wannabe, but it is well executed and did not fail to deliver on entertainment value back in 1993. In the context of its time (zeitgeist), it was a breath of fresh platforming air for the Amiga, from the the excellent Team17. A game worthy of a modern take and sequel.

From the video's I've seen of Spencer on YouTube, while visually nice and colouful, the protagonist is stiff and without personality, the environments underutilised, the story is unimaginative, and feels like "yet another" simple platforming game. One might say that Superforg was the same, except in Spencer's 2018 and today we expect more from platformers than we did in Superfrog's 1993.

Last edited by agami on 23-Sep-2023 at 04:46 AM.
Last edited by agami on 23-Sep-2023 at 04:45 AM.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@matthey

Quote:

There was one other Amiga RTG/AHI game that mentioned it was AmigaOS 4 compatible and I found one comment that asked if an RTG game was AmigaOS 4 compatible, likely meaning with 68k emulation but without UAE for the Amiga chipset.

Yes, games well written, system friendly, means it does not kill multitasking, nor bang the chipset.
games in typical late 1997’s / 1998’s, games started to support RTG / and TCP network, sometimes AHI. There was also few games and programs made for the Draco computer.

Quote:

there are far more downloadable Amiga CD32 games than there are PPC AmigaOS 4 games and the CD32 was only out for about 6 months nearly 30 years ago compared to AmigaNOne hardware being out for 20 years and still available.

Amiga was quite popular back when CD32 was released, and competition was quite different.

Quote:

How long can AmigaNOne proponents stick their head in the sand while the rest of the Amiga community puts a bag over our heads in embarrassment? Are nostalgic toys using weak ARM emulation the Amiga farewell for the masses?

the world as moved on, as its rest of world is moving in the direction of cloud computing, we are focused on desktop old school solutions. Security has never been more important. with many hypervisors and security layers,

The commodity exchange, it was a feature to add hot keys to programs, plus doing live transformation of keyboard keystrokes or disk access, implement Char Return / Line Shift to Line Shift, old concept that was once seen as great universal advantage to handle different text formats, has become a security risk. Fundamental architectural flaws in the design from keyboard input to event handler, can’t be acceptable in a secure OS design.

the ability to change or modify the OS, by patches to improve or add features, as seen as a nice why for the hacker community to explore different aspect of the OS. Is two-edged sword where you can never truly trust the OS, but it also allows a OS live beyond its death. As with 1000’s of patches on Aminet.

At least 30% of the OS needs to be changed, to address the modern security risks, and new features for security layering needs to added inn, to ensure an acceptance outside out tiny bobble. I’m not sure any backwards compatibility be left by adding strict rules. Do we want to please the masses, or do we want to keep what was?

_________________
http://lifeofliveforit.blogspot.no/
Facebook::LiveForIt Software for AmigaOS

@matthey

Quote:

Are nostalgic toys using weak ARM emulation the Amiga farewell for the masses?

What’s this “weak ARM emulation” you speak of, do you mean“weak Amiga emulation on ARM”? Have you experimented with “amiga emulation” vs “68040 emulation”? UAE vs Aranym for example? And more to your question - no, classic Amiga for the masses has been here all along, and will continue to be here, as your own research shows.

_________________
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

NutsAboutAmiga Quote:

Yes, games well written, system friendly, means it does not kill multitasking, nor bang the chipset. games in typical late 1997’s / 1998’s, games started to support RTG / and TCP network, sometimes AHI. There was also few games and programs made for the Draco computer.

There are plenty of "system friendly" games that don't run on AmigaNOne because it is not "Amiga friendly" enough to be compatible. Lack of Amiga compatibility and the high price of AmigaNOne hardware meant the majority of the Amiga masses did not see it as a successor to the Amiga. Amiga game incompatibility was especially high so it wasn't retro "game oriented" and the high cost and low performance of PPC hardware meant it offered minimal value for high performance gaming.

NutsAboutAmiga Quote:

Amiga was quite popular back when CD32 was released, and competition was quite different.

The Amiga had no chance in the high performance desktop market by the time the CD32 was released even though Amiga hardware was more competitive for that market than AmigaNOne hardware today. The Amiga was popular because it had market share in the budget desktop market.

https://archive.org/details/commodore-post-bankruptcy Quote:

Amiga Home Computer Markets & Products - Primarily European product & market o 43% market share o greater than 400k units/year sales - Fills gap between low cost games consoles & low cost IBM & Apple PC products - Appeals to buyers who want more than just a game console but not the expense of a full PC ... A1200 Competition - A1200 has no direct competition - Fits in the gap between game consoles and low end PCs - Gap has widened as PC configurations and pricing has increased - Alternatives to game machines o low cost software o better games than on cartridge o over 3500 titles o also runs education and home productivity apps o expandable to a powerful multimedia system o very easy to learn and use - Parents feel good about the purchase vs a pure game machine - In Europe desire to be PC compatible is less o higher PC prices o lower penetration in work places o PC "work at home" ethic less in Europe - Very popular system for home hobbies - Often used for home video and multimedia production

The Raspberry Pi partially filled the budget computer market abandoned by the Amiga, minus the gaming. Why can't the AmigaNOne compete in this budget market?

o 68k Amiga game compatibility was practically abandoned
o mass production is required to be competitive
o an integrated SoC with GPU is required to be competitive
o a 68k system has a smaller footprint than a PPC system giving a size and cost savings

The Raspberry Pi actually more closely resembled the more modular CD32 before the Raspberry Pi 400 came out because it is cheaper and easier to produce and more appealing for the embedded market, a market that has grown much faster than the budget PC market and which the CD32 quickly entered despite the short time available. Much of the hardware is shared between an Amiga 1200 and CD32 as well as a Raspberry Pi 400 and Raspberry Pi, not that there is an "official" Raspberry Pi budget console yet. The Raspberry Pi doesn't have a huge game library to build on like the Amiga but it is bigger and better supported for gaming than AmigaNOne "game oriented" gaming.

NutsAboutAmiga Quote:

the world has moved on, as its rest of world is moving in the direction of cloud computing, we are focused on desktop old school solutions. Security has never been more important. with many hypervisors and security layers,

Cloud computer based personal computers have not been successful and hyper security has resulted in closed oppressive computers that feel like they are owned by someone else. There is strong push back from customer as well as businesses which take a more open hardware and software approach like the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Steam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_(computer)#History Quote:

Steam, a digital video games storefront offering many third-party game publishers' titles, was developed by Valve primarily for Microsoft Windows and accounted for an estimated 75% of digitally purchased games on that platform in 2013. Valve has indicated displeasure with the approaches that both Microsoft and Apple are taking with their respective operating systems, limiting what applications could be run, and upon the release of Windows 8 in 2012, Valve's CEO Gabe Newell called it "a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space", and discussed the possibility of promoting the open-source operating system Linux that would maintain "the openness of the platform". Newell recognized that games would need to be a significant part of the push for Linux. An official Linux client for Steam was released in July 2012, along with developer tools to help port games to the platform. Valve worked to assure that users' game libraries would be portable, including offering Steam Play whereby purchase of a title for one platform automatically allows that user to play the title on other supported platforms, and cross-platform multiplayer features.

Steam had limited success trying to change the high performance desktop and gaming markets but the Raspberry Pi Foundation has been more successful for the budget computer market. Security is a very important issue but there are negatives to too much security and budget hardware can't afford to have as much security.

NutsAboutAmiga Quote:

The commodity exchange, it was a feature to add hot keys to programs, plus doing live transformation of keyboard keystrokes or disk access, implement Char Return / Line Shift to Line Shift, old concept that was once seen as great universal advantage to handle different text formats, has become a security risk. Fundamental architectural flaws in the design from keyboard input to event handler, can’t be acceptable in a secure OS design. the ability to change or modify the OS, by patches to improve or add features, as seen as a nice why for the hacker community to explore different aspect of the OS. Is two-edged sword where you can never truly trust the OS, but it also allows a OS live beyond its death. As with 1000’s of patches on Aminet. At least 30% of the OS needs to be changed, to address the modern security risks, and new features for security layering needs to added inn, to ensure an acceptance outside out tiny bobble. I’m not sure any backwards compatibility be left by adding strict rules. Do we want to please the masses, or do we want to keep what was?

One security enhancement on some other computers is to not allow sharing of code in libraries which has a major impact on performance and footprint, especially on the Amiga. There are ways to enhance the Amiga security which may require unique solutions. Competitive desktop security likely requires more sacrifices of Amiga compatibility but budget personal computers do not require as much sacrifice and more modularity and code sharing are a big advantage from my example above. The AmigaOS is still a much better fit for small budget personal computers for which it was designed and much better compatibility can be maintained.

kolla Quote:

What’s this “weak ARM emulation” you speak of, do you mean“weak Amiga emulation on ARM”? Have you experimented with “amiga emulation” vs “68040 emulation”? UAE vs Aranym for example? And more to your question - no, classic Amiga for the masses has been here all along, and will continue to be here, as your own research shows.

The Amiga didn't gain hundreds of thousands of users from THEA500 Mini. Most will play with THEA500 Mini for awhile and then store it away. It's a nice toy that can play some Amiga games but doesn't offer anywhere near the value of a Raspberry Pi. The active Amiga community is likely only in the low tens of thousands and won't grow much without affordable hardware that can deliver value close enough to a Raspberry Pi that the huge Amiga game library gives the Amiga an advantage, at least for retro and budget gamers. Emulation isn't competitive with real hardware.

Last edited by matthey on 24-Sep-2023 at 12:20 AM.
Last edited by matthey on 24-Sep-2023 at 12:15 AM.