Amiga Emulation

[timeslip]

since we have on its way pretty much spot on Genesis and SNES emulation is it time to reevaluate the feasabily of Amiga Emulation?

All 3 have same processor and all 3 have their own custom chip sets.

All 3 have pc emulators as open source

And technically apart from Sound capabilites the A500 is the most underpowered of the 3.

Plus since I used to code for the amiga I`d love to see my games running on the GP!

 

[don]

And technically apart from Sound capabilites the A500 is the most underpowered of the 3.

Nope. The Amiga's custom chips are very powerful and therefore hard to emulate. Don't make the mistake and judge the Amiga's power by any Megadrive/SNES games you think to be superior.

 

[Squidge]

I have plans for some kind of Amiga emulation under the GP32, but it will require a recompiler, rather than an interpreter core, and lots of other work. I don't expect to have anything usable this year.

 

[timeslip]

Nope. The Amiga's custom chips are very powerful and therefore hard to emulate. Don't make the mistake and judge the Amiga's power by any Megadrive/SNES games you think to be superior. [/quote]
Im not making the mistake of underestimating the power of the Amigas custom chips.I well aware of their power since back in the day I wrote or co produced over 20 Amiga Titles so Im well aware of its capabilites.

I also know the SNES had a lot more punch power wise thro its own custom chips

 

[timeslip]

I have plans for some kind of Amiga emulation under the GP32, but it will require a recompiler, rather than an interpreter core, and lots of other work. I don't expect to have anything usable this year.

If we do get it that would complete my wanted emulation collection.......

As they say better late than never

Save the best till last

yadda yadda!

 

[pip]

If it is so easy timeslip, why not do it yourself?

 

[timeslip]

Cant seem to remember saying it was easy...........
I do remember saying that the hardware was less powerful tho

 

[don]

BTW: Machines who aren't powerful don't have to be emulated easier than more powerful machines... Atari VCS2600 is a bitch to emulate, for example, and yet such a weak piece of HW compared to actual stuff.

 

[shotaway]

I have plans for some kind of Amiga emulation under the GP32, but it will require a recompiler, rather than an interpreter core, and lots of other work. I don't expect to have anything usable this year.

could you keep us posted on your progress squidge...
do you have a home page?

 

[timeslip]

BTW: Machines who aren't powerful don't have to be emulated easier than more powerful machines... Atari VCS2600 is a bitch to emulate, for example, and yet such a weak piece of HW compared to actual stuff.

Very true, I`ve not even seen a decent em of The olde Atari that I`d want to use!

 

[khephren]

So which Amiga games did you work on? Maybe you worked with someone I know...some of my colleagues worked at Domark, Psygnosis etc.

 

[timeslip]

So which Amiga games did you work on? Maybe you worked with someone I know...some of my colleagues worked at Domark, Psygnosis etc.

I owned a small company called Z-Soft
I was main coder and had a graphics artist and Musician under me(Sounds Kinda Dodgy)

Stuff we did -

Black Dawn Series (bloody 8 of the things) basically Dungeon Master Rip offs
Boing
Rotator

And lotsa PD/Freeware stuff b4 we went commercial

 

[Bohica]

And technically apart from Sound capabilites the A500 is the most underpowered of the 3.

Plus since I used to code for the amiga I`d love to see my games running on the GP!

As much as I'd love Amiga emulation, it would be very, very tough.

Customs chips, as I'm sure you would know, were:

Copper - co-processor that used chip RAM for graphics control and manages the...

Blitter - co-processor that allows memory zones to be displayed at double the speed of a 68000 and ulitilises asychronous 'blits' independent of the main processor. This is the reason why the Amiga had such an edge of other systesms. I don't know much about how Amiga Emus are structured, but this would be like having a sub-set of emulation running alongside the main core - emulating the instruction set would be very processor intensive.

Denise - graphics core allowing display modes of 640x480 and above.

The co-dependencing and task-sharing functions of these chips and the system architecture means you can't directly compare Amiga emulation performance with that of consoles - even considering the SNES chipset.

Don't forget - that's just the system emulation. It's got to be loaded into RAM, executed alongside kickstart (possibly with workbench on top) and then you have to run a game.

It's a complex task. Hope that helps put the challenge in context.

 

[timeslip]

It wouldnt need to be coded from scratch as there is a very efficent and system friendly emu that is also open sourced

http://www.freiburg.linux.de/~uae/

so surely it would be a matter of a port ?

And dont call me surely

 

[Bohica]

so surely it would be a matter of a port ?

I use UAE - it's a great bit of software. It's also coded in C - so it's portable. However, I'm not convinced that a C-compiled GP32 compatible build would do anything other than run at a grindingly slow pace.

You'd be throwing so much at the CPU just with the basic processor instructions to create a stable emu before you did anything 'advanced' such as running an app.

Even if a GP32 specific emulator was coded from scratch in native assembly I'm not sure the machine has the poke to do the Amiga justice.

And I really don't think anyone would go down that route. It's one thing building the 68000 core, but having to correctly build the blitter's functions in, well...

...and there's the question of timing as well. I should imagine getting the emulated blitter instruction set running correctly, even with a native CPU core, is a major challenge.

Sorry to sound so negative - but I just can't see this one getting off the ground.

Shirley some mishtake though?

 

[timeslip]

so surely it would be a matter of a port ?

I use UAE - it's a great bit of software. It's also coded in C - so it's portable. However, I'm not convinced that a C-compiled GP32 compatible build would do anything other than run at a grindingly slow pace.

You'd be throwing so much at the CPU just with the basic processor instructions to create a stable emu before you did anything 'advanced' such as running an app.

Even if a GP32 specific emulator was coded from scratch in native assembly I'm not sure the machine has the poke to do the Amiga justice.

And I really don't think anyone would go down that route. It's one thing building the 68000 core, but having to correctly build the blitter's functions in, well...

...and there's the question of timing as well. I should imagine getting the emulated blitter instruction set running correctly, even with a native CPU core, is a major challenge.

Sorry to sound so negative - but I just can't see this one getting off the ground.

Shirley some mishtake though?

your probly right, a basic port would run like a zodiac owner after a refund.
I`d love to be proved wrong though

 

[Bohica]

[your probly right, a basic port would run like a zodiac owner after a refund.
I`d love to be proved wrong though

I'd also love to be proved wrong - very fond memories of Cinemaware games...

Still, there's always Defender of the Crown on ST. Doesn't quite feel the same though.

Mark.

 

[timeslip]

To be honest, back in the day the ST wasnt fit to lick the Amiga`s Balls

It was like comparing the speccy to the c64.

Ahhhhhh! the good old days back when computers had personalitys and we had endless arguements over who had the best `puter.

These days their pretty much all the same

Thats probly why i like the gp32 so much - it and its scene has PERSONALITY!

 

[DaveC]

I have plans for some kind of Amiga emulation under the GP32, but it will require a recompiler, rather than an interpreter core, and lots of other work. I don't expect to have anything usable this year.

That sounds like quite a project. In my opinion you would probably have better luck emulating the Lynx. The GP32 probably isn't quite strong enough for Amiga. Even Genesis which is simpler hasn't been able to be emulated completely yet. And no it doesn't count as full emulation when it doesn't support sound. So many emu writers ignore sound support and call emus "complete" but emus without sound are only part way there.

 

[timeslip]

I have plans for some kind of Amiga emulation under the GP32, but it will require a recompiler, rather than an interpreter core, and lots of other work. I don't expect to have anything usable this year.

That sounds like quite a project. In my opinion you would probably have better luck emulating the Lynx. The GP32 probably isn't quite strong enough for Amiga. Even Genesis which is simpler hasn't been able to be emulated completely yet. And no it doesn't count as full emulation when it doesn't support sound. So many emu writers ignore sound support and call emus "complete" but emus without sound are only part way there.

i`d still be perfectly happy with an Amiga Emu with no sound - At the end of the day 99% of the time i use the gp in enviroments that i cant have the volume on anyways(like work)