🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan26.222138.21584@infodev.cam.ac.uk> cpb1001@cl.cam.ac.uk (C.P. Brown) writes:
>In article <C1GrMM.C2C@sunlab1.bath.ac.uk>, mapmh@sunlab1.bath.ac.uk (Mark Hagger) writes:
>|> Depends what you mean by most?  Granted anything that was sprite based
>|> run a damn site faster on an Amiga, but anything that was processor
>|> intensive like any 3d simulations or other such interesting games
>                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>Not strictly true, the custom chips can be used to draw polygons in hardware,
>much faster than the main processor can. Most of the 3D stuff that ran slowly was
>ported ST stuff, which wasn't reprogrammed to take advantage of the graphics
>processor :-)
>
>Chris Brown

I have heard programmers say more than once that it is just too much hassle
using some of the Amiga's hardware (and naturally, too slow when used through
the OS, which is the only compatable way), and they much prefered a machine
with a processor fast enough to handle things itself (ie STs).
  I was looking through an Amiga manual some time back now, and I from what I
remember, all the hardware can do is draw horizontal lines.  Now while this
is exactly what is needed by most polygon drawing routines, unless the polygon
is very large the setting up of the coprocessor takes longer than embeded
68000 code would to draw the horizontal lines.  If you access the hardware
through the OS (Which is now the only way because CBM no longer document the
new chipsets at a hardware level), then you would have to have a gigantic
polygon for it to be faster using some coprocessor or other.
  Sprites are a different matter though - from what I remember they are
overlaid on the screen memory by the video circitry with out taking any
processor time or changing the screen memory.  As has been said this makes the
Amiga far, far better than the ST for those moronic Super Mario-type games
that 5 year olds seem to like to much.

- Leo