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[News] Payback newsANN.lu
Posted on 04-Jul-2001 10:27 GMT by Christian Kemp24 comments
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sauro wrote: From Apex-Design web site: One new and one updated city are now available for Payback in the Extra Maps section. Also, the PPC upgrade is taking longer than expected because I'm trying to make sure it uses all the available CPU power. I don't expect to release it for another month but I hope you'll agree that the wait was worth it when it finally is ready.
Payback news : Comment 1 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by redrumloa on 03-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
James Daniels hasn't disapointed us yet! If you havn't bought this game yet, buy it! Even if you aren't a GTA fan(which I am not), this games is much better. It's been a while since such a high quality original game has hit our market.
Payback news : Comment 2 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by db on 03-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
such a great game! we defiently need to keep james daniels for future amigaone projects
i haven't stopped playing it!
detailed,great graphics and so much playability
Payback news : Comment 3 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Darren Glenn on 03-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
I want my PPC Amiga back from eyetechs :( this 030 just doesnt cut the
mutard when it comes to payback
Payback news : Comment 4 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by ehaines on 03-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
Actually I would have been happy with just a straight
PPC port from the 68K version...anything extra is a nice
bonus. :)
Payback news : Comment 5 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by redrumloa on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (ehaines):
I agree! On my 060 it looks awesome. A straight PPC port would give a good enough speed boost to crank the resolution up a bit. If enough people would get on board maybe Mr Daniels would also include 3d gfx card support(Warp3d). Imagine 604e and Voodoo3 cranking out Payback! Now there would be a game to show our PC & PSX friends:-)
Payback news : Comment 6 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by M.Andersson on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Darren Glenn):
If you have a PC (my is a PIII 700MHz) you will find Payback really rocking in WinUAE. I can't meassure the speed but i floats so much better than any 060 arround!!! (You can even run it i highres and it still rocking)
Payback news : Comment 7 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (M.Andersson):
WinUAE... blech!
Payback news : Comment 8 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Kent Seaton on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (M.Andersson):
> If you have a PC (my is a PIII 700MHz) you will find Payback really rocking
> in WinUAE. I can't meassure the speed but i floats so much better than any
> 060 arround!!! (You can even run it i highres and it still rocking)
Let me clear up this serious confusion here really quick. My PC that I have sitting on my desk is an AMD 1GHz with an ATI Radeon 64MB DDR. I have a total of 512MB for memory (waiting for SDK to arrive).
I start up UAE (8.16 R4) set to 040 mode with 2MB chip, 8MB fast, 16MB Z3, and 8MB RTG. The chipset is full ECS (AGA is slower, trust me) and sound is Emulated, 100% (3.9 and bb1 installed, 9 out of 10 times it crashes with or without a startup-sequence). I get to the workbench and find the mouse leaving globs of mouse trails all over the place like there's no tomorrow, using arexx I found a quick solution to correcting this but I won't give it to anyone until it's been corrected by the developers of winuae. After waiting for all the system to come to a cool mellow murmur reminding me of just how smooth the Amiga's operating system is, I under go the three double clicks to get to my favorite game.
Now then... the intro of payback comes up and I watch it all the way through (most of the time). After I press fire (space or whatever) I get to the main menu and the music of the intro will finally start playing about that point. Oh yeah, when the main menu comes in, it's like trying to play quake on a ZII graphics card at 1024x768 using the 040 rendering routines (so that means I have to wait about 30 seconds for the menu to finally show up). I can fly through the rotating images to select the stuff I want (generally a little rampage on a little chicago does the trick for me). About 45 seconds into the game (playing at 320x240) the intro music finally stops and I hear all of the actions that I made on the menu (which by that point I've already acquired a bus, killed a few cops, and planted a gernade launching party from the city hall rooftop).
That's not the only problem with payback on UAE though... on my Amiga (4000PPC w/060 w/PIV) it was flawless... extremely smooth and not jerky at any point (unlike UAE). The sound was incredible even bringing me to tears I was laughing so hard a few times (splut!). Ask Roger about it, he's the one who did the Little Chicago map, it was priceless.
I have talked with many people who say that UAE is just as fast as the Amiga and in some cases faster, it's amazing though... UAE through the workbench is very fast I will give it that, but it will never replace a real Amiga with all the bugs that are in it. I've found playing games on a real Amiga system is far better than having to run through the awkward "did it crash yet" scenario many times a day to play a game you think is fun.
When you think about it, gaming on UAE is only one aspect, there are hundreds others I'll bet... if you have IFX4, try a sobel edge at a radius of 3 while using regions. You might be surprised with such amazing speeds that rival even the best 020 around for some operations.
By the time UAE is "all that" (bug free and every bit the Amiga as much as it can be) most of the Amiga community will be using AmigaOnes, Tsunamis, bPlan systems, even the BoXeR of all things.
It's better to give all of the details rather than filling false hopes of UAE being what it really isn't. Give me a real Amiga system over any UAE setup any day of the week.
--
Kent Seaton
Public Relations - Amiga.org
Payback news : Comment 9 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by M.Andersson on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (Kent Seaton):
Well, I can compare (and I did) Payback with my PIII Dell Inspiron 5000 (laptop if anyone wonders) and my A4000/604-233/060-50/CVPPC and 8.16revX (don't remember now if it was 2, 3 or 4).
I also showed some friends the result on a LAN the ACG (Amiga Computer Group) in Sweden had just the last weekend (well it wasn't my a4000 that time but the ACG a4000T with the same setup).
The result was that in 800x600 the WinUAE was way faster then the 060 in 640x480 (well it slowed down periodicaly everry other second for just an eyeblink, but was never down in framerate as the 060, guess the JIT does something periodicaly). I may ad that the laptop are using WB3.5 with P96.
I have used the WB3.5 for some time on the laptop (makes it usable?) and found that it can do what I want it to do. And most of the time faster than my a4000. Well, I rather sit by my a4000 but saying that the WinUAE is near useless I must disagree. When it comes to raw computing power the Sysinfo shows that my laptop makes 160MIPS! I know that a program like that can't be used for meassuring the speed for live usage, but it shows that it can do math very good.
My point is that a good PC can run some Amiga software faster than any 68k Amiga can. If I get time I will install Quake and then do a timedemo to test the speed compared to the 060. It would be interesting to see the result.
Nothing is like the real thing, but if you don't have it, try UAE (with JIT) and you can get close! Well, it doesn't hurt trying anyway!
Payback news : Comment 10 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by M.Andersson on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (M.Andersson):
Tested Quake68k CGFX on P96, 320x240x8, timedemo demo2.dem -> 32.2 fps (33.6 with nosound).
I can't remember that speed on a 060.
Before someone starts flaming me I must admit that the result is not really accurate. As long as UAE does not try to "fade" colors everything moves all right. In Quake that is, as long as you don't get hit the speed is ultrafast, but if you are hit the colors starts fading and the speed drops down to just a few/sec. (Is it the background fade it can't stand?)
Anyway, I hope this proves that Payback really could be faster on a PC.
Payback news : Comment 11 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by André Siegel on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
Running WinUAE(JIT) Cinema4D renders pictures upto 7times faster than on my A1200 with 040/33 accelerator..
I know there are few problems with AGA stuff (+ HAM screens use to flicker). But as for games using either OCS/ECS or graphics cards (Picasso96!), WinUAE runs *very* stable and certainly isn't slower than any "real" Amiga!
Cheers,
André
Payback news : Comment 12 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by ehaines on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (M.Andersson):
All well and good for the 68K version, but you won't be able to play the PPC
version in UAE, even if it would be fast enough.
Payback news : Comment 13 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by M.Andersson on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (ehaines):
Well, thats right... =)
But still: Payback (only 68k version available) can run better on UAE until the PPC-version arrives. And if people don't have a Amiga that is up to the work right now they maybe have a PC that do. That's why I posted the first message. I know there is still people with a1200/030 and a PC on the side. They may be able to play Payback "better" than on any Amiga (again, PPC version don't exists) without knowing it.
They could go and by it and enjoy it without upgrading (waiting for AmigaOne?), still supporting the Amiga gamemarket.
Payback news : Comment 14 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by André Siegel on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
You're right, PPC emulation appears to be almost impossible to do on x86 hardware but if you've played Quake68k on WinUAE you'll know that it runs faster on an Wintel box via emulation than on any BlizzPPC-quipped A1200!!!
However, as soon as new PPC Amigas get released to the public Amiga users will get even better UAE versions as 68k emulation is supposed to be faster on PPC chips.
But as for now, Wintel boxes are probably by far the fastest "Classic Amigas" out there...
Cheers,
André
Payback news : Comment 15 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by redrumloa on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (André Siegel):
No way dude. Affraid not. I have an A3000/060 and AmigaForever on a 1Ghz Thunderbird based PC with all the bells and whistles. UAE can play OLD games fine and is very impressive, but no way can it compete with the real deal. And no I am not using the JIT version for UAE yet. Too unstable, sound is F*ed and no BSD-socket emulation.. No good. I like UAE, but it is no real Amiga!
Payback news : Comment 16 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Kent Seaton on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (M.Andersson):
> Anyway, I hope this proves that Payback really could be faster on a PC.
This doesn't prove much imho. Try this. Go play a game in Payback under UAE at 320x240. Before you quit the game save the playback and view it on a well equipped Amiga system. For one thing, the movements are very fluid (on the Amiga at least) and the playback will be a the speed recorded on the PC (prolly about 16-20fps @ 320x240 on a 700MHz PIII). To give you an idea of the differences, play them side by side and time them watching to see which one will be done first... I think you'll be surprised.
Payback news : Comment 17 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Kent Seaton on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (M.Andersson):
> When it comes to raw computing power the Sysinfo shows that my laptop makes
> 160MIPS!
You need to read the manual that comes with UAE. Let me quote something here for you direct from part of the manual:
"Q: Benchmark program <insert your favourite benchmark> gives weird results.
A: Amiga programs run by the emulator think the Amiga timers can be used to
measure real time. But in UAE, they only measure "emulation time". Sysinfo,
for example, gives the same results on all machines. So don't run
benchmarks to test the emulator speed."
JIT bombs too much, without JIT it's way to damn slow to even be considered playable, when UAE is up and running with JIT the sound is so far off and the scrolling routines are shoddy at best. Get more than one explosion on the screen and the whole UAE system comes to a dire crawl (screenupdate, screenupdate, pause, continue). You can't use benchmarks in an emulated environment, it's results will be skewed no matter what. Until someone comes up with a benchmark that sits on the outside, looking in at UAE and how it speeds are rendered you are not going to get a very comparible result.
I have a 486DX33 here that reports 149MIPS btw, do you honestly think it's close to the truth?
Payback news : Comment 18 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Kent Seaton on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (M.Andersson):
> The result was that in 800x600 the WinUAE was way faster then the 060 in
> 640x480
I can imagine this to be the case if the JIT is running without sound. The question though, if you were to replace the video card in the Amiga with something like a Voodoo3 on a PCI bus and compare it to a Voodoo3 on a PCI bus of a PC at 700MHz would there still be that much of a difference? I've tested a few setups and have some pretty conclusive information over what I saw with my own eyes, which do you think was faster since the graphics cards were identical at that point?
Payback news : Comment 19 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by André Siegel on 04-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (redrumloa):
WinUAE JIT is *a lot* faster than previous releases. I'm not saying that your (outdated) Amiga Forever package can replace a real Amiga, but WinUAE JIT gets *very* close...
I know that it is buggy on some PCs but WinUAE JIT runs fine on my machine and is actually quite stable. There are even some old demos/games which did NOT run on my A1200 but work well using WinUAE...
Cheers,
André
Payback news : Comment 20 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Daniel Allsopp on 05-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (André Siegel):
Stop moaning on Andre about crap PC's and do my bloody side panels ;-)
Payback news : Comment 21 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Menthos on 05-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 17 (Kent Seaton):
> You need to read the manual that comes with UAE. Let me quote something here
> for you direct from part of the manual:
=) Oki, I stand corrected, I will never use benchmarking again (unless impress on lame PC-owners). But the Quake test shows that calculations is pretty fast on JIT UAE (don't really know what result 060 got, but I'm rather sure that it wasn't near 32-33fps and 32-33fps is including the slowdowns that fading colors makes to JIT UAE). If UAE get rid of the slowdowns when fading I think that the Quakedemo test can show a more accurate value of the computing speed (is there any way to disable that feature in Quake?).
> when UAE is up and running with JIT the sound is so far off and the scrolling
> routines are shoddy at best.
Starting with rev2 (the one I have installed) the sound works like a charm on my setup (and it has not done that in previous versions). As for scrolling or anything else with games I haven't tested so much (just tested Payback some minutes).
Payback news : Comment 22 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Kent Seaton on 05-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 21 (Menthos):
> I will never use benchmarking again (unless impress on lame PC-owners). But
> the Quake test shows that calculations is pretty fast on JIT UAE...
Uhm, I hate to break it to you... the "timedemo" routine is a benchmarking program inside of quake.
Running timedemo demo2.dem from the console of quake in UAE is absolutely no different from running the speed test in Sysinfo. When the fading happens, there is no calculation difference for the frame being updated. To quote from the exact same manual that comes with WinUAE:
"Some benchmarks also use tight loops of DIV or MUL instructions to measure CPU speed, and in "emulation time" these instructions take as much time as any other instructions, and you'll get much too high values. If you enabled the "HAVE_RDTSC" option, running benchmarks makes some more sense. Still not a lot, since there is a minimum speed that the benchmark will report on every machine. The faster the machine, the more accurate will your results be."
On my Amiga running Quake060 (from clickboom) the results I saw were 985 frames 73.0 seconds 13.5fps. Now when I ran the 1GHz system with JIT and no sound, Quake (not the 060 version mind you) came in just about 1 second sooner. As soon as I turned on the sound emulation it was more along the lines 5 seconds later. If you do the math, without sound the most fps I got was about 14fps and with sound it was crawling pretty close to 10.2fps (maybe less). Just imagine how much different that would be if the two systems had the same video card.
> Starting with rev2 (the one I have installed) the sound works like a charm on
> my setup (and it has not done that in previous versions).
The JIT engine supplied with 8.16 r4 is the most stable one I've seen yet on the Athlon T-Bird. The portable I have can't even use the JIT (it's a PIII as well). A friend of mine accross the street has a system where the JIT routines are flawless (same settings file) and my other system 400MHz Celeron can't even load UAE without crashing something fierce. This type of diversity in the outcome of programming is extremely bad and fails the A.C.I.D. tests. In my opinion, the developers should never have released the JIT engine until it did what they intended on a more diverse offering of systems.
Payback news : Comment 23 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Menthos on 05-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (Kent Seaton):
> Uhm, I hate to break it to you... the "timedemo" routine is a benchmarking
> program inside of quake.
I'm a born looser! =)
> Running timedemo demo2.dem from the console of quake in UAE is absolutely no
> different from running the speed test in Sysinfo. When the fading happens,
> there is no calculation difference for the frame being updated.
Ok, I tested again and timed it myself. The time for demo2.dem (320x240) to finnish was around 47-48 sec. and frames (same everytime) was 985 giving an average above 20fps. Still not bad considering the slowdowns when fading (quess it was around 30-33 if it would not have the slowdowns?). This time I must be right, right?
(Still pretty fast I must say.)
Payback news : Comment 24 of 24ANN.lu
Posted by Quake on 07-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (Menthos):
In order to get rid of the backgroundflashing in Quake1, try
'alias bf ""'.
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