@328gts

I am using Lightwave AW (LW5.0 release version), which should be the same version Q uses on his real Amiga computers. Also, rendering via Screamernet is always faster than rendering within the software. For that reason we should follow Q:s steps in order to make a similar comparsion, including rendering from within the software.

Unless Q does a render via ScreamerNet, for this particular test with the settings he provided, I do not see the point in doing so because it would be moving the goalpost.

Also, I wonder if you are quoting the correct scene that Walkero is rendering, since he is rendering all benchmark scenes? From Walkeros video it takes 10m 49s for the Raytracing scene to render in the original setup, which is 2x resolution, 4x more pixles to render compared to Q:s setup.

When I open LW and render the Raytrace scene without any changes, it takes 13m 46s to render on my machine. I very much doubt that the X1000 would render the same scene, even when using ScreamerNet in 1m 39s.

:)

EDIT: The difference from my result and Walkeros result regarding the same scene... him rendering via ScreamerNet and I render within the software is quite understandable, since LW never had any hardware acceleration regarding displaying data on screen while also showing the render progress in a black and white render, so the CPU will have to deal with all the displays when rendering in the software compared to rendering with ScreamerNet in Shell

EDIT2: I think Walkero is using an X5000/ 040, which is clocked at 2,2 GHz while my machine is the 020, clocked at 1995MHz rounded up to 2 GHz.

@328gts

I do not use shell rendering...

Start LW, load benchmark scene and adjust the settings per Q:s instructions.

When you hit F9, you will get a Grim Reaper... just click on more and then click on ignore DSI errors

Once you do that, you will go back to the black screen with some text. Once the render is complete, you will see a very buggy looking image. LMB click and you will be returned to the black screen with text. There you can see the rendertime.

Make sure you do a second F9 render after the first, because I think the DSI error on the very first render might add some extra time.

I will suggest that you use either ModePro or NewMode to promote Layout to a proper screenmode. I use NewMode and promote Layout to a 720x480x8 screen.

With the settings Q provided, my AmigaONE X5000 renders this in 3m 27s.

@Chris

You are correct... it had to do with sound. Since the RF500 modulator has an input for it, it also means that whatever source actually works...

If you look at the picture I posted, you can see an audio mixerboard there. So I hooked up both Amigas audio to the mixerboard + a "boombox" with CD and Radio capabilities. This meant that I could then feed the output from the mixerboard to the audio input of the A500 RF Modulator, and then the studends could listen to Swedish National Radio instead of some random Amiga music.

But since the Amiga was connected to the mixerboard as well, certain audio events from the Scala script was heard as well as the Swedish National Radio.

There was actually a postbox bellow where the tv was hanging where students could request things, usually it was birthday congratulations where they had a foto of the student and some text they wanted to be displayed. We had a PC about 3 meters from where my Amigas were and it had a colour scanner, so it was quite easy to make a nice Scala page with the foto and text.

Needles to say, the info-channel became quite popular.

A couple of years after I left they tried to revive the info-channel with PC machines and it wasn't as good as what I created with Scala (I do not think Scala had been ported over to PC at that time).

It was kind of interesting to see how something quite trivial on an Amiga was hard to do on a PC back then when it came to video signals.

@ddni

No. :)

This might give you some clues... (and yes that is me 19 years old when doing this). For reference I am 45 today.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments ... 102775905288382/image.png

Here is a little quiz for you guys... just for the fun and giggles. 😄

Back in these days I used an Amiga 1200 with an M-Tech 030/28MHz with 8MB of fast ram. I used my own Amiga A1200 to create an info-channel for the students (age 13-15). It was a single TV hanging about 2 meters from the ground level that displayed my Scala MM 300 scripts. But I noticed that as soon as I got information from the school that a lecture was canceled, I had to actually go into the big room where the TV was hanging (where all the students were), turn of the TV, go back in, add in the information needed, go back out, turn on the TV (because I did not want to show off the magic behind the scenes).

So... that is where the A500 came into place. With ParNET (yes this was a thing back then for Amigas), you could connect to another Amiga via Parallel port to access files. In this way, I could live-edit the Scala script without interrupting the stream.

Problem solved.

Now to the setup of the question...... I connected the video port from my A500 to the monitor, and used the Composite output from my A1200 to the same monitor (so I could switch inputs of what I needed to see) and used an A500 RF Modulator on the video port on the A1200 that displayed the Info-channel on to the TV in the big room that the students watched.

QUESTION....

Why didn't I use the internal RF modulator on the Amiga 1200? It worked but it lacked one feature that the RF Modulator from the A500 solved...

What feature might that be?

I use the DOpus5 port for file managing and for FTP stuff. The reason for that is quite simple... I use it on Windows as well. I have tried Filer but it is so confusing I just gave up on it.

Happy New Year!

Looking forward to what 2023 will bring to the Amiga community!

Great to read these roundups!

Happy New Year!

Nice trailer. Looks very promising!

I am the one that asked for some sort of timer of how long a process takes. Yes, I am Mikael mentioned in the blog!

And yes, I agree that feature requests from users can be a bad thing. I love Rave and want it to become better and better. Now that I have established a good dialogue with Trixie on Discord, I will honor that. He is a great guy!

My history also includes beta-testing and feature-requesting things for LightWave 3D between 2008-2020. Only one or two of my feature requests got implemented. But there were plenty of beta-testers as well. :)

One approach is to develop for the latest libs etc and make sure that is stable, and then, if you have time, make a version for these "special" users.

If it is going to make things more complicated, I think there no reason not to ask for some money because they ask for something you initially didn't intend to support.

I am not a coder but my 16+ years in the PC/Console games industry, I do have a fair knowledge about developement and there is a reason Coders have the highest salaries compared to regular artists like myself. :)

This are very good news!

Will Hyperion put up Heretic II for purchase on their website when this is done? Right now there is no way to buy Heretic II, unless your updates will allow me to purchase it from GoG or Steam and move the data files over to my Amiga X5000.

@imagodespira

I got the game from the original site and also donated $10. I hope you will not stop developing for the Amiga.

@TiredOfLife

Cool!

However, I can buy Freespace, Shogo and Gorky 17 from their website.... (Freespace - The Great War - Purchased and working, Gorky 17 - Purchased and working)... There is no listing of Heretic II in a way to buy it though. :(

EDIT: I used to play this title with my A1200 with PPC 603e@200Mhz and Voodoo 3 3000. When I got rid of my A1200T (BIG MISSTAKE BTW), I never sent any software with it. I might still have this game somewhere boxed because I bought it back in those days. For example... I did dig up my original MakeCD boxed version not that long ago.

That said, it would be nice to be able to buy this title as a downloadable product just like Freespace, Shogo and Gorky 17.

I would pay for a working AOS 4x port. Even if I have to pay the people porting as well as buying the data files etc from GOG or similar.

I have to ask...

Are there any PCI based GFX cards that supports gpu acceleration for video playback?

If there are, it might be a good idea to get one of those cards and upgrade the drivers as well as buy Emotion mediaplayer?

My A1X5000 is using about 1-3% CPU when playing full HD videos since the decoding is all done on the gfx-card.

@rjd324

First of all I just want to clarify that I do not test Doom 3.... that said...

One thing you did not list is what your Power setting is for your GPU?

If you go into Prefs and open the Power Management, make sure your GPU is set to High Power. I picked that little trick up from one of those Star Wars Jedi Outcast / Jedi Academy threads.

@redfox

Yep... me too.... :)