Classic Copper was a finite state machine IMHO.
I've been told one part Natami differs is having two one who is compatible and a second who is not.(timing wise, address range?)

What feats are possible using a Copper on the Classic Amiga but we lack bandwidth for?(This should be a none issue on a Natami)

To boldly go where no Copper has gone before?(Feats only possible on a Natami)

Beyond the Copper.(I would like to hear from the team to which extend the copper list capabilities have changed)

Why this is not in Q&A, Simple this topic crosses those bounds because like those good ol 80's engineers called it, it's not a bug it's a feature. ;)

A faster Copper could be used for colour-fading stuff within a single screen. Remember the very coarse chunky screens in Amiga 1st-person shooters? They were generated using only the copper. Theoretically if you can change a colour each pixel, you could draw all of the screen just using copperlists. This doesn't seem to make all that much sense when truecolour chunky modes are available but perhaps some nice effects would be possible.

I guess you could do some alpha- or Z-buffer stuff with a fast Copper. E.g. switching playfields in a dual-playfield mode on a per-pixel basis. You could change screen data altogether at specific coordinates which could be used for a windowing system that does all window placement merely via Copper.

All that could be done with the CPU or a fast Blitter, too. We will see what will be the best mode of operation. At least the CPU will benefit a lot from having less work to do as it seems to be the weakest link in this implementation. Judging the features of the Natami, I think we would find something like this:

Mass Storage: 2012 (just use what you can get)
RAM: 2003 (512MB was beginning to be common in 2003)
Blitter: 1998 (even if amazingly fast for an Amiga, I guess dedicated PC graphics cards of that time would have similar speeds; please correct me)
CPU: 1995 (90-100 MHz Pentium was a common processor of that time)

So if the Copper can reduce the workload of the CPU and the Blitter, the whole system will benefit a lot.

1. "move data X1 to chip register Y1 at position Z1"
2. "move data X2 to chip register Y2 at position Z2"

where position Z2 precedes Z1, I would have to sort my copperlist "manually" (using the CPU). It would be cool to just have the Copper process the list before displaying it.

The same thing would go for transposing the coordinates generating a new copperlist like this:

1. "move data X1 to chip register Y1 at position Z1+(x1, y1)"
2. "move data X2 to chip register Y2 at position Z2+(x1, y1)"

This would make a whole windowing system just a matter of a few copper instructions.

Or perhaps even scaling:

1. "move data X1 to chip register Y1 at position Z1*(sx, sy)"
2. "move data X2 to chip register Y2 at position Z2*(sx, sy)"

Disclaimer: I have no idea at all how modern graphics cards work, perhaps all of this is already commonplace.

To name a example the Natami's chip set is 32bit IIRC and thus would require one access to fill the Copper with it's command instead of 2 word size accesses.

This would make the Copper already twice as fast!(no need to wait for the second part right?)

I wasn't trying to put the Natami down. I just believe that CPU speed will be the one factor that will be most behind current technology. (After all the graphics subsection will be able to output HD resolutions which is present day technology). My above list was based on the assumption that we will see a CPU with a clock frequency of 100 to 200 MHz that supposedly will be superscalar. This should roughly be equivalent to what was bleeding edge technology in the mid-90s. This means that much of the user experience will have to come from the custom chip functionality, just like with the original Amiga. Thus, the more work can be moved from the CPU to the custom chips, the better.

Marcel Verdaasdonk wrote:

AFAIK the copper instruction list hasn't increased so it's still Skip Wait and Move IIRC.

Well, it is an FPGA so a new coprocessor could always be added later on... :)

 

Marcel Verdaasdonk wrote:

I was just curious what would work on a Natami but not on a Classic.

There might be some new registers which are out of reach of the old copper. Furthermore, I suppose that a new copper mode would allow moves with a higher granularity, e.g. one move per pixel or something like that.

-edit-
There may be a multi-word version of the Copper Move instruction to take advantage of DDR2 bursts but it will only work when compatibility mode is disabled and may only be available on later versions of the SuperAGA cores.

@Nixus
Copper chunky will be pretty worthless on NatAmi considering that the SuperAGA chipset will have true chunky DMA fetching.  Normally Copper chunky is only 12-bits while the DMA will be able to handle much higher bits-per-pixel rates than that.

That's why I wrote this:

Nixus Minimax wrote:

This doesn't seem to make all that much sense when truecolour chunky modes are available but perhaps some nice effects would be possible.

While today's video cards are blazers, are they as accessible as our custom chips? I think not.

The Amiga/NatAmi has powerful qualities other than what we can buy now, and what's out there probably never will allow for them, either.

Can't wait to see crazy Shadow of the Beast type games, in 800*600, 16 bit!!!!

Technically that should be relatively easy to do but will we see the graphics for that?

EXTERNAL LINK 

EXTERNAL LINK

I believe most spells were copper effects also.

I have recently been thinking about sprite tricks and how they could be used for the background for a Gauntlet game. Just use a full-height sprite with a pasted 16x16 image (4 or 16 colours - need 4 for the timing with 16c?) repeated that you re-use for the whole playfield. If your monster logic makes sure only one monster can occupy a 16x16 square at any one time then you can draw the bobs with only A+D blitter copy.
(The other options would be to go with a blank background, or dual playfields (and less colours?), or full cookie-cutter, or a mix thereof.)

No wonder I'm so attached to Amiga/NatAmi! :-DDD

Never finished Black Crypt but enjoyed it very much. I got to the water level, HOWEVER, never could find a fourth breathing helmet.

Lionheart. Never seen or heard of it before,.... 7.14 MHz / 1 Megabyte of RAM (I guess), THAT WAS AMAZING!!!!

NatAmi's specifications are SO COOL can't wait to SEE THE MAGIC, all over again!

On today's windows computers, I JUST DON'T SEE THIS TODAY, no, NEVER HAVE SEEN THIS!

When they had Pool of Radiance on PC, it was TRASH compared to the Amiga version (due to x86 having various speed CPUs, and varying video  and sound cards). On Amiga, just put in King's Quest or Leisure Suit Larry, and "it worked". :-D