If SuperAGA had unique features one can imagine the power of such a system !

Games companies know where all the cpu power is focused on in a game, but if these were done in hardware the cpu wont need as much mhz :-)
I would like to see hardware blitter copy of an area of screen.

An interesting article on gamesutra.com describes a few 2d functions which I would like to see in hardware. can this be achieved ?

EXTERNAL LINK 

Amiga chipsets have always included features to accelerate games.  Natami, being based on the Amiga chipset designs, are no exception.

Based on what I've seen of the specifications, there will be some of the functions listed.  The opaque and transparent blits have always been accelerated on the Amiga chipsets so that's a no-brainer that that will be there.  It is even noteworthy that the Amiga chipsets include line-drawing acceleration which is missing on even the newest graphics chipsets.

The ones that might be difficult will be using texture operations from the new 3d acceleration in 2d such as image rotation and stretching.  If the 3d acceleration is as good as I think it is these should be possible on Natami.

What I'm concerned about is the Alpha-blending blits.  Certainly these could be done by the CPU but I'd like to see them done in hardware as well.

--Sam

The Natami SuperAGA chipset does has all these functions build in already.
These functions are listed on the HW specification page:
CLICK HERE 

1st) The SuperAGA blitter is very fast, having a memory bandwidth of 100 times of the AGA AMIGAs.
2nd) Colorkey (normal BOB blitting is accelerated and needs only halve the memory access as the AMIGA did need.
3rd) Rotating, Scaling, Alphablending is all accelerated in hardware .

I've calculated which what the benchmark that is listed on the last page is actually doing. And I calculated for you how long the AMIGA will need for this.

When running the same benchmark the Natami60 SuperAGA will archive a result of 320 Frames/sec in 16Bit.
It seems that SuperAGA is a lot faster than Pentium M 1.4 Ghz and Pentium D 2.8G together. :-)

Cheers
Gunnar

I know the Amiga chipset has 2d, I was worried that new faster algorithms had been developed since then. If NatAmi has the latest 2D acceleration & blending in hardware, I am happy.

Thanks for the benchmarks. The NatAmi chipset is fast !

Have you maxed out the chipset ? ie have alot of programs running for 2D,3D, sound,ide ?

It would be interesting to see CPU usage and smoothness of the system under these conditions.

I would love to see screenshots of Quakes FPS.

Do you have an estimate how Natami chipset compares to NVidia / ATI chipsets ? This infomation is useful for porting.

I commend you and your team, the chipset is great !

While we are waiting, is there anything developers can do before the hardware is available ? All in an effort to get Natami in the market ASAP.

excellent work ! I want one !

B. van der Meer wrote:

@Gunnar     Too which benchmark are you refering too here?

On the last page of the link that Asaf posted about 2D programming, there are benchmark results for:
1 big opaque screen blit
+ 100 blitted colorkeyed bobs,
+ 30 alpha blended bobs.

I took the sizes and calculated how lond the SuperAGA blitter needs for this. And SuperAGA is much faster than the used Pentium 4.

 

B. van der Meer wrote:

From the spec page:   >COPPER: including original AGA copper     An Amiga-unique feature is the Copper. Are you planning to improve it or is it only improved so far to use the screenresolutions of the newchipset?

The Copper is primarily 100% compatible to the AGA Copper.
But you can switch the copper into a "fast" mode where it will becomes 50 times faster.
The copper can enable all the new GFX modes

B. van der Meer wrote:

Anothor one, dual playfield. Can you use it in the new screenresolutions ?

Dual playfield works normally but much faster than on normal AGA.
Dual playfield works fine on higher resolutions, it will even be faster on 1280x1024 than it was on old AGA in 640x480.

B. van der Meer wrote:

And how is the new chipset supported when you 'only' use OS3.1.   New RTG / AHI drivers should be not the problem, but the Workbench etc. is not using the features of the new chipset I suppose.

256 Color Workbench will work out of the box but a much faster than on normal AGA! With a small patch you will be able to open the big screen modes as 1024x768 or 1280x1024 with 256 colors.

For Truecolor you need to install CyberGFX or Picasso96
 

B. van der Meer wrote:

And how about sound-input ?

I have not work with this. I have to ask Thomas about this.

B. van der Meer wrote:

Thank you, keep up the great work !

Thanks :-) 
 

A) Bigger Size Objects
A sprite was always limited in size. On the AMIGA the Sprite was limited to 16 pixel width. A bob could be literally as big as the screen.
 
B) More colors
While a bob could have up to 64 colors, a sprite had some limitations in colors.
AMIGA sprites were limited to 4 colors or by combining 2 sprites you could create one new sprite with 16 colors.

 
C) More numbers.
The AMIGA was able to display 8 sprites simultaneously in a row.
Bobs were unlimited - the were only only limited by the Blitter time.
 
So in short the BOBS had numerous advantages over the sprites.
But as the speed of the AMIGA blitter was limited, clever developers used the sprites as well, as the sprites were available for free and could be used in addition to the bobs.
 
The blitter of the Natami is much faster now.
There is no limit in using bobs.

The SuperAGA blitter has the power to blit the whole screen thousand times per second !!!

There is no limitation to the size and number of bobs you can use on the Natami.
 
This makes using sprites of course a lot less useful.
Using sprites makes still sense for mouse pointer - but for games the bobs are much more versatile and much more powerful.
 
We focused on improving the Blitter to maximize its speed.
With the new powerful Blitter that can not only copy but rotate and scale as well - the sprite are not so attractive anymore.
Because of this the sprite capabilities are unchanged to AGA-Amiga.
8 Sprite channels with max 64 pixel width each and max 16 colors.
 
The SuperAGA blitter supports colorkeyed bobs which are very similar to AMIGA sprites as they do not need a Blitting-Mask anymore.
 
As SuperAGA now supports virtually unlimited Bobs, I'm quite sure that this is easier and more effective to use for all developers.
 
 
  Cheers
  Gunnar