Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cbmvax!jesup From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Game vs Multitasking Message-ID: <11898@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 29 May 90 07:16:48 GMT References: Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax (Randell Jesup) Distribution: comp Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 90 In article mt87692@tut.fi (Mikko Tsokkinen) writes: > A few days ago I asked about the low memory of Amiga. Well I later noticed >that i(pc) and i(a0) are as fast addressing modes as $short, so I think >a can use i(pc) and put the variables in the same hunk as code. i(a0) isn't >too good because it eats one address register and almost all working in my >program are in registers for speed. You can't use d(pc) as a destination. Use d(An), the extra register doesn't hurt enough to be a problem if you know what you're doing. >1. Should game be HD-installable? > - IMHO I think this is quite useless because many HD drivers eat chip-memory > and you will run out of it especially on 512k chip-ram machines. And you > can make Disk-based routines lot more faster and more data in one disk > which helps people without HD. First: HD's put their buffers/etc in fast ram if it's available. Second: Many people (myself included) greatly dislike games that aren't HD-installable. I can never find disks, and I have many hundreds of Meg of HD storage. Plus floppies are SO slow once you're used to fast Quantums. :-) >2. Should game multitask? > - IMHO I at least don't want to play those shit games with multitasking on. > But if we are talking about for example following "Multitasking": Game > disables interrupts while playing but for example if you pause it it will > turn interrupts back on. I would like to make my game work like this. But > there are few drawbacks: Copy-protection is alot harder to make and you > very easily run out of memory. I can live with arcade-like games that disable multi-tasking (though if they can manage with tasking turned on then I'm more likely to use/like them, since I often have to switch what I'm doing, and never reboot unless I'm forced to. If you must disable it, I _FAR_ prefer games that manage to restore the system on exit, and/or during pause. I get very annoyed with disk-based copy protection - it tends to die, and I never bother annoying the publisher, so effectively the game is gone. Also, as I said, finding program disks is a losing proposition for me. >3. Should game detect extra memory/diskdrives/processors? > - IMHO memory is must because it makes the game lot more playable and HD-people > don't argue about the loading speed. Extra drives eat memory which causes > serious trouble in 512k machines. Processors are useless in simple scroll > games because they at least should be using the blitter in nasty-mode so > processors don't speed it up too much. Nowadays the games also must run on > all motorola 680x0 family thanks to A3000. But by detecting I mean really > notice the speed increase and add new things to game (BTW my program notices > but noone of my friends has 68020/68030 so I dunno how much it helps:-). They had to before the A3000 too. I will not reboot my machine 2500 in 68000 mode merely to play a game, plus the game will be SOO much slower (since it also makes me lose all my fastram). The flight simulators (at least some of them) handle it pretty well, they increase the refresh speed (DON'T speed up gameplay!) BTW, the "standard" "scroll games" turn me off. pretty shoot-em-ups, who cares? Give me something with meat to it, that isn't all reactions. >4. Should game be exitable? > - IMHO exitable games are harder to protect and you can't destroy anything in memory > and you will end up again without enough memory:-( See above. I've ported games to the amiga (before I joined Commodore), and I didn't have much trouble with that (1 meg+ of C source code). > And I would like also to know how many of you people really play games while doing >something else? If you do, do you really like those every now and then updating >games with poor graphics (thanks to memory shortage). I have no memory shortage (most people in the US have at least 1 Meg of ram, many have 3 or more.) I sometimes play games when I bored late at night, as a break from coding/whatever, and then go back to whatever I was doing, often when someone comes in to ask me a question or tell me about a bug. > I provide some examples what I think of games just for fun: ... > - Falcon -too much buttons Nah, good game! I really like simulations, the more accurate the better (even at the expense of some gameplay). > - Simcity -boring just let it run 20+ hours and buy everything Great fun! More hours were lost here in engineering than I'd care to admit after that came out. The rest I haven't played (I stick to strategy games, simulations, and the like most of the time). -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!"