Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!well!farren From: farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Lemmings - a tutorial Part IV Message-ID: <24001@well.sf.ca.us> Date: 3 Apr 91 07:48:03 GMT References: <23787@well.sf.ca.us> <1991Mar31.195148.6667@starnet.uucp> Lines: 88 sschaem@starnet.uucp (Stephan Schaem) writes: >Some game wont allow you to be multitasking because of the resource they >need.The most dificult part is making a custom display fit in the >intuition screen enviroment. So don't use the Intuition environment. I don't - except for the initial allocation of resources, none of my graphics routines use Intuition calls, nor do any of my routines. The single exception is I/O, and that's only because the games I've done don't require fast I/O (although if I had it to do over again, I would rewrite the mouse handling routines in Crystal Quest - they currently use the Intuition input handler, and speed *does* degrade when you move the mouse around, although nothing like the 30% Mike Schwartz claimed). >The OS do not offer enought speed to handle the VP coper list, and the >OS do not offer routine to handle special display mode like RAW display >or diferent bitplane display. The OS also does not prevent you from doing those things. >Sharing the blittter is posible, copper is possible... Almost everything >is possible by cutting resource for the game. So if you don't want to share, just let the OS know. It'll cooperate with you. >But that require ALOT of work and in the final round will not pay, >because competition can offer a better game by not doing so. Only in the high-speed arcade game field. None other. >But maybe other things keep compagnie not to do so? like lazyness or lack >of knowledge? I think that people offer what the majority of the customer >want, otherwise it would change. You are naive. Companies offer what they *think* the customer wants. Broderbund, for example, seems to think that the Amiga is no market at all, so offers very few products for the Ami. Are they correct? Companies also offer what *they* want to offer. While a good company is responsive to customer demands, they are *not* necessarily responsive to customer needs. It's a different thing. >So a game loading from your HD by clicking on a WB icon, and returning >to the WB when ever you want is more then possible. My only point! Damn it, I didn't say that taking over the machine was never to be done, I said that you shouldn't do it unless you need to, and you should clean up after yourself when you do. >3)HD SUPPORT >Possible in every case.(even if its not at all time) >And again piracy is the key to this one. Bull. If piracy is such a problem, why is it that nearly all the games for the IBM PC (which has a MUCH higher piracy rate than the Amiga) can be installed on HD's? Why haven't all the IBM PC software companies gone broke by now? >And dont forget the 80K people are talking about, does it include your >mounted drive with buffers?! Yep. 80K, measured after startup-sequence, including mounted drives, not including Workbench screen memory (which returns to the system after you CloseWB(), as long as nothing else is running - the situation in an autoboot 512K A500 game). >So 1meg will be needed to run 512K games... Only if you have it. If you don't HAVE 1M, go ahead, take over, nobody's going to care. >(if you consider programe like DPIII complex.:-) Not really. There are much more sophisticated graphics tools out there. >And if you have a good algorithm a C implementation will alway be slower >and bigger than an optimized ASM one.(even if its not by mutch). Algorithm A: 8 hours implementation time, including debugging, in C - 32 hours, including implementation time, in asm. How many times will you have to run it to recoup that 24 hours? Assembly where you need it, C where you don't. You don't ALWAYS use C (at least, I don't), but you don't always use assembler, either. -- Mike Farren farren@well.sf.ca.us