Silkcut by The Black Lotus (Atari Falcon version)

[diablothe2nd]

Im currently sat on my Amiga 1200 with 68060 & fpu and 32mb ram, yes i even watched this youtube video on it! I've always owned a miggy. Had friends with Atari too. They envied me, I envied them; but I've never got what all this Amiga vs Atari fighting is all about. Both were superb machines (even the apple 68k wasnt too bad either). Each had their strengths and weakness. but we should all unite for our common thing, the power & awesomeness of the 68k and custom hardware :) - Long live the 68K!

[gabrielirlanda]

AMIGA was one of the only computer in the market that allowed you to do what you really had in mind, AMIGA was a computer out of this world!! thanks AMIGA!!!!

[GeorgeBush2100]

Amazing powerful demo!! Falcon030 

[EvilFranky]

@paul1981gb But did not come with as STANDARD, that is obviously his point.

[Polybun]

Heh, I think I actually prefer the heavily distorted, harshness of the amiga audio. Gives it an edgy feeling. The audio here feels some how sanitized.

[cadcTV]

really dig the visuals in this video, really well done!

[DroehnIng]

another fantastic demo by TBL. i love those people :)

[xoen6]

fantastyczna nuta.

[hankmanGTA]

LOL

[babayaga26]

nice! even looks like they have a poly filler with subpixel/texel as well, or at least very accurate compared to the amiga version

[joergstube]

Wow! Just think: This is a 16 MHz 68030-Computer. Outstanding! I remember the years with my 1040 ST and my Falcon030... I should reactivate them!.-)

[evldhs]

Well this demo does need a Falcon 060, the recording is made with a 66 MHz 060-chip.

[mmille10]

@evldhs:

When you say Falcon 060 do you mean a Falcon 030 with an 060 accelerator card?

[evldhs]

@mmille10 Yes the CT60 or CT63 boards.

[potsy5656]

What I don't get is that the Atari Falcon was a 32bit computer and games didn't look this good on it's 64 bit Jaguar?

[MadCommodore]

@potsy5656

The Jag is running on a lame bus with a standard 68000 CPU and no DSP. Jag is a P.o.S. Atari should have stuck with home computers and sorted a CD-ROM and modem for the Falcon.

[AEWHistory]

@MadCommodore

The Jaguar used the 68000 for input controls! In other words, it handled stuff like the joysticks. It was only incompetent programmers that used it for other tasks on the Jaguar.

[MadCommodore]

@AEWHistory

And it was lame designers who made it impossible to program ;o) Makes Sega Saturn coding look like childs play indeed

[AEWHistory]

@MadCommodore

It had little to do with design. The programming documentation was incomplete at the time of release, it was a RISC processor, and virtually ALL platforms require a period of learning before the maximum can be squeezed from their hardware. There is one design flaw of which I am aware (a poorly designed chip) but otherwise the system is solid and generally far more powerful than what was available in that period. Still reading old EGMs?

[SauceCaptain]

@AEWHistory I saw review scores of the Jaguar by EGM once ... they HATED the Jaguar with a ingnorant biased passion. Just one example they gave NBA Jam on the 32x a 8.5 out of 10 and the game got a 4.5 on the Jaguar! When every other single review source said the Jag version was the better of the two. Not suprising that they fired several editors for taking bribes to fix reviews a few years later. Not suprising they went bankrupt a few years ago lol.

[AEWHistory]

@SauceCaptain Yea, I have similar recollections. Back then I was acquainted with two execs at Atari and one of them basically said something to the effect that they simply didn't have the money to buy better scores from the gaming magazines like Sony, Nintendo, etc. I remember being really shocked by that because it just never occurred to me that the video gaming market could be so completely corrupt. Like the "pay-to-play" system in radio in the '50s and '60s... and just as wrong!

[AGWhiteman]

@MadCommodore You could have a software modem on the falcon with the DSP

[r8qt7]

the dsp kicks amigas as *hehe* ...

[gorzyga]

@r8qt7 but PowerPC +graphics card kicks Ataris ass ;)

[nickmctrick]

This is a killer demo. Gonna check out the AGA version.

[r8qt7]

Amiga is dead!

[LBcoyote]

Even C64, Atari 800 XL and Sinclair ZX Spectrum are not dead, let alone Amiga!

[Ahle2]

What a really stupid thing to say !

Of course it is.... so is the Falcon...

The Amiga and Atari scenes, however, are prosperous.

The ONLY superior thing about the Falcon, is the AWESOME audio capabilites.

Apart from that, the cons and pros for each machine makes it hard to clearly appoint a winner.

In the case of ST(e) versus OCS/ECS Amiga, it's obvious ( at least for coders/hardware developers ) that the Amiga is superior by a large marginal.

[r8qt7]

The Falcon has additionally a DSP - which every Amiga lacks ...

[EvilFranky]

Your statement does not make a lot of sense.

From what I read it basically says you want to compare the A1200 and Falcon030 as if you could take the Falcon's audio capabilities out of the equation.

Personally I think the massive gulf in audio capabilities is the defining factor between these two machines. It's the one thing that really tips the scales in favour of the Falcon.

[Ahle2]

"Personally I think the massive gulf in audio capabilities is the defining factor between these two machines. It's the one thing that really tips the scales in favour of the Falcon."

Agree...

[porcorosso81]

Hmm, strange, then why it does it still boot when I power it on?

[hankillo1]

maybe, but atari dead before :)

[animaze86]

someone correct me if im wrong but the falcon never had the same co-processor chipset that the amiga did. Even an atari falcon equipped with a 68060 couldn't do this. to me it appears like the same demo i play on my '060 equipped Amiga daily. i dont know why tbl would port it to an atari falcon. sounds like bs. F00Kn AWESOME DEMO TOO THE GRAVE tho.

[evldhs]

This demo doesn't use any of the co-processors in the Amiga apart from the soundchip.

With a 68060 and chunky graphics, coding for the 2 machines is very similar. In this particular demo the Falcon benefits a bit as the audio can be decoded with the DSP rather than the CPU.

It's no bullshit, I recorded this from my Falcon and it was ported to the Falcon by Mikro/MSB under supervision by Kalms/TBL, Kalms himself have a Falcon 060 too, I sold one to him :)

[animaze86]

Thanks for clearing that up. I know what you mean now. It uses Chunky graphics instead of bit planes etc. I'd love to have a falcon as well :) *hugs 1040st*

[Ahle2]

In which way is the sound decoded in the Amiga version?

How much faster is this demo on the Falcon when the same CPU is used?

Doesn´t the Falcon suffer from the 16bit wide data bus?

Is the 8bit color mode chunky or bpl ?

Which is faster, chunky -> 8bpl or 16bit chunky ?

Which graphics mode is used in this demo?

I´m trying to get a Falcon for my collection, but it is too rare and expensive :(

[evldhs]

1. Amiga: ADPCM (I guess about 10% of the 060). Falcon: MPEG Audio (decoded in DSP, 0% of the 060)

2. Falcon have 16bit bus, but the actual chipram speed is about the same (different clockfreq and dma loads). Falcon have much quicker fastram (SDRAM) than Amiga (EDO).

3. For effects updating the entire screen 8bit is faster, and this demo uses bitplanes with c2p. The same c2p routine from Kalms (a bit adapted to the Falcon interleaved bitplanes).

[hankillo1]

@evldhs Falcon has not quicker fastram than amiga .Falcon ´s ct60 accelerator card has sdram, its not the same thing.

There are A4000 expansion cards with 64bit sdram memory as well.:)

[EvilFranky]

@hankillo1

It is. And I know what you are trying to imply but your grasping at straws. It's not Falcons fault that Czuba-Tech decided to bolt on an 060 to their FASTRAM card :)

Tell me this - How much faster would a FASTRAM board be plugged directly into the A1200's expansion port if it used SDR instead of EDO? :)

[bobbystar101]

Falcons are good when you are so lucky that your dad won one in an atari magazine competition years ago and now I have it!!

[ob1dj23]

Great demo. Where can I get the 060 upgrade for my Falcon?

[earx23]

thankyou tbl and mikro

[arzak1]

Really beautiful demo. Falcon and Amiga are really powerful.

[aga060]

geil!! @kalms: the amiga freaks miss you in the demoscene.....

[sacreleases]

I didn't know that the Falcon had that much power and thought that it also did not have much, if any graphical co-processors like the Amiga. Okay, I did think the same when I saw Silkcut and more so Starstruck for the Amiga AGA. :) Nice Job.

[evldhs]

The Falcon doesn't have any (useable) graphics co-processors. But they are not used on the Amiga for this demo anyway. This Silkcut video is running on a Falcon with a 68060 processor at 66MHz, everything is software rendered.

The Falcon versions runs a bit faster thanks to faster memory and DSP to decode the music.

[sacreleases]

Interesting. I knew that with the DSP (I knew a few folks back then who where fanatic Atari fans... they really existed hehe). So the Falcon was actually more powerful than the new Amiga 1200 and 600?! Damn, those Atari guys did not lie ;)

[tosgem]

No, Falcon was not more powerful than A1200 or A600 - this demo is with a 68060 accelerator, that is why.

[viking272]

Yes the Falcon killed the A1200 dead. It's more comparable to the A4000 really.

[68030]

that's why there are power pc cards for A1200 with AOS4 compatibility ;-).

falcon's graphics co-processors are less powerfull than atari ste (sprites and scrollings) lol.

[EvilFranky]

Not true.

STE doesn't have any hardware sprites neither does the Falcon.

[thorgallpl]

@tosgem a600? lol

[Blast07]

actually, blitter (graphics co-processors) in A1200 is useless too. 680ec20 can copy,fill,draw polygones faster than blitter

[fiswis]

The Falcon MAULS Amiga in terms of Ability

[jarjar2b]

yeah like with it's 18 bit inferior palette and 16 bit bus ?

[EvilFranky]

And the A1200's inferior audio architechture? There are pros and cons for both of these machines in favour of the Falcon IMHO.

You just do not notice the smaller palette size in real world situations, but then again A1200 can't do full screen moving images in more than 256 colours right? Where as the Falcon can do this in 16bit colour 65k+...

[badermanone]

Can someone write, who is author of this port? Kalms? Or someone else?

[gazdinf]

MiKRO of Mystic Bytes

[badermanone]

thanks!

[jivar74]

mikRO/mSb is that wonderboy!

[gamein60seconds]

shame about the linear mesh texturing glitches.  cool tho

[KalmsTBL]

Yeah. The Amiga version's lower framerate made the texture stretching less obvious. Ideally some of the artwork should have been redone (or perspective correction enabled for the most critical polygons) but any such additional work would be outside the scope of the porting effort.

[tosgem]

it's not impressive unless it is running on ST!

[sqward]

Sweet :) Is it me or it seems to run a bit smoother then on a1200 ? :)

[evldhs]

You should have read the description :)

Yes it runs quicker - you should see it on a real Falcon without framerate conversions between movie files - it's really really smooth then!