Paolo Cattini's VGP 3 for OS4 a real possibility.

In the last few days I've been in contact with Paolo and asked if he'd be willing to port VGP2 or VGP3 to OS4 if we were to provide him with suitable hardware.

He told me that it might be difficult for him to retrive the sources for VGP2 but said that if we have OpenGL 2.1 VGP3 should be possible although he has limited time at the moment.

I let him know about GL4ES and here is his response posted with permission.

What could I say... from the "I like the idea" point of view it could be great to do a port of the VGP3 engine for OS4! The only problem is that I'd do it in my spare time and at the moment I'm a bit short of it... but yes, it could be done! The good news is that the VGP3 engine is written in a very portable C++, and in its latest installment it even uses SDL2 to interface itself with the OS... so, IF everything works as expected, I'm not saying that it will be a simple "recompile it for a different target", but... probably... it won't require TOO much work to port it to OS4 (hopefully)..

The hope would be to get an X5000 sytem out to him since this is the only OS4 capable hardware currently available to purchase.

The current options for sourcing the hardware are;

Amedia. They sell complete systems but the HD5450 would need to be replaced with a more suitable video card.

Relec. They sell complete systems and and it seems that an R7 250 is suplied.

GGS Data. They sell the motherboard only, leaving us to source the rest of the components.

Ideally the system shoud have an RX560 or better and we also need to factor in the cost of Enhancer 2.x as well, and maybe we can get A-EON to provide the latest stable non public components.

Anyhow, now it's time to open a discussion on funding platforms and any other considerations.

@Rob

No.

I was burned by such endeavours before and won't waste money towards a questionable "maybe, it could be possible, I don't say it will and I probably won't have time" probability.

Also, an x5000????
More reasonable would be used Sam of whatever hardware...

Of course, those are only my two cents, good luck, I guess

where is he based though?

@NinjaCyborg

I didn't ask but I assume he's still in Italy.

@Raziel

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The maybe is over whether it can be ported with little work not wether it can be ported at all. He previously delivered on VGP2 for MorphOS and the same offer was open to OS4 but nobody took the initiative to send hardware.

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That depends on a Sam460 or X1000 being available on the second hand market. No other OS4 hardware is really suitable.

Didn't Trevor loan hardware to devs?

@utri007

ya beat me to it I'm sure our man Trevor can send one of his spare OS4.1 machine over to him

More the better, but IMHO just to have a single game port, loan an x5000 is too much. I can understand to loan it if one will work on it and produce some stuff, but not just a single port of one game.

And past experience shows, that all that "loan" hardware to those ones who are not in big interest in amigaos4, ends up with nothing. The one exception was BSzili with pegasos2, as he produce a lot of ports for us, but in all other cases, it wasn't worth it.

I would loan him X5000 if he was in same country.

@Rob
if it is SDL2 and written with portability in mind, then you better just got sources of GPV3 and I can port it for free. You can be sure if anyone says you from the beginning about no-time/spare-time/etc you can be sure nothing will be done.

So just sources need it maybe for some $ as a bonus to the author.

EDT: alternatively if you can drop me his mail i may try to write him with an offer to port it. Maybe he will be ok with just 200-300$ as a bonus, and everyone won.

wasnt there a x5000 for sale recently? might be a few weeks back. but yes i think a whole x5000 would be pushing it, pas experience is usually a culprit.

@kas1e

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We have nothing to lose asking and I'd already mentioned you as someone experience in porting software to OS4 during our correspondance. He'd probably want you to sign some kind agreement since the engine is continuosly developed and not some legacy code from a decade ago and he has previously licensed it to third parties.

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I'll PM you.

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Another option could be for him to sell the completed OS4 port which would earn him more money and we wouldn't need to raise any money upfront.

edit

PM sent

@Rob

Thanks Paolo!!! If you release this game for OS4 I commit I will buy it for sure.

Think about the pros and contras and bring us some magic game.

Thanks!!! All the best Paolo from Spain!!!!!

Well the game is great and well worth to port for sure, hope it could be ported

@kas1e

BSzili got it own, Trevor loans hardware. Eventually Trevor get loaned hardware back, when port is done. Not a same thing.

Get the source (for maybe a small amount of money). Don't waste money on hardware just for one port.

I'd donate for a port.

What kind of hardware would be required for this game? Would Radeon 9250 / miniGL do?

@arfcarl

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It won't happen for this reason.

Providing the source code to a third party... this is a thing that at the moment is a bit unfeasible, it's a long story but it has to do with my current work, related to a deal with a professional simulator developer company, and AVC, the car physics library the VGP3 engine is based upon.

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If the game was availble for €25 to buy it would most likely easily sell more than 100 copies. In that context an X5000 in exchange for a free download doesn't sound like a bad deal. The bigger concern for most people is that he can't guatantee that he can spend much time on it.

OMG!!! Gals and Boys we need this Game for our PPCLadies.
Have you seen it in action?

AWESOME!

Very very cool AI involved with clean graphics & nice sound.
This IMO would be one of the if not the demanding
Game on next Gen Amigas.

Have a look how cool:

https://youtu.be/NV7YqtPhq8g

And it’s a game with Amiga roots.
Here it’s ancestor on Amiga AGA with Driving Wheel

https://youtu.be/gDqb1balYsc