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dansalvato | 1 year ago
That reminds me, it's theoretically fastest to do `and d1,d0` e.g. in a loop if d1 is pre-loaded with the value (4 cycles and 1 read). `btst d1,d0` is 6 cycles and 1 read.
> the blitter is active and you set BLTPRI
I thought BLTPRI enabled meant the blitter takes every even DMA cycle it needs, and when disabled it gives the CPU 1 in every 4 even DMA cycles. But yes, I'm splitting hairs a bit when it comes to DMA performance because I code game/demo stuff targeting stock A500, meaning one of those cases (blitter running or 5+ bitplanes enabled) is very likely to be true.
amiga386|1 year ago
That's true, although I'd add that ASR/AND are destructive while BTST would be nondestructive, but we're pretty far down a chain of hypotheticals at this point (why would someone even need to test evenness in a loop, when they could unroll the loop to doing 2/4/6/8 items at a time with even/odd behaviour baked in)
> I thought BLTPRI enabled meant the blitter takes every even DMA cycle it needs, and when disabled it gives the CPU 1 in every 4 even DMA cycles
Yes, that is true: https://amigadev.elowar.com/read/ADCD_2.1/Hardware_Manual_gu... "If given the chance, the blitter would steal every available Chip memory cycle [...] If DMAF_BLITHOG is a 1, the blitter will keep the bus for every available Chip memory cycle [...] If DMAF_BLITHOG is a 0, the DMA manager will monitor the 68000 cycle requests. If the 68000 is unsatisfied for three consecutive memory cycles, the blitter will release the bus for one cycle."
> one of those cases is very likely to be true
It blew my mind when I realised this is probably why Workbench is 4 colours by default. If it were 8, an unexpanded Amiga would seem a lot slower to application/productivity users.