AmiFFE 0.2.0

Music, AHI sound, MorphOS, and two speed options for slower machines.

New in 0.2.0

• Music. The game's own soundtrack, played from its original song files. AdLib or General MIDI, either pre-rendered to disk once (cheap to play on any machine) or synthesised live (fast machines only). ffe-prefs renders the songs with one button: the title song alone, or all 17.
• AHI. Sound and music through audio.device (Paula) or AHI. If AHI is not installed, the game uses Paula.
• MorphOS. The same 68k executable runs on MorphOS and sets itself up there: a 16/24/32-bit RTG screen and AHI sound. Tested in an emulator (QEMU, Pegasos II, MorphOS 3.20), not yet on real hardware.
• Planets: Reduced (default). Small, distant planet patches stop subdividing early. A scene with a small, distant Earth went from 220 to 153 ms per frame. Original keeps the exact old picture.
• Textures: distant flat / all flat. Textured polygons are drawn in one colour taken from their texture, as the original engine did for far-away objects.
• ffe-prefs has the new Textures, Planets, Sound (Off / Paula / AHI) and Music settings.

Fixed

• Stopping a sound effect on Paula could wait forever inside audio.device. On MorphOS this froze the game on its first screen.

Tested with this archive

Unpacked as a user would, WinUAE with JIT off (68020, no FPU):

System	Result
AmigaOS 3.1, Workbench 3.1	drawer → ffe-prefs from its icon (new settings shown) → game from its icon
AROS 68k nightly, RTG	ffe-prefs GFX=RTG, icons read by icon.library, game from the Shell
AROS 68k nightly, AGA	same, AGA
Older AROS ROM + Workbench boot disk, AGA	game from the Shell
MorphOS 3.20 in QEMU (Pegasos II), default settings	32-bit RTG screen and AHI chosen by themselves, music plays, intro → new game → cockpit

Screens checked with screenshots taken inside the emulated machine.

Requirements: 68020 or better (no FPU), 32 MB fast RAM recommended, AGA or an RTG mode, and the original DOS game files (put the DOS game folder, as it is, into AmiFFE/FFE/). No game data is included. Live music needs a 68060 or better.

The General MIDI bank ffe_gm.bnk is built from CC0 samples by Versilian Studios (Sam Gossner) and contributors (VCSL, VS Chamber Orchestra: Community Edition); see GMBANK-SOURCES.md.

Unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Frontier Developments. Based on John Jordan's JJFFE.

AmiFFE 0.1.3

About 1.4× faster than 0.1.2 in the intro, with exactly the same picture.

Changes since 0.1.2

• The texture-mapping loops (planets, asteroids), the palette builder's median-cut scans and the 50 Hz key loop are hand-written 68k now.
• AGA: only the screen rows that changed are converted to bitplanes.
• Every change was checked to produce byte-identical frames against the unchanged build (fixed clock step), on AmigaOS 3.1 and on AROS.

Speed. Measured in WinUAE on a fixed-speed 68020 (50 MHz, no JIT): intro average 1.86 fps (0.1.2) → 2.56 fps (0.1.3). It is still slow; a 68060 or a fast FPGA accelerator is what the game needs to be playable.

Tested with this archive, in WinUAE with JIT off (68020, no FPU):

System	Result
AmigaOS 3.1, Workbench 3.1	drawer → ffe-prefs from its icon → game from its icon
AROS 68k nightly, RTG	ffe-prefs GFX=RTG, icons read by icon.library, game with a 4 KB Shell stack
AROS 68k nightly, AGA	same, AGA
Older AROS ROM + Workbench boot disk, AGA	game with a 4 KB Shell stack

Screens checked with screenshots taken inside the emulated Amiga.

Requirements: 68020 or better (no FPU), 32 MB fast RAM recommended, AGA or an 8-bit RTG mode, and the original DOS game files (put the DOS game folder, as it is, into AmiFFE/FFE/). No game data is included.

Unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Frontier Developments. Based on John Jordan's JJFFE.

AmiFFE 0.1.2

Ready to install and start from Workbench.

Changes since 0.1.1

• Workbench icons for the AmiFFE drawer, the game, ffe-prefs (display settings: AGA/RTG, PAL/NTSC) and the README (opens in MultiView). Classic icon format, read by Workbench 3.1 and AROS.
• No Stack command needed: the game switches to its own 1 MB stack, from the Shell or from its icon.
• ffe-prefs started from its icon prints nothing, so no console window opens.
• The archive unpacks to an AmiFFE drawer; put your original DOS game folder, as it is, into AmiFFE/FFE/.

Speed — please read. Nothing is optimised yet. Without JIT, at a speed comparable to a 68040/40, expect 2–4 frames per second in flight. A 68060 or a fast FPGA accelerator is needed for a usable frame rate. Performance work is the next stage.

Tested with this archive, in WinUAE with JIT off (68020, no FPU):

System	Result
AmigaOS 3.1, Workbench 3.1 (RTG card present)	drawer → ffe-prefs from its icon → game from its icon
AROS 68k nightly, RTG	ffe-prefs GFX=RTG, icons read by icon.library, game with a 4 KB Shell stack
AROS 68k nightly, AGA	same, AGA
Older AROS ROM + Workbench boot disk, AGA	game with a 4 KB Shell stack

Requirements: 68020 or better (no FPU), 32 MB fast RAM recommended, AGA or an 8-bit RTG mode, and the original DOS game files. No game data is included.

Unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Frontier Developments. Based on John Jordan's JJFFE.

AmiFFE 0.1.1

One executable for every 68k Amiga system.

Tested in WinUAE with this exact binary:

System	AGA	RTG
AmigaOS 3.1 (Kickstart 3.1 + Workbench 3.1)	yes	yes (Picasso96)
AROS 68k, current nightly ROM and system	yes	yes
Older AROS ROM (e.g. WinUAE's built-in one) with a Workbench boot disk	yes	no RTG on that ROM

Changes since 0.1.0

• Older AROS ROMs ignore SA_BitMap: the game now draws into the screen's own bitplanes there (or uses WriteChunkyPixels when their layout differs) instead of showing a black screen.
• The game files are also found on a drive or assign named FFE: (e.g. a WinUAE directory drive with volume name FFE).
• README: compatibility table and how to put the game on your own HDF (AmigaOS 3.x or AROS 68k). No disk image is distributed.

Requirements: 68020 or better (no FPU), 32 MB fast RAM recommended, AGA or an 8-bit RTG mode, and the original DOS game files. No game data is included — copy your DOS game folder, as it is, into FFE/ next to ffe_game. Run ffe-prefs to choose AGA/RTG and PAL/NTSC.

Unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Frontier Developments. Based on John Jordan's JJFFE.

AmiFFE 0.1.0

First release of Frontier: First Encounters for classic Amigas: a native AmigaOS 68k port built on John Jordan's JJFFE.

Contains: ffe_game (the game executable), ffe-prefs (display settings: AGA/RTG, PAL/NTSC), README, LICENSE. No game data — you need the original DOS game files; see the README for installation (copy the DOS folder as is into FFE/ next to the executable).

Requirements: AmigaOS 3.x, 68020+ (no FPU), AGA or an 8-bit RTG mode (Picasso96/CyberGraphX), 32 MB fast RAM recommended. Expect a low frame rate below a 68060 — performance work has not started yet.

Status: playable; compared frame by frame against the PC version (intro, cockpit, all console screens, trading, flight, hyperspace, docking, landing, save/load). No music (the floppy release has none).

Frontier: First Encounters © Frontier Developments / David Braben. Unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Frontier.