PiStorm3D Beta Gives Accelerated Amigas a Raspberry Pi-Powered 3D Party Trick

Steffen Haeuser's PiStorm3D contributor beta brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to accelerated Amigas via Raspberry Pi 4 VideoCore VI, running Quake at 50fps.

PiStorm-equipped Amiga owners get an intriguing new toy today as the contributor beta of PiStorm3D becomes available. Developed by Steffen Haeuser, the project taps the VideoCore VI GPU inside a Raspberry Pi 4 or Compute Module 4 to provide hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to Amigas already using PiStorm acceleration. That sentence would have sounded like experimental fiction to somebody buying an Amiga 1200 in 1992, which is part of the fun.

PiStorm3D has required substantial reverse-engineering work because detailed VideoCore VI documentation is limited, but demonstrations have already shown an impressively broad range of software running through the system, including Quake, Quake II, Quake III, Unreal, OpenLara, Wipeout, Carmageddon and Jazz Jackrabbit 2 alongside MiniGL demonstrations.

Reported tests have put the classic Gears demo at roughly 125fps using a Compute Module 4, while Quake has exceeded 50fps at 640x480 in 32-bit colour. Today's beta is intended for campaign contributors, so this is not yet the universal public release; that is scheduled for Aminet on October 8.

Nevertheless, it represents a fascinating extension of the PiStorm philosophy. The Amiga community has apparently decided that merely accelerating a thirty-year-old computer is insufficient. Now it would also like the old machine to run Quake III with unreasonable enthusiasm.