PSXForge expands beyond PlayStation 1 with Amiga 68K support

PSXForge is moving beyond PlayStation 1. The browser-based game creation platform now has an Amiga 68K target in development, with recent builds running on real Motorola 68040 and 68060 hardware. This isn’t a separate engine inspired by Sony’s first PlayStation. It’s PSXForge itself, adapted for another machine. PlayStation 1 remains the main reference platform, but the project is being extended to cover Amiga 68K and Nintendo 64. For Amiga users, the interesting part comes from how PSXForge handles the huge gap between PS1 graphics hardware and a classic 68K machine. The answer isn’t brute force. The engine changes how scenes are rendered, how far the player can see and how much geometry stays on screen. The current build is a benchmark rather than a finished game. Its purpose is straightforward: measure performance and expose weak points in the Amiga renderer.

PSXForge starts with PlayStation 1

PSXForge was created around PS1 game development, so PlayStation hardware still shapes much of the project. Assets, memory limits and scene construction follow a workflow built with Sony’s console in mind. A developer can prepare 2D and 3D content, build a project and compile it for supported targets. Amiga changes the equation.

A 68060 doesn’t have the dedicated 3D hardware found inside a PlayStation. Pushing the same polygon count through software rendering would quickly hit CPU and memory limits, so PSXForge scales scenes differently for its 68K build. It’s a practical approach. Fewer polygons. Shorter viewing distances. Sprites where full 3D models cost too much.

Amiga gets three detail levels

The current benchmark offers three graphics settings. At the lowest level, several objects switch from polygon models to animated sprites. The middle option keeps more important elements in 3D, including the player character. The highest setting keeps full 3D geometry wherever the renderer can manage it.

Draw distance sits on a separate control. Raise it and more of the level becomes visible. Frame rate drops quickly. Typical Amiga scenes currently contain around 200 to 500 polygons. PS1 and Nintendo 64 builds can reach roughly 2,000 to 2,500 in comparable areas.

Floors and walls remain polygon-based on Amiga. Selected objects can become sprites. For a cross-platform engine, this makes sense. PSXForge doesn’t force every machine to draw an identical scene. Each target gets a version suited to its hardware limits.

68060 tests reach double-digit frame rates

Testing on real Amiga systems gives a clearer idea of current performance. An Amiga 4000 with a 50 MHz 68060 and ZZ9000 graphics hardware reached around 7 to 9 frames per second through AGA. RTG produced roughly 8 to 10 fps. Reducing viewing distance raised performance to around 11 to 14 fps. Longer distances could push results down to roughly 4 or 5 fps.

An Amiga 1200 fitted with a 60 MHz 68060, Mediator and Radeon reached around 10 to 11 fps using sprite-heavy rendering with a short draw distance. Switching to full 3D at the same distance brought performance closer to 8 fps.

Long-range rendering dropped into the 3 to 4 fps area. A separate Amiga 4000 configuration using a 50 MHz 68060, Mediator and Voodoo produced similar numbers. Short-distance sprite rendering reached roughly 12 fps, with full 3D near 9 fps. These results aren’t final performance targets. They show where PSXForge currently sits during development.

Overdraw remains one of the big targets

Profiling has already exposed a major bottleneck. The Amiga renderer currently processes around 1,500 polygons per second in testing. A 68K version of Quake reaches closer to 4,500 polygons per second on comparable hardware under the same testing approach.

Overdraw takes part of the blame. The current renderer can draw distant surfaces before nearer ones, causing some pixels to be written several times during a single frame. On hardware with limited memory bandwidth, repeated writes cost valuable time.

Development is moving to a more efficient rendering order, with nearer surfaces handled earlier so hidden geometry can be skipped more often. Nintendo 64 development faces a related problem. Its graphics hardware can process far more geometry, but framebuffer traffic still carries a cost.

PSXForge is becoming a wider development platform

PSXForge already reaches beyond a single PlayStation workflow. Amiga 68K and Nintendo 64 are part of the same multi-target project, alongside handheld systems including the R36S, SF2000 and GB300. MorphOS is planned, with DOS support expected later.

Asset streaming plays a major role too. Models, textures, audio and level sections can load during play instead of occupying memory for an entire stage. The Amiga work currently has a clear target: make PSXForge’s 3D renderer practical on a standard 50 MHz 68060. There’s still plenty of optimisation ahead. Yet the current benchmark already shows how the project approaches Amiga development. PSXForge isn’t trying to turn an Amiga into a PlayStation. It’s taking one development system and giving each machine its own way to run the same project.

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