LightWave goes high-res and 24-bit!

After about 30 years of silence on the Amiga platform, killer-app "LightWave 3D" of "Babylon 5" and "seaQuest DSV" TV-series fame (and many more) has received an update. 

"Update" being a little bit of an understatement - it seems to be more like reverse-engineering and a rewrite. Original LightWave company NewTek stopped supporting the Amiga around 1995 (rumor has it that after the last public Amiga version 5.0, version 5.5 was developed, but never released), so it never got to see the shift to "retargetable graphics" aka RTG, let alone proper Full-HD screen resolutions as provided by modern FPGA-based Amiga systems. So despite outstanding functionality, speed and output quality, LightWave remained somewhat tied to the Amiga's built-in graphics chipset, which became a bit of a flaw over the last three decades.

Thanks to the effort of a team of Amiga and LightWave enthusiasts, this has now changed drastically. A couple of weeks ago, news popped up of a new release called LightWaveRTG, with an(other) update (1.1) following shortly after (Sept. 12th). It is more or less a re-implementation (in parts) of LightWave 5.0r and Modeler 5.0f, but with many limitations removed, and some modern features added. 

The biggest change may be that the GUI is now RTG, freed from Amiga-chipset screenmodes - now you can model and layout in 1920x1080 pixels, if you like. What a relief! Also, 24-bit color has been added to many previews, so you now get much more accurate feedback about what the final rendering will look like. Here are some more features of LightWaveRTG: 

- loading and saving of anim previews
- many bug fixes, improving program stability
- Datatypes support (includes PowerPC Datatypes)
- rendering speed improved by up to 20%
- run multiple instances of LightWaveRTG at the same time
- new icons
- ...and more

It's an amazing update that massively improves usability on more recent Amiga configurations. There appear to be no plans to further expand LightWaveRTG - but there is also talk of a LightWave (classic and RTG) add-on named "JumpGate3D" that is currently under development, said to be "the next step" for LightWave Amiga. That sure sounds exciting.

Check out the sources below for all the details:

It seems the news of the release showed up first on Amigatronics website (Spanish). 

https://amigatronics.com/2026/08/29/lightwavertg-el-iconico-lightwave-nativo-rtg-gracias-a-tolkien-y-kikems-amigawave/ 

Especially the English Amiga Board link is recommended, with English translation of the news, download link (updated for version 1.1) and some early user feedback.

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=123609 

LightWave Digital, the company holding the rights to the current official LightWave line of products (Windows and MacOS), has a very nice history page.

https://lightwave3d.com/documentation/lightwave-history/

Wikipedia has a lot of information about LightWave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightWave_3D 

And this is a YouTube video of LightWave user "Muadib 3D" checking out the new release (2026-09-14):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLtRhfPid6o

 

Muadib 3D 

 

P-Vision PCMCIA graphics card

In case you've missed it: A new graphics card for the PCMCIA slot is soon to be released.

The original information seems to date back to the Amiga 40 event in Germany, and was amplified by Amiga Bill when he put it on his YouTube channel in Oct. 2025, but some updates have been coming in over the past few weeks.

The upcoming "P-Vision" graphics card, set for release on May 16th 2026 at the Amiga Ruhrpott Convention #4 (ARC) in Duisburg, Germany, is developed by Oliver Achten, who also created the AmiGUS Zorro slot sound card.

P-Vision PCMCIA graphics card logo

Some information has been published on various websites (see links below), and in an interview in "WhatIFF?" magazine Issue 5.19 (April 2026) (see links below), Oliver gives a couple more details about the design. The P-Vision is a PCMCIA device, thus it works with an Amiga 600 or 1200. A 68020 CPU and some FastMEM is required, though. It's a RTG graphics card with HDMI output, providing up to FullHD graphics resolution in 32-bit, equipped with a 64-bit blitter capable of ~320M pixels/s. The driver for P96 (Picasso96) RTG system is developed by Thomas Richter. ("...smooth, buttery screen dragging..." - O. Achten, "WhatIFF?")

Some of the specifications seem to be preliminary, full details are planned to be revealed at ARC #4. (Based on the information currently available it's not entirely clear what sort of sound support the device might have.)

It will be distributed by Alinea Computer (amiga-shop.net), but it's an open-hardware project aiming for affordability and simplicity of design, which means you can also build one yourself. The information required to do so is planned to be released after some months of commercial sales. The cost of building one is estimated at around 100 EUR.

Great stuff! The PCMCIA slot is the best i/o port the Amiga ever had, and it needs more love than just a CompactFlash card adapter. P-Vision certainly makes great use of the PCMCIA slot, and is an outstanding addition to the sadly very short list of Amiga PCMCIA devices.

As a sidenote: In the "WhatIFF?" interview, Oliver also reveals that he is working on "AmiGUS mini" soundcard for PCMCIA, and "Demon 1260" 68060 accelerator for Amiga 1200, among some other things.

*

Sources:

https://amitopia.com/new-pcmcia-rtg-card-for-amiga-600-and-amiga-1200-p-vision/

https://aminet.net/package/mags/misc/WhatIFF5.19 (Issue 5.19 April 2026, "Talking Amiga", "Oliver Achten - P-Vision" interview) (.lha archive, AmigaGuide format)

https://www.whatiff.info (links to WWW-browser-readable issues)

https://www.a1k.org/forum/index.php?threads/87722 (A1k.org login required) 

https://www.amigafrance.com/forums/topic/p-vision/

https://www.generationamiga.com/2026/03/31/p-vision-gfx-an-upcoming-pcmcia-graphics-card-upgrade-for-the-amiga-600-and-amiga-1200/ 

https://en.amigatronics.com/2025/10/25/proxima-tarjeta-grafica-pcmcia-p-vision/

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8037 

 

AWeb 3.6 - umh, yeah... alive!

Oops, it appears there might have been a slight mistake in the latest news about AWeb. But don't worry, it's still alive.

Original AWeb logo

The link (URL) that was published a couple of days ago, leading to amigazen's AWeb page (.../aweb.html), now shows a notice, that says the following (shortened copy):

"
Thank for your interest and excitement about a new release of AWeb. [...]

If you have come here via a link [...]:

• [...]
• The new release of AWeb is in very early stages of development and likewise this website is still under construction, it is not yet intended for general public consumption
• While all amigazen project work is done in the open here at amigazen.com and at https://github.com/amigazen/AWeb3/ in the interests of openness and transparency, no formal announcements will be made unless there are stable public releases to share via Aminet and other channels
• If you want to follow the project and even contribute, you are invited to do so at github
• There is an alpha release to be found at github. If you use the alpha release, please treat it as such, and raise any issues not already listed in the included release notes known issues, as issues at github where they can be tracked
• [...] the right link [to project amigazen's AWeb page] is here. [ http://amigazen.com/aweb/ ]
  
• [...]

"

Sorry for spreading confusion - here's the full set of URLs, with correct project amigazen link:

Amigazen project's AWeb GitHub page (download / development):

https://github.com/amigazen/AWeb3/

Amigazen project's AWeb page (preliminary / tentative / alpha / ...):

http://amigazen.com/aweb/

Last archive.org snapshot of original AWeb website at https://www.yvonrozijn.nl/aweb/

https://web.archive.org/web/20231203183912/https://www.yvonrozijn.nl/aweb/

Last archive.org snapshot of AWeb APL (open-source) website at http://aweb.sunsite.dk

https://web.archive.org/web/20091006041931/http://aweb.sunsite.dk/

 

AWeb - alive!

UPDATE 2025-12-27: A mistake slipped in here. The information below is still valid, but please take note of this update: https://amigaalive.blogspot.com/2025/12/aweb-36-umh-yeah-alive.html

Great news for Amiga internet users: AWeb web browser is back!

Original AWeb logo

Well, it was never really gone, at least the sourcecode has survived over the last two decades or so, thanks to original author Yvon Rozijn releasing it when abandoning the project in 2002. There were some open-source developments here and there - but now it looks as if project "amigazen" has seriously resurrected AWeb.

A new release, version 3.6a2, will be available shortly. Here's an excerpt of the latest ChangeLog:

• migrated from ClassAct to ReAction, and Picasso96 to CyberGraphics
• SSL rewritten to use AmiSSL v5.2
• HTTP Module rewritten 
• improved handling of socket connections
• better usability (color, cookies, search engine)
• uses AmigaOS scalable fonts
• improved character set support

Go to project amigazen's AWeb page for more details and download:

https://amigazen.com/aweb.html

Last archive.org snapshot of original AWeb website at https://www.yvonrozijn.nl/aweb/

https://web.archive.org/web/20231203183912/https://www.yvonrozijn.nl/aweb/

Last archive.org snapshot of AWeb APL (open-source) website at http://aweb.sunsite.dk

https://web.archive.org/web/20091006041931/http://aweb.sunsite.dk/ 

WinUAE, IBrowse, AmigaAMP updated

Great christmas gifts for Amiga users of all kinds! WinUAE, IBrowse, and AmigaAMP have received (sometimes substantial) updates.

WinUAE 4.10.0

WinUAE is the king of Amiga emulation. You can read about all the details on WinUAE's homepage, but here's the big one in this latest release: 100% cycle accuracy! Oh wow, this is a blessing not just for hardcore classic gamers and sceners, but for all Amiga software developers. Very good!

Go to https://www.winuae.net for more information!

IBrowse 2.5.8

IBrowse developer team, again, proves its dedication to Amiga webbrowsing: this latest version contains all hotfixes since the previous one, and adds a round of new bugfixes and improvements, such as re-enabled Gemini protocol support and better stability.

Check out https://www.ibrowse-dev.net/news.php?id=1671191636 for more information!

AmigaAMP 3.33

Thomas Wenzel wishes everyone a Merry Christmas, and has released AmigaAMP 3.33. Improved sound playback and repeat/shuffle features make listening to some music on the Amiga even more enjoyable!

Go to http://www.amigaamp.de for more information!

Sources:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2022-12-00100-EN.html
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2022-12-00086-EN.html
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2022-12-00102-EN.html

Amiga37 event in Mönchengladbach, Germany

As has been announced on Jan. 17th 2022, the "Amiga37" event will take place in Mönchengladbach, Germany, on October 15th and 16th 2022. Tickets are available since April 25th.

Go to https://amigaevent.de for detailed information, latest updates, and tickets!

HippoPlayer 2.52 update is out!

Allround Amiga music player "HippoPlayer" got a new update, with lots of fixes and enhancements.

It updates HippoPlayer to version 2.52, thus requires an existing full installation.

Here's a quick overview of the changes from 2.50 to 2.52 (skips 2.51), according to the AmiNet readme file (see link below):

• "project icon" support
• improved compatibility with FTPMount
• improved MP3 identification
• GUI graphics fixes
• bugfixes improving stability and usability
• added and/or improved support for many players
• added and improved scopes
• multiple scopes

Go to AmiNet for full details and download:
http://aminet.net/package/mus/play/hippoplayerupdate

Games galore #19: Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns, Citaldel update, Renegades Deluxe "re-release", Bean Vs The Animator

Again a good round of really nice stuff this time - an arcade remake, updates to OCS/ECS first person shooter "Citadel", some sort of "re-release" on AmiNet, a modern lightgun game ahead of it's time, and a little bonus for fans of platformers.

Pitfall II: Lost Caverns

Yet another remake of an arcade classic, and yet another game built using the Scorpion engine. In Feb. 2021, an early alpha version of "Pitfall II" for Amiga was released to the public!

Activision's original "Pitfall II" for the Atari 2600 was a real stunner upon release, with its huuuuge playing area, context sensitive music, improved graphics, and more. It was later released by SEGA as an arcade game.

Highly active Amiga game (engine) developer Eric "earok" Hogan is working on this new version of "Pitfall II", which is based on the C64 version, and requires an Amiga 500. A little bit of acceleration (e.g. Amiga 1200) is recommended for smooth performance.

The game is in alpha stage at the moment, but it already very much looks like "Pitfall II"!

Watch a video of "Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns" alpha version of Per-Ola Eriksson's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu-5Jlkes9g

You can download the playable and completable alpha version of "Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns" for Amiga here:
https://mega.nz/folder/t6QCTTaY#0PvV--pintbZN1y6VyHnhg


Additional sources:
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=1459891
https://www.indieretronews.com/2021/02/pitfall-ii-lost-caverns-earok-has.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitfall_II:_Lost_Caverns

 

Citaldel update

1995 game first-person shooter "Cytadela"/"Citadel" - from Poland is undergoing some updates by the original authors.

"Citadel" is certainly one of the better first-person-shooters on the Amiga, and probably the best that runs on OCS/ECS Amigas. It received very good reviews when it was first released.

In March 2021 the original authors annouced some updates to the original game. There are no to little gameplay changes planned, but some fixes and enhancements, like optimizations for faster Amigas, better animations, and things like that.

You can watch a video of "Cytadela"/"Citadel" running on a (emulated) high-spec Amiga on Kane's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu-k4-aK8Zk

It looks as if as of now no updates have been made available to the public, so a little more patience is required.

Meanwhile, you can download the original 1995's "Citadel" from Polish Amiga Portal (Polski Portal Amigowy) (Polish and English version available):
https://www.ppa.pl/rodzynki/cytadela.html

Additional sources:
https://www.ppa.pl/forum/strefa-gier/42682/cytadela-update
https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=1863
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-03-00008-EN.html

 

Renegades Deluxe "re-release"

Just a quick note about "Renegades Deluxe" from 2014, which is a new version of 1995 PD classic "Renegades":

"Renegades Deluxe" has recently been uploaded to AmiNet - which is great, because this beautiful 2-player-split-screen-deathmatch "Alien Breed" clone apparently hasn't been available elsewhere for some time.

Here's a video of "Renegades" and "Renegades Deluxe", including some background information and awesome prototype cover art, from CaptainNow Creations' YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50mrcqfYU40

Go to AmiNet to download "Renegades Deluxe" (2014):
http://aminet.net/package/game/2play/Renegades_Deluxe

If you're looking for the original "Renegades" game (1995), you can download it from myabandonware:
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/renegades-6sx

 

Lightgun game "Bean Vs The Animator"

Have you ever held a lightgun in your hands? I bet not everyone did, because most lightguns we know depend on the cathode ray of a CRT (cathode ray tube) TV. Many CRT screens, especially millions of home TVs, have been replaced with LCD flat screen ones over the last 20 years, so lots of lightguns became useless.

But with the help of increased CPU performance, HD video, kickstarter, and indiegogo, the Sinden Lightgun was created, or is still being created - a lightgun that works with LCD displays. Somehow, it wouldn't be long until Amigans picked up such a thing - and here we have it: near the end of Feb. 2021 the first new Amiga lightgun game in a looooooooooong time was shown to the public, Terminator-style shoot-em-up "Bean Vs The Animator"! (You can also play it with a mouse.)

The Sinden Lightgun doesn't seem to be widely available yet, and the game is currenly just an exclusive pre-release (see video below), no release dates or further updates have been published so far. But from what we can see there's some great artwork here, some serious atmosphere and level of difficulty, and a lot of shooting. Plus it's a game you can play with a lightgun, plus it supports a lightgun device so modern it's not even available - yay!

Watch a video of Amiga Bill from "The Guru Meditation" reviewing his exclusive edition of "Bean Vs The Animator" (2021-02-25):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nel33AfkPd4

Additional sources:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-sinden-lightgun/
https://www.sindenlightgun.com/
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2021-02-00057-DE.html

* * *

...and some bonus gaming news:

Minkey

In Feb. 2021, this new platformer was announced via great and well-known retro scene website indieretronews:

http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/02/minkey-high-quality-amiga-platformer.html

(Out of respect for the author of the game and indieretronews - the game's preview video is set to "unlisted" on YouTube - let's just leave it here with this little note. Click the link for more details and game preview video. By the way, the game looks great.)

* * *

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #20"!

Check out "Games galore" main page with all articles -
click here!

* * *

Support Amiga game development! Buy a game!

Amistore in Germany has closed its doors

We've just taken notice that German Amiga online shop Amistore.de has become a victim of the Corona virus pandemic.

Finding out today is especially sad as Amistore.de is currently still listed on Hyperion Entertainment's website as a vendor of AmigaOS, and just yesterday the latest release of AmigaOS3 for classic Amigas was made available to customers. Also this week in Germany a lot of restrictions introduced to fight the Corona virus have been lifted.

Amistore.de's website currently says (rough translation):

"

Dear customers,

due to numerous legal changes, we've decided to discontinue sales through this shop. You may contact us at any time via media-net-point.de.
We still have a lot of Amiga parts in stock.
We ask for your understanding.

Your Amistore.de team

"

amistore.de as of 2021-05-15

Looking at the history of the website at...

https://web.archive.org/web/20200513043211/http://www.amistore.de/

...we find this message from probably March 2020 (rough translation):

"

Dear customers,

due to the current situation regarding the Coronavirus we close our shop as of now until April 4th 2020 for the time being.
Also we have to take care for our employees.

Open orders will still be processed!

We ask for your understanding.

Your Amistore.de Team

"

About two months later, it seems to have been replaced with the one that currently can be seen there. The Corona virus certainly leaves its marks all over the world.

Best wishes and good luck to Amistore.de team, hope to see them around (again)!

COVID-19 postpones Flashback 20/20 feat. Amiga 35

The good news is: it's NOT cancelled! But public health still comes first.

Due to the ongoing Corona virus outbreak, with social life in the Netherlands being restricted to a minimum since Monday 23rd, the organisers of the "Flashback 20/20 feat. Amiga 35" event, originally to be held on June 27th/28th, have decided to postpone it to September 12th/13th 2020. According to the announcement, event tickets will remain valid for the new dates. It is recommended to reach out to your travel booking partners, if required.

"We will make sure that we use the extra time between now and September to prepare for an even better event!", the announcement says.

https://www.flashback2020.com/uploaded/2020/03/logo-header-scaled-1920x0-c-default.jpg

Read the full announcement at:

https://www.flashback2020.com/news/event-postponed-until-september


Additional sources:
https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2020/03/23/stricter-measures-to-control-coronavirus

New facebook group for BlitzBasic/AmiBlitz coders

Yes, indeed, there used to be no facebook group specifically for Amiga BlitzBasic/AmiBlitz coders. This situation has just changed.

BlitzBasic, or AmiBlitz, is a BASIC dialect, originally developed specifically for the Amiga, keeping the Amiga hardware's special features in mind, allowing reasonably unexperienced coders to get great results, and quickly. Many games have been written in BlitzBasic, including the outstanding Lemmings-clone Blobz.

Surprisingly there wasn't a facebook group dedicated to Amiga BlitzBasic - until now. Amiga BlitzBasic coders now have a group on facebook to share, exchange, and chat about their BlitzBasic experiences.

The group's name is "Amiga BlitzBasic & AmiBlitz", it's a closed group, and as such of course you need to have a facebook account, and request to join the group.

C u there! Happy BlitzBasic coding!

Amiga quiz on heise.de

Popular german IT news site Heise has created an Amiga quiz for everyone to test his/her knowledge about our platform.

If you've spent some time with your Amiga, the questions should be pretty easy to answer correctly, probably even if you don't speak german.

But it's a good opportunity to refresh your memory - and to show the world we're still here!

I just scored 290 points - can you beat my result? :-)

https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/TGIQF-das-Quiz-Was-wissen-Sie-ueber-den-Amiga-4023004.html

https://heise.cloudimg.io/width/700/q75.png-lossy-75.webp-lossy-75.foil1/_www-heise-de_/imgs/18/2/4/0/7/8/4/5/amiga_klein-9d0454a79c5cb183.jpeg

Gaming news: Elfie the Unicorn, Heroes of Gorluth, Tales of Gorluth II

New games! Amiworx and Amiga68K-Productions have some new stuff waiting for you classic Amiga gaming aficionados.

"Tales of Gorluth" by Amiworx got some sort of sequel by the name of "Heroes of Gorluth". It's an action adventure platformer, and claims to have some interesting NPC interaction, boss battles, lots of action, and high quality graphics and sound. It's available as digital download, and CD-ROM edition, which is limited to 300 copies, and requires a 68020 CPU, ECS/AGA, and 2MB RAM. You can get a glimpse of it's epicness over at:

http://hog.amiworx.de

https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.ecwid.com/images/11744367/632253502.jpg

"Tales of Gorluth II", it's predecessor, which you can still purchase on CD-ROM, now is also available as a super-affordable digital download version:

http://shop.phenix-noir.de/#!/Tales-of-Gorluth-II-DIGITAL-DOWNLOAD/p/96528705/category=0


Finally, "Elfie the Unicorn" is a cute new game for kids by Amiga68K-Productions. It's a Gianna-sisters style jump-and-run game made especially for the developer's daughters, and requires a 14Mhz CPU, ECS/AGA, 2MB and Kickstart 3.0 or higher. "Elfie the Unicorn" is still in production - more testing/balancing, new difficulty levels, and maybe new levels will be done - but you can already download a beta version, and it's free:

http://amiga68k.de/2017/11/24/elfie-the-unicorn-beta-fuer-classic-amigas-beta-erschienen/

https://i2.wp.com/amiga68k.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Elfie-Ingame.jpg?resize=500%2c280

Sources:
http://amiga68k.de/2017/11/24/elfie-the-unicorn-beta-fuer-classic-amigas-beta-erschienen/
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2017-11-00042-DE.html
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2017-11-00033-DE.html
http://hog.amiworx.de/