Gold 2.7 release for the Vampire accelerators
 

Hi

The Apollo team is happy to announce the immediate disponibility of the Gold 2.7 core for all Vampires 500, 500+ and 600. You can right now dowload the appropriated core on this link :

http://wiki.apollo-accelerators.com/...rt#latest_core

The Gold 2.7 core has many inprovements, the most notable one being of course the hardware FPU. But this is not the only one new thing ! Here is the changelog :

[GOLD2.7] (02.03.2018)
* Added fully pipelined hard FPU with peak 78 MFlops
* Added native support for all 68882 FPU operations without need of extra libraries
* Added new high performance memory controller, reaching 600 MB/sec memory speed
* Added MapRom support
* Added Workbench hardware sprite support
* Added Scanlines optional mode for retro look of games on HDMI output
* Added RangerMem (A500 slowmem) for better compatibility with some old games/demos
* Added new boot pic
* Improved MPU (memory protection) with catching memory access error Enabled
* Improved AMMX 2 instruction set with acceleration features for video decoding, image decoding, 2D-games, 3D-games
* Improved WHDLOAD compatibility
* Improved Faster Boot time

Like always, we are waiting your feedback on IRC :
chat.freenode.net 6697 (SSL)/6667 (non SSL) #Apollo-Team

We wish you a good installation !

nice release. pretty cool the FPU is now available :great
I hope to see some reports, benchmarks and stuff, Lightwave 5 anyone? :spin

:great

Awesome! Looking forward to V4 A1200.

We lost power yesterday fur to storm so I'm unable to share my experience. 2.7 did not work out for me. There are issues. I'm hopeful 3.0 will not come with these problems. Given me few days and I'll share it all on my vampire topic here on eab. Waiting for storm repairs with 2 feet of snow can take a while.

No big deal for me. I don't care as much about fpu or neogeo emulation, but it's got me worried about v3 for sure.

ppl simply forgot about the problems with accelerators back in the time.
or when upgrading from a500 to a1200. there were allways issues and non working software/games.
not to forget the trouble when upgrading to 060. this was never fluent and did allways require some finetuning /patching.

#1) is there anyone who may report something in more detail?
do you get a black and white video signal? dual monitor does not work?
or such things?
does something work now, faster, better, more responsive?

--> b/w video signal --> you forgot to register your vampire
--> non dual video signal --> Devs:Monitors/Vampiregfx --> tooltype --> DisplayChain=No

--> programmer software only:
http://download.altera.com/akdlm/sof...13.1.0.162.exe

maybe it's of any use for those with issues.

Fully registered. First problem was the instructions that came with 2.7. Caused my system to not boot. ApolloTeam helped me with that. Second problem, sdnet doesn't work. That was the dealbreaker. Then no mouse pointer, I gave up. Went back to 2.5. When there is more clarity on the process I may try again. But then I was told sd card extenders no longer work. Thats the nail in the coffin so to speak. Lastly I was told to try again when the new version if ApolloOs comes out, that's called Coffin now and not ApolloOs, but that's a reimage where I'll lose all my apps and customizing. So I'll probably switch hard disk dives when that comes out.

Like I said. I'll post full details once we get power restored..

http://www.poconorecord.com/news/201...uard-activated

thanks for the additional info.
these kind of sd card extenter do not work anymore. so the sd card port is disabled?

I did read about fastIDE feature, which was removed on the v600 V2 version.
on the V500 V2 version somehow you can enable/use (!?) it using APoke.
(translated from a1k post)

#1) changelog of Coffin ( ApolloOS) R48, list this:
so you have to update to that version, so it may still work for you?

Mjnurney recording of his expriences with the X12 core 2.7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb5fL1ivNMo

Although FPU isn't very accurate, raytracers might give funny results? :)
https://blog.alb42.de/2018/03/03/vam...-7-fpu-part-2/

cool test. still some work to do for the Apollo team. thanks for posting, both of you :)

You can enable and disable FastIDE using the new VControl app that comes with SAGA Drivers 1.0

ah, thanks, I found the tool:

Apollo forum, Gunnar: Beware of Fraudulent Cards Sold By Keith Dumoulin
the important section:
register your card, no matter which and where it came from.

You don't need a raytracer for that... open sys:Tools/Calculator type 5 * 1.3 and see the result.

6.499999999069? Hmmm wonder if the team are aware of that?

the Apollo FPU wiki lists some videos with Imagine, Makepath, Lightwave, Quake,
all using the fpu of Gold 2.7. it does also explain the precision used in current GOLD 2.7

especially the Benchmark scene using Lightwave doesnt look miscalculated,
but I have no clue what precision LW is using. "FPU happy testings" video link.

Visit Apollo IRC Channel :spin

#2) sys:tools/calculator open 2 math libs:
do these access the fpu at all? is there fpu code/commands in the calculator binary?
calculator does work on a non-fpu machine, so the problem is not the fpu in that case!?

#3) VControl command can disable the FPU:
can anyone try and report what you get using calculator with fpu disabled?

@emufan:
they are aware of that, its even described on a page that the precision is reduced to 64 bit or a little bit lower, my tests points more towards less than single.

The math library use the FPU if an FPU is available, so without FPU you will not see that behavior. I always test that also in UAE and on my A1200 with 68882

ok. thanks for the reply.
so there is a 3rd math lib, which you are referring to, calculator is using. :)

@emufan:

no thats an very clever function of the two libraries you mentioned "mathieeedoubbas.library" and "mathieeedoubtrans.library" in principle all this system mathxxxx.library to use the FPU is there is any in the System, or use the slower builtin Softfloat when there is no FPU.

So if you depend your program on this libraries you program does not need to care for FPU available or not. (the FPU is just a little bit slower because you need additional jumps for every command)

oh, I had no clue. that's not a bad solution indeed.

#1) on apollo forum a happy gold 2.7 user talks about his 1st impression.
and no, he did not test the calculator it seems :spin

#2) if you feel the need to downgrade to Gold 2.5 and experience the no mouse pointer issue,
with SAGADriver.v1.0 installed, goto Devs:Monitors and set the tooltype of vampiregfx -> SoftSprite=YES
==> Hold SHIFT key while rebooting, in the state of no mouse pointer, it will boot into PAL mode.