AA3000+ DSP emulation

[trixster]

Dsp starts to overtake the 060 when you zoom in, ie when more work is being done

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

The 3000+ was canceled and replaced by A4000. If the DSP would have been included in any Amiga it would have been in the A4000. Someone apparently decided the A4000 would have no DSP.
I can't see commodore adding a DSP to their low end computer. The more expensive Falcon with its 030 + 56001 DSP didn't do well in terms of sales...

The 3000+ was cancelled due to funding, the A4000 was a last ditch desperate attempt to sell a new Amiga which is why it didn't include DSP or anything else innovative.

[Valken]

I wish the AA3000 came out or at least an AGA + DSP upgrade on a card for existing 1500/2000/3000 owners back then. My friend was aching to get AGA for his 3000 then.

I see this as a chicken and egg syndrome - no software, no emulation. Vice Versa.

If someone would provide a proof of concept or a set of DSP libraries that can say accelerator 3D functions such as low poly rotation, and let coders PATCH existing games or support 3D game engines like Doom or Quake or native Amiga 3D engines, then I can see it coming to life. Something like a hardware opengl or WARP 3D translation layer but with the limitations or uniqueness of the DSP.

Or try porting Atari Falcon or Super Famicom DSP code over or even created a shared library for both + Mac communities.

Remember, if you build it, they will come.

[trixster]

Well, the dsp is being worked on but the hardware incompatibilities now appear to have been traced and worked around, so it’s working with 030 and a large number of different 060 accelerator boards.

And here it’s doing something:



It’s only a small step but it’s a step nonetheless.

[Valken]

@ Trixster - I think that is a good demo. But we need more to support the community.

Maybe looking at SNES or Super Famicom DSP games for ideas on how to accelerate games would be a good idea and create motivation and support for the DSP on Amiga.

We need more than a proof of concept but demos, games or application, even ONE worthwhile one with many user support may be enough to kick it off.

Acceleration is always better if we can utilize as much as possible. Even a generic OpenCL type acceleration codepath support would be good to have.

[Toni Wilen]

As I already said, working or not working in real hardware is mostly irrelevant for emulation purposes. Used IO ports and others were already documented.

Requirements are still the same: there must be existing GPL compatible DSP chip emulation. This exact chip or very close variant.

[trixster]

@valken your enthusiasm is superb but I don’t think the level of uptake will ever match your optimism, sadly. The DSP will remain a niche within a niche due to significant barriers, the least of which is the excessive cost of purchasing or building an AA3000+. You can count the number of machine’s ‘in the wild’ on Hese’s amibay thread; I doubt it’s currently more than 50. There are also only about 6 known active users looking at the issues surrounding the hardware on the A1K dsp thread, and non of those are software engineers who could tackle the ideas of porting software which you’re talking about, let alone using the dsp to accelerate doom/quake or even warp3d. That’s just not going to happen, alas. I guess we might eventually see a plugin for amigaamp or a library to decode mp3s, but even that’s a lofty goal for the moment.

The Falcon uses a different dsp so we will get nothing from there, and requests for info from the Mac community have been met with mostly silence.