FPGA worth it in 2017?

AdvanceFollow · 29 October 2017, 14:30

So I've tried Amiga emulation on the Raspberry Pi3 but I had some problems with compatibility and performance (not general performance, but in specific games). It simply seems that UAE4ARM isn't getting that much development, and lags behind e.g. WinUAE.

I've looked at the Mist and FPGA Replay. Having a dedicated box for emulation with no way to get distracted and alt+tab out seems like a cool idea, and it can also emulate other systems like the C64 (which I also had as a kid). However I'm wondering whether it's worth it or if it's something you just tend to play with for a day or two before letting it collect dust once the novelty wears off?

The Mist seems to be the most widely available, and it's about €200 for a ready-to-run system. The FPGA Replay is about €100 more for just the board itself (probably closer to €200+ more factoring in case, PSU etc.). My main concern is that development for these boards almost seems to be abandoned. The latest Mist Amiga core is from early 2017, the FPGA Replay got only a minor update in August. Also, performance is not as good as WinUAE or even the RP3. This is obviously authentic in some way (no "real" Amiga is hundreds of times faster than a A4000...), but also limiting since some of the later stuff requiring '060 won't run. Speaking of limitations, it seems networking isn't possible, so there's no way to easily fire up AWeb and grab some files from Aminet.
So those of you who own an FPGA board, do you actually use it enough to justify the cost?

fpgaarcade · 29 October 2017, 15:08

Hi.
The FPGAArcade forum is a little quiet, mainly as most chat has moved to our slack group. There are details on the forum how to join the slack group, all are welcome.

Many cores are under active development, most focus at the moment on the C64 and AtariST. The Amiga core is very stable and we are now looking at corner cases. Last fix was for RTG stability.
The 68060 daughter board will be back next week.
Replay2 is in design now with the aim of sampling end of this year, and mass production on Q1 next year. It has a new generation Xilinx 28nm Spartan7, 300MHz ARM controller DDR1 + DDR3 memory and better IO expansion.

We are also working on a new open source 68040 super fast CPU as well as a cycle accurate 68000 version.
/Mike

29 October 2017, 14:30	#1
AdvanceFollow Registered User Join Date: Oct 2017 Location: Sweden Age: 39 Posts: 46	FPGA worth it in 2017? So I've tried Amiga emulation on the Raspberry Pi3 but I had some problems with compatibility and performance (not general performance, but in specific games). It simply seems that UAE4ARM isn't getting that much development, and lags behind e.g. WinUAE. I've looked at the Mist and FPGA Replay. Having a dedicated box for emulation with no way to get distracted and alt+tab out seems like a cool idea, and it can also emulate other systems like the C64 (which I also had as a kid). However I'm wondering whether it's worth it or if it's something you just tend to play with for a day or two before letting it collect dust once the novelty wears off? The Mist seems to be the most widely available, and it's about €200 for a ready-to-run system. The FPGA Replay is about €100 more for just the board itself (probably closer to €200+ more factoring in case, PSU etc.). My main concern is that development for these boards almost seems to be abandoned. The latest Mist Amiga core is from early 2017, the FPGA Replay got only a minor update in August. Also, performance is not as good as WinUAE or even the RP3. This is obviously authentic in some way (no "real" Amiga is hundreds of times faster than a A4000...), but also limiting since some of the later stuff requiring '060 won't run. Speaking of limitations, it seems networking isn't possible, so there's no way to easily fire up AWeb and grab some files from Aminet. So those of you who own an FPGA board, do you actually use it enough to justify the cost?

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29 October 2017, 15:08	#2
fpgaarcade Registered User Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: sweden Posts: 30	Hi. The FPGAArcade forum is a little quiet, mainly as most chat has moved to our slack group. There are details on the forum how to join the slack group, all are welcome. Many cores are under active development, most focus at the moment on the C64 and AtariST. The Amiga core is very stable and we are now looking at corner cases. Last fix was for RTG stability. The 68060 daughter board will be back next week. Replay2 is in design now with the aim of sampling end of this year, and mass production on Q1 next year. It has a new generation Xilinx 28nm Spartan7, 300MHz ARM controller DDR1 + DDR3 memory and better IO expansion. We are also working on a new open source 68040 super fast CPU as well as a cycle accurate 68000 version. /Mike

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