Looking forward to the Vampire 4?

[sean_sk]

Originally Posted by AMIGASYSTEM

If Vampire had been more advanced as a technology I would have been the first to buy it, in 2019 you can not go online with 128 MB of RAM and a CPU 68080.
Going online today means following TV in Streaming, it means watching a Flm in Straming and working simultaneously on Office or the Web.
Well, indeed bad, the Vampire does not allow all this, WinUAE instead somehow allows me to do this, allows me to have a modern RTG system powerful and functional, allows me to start from the Workbench Firefox or Chrome and all other Windows applications with a Click with Winlauch tool from the Workbench.

I think your view of the Vampire is a little short-term. Given time, the Standalone Vampire project has the ability to progress and become faster and more powerful so that one could perform all the tasks that you describe.

Of course WinUAE will be faster because of JIT and all the other speed settings it has. There's nothing particularly special or challenging about that. And I've never understood why you would want to do all the things you say you do in an emulator (which is running in Windows anyway) when you can do that stuff in Windows already. The only thing I can think of is that it's fun and interesting for you. That's great! But so is using a Vampire for those of us that have one. So from the perspective of having fun, you should be able to understand the appeal of using a Vampire or anything else we do in the Amiga hobby.

[Overflow]

Originally Posted by studio460

Am I reading that correctly? Is that 196 Gflops??? That's Core i7 territory!

Well, the way I read that Sysinfo screen is 108,89 Mflops and 196368 Drystones.


I would think there are other "hidden" featues you are not able to read directly from Sysinfo, like the fact that there currently are not any C/++ compilers that are taking advantage of the new features of the 080 core, and as such performance "only" relies on the raw processingpower of the 080.
There are several developers that use Windows as their bread and butter that frequent Apollo forum, and they flat out says they are not inclined to learn assembly just to take advantage of the Core features.


So, unless higher language compilers get 080 support, you wont see software (newly developed or recompiled) take FULL advantage of the Vampire/apollo core.

For most of us, the HDMI/RTG features, which gives us easy access to using any monitor we desire for more Workbench realestate (higher resolutions), with no lag, a reason enough to get the V4 Standalone (or V4 A1200). Coupled with the raw processing power, and it makes for a very userfriendly expirience.

I would expect higher languages to get some support down the road, but as ferrels has pointed out, it requires some very detailed hardware and assembly language knowledge, which the Core development team obvious have. And they are working hard on CORE development, so diverting attention to a compiler is asking too much at current.

[Overflow]

http://kronos.lutece.net/V4/V4_comparison.pdf

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by sean_sk

Of course WinUAE will be faster because of JIT and all the other speed settings it has. There's nothing particularly special or challenging about that. And I've never understood why you would want to do all the things you say you do in an emulator (which is running in Windows anyway) when you can do that stuff in Windows already. The only thing I can think of is that it's fun and interesting for you. That's great! But so is using a Vampire for those of us that have one. So from the perspective of having fun, you should be able to understand the appeal of using a Vampire or anything else we do in the Amiga hobby.

I am a big AmigaOS fan, I have almost all the Amigas (A4000/060 RTG - 2 A1200/030 2 A600HD, 2 A500, 1 A500Plus, 2 CD32 /SX32) that I haven't used in 25 years. I don't care about the case, I don't look at the the hardware, I like to use OS3 and at the moment WinUAE is the one that does it best for power and quality. When the Vampire becomes more powerful I will be the first to buy it, today I prefer WinUAE.

[digiflip]

Originally Posted by studio460

Has Gunner ever indicated that the Vampire V4 standalone will be offered as a complete system in the new Apollo A1200 molded case in black, and Kipper2K keyboards with black keycaps, or should we be pre-ordering the colored Apollo/Kipper cases and keyboards from AOTL now for our expected V4 standalones?

nope but a1200.net have been hinting at something soon, keyboard next i think ,not sure if kippers and a machine of some sort not sure arm based or vampire?

[studio460]

Originally Posted by digiflip

nope but a1200.net have been hinting at something soon, keyboard next i think ,not sure if kippers and a machine of some sort not sure arm based or vampire?

Hmmm . . . I just e-mailed AOTL (they replied quite fast!), and they said they will NOT be selling the Vampire V4 standalone. I've already pre-ordered a black Apollo A1200 case and Kipper2K keyboard with black keycaps from them for my original A1200. So they said I should order a second case/keyboard for the V4 standalone. I would hate to order a second case/keyboard if someone is planning to sell complete V4 standalone systems.

[digiflip]

only the 500 case have mounts for v4 i think

[studio460]

Originally Posted by TuKo

We will probably only provide cards to resellers and let them create bundles for customers.

Again, thank you for your reply! I just contacted AOTL and they said they will NOT be selling the Vampire V4 standalone. I'm about to order a second A1200 case and keyboard (both in black) to accommodate my anticipated V4 standalone. Are you able to identify your US distributor yet so that I may ask if they are planning on selling a complete V4 standalone system with case/keyboard (so I don't end up with too many cases)? Thanks!

[studio460]

Originally Posted by digiflip

only the 500 case have mounts for v4 i think

Gunnar and company have shown the V4 standalone in the new A1200 cases, haven't they?

[quantum8]

Originally Posted by Overflow

For most of us, the HDMI/RTG features, which gives us easy access to using any monitor we desire for more Workbench realestate (higher resolutions), with no lag, a reason enough to get the V4 Standalone (or V4 A1200). Coupled with the raw processing power, and it makes for a very userfriendly expirience.

This is exactly the reason I'm looking forward to it.


I'm sure there's loads of others in the same boat, which means a decent enough userbase which may coax some of them into learning to code and help add support & utilise at least some of the new features.

[MartinW]

I have to say that I have an RTG based 68060 machine running at 100Mhz and a MiSTer FPGA based machine for gaming and even for me the Vampire V4 standalone or potentially the 1200 running the V4 core is looking very attractive (because a 1200 case makes a nice integrated case / keyboard combo).

The FPGA based solution is great because it can do multiple systems but I'm starting to see issues and I can certainly see it stagnating due to lack of developers. Not yet though, it's all ok still at the moment.

The RTG/68060 system is all well and good but the display and graphics modes still lets it down. Unless you are lucky enough to own a later RTG system such as one of the 3D based boards graphics modes are still limiting (800x600 32bit, 1024x768 drops to 16bit and 1280x1024 drops even further to 256 colour - and the screen speed is then too slow anyway)

Compare all of that to the Vampire's and they're looking pretty attractive. I can easily see me ending up with a Vampire V4 of some description or another and the MiSTer. I can see the day where I just don't need my real hardware any more. Whether I sell it or hoard it will be another matter however because we have no idea how reliable Vampires will be in the long term whereas we know that classic hardware is still going strong after 30 years and as long as it's looked after, there's no reason to suggest it's going to die any time soon.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Not enough ram for me for such a serious amount of power. Don't need this sort of improvements for standard games so the use case for this is surely either memory hungry ports or productivity software. Both which will be hampered by 128mb of ram.

I had more ram than that on my accelerator 15 years ago.

[jbilander]

Originally Posted by studio460

Gunnar and company have shown the V4 standalone in the new A1200 cases, haven't they?

That was the new V1200 (Vampire V4 for A1200) that plugs into the expansion port (trapdoor) of the A1200 motherboard. The new A1200 cases (a1200.net) were made in 2015 long before Vampire Standalone V4 was planned. The new A500 cases being made now in 2019 can accommodate the V4 standalone.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/n...iga-500-plus#/

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[grond]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

Not enough ram for me for such a serious amount of power ... Both which will be hampered by 128mb of ram.

The V4 is going to have 512 MB of RAM.

[Puggsy]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

If it's already 'out there', why don't you have one already?!

Because I don't need it. I have a CD32 as my main Amiga, and I don't need the "speed" that no worth wile software really uses for anything.

Unlike most Vampire users, who seem to only "play" SysInfo and Doom, I use my Amiga for other things ;-)

[Dunny]

I dunno, if you're into Lightwave, Cinema4D or Video titling you might find a Vampire comes in very handy?

[studio460]

Originally Posted by jbilander

That was the new V1200 (Vampire V4 for A1200) that plugs into the expansion port (trapdoor) of the A1200 motherboard. The new A1200 cases (a1200.net) were made in 2015 long before Vampire Standalone V4 was planned. The new A500 cases being made now in 2019 can accommodate the V4 standalone . . .

Ohhhhh . . . Okay. Are you able to buy the A1200.net indiegogo cases if you weren't in the original campaign? Also, does anyone know if the Apollo Vampire A500 special edition cases ($220USD) also come in black and if it comes with black keycaps? I wonder if the A500 cases will be available at AOTL (as the A1200 cases are now available for pre-order)?

[jbilander]

I think you'll have to get one through the normal amiga retro stores, such as AOTL, now when the campaign is over. Probably at a higher retail price though. Yes black was an option. Keycaps was a separate campaign and yes you could get black keycaps as well (keycaps available in 13 colors and 8 language layouts). For your information: kipper2k is working on getting new Cherry MX keyboards for the Amiga and they will be sold by AOTL. http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=94643

Personally I think the A500 case is too big for housing such a tiny card like the Vampire V4 standalone, see attached image. I'd rather have it in a mini-case, more portable that way but that's just me.

https://www.a1200.net/

• New Amiga 1200 Cases: Campaign ended November 1st 2015
• New Compatible Keycaps: Campaign ended January 13th 2017
• New Amiga 500 Cases: IGG InDemand ended January 24th 2019
• New Compatible Keycaps #2: Campaign ended April 9th 2019

[Lord Aga]

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Awesome scanlines control

[Puggsy]

Originally Posted by Dunny

I dunno, if you're into Lightwave, Cinema4D or Video titling you might find a Vampire comes in very handy?

Bro I have a modern computer, I don't need to suffer like that ;-)