Individual Computers - New accelerator cards for A600 & A1200

[tin]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Definitely not when I'm involved. I need to pay wages, taxes, I'm WEEE registered, I need to make a living myself, and I have a house to pay for. Further, I'd never give so many user options that cause a huge customer support mess: No SD-Ram socket, no PCI slots. Plain card with everything assembled and guaranteed, that's the only way to create hardware that works "no questions asked" and "no support required".

True plug&play is what I want to deliver, only this will give an experience that will make people come back to us. And I want people to come back to buy more, not to claim warranty or support for something they already have :-)

Jens

Jens, are you sure you should be in the Amiga market? I see you create nice hardware but also seem to have a very level head and your feet on the ground regarding the realities of running a business.

This is not the way it's done around here. Could you please announce some pie-in-the-sky products that will change everyone's life or something in the near future. And never build them. We can then get back to the usual reality. Many thanks.

[frank_b]

How many cpu cycles does it take for a 32 bit read? 3 or 4?

What about a memory burst? 3 + 1 + 1 + 1 ? to fill a cache line?

[TronPlayer]

Is the ACA1230-56 Also going to available before Christmas or just the ACA1230-28 ?

[rockersuke]

Originally Posted by Oliver_A

For complete humiliation, I'm going to post a comparision with the Blizzard 1230 later...

If it's all about humiliating our good old 1230 I'll save you the effort .
Worst case scenarios with a lot of areas and many bad guys dancing around go about 5-6 FPS. Not quite complicated renders can reach around 12 FPS. Average is 7-8. I was going to take some pics, but cam run out of battery ^_^'. I'll upload them later.

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[rockersuke]

Originally Posted by rockersuke

I'll upload them later.

Here they go!

First 2 are ADoom running on my Blizzard 68030 1230 50 MHz with 64 Mb Fast Ram. It says 12 FPS when standing in front of a door. Not so bad! That 12 FPS is the maximun it could get. As I mentioned, when rendering scenes with many elements it drops to 5. Average goes around 7-8. Rest of the pics are from the anime patch wad I made in the early 90's, when anime was fun, Doom was the thing to play and making patch wads seemed cool.

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[desiv]

Originally Posted by Oliver_A

Here is ADOOM Shareware running on my A1200 in 320x200 AGA. The accelerator is a Blizzard 1240, which means an 68040 with 25Mhz:
As you can see, the game is running with 10fps. Pretty impressive! How can a 68030 CPU compete against a 68040?
ADOOM Shareware running on the upcoming ACA1230-56, 68030 with 56Mhz:
WHAT??? 15fps??? Our 68030 design yields 5 fps MORE than a 68040???
Yes, thanks to a high speed SDRAM memory interface and optimal access to the Amiga chip bus!

I was wondering if you could run that test with the 28Mhz A1200 accelerator..

Just wondering what the model I am probably going to buy can do. ;-)

desiv

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by rockersuke

Here they go!

First 2 are ADoom running on my Blizzard 68030 1230 50 MHz with 64 Mb Fast Ram. It says 12 FPS when standing in front of a door. Not so bad! That 12 FPS is the maximun it could get. As I mentioned, when rendering scenes with many elements it drops to 5. Average goes around 7-8. Rest of the pics are from the anime patch wad I made in the early 90's, when anime was fun, Doom was the thing to play and making patch wads seemed cool.

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Yep confirmed, I was also getting 12 FPS out of my Blizz 030 in the same position.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by tin

Jens, are you sure you should be in the Amiga market? I see you create nice hardware but also seem to have a very level head and your feet on the ground regarding the realities of running a business.

This is not the way it's done around here. Could you please announce some pie-in-the-sky products that will change everyone's life or something in the near future. And never build them. We can then get back to the usual reality. Many thanks.

[Retrofan]

I will be buying one of those A1200 acceleratrs, but I would like to watch the Amiga on my LC with a ficker fixer to...

[chiark]

Blimey a new product announced, priced and shipping before Christmas?

Hang on, this is Better Than Life again, isn't it?
Brilliant, Jens, simply brilliant!

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by frank_b

How many cpu cycles does it take for a 32 bit read? 3 or 4?

What about a memory burst? 3 + 1 + 1 + 1 ? to fill a cache line?

the 28MHz A1200 card and the 25MHz A600 card do a 2-1-1-1 burst.

The 56MHz card for the A1200 makes a 3-1-1-1 burst.

Jens

[Cosmos]

I want one for my A600

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by chiark

Blimey a new product announced, priced and shipping before Christmas?

Hang on, this is Better Than Life again, isn't it?
Brilliant, Jens, simply brilliant!

If you ask me, Jens has more power than any pron star.

[Fabie]

a first personshooter game that runs at 12fps is not playlabe in any form
to be playlable and enyoylable and smooth Doom needs at least 45-50 fps
and none amiga Turboboard reach that framerate ...even the 040/40 or the 060/50
maybe that rare A1200 /060 turboboards hacked to run at 80mhz can reach 45 fps
anyways

for me it is nonsense comparing turboboards with Doom on Amiga
the best way to play Doom is doomsday port for windows....that's is really nice

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Fabie

the best way to play Doom is doomsday port for windows....that's is really nice

Actually Risen3D is the better Doomsday : http://risen3d.drdteam.org/

[frank_b]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

the 28MHz A1200 card and the 25MHz A600 card do a 2-1-1-1 burst.

The 56MHz card for the A1200 makes a 3-1-1-1 burst.

Jens

Nice! Thanks. Btw any idea what the burst speed is on the fastest 030 blizzard?
I saw some really odd results with an aligned move.l copy on my 030 board.
Sequential copy was slower with data burst on.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by frank_b

Nice! Thanks. Btw any idea what the burst speed is on the fastest 030 blizzard?

They probably do 4-2-2-2. You can't do X-1-1-1 with normal D-Ram. I make excessive use of SD-Ram features here.

Originally Posted by frank_b

I saw some really odd results with an aligned move.l copy on my 030 board.
Sequential copy was slower with data burst on.

There's two things that may cause a burst to be slower:

1. you start it when it doesn't make sense (at the end of a cache line)
2. you run it all the way through, 4 longwords, "no matter what".

My ACA cards will only start a burst if it's NOT at the end of a cache line, and they stop a burst if the end of a cache line is reached. Call it a "dynamic burst", because it can be 2, 3 or 4 cycles long, depending on what's most useful.

All this stuff is described in the original Motorola literature. I'd be surprised if Phase 5 has not implemented this, because it's not that hard to do.

Jens

[zgermans]

Really looking forward to these boards, I think I'll have to treat my second A1200 to the 28 mhz version. She's still in stock condition, the poor girl.

Maybe we ought to start a "Jens Schoenfeld facts" thread along the line of all the Chuck Norris threads?

[RMK]

I don't know what the production run size will be,but I can see these selling out fast! These boards sound great, and it seems there is nothing Jens can't do. I heard he can light a fire by rubbing two ice cubes together!

Jens, are you able to manufacture your hardware all in house or is part of the manufacture outsourced?

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by RMK

Jens, are you able to manufacture your hardware all in house or is part of the manufacture outsourced?

It's all outsourced, I don't own a single production machine. The reason why I can handle all the machines and why I'm at the production site right now is that the assembly partner is a real long-term partner, and he trusts me ;-)

Jens