Individual Computers - New accelerator cards for A600 & A1200

[klx300r]

awesome news!..Jens you the man..though I'll still be keeping my Blizzard MKIII030@50

[Paul_s]

Good news Would be even nicer if there was an A500 option available

[Akiko]

I'm not getting too exited as it was also announced years ago and never materialized, although I will buy one for sure if released.

[Fabie]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Please Santa-Jen's - could I have one of the following made into my Accelerator card

1. An onboard 10mbit Network card
2. An onboard Fast IDE or SCSI
3. An MP3 decoder (possible MP4 ?)
4. An onboard Graphics card? - perhaps an FPGA implemenation of a Voodoo3?

thanks Santa!

do you think that Jens is God?

[Predseda]

he is

[desiv]

Therefore all boards will not include a FPU.

So, after a bit of quick googling, it appears that there is very little software that uses the FPU? Some 3D rendering software, but not much else..

Maybe it's because I remember the difference that the Math Coprocessor had on DOOM performance on the very early PCs, but I would have thought that it could make a difference in the FPS games???

So, is there really no loss with this accelerator without an FPU?
Is it just that the games don't use it or would the design of this card suffer from having an FPU?

Just wondering.. Is an Amiga FPU basically pointless?

desiv

[TCD]

Originally Posted by desiv

Maybe it's because I remember the difference that the Math Coprocessor had on DOOM performance on the very early PCs, but I would have thought that it could make a difference in the FPS games???

Originally Posted by Doom FAQ

5A. Does DOOM benefit from a FPU for floating point calculations?
No. All calculations in DOOM 1.1 and beyond use integers. Hence, DOOM does not suffer from the Pentium floating point bug in any way.

http://www.gamers.org/pub/archives/d...CD_FAQ.html#S5

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by Fabie

do you think that Jens is God?

and on the 8th day, Jens created the Amiga 1200 accelerator with optional fitting service provided by a beautiful lady wearing a bikini.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

http://www.gamers.org/pub/archives/d...CD_FAQ.html#S5

Yes, but...

Gamers who spent years playing Doom and its derivatives on a 486 computer were probably in shock when id Software's Quake wouldn't run on systems with NexGen and 486sx chips. Specifically, the pre-release "demo," called qtest1, was released in early 1996 to see how the game would run on various systems. id said that it was possible to run the test using an emulator (Q87 or the WMEMU387 in DJGPP). However, the frames would run extremely slowly. Evidently, the game needed floating-point math support, and a math coprocessor was the ticket.
In this case, the chip was used to offload the extra math calculations the 486 couldn't handle on its own.

From here: http://www.tomshardware.com/pictures...yrix-3dfx.html

So my memory might be shaky.. Perhaps it was quake and not doom, but the concept is the same..

desiv

[TCD]

Yes, but that's Quake, not Doom. Anyway, there are a few threads about the actual use a FPU has here.

[desiv]

It was really more of a question about this card's design around fast memory, and is it right that it would be much more important than use of an FPU..

That, and to slip the really bad joke in there... ;-)

But never mind...

desiv

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Skope

What he should add on the cards is an L7-interrupt switch saving people who wants one having to manhandle their mobos with a soldering iron.

Unfortunately, I don't have the IPL-lines on the logic chip, so no support possible from that side. A few parts would still be required to get an L7 IRQ with a single button - at least three diodes, if not open-collector drivers.

Which software supports that kind of mod?

Jens

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by desiv

Just wondering.. Is an Amiga FPU basically pointless?

Although it's floating-point-less (if that's the "bad joke" you wanted to throw - pardon the question from a German), I don't know of any useful software that requires an FPU these days. If you want to render something with an Amiga, you either go '060 or emulation, but not '030.

I created these cards because I was amazed about the prices that A1200 memory expansions go for on eBay. The goal was to make an accelerator at the price of a memory expansion. Now that 72-pin SIMM sockets are more expensive than SD-Ram memory chips (and hardly available RoHS-compliant), a new logic design was required. I have access to brand new Winbond 200MHz SD-Rams (AFAIK, I'm the first in Europe who has them in quantities), and I wanted to play with them.

To take advantage of 3.3V rams in a 5V system, you need 5V-tolerant drivers between the voltage domains. The drivers I'm using have a guaranteed propagation delay for up to 50pF capacitive load. If I add the pin capacity of the translators, the data bus drivers and the CPU to the trace capacity of the board, I end up barely below 50pF, so the 2-cycle access that I use here is within spec. If an FPU would be on the data bus as well, I'd have to add another waitstate to the memory timing, which would add up to 4 waitstates for a cache line burst, which is currently 2-1-1-1. Although my target was never "high performance", the 28MHz-A1200 version (which is the only functional model at the moment) is probably the fastest non-static mem 28-MHz-68030 ever made for the Amiga.

Jens

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Although it's floating-point-less (if that's the "bad joke" you wanted to throw - pardon the question from a German), I don't know of any useful software that requires an FPU these days. If you want to render something with an Amiga, you either go '060 or emulation, but not '030.

Yep.. :-) I know, REALLY BAD JOKE! ;-)
I'm actually a bit surprised considering how many RAM w/FPU and accelerators with FPU options there are that so little software uses them, but the more I look, the more I see that there's not much FPU software out there..

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

I created these cards because I was amazed about the prices that A1200 memory expansions go for on eBay.

I know, I complain about that a lot. I've been holding off on getting more RAM for my 1200 for that reason.. I finally did break down and agree to buy one at a decent price (last week, it hasn't even arrived yet), but even that isn't all that far from the proposed price for your new card. So you're right on target there. I know I'll be ordering, even tho I will have a RAM card. That's just my timing.. ;-)

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

To take advantage of 3.3V rams in a 5V system, you need 5V-tolerant drivers between the voltage domains. The drivers I'm using have a guaranteed propagation delay for up to 50pF capacitive load. If I add the pin capacity of the translators, the data bus drivers and the CPU to the trace capacity of the board, I end up barely below 50pF, so the 2-cycle access that I use here is within spec. If an FPU would be on the data bus as well, I'd have to add another waitstate to the memory timing, which would add up to 4 waitstates for a cache line burst, which is currently 2-1-1-1. Although my target was never "high performance", the 28MHz-A1200 version (which is the only functional model at the moment) is probably the fastest non-static mem 28-MHz-68030 ever made for the Amiga.

That's exactly what I was thinking!
OK, I have no idea what you just said, but I assume it means you have a great design that allows you to use less expensive parts and make a SUPER FAST card!

I'm not much of a FPS person, but that seems to be the gauge a lot of people use..
I wonder how your 28Mhz card will run AB3D or Gloom or ???

Personally, I'm more interesting in seeing how well it will run a web browser. I'm not expecting to watch youtube or play flash games with it, but there's still plenty of older websites out there that should make it fun..

And I have no idea what I would do with that much RAM on a 1200, but I'm looking forward to finding out..

Thanx,

desiv

[Leffmann]

I'm curious of how many cards will be made, and where the 030's come from. Are they new or sourced?

[Dexther]

Umm..
030 in the year of god 2010 ?
No way tank's ...
For a 50 Euro i'm buy a Apollo 030 Overclok at 45 hz end 8 mb on board.
Are in the year of LORD (a Black Sabbath fan cit.) 2002.
My friend , winuae is much better for this(end not espansive i'm imho).
Ah look on the internet a Duke Nukem Forever are REALITY... but is a reason to wait the project NATAMI

Wow this is great news, I know what I am asking for xmas this year! New expansion boards for my A1200 whoo hoo!

[Fabie]

Originally Posted by desiv

I'm not much of a FPS person, but that seems to be the gauge a lot of people use..
I wonder how your 28Mhz card will run AB3D or Gloom or ???


Thanx,

desiv

a 020/28mhz or a 030/28mhz doubles the speed of any A1200 with fast ram
I have a TRA1200 turboboard 020/28mhz and I can affirm that AB3D and Gloom runs very smooth on that Turboboard

anyways dont dream to play Quake or AB3D II because they are unplayable even on the 040 or 060...leave that work for winuae

[Skope]

Originally Posted by Dexther

Umm..
030 in the year of god 2010 ?
No way tank's ...
For a 50 Euro i'm buy a Apollo 030 Overclok at 45 hz end 8 mb on board.
Are in the year of LORD (a Black Sabbath fan cit.) 2002.
My friend , winuae is much better for this(end not espansive i'm imho).
Ah look on the internet a Duke Nukem Forever are REALITY... but is a reason to wait the project NATAMI

As fantastic as WinUAE is it's still not a real Amiga. Some people just favour real hw to an emulator any day. I'd consider buying a 030 in the year 2010, easy.

[Predseda]

Dexther: do you think we all should throw our Amigas to trash and switch to WinUAE? I think not. And to keep our hardware fresh, we need accelerators. There are thousands Amiga users and tens thousands working amigas, but only hundreds working accelerators.