GOLD core released for Vampire 600 V2

The GOLD core has been released for the vampire 600 V2, and it brings new cool features !

Full changelog :

* Added fusing for MOVE/EXT
* added MPU for finding illegal memory access
* added TRACE support
* fixed in CHK2, CMP2, MOVEM and CAS
* fixed some special LOOP condition
* fixed TRAPcc
* optimized MOVEQ/MOVE.l # and depending instructions

Download it :
http://www.apollo-accelerators.com/wiki/#latest_cores

Apollo team would be happy to get feedbacks from users using this new GOLD core. Be free to join #Apollo-Team IRC channel on Freenode to discuss it.

[NovaCoder]

Very impressive but what happened to the FPU support, wasn't that meant to part of the gold core?

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Very impressive but what happened to the FPU support, wasn't that meant to part of the gold core?

I asked this on the Apollo forums and the answer is apparently "no" :-(
It seems implementing a bug free, properly functioning FPU is harder than they initially thought.

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[Locutus]

is any of that 'AMMX' etc stuff documented by now?

[demolition]

Cool, will try it out. Is there any noticable performance improvements? I think the fusing and optimizations of MOVE could make a difference?

And how about compatibility with e.g. FUSION/Shapeshifter? Does these fixes relate to those?

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by Locutus

is any of that 'AMMX' etc stuff documented by now?

It's pretty much identical to the Intel MMX instruction set but at least it's finalized so it can be documented.

http://www.apollo-accelerators.com/w...s_instructions is where the documentation will appear when it's done.

[Locutus]

No opcode encoding details, no real functional descriptions, no code examples, pretty much nothing.

And similar to Intel MMX.... yes the mnemonics are very similar but the register handling is undefined (what registers do this map to?) and these seem to be 3 operand.

If you want someone to use your fancy stuff you need to provide them a means to. this isn't how you do it...

[thellier]

I agree but see here :-)

http://www.apollo-core.com/index.htm?page=instructions
especially the Parallel MMX like instructions

PPERM
others are not renseigned yet

[Locutus]

still very little...

Its also weird that documentation is a 'after thought' if you design something like a CPU you spec first and then implement.

So how can you not have a document?

[phx]

There are still no opcode encodings.

I would be willing to support the Apollo core with the vasm assembler some day. But then I need better documentation.

And the Apollo ISA must reach a defined state, where no more instructions are added or removed every few weeks.

[grond]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

It seems implementing a bug free, properly functioning FPU is harder than they initially thought.

It is an enormous task but that isn't any different from what was expected. The FPU is a Platinum feature.

A lot of work went into the Gold release. As you probably know the last 10% are 90% of the entire work. All 68k integer instructions are now implemented and thoroughly tested, even such instructions that do not exist in Amiga software but only in MacOS.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by grond

It is an enormous task but that isn't any different from what was expected. The FPU is a Platinum feature.

A lot of work went into the Gold release. As you probably know the last 10% are 90% of the entire work. All 68k integer instructions are now implemented and thoroughly tested, even such instructions that do not exist in Amiga software but only in MacOS.

Obviously I'm thrilled with the work they put into this Gold release, and I'm the first one to applaud the effort...
Frankly, they've done amazing things not many of us expected to ever see in Amigaland again..

..but I'm not so sure the FPU implementation is going exactly as expected. If it is, it's hard to explain Gunnar's post from May 24th in this thread:

http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=1&note=1108

Spoiler:
"#For the next Release we are currently working on the integration of
1) fully pipelined = fast
and compatible 80Bit FPU
2) 128 bit SSE compatible SIMD instructions"

And now we know the AMMX is already implemented while the FPU is not... I'm sure its a tough nut to crack even for the magicians in the Apollo team, but even if its still far off, IMO I'd love to hear more about it. Can we help beta test it etc?

[JimDrew]

Originally Posted by demolition

Cool, will try it out. Is there any noticable performance improvements? I think the fusing and optimizations of MOVE could make a difference?

And how about compatibility with e.g. FUSION/Shapeshifter? Does these fixes relate to those?

I am not aware of any issues with FUSION. I can run everything.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by JimDrew

I am not aware of any issues with FUSION. I can run everything.

Ok, I just remember that there were some issues previously which were addressed, but I wasn't sure if it was fixed 100% back then. But good to hear. I guess you will still have trouble running Mac software which expects an FPU?

[JimDrew]

The core had some of the FPU instruction hooks in it that were causing FPU errors (the Mac thought there was a real FPU available). Gunnar removed the hooks and that fixed the issues that did exist. Programs that "require" a FPU can be ran using the SoftwareFPU extension.

When Gunnar puts in the final FPU core, the emulation is going to be insane. It's already testing faster than 8100/80 PowerMac in native PowerPC mode!

[grond]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

..but I'm not so sure the FPU implementation is going exactly as expected. If it is, it's hard to explain Gunnar's post from May 24th

It's easy to explain: plans changed as so many times before. Gunnar decided to not open a new can of bugs with adding the FPU but to iron out all minor quirks and little oddities in the integer part before touching the FPU. Even though there most probably still are some such quirks and oddities (other would call them bugs), this seems a very reasonable approach. The integer part of the 68080 is now a more exact reimplementation of the 68k architecture than UAE which is pretty mature.

A lot of work was done on the FPU years ago, all 040-FPU instructions are implemented and also tested. What is missing is testing program flow and flags set by the instructions. This will also be a lot of work but I'm pretty sure we will see it progress quite quickly.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by grond

It's easy to explain: plans changed as so many times before. Gunnar decided to not open a new can of bugs with adding the FPU but to iron out all minor quirks and little oddities in the integer part before touching the FPU. Even though there most probably still are some such quirks and oddities (other would call them bugs), this seems a very reasonable approach. The integer part of the 68080 is now a more exact reimplementation of the 68k architecture than UAE which is pretty mature.

A lot of work was done on the FPU years ago, all 040-FPU instructions are implemented and also tested. What is missing is testing program flow and flags set by the instructions. This will also be a lot of work but I'm pretty sure we will see it progress quite quickly.

Fair enough, sounds reasonable.

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[TroyWilkins]

My question is, has anyone with a Vampire II installed it yet? I'm curious to see if there are improvements, and if so, what sort of a difference the end user would notice. I'll probably be ordering one of these fantastic critters soon, just have some other more important expenses to take care of first.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by TroyWilkins

My question is, has anyone with a Vampire II installed it yet? I'm curious to see if there are improvements, and if so, what sort of a difference the end user would notice. I'll probably be ordering one of these fantastic critters soon, just have some other more important expenses to take care of first.

Mine stopped working with newer updates after v6, so I haven't tried yet.
(Meaning, my Vamp works fine with v6, but updating with v7, 8, 9 will brick it. Simply naming v10 " Gold" doesn't necessarily mean it's any different in that respect. But I have a USB Blaster to fix bricked Vamps, so I'll give Gold a go soon I guess.

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[cmsj]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Mine stopped working with newer updates after v6, so I haven't tried yet.
(Meaning, my Vamp works fine with v6, but updating with v7, 8, 9 will brick it. Simply naming v10 " Gold" doesn't necessarily mean it's any different in that respect. But I have a USB Blaster to fix bricked Vamps, so I'll give Gold a go soon I guess.

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I think you should try - I believe there was a small issue with the way the 7/8 updates were prepared, maybe the earliest 9 too, I don't remember.