A1200 Acceleration - which route?

[mulder77]

One thing is sure. Even after you've been proven wrong, you won't miss the next chance to repeat your twisted interpretation of the things.

[Chucky]

I haven't been "proven wrong" actually.. this thread makes me even more sure how of a sect it is.. and how dare anyone tell something that might be bad..
please do explain where I have been "proven wrong"..

or well no. as it is actually kinda off topic.. so. I am OFF as said..

[ronybeck]

Originally Posted by Chucky

please do explain where I have been "proven wrong"..

Sure. Where you back tracked on this point.

Originally Posted by Chucky

.....there have been updates for the V500/600 that they have "improved cia timings" meaning it does replace the CIA in some way.

Originally Posted by TuKo

No, it doesn't replace any in anyway.

That is an authoritative answer on the topic. Sorry. You were completely wrong.

[NovaCoder]

Not sure why some Vampire supporters are so fanatical in their support of the product

There are many different ways to enjoy the Amiga retro experience, just because someone doesn't want to buy into the Vampire doesn't mean they are 'wrong'.

Obviously the Vampire team have done a great job in replicating the original Amiga chipset using an FPGA board but it's not the only option out there for people wanting to recreate an Amiga experience using modern hardware (which is why I just brought a MiSTer development board!).




Anyway getting back on to the topic of this thread...

If you are after an 'Accelerator' in it's most simplistic terms (to accelerate the CPU cycles of your Classic Amiga) then I recommend people either get an 030 board or if you really want the extra power then get an 060 board.

[Radertified]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

If you are after an 'Accelerator' in it's most simplistic terms (to accelerate the CPU cycles of your Classic Amiga) then I recommend people either get an 030 board or if you really want the extra power then get an 060 board.

It's interesting that everyone always says 030 or 060.

Why does no-one recommend the 040 anymore? Heat issues when in a regular A1200 case? Not worth the price : performance ratio when compared to 030 and 060? Something else?

[NovaCoder]

Yep 040's run pretty hot and also the compatibility with games (especially newer ports like mine) is much lower.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

also the compatibility with games (especially newer ports like mine) is much lower.

Why?

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Why?

Most of my newer ports are actually compiled for a 68060 so therefore you need an 060.

I seem to remember reading that WHDLOAD games are more likely to work on an 060 than an 040.

Also there are lots of demos that are compiled for an 68060, 68040 has always been the odd one out I'm afraid.

[ronybeck]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Not sure why some Vampire supporters are so fanatical in their support of the product

If you love it, you write about it I guess. But for each "pro vampire" post there is 2-3 "anti-vampire" posts from a single user. Chucky. The fanaticism is clear to see.

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

There are many different ways to enjoy the Amiga retro experience, just because someone doesn't want to buy into the Vampire doesn't mean they are 'wrong'.

I couldn't agree more.

I love Vampire cards but I also own an 030 and an 060 card. They are all great cards in their own way. I paid 375€ for my FPUless iComp accelerator which pulls a measly 12 MIPS (in Sysinfo at least). I paid 450€ for my Vampire which (in Sysinfo again) shows 153 MIPS, 10 times the fast ram speed, double (or more) the chip ram speed, plus as ports for Ethernet, super-fast IDE, an SD Card slot and RTG. In those terms, there is no value in the 030 board.

I can understand that some people want a more authentic old school experience. For them that means 030, 040, 060. And it is their money. They choose how to spend it. Same is allowed vampire owners. 060 owners write here about their cards. The same is allowed for vampire owners.

Quite a few of us in the Vampire camp also own a Warp1260. Heck I also want one. Why? Because it is an awesome card. The CS Lab guys have shown what an 060 accelerator in 2020 should be. There are one (or two maybe?) guys in the Apollo Team who are also involved in Warp. In the end, the guys producing accelerators don't share hate for the other card makers in the same way users do. But rather mutual respect. And a little competition never hurt anyone. Actually, it is quite exciting!

Chucky is a great guy and has done a lot for the Amiga scene. He has earned respect for it. But his behavior here is rather disappointing. Misunderstanding technical information, misrepresenting passing comments or outdated information as the current state of the affairs. It simply isn't true. Correcting incorrect information is the bread and butter of forums.

Your point for me is key: There are many different ways to enjoy the Amiga.

Let's do that.

[Chucky]

I would answer that. but. nah. "I am out" maybe another thread. not here..

[kipper2k]

It sounds to me that you appear to be very fortunate to enjoy the high end amiga cards, not all Amiga users have the luxury to be able to afford them. I do not see the reason to spend so much money on the Amiga when you are limited in the library that you have available to use. I like to play games, i like them to work, if i want to watch a video etc then i will use my PC.

To each their own but i think there is a point of overkill in the Amiga, as we all have different thoughts on what this is i will keep my thoughts to myself

Originally Posted by ronybeck

If you love it, you write about it I guess. But for each "pro vampire" post there is 2-3 "anti-vampire" posts from a single user. Chucky. The fanaticism is clear to see.



I couldn't agree more.

I love Vampire cards but I also own an 030 and an 060 card. They are all great cards in their own way. I paid 375€ for my FPUless iComp accelerator which pulls a measly 12 MIPS (in Sysinfo at least). I paid 450€ for my Vampire which (in Sysinfo again) shows 153 MIPS, 10 times the fast ram speed, double (or more) the chip ram speed, plus as ports for Ethernet, super-fast IDE, an SD Card slot and RTG. In those terms, there is no value in the 030 board.

I can understand that some people want a more authentic old school experience. For them that means 030, 040, 060. And it is their money. They choose how to spend it. Same is allowed vampire owners. 060 owners write here about their cards. The same is allowed for vampire owners.

Quite a few of us in the Vampire camp also own a Warp1260. Heck I also want one. Why? Because it is an awesome card. The CS Lab guys have shown what an 060 accelerator in 2020 should be. There are one (or two maybe?) guys in the Apollo Team who are also involved in Warp. In the end, the guys producing accelerators don't share hate for the other card makers in the same way users do. But rather mutual respect. And a little competition never hurt anyone. Actually, it is quite exciting!

Chucky is a great guy and has done a lot for the Amiga scene. He has earned respect for it. But his behavior here is rather disappointing. Misunderstanding technical information, misrepresenting passing comments or outdated information as the current state of the affairs. It simply isn't true. Correcting incorrect information is the bread and butter of forums.

Your point for me is key: There are many different ways to enjoy the Amiga.

Let's do that.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Most of my newer ports are actually compiled for a 68060 so therefore you need an 060.

If you need the speed then that makes sense.

I seem to remember reading that WHDLOAD games are more likely to work on an 060 than an 040.

Interesting. I had an 060 'back in the day' and games compatibility was poor. But I never used WHDLOAD. Why would it have more difficulty with 040 than 060?

Also there are lots of demos that are compiled for an 68060, 68040 has always been the odd one out I'm afraid.

Again, demos compiled specifically for 060 makes sense if they need the speed anyway.

But 040 is faster than 030, and the A4000 came with one standard, so I'm surprised that WHDLOAD would have more compatibility problems with 040 than 060 (which is is even less compatible with 020 and 030, right?).

I have a Vampire in my A600. People say it's not a 'real' Amiga but just an emulator, yet compared to the A3000 with 060 and RTG card I used to have it's pretty much the same level of 'emulation'. Later Motorola CPUs were even less compatible, to the point they can't be used in the Amiga, and fast 060s are becoming ultra rare. So if we want even more speed in 68k then an FPGA based CPU is the only way.

Since the Vampire is faster than 060, does it make sense to develop new games that only work on it, like you are doing with the 060? Or could they be made compatible with older CPUs without too much trouble?

[NovaCoder]

Hi Bruce,

You raise some interesting questions.

As far as developing games and other software specifically compiled for the Vampire. This has already been happening to a degree with games that need a Vampire to be playable (performance) and some games also contain 68080 optimisations. I can see the amount of Vampire optermized software increasing in the future as the Vampire increases in power and functionality (for example 3D hardware acceleration has been discussed).

The reason this is tricky (in my opinion), is that you can end up with a specialist FPGA computer running specialist software.

[Chucky]

I guess reason why 040 is "not an option" is that a 040 card can take a 060 cpu. and even a 68LC060 that lacks the FPU will run fpu code faster with fpu emulation than a 040..

[daxb]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Interesting. I had an 060 'back in the day' and games compatibility was poor. But I never used WHDLOAD. Why would it have more difficulty with 040 than 060?

You should ask this Wepl but as far as I know 040 and 060 aren't that much different. Similar to 020 and 030.That 040 is less compatible than 060 is a myth IMHO. Usually on both CPUs a game will work or fail. Depends on how compatible the code is.

so I'm surprised that WHDLOAD would have more compatibility problems with 040 than 060 (which is is even less compatible with 020 and 030, right?).

Hmm.. the main(?) task of WHDLoad is to make games/demos/... run on 680x0 systems with further hardware expansions like graphic cards for example. I would say that not the CPU is the problem but the game/demo/... code. At least that is what WHDLoad slave authors try to fix/adapt. So, there is good/bad code that is more or less compatible.

[VladR]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Hi Bruce,

As far as developing games and other software specifically compiled for the Vampire. This has already been happening to a degree with games that need a Vampire to be playable (performance) and some games also contain 68080 optimisations. I can see the amount of Vampire optermized software increasing in the future as the Vampire increases in power and functionality (for example 3D hardware acceleration has been discussed).

The reason this is tricky (in my opinion), is that you can end up with a specialist FPGA computer running specialist software.

Tricky ? Why ? Technically, that's exactly what I am doing, making 3D engine and a game specifically for Vampire. I don't see anything tricky with that.

I really like that I can easily use 16.7 Mil colors, it opens up a whole range of technological opportunities, previously impossible on ~Pentium 75 MHz without 3D acceleration.

512 MB RAM also allows for approaches that would be impossible on RAM usually available at the era (16 MB).

The user base of Vampire, once all units will be shipped next year will be in a range <5,000 : 10,000>. That's pretty impressive to me for such a niche as Amiga.

[eXeler0]

@Vlad Yea the Vampire is an interesting mix on new and old and I can see it would make sense to choose it as a target platform, but I think NovaCoder was right when he said it will be a specialized FPGA computer running specialized software, in essence creating (yet again) fragmentation in the Amiga world.
Their main focus is now to run AROS on the hardware and I'll speculate here that its likely future optimizations of the OS will make use of hardware features only found on the Vamp (AMMX etc). Then other software may also end up only being usable on the Vamp. For the Vamp users it's not really a problem, but it might just end up being yet another fragment / Amiga spin-off doing their own thing.
(I know you're an Atari guy so you may have missed the MorphOS, AROS, Amiga OS "wars" in the "dark years". They all started with the best intentions but in the end choices had to be made and MorphOS ended up using old PPC Macs and AROS mostly went X86 with some cripppled 68k ports going on life support for many years, leaving the Apollo team with quite an uphill challenge ahead (although I understand their choice)).
Anyhoo, the Amiga user base gets fragmented every time something like that happens. The Vamp will surely lead to its own cult, admittedly an alluring one. ;-)

[VladR]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

@Vlad Yea the Vampire is an interesting mix on new and old and I can see it would make sense to choose it as a target platform, but I think NovaCoder was right when he said it will be a specialized FPGA computer running specialized software, in essence creating (yet again) fragmentation in the Amiga world.
Their main focus is now to run AROS on the hardware and I'll speculate here that its likely future optimizations of the OS will make use of hardware features only found on the Vamp (AMMX etc). Then other software may also end up only being usable on the Vamp. For the Vamp users it's not really a problem, but it might just end up being yet another fragment / Amiga spin-off doing their own thing.
(I know you're an Atari guy so you may have missed the MorphOS, AROS, Amiga OS "wars" in the "dark years". They all started with the best intentions but in the end choices had to be made and MorphOS ended up using old PPC Macs and AROS mostly went X86 with some cripppled 68k ports going on life support for many years, leaving the Apollo team with quite an uphill challenge ahead (although I understand their choice)).
Anyhoo, the Amiga user base gets fragmented every time something like that happens.

I know it's not exactly the same thing, but Atari landscape is also fragmented, though mostly based on 8/16(ST)/32(Falcon)/64(Jaguar) bits, so it's slightly different than Amiga.

Yeah, I can't really comment on the OS thing. I am barely starting to make a tiny bit of sense with regards to legality of the OS (Hyperion et al.).

Because I don't have any emotional attachment to any particular OS, to me AROS seems like the only logical choice to pursue right now (My V4 appears to be fast enough to run it).

Half of us will die of ripe old age before this cluster*uckery gets settled.
The other half will wear diapers in a retirement home and enjoy the memory benefits of Alzheimer (no more bad memories), so highly likely there will be nobody to enjoy the one true legal OS

Originally Posted by eXeler0

The Vamp will surely lead to its own cult, admittedly an alluring one. ;-)

I can definitely attest to the lure of coding for it. There's so many options, anywhere you look, it's like Christmas in July

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

8><---
Their main focus is now to run AROS on the hardware and I'll speculate here that its likely future optimizations of the OS will make use of hardware features only found on the Vamp (AMMX etc). Then other software may also end up only being usable on the Vamp. For the Vamp users it's not really a problem, but it might just end up being yet another fragment / Amiga spin-off doing their own thing.

8><---

Anyhoo, the Amiga user base gets fragmented every time something like that happens. The Vamp will surely lead to its own cult, admittedly an alluring one. ;-)

In fact..
The Apollo team now maintains their own fork of the AROS development, so.. Voila.. "custom OS"
GitHub link:
https://github.com/ApolloTeam-dev/AROS

It all makes perfect sense if you're on the team, if not..

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

@Vlad Yea the Vampire is an interesting mix on new and old and I can see it would make sense to choose it as a target platform, but I think NovaCoder was right when he said it will be a specialized FPGA computer running specialized software, in essence creating (yet again) fragmentation in the Amiga world.

[SNIP]

Yep that's exactly what I meant

With great power, comes great responsibility