68080/68060 discussion, comparisons etc

[Promilus]

@Don_Adan - we were talking about V1200, right?

even a Warp1260/105 or MKII60/125 is slower than a normal V1200 X12 core

That's still Cyclone III, right? At which point V4 standalone on Cyclone V E series crashed into the party?

Apollo FPU in V4SA must works identical like others 68882

Nope. It does not support extender precision (80bit) at all while 68882 does. It hardly makes difference since nothing except science apps use extended precision (and nowadays even those don't just regular 64bit with SIMD on either CPU or GPUs). But when we compare what Vampire TURBO card offers vs Warp TURBO card offers well - it's basically stupid to compare floating point performance when both cards do it differently, right? And having 64bit registers doesn't mean calculation is done with all those bits.

[Don_Adan]

Originally Posted by Promilus

@Don_Adan - we were talking about V1200, right?
That's still Cyclone III, right? At which point V4 standalone on Cyclone V E series crashed into the party?

Nope. It does not support extender precision (80bit) at all while 68882 does. It hardly makes difference since nothing except science apps use extended precision (and nowadays even those don't just regular 64bit with SIMD on either CPU or GPUs). But when we compare what Vampire TURBO card offers vs Warp TURBO card offers well - it's basically stupid to compare floating point performance when both cards do it differently, right? And having 64bit registers doesn't mean calculation is done with all those bits.

Sorry, but full FPU in 68080 must be 80 bit. Or can not be called FULL, only incompleted/castrated. And if exist differences (CRC or binary compare) for Jubimark between rendering by AC68080 and MC68060.Then you dont know, if this is problem related to 64bit only FPU or because buggy FPU or CPU commands in AC68080. For Amiga maybe this is not big problem, but for Mac some programs doesnt works/crashes, because 68080 FPU is buggy or only 64 bit limited. CPU is only CPU and cant be OS related. I dont like to heard "for Amiga 80bit FPU is not necessary", "for Amiga MMU is not necessary". But AC68080 can handle more than 4GB of memory, but for Amiga this is useless (current Amiga OS).

[coldacid]

I've bought a V4SA, and it's definitely not the gift from god that the fanboys make it out to be. However, unless all you want is old weak 68000 power, it's the only real FPGA solution right now for those of us who aren't willing to spend literal thousands of dollars for a proper Amiga and an actual 68060 chip to throw in it.

Personally, I'd be super happy if there was some real, ongoing effort to synthesize up a proper '60 (with MMU and FPU) on FPGA and build a standalone system around it with AGA and RTG support. Until it happens, though, we're stuck with Vampire. So I have some advice for both sides of the argument. Vampire fanboys: shut up, your evangelization is only earning you enemies. Vampire haters: shut up until you put up something better.

[Promilus]

@coldacid - there's more to community than 50% fanboys and 50% haters ... I don't personally hate Gunnar nor do I ridicule his work. But I am not cheerful to their effort to claim "next gen" amiga. There were efforts to do that already 20 years ago. And in reality all it gave us is blue camp fighting against red camp and both of them laughing at classic camp. And they are somewhat right. Blue camp has fairly cheap hardware capable of many things even v4sa can't do. Red camp has pretty expensive hardware capable of some things blue camp can't do. Both camps are decade behind x86 and maybe few years behind ARM now. There's also AROS which runs both ARM and x86. There's UAE which - again - runs on both ARM and x86. And each of those solutions has pros and cons. ATM AC68080 is only available in Vampire cards. You have to ask yourself if V2 has all the things you'd like in turbo card for classic amiga. If it does - go ahead and get into queue. If it doesn't - well that's the moment you have to compromise.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Chucky

RTG have NOTHING to do with the 080!..

Wrong. The 080 and RTG are tightly integrated. If you want both (and who doesn't?) it is a much better solution than eg. separate accelerator and Zorro-II graphics cards.

it is bearly faster than the 060.

Quite a bit faster actually, but even if it was a bit slower it would still be better for me. Why? Because it makes my A600 perform the way I want it to. Back 'in the day' I had an A600 with Viper 030 card. I loved the machine, but it had limited RAM, slow ECS graphics, and was flaky. When all the keys went yellow I decided it was worthless and threw it away.

A few years later the Vampire came out, and I realized my mistake. So I bought an A600 off eBay and a Vampire to go in it. Now I can play Doom or browse the Web with the latest IBrowse without feeling inadequate. It turned the A600 from a nice (but underwhelming) machine into a little jewel which is more powerful than the A3000 with 060 and RTG that I used to have. No other card for the A600 can do that.

I am not a Vampire fanboy. For me it is just another accelerator card which happens to have everything I wanted at a reasonable price. Some of the things I wanted include:- simple, reliable installation in the A600. Low power usage so a fan and bigger power supply aren't required. RTG built in. Faster than a 50MHz 060 (which I found to be not quite fast enough for some stuff on my A3000). Ability to update the design to fix bugs or improve performance.

Some people say the Vampire isn't a 'real' Amiga product because it isn't 100% compatible with an 060. But this is silly. The 060 is not 100% compatible with earlier Amiga CPUs either. This is OK because there has never been an expectation of 100% compatibility with any advanced Amiga CPU. There is no reason the same shouldn't apply to the Vampire.

I watch a MPEG video on a raspberry pi much smoother if that is a thing I want to do. and my Warp plays mp3 without breaking a sweat

When I want to watch videos I use one of my PCs. One is set up solely for that purpose. It is just an appliance to do a job (streaming movies while I exercise) and I have no love for it.

[Chucky]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Wrong. The 080 and RTG are tightly integrated. If you want both (and who doesn't?) it is a much better solution than eg. separate accelerator and Zorro-II graphics cards.

no 080 and RTG have nothing in common. it is just as the current solution have it all together.. but still it is 2parts of the same solution.

A few years later the Vampire came out, and I realized my mistake. So I bought an A600 off eBay and a Vampire to go in it. Now I can play Doom or browse the Web with the latest IBrowse without feeling inadequate. It turned the A600 from a nice (but underwhelming) machine into a little jewel which is more powerful than the A3000 with 060 and RTG that I used to have. No other card for the A600 can do that.

So you compare it with a 030 first? yes then it iwa faster. then a A3000 with 060 from old times? 50MHz. yeah it is faster than 50MHz 060. but it is also clocked higher than 50MHz... so no real apple-appple comparisation there. the 080 is just slightly faster than the 060. like the fanbots says 2-4 times faster is just bullshit. (but if you think sysinfo speeds is right. well then maybe. but sysinfo is also more or less the only thing that hits this speed.

Some people say the Vampire isn't a 'real' Amiga product because it isn't 100% compatible with an 060. But this is silly. The 060 is not 100% compatible with earlier Amiga CPUs either. This is OK because there has never been an expectation of 100% compatibility with any advanced Amiga CPU. There is no reason the same shouldn't apply to the Vampire.

Difference is that the 060 was released when Amiga was still a mainplatform etc.. it is different now. so no .. 080 is not amiga and it isn't the fpga that is the issue. the thing is that is is a made up thing.

[Promilus]

Difference is that the 060 was released when Amiga

No it wasn't. Every 060-based accelerator came out after commodore went bankrupt.

080 and RTG have nothing in common

Yes and no. Those aren't tightly coupled at all. But RTG has to use mem controller and that's what connect those together as well. Gunnar could cut off RTG capabilities totally and leave only (S)AGA or the other way around, or cut off completely hdmi output, or cut off fpu ... those are just modules which can be added and removed. And there's a whole topic on Apollo-core forum regarding what cores ppl would love to have on V2... so AMMX + FPU and no RTG, or maybe no AMMX or FPU but RTG + SAGA? Or whatever else... it's possible, b*tch to maintain but certainly possible.

RTG in amiga - that's something which was conceived to get rid of chipset limitations and bring Amiga closer to what PC had. Most if not all RTG ZII/ZIII chips were actually the same chips PC used in ISA, VLB or PCI cards. Which leads us to conclusion - why the hell it's become so important to so many of you? Because it allows you to play DOOM or DIABLO or QUAKE? Really? PC titles? Pay a lot of money just to play PC titles on Amiga?

[Chucky]

Amiga was still a main platform after commodore went bankrupt for many of us.

and why RTG is important? for me absolutly not doom or so. it was a way to get a WB with a high resolution and not be so slow. on my Amiga I used a 2024 monitor for a LONG time to get a high resolution for text when doing my normal computing things. mostly then fidonet and coding. but RTG was extremly nice as. first color. then speed.. yes it used normal gfx chips found in any PC card by then. and that was the natural way of future. doing custom chips would just be stupid expensive.

[Chucky]

Anyway. to a emd. Amiga was no longer a mainmachine. and at that point. for me atelast amiga is what was then.. the main core is the cpu and possabilities of expansions. (giving stuff like RTG and AHI etc etc) but the core is still the cpu and chipset and at that point to gain compabiliity it simply had to be static from htat point. expansioncards with systems like RTG etc is still welcome for those who want something more "new"

but to be a new main platform. this will not happen.

and 080, expanded chipset etc. no. that would just introduce more new issues. not something you want if you want to preserve stuff

[Promilus]

it was a way to get a WB with a high resolution and not be so slow

That's exactly my point... if gaming is involved swarm of amiga titles are chipset only. Few are RTG, and the rest are pc ports. I find it amusing. Amiga community is either hardware-centric (original models + expansions) or OS-centric (MorphOS, AmigaOS4, AROS - all taking roots from AOS3). I'm in the first one. And while I can see SAGA@HDMI of V4 and new modes as something nice I really don't see using ECS@SCART + RTG@HDMI as something comfortable to use. And when there's SAGA @A600 I find it almost as an emulation ... what's the point? That A600 board is almost unused, you could just jump V4SA altogether!

[Chucky]

for me. yeah the original custom stuff needs to be there untouched. so if I run a demo (or game. but yeah I never play games ) it should run as it was meant to.
do anything newer? well it would require the software to be repogrammed anyway. and as most sources is lost anyway. better to it to fit RTG, AHI and all stuff we have available. meaning it will work on any solution instead of one specific vendor.. so that makes "080" etc redundant. but the imporance is that the core IS like it was.

I am not interesting in browsing the web, watching movies on my Amiga. even scrapped PCs here at home can do it way better.
(network on the amiga for me is basically just to reach my windowsserver fileshare so I have everything on one location for a more easy backup)

and for fpga solution I can use my FPGA Arcade. sure it got a real 060 aswell but it actually tries to mimic the real machine.

[Promilus]

Well iirc CSLabs guys created scandoubler which should switch between RTG and AGA using just one HDMI cable. That's the info I was able to obtain, don't know if it works like a charm though. But ZZ9000 has scandoubler as well (using video slot iirc) and that one mixes rtg and chipset ok I guess. I'd love to see more products just like that, no fpga-reimplementation of chipset just to make it easier. If all what's going on is done on single FPGA I see no reason to keep that original motherboard around. FPGA used as specialized expansion to original system - that has my full support.

[Chucky]

well like the old RTG cards also had a switcher like that. Picasso IV, Piccolo etc.

fpga reimplementation of the chipset on an original machine is waste of FPGA space imho. that is for standalone solutions.

fpga to do new stuff on an original machine however is nice. like GFX, audio, network etc etc. or implement an original 68k design (as yeah 060s are getting priced like crazy)

[trixster]

If I were a vampire owner, or prospective vampire owner, I’d want to know when all the new software and games are going to arrive to make use of ammx and 080 power? The vampire has been around in various forms now for ages, but I don’t see videos of new stuff that leverages it’s abilities and takes it much beyond an rtg 060. At the moment it’s a cost effective all-in-one option if you don’t want to spend £££ and ££££ building a fast machine with 90s equipment - there’s nothing wrong with that, but when will we see what vampire is touted to be able to deliver?

[Chucky]

I guess that amount of "080" software will be aprox the same amount as "PPC"software.

I would for sure not start a big project that is all dependent on ONE product to work. as what happens if it just dies off? all time of coding.. for nothing.. sure the platform is not that small. but to code for "060" would make a even larger userbase so why not aim at that goal instead? and for utils? I have seen coders begging for MMU for their debuggingtools.. no response. as most people doesn't need it. and it is very true. but if developers doesn't get the tools they want/need. why would they aim on that platform I would't

[eXeler0]

@trixter they (apollo team) spent a lot of time optimizing the Riva player with AMMX instructions etc. a while back. So basically, stuff like image/video decoding makes good use of AMMX.
As for specific Vampire only software it obviously takes time, but from a dev perspective it would make way more sense to develop for 060+RTG then make AMMX optimizations on top of that for the Vampire crowd.

[manossg]

Originally Posted by coldacid

Vampire fanboys: shut up, your evangelization is only earning you enemies. Vampire haters: shut up until you put up something better.

I like to think that there are 2-3 "loud" people here on both camps, but they do not account for a large majority of opinions that seem level-headed and matter-of-factly.

[UberFreak]

Originally Posted by Chucky

080 is not amiga and it isn't the fpga that is the issue. the thing is that is is a made up thing.

Any FPGA re-implementation of a compatible Motorolla CPU will be a "made up thing" by this logic, unless the FPGA code comes from Freescale (which will probably never ever happen).

Personally I see no advantage in 1:1 68060 re-implementation.
FPGA gives the opportunity to improve the design and achieve better speed per clock. Why not take advantage if it?

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by Chucky

yeah the vampire is a cult.. like a religious cult trying to push it to others.
AROS is a good way to go. almost amiga but not really. that would be the best way for vamp.. but we all know that actually it is just a way to sell SA machines without paying license for AmigaOS. I can bet most users flashes in a kickstart the very same hour they unpacked their SA..

Chucky not only FPGA-Expert and processor designer but also OS expert? Wow

And Chucky... we still wait for proofs for your accusations that 080 illegally copied and used TG68 code.

[OlafSch]

@thread

I do not understand the discussion here... besides some with personal issues there are different tastes

For some anything FPGA related is not real enough, they only want hardware that is at least 20 years old. Others would also use new hardware but only with "real processors". For others something like Vampire is perfect. Everybody its own. There is no reason to fight against each other because of that because that really looks like religion or politics and we already have too much of that. I admire people doing something, be it that they develop new hardware or new software or (if they lack skills) at least support developers. That senseless fighting not belongs to that.

From what I see Vampire/Apollo was a project to create a kind of amiga successor, a project to create a amiga how it could have become if it would have been developed further and Motorola would have developed a new processor and not dropped 68k in favour of PPC. For that Vampire is a good fit. If it is only about preservations then sticking to something like 68030 is completely sufficient because just to run some old demos and games from beginning 90s you do not need 68060.