Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathesar
On a re-implemented Paula chip, the 14bit mode could be bit perfect.
This is because one would digitally adjust the volume and mix the channels together before sending it off to an external high resolution audio DAC. This is unlike the original Paula which uses 4 individual 8bit (poor) DAC's and PWM (at least that's what I know) volume control.
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Technically you can modify signal path and provide 14 bit samples (i.e. AUDxDAT*AUDxVOL) same approach for panpot (a.k.a. panning i.e. possibility to mix channel level between L and R output).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathesar
14bit is almost as good as 16bit in practice (= room with some noise, part of it coming from buzz of that good old CRT).
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By combining two 8 bit channels you can have true 16 bit audio so no 14-bit trick required - this is easy in digital domain - so new audio modes without touching anything in Amiga. Support for compressed PCM (ADPCM)
Blitter may have capability (audio mode) to mix channels in RAM (multiplier and adder in blitter path).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathesar
And that would mean no additional software needed other than existing AHI.
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High level API is useful to create HAL - IMHO low level HW and high level API's are OK and beneficial for users.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathesar
Also, more generally thinking, there are a LOT of things one could do to make a faster, more capable Amiga chipset without doing anything requiring software changes.
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Yes, in fact this is like fixing obvious limitations* in chipset design.
*Chipset limitations due limited technology and/or tight time budget.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathesar
Think about more chipset bandwidth so the CPU can acces the chipram faster (and faster BLITTER, faster floppy, higher audio samplerates, etc, etc) or more chipram
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This may affect software - perhaps not as much as on Atari ST where everything is tightly timed so even small CPU timing difference will ruin lot of software but still.
Faster floppy - just add buffer and use default DMA to transfer data not RAW flux signal - this will already double transfer rates and made 500kbps possible.
There is few unused register addresses in DFFxxx space - new features can be accessible trough indirect addressing (with only two 16 bit registers almost 128KiB register space - first shot - real RAMDAC with 24 bit color and for example 32/64K size - easily switchable by single Copper cycle).
Real chunky mode just be changing how interpreted are normal biplanes (HAM-E embedded).
There is plenty possibilities that will not affect any legacy timing - rather they modify way how data are processed.