New product: MNT ZZ9000

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by gdonner

It would indeed, but GPU-based video playback at 1080p needs a lot more than just an ARM processor. NVIDIA's GeForce cards, even the smallest ones, need a heat sink or a fan to keep their GPU cool. AFAIK I don't think it's possible (or practical) to combine a GPU with an ARM processor. My understanding is that they're very different kinds of chips, requiring different treatment/programming, etc.

Still, the ZZ9000 will, in time, be giving us more than we have now.

Ok so yea 1080p is demanding but IMO also overkill for most Amiga users anyway.
Anyhoo..Not sure what you mean with your nvidia example here, ARM architecture CPU + GPU in same chip (SoC) has been in pretty much every mobile phone sold the last decade ;-) And I can barely remember when phones struggled to play back 1080p content on youtube.

Regarding the ARM CPus on the ZZ, 666Mhz Cortex-A9 are probably underclocked so they should run cool. They can deliver about 1660 Dhrystone MiPS each.
Pretty sure some fairly decent resolution (by Amiga standards) video (480p) is within reach.

[jbenam]

The XC7Z020 has at least one SIMD NEON unit in it which should allow for 1080p h264 decode (at least at baseline) with minimal effort on the CPU's part.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by jbenam

The XC7Z020 has at least one SIMD NEON unit in it which should allow for 1080p h264 decode (at least at baseline) with minimal effort on the CPU's part.

Haven’t checked the data sheet for this model part, but in general FPU is optional on Cortex A9. Do you know if this model has it. If it does its a pretty strong FPU just sitting there

[gdonner]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Ok so yea 1080p is demanding but IMO also overkill for most Amiga users anyway.
Anyhoo..Not sure what you mean with your nvidia example here, ARM architecture CPU + GPU in same chip (SoC) has been in pretty much every mobile phone sold the last decade ;-) And I can barely remember when phones struggled to play back 1080p content on youtube.

Regarding the ARM CPus on the ZZ, 666Mhz Cortex-A9 are probably underclocked so they should run cool. They can deliver about 1660 Dhrystone MiPS each.
Pretty sure some fairly decent resolution (by Amiga standards) video (480p) is within reach.

Hmm; good point--I'm obviously way out of my league on much of this, but the key seems to logically(?) be output screen size. On the PC, I would assume you need a fairly beefy system (Intel i3?) and a dedicated media chip on the motherboard to playback 1080p smoothly on a modern-size monitor. No Nvidia GPU card needed for that, unless you want to do some gaming with decent FPS; then everything obviously changes.

i.e. Yes, it's somehow 1080p, but outputting to a very dense physical size in comparison to what a PC and large monitor would need for raw horsepower and decent playback.

Not sure how the tiny ARM and tiny GPU combo chips are doing it without much in the way of cooling on our smartphones, other than they're only outputting to a tiny screen..?

In any case, I've always been amazed at how well you can "stretch" or scale up a bitmap image (say a screenshot of Workbench) on a phone without much pixelization.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Haven’t checked the data sheet for this model part, but in general FPU is optional on Cortex A9. Do you know if this model has it. If it does its a pretty strong FPU just sitting there

Looks like the A9 in question indeed has one. At least that's what I glimpsed from the datasheet.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

Anyone know if these have become stable to use yet? Keep seeing issues here and there. I own one, but don’t have the original Daughterboard to try it out yet.

It does a lot of things so there will be issues for sure so it depend on what you mean. For me RTG seems pretty stable, but the ZZ RAM doesnt always show up after boot. Not sure why it isnt consistent. Heard something about the BFG 9060 needing to allow more time at boot up.
Havent tried the other stuff yet, however Im still confused regarding scandoubled AGA. Im not getting any output from rgb—> vga on a. 31kHz Dell, HDMI from the ZZ card works fine however.

[thebajaguy]

BFG has an F0 ROM that can delay the Kickstart boot process long enough to allow the ZZ9900 to load it's SD-based firmware, and therefore see the z3 memory and complete all AutoConfig upon a cold power-on boot. It's not an issue on warm reset, or an OS LoadModule reset from cold boot.

To be fair, the ZZ9900 memory is nice to see in the title bar byte count. However, all Z3 bus expansion memory is much slower than an accelerator card's onboard memory, and not important unless it's all the FastRAM you have. I find the ZZ9900's network is one of the best at this point.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

So still issues then from what you are saying. Might sell it and get a classic setup done then.

As I said, depends on how you use it. For me its a very nice RTG card with some bonus features with great potential. Im definitely keeping it ;-)

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

Looking to use the full features as it’s what its purpose is. If you are saying you just use the RTG side with the scandoubler. Then what is the point?

Look, I've had the ZZ9000 for less than a week, I haven't got around to try everything yet.
But secondly, why wouldn't I want an RTG card in my A4000? ;-) (I had an Opal Vision before, that's not an RTG card.)
Next thing I'll try to get working is Ethernet, purchased Roadshow yesterday.
USB storage is useful too.. Down the road you can add a Soundcard.. I don't need everything from day one. ;-)

[qz3fwd]

I ordered 2 back in August and they showed up in the UPS app for delivery tomorrow, though I never received a shipping email from MNT! I’d rather they work on shipping orders than sending out emails so that’s OK with me.
I plan to use it for RTG and Ethernet. I have highway pro USB and I2C Zorro cards waiting for AA3000+ & A4000TX boards to be built. AA3000+ going into a checkmate 1500+ case using Simons sheetmetal fitting kit and the A4000 going into a modern Fractal Design case. Exciting times these are. Still need PSU’s and few other things but ROM’s and OS 3.9, 3141, 32 discs sitting waiting for everything to arrive. Never had a big box Amiga before.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

My concern is if this card is marketed and sold to be a replacement to something like a PicassoIV card.

Hmm, some of us owners might say things like it replaced my Picasso IV, but I don't think Minute himself has marketed it as such?

You can check what his selling points are from: https://mntre.com/media/ZZ9000_info_...resources.html

Then I’m expecting the card to work as such.
Look forward to seeing how you get on.

What are your requirements for a Picasso IV replacement?

[stevelord]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

Looking to use the full features as it’s what its purpose is. If you are saying you just use the RTG side with the scandoubler. Then what is the point?

1. It's the best 1080p-capable card with the best scandoubler and a HDMI connection you can buy today.
2. It's an ok Ethernet card. There are better, faster, more reliable options but it'll do perfectly fine.
3. It's an ok RAM expansion, if a little slow (because of Z3, not ZZ9000's fault)
4. It's a fairly buggy (at least when I've used it) USB drive mount point. It'd be nice if it worked with Trident or Anaiis but it doesn't. I don't use it but it's there if you want to.

As an early adopter it was simultaneously amazing and frustrating to use in almost equal measure. But if I was looking at buying one today I'd have no reservations whatsoever. It tries to do too many things at once, resulting in compromises point solutions don't have to make but that's the nature of any all-in-one device.

[Jope]

My comments on the card itself are along the same lines. The USB is its weakest point, so potential buyers should definitely keep that in mind.

Lukas/Minute gladly takes open source contributions though, so it is possible to participate in improving the card's features, if one so wishes.

[eXeler0]

And also, as mentioned a couple of times already, lets not forget the Bonus-potential of the onboard ARM CPUs. After future updates, this could become a game changer for some. (mp3 for now), so there is that too.

[mousehouse]

For some the AHI compatible sounds module is the game changer. For me it is the RTG + network + audio combo and the fact that I can code custom ARM apps that I can address from the Amiga. Not enough time to do much with it but at some point I'll get around to writing a Mandelbrot routine that uses the ZZ9000 CPU-FPU or some other pointless but fun app.

Looking forward to the improvements over time which I'm sure there will be.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by mousehouse

For some the AHI compatible sounds module is the game changer. For me it is the RTG + network + audio combo and the fact that I can code custom ARM apps that I can address from the Amiga. Not enough time to do much with it but at some point I'll get around to writing a Mandelbrot routine that uses the ZZ9000 CPU-FPU or some other pointless but fun app.

Looking forward to the improvements over time which I'm sure there will be.

At some point, someone will probably figure out how to run Quake on the ARM CPUs

[qz3fwd]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

At some point, someone will probably figure out how to run Quake on the ARM CPUs

Or an OpenGL implementation or a hardware video decoder for mpeg2/h264! Wouldnt it be cool seeing 1080p video decoded on a 30 year old Amiga-admittedly the Amiga's IO throughput would likely be a problem even for DVD quality mpeg2.

[Damion]

I suppose intended use is a subjective thing. RTG with an integrated scandoubler and digital output is already awesome, add the ZZ9000AX and you have a dream come true for many (hardware MP3 decoding was always a unicorn thing, and what did exist was permanently stuck with whatever bugs it came with). Image quality will of course be far superior to any of the old cards if using an LCD.

For ethernet and USB, I'm happy to support Jens or use a DENEB/Freeway or Ariadne (etc).

That said, I'll keep my PIVs, but it's nice not to have to try to hunt down another one, or be limited to a flaky Delfina for MP3 decoding. The promise for improvement and bug fixes is a very welcome development in the Amiga world.

Plus, I think much of the fun of this hobby is the quest for improvement and perfection (tough to put a price on that!)

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

USB is supposed to work. With what? Chris Hodges Posiedon USB?

The USB works for mass storage devices and there is a separate Amiga driver to access those. No hotplug.

It is not a generic USB host like you would use with Poseidon.

1GB RAM? Mine only has 128MB Z3 RAM?

The Z3 RAM (256MB) and RTG video memory (128MB) segments of it are exposed to the Amiga, the rest is only visible to the SoC and is used for audio buffers, ethernet buffers and that sort of thing.

https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...&postcount=123 has a showconfig screenshot of the two autoconfig boards that the ZZ9000 exposes.

But from I have been reading thus far, RTG works, Network appears to work. Z3 FastRAM is problematic? USB works or doesn’t?

Z3 FastRAM works just the same as any other Z3 Fast board. So it's there, it works, it will be the slowest bit of Fast RAM in any Z3 Amiga. Exactly the same results as with other vendors' Z3 Fast boards.

USB works, but the devil is in the details; it is not a generic USB controller.

I’m very surprised people are buying this card since 2019 with things not working?

Maybe it isn't as not working as you make it out to be? Someone having a gripe with a feature of the card or finding a glitch is just that, a gripe or a glitch. If you pick through vintage Amiga expansions with the same amount of scrutiny, you will also find incompatibilities and glitches. They are mostly known and people work around them or avoid non-working hardware combinations. At least with the ZZ the glitches can still be fixed since the designer of the hardware is active.

I use RTG and Network all the time, currently I'm running the RAMless firmware since I don't need the RAM, but back when it was always there, I just allocated it all as a second RAM disk for my temp files. Worked fine, no data corruption, it can't break the laws of physics so it is Z3 speed.

I have the AX audio expansion because of completionist reasons, but I don't really make that much use of it. I've fully configured it though, so in the rare times when I run some AHI program, it is now in CD quality instead of Paula quality. The MP3 decoder also works fine and it leaves a lot of CPU time free, if MP3 on the Amiga is a use case for you.

The USB implementation doesn't really fulfill any need I have, so I don't use it. In my opinion it is the weakest part of the card, as I would also prefer to have a fully featured Poseidon compatible USB port if I were to use one. The USB port's capabilities are documented on the product page in the FAQ section and the features section, what you read there is all you get.

I know the Amiga and Commodore systems are old, now having new hardware is great. But paying a lot of money for a new card without it properly functioning is hard to take. Should really be mentioning this on the website.

Mine works fine. There were bugs at first, but all the ones that affected me were ironed out. And if someone else finds bugs, they can report them and work with Lukas to test the fixes.

Just waiting on a replacement A4K Daughterboard to see how I fair with my ZZ9000. Fingers crossed this is what I need. If not, will be looking to what I have described above to replace it.

USB will probably be not what you want, but everything else should be totally fine.

And if your setup has an issue, then I hope you can find the time to work with Lukas to iron it out.

[stevelord]

Originally Posted by mousehouse

and the fact that I can code custom ARM apps that I can address from the Amiga. Not enough time to do much with it but at some point I'll get around to writing a Mandelbrot routine that uses the ZZ9000 CPU-FPU or some other pointless but fun app.

Looking forward to the improvements over time which I'm sure there will be.

I don't know about now but for the entire time I've had my ZZ9000 (I stopped updating firmware before 1.9 as I had a steady state and 1.9+ got a little weird) I've never been able to run custom ARM apps. Even the demo apps don't work <1.9 (at least on my A4K).


If it did, I would've been writing stuff for this a couple of years back.