Vampire V4 Standalone

[Valken]

+1 what Tuko said.

I have WinUAE with DamienD's collection and it is more like a modern classic Remake Amiga with HDTV, Wireless keyboard, mouse, headphones and much better joypad controllers (PS3 style).

But it does lack something like the handsome bezels of the 1000/3000, original keyboard clicks or even the nostalgic disk drive clicks and reading sounds. I actually have disk drive sounds set to 10% on WinUAE to get the old school feel!

@ Tuko, thanks for the video. If the Vampire can run GZDoom, Raze or NBlood (modern doom and duke nukem source ports) or even Half Life 1 source port, I would be all over it.

[Minuous]

Originally Posted by TuKo

Get a V4 if you want the fastest and most expanded Amiga experience and be prepared to see things under constant improvements.

Not really, since UAE is faster and more compatible.

[TuKo]

Originally Posted by Minuous

Not really, since UAE is faster and more compatible.

True but UAE is out of scope in this thread. OP wanted to know how V4 do compare to real Amigas admitting that software emulation was out of scope for him. So out of software emulation, a V4 is the fastest Amiga 68k available.

Quick reminder :

Originally Posted by SuperFuryAnimal

Yeah ive got a Pi400 and put a Pimiga v1.4 image on it after buying some roms and its ok but it needs work as a true amiga, its getting there but its not for me in its current state

[TuKo]

Originally Posted by Valken

@ Tuko, thanks for the video. If the Vampire can run GZDoom, Raze or NBlood (modern doom and duke nukem source ports) or even Half Life 1 source port, I would be all over it.

That would require someone to port them to AmigaOS3.

/me winks at NovaCoder ;-)

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

so which is cheapest, fastest and most compatible ?

are you not the kipper2k who manufactured vampires in the past?

I cannot remember but you were manufacturing a emulator?

What have you turned now?

From Saulus to Paulus or Paulus to Saulus?

@All

Everybody should be happy with what he/she uses. Some are happy using UAE, others want real hardware. For some only old hardware is "real", others like FPGA based hardware. From what I see Mist is concentrating on compatibility whereas V4 is "NG" with high and rising compatibility. I do not see a problem there, for both there is need and no reason for arguments.

[Exodous]

Whilst nobody seems to have a problem with software that pretends to be an Amiga being called an emulator, there is a distinct denial by many that FPGA solutions are still emulation.

Emulation, in respect to computers, is defined as (from the Oxford English Dictionary):

"emulate something (computing) (of a computer program, etc.) to work in the same way as another computer, etc. and perform the same tasks "

Whilst they may be operating physically at a lower level than their pure software counterparts, FPGA based offerings are still trying to copy the original functions performed by the respective components (CPU, chipset etc.) and are therefore, by definition, emulation.

[TuKo]

Originally Posted by Exodous

Whilst they may be operating physically at a lower level than their pure software counterparts, FPGA based offerings are still trying to copy the original functions performed by the respective components (CPU, chipset etc.) and are therefore, by definition, emulation.

Following that idea, it would mean that AMD processors are also an emulation of Intel x86 processors.

[Chucky]

As so many have issues with "emulation" as it would be a bad thing. I instead call it "simulation" as that doesn't use the work "emulation" as people seems to take as a cpu running a code, taking data and interprets it as something else in runtime. which we all know is not what a fpga does.

however. you cannot say that it is a exact replica unless it is done exact 1:1 from the original data. so. that's why "Simulation" would be a pretty good word. it tries to simulate XXX while not doing it exact (as it would be impossible to do without the original data) and meanwhile no runtime code is running (emulator)

however. first and last post about this here from me.

[grond]

Originally Posted by Chucky

however. you cannot say that it is a exact replica unless it is done exact 1:1 from the original data. so. that's why "Simulation" would be a pretty good word. it tries to simulate XXX while not doing it exact (as it would be impossible to do without the original data) and meanwhile no runtime code is running (emulator)

Following that line of thought a rev 2 A500 would be simulating a rev1 A500 and the 68020 processor would be simulating a 68000 when executing 68000 code.

[Chucky]

well. it is a direct development from the original ideas and roadmap. something no fpga solution for the amiga is. the fpga solutions is a completly new project meant to try to mimic old hardware ie. simulate it not based on any of the original data more based on the original documentation that can (and is) different to the actual real stuff...

it is not that they did a complete redo of the new chips everytime...

[Daedalus]

Indeed, if a CPU (or any chip or system) changes its basic behaviour to mimic a different CPU, chip or system, then it's emulating that CPU, chip or system. AGA chips emulate certain behaviours of the ECS chipset, for example, and is described as emulation by Commodore themselves. So if those examples of AMD CPUs or later revision A500s have specific changes to make them behave like other systems, then yes, they're emulating.

Besides, if quoting Dave Haynie is fair game, then remember that he also said that Super Buster has "a 68000 bus emulator in there", and that having a Vampire would have been cool to have during the Amiga's development because "it would give us a chip emulation technology that basically didn't exist back then".

People should really grow up and stop being offended by the term emulation. It's used everywhere across the tech industry (including for FPGAs when they're used to emulate other chips or systems), and it's only little pockets of zealots who seem to have issues with it.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Exodous

Whilst nobody seems to have a problem with software that pretends to be an Amiga being called an emulator, there is a distinct denial by many that FPGA solutions are still emulation.

Indeed. The big difference is that you can 'run' a hardware design on an FPGA and then, when it works, actually build the hardware.

FPGAs are by definition emulation systems. Whatever you 'run' on them doesn't change the FPGA into something else. It's always the same chip. Just like a CPU doesn't become what it runs.

I don't have a problem with FPGA computers, but the denial surrounding them is a bit ridiculous.

[spudje]

So this is just a semantic discussion I guess. Although I would like to see the opinion on this. In the IC development case, where one first implements the chip design (VHDL or whatever technology) in an FPGA and then creates the ASIC from the exact same chip design. Would you still call the FPGA an emulator of the ASIC? I personally wouldn't as they will behave exactly the same (given the FPGA can run at the same speed as the ASIC).

So I agree with Chucky, when we implement a reverse engineered chip(set) in FPGA (from which we don't have the design), simulation sounds better to me. If we have the exact same design I wouldn't even call it simulation, but maybe cloning?

[Tigerskunk]

If it runs my game, it's an Amiga..

Who cares, just enjoy whatever you have, and be happy for all the amazing new shit we get at the moment.

[Chucky]

Originally Posted by spudje

So I agree with Chucky, when we implement a reverse engineered chip(set) in FPGA (from which we don't have the design), simulation sounds better to me. If we have the exact same design I wouldn't even call it simulation, but maybe cloning?

THEN I would actually use the word "implementing" as when you have the original data and does it. it will behave exactly as the original thing.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by spudje

So I agree with Chucky, when we implement a reverse engineered chip(set) in FPGA (from which we don't have the design), simulation sounds better to me. If we have the exact same design I wouldn't even call it simulation, but maybe cloning?

Before I got into FPGAs my idea about them was also that it's similar to cloning or reimplementing the chips 1:1 in Verilog (and so superior to emulation). That's how it was/still is promoted. In reality though it's not exactly true, because there are a lot of shortcuts, workarounds and approximates, even in very mature FPGA cores. Sure, it's better than emulation in some respects (most notably lag), but lacking in others (versatility).

For that reason I usually shrug and move on when I hear people claiming that FPGA is the "real" hardware, as opposed to the allegedly inferior emulators. For me, semantically, the only "real" hardware is the original one, or modern 1:1 chip-for-chip clones. The rest is about feelings, and feelings are subjective. If somebody gets the 'real' feel from WinUAE or RPi then more power to them, because this feeling can be as "real" as the person's who is using a Vampire or the original A500/1200.

Source: somebody who uses all these methods, because they all have their pluses and minuses.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

People should really grow up and stop being offended by the term emulation.

I think they should stop being offended by pretty much anything.
In other thread I mentioned that I wasn't impressed with Doom back then, but I am totally Ok if someone was very impressed. Or, at least, I don't care.

Imho, Vampire is cool, and it's better that is around, then that is not. Love the fact that we have so much new and cool accelerators for our Amiga's, so we can choose. I hope that it will be even more in the future.
Can't wait to see that new accelerator Mike is developing.

[Adrian Browne]

Right then Vampire for 1200 it is- that should sort me.

[kamelito]

The drawback with the Vampire accelerators is the memory bottleneck to access the chip ram. iIRC the Amiga Reloaded board do not have this limitation.

[TuKo]

Originally Posted by kamelito

The drawback with the Vampire accelerators is the memory bottleneck to access the chip ram. iIRC the Amiga Reloaded board do not have this limitation.

Which is true on Vampire as accelerator but not on V4. On V4, ChipRAM is as fast as the FastRAM is.


By the way, where can I buy the Amiga Reloaded ?