PiStorm kills Vampire?

[stevelord]

Originally Posted by YouKnowWho

I find it fascinating that so much effort is being put in to make Amiga surf the net, or play MP3s...when these things are better done by a modern device. Forcing it to do these things is not what we remember it for.

I do both those things most weekdays. I normally have Radio 6 Music or the BBC World Service on my 4000 in the background while I'm working. It's perfectly fine on an 060/50 with 16-bit audio out, no Vampire needed. I use IBrowse with 68k.news and Aminet when I break for lunch. I also read Gopher Phlogs with IBrowse. Lately I've been using AmiGemini to catch up on Gemini too. If I wanted to surf more modern sites I could with Netsurf but the experience is better on the PC next to it, that I'm already using at the time. But for most Amiga-related sites it's fine.

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by YouKnowWho

WOW! That's news!



No royalties? No limits?

Just avoid the trademarks and don't abuse the copyrighted operating system. Aros 68k is what the Apollo team use to get around the copyrights.

[Havie]

Just had a gander at YouTube and found this:

[ Show youtube player ]

AB3D2 is running really well - impressive! Maybe it is in Vampire territory after all?

[YouKnowWho]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I was thinking about this, what would I do if I was buying an Amiga setup now (I'm interested only in quality WHDload experience, don't care for extra speed, RTG, etc). 2 years ago I went for ACA 500+. Looked at it yesterday out of curiosity, and I think I would go with ACA again after all. PiStorm's cost, when you tally up the extra RPi + WB license comes very near ACA.

And that 30 second boot really put me off too.


I still think it's a great option, just probably not for me.

Not gonna lie to you, I'm a big fan on iComp stuff. Few of my 1200s have 1221 Accelerators in them, and I'm very happy with the value of those devices. Bunch have the flicker fixer as well. And I bought a few other devices for the 1200 in the Checkmate case. They make some clever stuff, and it is certainly staying true to the Amiga chipset and 68K CPUs. I just looked at the ACA, and it's a very nice device too. No doubt I'd have that on my 500, if I had a 500.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Havie

Just had a gander at YouTube and found this:

[ Show youtube player ]

AB3D2 is running really well - impressive! Maybe it is in Vampire territory after all?

Yep very impressive

What is the cost difference?

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by stevelord

The new vampires come in around 450 Euro. That's 9 Pistorms.

I'm confused. Is this what you are talking about?

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I'm confused. Is this what you are talking about?

Yes.

I know which one I'd go for if I was in the market

[Havie]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Yep very impressive

What is the cost difference?

Well V1200 cost me nearly £500 with shipping. Pistorm looks to be around £100 so significant cost difference and at 24 MIPs is definitely in 040 territory (but the AB3D2 video would suggest faster?) That's compared to 150 MIPs for my Vampire 1200.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Yes.

I know which one I'd go for if I was in the market

Well now I'm really confused. For 49,95 € you get an adapter to plug a Raspberry Pi into. It might be 9 times cheaper than the latest Vampire, but is completely useless by itself. Once you add all the bits needed to make it work the price balloons to 132,25 €, only 3.4 times less than the latest Vampire - and 6.25 times slower.

I guess if you have a spare Pi hanging around it might be worth getting a PiStorm to try it out. But a 'Vampire killer'? Hardly.

[vulture]

Well, nowadays, you can easily find a 3b rpi for about 20 euros and most people already have a spare micro sd, so, in reality, the cost is not that much.
Now, we just need an A1200 version!

[Promilus]

but about improving/enhancing the Amiga experience in ways that the original Amigas could not deliver

Wait what? I mean... couldn't you put soundcard, network card or graphic card to Amiga to achieve more than stock amiga could? Sure! So in that particular area Amiga with either ZIII or PCI slots allow users to improve/enhance experience. And when it comes to AGA or ECS software (i.e. games, really) all additions to Vampire SAGA doesn't mean a thing. You'd need to rewrite games to use all those fancy features which you can't. And while things like more colors and sprites, bigger resolutions etc. sound nice - most of those things were done 30 years ago using RTG - and that's area in which vampire doesn't offer anything beyond all those old solutions (apart CPU<->MEM<->RTG transfer speed obviously). Big Amiga models (A2k, 3k, 4k) were made with expansions in mind and that's what designers had in mind for future products. Not making even better chipset which would still age fast and would still require compatibility layer. And as for things like mp3 decoding... many cheap mp3 players uses 8051 MCU core (since it is free - copyright expired) which is damn slow 8bit. It's usb device (slave) and plays mp3 nicely because it has hardware to do it. 8051 core is just for management of fixed function blocks. And maybe it was mentioned, maybe not - forcing "fastest 68k" isn't going to solve all that much problems. Existing software runs on 060/50MHz fast enough and it'd be just way easier to add ARM processor the same way as PPC processors into the AOS ecosystem and run more demanding software using this - modern - processor core. Don't know if PiStorm ever achieves that but if they do... Cortex A53 obliterates Vampire completely in native code so imagine what happens when you run Pi4 with Cortex A72 ... and Broadcom still does have better 2D graphics, 3D graphics, better sound and also A/V codecs. It does have also USB2.0 host (RPi4 3.0 too) and fast WiFi. So basically... once more of those things are implemented amiga-side Vampire wouldn't have anything except raw 68k performance despite costing 10x more. It's good to be enthusiast as long as it doesn't affect your reasoning badly. If someone wants to have compact accelerator with plenty on-board additions - yes, go ahead with Vampire. But that doesn't mean it's the best thing there is in every field possible.

[stevelord]

Originally Posted by vulture

Well, nowadays, you can easily find a 3b rpi for about 20 euros and most people already have a spare micro sd, so, in reality, the cost is not that much.
Now, we just need an A1200 version!

I expected this, which is why I made the point of 9x a Pistorm for a vampire vs Bruce's more realistic estimate. The pistorm is built for the different form factor Pi 3A+, not the 3b. In theory the connector will fit a 3b. In practice the form factor difference will present challenges putting it in and getting the lid back on.

[manossg]

Originally Posted by Promilus

Wait what? I mean... couldn't you put soundcard, network card or graphic card to Amiga to achieve more than stock amiga could? Sure! So in that particular area Amiga with either ZIII or PCI slots allow users to improve/enhance experience. And when it comes to AGA or ECS software (i.e. games, really) all additions to Vampire SAGA doesn't mean a thing. You'd need to rewrite games to use all those fancy features which you can't. And while things like more colors and sprites, bigger resolutions etc. sound nice - most of those things were done 30 years ago using RTG - and that's area in which vampire doesn't offer anything beyond all those old solutions (apart CPU<->MEM<->RTG transfer speed obviously). Big Amiga models (A2k, 3k, 4k) were made with expansions in mind and that's what designers had in mind for future products. Not making even better chipset which would still age fast and would still require compatibility layer. And as for things like mp3 decoding... many cheap mp3 players uses 8051 MCU core (since it is free - copyright expired) which is damn slow 8bit. It's usb device (slave) and plays mp3 nicely because it has hardware to do it. 8051 core is just for management of fixed function blocks. And maybe it was mentioned, maybe not - forcing "fastest 68k" isn't going to solve all that much problems. Existing software runs on 060/50MHz fast enough and it'd be just way easier to add ARM processor the same way as PPC processors into the AOS ecosystem and run more demanding software using this - modern - processor core. Don't know if PiStorm ever achieves that but if they do... Cortex A53 obliterates Vampire completely in native code so imagine what happens when you run Pi4 with Cortex A72 ... and Broadcom still does have better 2D graphics, 3D graphics, better sound and also A/V codecs. It does have also USB2.0 host (RPi4 3.0 too) and fast WiFi. So basically... once more of those things are implemented amiga-side Vampire wouldn't have anything except raw 68k performance despite costing 10x more. It's good to be enthusiast as long as it doesn't affect your reasoning badly. If someone wants to have compact accelerator with plenty on-board additions - yes, go ahead with Vampire. But that doesn't mean it's the best thing there is in every field possible.

Well, I have seen the PiMiga experience and have used a powerful FS-UAE install and, tbh, I choose the Vampire every time, not only because of the kickass performance, but also because of the strong Amiga vibe (although YMMV). The improvements in the Vamp (AROS, sound, 3d, AMMX, etc) are things that, as mentioned already, you cannot have in a beefy Amiga (or I guess you could have some of them with a lot of hassle), emulated or not. And already Vamp-specific software has been written (and is being written) that takes advantage of these hardware and OS features, so your claim doesn't hold true.

So, although I could use an emulated Amiga to do all these NG stuff, (Vamp-specific or not), I find that they run better on the Vamp and some of them run only on the Vamp.

On the matter of cost, please tell me what you would need to spend >today< to have an working 060 Amiga with a 3d card and a soundcard, so as to be able to enjoy a fraction of what the Vamp delivers.

On the matter of enthusiasm I feel that you have classified me as a fanboy, but you couldn't be further from the truth. I love what the Apollo team is doing, but I have quite a few complaints about the Vampire mainly on compatibility (with classic games) and stability issues, although all of these improve as time goes by.
I am also in favour of what the PiStorm community are achieving, although they admittedly have a long way to go, and it is great that Amigans in 2021 are spoilt for choice.

[vulture]

@stevelord

well, both 3b and 3a+ are cheap to find second hand, so....

[Promilus]

@manossg - you seems to omit the fact AC68080 features do not exist in any classic amiga except those with Vampire cards. Which means games and apps created around AMMX and SAGA features require different binary to run on classic amigas WITHOUT Vampire or won't run on them at all. What is different in this approach than what you get from PowerPC accelerator for classic amiga (concept over 20 years old and proven) ? Well there are some differences. For instance - there's yet another option for classic amiga users beside old phase5 products. It's old sonnet product. Yeah, so no "single source" but expensive b..ch. What else? Well there are way more PPC apps running on AOS3 than AC68080 apps running on AOS3 and also there is an option for "NG OS" like AOS4 or MOS classic. So that direction Vampire loses also. Vampire is a trap. It's something conceived as best 68k and to accelerate retro machines. It does that, true. But with great cost, much constraints (due to fixed Cyclone V A5 77k LE C8 FPGA) and those costly features are still way less than 10$ ARM SoC readily available anywhere. PiStorm atm isn't anything more interesting than A600 Vampire V1 - it's neither fast nor bugfree. But it has so much potential it hurts. At least in comparison what V4SA can do. So I don't know if PiStorm 68k emulation will be faster. I expect it will reach 060 level on Rpi4 at least. I don't know if there will be some native arm code under AOS3. I don't know if there will ever be a/v codecs and 3d accel under AOS3. But all those things are technically possible and way faster than whatever Apollo team might come up EVER. So sorry, I guess you misunderstood my point of view.

[manossg]

@Promilus

I am not sure I misunderstood. Sorry mate, but I feel both of your posts to be biased and lacking sobriety, with heated statements like "Vampire is a trap".

Originally Posted by Promilus

@manossg - you seems to omit the fact AC68080 features do not exist in any classic amiga except those with Vampire cards. Which means games and apps created around AMMX and SAGA features require different binary to run on classic amigas WITHOUT Vampire or won't run on them at all. What is different in this approach than what you get from PowerPC accelerator for classic amiga (concept over 20 years old and proven) ?

My point is exactly that these features do not exist in classic Amigas, so beefy Amigas, RPis and WinUAE cannot (yet) do what can be done with a Vampire. I hope you remember that this was exactly the meaning of my initial post when replying to the OP, which you tried to disprove initially by claiming that:

Originally Posted by Promilus

Wait what? I mean... couldn't you put soundcard, network card or graphic card to Amiga to achieve more than stock amiga could? Sure! So in that particular area Amiga with either ZIII or PCI slots allow users to improve/enhance experience. And when it comes to AGA or ECS software (i.e. games, really) all additions to Vampire SAGA doesn't mean a thing. You'd need to rewrite games to use all those fancy features which you can't. And while things like more colors and sprites, bigger resolutions etc. sound nice - most of those things were done 30 years ago using RTG - and that's area in which vampire doesn't offer anything beyond all those old solutions

Furthermore, you still haven't answered me about the price but shifted the goalpost to PPC. Ok, let's chat about PPCs (which cannot run Vamp software but can the Vamp run PPC software?). How much would I need to pay to have a working Amiga with a decent PPC accelerator?

Also, I do not care for OS4 or MOS, unfortunately they seem like dead ends to me and not very NG (although they had so much potential), so please do not divert the conversation.

PS. Would you kindly use paragraphs? I am not a native English speaker and walls of text really make reading your posts difficult for me.

[Anubis]

Why do I have a feeling that people who have Vampire boards are doing everything to justify their purchase (cost is just an arm and bit more ), even they have to admit that PiStorm offer more for much less?!

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Once you add all the bits needed to make it work the price balloons to 132,25 €, only 3.4 times less than the latest Vampire - and 6.25 times slower.

Man, what did you add to get to 132 EUR ? rPI 3A+ is around 20 EURos, You can use a 16GB SD card for 2 EUR and the piStorm is anywhere from 25 to 40 EURos... so you would be at around 50 EURos in the end.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

Man, what did you add to get to 132 EUR ? rPI 3A+ is around 20 EURos, You can use a 16GB SD card for 2 EUR and the piStorm is anywhere from 25 to 40 EURos... so you would be at around 50 EURos in the end.

That's the price for the set you get from Amigastore.eu, with WB license included, same as I mentioned earlier when comparing to ACA 500+.


I bet you can get it cheaper, but as a kind of brand-new, "official" indicator it's sort of valid too. I'm not sure how much of the requirement the official 3.xx WB (and Kickstart?) is, but I thought it does matter for more advanced operations.

[DDNI]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Once you add all the bits needed to make it work the price balloons to 132,25 €, only 3.4 times less than the latest Vampire - and 6.25 times slower.

I guess if you have a spare Pi hanging around it might be worth getting a PiStorm to try it out. But a 'Vampire killer'? Hardly.

I paid £77 all in . £23 for a new 3a, £4 for the 16gb MicroSD card and £50 for the pistorm.
If the pistorm was £11 as it should be, I should have spent £38.

The pistorm will not kill the vampire in performance, but it doesn't need to. When faced with a £400 purchase or ~£40 purchase, the majority will go cheap.
This is where pistorm kills vampire.