Vampire V4 or X5000

[ItsTheSmell]

After listening to some recent interviews with Trevor Dickinson and gunner fromApollos I'm thinking of buying one of the latest amigas to help support the scene. If you were to do this what would you buy and why? Any other options welcomed.


Daz

[Gordon]

The latest Amiga are the AGA Amiga's so you won't be supporting the scene by buying a modern PC with the Amiga name attached or glorified emulator like the vampire. If you want to support the scene then get your self a classic Amiga and get some of the new upgrades to help support as you said.

[ItsTheSmell]

Originally Posted by Gordon

The latest Amiga are the AGA Amiga's so you won't be supporting the scene by buying a modern PC with the Amiga name attached or glorified emulator like the vampire. If you want to support the scene then get your self a classic Amiga and get some of the new upgrades to help support as you said.

The original Amigas are getting old now and one day they will die. So I guess im looking for the best option for the next gen Amiga.

[Promilus]

@Gordon - you won't be supporting the scene with old amiga from someone's closet either. Demoscene productions will work on both classic amiga, morphos with emulation, amigaos4 with emulation, linux with emulation, windows with emulation, android with emulation or apolloOS with reimplementation/emulation. Buying stuff from AOS4 guys you support AOS4 guys. Buying MOS-compatible hw you don't support anyone, but buying MOS you support MOS guys. Buying stock classic amiga you don't support anyone. Buying stock classic amiga and modern expansion you support those who developed it and manufactured it. No matter what you'll choose you support different groups or none at all. You can be amiga fan with or without physical amiga with commodore sticker. If it is a fun for you - you are the winner.

[ItsTheSmell]

you can support the developers who are designing games. And so what would be the best choice for someone like me to spend money on, the Vampire is 600 quid and the x5000 is 1800 quid. both are valid but Id like to know other peoples thoughts on the pros and cons of both systems.

[manossg]

I had quite the same dilemma, torn between a V4, an A1200/4000 with upgrades and I quickly dismissed the X5000 (and similar).

Well, the choice was quite easy and I am a happy owner of a V4, having hours of fun with this amazing little piece of hardware. The reasons are:
1) Price. The V4 comes at a fraction of the price of the other choices.
2) New hardware. I already have a beloved but aging A500 and I know of the pains needed to keep it running smoothly.
3) Space. The V4 occupies just a small portion of my desk, where I would never manage to fit even an A600.
4) Performance. The V4 is simply a beast, it beats even my Pi4 on some games.
5) Vision for the future/development. The various cores/updates get improved on an astonishingly fast rate. The AROS vision for the future is also one with which I philosophically agree, although ApollOS is far from usable/stable/compatible for me, at least now.

Edit: I saw that you also wanted the cons, so here they are, for the V4:
1) Software development is a bit sluggish, apart from the excellent work done by Arti. Most old software do not take advantage of the Vamp's capabilities.
2) Compatibility is suspect at best, so V4 is not a good choice if you want it for WHDLoad gaming. Some games work perfectly, but most work with glitches/crashes and some don't work at all. And you cannot use the savegame option in most games, so you had better forget most adventures/strategy/rpgs in WHDLoad.
3) Documentation doesn't follow the fast core/OS developments, so you have to experiment a bit.

[Seiya]

Analyzing this 2 hardware i think this:

Vampire V4 is a hardware that simply simulate Amiga and some chipset are emulated
X5000 is a common PPC hardware compatible with only AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS and compatibility with Amiga only through UAE

The best solution if you want real Amiga is upgraded A1200/4000 or emulation.

[grond]

Easy choice - a Vampire 4 because that runs the classic Amiga software catalogue while for that software a PPC machine would just be a very expensive tool for running UAE.

[Promilus]

Cost effective - SBC or PC and software emulation. Ryzen based SBC (Advantech sell those, probably Asrock as well) destroys everything with JIT.

Slow but most compatible and nostalgic - classic amiga (A1200 preferably)

Expensive but probably best target as a turbo boosted classic-like hardware - V4 hands down

Extremely expensive and probably fastest Amiga-like PPC out there - X5000.

Pick your poison.

[jPV]

Originally Posted by Seiya

X5000 is a common PPC hardware compatible with only AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS and compatibility with Amiga only through UAE

At least X5000 has a custom motherboard which is designed just for next gen AmigaOS use. So, not that "common" hardware I'd say...

And both AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS do run system friendly classic Amiga software (68k/PUP/WOS) without UAE because they are both binary and API compatible with older AmigaOSes. Only hardware hitting software needs UAE.

Originally Posted by grond

Easy choice - a Vampire 4 because that runs the classic Amiga software catalogue while for that software a PPC machine would just be a very expensive tool for running UAE.

I don't run UAE on my PPC ng machines, but I still use the best classic Amiga software on it much faster than on any real 68k or FPGA setup.

[Daedalus]

Really, you need to think about what you want to do. The whole "supporting the scene" thing has been covered already - in reality there are several different niche scenes under the Amiga umbrella, and you can choose to support any one of them, or none of them. If you do decide to support one or other niche, it should be for something you'll actually enjoy.

An X5000 is *very* expensive, but in comparison to massively expanded classic hardware it actually compares well enough (you could easily spend the same money on an A4000 setup with only a fraction of the performance). And for raw speed and graphics capability with system-friendly software, nothing in the classic hardware arena can get anywhere near it - not even the Vampire. The OS is also a dramatic step up from OS 3, and after using it for a while, going back to using a classic will feel clunky and primitive. OS 3.2 is bringing some of the OS4 features back to the classic, but there's still a big difference. Using modern peripherals (USB, SATA, PCI and PCI Express) is nice too, but takes away some of the experience of cobbling things together, fine-tuning to get the extra few bytes/second out of hard drive accesses and what not that often occupies hours on a classic setup. And while it may resemble a semi-modern PC, it's not one and isn't a replacement for one, so don't expect it to be a drop-in replacement for one in daily use. Having said that, a level of productivity is possible that is above and beyond anything classics can do, with updated graphics packages, a semi-decent web browser, and access to applications like Abiword, Gnumeric and Gimp. System-friendly applications integrate seamlessly with the OS, but hardware-banging games will need to run in an emulator as pointed out. So if your main use is going to be running old skool classic games, the X5000 is not for you - you'll get a better experience from any cheap PC. If your main use is system-friendly software, the X5000 is the way to go.

The Vampire on the other hand, is a decent bit of kit for a classic experience, and costs less than the X5000 (though still a sizeable chunk of cash). It's very fast, has lots of RAM and has some impressive features on paper, but also has a few compromises. The RTG implementation is welcome as an add-on to a classic, but it's mediocre, with a limited resolution (or more specifically, pixel clock), and a fussy "HDMI" output that doesn't always work with every display. It can also emulate the native AGA chipset, but this is a work in progress and isn't 100% compatible yet. And it offer extensions beyond AGA such as higher speeds, extra sprites and audio channels, but there's very little software that actually uses these extra features - higher end classic software uses RTG and AHI to achieve the same goals.

Another alternative to these options is the MiSTer, which aims to recreate the classic experience as well as possible, rather than trying to extend it. As such, it behaves like a reasonably fast '030 A1200 setup with RTG. Not as fast as a Vampire standalone, but much cheaper and with more modest goals meaning better compatibility. And then you can get into things like the various Raspberry Pi-based setups, which will cost you very little and give the Vampire a run for its money.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by ItsTheSmell

you can support the developers who are designing games.

You can support developers, just by buying the games, and you don't need to own any Amiga.

To answer to your initial question, I'd go for Vampire standalone + stock A1200 for WHDLoad games (or A500 with Aca 500 plus if you don't care about Aga games).
So, that way you could have experience from the "both worlds", classic Amiga, and new.

Also, that new Buffy project looks interesting.

[ItsTheSmell]

Oh yeah I forgot about buffy the vampire slayer. That will run on original hardware which is getting old. I think the V4 will be my next purchase.

[stevelord]

As someone who owns a few Amigas, including an A4000 and most recently added a MiSTer setup to their collection:

1. The Vampire and MiSTer are similar in some ways each with different goals. If you're considering FPGA, I would choose MiSTer over Vampire if I wanted to also have support for other platforms like C64, Spectrum, consoles etc. with original controller support. I'm very impressed with MiSTer but lack a Vampire for comparison. If you're not going to use Vampire enhanced software, the value is really dependent on what you're comparing it to.

2. An X5000 is good if you want access to PPC software such as later games and is apparently very fast for classic Amiga tools, but has some compatibility issues.

3. To echo Daedalus, I spent probably way more than an X5000 budget on my Amiga 4000 setup and while I love it to bits it's far from 100% compatible. I'd say my A4000 is a more compatible than an X5000, but possibly less than a Vampire given the 060.

As an aside it's also worth looking at a CD32 with expansions and the A1200 or even an A500 depending on what you're after.

[ItsTheSmell]

Can the mister do neogeo games?

Reading these reminded me of David Pleasance' attempt to unify the Amiga in his next book. It might be interesting to see if he can do it and what his proposals are, if anyone can do it its him. Its a pity the original hardware designers don't get together and build something in the ideology/spirit of Amiga. It wouldn't be a failure with the fanbase already installed.

[Daedalus]

I think you're underestimating the extent of the zealotry in the various camps. The original hardware designers aren't going to please everyone.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by ItsTheSmell

Can the mister do neogeo games?

The vampire in my opinion is a machine too fast for standard games and too slow for RTG or new generation games or applications, also you can find incompatibility with games from ECS/OCS/AGA floppy or WHDload.

The future of the Amiga is emulation, no hardware worries, great compatibility, all Amiga models available at the click of a button, the fastest Amiga there is.

[ItsTheSmell]

You may be right, its just that I don't enjoy emulation. I hate Windows, I hate Gates. Apple products are crap according to Louis Rossman. Amiga is the the best computer ever created.

What do you mean when u say the vampire is too fast for standard games?

[Daedalus]

Fair enough, I prefer using native hardware to emulation. But who mentioned Windows? If your issue with emulation revolves around the big names like Microsoft and Apple, there are plenty of other options. Get a free PC out of a bin somewhere and install Linux on it. Use FS-UAE, or even WinUAE under WINE (which is what I tend to do).

[ItsTheSmell]

my daily driver is PureOS and wine will not run on it.