FPGA based A500 accelerator

[mkstr]

Progress report time... I have implemented a proper hardware SD controller module (4-bit SDIO not SPI mode). Currently mapped into memory so I can test it with this little AMOS tool I lashed up:



There are a few interesting possibilities with this that I will hopefully get chance to prove out over the weekend.

Mike

[Toni Wilen]

Does it work like an Amiga expansion and use proper autoconfig for internal expansion features (if it has internal bootable media support etc) instead of doing something stupid, weird and incompatible and practically shouting "I am the only one you ever need and want!"?

If there is A1200 version, does it support shut off mode (like blizzards) because this kind of board would be perfect combination with ACA500plus. Keep full compatibility or have really fast A500. Without need to change hardware.

[FREEMILK]

full compatibility is our primary goal.

[kipper2k]

Hi Toni,

I won't speak too much for Mike but it wont do any stupid incompatible things.

From my own personal point of view i wouldn't see any reason to plug an accelerator into the aca500+. i have never liked the idea of having a board sticking out of the side of the a500 let alone another board piggybacked to it. Mike may have different thoughts on this.

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Does it work like an Amiga expansion and use proper autoconfig for internal expansion features (if it has internal bootable media support etc) instead of doing something stupid, weird and incompatible and practically shouting "I am the only one you ever need and want!"?

If there is A1200 version, does it support shut off mode (like blizzards) because this kind of board would be perfect combination with ACA500plus. Keep full compatibility or have really fast A500. Without need to change hardware.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

Hi Toni,

I won't speak too much for Mike but it wont do any stupid incompatible things.

Sounds good (If there is any need for detailed autoconfig info, just ask)

From my own personal point of view i wouldn't see any reason to plug an accelerator into the aca500+. i have never liked the idea of having a board sticking out of the side of the a500 let alone another board piggybacked to it. Mike may have different thoughts on this.

I hate internal expansions because they always need to be removed when I need "unexpanded mode". I can't be only that sometimes needs original unexpanded A500 and sometimes fast CPU would make things easier. Having multiple A500s takes too much desk space.

But you don't need to care, simply implement switch off mode (and document it!), the rest is more or less my problem

[amiman99]

What is the estimated price for the accelerator?
Also, what is the final performance in MIPS or equivalent?
Thanks

[kipper2k]

@Toni,

Thanks for the offer

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by amiman99

What is the estimated price for the accelerator?
Also, what is the final performance in MIPS or equivalent?
Thanks

dhrystones are currently at 15,116 hopefully going up a a couple more thousand.
Mike is expecting sub 200euro. there are a lot more features that we havent announced yet.

Here is a list of some sample comparison scores....

[amiman99]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

dhrystones are currently at 15,116 hopefully going up a a couple more thousand.
Mike is expecting sub 200euro. there are a lot more features that we havent announced yet.

Here is a list of some sample comparison scores....

Thanks

[R4M]

Originally Posted by mkstr

It is likely that a subset of the full functionality will be open sourced once the boards go on sale, with more features being released as the product (and development community) matures.

Does that mean that running user modified HDL code will not be supported?

[mkstr]

Originally Posted by R4M

Does that mean that running user modified HDL code will not be supported?

My intention is to make the FPGA pinout available along with HDL source code for the basic glue to get TG68 up and running on the board. This will be more or less equivalent to the existing open source Vampire 1, and will be significantly lower performance than the closed core. Over time I will release additional features into the open source branch.

The design is not finalised yet, but you should expect to be able to load alternative bitstreams onto the board without losing access to the closed core (by this I mean you will be able to go back and forth - not run them simultaneously). I am also looking at ways that this can be achieved from the Amiga (i.e. without needing a programmer).

[kipper2k]

i think it is great to have the TG68 core available to be implemented inside a real amiga. I believe that the TG68 core is still actively being improved so the future s bright. For the people that want open source this would be a good stepping stone for them to actually learn more about the Amiga and coding

[AJCopland]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

i think it is great to have the TG68 core available to be implemented inside a real amiga. I believe that the TG68 core is still actively being improved so the future s bright. For the people that want open source this would be a good stepping stone for them to actually learn more about the Amiga and coding

Yeah, that's really all I'm hoping for, anything else is a bonus

[kipper2k]

@benmatthew

I am not sure if your acct is disabled due to your lack of posts as a new user, Can you send your msg to mkstr instead of me to his blog
contact page ...

[kipper2k]

for those that haven't seen the frontier video, here it was. (This was done when the speed was at 11k dhrystones test i think so it should be even smoother now we are at 15,116 dhrystones.

frontier video here

[mkstr]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

for those that haven't seen the frontier video, here it was. (This was done when the speed was at 11k dhrystones test i think so it should be even smoother now we are at 15,116 dhrystones.

frontier video here

Actually I think it was sub 10000 at this point - it was done ages ago. The improvements from subsequent performance gains are not so immediately obvious on Frontier so I haven't bother re-shooting the vid.

Anyone got any suggestions for other "hard" demos they'd like to see?

[NovaCoder]

I already suggested Day of the tentacle, if your accelerator can run that on an A500 then it's very fast!

[skan]

Originally Posted by mkstr

...
Anyone got any suggestions for other "hard" demos they'd like to see?

F1GP? Epic?

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

I already suggested Day of the tentacle, if your accelerator can run that on an A500 then it's very fast!

Wait, don't you need AGA for that?

[kipper2k]

i think DOTT is AGA, it works on AGA and CD32 i believe.

here is it running on a youtube demo (not with mikes accel)...

[ Show youtube player ]

the specs of the A1200 was Real Amiga 1200 - AGA 030/50 64MB so hopefully it would run good, time will tell

[hooverphonique]

AFAIK, there is an ECS version of ScummVM which dynamically reduces the number of colours to 64.