ADOOM on A600 running 22-35 FPS

[danbeaver]

Could that be 2048 KB, i.e., 2 MB?

Because those numbers are silly.

[kolla]

I also do not see the point in limiting fast RAM, just go for 2GB and be done with it.

[kolla]

There is a huge difference between opening a bunch of tabs and doing work in a bunch of tabs. But yes seriously, why limit Fast RAM, why not max out directly on the board and be done with it?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I also do not see the point in limiting fast RAM, just go for 2GB and be done with it.

Oh hell man, why stop there?  I can buy a 32GB stick of DDR3 at Newegg for $500.  Why not just SMD those chips directly onto the new accelerator?  Never mind that that would jack up the cost of the thing by at least that much.  It's a cost/benefit analysis.  ECON 100.  

[NovaCoder]

I also do not see the point in limiting fast RAM, just go for 2GB and be done with it.

In an ideal world then yes that would be awesome but things are not always that simple.   The OS has some issues accessing more than 512 MB and the hardware becomes more complicated to build (cost and time to develop go up).   You also have to think about what applications would need that much, really there's not much.

As long as a new Accelerator had say 256 or 512 MB RAM then it should be enough.    

The only other thing I'd consider adding is an HD controller (SATA would be ideal).

If you start adding graphics chips and USB etc the complexity goes up for the hardware and the development of the drivers to actually use these extras.

But the biggest issue I have with sticking an off-the-shelf FPGA computer inside a Classic case is that it will turn my A1200 into a retro keyboard!

If you simple want to 'play' around with an modern mini-computer then you can just buy a Raspberry Pi instead.  You could even stick it in an old A1200 case if that's your thing

I think the biggest market for an FPGA accelerator is in something cheap and configurable (can emulate different hardware 030/68000/060 all with or without FPU)...something very similar to the Vampire with more power and memory.  

And then make it available for all Classic Amigas

[danbeaver]

I was going to suggest bootstrapping a Cray super computer to the board to crunch numbers (since there is no FPU), but even a full implementation of the 32-bit bus on an A4000 limits the accessible ram to 1 GB (you need addresses for the hardware) and on an X1000 is around 1.8 GB (barring extended memory mapping).

However since there exists a working design with quite adequate RAM for its market, why not start there?  Then later, once the Cray addition is up and running, add more RAM.

[paul1981]

You could even stick it in an old A1200 case if that's your thing

Yes, but do make sure you power it off first.

[ChaosLord]

Oh hell man, why stop there?  I can buy a 32GB stick of DDR3 at Newegg for $500.  Why not just SMD those chips directly onto the new accelerator?  Never mind that that would jack up the cost of the thing by at least that much.  It's a cost/benefit analysis.  ECON 100.  

No.  Wrong.

The reason you don't put 32GB of RAM on an Amiga is because Amiga is just like your Phone.  It is a 32-bit computer and has a hard limit of 4GB of addressable memory space.  So the most you could realistically use on an Amiga is 3GB.

Making new accellerator cards for Amigas in 2015 that have LESS RAM than an old 1990s Amiga is lame from the consumer's perspective.  Amigas already had 256MB of ram waaaaay back in the previous century.  Going backwards is not progress, it is congress.


And btw my W7 PC has had 32GB of ram for over a whole year now.  Why can't my Amiga have 2 lousy GB?

[QuikSanz]

" Going backwards is not progress, it is congress. "

Lol, classic! Gotta love it.

Chris

[amiman99]

For the record, here is a screenshot of my Opera browser, displaying 99 open tabs and using only 2.4GB of memory, with zero performance issues.  What can I say?  I'm really ADD.  

That's a lot of RAM for 99 TABS, I got Firefox running with 55 TABS, all of them accessing Web pages, not empty, and I'm only using 524MB of RAM.

Staying on topic:
That's great performance out of the Vampire, finally someone showed Doom running on Vampire!

[NovaCoder]

And btw my W7 PC has had 32GB of ram for over a whole year now.  Why can't my Amiga have 2 lousy GB?

Hiya,

Like I said above, 2 GB in a new FPGA based accelerator would be very cool to see BUT if it's going to increase the cost or development time (significantly) then I don't think it's worth it considering how these boards will be used 99% of the time.

[ChaosLord]

In an ideal world then yes that would be awesome but things are not always that simple.   The OS has some issues accessing more than 512 MB and the hardware becomes more complicated to build (cost and time to develop go up).

You are getting your numbers mixed up my friend. :lol:

The issues you are thinking about happen at the 2048MB limit.  There are no 512MB or 1024MB issues.

You should edit your message. :hammer:

[ChaosLord]

That's a lot of RAM for 99 TABS, I got Firefox running with 55 TABS, all of them accessing Web pages, not empty, and I'm only using 524MB of RAM.

I have chrome going with 44 tabs, mostly all are different websites.  REAL websites with lots of gfx.  All flash is blocked with FlashBlock.  But ads are not blocked so a lot of ram is being "wasted" with various animgifs and .jpgs + I am watching 1 episode of freely distributable Star Trek in a video player + I have some torrents going.

Total RAM usage 12.4GB

If I fire up WinUAE then it goes up to around 14.4GB

If my Bill Gates compatible personal computer is allowed to use 14.4GB then I think it is only fair to let Amiga compatible computers use a small tiny little 2GB.

[IanP]

Since the future upgrades will be using an off the shelf development board with 128MB on it, that's the only realistic option for this generation of devices. The limited IO of the development board is almost certainly all being used to interface with the rest of the Amiga system and the peripherals on the daughterboard so adding more (really) fast RAM is a non-starter. If you were designing it from scratch you'd probably have at least 512MB but designing and building a board like that needs expertise, time and money. 128MB should be plenty for most tasks. How many people have more than that now on their classic Amiga? Has any 68k accelerator ever had more than 128MB as standard? It's twice as much as the Vampire 600.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

No.  Wrong.

The reason you don't put 32GB of RAM on an Amiga is because Amiga is just like your Phone.  It is a 32-bit computer and has a hard limit of 4GB of addressable memory space.  So the most you could realistically use on an Amiga is 3GB.

No.  Wrong.

Bank switching has been around for decades.  Or set it up as a ram disk.  Or a RAD:.  There's ways it could be used.

Also, we were pointing out with humorous over-exaggeration the absurdity of your previous claims that all web browsers/graphics programs/music programs "require" 2GB of memory.  Which is just absolutely ridiculous and not true.

You've got a bad attitude, buddy.  I get that you're some "great programmer" of a game no one can play because they don't have 2GB of memory in their classic systems.  I also understand that you've had a lot of health issues making you grumpy, but I've got metal plates and screws holding my spine together, so I'm pretty grumpy, too, but I still suck it up and play full-contact sports every day.  So if you crawled out from under your rock just to tell people they're "No. Wrong." all the time, you can go back to it.

Whatever, I'm done here.

[danbeaver]

Off Topic (of what a great demo of the Vampire running Doom):

The A600 is NOT a 32-bit computer.