What is the real power of Akiko chip in cd32 ?

[Zac67]

Given the very simple way Akiko works (write chunky words to its registers and then read back/copy the planar converted data) it's no surprise the speed up is rather moderate. AFAIR there was some space left on the gate array that was to become Akiko and the developers tried to think up something useful. Well, they did, given the budget.

Something that would really have made a change:
- adding a c2p converter in front of Lisa's bus interface with on-the-fly conversion - no waste of bandwidth here
or better:
- adding a chunky mode to Lisa - was missing from AGA from the start

[Zac67]

If I understand this correctly, Akiko was the C2P equivalent of the FPU?

Do you mean the memory mapped mode w/ a 68000? That really is very similar. Sadly Akiko needs to be fed by the CPU and therefore somewhat thwarts the usual Amiga chip design of smart and efficient chips. But as mentioned earlier, the gate budget was very limited.

[Zac67]

Should have been a blitter mode :-/

It should have been a Lisa mode - so no data at all would have to get moved twice (or even more).

[Zac67]

100% ack - the 3000 should've had AGA and possibly some intermediate AAA by 1994 before adopting the other world's chips (on a PCI platform). But that didn't happen. Apple did it that way (mostly).