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Author Topic: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.  (Read 21678 times)

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Offline TuKoTopic starter

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[UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« on: January 31, 2016, 07:59:51 PM »
Dear all,

I'm very pleased to announce that I've received my card, from the first batch from majsta. I received it quickly as I'll be demonstrating it within next days in Switzerland to our local Amiga usergroup.

I'll continuously be updating this thread with pictures, comments and videos.

1) Unboxing and first tests
I received it with the SILVER core, which will be the default one everyone should receive. The card was well packaged and it included two mounts. Kipper2k made a small tutorial explaning how to install them.

The card :




Physical installation went fine and after some minutes my A600 (rev1.5) booted. My A600 is upgraded with A604n, RTC clock and I'm using a RGB->VGA adapter and Rys MKII USB adapter for my Logitech mouse.



As you can see on the picture, my Amiga is showing ROM 3.1. The hardware ROM 3.1 is completely bypassed and only the dumped ROM inside Vampire is used. Why that ? It's because the Apollo team had to patch some routines to get the 128Mb fully adressed and standardize Vampire setups. It's also faster as it's acting more or less like a MapROM. Anyway, this part is not the most interesting one...

Then, I added my CF with 3.9bb2 (without ROM Update as it is known to cause problem) and it booted. After disabling FBlit which also cause graphic corruption at the moment, I then immediatly went to see my old friend Sysinfo.



I then headed to my favourite Amiga game... Simon the Sorcerer, running WHDLoad 18.2. It worked flawlessly and I even had less hickups than with my old ACA620.

So... yes, it's alive, it exists and it's just the fastest Amiga accelerator I've ever had.

The magic is there...


2) Silver core - my impressions

My first impression is exactly the same as the one when I went from my A1200 '030 to my shiny A4000 '060. It boots like a rocket and workbench is snappy as it could be in WinUAE.

Only thing that was a bit hard at start was to understand that the card takes a bit more time (I mean, no more than 1-2 seconds) than with the onboard CPU to boot or reboot. So when you want to shutdown your A600 and quickly power it on back, you'll have to wait some seconds.

I've been amazed to play a MP3 on my A600, it was just impossible until now !

So, at current state, Silver Core provides the user mostly speed and horse power. In the future, we will know how to work with P96 once the licencing thing has been sorted out.

3) Beta cores

I was in discussion with the Apollo team to join the testing team because I naturally love taking risks and testing new things. I'm that kind of user that will take time to push things to get last decimal of performance... adding real-use test case to the team will be my objective as I have no ASM knowledge. Taking this route, I have been warned that it might not be the most stable one, but I'm ok with that.

As I have access to latest beta cores, I installed Quartus software and flashed my card with the latest one and an USB Blaster. Majsta wrote a tutorial about this. I did it installing the latest version of Quartus on a Windows 10 x64 environnment.

First thing, and not the smallest one, is that it immediatly added about 20% of performance in SysInfo.


But the big thing is this...


After some days with it and several core tested, I got OS3.9bb4 running (screenshot taken with Sgrab) :
 

Offline Bennymee

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Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #1 on: January 31, 2016, 08:06:58 PM »
Looks great! My card is coming soon I hope.

How compatible is it with games and demo's ?
Amiga 500, 1200, 4000, Amigaone, Morphos, CyberstormPPC, Blizzardppc, OS4.x
 

Offline Marcin1982

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Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #2 on: January 31, 2016, 08:10:15 PM »
impressive  , but when will be this card for sell for example in Amigakit ? retroami to other internet shop ?

today this card is virtual for me :-) I don't like pay for virtual thing
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #3 on: January 31, 2016, 08:11:07 PM »
haha! the vampire uproar reaches org.. welcome!
 

Offline TuKoTopic starter

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Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #4 on: January 31, 2016, 08:46:05 PM »
Quote from: Bennymee;803213
Looks great! My card is coming soon I hope.

How compatible is it with games and demo's ?


I haven't had time to try it a lot but I can say it's very compatible with most WHDload games. I focused on setting up a working workbench with P96 :-)
 

Offline TuKoTopic starter

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Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #5 on: January 31, 2016, 08:47:18 PM »
Quote from: Marcin1982;803214
impressive  , but when will be this card for sell for example in Amigakit ? retroami to other internet shop ?

today this card is virtual for me :-) I don't like pay for virtual thing


This review clearly shows it's not virtual.

You can order it from kipper2k.
 

Offline Marcin1982

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Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #6 on: January 31, 2016, 09:03:25 PM »
Quote from: TuKo;803222
This review clearly shows it's not virtual.

You can order it from kipper2k.

pay and then wait for five months or more  ! thank for that business
« Last Edit: January 31, 2016, 09:07:39 PM by Marcin1982 »
 

Offline Niding

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Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #7 on: January 31, 2016, 09:13:40 PM »
Quote from: Marcin1982;803224
pay and then wait for five months or more  ! thank for that business

Considering this is a hobby project where cards are being assembled by a couple of people, I dont see how they could do instant delivery like mainstream massconsumption hardware.
Its that knowledge that makes people pre-order, so they are first in line once the cards are developed.

Hardly a new concept.

@Majesta/kipper2k Impressive hardware!
 

Offline Marcin1982

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Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #8 on: January 31, 2016, 09:28:38 PM »
"Considering this is a hobby project where cards are being assembled by a couple of people"
exactly , this is big pain-problem Amiga computer !!

like I remember from half 90 years  non-stop is the same problem , hobby project and wait wait wait for nothing

ppc shark vel sonnet crescendo 7200  super great card ,  but where are this card for buy ? :-)

the same problem for twenty year

and this is main reason why Amiga died

always have to wait for nothing

vampire should be now get for big production ! for many waiting people for that hardware
 

Offline Lurch

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Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #9 on: January 31, 2016, 09:47:24 PM »
Hmmm now I just need an A600. Would be interested in an A1200 version though. Willl it run 060 demos is a question.
-=[LurcH]=-
A500 Plus Black 030@40MHz 128MB | A1200T 060@80MHz 320MB | Pegasos II G4@1GHz 1GB  | Amiga Future Sub
 

Offline carvedeye

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Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #10 on: January 31, 2016, 09:48:39 PM »
Quote from: Lurch;803229
Would be interested in an A1200 version though. Willl it run 060 demos is a question.


Me too :)
A1200T: M1230XA 50Mhz 68030 w/64mb,DVDRom, 80gb hdd, Realtek LAN Card, Mediator LT4 + Radeon 9250 128mb(used for fast ram), Spider USB Card, Voodoo 3 3000 OS 3.9 +bb 1-3
 

Offline TuKoTopic starter

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Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #11 on: January 31, 2016, 09:57:04 PM »
Quote from: carvedeye;803230
Me too :)


Only demos that do not require FPU (FPU is not enabled at the moment).
 

Offline Niding

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Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #12 on: January 31, 2016, 09:57:46 PM »
Quote from: Marcin1982;803228
"Considering this is a hobby project where cards are being assembled by a couple of people"
exactly , this is big pain-problem Amiga computer !!

like I remember from half 90 years  non-stop is the same problem , hobby project and wait wait wait for nothing

ppc shark vel sonnet crescendo 7200  super great card ,  but where are this card for buy ? :-)

the same problem for twenty year

and this is main reason why Amiga died

always have to wait for nothing

vampire should be now get for big production ! for many waiting people for that hardware


Large scale production costs alot of money. Alot of money upfront requires *someone* to take that risk.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #13 on: January 31, 2016, 11:33:38 PM »
Quote from: Marcin1982;803228
"Considering this is a hobby project where cards are being assembled by a couple of people"
exactly , this is big pain-problem Amiga computer !!

like I remember from half 90 years  non-stop is the same problem , hobby project and wait wait wait for nothing

ppc shark vel sonnet crescendo 7200  super great card ,  but where are this card for buy ? :-)

the same problem for twenty year

and this is main reason why Amiga died

always have to wait for nothing

vampire should be now get for big production ! for many waiting people for that hardware


you may have noticed, that even when some hardware was being on sale in the "official" stores you named, hasnt saved the customers to wait weeks, months or maybe longer for the actual delivery. i think the vampire/apollo team is doing just fine in this comparison and by the way are keeping the price low without the handler margin.
 

Offline DutchinUSA

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Re: [UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.
« Reply #14 on: February 01, 2016, 12:19:24 AM »
Indeed, don't feed the troll please :laughing: