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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: VingtTrois on October 24, 2015, 11:57:47 PM

Title: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: VingtTrois on October 24, 2015, 11:57:47 PM
Project by Lukas F. Hartmann
Facebook link (Commodore Amiga Group): https://www.facebook.com/groups/CommodoreAmiga/permalink/10153216801414157/

Quote
Vga graphics card prototype for amiga 2000. papilio pro will connect to the pin headers which has the FPGA + ram (that part already works).


(http://s18.postimg.org/aa0slpprt/11011480_10153696081937065_1245408902580610526_n.jpg)
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: Jeff on October 25, 2015, 12:06:25 AM
Awesome work! I wish I could see more but I don't "Facebook" ?
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: Oldsmobile_Mike on October 25, 2015, 12:26:59 AM
Quote from: Jeff;798065
Awesome work! I wish I could see more but I don't "Facebook" ?

Not too many details over there either.  Joe Torre is commenting on it, however!  :)

Screenshots:
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: Iggy on October 25, 2015, 12:51:40 AM
Hmm, I'm a sucker for this kind of thing as I have kept my A2000 around for so long because it appeals to me as the most bullet proof Amiga model.

But what are they emulating with the fpga?

And will it be faster than a low cost Voodoo3 in a PCI expansion for the A1200 or A4000 (where the cost of the expansion is the primary issue)?

There is a point where a really advanced 68K Amiga begins to get near the bottom level of an NG system's performance.

But no matter how much money you throw at it, its never going to really compete.

Even with my disappointment over the Tabor's specs, money invested in PPC hardware still seems (at least to me) to be a better deal in terms of dollars vs performance.

Still, would I buy one...er...maybe.
AND an fpga accelerator.

I never insisted on my Amiga purchases making sense, for God's sake!
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: mechy on October 25, 2015, 12:59:25 AM
Quote from: Iggy;798071
Hmm, I'm a sucker for this kind of thing as I have kept my A2000 around for so long because it appeals to me as the most bullet proof Amiga model.

But what are they emulating with the fpga?

And will it be faster than a low cost Voodoo3 in a PCI expansion for the A1200 or A4000 (where the cost of the expansion is the primary issue)?

There is a point where a really advanced 68K Amiga begins to get near the bottom level of an NG system's performance.

But no matter how much money you throw at it, its never going to really compete.

Even with my disappointment over the Tabor's specs, money invested in PPC hardware still seems (at least to me) to be a better deal in terms of dollars vs performance.

Still, would I buy one...er...maybe.
AND an fpga accelerator.

I never insisted on my Amiga purchases making sense, for God's sake!


Althought i love the 2000 and own them and started out on them, realise zorro2 bus is a horribly slow bottleneck on the 2000,topping out at 3.5MB/s on a good day downhill with the wind. it can never meet or exceed the A3000/4000 zorro3 which tops out around 14MB/s or so.
The 1200  has a smaller access window(mediator wise) than the 3000/4000 not to mention no buster 11 so it falls somewhere between the 2000 and zorro3 machines speed wise.

the only way to get decent gfx performance is to get a zorro3 machine. that is not to say it doesnt work on zorro2,its just when you kick the res up it really slows down
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: Iggy on October 25, 2015, 01:43:21 AM
Quote from: mechy;798072
Althought i love the 2000 and own them and started out on them, realise zorro2 bus is a horribly slow bottleneck on the 2000,topping out at 3.5MB/s on a good day downhill with the wind. it can never meet or exceed the A3000/4000 zorro3 which tops out around 14MB/s or so.
The 1200  has a smaller access window(mediator wise) than the 3000/4000 not to mention no buster 11 so it falls somewhere between the 2000 and zorro3 machines speed wise.

the only way to get decent gfx performance is to get a zorro3 machine. that is not to say it doesnt work on zorro2,its just when you kick the res up it really slows down


THAT is why I have not considered RTG graphics in the past.
Even the transfer speeds of the 3000 and 4000 are kind of painful compared to more modern hardware.

So, legacy Amiga...fun but not practical.
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: mongo on October 25, 2015, 02:22:19 AM
Why use a papilio pro and not just mount the FPGA + RAM on the board itself?
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: IanP on October 25, 2015, 03:32:19 PM
It's sometimes cheaper to buy an off the shelf board than small quantities of components like RAM and FPGAs, I don't know if thats the case here though.
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: IanP on October 25, 2015, 03:37:54 PM
There are some bits and pieces on this twitter account of Lukas https://twitter.com/mntmn (https://twitter.com/mntmn) including a link to a schematic.
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: Iggy on October 25, 2015, 04:32:34 PM
Quote from: IanP;798107
It's sometimes cheaper to buy an off the shelf board than small quantities of components like RAM and FPGAs, I don't know if thats the case here though.

Yes, it would appear that he is using an off the shelf fpga board and gluing it to an Amiga adapter.

A rather clever solution.

This has my interest again.

I wonder what kind of core he is thinking bout?
If it has acceleration, this could still be promising.

And even with the ZorroII bus limitations, its likely to be more powerful than ECS graphics.
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: mechy on October 25, 2015, 04:58:06 PM
Quote from: Iggy;798073
THAT is why I have not considered RTG graphics in the past.
Even the transfer speeds of the 3000 and 4000 are kind of painful compared to more modern hardware.

So, legacy Amiga...fun but not practical.

comparing it to modern hardware makes absolutely no sense because if all you want is modern hardware, you wouldn't be messing with amiga. I use a mediator in a 4k with 060/ppc, and i can tell you the radeon is always waiting around twiddling its thumbs at 1600x1200x32 workench res. the Picasso Iv served me well thru the 90's on also.

if you meant transfer speed as in scsi etc, UWscsi on the csMK3 and ppc cards does around 35-40MB/s and i assure its quite nice. The right comination of parts in a 3000/4000 does quite well.
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: Iggy on October 25, 2015, 07:06:18 PM
Quote from: mechy;798111
comparing it to modern hardware makes absolutely no sense because if all you want is modern hardware, you wouldn't be messing with amiga. I use a mediator in a 4k with 060/ppc, and i can tell you the radeon is always waiting around twiddling its thumbs at 1600x1200x32 workench res. the Picasso Iv served me well thru the 90's on also.

if you meant transfer speed as in scsi etc, UWscsi on the csMK3 and ppc cards does around 35-40MB/s and i assure its quite nice. The right comination of parts in a 3000/4000 does quite well.

Well...just 'cause its overkill, doesn't mean I wouldn't find it appealing. ;)
Although a Radeon video card (or my older preference the Voodoo3) require a PCI expansion bus that just doesn't seem to work perfectly when grafted onto an Amiga.

And overkill..well I backed off my 2.7 GHz G5 under MorphOS to move to a slower (and quieter) system.

So, let's throw practicalities out the window and see what we get with this one.
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: Robbie on October 26, 2015, 08:17:28 AM
this is cool and i'm delighted when I see A2000 hardware developed but wouldn't you be able to bypass the Zorro 2 (& 8mb) bottleneck with some kind of genius FPGA CPU + GFX card in the CPU slot? But I suppose that would be a lot more expensive all round. Overall though, good stuff, as people have said it's not about competing with modern hardware, but it's still fun to push these machines as far as they can go.
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: Oldsmobile_Mike on October 26, 2015, 06:07:01 PM
Building new hardware is the "easy" part, but unless they can make it software-compatible with P96 or CGX, what's the point?

Meh, if and when it comes out I'll probably buy one, but in the meantime it's probably vapor, just like the UltimatePPC (http://ultimateppc.nl/gallery.php).  And those guys actually produced some hardware.  :(
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: Oldsmobile_Mike on October 26, 2015, 06:11:57 PM
Quote from: Robbie;798142
wouldn't you be able to bypass the Zorro 2 (& 8mb) bottleneck with some kind of genius FPGA CPU + GFX card in the CPU slot?

Or you could do it like how the G-Rex did it. ;)
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: Matt_H on October 26, 2015, 06:22:13 PM
Quote from: Oldsmobile_Mike;798163
Building new hardware is the "easy" part, but unless they can make it software-compatible with P96 or CGX, what's the point?


I wonder if that's the logic behind the use of an FPGA? Use it to essentially emulate a CV64 or similar - no software needed. Wouldn't do much new on the capabilities front, but it would clear up the severe supply constraints of RTG hardware.
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: QuikSanz on May 13, 2016, 06:06:05 PM
Quote from: Robbie;798142
this is cool and i'm delighted when I see A2000 hardware developed but wouldn't you be able to bypass the Zorro 2 (& 8mb) bottleneck with some kind of genius FPGA CPU + GFX card in the CPU slot? But I suppose that would be a lot more expensive all round. Overall though, good stuff, as people have said it's not about competing with modern hardware, but it's still fun to push these machines as far as they can go.


My picture of a perfect Zorro 2 solution would be just that! Fast FPGA accelerator w/Graphics built in, SATA and an input for Standard Amiga modes from an indie ECS, also needs to lift the 8MB restriction on the Zorro bus like a good card should. Best of all worlds, still room on the bus for Sound card, USB and eithernet.

Chris
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: billt on May 13, 2016, 09:45:06 PM
Quote from: Iggy;798071
But what are they emulating with the fpga?

what makes you think they are emulating anything? could be an entirely new vga chip deign. or they may try to emulate a cirrus or other already supported card and chip to make use of existing drivers.

im not sure what this particular fpga is capable of, but its already limited to zorro2 from the sounds of things. i like the idea of using a commercial foga module. not sure what bigger modules there are for other projects, such as z3.
Title: Re: VGA graphic card for AMIGA 2000
Post by: trekiej on May 14, 2016, 12:27:05 AM
I hope this works out.