Some Vampire v2 600 confusion cleared up
Vampire refers to the product which clips onto the top of the Amiga CPU and takes over the entire Amiga system bus. It has a re-implemented compatible CPU (Apollo CPU), re-implements some Amiga custom chips (providing, for example, SAGA support) and uses FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) which means it can be frequently reprogrammed with new firmware. It has HDMI out via a flex connector, and SD card support to act as a hard disk (yet to be finalised). Vampire also has far more memory than classic Amigas (128MB fastmem) with lower latency and higher bandwidth.
FPGA is *not* emulation and is comparable to how most processors work. FPGA has a vast array of gates which have wires between them that can be reprogrammed to connect to different gates. Processors also have gates but are normally hardwired for the purpose of cheaper costs with very large production runs and finalised chip logic. FPGA therefore has more wiring between gates. Less wiring and fewer gates to ease wire routing means higher density, leading to higher efficiency, lower die sizes, and higher clocks due to lower power requirements.
The Apollo CPU is a greatly enhanced version of the CPU found within classic Amigas, more like a 68060 without the MMU (Memory Management Unit) but remaining instruction-compatible with the classic 68000 found within Amiga 500/600 and 68020 in Amiga 1200/CD32. Apollo has 64-bit instructions in additional to the classic instructions, stuff like MMX/SSE, and is super-scalar, meaning it can do far more work in one clock cycle than classic processors (when software is written or modified explicitly for Apollo), and is additionally clocked higher. Apollo has an FPU which supports all mathematical operations but the team are still working/testing on the integration (ADD/SUB/MUL/DIV etc. works perfectly).
SAGA is an enhancement of AGA which has additional screenmodes and larger number of colours and supports chunky pixels. With SAGA as the 'video chip', P96 is the software driver that uses the 'chip' which has a small additional fee as it required licensing. P96 is a 'ReTargetable Graphics' (RTG) driver which allows you to run RTG games and software, stuff that doesn't necessarily require the built-in Amiga custom chips to function. RTG stuff was common in the late Amiga era with high-end hardware such as video cards attached via the Zorro bus. If the optional P96 driver is not purchased, RTG support will not function, but SAGA will still work. However, the Apollo team is looking into a deal with the P96 developers where the driver licensing cost can be rolled into the final product cost.
Vampire will eventually take over the work of all the Amiga custom chips, as development continues.
