To Vampire or not

[IanP]

I also don't recall the Apollo team ever claiming that the MMU of the Apollo Core for the Vampire would ever be compatible with previous 68k MMU's.

I'm also a little surprised to read the Vampire has a lot of compatibility issues with whdload games as I would have expected to read about a lot more examples of this by now if it's the case. As for non-whdload games well that's always been a lottery with any Amiga setup (needing ROM switchers, memory disable switches, accelerator disable switches etc. for compatibility with some games).

On the upside the Apollo Core will likely allow AGA games to be played on a Vampired A500/1000/2000 or A600 soon, although as always only buy it for what it can do now. What it can do now is also allow you to play a lot of new ports of demanding games thanks to the work of guys like Arti and Modern Vintage Gamer. The OpenBOR engine has over 100 games listed on http://www.gamesdatabase.org/all_system_games-openbor

[IanP]

The one consistent claim you keep hearing repeated is what this will do "soon".

But they have implemented new instructions that almost nothing supports!

Hey, the excuses about not promising a compatible MMU (which an '040 or above cpu should have) don't make up for the lack of a floating point unit.

So cut the BS. This crap IS Natami style cultish at times.

It's not as tedious as the constant cultish demands for an FPU.

[IanP]

Seriously?
In many MP3 players, a few video games I can think of (like ClickBoom's port of Quake), most 3D graphic software...
If Gunnar is having a problem finding packages that can use fpu routines, he isn't trying very hard.

Plenty of MP3 player options that don't need an FPU to choose from and with 16bit sound likely to be added to the Vampires some players may be considered obsolete if not capable of 16bit support.

I would think that there would only be a handful of games that need an FPU.

I would also think there are only an handful of masochists still using an Amiga for 3D graphics work.

The main use of an FPU is likely in the demo scene. Anecdotally much of the hardcore demo scene community are said to be "not fans" of the Vampire as it's not original Amiga/Motorola hardware (even though they may be doing most of their development on PCs). I personally, while appreciating the skills of the demo creators have no interest in installing and running the demos, I'd just watch online videos if interested in them for some reason.

Given the circumstances it's no wonder that implementing an FPU on the Vampires is not the highest priority.