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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Topic started by: Elwood on January 27, 2011, 10:50:48 PM
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Bassano del Grappa, Italy - 27 Jan, 2011
ACube Systems Srl is pleased to announce the immediate release of Hyperion's AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2 for Sam460ex. Boards and installation CDs are now shipping to resellers.
The board is running at 1.15 Ghz and allows all Amigans to use modern graphic cards thanks to its PCI express slot.
Other features include: 7 USB ports and Gigabit ethernet.
The board is available at a suggested price of 749,00 EUR (including AmigaOS 4.1).
Price excludes local taxes and shipping costs.
Sam460ex AmigaOS 4.1 version:
The version of AmigaOS 4 that will be shipped with the Sam460ex is still to be considered beta. It is made from AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2 on which specific components for Sam460ex were added.
You will still have a valid AmigaOS 4 licence that allows you to download the next AmigaOS update when it will be available from Hyperion Entertainment.
Notes about the AmigaOS 4.1 CD currently shipping with Sam460ex
Currently RadeonHD driver supports the following chipsets with full 2D hardware acceleration and DDC:
* R500 (with compositing support) - Radeon X1550, X1650, X1950 and others
* R600 - Radeon HD 2400 - HD 3450 - HD 3650 and others
* R700 - Radeon HD 4350 - HD 4650
The audio driver will be released on OS4depot as soon as it is ready.
The driver for the onboard SATA port is still experimental. It is not loaded by the kicklayout file but you still can use it (at your own risk). It is located in Devs: and you can use it through Mounter.
The final version will be released with an OS update. In the meantime we suggest to use a Silicon Image 3512 PCI card or an USB-SATA combo PCI card with a Silicon Image chip.
Please read the manual for more information on the board.
It was a very long road and we wish to thank everyone for your patience and support.
Original post: http://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=news
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none
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- The version of AmigaOS 4 that will be shipped with the Sam460ex is still to be considered beta.
- The audio driver will be released on OS4depot as soon as it is ready.
- The driver for the onboard SATA port is still experimental. It is not loaded by the kicklayout file but you still can use it (at your own risk).
Uh oh. I thought the delay was there in order to make things working properly from the start?
I guess we were wrong.
Also are those 7 USB ports running at USB 1.1 speed? I wasn't expecting everything to work perfectly from the start but this sounds awfully like Sam440 all over again to me. Doing beta testing on the end users...
The final version will be released with an OS update
When can the users expect to see this update? Some kind of schedule would be reassuring considering the delays seen so far.
Will this final version include 3D support for the supported RadeonHD cards? (Important information for anyone building a system)
Price excludes local taxes
Okay so with tax the price with be around 900 €, excluding all other required components. That is quite expensive for a product with partial OS support.
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Good to see that it's finally released. I wonder how long it will take to appear in Amigakit's catalog.
Hans
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Great News!
@Piru
i guess all operatying system are forever in a beta stage with problems and bug fixes even if they are released as final stable version :)
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Uh oh. I thought the delay was there in order to make things working properly from the start?
I guess we were wrong.
I'm happy for ACube, I wish them success with the SAM460.
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Thanks, Philippe, for the update! I am most likely a future owner of this board, but I will be waiting for the audio driver and some further clarification of the SATA situation before purchasing. To serve as the desired drop-in replacement for my Sam440ep-flex board, I need the onboard audio working well for playback *AND* recording and the PCI slot free for my CatWeasel card. That means some kind of SATA solution that will work in the little 1X PCIe slot. I'm hoping that will be possible.
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Uh oh. I thought the delay was there in order to make things working properly from the start?
I guess we were wrong.
Beta or not, the delay has definitely made what is on offer better.
Hans
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- The version of AmigaOS 4 that will be shipped with the Sam460ex is still to be considered beta.
- The audio driver will be released on OS4depot as soon as it is ready.
- The driver for the onboard SATA port is still experimental. It is not loaded by the kicklayout file but you still can use it (at your own risk).
Uh oh. I thought the delay was there in order to make things working properly from the start? I guess we were wrong.
Also are those 7 USB ports running at USB 1.1 speed? I wasn't expecting everything to work perfectly from the start but this sounds awfully like Sam440 all over again to me. Doing beta testing on the end users...
The final version will be released with an OS update
When can the users expect to see this update? Some kind of schedule would be reassuring considering the delays seen so far. Will this final version include 3D support for the supported RadeonHD cards? (Important information for anyone building a system)
Price excludes local taxes
Okay so with tax the price with be around 900 €, excluding all other required components. That is quite expensive for a product with partial OS support.
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That's good news. Eager to see benchmark results. Kind of like Acube (disagree on their particular design choices and price policy though),hope Acube recover their investment quickly and make a smarter cpu choice and simpler board next time.
Still no high speed usb is - well - not surprising. Isn't it beta since ages? Seems to need massive testing...
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I'm happy for ACube, I wish them success with the SAM460.
+1
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I'll just copy and paste my reply from the same thread that you copied and pasted your comment:
Uh oh. I thought the delay was there in order to make things working properly from the start?
I guess we were wrong.
Beta or not, the delay has definitely made what is on offer better.
Hans
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We have just added the SAM 460ex to our webstores:
UK Store:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1014
USA Store:
http://www.amigakit.us/product_info.php?products_id=1014
European Store:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/EUR.php?url=product_info.php?products_id=1014
Canada Store:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/CAD.php?url=product_info.php?products_id=1014
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lol. seems theyve read some forums posts and woke up to take some action. whatever it was.
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We have just added the SAM 460ex to our webstores:
UK Store:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1014
USA Store:
http://www.amigakit.us/product_info.php?products_id=1014
European Store:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/EUR.php?url=product_info.php?products_id=1014
Canada Store:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/CAD.php?url=product_info.php?products_id=1014
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I'll just copy and paste my reply from the same thread that you copied and pasted your comment:
Beta or not, the delay has definitely made what is on offer better.
Hans
So Hans, considering you're involved with the RadeonHD 3D support, can you give us any estimation as to when there will be 3D support for those RadeonHD cards? Or are users desiring 3D support advised to get a Radeon 9250 instead?
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It's good that this is finally available. Quite a number of people have been waiting for this; people who don't mind that AmigaOS 4.1 for it is still in beta. Having one of these boards myself, I can say that this beta version is working well. Hopefully the on-board audio driver will be released soon.
Hans
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awesome news..thanks again ACube:banana::pint::banana:
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Threads merged. I also realised I'd posted in the wrong place.
I'm so tired tonight :lol:
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Uh oh. I thought the delay was there in order to make things working properly from the start? I guess we were wrong.
Piru is just soo concerned because he is such an AmigaOS optimist;)
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Flex-ATX form factor (21.6 x 17 cm)
8 layers PCB
Applied Micro PPC460ex SoC – upto 1.15 Ghz
optional maximum 2 GB DDR2 Ram – 200-pin SODIMM
Silicon Motion SM502 embedded MoC (audio/video) max 64MB Gfx RAM
Audio 5.1 Realtek ALC655 codec
PCI-express 4x lanes slot (16x mechanical connector)
PCI-express 1x lane slot (* check notes)
PCI slot, 32 bit, 33 Mhz, 3.3V
1x SATA2 port (* check notes)
6x USB2 EHCI/OHCI ports + 1 USB 1.1 port
1x 10/100/1000 Ethernet port (another 10/100/1000 Ethernet is optional)
Lattice XP2 FPGA with 80 I/O pins expansion connector (connector is optional)
UMTS/GSM module (optional requires add-on card)
512 MB NAND Flash (optional)
integrated SD card reader
RTC clock
Serial port, 8-wires
I2C and SPI/I2C buses
passive cooling
U-Boot 2010.06
That's alot of stuff packed into a little board.
DDR2 + GBit Ether + PCIe = Win!
I don't know why everyone makes a big deal about Altivec. Cell has more floating point power than 360 and even PS2 had more floating point power than the original Xbox and we see where the better games are, don't we?
I'm looking forward to the benchmarks!
If I wasn't deep into my car hobby right now I'd be picking this up.
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So Hans, considering you're involved with the RadeonHD 3D support, can you give us any estimation as to when there will be 3D support for those RadeonHD cards? Or are users desiring 3D support advised to get a Radeon 9250 instead?
Sorry, no estimate. This depends on so many variables that any estimate given right now would be very unreliable.
Hans
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Great!!! :pint:
:biglaugh:
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Thanks for the news. :D
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I don't know why everyone makes a big deal about Altivec. Cell has more floating point power than 360 and even PS2 had more floating point power than the original Xbox and we see where the better games are, don't we?
That doesn't really make sense. Altivec is just one variant of SIMD/Vector processing or whatever you want to call it. Probably every game written on every console you mentioned uses vector processing to speed up execution, usually significantly.
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That doesn't really make sense. Altivec is just one variant of SIMD/Vector processing or whatever you want to call it. Probably every game written on every console you mentioned uses vector processing to speed up execution, usually significantly.
Probably but not everything is appropriate for such things. If Altivec was the be-all-end-all of application performance, don't you think all chips would have it... Fast branch prediction and OoO execution are more generally useful... Even the GC and Wii have SIMD...can you explain to me how that will make your email download faster? Surfing? How does your favorite text editor benefit from SIMD? It doesn't. SIMD has niche use.
Let's see some real-world benchmarks before denouncing the SAM460... The G5 Macs only got up to DDR2-533, iirc. If this board can support DDR2-800 and higher, then real-world benchmarks will get interesting...
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That's alot of stuff packed into a little board.
DDR2 + GBit Ether + PCIe = Win!
I don't know why everyone makes a big deal about Altivec. Cell has more floating point power than 360 and even PS2 had more floating point power than the original Xbox and we see where the better games are, don't we?
I'm looking forward to the benchmarks!
If I wasn't deep into my car hobby right now I'd be picking this up.
Don't forget that you CAN'T buy this board without AOS 4.1. That's part of why the price is as high as it is. Acube states that they will only sell the board w/o AOS4.1 to its 'industrial partners'.
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Cool bananas eh?
Lets see... I have a SAM 667 a SAM 733 and a SAM 800... this of course would have been my next purchase...
But it looks like I'm waiting for something... at the end of the year I'll get one though... just want to have one of each...
only sensible...
Well bugger me, I'm practically 5 users of Modern Amiga HW/SW LOL
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I don't know why everyone makes a big deal about Altivec.
Because AltiVec makes it possible to write faster programs.
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Excellent News!
Stops the trolls from saying they are holding it back for x1000 release. But i guess they already moved on to now moaning about how dare they release it before its ready. You can never please the trolls.
Simple answer to that, as a more end user not a beta tester I will simple wait until all drivers are finished for it, and would still like to hold out to see more news on x1000 price and availability, but its nice to have the option to buy it now.
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can you explain to me how that will make your email download faster? Surfing? How does your favorite text editor benefit from SIMD?
AltiVec can be used to accelerate many things: For instance OWB uses altivec to accelerate video decoding. z.library (shared zlib) has AltiVec acceration that is used by ALL applications using the library to decode gzip data (including png.library and thus PNG datatype). jfif.library has AltiVec acceleration (jpeg datatype uses jfif.library). Raggae multimedia multimedia framework uses AltiVec. Some low level graphics operations such as alpha blending and scaling and 3D are AltiVec accelerated as well. PowerSDL uses AltiVec when available. AHI software volume control (Mac HW) is AltiVec accelerated. Since these operations are in the OS itself it doesn't matter if the application supports AltiVec or not: All applications benefit automagically.
Various applications themselves use AltiVec too, such as Ambient, mplayer and ShowGirls.
It doesn't. SIMD has niche use.
Whatever rocks you boat. I prefer to have my system significantly faster, though.
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AltiVec can be used to accelerate many things: For instance OWB uses altivec to accelerate video decoding. z.library (shared zlib) has AltiVec acceration that is used by ALL applications using the library to decode gzip data (including png.library and thus PNG datatype). jfif.library has AltiVec acceleration (jpeg datatype uses jfif.library). Raggae multimedia multimedia framework uses AltiVec. Some low level graphics operations such as alpha blending and scaling and 3D are AltiVec accelerated as well. PowerSDL uses AltiVec when available. AHI software volume control (Mac HW) is AltiVec accelerated. Since these operations are in the OS itself it doesn't matter if the application supports AltiVec or not: All applications benefit automagically.
Various applications themselves use AltiVec too, such as Ambient, mplayer and ShowGirls.
That all sounds rocking awesome!
I didn't realize altivec could be used to speed up compression/decompression. (?)
Has anyone ever published any timing tests of z.library and png.library using / not using altivec?
I assume it only provides a small speed boost in those cases? <=10% ?
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If Altivec was the be-all-end-all of application performance, don't you think all chips would have it...
Doesn't GameCube, Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 have Altivec?
Numerically that is effectively "all". :)
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cool shit, i want one! but first ive got some questions. is there a working sata-card, maybe with usb on the card out there that works with the pci-e 1x slot on the sam460? if this would be the case i could use my pci soundblaster for sound. and ive got an radeon3850 here from one of my old peecees, will it work with the radeonhd drivers? i couldnt find any infos about 3850 compatibility - only for 3650, 4650 etc. and ive got 2 1gb ddr2 800 rams that i would trade for 1 2gb ddr2 so-dimm, anyone interested? ive already got my acube a-stickers from alinea and transformed every keyboard here into "amiga-keyboards", they are waiting for some nice new amigaos systems!
CHEERS ACUBE
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ive forgot one question. will i get an amigaos4.1 box with the sam board or will it only be an burned or whatever boxless media? i like big boxes on the shelves, this one would take place near my old os3.5 box and the little os3.9 jewelcase. BIG BOXES BIG BOXES BIG BOXES - this way anyone who will visit my home can see, what a big ultragigaturboNERD I AM. i like it this way.
cheers acube
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I didn't realize altivec could be used to speed up compression/decompression.
Another area of AltiVec application is cryptography.
For some real numbers you can read my scientific papers (http://krashan.ppa.pl/c2.html) on AltiVec accelerations of audio filtering (results of this research are implemented in Reggae classes), see items 6. 7. and 8. DigiFilter (http://morphos-files.net/find.php?find=digifilter) is a live demo of this technology.
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oh damn, ive seen now that the sam460 HAS usb2 ports on board. so i need an pci-e 1x sata card only, no combo-card. ill keep fingers crossed for usb2 support in update 4.1.3. and hyperion, please integrate some kind of kingcon into os4.1, a working scroll-back function is absolutely necessary. tabs would also be nice.
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Let's see some real-world benchmarks before denouncing the SAM460... The G5 Macs only got up to DDR2-533, iirc. If this board can support DDR2-800 and higher, then real-world benchmarks will get interesting...
Well, high clocks are not sufficient when either the design or the cpu is weak. Except for the video bus the Sam 460 gets outperformed by a 167 MHz FSB Mac mini in regard of mem access: http://www.morphzone.org/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&sortname=&sortorder=&sortdays=&viewmode=flat&order=1&start=40
I repeat the values for RAM access here:
Sam 460:
READ32: 311 MB/Sec
READ64: 310 MB/Sec
WRITE32: 521 MB/Sec
WRITE64: 521 MB/Sec
WRITE: 1251 MB/Sec (Tricky)
Mac mini G4/1500
READ32: 387 MB/Sec
READ64: 403 MB/Sec
WRITE32: 771 MB/Sec
WRITE64: 771 MB/Sec
WRITE: 809 MB/Sec (Tricky)
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It is great that Piru is so interested Amiga Os4. Judging from interest, he is going to buy Sam460ex as soon the drivers are ready :)
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It is great that Piru is so interested Amiga Os4. Judging from interest, he is going to buy Sam460ex as soon the drivers are ready :)
I already have 2 Mac mini G4s, one PowerBook G4 and one PowerMac G5. I paid less than 900 € for them, so no I really am not that interested in Sam 460.
Those questions are still valid IMO.
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When we getting drivers for the wireless and bluetooth in the MacMini :)
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The board is running at 1.15 Ghz and allows all Amigans to use modern graphic cards thanks to its PCI express slot.
But not at modern speeds, and the OS doesn't support any of the modern features.
Oh, and: "Notes: the SATA2 port and the PCI-e 1x slot are mutually exclusive, only one of them can be used at a time"
Other features include: 7 USB ports and Gigabit ethernet.
Is that USB2 or USB1.1? Oh, I forgot, in OS4 that doesn't matter...
The board is available at a suggested price of 749,00 EUR (including AmigaOS 4.1).
Price excludes local taxes and shipping costs.
At Amigakit it's €920, for just the board and the OS. Nothing else, no memory, no HDD, no *nothing*. So for a usable computer you'd definitely be going "north of" €1,000 with shipping costs on top of that...
The version of AmigaOS 4 that will be shipped with the Sam460ex is still to be considered beta.
Isn't it always?
Currently RadeonHD driver supports the following chipsets with full 2D hardware acceleration and DDC
So only partial GFX support then. No 3D. And you can't use it together with SATA HDD's/CD-ROM's/DVD's anyway, so...
The audio driver will be released on OS4depot as soon as it is ready.
So no Audio then.
The driver for the onboard SATA port is still experimental. It is not loaded by the kicklayout file
So no SATA then.
And no USB2.
How about the Gigabit Ethernet, is that supported?
So for "only" €1,000 you get "all this" in a system that's probably still outperformed by a Pegasos 2 in many areas. Ouch! :(
Well, at least they put a Lattice XP2 FPGA on the thing. In previous versions of their Sam's, the FPGA's has proven to be such useful for... well, uhm... yeah... Well, maybe if they rebrand the chip "XENA Light" and the optional 80 I/O pins expansion connector "XORRO Light" the magic will happen? Because XENA and XORRO is what makes boards true Amigas, everyone knows that! :p
Well, Good Luck with this one, Acube! If you are designing a board from scratch anyway, I can't for my life understand why you don't base it around a MPC8610 or MPC8640 or similar. Then you would have got yourself a sellable product. But no, you continue to make desktop designs around strange AMCC processors that's not really meant for desktop usage. "Notes: the SATA2 port and the PCI-e 1x slot are mutually exclusive, only one of them can be used at a time", I mean, come on!
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So only partial GFX support then. No 3D. And you can't use it together with SATA HDD's/CD-ROM's/DVD's anyway, so...
You are wrong here ;)
There are 3 slots on the board, not two:
- 16x PCIE slot to be used with the GFX card
- PCI slot for SATA / SATA2 or Catweasel or Audio, etc
- 1x PCIE slot which is mutually exclusive with the onboard SATA2
How about the Gigabit Ethernet, is that supported?
Yes
"Notes: the SATA2 port and the PCI-e 1x slot are mutually exclusive, only one of them can be used at a time", I mean, come on!
Again, see above...
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ive forgot one question. will i get an amigaos4.1 box with the sam board or will it only be an burned or whatever boxless media? i like big boxes on the shelves, this one would take place near my old os3.5 box and the little os3.9 jewelcase. BIG BOXES BIG BOXES BIG BOXES - this way anyone who will visit my home can see, what a big ultragigaturboNERD I AM. i like it this way.
cheers acube
You'll receive a box with printed manuals and install CD, like the one on this page:
http://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=software&pid=1
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You are wrong here ;)
There are 3 slots on the board, not two
OK then, thanks for correcting me, and sorry for any confusion that part of my post may have caused.
Besides that, nothing else changes though.
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OK then, thanks for correcting me, and sorry for any confusion that part of my post may have caused.
Besides that, nothing else changes though.
No it never will with you!
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Well, at least they put a Lattice XP2 FPGA on the thing. In previous versions of their Sam's, the FPGA's has proven to be such useful for... well, uhm... yeah... Well, maybe if they rebrand the chip "XENA Light" and the optional 80 I/O pins expansion connector "XORRO Light" the magic will happen? Because XENA and XORRO is what makes boards true Amigas, everyone knows that! :p
Just a few words to clarify the FPGA usage on the Sam boards: indeed the FPGA _is_ currently used on both 440 and 460 (more on the new 460 than on the 440)
Instead using a CPLD as a "glue chip" to control several signals on the board, we decided to use a more versatile FPGA.
Teorically speaking, if you remove the FPGA chip from the board, it won't work at all.
Plus, the presence of a FPGA open up more opportunities to personalize the board for the industrial market, since there is still free space to be used on the XP and XP2.
We know the FPGA is not currently used on the Amiga side, but this isn't the primary reason for the presence of the FPGA on our boards.
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Plus, the presence of a FPGA open up more opportunities to personalize the board for the industrial market, since there is still free space to be used on the XP and XP2.
While you are just here: can you provide a rough nimber about industrial use? No details needed, but are industrial customers rather 10% of the market (in the manner of sold items) or 90%, 0% or 50%. Your word would be evidence enough for me.
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Just a few words to clarify the FPGA usage on the Sam boards: indeed the FPGA _is_ currently used on both 440 and 460 (more on the new 460 than on the 440)
Instead using a CPLD as a "glue chip" to control several signals on the board, we decided to use a more versatile FPGA.
Teorically speaking, if you remove the FPGA chip from the board, it won't work at all.
Plus, the presence of a FPGA open up more opportunities to personalize the board for the industrial market, since there is still free space to be used on the XP and XP2.
We know the FPGA is not currently used on the Amiga side, but this isn't the primary reason for the presence of the FPGA on our boards.
So basically you have no intentions to release any documentation on how to use the FPGA? Where's this Amiga custom HW emulation for SAM 440?
It's rather interesting considering the effort put to marketing the FPGA as the wonder device here: http://www.acube-systems.biz/common/Bitplane15.pdf
Wouldn't it be time to admit that no amiga programmers will ever have access to the FPGA?
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So basically you have no intentions to release any documentation on how to use the FPGA? Where's this Amiga custom HW emulation for SAM 440?
It's rather interesting considering the effort put to marketing FPGA a the wonder device here: http://www.acube-systems.biz/common/Bitplane15.pdf
Where I said we don't release any documentation about the FPGA ?
What an interested developer needs to use the XP/XP2 FPGA is already on LatticeSemi web site (tools, datasheet, application notes, IP etc..)
A LatticeSemi JTAG cable is needed to reprogram the FPGA with a new bitstream.
We provide some additional info how the FPGA is connected to the onboard buses under written request.
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Okay so with tax the price with be around 900 €, excluding all other required components. That is quite expensive for a product with partial OS support.
i'm not a morphos fan and i shall be happy the day all macs disintegrate.
But piru is totally right (now).
blessed the day that a new hw house will sell amiga one mboards to half the price and double the power...
and i continue to say: 2000 eur for an x1000 (in sheer power and "optionals") is less than 900 eur for a s460
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@M3x
thanks for the infos :)
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blessed the day that a new hw house will sell amiga one mboards to half the price and double the power...
No, a quarter of the price and four times the power, complete with a first-class relic of Jay Miner affixed to the board!
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Where I said we don't release any documentation about the FPGA ?
What an interested developer needs to use the XP/XP2 FPGA is already on LatticeSemi web site (tools, datasheet, application notes, IP etc..)
A LatticeSemi JTAG cable is needed to reprogram the FPGA with a new bitstream.
Does this mean that FPGA cannot be reprogrammed with the CPU? Anyone wanting to install new programming such as amiga chipset emulation needs to buy such JTAG cable? How much is it? Ah to answer myself: HW-USBN-2A, $149 USD, 139 € in some european shop.
We provide some additional info how the FPGA is connected to the onboard buses under written request.
Hmm wait. You're saying that all the current programming on the FPGA can be overwritten or that the current program can be downloaded from LatticeSemi website? I thought the board would be bricked if the original programming was overwritten.
How much of the original FPGA space is available for user programs?
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Does this mean that FPGA cannot be reprogrammed with the CPU? Anyone wanting to install new programming such as amiga chipset emulation needs to buy such JTAG cable? How much is it? Ah to answer myself: HW-USBN-2A, $149 USD, 139 € in some european shop.
The FPGA can be reprogrammed in several ways, and in some way directly from the CPU too.
Taking as an example the custom hw emulation, an additional little board connected to the 80 pin expansion slot may reprogramm the FPGA (the jtag pins are replicated there)
This little board may provide additional joystick ports, aga/audio output etc..
Another way to reprogram the FPGA with the CPU is using 4 GPIO pins connected to the FPGA JTAG connector.
I'm currently pondering to modify U-Boot to allow developers to use such technic.
Hmm wait. You're saying that all the current programming on the FPGA can be overwritten or that the current program can be downloaded from LatticeSemi website? I thought the board would be bricked if the original programming was overwritten.
No, the additional info how the FPGA is connected to the onboard buses includes how to not "brick" the board.
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The FPGA can be reprogrammed in several ways, and in some way directly from the CPU too.
...
Another way to reprogram the FPGA with the CPU is using 4 GPIO pins connected to the FPGA JTAG connector.
I'm currently pondering to modify U-Boot to allow developers to use such technic.
Ok that sounds sensible.
No, the additional info how the FPGA is connected to the onboard buses includes how to not "brick" the board.
Fair enough.
Taking as an example the custom hw emulation, an additional little board connected to the 80 pin expansion slot may reprogramm the FPGA (the jtag pins are replicated there)
This little board may provide additional joystick ports, aga/audio output etc..
Hmm. So would solution like this be isolated from the rest of the system or would it be possible to use keyboard, mouse etc connected to SAM 4x0 for input? Would it be possible to read/write data from host HDD(s)? Would it be possible to have the graphics output in a window? Assuming integration at this level is possible then it could be worth the effort.
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Originally Posted by m3x
The FPGA can be reprogrammed in several ways, and in some way directly from the CPU too.
...
Another way to reprogram the FPGA with the CPU is using 4 GPIO pins connected to the FPGA JTAG connector.
I'm currently pondering to modify U-Boot to allow developers to use such technic.
Ok that sounds sensible.
Quote:No, the additional info how the FPGA is connected to the onboard buses includes how to not "brick" the board.
Fair enough.
Sounds very promising / intriguing !
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Taking as an example the custom hw emulation, an additional little board connected to the 80 pin expansion slot may reprogramm the FPGA (the jtag pins are replicated there)
This little board may provide additional joystick ports, aga/audio output etc..
Did you just say "AGA"? Sounds very intriguing. Even integrated ECS hardware support would be way cool.
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The FPGA can be reprogrammed in several ways, and in some way directly from the CPU too.
Taking as an example the custom hw emulation, an additional little board connected to the 80 pin expansion slot may reprogramm the FPGA (the jtag pins are replicated there)
This little board may provide additional joystick ports, aga/audio output etc..
Another way to reprogram the FPGA with the CPU is using 4 GPIO pins connected to the FPGA JTAG connector.
I'm currently pondering to modify U-Boot to allow developers to use such technic.
No, the additional info how the FPGA is connected to the onboard buses includes how to not "brick" the board.
thanks for the info m3x! looking forward to playing with the FPGA..sounds cool :)
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Did you just say "AGA"? Sounds very intriguing. Even integrated ECS hardware support would be way cool.
What would be the point, dont say for running classic games from AOS4, because that as far as I can work out, and I could be wrong, would not be feasible/worth the effort
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Hmm. So would solution like this be isolated from the rest of the system or would it be possible to use keyboard, mouse etc connected to SAM 4x0 for input? Would it be possible to read/write data from host HDD(s)? Would it be possible to have the graphics output in a window? Assuming integration at this level is possible then it could be worth the effort.
On both 440 and 460 boards the FPGA is connected to a PPC local bus (EBC, 16 bit wide) and have 4 MB addressing space available.
Currently the FPGA is mapped at address 0xFF000000 on the 440 and 0x4 FF000000 on the 460 (the 460 has 36 bit physical addressing space)
The base address may be modified by changing one register on the 440/460 cpu.
The FPGA may act as master on the EBC bus and transfer data to/from any location in main ram (maybe using DMA too, need to check if it's possible on the PLB3 bus)
Basically it's possible to reach a high level of integration, with a deep knowledge of the 440 architecture.
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What would be the point, dont say for running classic games from AOS4, because that as far as I can work out, and I could be wrong, would not be feasible/worth the effort
I already run classic AGA games using glUAE by saimo or even RunInUAE by ChrisH so I'm sure the FPGA could be used for alot more interesting things:afro:
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AltiVec can be used to accelerate many things: For instance OWB uses altivec to accelerate video decoding. z.library (shared zlib) has AltiVec acceration that is used by ALL applications using the library to decode gzip data (including png.library and thus PNG datatype). jfif.library has AltiVec acceleration (jpeg datatype uses jfif.library). Raggae multimedia multimedia framework uses AltiVec. Some low level graphics operations such as alpha blending and scaling and 3D are AltiVec accelerated as well. PowerSDL uses AltiVec when available. AHI software volume control (Mac HW) is AltiVec accelerated. Since these operations are in the OS itself it doesn't matter if the application supports AltiVec or not: All applications benefit automagically.
Various applications themselves use AltiVec too, such as Ambient, mplayer and ShowGirls.
Whatever rocks you boat. I prefer to have my system significantly faster, though.
And when driver supporting gpgpu's on SAM460 like the AMD/ATI 4XXX series get released that outperforms that, then what will a PPC Mac have?
Yes, I'd like a faster overall experience too...
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Doesn't GameCube, Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 have Altivec?
Numerically that is effectively "all". :)
GC has 37 instructions, Wii a few more.
360's cores does have SIMD.
Cell's PPE doesn't I don't think but the SPU's handle that and there are 7 cores.
Cell's capacity exceeds the 360 in floating point power...but yet better games are on the 360. Why? Because floating point power does not directly translate to a better gaming experience. The 360 has a more powerful gpu but weaker overall cpu. 360 still takes the cake.
SAM460 can/may support much more powerful gpus (even more powerful than 360 and PS3) then any PPC Mac.
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And when driver supporting gpgpu's on SAM460 like the AMD/ATI 4XXX series get released
Let me know when that happens, assuming we're still alive and kicking ;)
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Let me know when that happens, assuming we're still alive and kicking ;)
Will do. ;)
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Let me know when that happens, assuming we're still alive and kicking ;)
Hey Piru why don't you give it a rest? You have made it abundantly clear your favor lies with Morph and Macs so how about shutting up already?
Now you are simply being a pain in the ass...
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Let me know when that happens, assuming we're still alive and kicking ;)
Will do. ;)
It will come to AROS first ofcourse, afterwhich anyone will be free to copy...
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What would be the point, dont say for running classic games from AOS4, because that as far as I can work out, and I could be wrong, would not be feasible/worth the effort
I have no notion whether it's practical or even possible. But, truth be told, I never spent a lot of time playing games even in the heydays of Amiga. The creative software was and is my bag, and I'm getting enormous pleasure from getting some of the old programs working on my Sam -- ImageFX, ADPro, VistaPro, LightWave, Personal Paint, TVPaint.
LightWave is running well for me except I can't use the wireframe animation preview feature because it depends on the old Amiga chipset to work. Similarly, no dice with Deluxe Paint short of UAE emulation.
Like I said, don't know if it's possible or worthwhile from a cost and manpower point of view, but it would be cool if a MiniMig coule be jammed in there somewhere. :)
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Cell's PPE doesn't I don't think
Cell PPE has AltiVec.
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m3x: why are your motherboards so expensive?
Efika was a nische-product too but it was not 1000 dollars. Are you allowed to sell cheap 4.x compatible motherboard from the curch of Hyperion?
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Did you just say "AGA"? Sounds very intriguing. Even integrated ECS hardware support would be way cool.
I have wondered this way too often. So could you (or anyone else) finally explain to me, how does software emulation (UAE) become "hardware support", when basically the same SOFTWARE is running on a different kind of chip (FPGA instead of "generic" processor)?
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I'm not buying any more AOS 4.x until the Mac Mini work is finished / released.
:hammer:
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Cell PPE has AltiVec.
That only makes my 'gpu is king' argument better, you do realize...
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Hey Piru why don't you give it a rest? You have made it abundantly clear your favor lies with Morph and Macs so how about shutting up already?
Now you are simply being a pain in the ass...
+1 HA! HA! he has been all over the place today doing " DAMAGE " controll....
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+1 HA! HA! he has been all over the place today doing " DAMAGE " controll....
ya busy days for him lately...poor guy..man I really feel sorry for him when the X1000 arrives:roflmao:
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@m3x
It appears that Sam460 runs the AMCC460 slightly (15%) overclocked. Is this similar to the overclocked 440 models where the memory bus is slightly underclocked? Does this explain why 7447 166MHz DDR-333 memory interface appears to be faster than Sam460 DDR2-400 memory interface?
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166 * 7 = 1162
If so, I think even I would have preferred 200 * 5.5...
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I have wondered this way too often. So could you (or anyone else) finally explain to me, how does software emulation (UAE) become "hardware support", when basically the same SOFTWARE is running on a different kind of chip (FPGA instead of "generic" processor)?
I'll let a FPGA guru tackle the meat of that, and I'm not one.
But what I'm after is seamless emulation alongside native software so that I can't tell when it's native or emulated. Apple did this with two different architecture changes (68K to PPC and later PPC to Intel).
After this past weekend (and thanks to the assistance of number6), I have ADPro working pretty well in AOS4, and there is nothing that telegraphs to me that I'm not running native code. Seamless integration. On my Sam and with AOS4, LightWave is the same except it lacks the necessary emulation or hardware to handle the chipset work on the preview animations.
And when I'm running UAE (even with the excellent RunInUAE by Chris), it isn't really seamless.
But... this thread is focused in another direction and I guess we're straying a bit. But the subject is a worthwhile one, I think
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I have wondered this way too often. So could you (or anyone else) finally explain to me, how does software emulation (UAE) become "hardware support", when basically the same SOFTWARE is running on a different kind of chip (FPGA instead of "generic" processor)?
Because an FPGA doesn't run any software; it is not a CPU. FPGA stands for Field Programmable Gate Array. These devices are essentially a large array of gates with programmable interconnects. On power up these devices read in a bitstream that enables or disables interconnects between individual gates. Once this is done, the gate array operates as whatever circuit has been programmed in. It does not execute code (unless the circuit that has been programmed in is a CPU). There's more to it than that, but that's the basics.
So, you program a hardware design into an FPGA, not a software program. This array of interconnected logic gates could also be put into an ASIC, or form the basis for a fully custom integrated circuit. The bottom line is that it's a hardware design.
This is why I think that it's wrong to call something like Minimig an emulator. It's a hardware reimplementation of the Amiga OCS chipset.
Hans
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Cool. :) Thanks, Hans, for the great explanation.
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Probably but not everything is appropriate for such things. If Altivec was the be-all-end-all of application performance, don't you think all chips would have it...
They do.
All desktop processors have some form of vector processors included.
Many of Freescale's embedded chips have vector units (not necessarily AltiVec).
Fast branch prediction and OoO execution are more generally useful... Even the GC and Wii have SIMD...can you explain to me how that will make your email download faster? Surfing? How does your favorite text editor benefit from SIMD? It doesn't.
Do you do search and replace? spell checking? They can both be accelerated.
SIMD has niche use.
Wrong: Look up Libfreevec, it accelerates many basic functions.
Let's see some real-world benchmarks before denouncing the SAM460... The G5 Macs only got up to DDR2-533, iirc. If this board can support DDR2-800 and higher, then real-world benchmarks will get interesting...
They been decidedly unimpressive so far. No sure why, could be it's not set up right.
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BTW the reason some CPUs don't have vector units it generally cost. Something like AltiVec is quite big and takes up a lot of silicon. Cost is king in the embedded world so low end chips don't get it.
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@m3x
It appears that Sam460 runs the AMCC460 slightly (15%) overclocked. Is this similar to the overclocked 440 models where the memory bus is slightly underclocked? Does this explain why 7447 166MHz DDR-333 memory interface appears to be faster than Sam460 DDR2-400 memory interface?
You have some information slight wrong and outdated :)
On the Sam440ep models, the DDR runs at the nominal speed (133 Mhz) on the 667 Mhz and 800 models, and run overclocked on the 733 Mhz model (147 Mhz)
There is a pci-update which overclock the PCI unit on the SoC, but due constraints in the internal multipliers, is not possibile to overclock both DDR and PCI unit, and thus on this model the user may choose to keep the original setup or to overclock the PCI unit.
On the Sam460ex the DDR is overclocked as the CPU. The reason why right now the reported speed is somewhat low is due the very conservative setup done by U-Boot, and because APM is still updating their autoconfig code.
I was able to enhance the speed just recently and now the figures are as follow:
Read: 350 MB/s - Write: 560 MB/s
Next U-Boot versions for our board will include modifications on the DDR config code to achive higher speed transfers.
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You have some information slight wrong and outdated :)
On the Sam440ep models, the DDR runs at the nominal speed (133 Mhz) on the 667 Mhz and 800 models, and run overclocked on the 733 Mhz model (147 Mhz)
There is a pci-update which overclock the PCI unit on the SoC, but due constraints in the internal multipliers, is not possibile to overclock both DDR and PCI unit, and thus on this model the user may choose to keep the original setup or to overclock the PCI unit.
On the Sam460ex the DDR is overclocked as the CPU. The reason why right now the reported speed is somewhat low is due the very conservative setup done by U-Boot, and because APM is still updating their autoconfig code.
I was able to enhance the speed just recently and now the figures are as follow:
Read: 350 MB/s - Write: 560 MB/s
Next U-Boot versions for our board will include modifications on the DDR config code to achive higher speed transfers.
Thanks for the info. Still slower than 7447 166MHz bus + DDR though :)
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Since we're bus-performance willy-waving...
Still slower than 7447 166MHz bus + DDR though :)
Which in turn is far slower than my (now entirely outdated) Core2 Q9450 1333MHz FSB + dual channel DDR3 (with suitably evil 6-6-6 config). Then again, it is totally eclipsed by the 104GB/s VRAM to VRAM (ie transfer, not just read or write) bandwidth of the GPU. Which is again rather eclipsed by the latest cards.
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Although, I better be careful what I say about bus-performance. I might wake up Shaun :lol:
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Since we're bus-performance willy-waving...
Which in turn is far slower than my (now entirely outdated) Core2 Q9450 1333MHz FSB + dual channel DDR3 (with suitably evil 6-6-6 config). Then again, it is totally eclipsed by the 104GB/s VRAM to VRAM (ie transfer, not just read or write) bandwidth of the GPU. Which is again rather eclipsed by the latest cards.
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Although, I better be careful what I say about bus-performance. I might wake up Shaun :lol:
My 'ego' is starting to dent now, as I keep being reminded that my i7 920 setup is hardly the 'fastest'.
Rationale kicks in though and I am reminded that it will last me a good while yet. :)
Only (military spec) Amigaaaaaaa(s) make(s) it possible! >;D
Steve
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Thanks for the info. Still slower than 7447 166MHz bus + DDR though :)
Actually its about the speed of my PC133 7447A equipped Quicksilver, which does make it surprisingly slow.
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X86 machines and an old mac...which in turn are slower than a quantum computer :)
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As usuasl Acube will keep updating everything continuosly (which will also bring in performance improvements) which is great :)
Thanks for another real HW product :pint:
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Next U-Boot versions for our board will include modifications on the DDR config code to achive higher speed transfers.
Great to hear, Max. Keep on tweaking!