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Offline LoadWB

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Re: More Chipram
« on: September 05, 2006, 03:43:03 AM »
Now this is just academic, for the sake of argument.

On my big box systems (2000 with MegAChip and 4000) with graphics cards, my ChipRAM RARELY dips below 1.8MB or so.  My 1200 is a different story as it has nothing more than standard AGA.  I will leave the 500 out of the discussion ;-)

Out of sadistic curiousity, with the number of people working on hardware emulations of the Amiga system, would it be possible to design a cheap replacement Alice to allow the 8MB Chip RAM for those using standard AGA, or would more need to be done?

Since the chips on the 4000 are not socketed, a MegAChip-style upgrade is not viable -- the upgrade would need to be an over-chip design, like accelerators for the 600.  It is also apparent to me that the 1200's design lacks the support for such a hack.
 

Offline LoadWB

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Re: More Chipram
« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2006, 09:52:06 PM »
@leirbag28

What everyone has said at this point is that the limitation is in the hardware.

14-bit audio is a trick with our hearing, similar to speech synthesis on the C64's SID.  To anologize, it appears that a project of this sort would be akin to forcing more than 16 colors out of the C64's VIC-II -- it just ain't gonna happen since the VIC only processes one nybble (four bits) of color data, period.

The MegAChip was nothing more than the fulfillment of the expected expansion of ChipRAM using compatible and available custom chip, Agnus.  The systems already had the provisions for 2MB.  Whereas the 1200 and 3000 do not have provisions for 8MB addressing and while the 4000 has the data lines for it, it appears that the chipset as a whole neither supports nor recognizes the extra lines required.

Software emulation of ChipRAM is not possible.  The custom chips cannot access FastRAM directly due to hardware architecture.  Software cannot overcome this limitation.  Virtual ChipRAM would not work as there is no way for the custom chips to throw an exception on memory accesses out-of-boundaries.  Even if it could, imagine how the system would come to a crawl if you had objects on the screen from different pages -- the CPU would now be tied up moving memory in to and out of ChipRAM via the custom chip interfaces.

In IBM/PC perspectives, you cannot increase the memory on some video cards because the video chip (Cirrus Logic, Trident, etc.) does not know how to address the extra space.  This is the same reason why on some motherboards a 32MB SIMM shows up as 8MB.

Comparing UAE's multi-MB ChipRAM feature to the Amiga hardware is comparing trees to acorns.  UAE is a software implementation of classic hardware -- in short, it *is* redesigned hardware.  The OS doesn't care about or understand hardware limitations, so it is happy to accept whatever information the software-emulated hardware tells it.

So, the bottom line is more ChipRAM requires a completely new hardware architecture.
 

Offline LoadWB

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Dave Haynie alrady weighed in on this
« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2006, 12:45:59 PM »
Yo.  How about we just listen to what the architect says in the thread from June.

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=22715


This should be put into an Amiga FAQ, linked from the front page, tatooed on foreheads, etc.
 

Offline LoadWB

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Re: More Chipram
« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2006, 05:45:12 PM »
Quote

leirbag28 wrote:

Oh really?  let me tell you a little story...........i once pulled out my Harddrive from my REAL Amiga and slapped it into a PC and ran WinUAE and ran my REAL Amiga hardrive in WinUAE.........I was using Workbench 3.1....I didnt change a darn thing about my Workbench...........but there it read on WinUAE  8Mb ChipRAM in all its glory!!!  so your telling me the OS itself does not scan more than 2mb ChipRAM????



Sounds to me like you have your solution.  Since the Classic Amiga hardware cannot support more ChipRAM without a major hardware overhaul, your answer is to start using your Amiga OS applications in WinUAE.  It is probably many many times faster, anyway.

Case closed... ? :shrug:
 

Offline LoadWB

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Re: More Chipram
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2006, 06:59:36 PM »
Quote

Piru wrote:

There is no way to get >2MB chip memory in a real Amiga.


:horse:

I'm sure you could code a program that rewrites the Workbench banner to show 4x the amount of free ChipRAM.  Of course, then programs would use four times as much memory when they run.  But, I guess that's just the sacrifice you make.