How fast is the Akiko chip?

[Varthall]

Does the Akiko chip from the CD32 really speed up chunky graphics, or it's just a hyped chip? I remember reading on CUAmiga that it was too slow for practical use, but in ADoom there's  an Akiko driver, and also it seems that Wing Commander used it. So, where is the truth? This question has puzzled me all these years until now. If it speeds up things, then how much?

[Karlos]

Well, from what I recall, the akiko is supposed to be able to do 8-bit c2p conversion about as fast as a 68040.
Therefore, I assume on sub 68040 systems it speeds up c2p conversion a lot compared to software only c2p. By the time you get to 68040, most routines run at copy speed so actually writing to the chip ram takes longer than the conversion and akiko begins to make less and less difference.

[jaokim]

Theres also Akiko support in ShapeShifter, the Mac-emu, and I guess it's supposed to be used with a SX or so (requires atleast 4 MB). In that case I guess you'll have an ordinary 020/030/040 (whatever CPU the SX has) Mac with similar graphics. If you dont have the Akiko you wont have as good graphics as an origianl Mac.

[downix]

While you can use a 68040 to do the same job as Akiko, you'd then be loosing CPU cycles to do the job, which defeats the purpose of being an Amiga to begin with.  Akiko does this without a CPU hit, (and faster than the CPU of the CD-32 as well) so thereby relieving work from the CPU, allowing you to use those freed up cycles for other things.

[MikesterBrau]

  Well the Akiko was a 160 pin chip with 37,000 gates which at the time was a decent amount of capability and seems to have been marketed as enhancing the chunky to bitplane performance and given the other hardware on the board it was a big help but I think it should really be pointed out that it really did a lot to help with DMA and serial parallel data streaming which helped reduced the load on the cpu and CIA as they were incorporated into the Akiko as well, so it probably also contributed to cost reduction.  Ok, so it was great for the platform with Kickstart 3.1 at the time but an Amiga with an 040 or better and just a few enhancements can probably equal or better the performance.  I must admit though I have always wanted to compare side by side the disk based and CD32 versions of Wing Commander for the Amiga.  

[Varthall]

MikesterBrau wrote:
I must admit though I have always wanted to compare side by side the disk based and CD32 versions of Wing Commander for the Amiga.  

Maybe one day they will be available on Back2TheRoots, who knows....

Anyway, it seems that the cd32 could run Doom very well. Pity that when it was released it didn't have any 3d shooteravailable that make use of the chip;  if this happened maybe things would have been different for Commodore...

Varthall

[iamaboringperson]

Varthall wrote:

MikesterBrau wrote:
I must admit though I have always wanted to compare side by side the disk based and CD32 versions of Wing Commander for the Amiga.  

Maybe one day they will be available on Back2TheRoots, who knows....

Anyway, it seems that the cd32 could run Doom very well. Pity that when it was released it didn't have any 3d shooteravailable that make use of the chip;  if this happened maybe things would have been different for Commodore...

Varthall

i would of liked it if an akiko on a zorro card was released
that would be fun

[Karlos]

I always fancied having a play with an akiko too. Still, ever since getting a gfx card the urge died off :-)

-edit-

Pity it wasn't an integral part of the AGA chipset since day 1...

[iamaboringperson]

Karlos wrote:
I always fancied having a play with an akiko too. Still, ever since getting a gfx card the urge died off :-)

-edit-

Pity it wasn't an integral part of the AGA chipset since day 1...

BTW.. where would documentation on programming one be?

[Varthall]

Karlos wrote:
Pity it wasn't an integral part of the AGA chipset since day 1...

Wasn't the Akiko included in the CD1200 add-on for the A1200?

Varthall