Excitement about NatAmi

[SamuraiCrow]

My question is :
Futher down the track when FPGA prices drop will there be a chance to use a ARRIA II or Stratix V as the softcore or would a total redesign be necessary? and what estimated clock speeds could the N050 or N070 be running at ?

Gunnar has already tested some of the functionality on higher-end FPGAs.  The VHDL doesn't require changing and will run faster right out of the box.

I wouldn't be surprised if in two years or so you'll see a new NatAmi 2 design that clocks two to three times as fast and has more room to spare on the FPGA for new functionality.

Also, the 133 MHz figure is for the N68050 on the Cyclone IV.  The actual clock speed of the FPGA will be somewhat faster to allow better performance for the graphics cores.

[Louis Dias]

Gunnar has already tested some of the functionality on higher-end FPGAs.  The VHDL doesn't require changing and will run faster right out of the box.

I wouldn't be surprised if in two years or so you'll see a new NatAmi 2 design that clocks two to three times as fast and has more room to spare on the FPGA for new functionality.

Also, the 133 MHz figure is for the N68050 on the Cyclone IV.  The actual clock speed of the FPGA will be somewhat faster to allow better performance for the graphics cores.

Does this mean the memory clock is also getting a bump from 100Mhz(DDR2-400) to 133MHz(DDR2-533)?

[SamuraiCrow]

I don't know the answer to that one.  The speed of the memory may be fast enough without a clock bump.

[kedawa]

This is not specifically a Natami question, but something I've wondered about FPGA clones in general.
How practical would it be to use any leftover space on the FPGA to create a secondary core that mimics a simpler computer, like say a VIC-20, that could run in tandem with the main Amiga core?

[bloodline]

This is not specifically a Natami question, but something I've wondered about FPGA clones in general.
How practical would it be to use any leftover space on the FPGA to create a secondary core that mimics a simpler computer, like say a VIC-20, that could run in tandem with the main Amiga core?

That doesn't really make any sense

[kedawa]

What doesn't make sense?  Running two cores on one FPGA?
I'm just thinking of something that would allow for hardware emulation of something else without using any of the Amiga core's resources.

If the Amiga's design can accomodate it, would it be possible to add another copy of say the Paula chip, stripped down to just the audio portion, in order to have more audio channels?

[wawrzon]

I don't know the answer to that one.  The speed of the memory may be fast enough without a clock bump.

i think the question might be justified, as the comments jens schoenfeld made about overclocking in context of his new 030 accel and the real world benchmarks of stachu100's modded boards seem to indicate. either cpu and ram (and even better - the rest of the system) work hand in hand or not. i think thomas hirsch and the core team is well aware about that though.

[commodorejohn]

If the Amiga's design can accomodate it, would it be possible to add another copy of say the Paula chip, stripped down to just the audio portion, in order to have more audio channels?

Last I looked on the NatAmi page, there already was a severely beefed-up audio generator capable of a large number of 16-bit channels.

[kedawa]

That makes sense.  I know these questions are probably naive and silly, but I really don't have much knowledge of FPGAs or the Amiga's core logic for that matter.
Programming PICs is about the extent of my experience with programmable logic.

[Hattig]

This is not specifically a Natami question, but something I've wondered about FPGA clones in general.
How practical would it be to use any leftover space on the FPGA to create a secondary core that mimics a simpler computer, like say a VIC-20, that could run in tandem with the main Amiga core?

The FPGA is configured upon bootup.

Therefore if you want a VIC20, or C64, or PC Engine, then you select that configuration upon bootup, and the hardware literally becomes that machine.

Of course you do need someone to create each of the above configurations in the first place, which isn't trivial, but I'm sure that they will come in due course.

It doesn't really make any sense to run two configurations at the same time, especially since they would contend for the I/Os on the FPGA. Far better to use the spare space for future expansion - the 3D core, the DSP, etc.

[smerf]

Hi,

I am really excited about the Natami, (yawn). How about upgrading the processor to something a small bit newer like a AMD 6 core cpu (1090t, 1055t or the 1075t) , why are we futzin around with something Motorolla gave up on a long time ago. I know why Amiga people aren't happy unless it is out of date junk that they can spend lots of money on upgrading for bragging rights.

Even apple had more common sense than to stick with a dead cpu.

Will someone please explain to me why?

I seem to be a little nieve in this area.

smerf

[Franko]

Hi,

I am really excited about the Natami, (yawn). How about upgrading the processor to something a small bit newer like a AMD 6 core cpu (1090t, 1055t or the 1075t) , why are we futzin around with something Motorolla gave up on a long time ago. I know why Amiga people aren't happy unless it is out of date junk that they can spend lots of money on upgrading for bragging rights.

Even apple had more common sense than to stick with a dead cpu.

Will someone please explain to me why?

I seem to be a little nieve in this area.

smerf

Hi smerf...

I love all my old out of date junk and when somebody makes some new out of date junk, I look forward to adding that to my ever growing out of date junke pile collection...

Franko

(PS:I don't like to brag about it though...

[Belial6]

Hi,

I am really excited about the Natami, (yawn). How about upgrading the processor to something a small bit newer like a AMD 6 core cpu (1090t, 1055t or the 1075t) , why are we futzin around with something Motorolla gave up on a long time ago. I know why Amiga people aren't happy unless it is out of date junk that they can spend lots of money on upgrading for bragging rights.

Even apple had more common sense than to stick with a dead cpu.

Will someone please explain to me why?

I seem to be a little nieve in this area.

smerf

Because they are making an Amiga compatible and enhanced machine.  Not a Windows compatible and enhanced machine.

[Belial6]

I have kind of thought that a dual FPGA system would be cool.  If one of these projects supported a second FPGA, you could run your Amiga in the primary one, and set the secondary one to whatever system you wanted.  The key would be making it so that instead of having the second FPGA output it's Audio/Video/Keyboard/Mouse/Joysticks directly, they route into the first FPGA that could then handle forwarding them on to the real equipment.  That way they could be run in a window, or full screen.

It would be cool to be able to manage and launch your C64 FPGA configurations from your Amiga Workbench.

[Karlos]

Hi,

I am really excited about the Natami, (yawn). How about upgrading the processor to something a small bit newer like a AMD 6 core cpu (1090t, 1055t or the 1075t) , why are we futzin around with something Motorolla gave up on a long time ago.

Why, what are you going to run on it? In case it escaped your attention, OS3.x doesn't run directly on x86 and furthermore AmigaOS and it's offshoots don't actually support SMP. Since that's reduced you to UAE territory for running OS3.x in a backwards compatible (read with native chipset support), then you might as well just be using your existing PC/UAE.

The NatAmi is obviously for people that want a physical machine that is hardware compatible with their old kit, whilst simultaneously being a bit faster and more capable. I see no problem with that. My only criticism of the NatAmi project is that it seems to suffering from feature creep.

If you want a 6 core AMD (and frankly, I have trouble keeping my quad core intel fully occupied), buy a PC.

I seem to be a little nieve in this area.

Yes. Assuming you meant naive, that is

[Franko]

The NatAmi is obviously for people that want a physical machine that is hardware compatible with their old kit, whilst simultaneously being a bit faster and more capable. I see no problem with that.

Thems the words I've been looking for, sums it all up perfectly for me...

(wish I'd thought of them first... )