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Author Topic: FPGA Replay Board  (Read 826517 times)

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Offline ChaosLord

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2459 from previous page: February 21, 2013, 03:58:52 PM »
@cunnpole

This one is only $20.00 for 72 hours.  32GB of space.  Writes up to 35 MB/s and reads up to 50 MB/s

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178536&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL022113&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL022113-_-EMC-022113-Index-_-FlashMemory-_-20178536-L016B

20 bucks seems cheap enuff.
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Offline mikej

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2460 on: February 21, 2013, 04:15:50 PM »
Quote from: ChaosLord;727184
@cunnpole

This one is only $20.00 for 72 hours.  32GB of space.  Writes up to 35 MB/s and reads up to 50 MB/s

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178536&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL022113&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL022113-_-EMC-022113-Index-_-FlashMemory-_-20178536-L016B

20 bucks seems cheap enuff.


The ARM does not support UHS speed, so I would recommend getting a standard class10 card.
/MikeJ
 

Offline psxphill

Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2461 on: February 21, 2013, 05:38:56 PM »
Quote from: ChaosLord;727184
@cunnpole
 
This one is only $20.00 for 72 hours. 32GB of space. Writes up to 35 MB/s and reads up to 50 MB/s
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178536&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL022113&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL022113-_-EMC-022113-Index-_-FlashMemory-_-20178536-L016B
 
20 bucks seems cheap enuff.

sdcard speeds are a bunch of hocum
 
"Speed Classes 2, 4, and 6 assert that the card supports the respective number of megabytes per second as a minimum sustained write speed for a card in a fragmented state. Class 10 asserts that the card supports 10 MB/s as a minimum non-fragmented sequential write speed."
 
So for that card, the most they guarantee is 10MB/S for writes. In some circumstances it might write at 35 MB/s, but it will never write faster than that. While reads will never be faster than 50 MB/s, but they don't guarantee a minimum.
 
A lot of cards have areas that are slower than others, so as long as it's pretty empty then you won't notice it slow down. While sdcards are ok for digital cameras and camcorders where files are written, read and deleted. They aren't so great for computers where you might seek into the middle of a file and overwrite some bytes. This causes flash memory to reallocate blocks, even though the file system might have no fragmentation the underlying flash will be fragmented and there is nothing you can do about it.
 
"UHS Speed Class 1" doesn't seem to mean anything in terms of storage speed, it's purely the interface speed. Kind of like having an ultra scsi floppy drive.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2013, 05:47:00 PM by psxphill »
 

Offline DCAmiga

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2462 on: February 21, 2013, 05:56:01 PM »
@ChaosLord

Samsung - 8GB (class10) for $8 seems even cheaper ;)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147152
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Offline freqmax

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2463 on: February 22, 2013, 09:06:19 AM »
@mikej, Does FPGA Arcade implement 4-bit parallel mode?
 

Offline cunnpole

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2464 on: February 22, 2013, 09:30:24 AM »
Quote from: psxphill;727194
Class 10 asserts that the card supports 10 MB/s as a minimum non-fragmented sequential write speed.


Thanks I hadn't noticed the dodgy rating fudge for class 10. It seems to be quite difficult to find random read/write benchmarks for sd cards. The best I've seen is for high end digital cameras with little detail on the testing methodology (was the card new or had it already been used, etc.):
Writes:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_wb_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-10549
Reads:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/reader_report_all.asp?cid=6007-9438&card_type=SD

It does give you a general idea of contiguous allocation/read speeds and the overheads of each reader device.
 

Offline mikej

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2465 on: February 22, 2013, 01:13:30 PM »
Quote from: freqmax;727256
@mikej, Does FPGA Arcade implement 4-bit parallel mode?

mmm, well one would need a license to implement. I have wired all the required pins up to the ARM. The ARM does not support 4-bit mode with it's SPI peripheral so you would have to use the GPIO pins and bit-bang it. With a tight loop it may well be faster, and is something for future experimentation.

This is why the SSC bus (high speed serial) is wired up to the FPGA as well as the SPI bus, and this can be clocked faster than the SPI bus. So, you would 4-bit copy from the SD card into ARM while DMAing the previous block out over the SSC bus.

/MikeJ
« Last Edit: February 22, 2013, 05:45:02 PM by mikej »
 

Offline psxphill

Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2466 on: February 22, 2013, 01:51:02 PM »
Quote from: cunnpole;727258
Thanks I hadn't noticed the dodgy rating fudge for class 10. It seems to be quite difficult to find random read/write benchmarks for sd cards.

Yes it is, although there are some vague recommendations for really expensive sd cards. However I've used identically branded sandisk sd cards that had performance at different ends of the spectrum. The only difference between them was where they were manufactured. So you can't even assume that because someone finds and reviews a card as being good that you'll have the same experience.
 

Offline cunnpole

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2467 on: February 22, 2013, 02:26:47 PM »
Quote from: psxphill;727272
So you can't even assume that because someone finds and reviews a card as being good that you'll have the same experience.


Joy...

It's mostly SanDisk Extreme 45MB/s SDHC cards that I'm buying at the moment. I can't say I've had a bad one yet. I guess we'll just have to suck it and see.  Mike which cards do you use?
 

Offline mikej

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2468 on: February 22, 2013, 02:39:51 PM »
Sandisk 4G class IV at the moment I pick up in bulk from a lady in Shenzhen.
You get the choice of "fake" or "not-fake" when you buy them, so who knows what they really are ;) Seem to work fine though.
/Mike
 

Offline freqmax

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2469 on: February 22, 2013, 03:50:35 PM »
Quote from: mikej;727270
mmm, well one would need a license to implement. I have wired all the required pins up to the ARM. The ARM does not support 4-bin mode with it's SPI peripheral so you would have to use the GPIO pins and bit-bang it. With a tight loop it may well be faster, and is something for future experimentation.

This is why the SSC bus (high speed serial) is wired up to the FPGA as well as the SPI bus, and this can be clocked faster than the SPI bus. So, you would 4-bit copy from the SD card into ARM while DMAing the previous block out over the SSC bus.


So no need to license wiring for a 4-bit interface. But an implementation needs license, correct?

Would it be a mess to wire the FPGA to access the SD-card 4-bit interface? ie no GPIO left..

(sw "updates" can then be distributed less official ;))
 

Offline ChaosLord

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2470 on: February 22, 2013, 07:41:02 PM »
Quote from: mikej;727183
Note it is around 28Mbit/sec from the SD card in SPI mode. Limitation is ARM and SD card max clock freq.

So we can only get around 2.8MB/sec hard drive transfers which I think is about 2x the speed of an A1200 with an IDEfix attached.  So I can only write games that are twice as big as an A1200 game before I get accused of slow-loading "bloatware" :lol:
Wanna try a wonderfull strategy game with lots of handdrawn anims,
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English speech, etc. Total Chaos AGA
 

Offline Johan Samuelsson

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2471 on: February 24, 2013, 10:25:54 PM »
So, the end of february is finally here! Any news on the production run? :)
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check it ---> http://www.uprough.net
 

Offline mohican

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2472 on: February 24, 2013, 11:41:10 PM »
... or maybe a planned/draft roadmap including 060 daughterboard would be fine ;)
 

Offline mikej

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2473 on: February 26, 2013, 10:47:09 PM »
Quote from: spotUP;727444
So, the end of february is finally here! Any news on the production run? :)


Should build em Friday....
 

Offline freqmax

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Re: FPGA Replay Board
« Reply #2474 on: February 26, 2013, 11:32:04 PM »
Base boards on Friday? Daughterboard .. "future" ;)