Sam460ex available with AmigaOS 4.1

[jj]

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

[m3x]

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.

[klx300r]

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:

[Louis Dias]

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...

[Louis Dias]

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.

[Piru]

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

[Louis Dias]

Let me know when that happens, assuming we're still alive and kicking

Will do.

[outlawal2]

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...

[Louis Dias]

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...

[mbrantley]

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.

[Piru]

Cell's PPE doesn't I don't think

Cell PPE has AltiVec.

[cv643d]

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?

[Jupp3]

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)?

[TheGoose]

I'm not buying any more AOS 4.x until the Mac Mini work is finished / released.

:hammer:

[Louis Dias]

Cell PPE has AltiVec.

That only makes my 'gpu is king' argument better, you do realize...

[Norway]

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....