First to implement AAA chipset?

[freqmax]

Seems the AAA chipset is the only unreleased one with documentation. Ranger and Hombre seems to lack any documentation. So who will be first to implement AAA in hardware?

The Nyx prototype went for 2525.25 USD in april 2011..

[Tension]

first one to do it wins a free pen!

[matthey]

The Natami SAGA should be a more AGA compatible version of what AAA would have been. Modern hardware and fpga's make AAA performance possible without the trade-offs. Most AAA features are in SAGA. The Dave Haynie thread talked about the similarities of AAA and SAGA. Dave likes the Natami idea better than most of the other NG Amigas.

[Kesa]

The Natami SAGA should be a more AGA compatible version of what AAA would have been. Modern hardware and fpga's make AAA performance possible without the trade-offs. Most AAA features are in SAGA. The Dave Haynie thread talked about the similarities of AAA and SAGA. Dave likes the Natami idea better than most of the other NG Amigas.

What thread?

[Crom00]

Didn't Hazy Dave also say a $10 VGA card surpasses the AAA nyx?

[freqmax]

Another question.. is there even an operating system that would run on Nyx ?

[matthey]

What thread?

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?p=631463#post631463

[Zac67]

Didn't Hazy Dave also say a $10 VGA card surpasses the AAA nyx?

Nowadays? Running circles around AAA.

AAA would have used an up to 64 bit bus with VRAM which might have been able to run at up to 50 MHz. That equates to a max throughput of 400 MB/s for the framebuffer/blitter (the synchronous) side. This is easily surpassed by any onboard graphics on a $50 mainboard.
The lowest spec Nvidia cards still being sold have 8+ GB/s throughput (which is about 10% of a somewhat decent card).

[amigadave]

I wonder if the Natami Team is going to release SAGA as Open Source to attract more developers to write programs that can use its features?  With the FPGA Arcade Replay Board on the verge of becoming mass produced (compared to other projects in the Amiga market only), it probably has enough room in its FPGA to contain the SAGA code and could double or quadruple the number of computers that can run SAGA capable programs in the future, since the Natami will be a higher spec and higher priced product that will not match the popularity and wide spread distribution of the Replay board.  (I am not saying that Natami won't be as popular in the Amiga community, but the Replay board is aimed at arcade enthusiasts outside the Amiga community as well as Amiga users)

[SamuraiCrow]

With the FPGA Arcade Replay Board on the verge of becoming mass produced (compared to other projects in the Amiga market only), it probably has enough room in its FPGA to contain the SAGA code and could double or quadruple the number of computers that can run SAGA capable programs in the future, since the Natami will be a higher spec and higher priced product that will not match the popularity and wide spread distribution of the Replay board.

By my guestimates, I'd say the Replay board won't have enough room for the SAGA chipset alone, much less the SAGA and the N050.  Also, the SuperAGA chipset is being designed in AHDL so it will only work on Altera FPGAs without conversion to VHDL.  The FPGA used in the NatAmi will have approximately 4+ times the capacity of the Xilinx one used in the Replay board.  Of course that will cost more than the Replay board, but it will also be more future-proof.  Just because the NatAmi is still in the alpha-test stages doesn't mean that it won't be useful to people outside the Amiga community as well.

[Jose]

The coolest thing about AAA to me is that it would have mated with the all the experience Amiga coders had before with OCS and ECS using assembler. Mate that with the toaster and it's animation capabilities and it would have even enabled cooper based plasma effects (AAA cooper had much bigger resolution). It would have been king.
Today it's worth nothing but coolness factor, better move on with RTG and save energies to save the platform, there are no programs at all that will run on AAA, even if it's interesting:)

[smerf]

AAA chip set, would like going back to a evga card in a PC today. No gain at all to anyone.

smerf

[billt]

AAA chip set, would like going back to a evga card in a PC today. No gain at all to anyone.

Particularly since there's no software that used AAA. If we can do better with other things, then it's a waste of FPGA space. It might be an interesting educational exercise to do it anyway, but it doesn't seem very practical since we don't gain any software for it. And, since there's other better things today, it's not practical to make it and then make software for it.

[freqmax]

Guess I'm slightly curious how it "would been"
Anyway all building blocks of a core can be replaced. Just because there's AAA graphics core, doesn't hinder it's replacement with a plain "compile". Ie you can in essence select your cpu-gfx-sound combo at will.

For pure performance and compabiltity maybe it's better to plainly extend OCS/ECS/AGA modes with higher capabilities? HAM64? or planar/chunky-24, more sprites etc.

[matthey]

For pure performance and compabiltity maybe it's better to plainly extend OCS/ECS/AGA modes with higher capabilities? HAM64? or planar/chunky-24, more sprites etc.

That's what the Natami is about! Use the old ideas and scale up to todays technology where practical. Example AAA like SAGA support...

Much faster and bigger gfx memory: Gfx memory will operate at the same speed as fast memory which is faster than any classic Amiga. 256MB means you won't run out until the Natami gets 3D .

Much faster blitter: The Blitter is used for 2D gfx and blitter objects (bobs) on the Amiga which should be much faster and allow virtually unlimited movement onscreen at typical Amiga resolutions.

Fast chunky modes: The Natami should support 16 and 32 and maybe 24 and 8. These allow read and write operations with 1 fast memory access. Very common on other platforms.

HAM modes: HAM64, really? The Natami will support HAM6 and HAM8. The team looked at adding HAM10 which would visually look nearly 24 bit while only using 10 bits per pixel. However, it's not an easy format to work with and bitmap structures only have room for 8 planes of data. Dithered 16 bit looks good enough, saves bandwidth and memory, and is much easier to work with.

3x8 byte mode: Gunnar likes this mode as it gives more colors for the bandwidth. Storing each color component separately has it's advantages but is generally more difficult to work with than chunky. It may be more useful separated as HSV than RGB.

Sprites: Sprites are much the same as AGA with less restrictions (i.e. palette). Adding more sprites or colors steals bandwidth when the blitter (bobs) is much more flexible and the Amiga way.

Planar+Chunky/Dual playfield: The Natami should allow planar gfx overlayed over chunky gfx for some interesting effects. Higher colors should be supported in dual playfield mode.

HSV/YCbCr: It's not been decided but some kind of mode(s) for video (mpeg) will probably be supported. Perhaps this will be allowed as an overlay (PIP) like PC gfx cards.