First to implement AAA chipset?

[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.

[amigadave]

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.

I did not realize that the Natami FPGA was that much larger than the one used in the Replay board.  I was not expecting the Natami N050, or N070 code to be used in the Replay board, just hoping that the SAGA code would fit.  Maybe it will if the Replay board has the "to be released in the future" daughter card with an actual 68060 on board so that there is no 680x0 code in the FPGA taking up space?

[DCAmiga]

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.

I noticed Jason McMullan is taking interest in developing for the Natami, which is great news!
With all this talk about AAA and SAGA and Natami being in alpha stage I was wondering how fast the FPGA chip is running at (over 145 mhz I hope) ... I would love to see a 1080p resolution for Natami.

[SamuraiCrow]

I did not realize that the Natami FPGA was that much larger than the one used in the Replay board.  I was not expecting the Natami N050, or N070 code to be used in the Replay board, just hoping that the SAGA code would fit.  Maybe it will if the Replay board has the "to be released in the future" daughter card with an actual 68060 on board so that there is no 680x0 code in the FPGA taking up space?

I have a correction to make.  The FPGA we're using has only 3 times the capacity of the Replay, not 4+ times.  If the SuperAGA was to try to fit on the Replay you'd have to ditch the 3D capabilities completely though.

[SamuraiCrow]

I noticed Jason McMullan is taking interest in developing for the Natami, which is great news!
With all this talk about AAA and SAGA and Natami being in alpha stage I was wondering how fast the FPGA chip is running at (over 145 mhz I hope) ... I would love to see a 1080p resolution for Natami.

The FPGA itself clocks more than 145 MHz but the N68050 CPU core will be more in the 133 MHz ballpark figure making it equivalent to a 75-100 MHz 68060.  In time the N68070 will pick up some slack.

[amigadave]

I have a correction to make.  The FPGA we're using has only 3 times the capacity of the Replay, not 4+ times.  If the SuperAGA was to try to fit on the Replay you'd have to ditch the 3D capabilities completely though.

Losing the 3D capabilities would not make the effort to implement the rest of SAGA on the Replay board a waste of time.  The whole idea I am trying to get across is that if the Natami Team will allow SAGA (without 3D) to be installed on the Replay board, it will give more people incentive and opportunity to develop games and apps that use the SAGA features.

I am a big fan of the Natami project and hope that they have great success in completing it and selling hundreds, if not thousands of them.  It appears that it will not be until next year before any Natami systems are available to the general Amiga community, maybe longer if any complications come up that are harder to resolve than the team had imagined, so by getting programmers started with coding some SAGA apps and games on the Replay board, it will increase the amount of such software that will be ready when the Natami is finally ready for launching.  Also, due to the increased cost of the Natami's larger FPGA and the rest of the components on it's larger motherboard, the Natami will cost much more than the Replay, so fewer people will be able to afford one and having SAGA programming available on the Replay will increase the number of potential programmers working with SAGA apps and games.

I see the Natami as what 99.9% of Amiga users wish had happened around 1992, not in FPGA form, but in spirit of additional features added to the Amiga hardware and additional features within AmigaOS to take advantage of a natural progression of the Amiga's AGA video and audio capabilities.  It is not competitive with modern computers of the last ten years in hardware specs, but it is unique and should not really be compared to other computers.  It serves only one purpose, to take the AmigaOS to the next step above where it was in 1992 to 1994.

I don't want a Natami with a PPC CPU or the capability to install the latest and greatest $400 to $800 video card.  I want to see what AmigaOS3.1>3.9 can do with SAGA and the Natami Team's plans for the N680x0 soft core plus having built-in Ethernet and USB so modern peripherals can be easily attached and used, plus it is nice that it will also have ports to allow the connection of original Amiga keyboards and joysticks & mice.

[Forcie]

I agree with amigadave, both as an individual and as a Natami team member. Agreeing on common standards and common goals for the "new classic" projects is very important both for the success of the platforms and for the Amiga community. It creates a common software base and avoids software fragmentation. It also stakes out a way for developing the Amiga chipset further.

Even if the FPGAArcade cannot hold nearly all the features of the Natami in FPGA, agreeing that programming the hardware should be done in a certain way, using the new custom chipset registers for the same purpose and using the same data structures is very important.

SAGA specs will be available when the chipset has reached 1.0 and the systems are getting close to public release.

[psxphill]

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.

Whether there is software is irrelevant, if you are going to implement functionality similar to AAA and have a choice of using AAA register formats or purposefully refusing to use AAA register formats then its cooler to use the AAA formats.
 
The choice then becomes what part of AAA would you implement. I think >8bit is definately what everyone wants. Then you've got the improved blitter & copper.
 
I understand the pro's and con's of both sides of the argument.
 
You could also take the actuator concept and just use a seperate video chip, with an AGA renderer into graphics ram for backward compatibility. There are alot of options for a no compromise solution.

[amigadave]

I agree with amigadave, both as an individual and as a Natami team member. Agreeing on common standards and common goals for the "new classic" projects is very important both for the success of the platforms and for the Amiga community. It creates a common software base and avoids software fragmentation. It also stakes out a way for developing the Amiga chipset further.

Even if the FPGAArcade cannot hold nearly all the features of the Natami in FPGA, agreeing that programming the hardware should be done in a certain way, using the new custom chipset registers for the same purpose and using the same data structures is very important.

SAGA specs will be available when the chipset has reached 1.0 and the systems are getting close to public release.

This is good news to hear from one of the Natami Team members!  I hope that you (the team members working on Natami) will not wait until it is almost ready to release, as I wrote that releasing it now, or in the near future will have the advantage of getting some programmers to start coding apps and games that can take advantage of these newer SAGA features so that there are some SAGA compatible apps and games written before the Natami is available and when it is finally released, there will be some SAGA apps and games available to show off the newer capabilities.

Also, though I know that too many cooks can ruin the stew, it might be good for the Natami Development Team to accept ideas and discussion regarding adding new SAGA features from talented Amiga developers who are not on the Natami Dev. Team.  The Natami Team members can choose to accept or reject any ideas they don't think are feasible, or don't create significant benefits compared to the amount of work or resources they require to implement.  Outside developers and hardware technicians may also provide key information, coding, or ideas that will help the Natami Team to complete the work on SAGA faster.

[Kesa]

Ingredients:

100 gm plain flour
50 gm whole meal flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 banana, ripe
50 gm sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
50 gm walnut
2 drops vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
6 muffin paper cup

Instructions:

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 180 C

Step 2 - Mix plain, whole wheat flour, ground cinnamon and baking powder together

Step 3 - Chop walnut

Step 4 - Skin banana and cut into thin slices and then mash up

Step 5 - Beat egg with sugar then add vegetable oil, vanilla essence and mashed up banana then mix well

Step 6 - Divide flour mix into 2 equal portions. Gradually mix in

Step 7 - Add diced walnut

Step 8 - Distribute evenly into 6 muffin paper cups

Step 9 - Bake for 15-20 minutes

Step 10 - Eat

[matthey]

This is good news to hear from one of the Natami Team members!  I hope that you (the team members working on Natami) will not wait until it is almost ready to release, as I wrote that releasing it now, or in the near future will have the advantage of getting some programmers to start coding apps and games that can take advantage of these newer SAGA features so that there are some SAGA compatible apps and games written before the Natami is available and when it is finally released, there will be some SAGA apps and games available to show off the newer capabilities.

SamuraiCrow is also a Natami Team member. I agree with you about creating a SAGA standard that any fpga can use. I think there should be an enhanced 68k standard that at least adds ColdFire support. These few useful instructions are already supported in some assemblers, compilers, etc. and only need to be enabled. We came up with a few other instructions that would also be great potential 68k enhancements. I think the fpga Arcade folks see their machine as more for retro game enthusiasts that would not want such enhancements but rather maximum compatibility. I think they are wrong. I think it's possible to have excellent compatibility and the enhancements. How do we convince them? Start a poll?

"Would you like SAGA enhancements in the fpga Arcade?"
"Would you like 68k CPU enhancements in the fpga Arcade?"
"Both please!"
"Neither, I only play retro games and demand exact emulation."
"I don't care and won't be buying an fpga Arcade."
"Pancakes!"

Also, though I know that too many cooks can ruin the stew, it might be good for the Natami Development Team to accept ideas and discussion regarding adding new SAGA features from talented Amiga developers who are not on the Natami Dev. Team.  The Natami Team members can choose to accept or reject any ideas they don't think are feasible, or don't create significant benefits compared to the amount of work or resources they require to implement.  Outside developers and hardware technicians may also provide key information, coding, or ideas that will help the Natami Team to complete the work on SAGA faster.

The Natami Team has been very open to suggestions on their web site and have received some very good ones from some very talented Amiga programmers. The Team is very busy right now so don't expect a huge response at the moment.

[freqmax]

SAGA but be nice, but unless the spec is released. It doesn't exist in practice for the majority.

As to what capabilities to implement. The things that ease the burden of the CPU most is the ones that should be given priority. And consideration has to be taken such that feature additions and changes won't be locked out by current API.

[mongo]

SAGA is written in AHDL which is only compatible with Altera FPGAs. It would have to be completely re-written in VHDL or Verilog to use with an Xilinx FPGA like in the FPGA Arcade.

[freqmax]

I talk about hardware API specification, that is registers etc.. and what they do. Actual implementation is another story.

[Hattig]

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

AAA as it would have been implemented in the 90s would be surpassed by even integrated Intel graphics nowadays.

SAGA as implemented in the Natami should be a lot faster than what AAA would have been, even if it isn't exactly what AAA was specced as.

[Duce]

I couldn't care less about shiny new (never shipped on stock Amiga's) gfx modes and such in these new PGA implementations, tbh.  Been a lot of years since I had any interest in gaming on the Amiga.  I know I am likely in the minority there, after seeing the success of stuff like the Minimig - so no disrespect intended to you retro gaming dudes in the least..

Give me:  A next gen Amiga that can take modern peripherals - USB sticks, has ethernet onboard, modern graphics ports/flickerfixers - running the classic C= OS.  Small, quiet, power efficient, and most importantly rock solid.

Not limited to being a gaming box only, but something I wish I had in the mid 90's.  A complete Amiga.

Most people around here know me as "The BBS guy".  I spent countless hours messing around with the old 'miggy BBS programs, despite the fact my BBS's only get 20 telnet calls a month, lol.  

I am looking VERY forward to Natami and FPGA Arcade (with the daughtercard) as a solution to replacing a UAE box or old finicky hardware.  

For all the merits of MorphOS, OS4 and AROS - nothing to me beats good old WB 3.x from a pure pleasure aspect on the user end.  Having such a machine at a reasonable price that runs rock solid is something the community has been seeking for a very long time.  As good as UAE, Amikit, Amithlon and the emulation software is, even with direct boot into WB (never seeing the host OS), it still "isn't the same", you know?