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Offline Duce

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #29 from previous page: October 04, 2011, 01:30:37 PM »
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?
 

Offline jj

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #30 on: October 04, 2011, 02:31:17 PM »
Quote from: billt;662031
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.

 
You have to think that this SAGA or whatever this Natami chip is called,is in the same boat.
 
Whats the point in it, when current Amiga graphic cards can out perform it ?
“We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” - George Bernard Shaw

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Offline Duce

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #31 on: October 04, 2011, 03:05:29 PM »
I figure the new implementations of the Amiga gfx advancements like AAA are just an homage to what "could have been", a spiritual successor, tbh.  I'd be very surprised if there is ever much software that takes advantage of it, but as long as it maintains backwards compatibility, all good by me.

Unless SAGA hits multiple platforms on these new gen Amiga's besides the Natami, I don't see it getting much use.  If such things are limited to just the newer FPGA Amiga's, there's really a limited market.

Then again, I'm not their target market, as I'm not a gamer and I'd be content with running a "modern" Amiga under barebones lowres low color WB 3.1 anyways.
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #32 on: October 04, 2011, 03:35:04 PM »
Yeah, software support beyond OCS/ECS/AGA is likely almost nonexistent ;)
 

Offline Khephren

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #33 on: October 04, 2011, 04:36:15 PM »
Quote from: Duce;662426


Unless SAGA hits multiple platforms on these new gen Amiga's besides the Natami, I don't see it getting much use.  If such things are limited to just the newer FPGA Amiga's, there's really a limited market.


I doubt we will see much that bangs the hardware in the old fashioned sense, we are probably a decade to late for that to be much of a success. But I do expect SAGA to get a lot of easily converted opensource ports from linux and windows, blender, browsers, various emulators etc.

If these SAGA machines are a decent price, and speed, I could quite happily use one for web browsing and art programs again, and the odd game of quake2 and 3 would not go amiss either.

Having a modern machine, without having bits of hardware hanging off my Amiga would be nice, and if the demo scene gets on board, i'll be even happier.

I have the sneaking suspicion that NatAmi is going to be very expensive though.
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #34 on: October 04, 2011, 04:50:36 PM »
Quote from: Khephren;662433
I doubt we will see much that bangs the hardware in the old fashioned sense, we are probably a decade to late for that to be much of a success. But I do expect SAGA to get a lot of easily converted opensource ports from linux and windows, blender, browsers, various emulators etc.


The Windows and Unix environment lacks the low latency architecture of AmigaOS because they for one thing operate in protected mode and uses kernel APIs.

Software doing the assembler pook & peek will still run circles around other other programming methods. It's rather different than "too late". If you want to put the effort in to code is another story ;)

I think RTG might be a way around software compatibility.

What do you think of AROS 68k ?

Quote from: Khephren;662433
I have the sneaking suspicion that NatAmi is going to be very expensive though.


I think it will be late to the party and expensive. And liable to any whims from Altera.
 

Offline Khephren

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #35 on: October 04, 2011, 05:26:01 PM »
By too late, I mean all the coders have moved on, and we have very few left, and they are spread over several different flavours of 'Amiga' already.

As for coding, afraid it's all I can do to keep up with 3D software for day job, learning to code is pretty much out of my league, skills and time wise (all though books and disks for Blitz, Amos and C++ show my unsuccessful attempts!).

Yes, SAGA RTG modes are why I think we will get some ports.

I quite like Aros, I use it a lot. But I would also like a native Amiga version....or a new native Amiga for Aros ;)
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #36 on: October 04, 2011, 05:28:15 PM »
There already is a bootable AROS 68k version since many months ago.

For 3D.. try OpenGL ;)
 

Offline amigadave

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #37 on: October 04, 2011, 07:39:49 PM »
Quote from: matthey;662333
.....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?

There are a few people working on 68k softcores separately and AFAIK they are all adding some extra instructions beyond 68000 and even 68020, but I don't see much point in adding Coldfire support to a system that is going to have its CPU inside the FPGA, unless there is some Amiga software already written that needs certain Coldfire instructions.  Or if adding Coldfire instructions will allow new software to be written more easily than could be done with 680x0 instructions alone.  As for starting a poll to convince the FPGA Arcade inventor of anything, I would say no.  I have not seen anything written by MikeJ that indicates he is limiting the use of the Replay board in any way and anyone can modify what is loaded into the FPGA to do anything they want.  Just don't expect MikeJ to do it for you if you want something different than what he is offering.

Quote from: mongo;662346
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.

I am not familiar with AHDL, VHDL, or Verilog code, but I would be surprised if there is no conversion utilities available and that it would have to be completely re-written from scratch.

Quote from: Hattig;662419
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.

Yes, SAGA will be much better and faster than what AAA would have been, but still SAGA should not be compared to any other PC graphics system or card of today.  It is not being developed to compete with today's standards, but to provide the best and fastest "Amiga" experience.  An expansion of 1985 technology to see how far that old tech can be pushed forward, not to change it into something more similar to what is available today.

Quote from: JJ;662425
.....Whats the point in it, when current Amiga graphic cards can out perform it ?

The point is to advance the Amiga chipset past the point that Commodore ever developed it, so that people that still want to tinker with, and code for the original Amiga in the same way it worked from the beginning, can work with something that is faster and better than the original OCS, ECS & AGA systems.  It is not for everybody, but a lot of current and former Amiga users are excited about seeing what "Might Have Been", if only things had been run differently at Commodore.

Quote from: Duce;662426
I figure the new implementations of the Amiga gfx advancements like AAA are just an homage to what "could have been", a spiritual successor, tbh.  I'd be very surprised if there is ever much software that takes advantage of it, but as long as it maintains backwards compatibility, all good by me.

Unless SAGA hits multiple platforms on these new gen Amiga's besides the Natami, I don't see it getting much use.  If such things are limited to just the newer FPGA Amiga's, there's really a limited market.

Then again, I'm not their target market, as I'm not a gamer and I'd be content with running a "modern" Amiga under barebones lowres low color WB 3.1 anyways.

SAGA is an improvement for a fraction of an already tiny niche market.  The number of programmers that will be interested in writing even one line of code that takes advantage of SAGA will probably by counted in dozens, not hundreds or thousands.  But, as there are more and more people that return to retro interests, the number of programmers may actually grow over time.  When you start with only a handful of programmers that are interested, it is easy to go up from there.

Quote from: freqmax;662428
Yeah, software support beyond OCS/ECS/AGA is likely almost nonexistent ;)

Yes, the there is room for growth as more Amiga users see what can be done with the new features of SAGA.

Quote from: Khephren;662433
I doubt we will see much that bangs the hardware in the old fashioned sense, we are probably a decade to late for that to be much of a success. But I do expect SAGA to get a lot of easily converted opensource ports from linux and windows, blender, browsers, various emulators etc.

If these SAGA machines are a decent price, and speed, I could quite happily use one for web browsing and art programs again, and the odd game of quake2 and 3 would not go amiss either.

Having a modern machine, without having bits of hardware hanging off my Amiga would be nice, and if the demo scene gets on board, i'll be even happier.

I have the sneaking suspicion that NatAmi is going to be very expensive though.

Although the Natami will be much more capable than older Classic Amigas, it will still not be competitive with other alternatives for web browsing and picture processing power, so if that is what you are looking for, it will always be a disappointment when compared to modern computers and OSes.

There won't be many people that want to write new code to "bang the hardware" like many 1980's & 1990's programmers did, but there will be some and I do think that this ability is one of the Natami's selling points.

As for price, any small production run, custom computer system is going to be very expensive when compared to something else of similar power that is being manufactured in numbers that are thousands of time higher.
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Offline Khephren

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #38 on: October 04, 2011, 09:35:21 PM »
Quote from: amigadave;662451


Although the Natami will be much more capable than older Classic Amigas, it will still not be competitive with other alternatives for web browsing and picture processing power, so if that is what you are looking for, it will always be a disappointment when compared to modern computers and OSes.

There won't be many people that want to write new code to "bang the hardware" like many 1980's & 1990's programmers did, but there will be some and I do think that this ability is one of the Natami's selling points.

As for price, any small production run, custom computer system is going to be very expensive when compared to something else of similar power that is being manufactured in numbers that are thousands of time higher.


The Amiga tends to punch above it's weight in what it can do, and I think a very fast 060 derivative with 24bit colour would do me fine for web browsing. I don't care about flash html5 etc.

I've got a couple of fast PC's for 3D rendering, But for 2D indexed coloured stuff, I still love using my Amiga.

As for price, i guess because it's FPGA it will be expensive. But custom hardware does not have to be, the Pandora and raspberry Pi aren't for example.
 

Offline mikej

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #39 on: October 04, 2011, 10:24:31 PM »
I wasn't going to wade in here but ...

The NatAmi board uses a Cyclone IV EP4CE40 device (currently). This has 39,600 LE (Flop + Logic element) and 1.134 MBit internal memory.

The FPGAArcade Replay board uses a Spartan3e1600 device. This has 13,752  Slices, but each slice has 2 logic and 2 flops, so that gives about 29,504.  It has 0.66 MBit internal memory.

I had a quick look at the timing data, the Cyclone is probably slightly faster - but there is not much in it.

The NatAmi team can fit a larger FPGA, true, but their device is already significantly more expensive than the Spartan3e. I believe getting a low cost and mass production is more important at this point.

Writing in AHDL is rather painful, but there are tools to convert from AHDL to VHDL.

I used to design 3D graphics hardware. I have a lot of respect for the designers working on NatAmi, but with this FPGA they will do well to match the performance of a 10 year old GPU.

For me, the aim is to get a highly accurate, high performance 68020 grade processor which high resolution, high bit depth screen modes (with a few hardware tricks thrown in).

I have to get back to testing me boards ....
Best.
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Offline mikej

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #40 on: October 04, 2011, 10:25:38 PM »
I should add that all the code will be open sourced, so if anybody wants to port additional features they are very welcome to.

/Mike
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #41 on: October 04, 2011, 10:30:24 PM »
Computers for the masses (deja vu) ;)
 

Offline michel3105

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #42 on: October 05, 2011, 12:05:59 AM »
As pointless as my question may seem: is there an intention to implement a Super Famicom, as well?... (but I was also thinking: and then where do you plug the joypads?)
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #43 on: October 05, 2011, 12:43:28 AM »
Famicon is not an Amiga system.
 

Offline matthey

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Re: First to implement AAA chipset?
« Reply #44 on: October 05, 2011, 05:12:39 AM »
Quote from: amigadave;662451
There are a few people working on 68k softcores separately and AFAIK they are all adding some extra instructions beyond 68000 and even 68020, but I don't see much point in adding Coldfire support to a system that is going to have its CPU inside the FPGA, unless there is some Amiga software already written that needs certain Coldfire instructions.  Or if adding Coldfire instructions will allow new software to be written more easily than could be done with 680x0 instructions alone.  As for starting a poll to convince the FPGA Arcade inventor of anything, I would say no.  I have not seen anything written by MikeJ that indicates he is limiting the use of the Replay board in any way and anyone can modify what is loaded into the FPGA to do anything they want.  Just don't expect MikeJ to do it for you if you want something different than what he is offering.


Adding Coldfire instructions would allow libraries of Coldfire software (often more modern than 68k code for things like audio or video processing) to be used on the Amiga. Some developers may be attracted to cheap development platforms for Coldfire or even use the whole board for small production imbedded systems or kiosks. These instructions are useful on the Amiga providing a speed up and better code density (especially mvs and mvz). What is the cost to add 99% compatibility with another processor? Just the logic needed to add 7 simple instructions (bitrev, byterev, ff1, mov3q, mvs, mvz, and sats) that are processed in similar ways to existing 68k instructions. The Natami Team has also looked at other simple additions like allowing address registers in EA fields which might not cost any logic, a dbcc.l instruction and bcc instructions using bit 0 of the branch address for longer branches or static branch prediction (my choice), a compression method for long immediate values, etc. I would expect 5-10% better code density, a nice speedup and easier programming. Compilers like vbcc and gcc already have Coldfire support that just needs to be turned on for some benefit. It's easy to be short sighted but if some developer ordered several thousand of an fpga based board because of a little more effort to support more than games, it could help bring the price down for everyone.

Quote from: mikej;662471

The NatAmi team can fit a larger FPGA, true, but their device is already significantly more expensive than the Spartan3e. I believe getting a low cost and mass production is more important at this point.


I think the cost is going to be more important in this economy. The fpga Arcade should easily out sell the Natami. If they were much cheaper or I was much richer, I would buy several as Christmas presents ;). I will probably buy a Natami and fpga Arcade. I will wait for either the 68060 expansion board or Coldfire support in the fpga processor though.

Quote from: mikej;662471

I used to design 3D graphics hardware. I have a lot of respect for the designers working on NatAmi, but with this FPGA they will do well to match the performance of a 10 year old GPU.


I agree, but this is not so bad. There are some pretty powerful gfx cards that are 10 years old and the AmigaOS doesn't have much overhead when using them. I want gfx support that is well documented and easy to program which I am willing to trade for some speed.

Quote from: mikej;662471

For me, the aim is to get a highly accurate, high performance 68020 grade processor which high resolution, high bit depth screen modes (with a few hardware tricks thrown in).


I'm glad we've moved from the 68000 to the 68020. It's much more powerful and easier to program. It would be better yet with Coldfire instructions ;).