Am I really alone in wanting an Amiga AGA compatible?

[mahen]

Of course, classic hardware and emulation are great. But they are quite a few reasons why an FPGA/Minimig/MiST may give a better experience than emulation (or at least, makes sense)

- latency : I never had a satisfying experience under emulation as far as input delay is concerned. When I play shmups I really need no latency at all otherwise the gameplay balance is ruined... Why bother playing a game when your skills are hindered by the emulation latency !

- no underlying OS : it makes a HUGE difference. You really have the feeling you are making use of the capacities of the original machine even if it's just hardware emulation. You cannot "cheat" and cannot be distracted. We all have the feeling we have trouble focusing on a single task with multitasking, high speed internet etc. Well, with an FPGA Amiga, you can't. And it's great IMHO Like reading a great booking instead of reading thousands of articles introductions and not remembering anything.

- rendering : although it's probably possible to have a great rendering under emulation with pixel shaders etc., it's difficult to have a perfect 50 Hz display, and a clear picture (neither blocky nor blurry). I'm sure there are some Windows and WinUAE specialists that will teach me wrong. But as far as I'm concerned, I was never satisfied, probably due to my GPU / screen / OS combination. With the MiST (provided the screen is supported) you get 50 Hz, and with subtle scanlines, for some reason, the picture looks less blocky and less blurry than what one usually gets under emulation.

As for the classic HW versus FPGA recreation, the comparison in a post below is relevant. I would just add : - very satisfying rendering with LCD screens when used with the optional scanlines (clearly better than a classic Amiga with a scandoubler on an LCD screen).

Of course... All those points are moot if compatibility is not high enough !!!

[AmiDude]

They can be bought from various places and there is even a new core available.

Here is one place, Amigastore are great. I've ordered a couple of items off them that Amigakit didn't have at the time.

Or just buy straight from the the man himself :-)

http://amigastore.eu/en/318-mist-fpga-computer.html

OK, thanks dude!

[ElPolloDiabl]

Don't compare everything to WinUAE. It is not designed for playing arcade games. I'm pretty sure Toni even said that he would not be optimizing the code. He does not get paid for it.

If you want a fast emulator try Winfellow, but no one is working on it at the moment.

[utri007]

I would like to have, mobo with following features :

A1200 and A4000 CPU slot, so that any A1200 / A4000 accelerator would be useable.
At least 4 Zorro II / III slot, so that Zorro mode would be selectable, no matter wich accelerator is used. I mean Zorro III mode should be availlable even if A1200 accelerator is used. Should be doable, RMB did it as a prototype.
At least 2 active PCI slots. But Zorro slots are more important.

[mechy]

@danbeaver, mechy
You guys are being a bit harsh on the FPGA hardware. The old Amiga hardware has its nostalgia and advantages which means many will continue to enjoy using it but it will always have its limitations too.

classic Amiga hardware advantages/disadvantages
+ nostalgia of real, old and substantial hardware
+ serviceable and expandable
+ CPU compatibility, performance and features set the standard
+ relatively good HD performance is possible
+ relatively fast RTG and 3D are possible
- it is old and more is failing everyday
- I/O is mostly outdated
- OCS/ECS/AGA and chip memory are slow
- not enough AGA compatible hardware
- Zorro II/III and PCI are relatively slow
- cost is high for good hardware

FPGA Amiga hardware advantages/disadvantages
+ very flexible and upgradable because of FPGA
+ modern I/O
+ RTG (but no 3D yet)
+ fast AGA, chip memory (also expandable >2MB) and custom chips possible
+ fast memory
+ easily degradable for compatibility
+ production can increase to meet demand
+ small and energy efficient
+ standard power supplies and cases possible
- CPU, FPU, MMU performance and availability limited by FPGA cost (improving though)
- SATA and PCIe require a significantly more expensive FPGA (improving though)
- SD/microSD disk performance is unexceptional
- not enough memory for power users

The 1st generation FPGA hardware like the MiniMig was neat but not very useful for most Amiga users because they had better hardware. The 2nd generation FPGA hardware like the FPGA Arcade and Mist are good enough and useful enough to have sitting beside good old Amiga hardware and will upgrade many users with low spec and/or broken Amiga hardware. A 3rd gen FPGA Amiga hardware could be what the Natami tried to do before its time and could become the main Amiga computer for many. It would require more cooperation, investment and standards for it to happen. Nobody is going to throw the old Amiga hardware away though .

Don't get me wrong, its amazing what these guys have done, I just wish amigans had stuck together to further the hardware we had. we are so split in so many ways that its amazing jens even makes hardware for us. emulator and users of these fpga machines don't buy his hardware or support amiga stores for the most part.
One man, George Braun(sp!?) is a good example of what can be done, even thought his hardware did not further the specs past what we have,this one guy managed to build a amiga motherboard with better specs for the 1000. Imagine if we had all stuck together for a common goal.

[Vlabguy1]

Just get a real Amiga and be done with it.  If you don't have the money save up for it.  I would spend my hard earned money on REAL Amiga hardware vs some hacked micro computer that is pretty much worthless and has zero monetary value after purchased.

Rich

[mechy]

I would like to have, mobo with following features :

A1200 and A4000 CPU slot, so that any A1200 / A4000 accelerator would be useable.
At least 4 Zorro II / III slot, so that Zorro mode would be selectable, no matter wich accelerator is used. I mean Zorro III mode should be availlable even if A1200 accelerator is used. Should be doable, RMB did it as a prototype.
At least 2 active PCI slots. But Zorro slots are more important.

I love the 1200  and own several but...you are asking for stuff that has been done. Building on the 1200 makes no sense at all. its not a proper full 32bit design to start with..bad power supply,motherboard bugs,slow unbuffered ide,EC cpu, its like buiding a house on a mud foundation or in pc terms.. trying to build a 386 into a gaming/full blown internet machine.
zorro2 and 3 use the same slot, theres no need to make it selectable, either card works in it in either mode automagically.

The 4000 is more bang for the buck from the get go. Having said that what i would like to see is a new 4000 board with onboard 060,512k fast ram,pci or pcie slots native,with usb,ethernet etc local bus to the cpu,eliminating bottlenecks. I cant undertsand why anyone would build on a 1200 when they want what the 4k has. its not cheaper and all the added 1200 dongles generally make it where something is bound to not make good contact and start acting up. Even if you take a 1200 all the way,the bppc is still way slower than the csppc-not to mention csppc uwscsi rocks,and you still dont have proper zorro3 because 1200 is missing buster chip(i said proper,not the buggy z3 busboards or the hokey ziv overclocked zorro2). It may sound like i'm down on 1200's but im not, i'm just stating hardware facts.

[mechy]

Just get a real Amiga and be done with it.  If you don't have the money save up for it.  I would spend my hard earned money on REAL Amiga hardware vs some hacked micro computer that is pretty much worthless and has zero monetary value after purchased.

Rich

Well said.

[alphadec]

new hardware is pri. 1 but beyond AGA.

[Wolfe]

And I can buy a mobo ready to rock - Where and How Much ($) ? ? ?

[utri007]

@Mechy

You are right and wrong same time. It doesn't need to have limitattions of A1200 or A4000. All I'm asking is support for excisting accelerators and Zorro cards.

Build new board with all of those limitations would be stupid. I would offer Super fast cip ram, Super fast and realibale Zorro II/III and PCI

This way people could use their 040/060 accelerators, without needing to buy Super expensive A4000 accelerator or new A1200 accelerator. It is possible to have Zorro III with A1200 accelerator.  PCI would be essential for those who doesn't have all needed Zorro cards.

[Wolfe]

Does the FPGA Arcade really come with USB now or is that a future upgrade?  Can the expansion port be stack-able for multiple cards?  When & $ for 060?  Can it boot from USB?

Mist seems nice, can it boot from USB?  I think the ram needs to be increased . . .

[mechy]

@Mechy

You are right and wrong same time. It doesn't need to have limitattions of A1200 or A4000. All I'm asking is support for excisting accelerators and Zorro cards.

Build new board with all of those limitations would be stupid. I would offer Super fast cip ram, Super fast and realibale Zorro II/III and PCI

This way people could use their 040/060 accelerators, without needing to buy Super expensive A4000 accelerator or new A1200 accelerator. It is possible to have Zorro III with A1200 accelerator.  PCI would be essential for those who doesn't have all needed Zorro cards.

why do all that when you are 1 step away from a new motherboard with the cpu/ram onboard which would allow you to make it all faster and fix the bottlenecks, exhisting accelerators etc are bottlenecks as is zorro. the way to make everything super fast (pci) is to bypass zorro3 and hook it to the cpu(like what grex tries to do). other options are fix buster,which would be possible but costly.

[mechy]

And I can buy a mobo ready to rock - Where and How Much ($) ? ? ?

I can't tell if you are being facetious,you totally missed my point, or if you are serious.

:confused:

[matthey]

Does the FPGA Arcade really come with USB now or is that a future upgrade?  Can the expansion port be stack-able for multiple cards?  When & $ for 060?  Can it boot from USB?

The old FPGA Arcade had PS2 ports but now there seems to be an option for dual USB ports instead. I don't fully understand so I will refer you to this page:

http://www.fpgaarcade.com/news/

Mist seems nice, can it boot from USB?  I think the ram needs to be increased . . .

Mist had proper USB from the beginning which is one of it's strong points. The USB driver and filesystem would have to be in flash (using some kind of MAPROM support for a cold boot) but I don't know if this possible.

[Iggy]

I don't really get the Mist disign, as it looks like it doesn't have enough memory.