New ppc board by Acube/A-Eon: A1222 "Tabor"

[matthey]

Sure you can reserve a few gate array's for DCT, Deblocking and color space conversion, accelerate speed on FPGA. However I do not think you, be able to play H264 video buy just simulating normal CPU instructions. But FPGA's are pretty expensive, how many gate will you need to do that on FPGA, and will it cost you more than buying a ASIC from Broadcom, VIA or Intel.

Accelerating video processing by SIMD and DSP like instructions in the CPU has advantages for many types of of programs. CPU non-general purpose video support like Intel's Quick Sync probably gives the most acceleration but I don't know if it necessary. The following is a benchmark of encoding a 449 MB, four-minute 1080p file to 1024×768 (CPU is a Core i7 3770).

Software encoding = 172 seconds
AMD Radeon HD 6870 = 86 seconds
Nvidia GeForce GTX 570 = 83 seconds
Quick Sync Video in i7 = 22 seconds

This shows how effective CPU specific acceleration can be but it also may benefit from being a popular hardware standard. Video acceleration on these gfx boards goes across the gfx bus which adds latency and the support is less standard. Integrating standard gfx on the motherboard could potentially reduce this overhead. I would like to see the Amiga go back to custom standardized hardware including the CPU and integrated graphics.

[kolla]

Can I haz netflix? Who in their right mind wants to watch video on Amiga systems?

[LiveForIt]

@matthey

Accelerating video processing by SIMD and DSP like instructions in the CPU has advantages for many types of of programs.

Sure it can, but it's like learning a new language in the case of SIMD (AltiVec), I also find hard to find good documentation on how to use it. the basic idea is that you can multiplay 4 values at the same time, or divide 4 values at the same time, so if you are working normal code, find places where you can do tings in steps of 4. So you can optimize a lot but not everything.

As for DSP is normally referees to some coprocessor, many codecs in avcodec requires a DSP.

[LiveForIt]

@kolla

Youtube

[dooz]

Why? Because I want it, and it adds minimal cost.
And there will be uses for these in the future (hey, I'm optimistic).

Faster? Slightly until the fpu issues are factored in.

And while it is dual core..."why integrate quad core processor  when there is no multicore support in OS", so why integrate a dual core.
You do know there are single core T10XX cpus, don't you?

You are right here - I did not even consider single core CPU!

Well I guess I am also optimistic :laugh1:

It is somehow acceptable from my POV to have only one unused core with the "future in mind". Three cores is simply too much for me to invest when there is no multicore support right now.

There are people in all kind of different situations considering what Amiga hardware they own. If you look at my signature - that is my current hardware situation. For most of the time this configuration is too weak for anything considering NG and AOS4 and on the other side it is not exactly pure classic either. I done what I can with it.

So A1222 is a "huge leap forward" to me. I can have it for several years. After that maybe I can buy next machine that will have T10xx or whatever it is actual then. This is possible because those machines are supposed to be low - priced. At first I though I would buy X5000, but I think I would give up that because of the price, and get Tabor instead.

These new AmigaOne products do not have "CPU slot" like Commodore Amigas from the past. Also CPU cannot be changed easily. So very long term period for a motherboard is not possible....just change the whole motherboard.

For someone else my situation does not apply. This is just example where current Tabor might be OK in my case.


-----
Domagoj Ozanic (domagoj.ozanic@zg.t-com.hr)
Amiga WARP Organization http://www.amigawarp.org
A1200T Blue Thunder Tower (BTT) - AmigaOS 4.1 FE
BlizzardPPC 200 MHz / BVisionPPC / 256 MB RAM

[Hans_]

Ah, I did not examine those closely enough.
So gPU acceleration is a good thing.
I'm curious as to how Hyperion implemented it.
I thought the primary reason that Linux and MorphOS didn't use it was the difficulty in getting really complete documentation for GPUs themselves.

The GPU acceleration that he's talking about is the composited video feature of the latest Radeon HD driver.

I mean, when you compare Linux systems that have proprietary drivers supplied by the gpu manufacturers to systems with open drivers you see a big performance hit in the latter.

AFAIK, AMD's proprietary drivers work only on x86/x64 systems. Linux on the Sam460ex uses the open-source drivers, and they are definitely lagging behind AMD's proprietary drivers. I think that I managed to get Radeon HD 7xxx series (Southen Islands GPUs) working on AmigaOS before the open-source Linux driver did, and that was also before AMD released the docs for the new series. Ironically, I deciphered the new GPU instruction set from the LLVM code in their Work-In-Progress (WIP) Gallium3D driver.

Hans

[Iggy]

The GPU acceleration that he's talking about is the composited video feature of the latest Radeon HD driver.

Yes I know that, it should probably be referred to as something more specific, it kind of blurs that definition too much.

AFAIK, AMD's proprietary drivers work only on x86/x64 systems. Linux on the Sam460ex uses the open-source drivers, and they are definitely lagging behind AMD's proprietary drivers. I think that I managed to get Radeon HD 7xxx series (Southen Islands GPUs) working on AmigaOS before the open-source Linux driver did, and that was also AMD released the docs for the new series. Ironically, I deciphered the new GPU instruction set from the LLVM code in their Work-In-Progress (WIP) Gallium3D driver.
Hans

Damned clever.
Yes, AMD likes to reserve some information for itself.
I think the very idea of open drivers freaks them out a little.

BTW - I am quite impressed with the Radeon HD work.

[Yasu]

Stupid question: is it possible to let the second core stand in as an FPU?

[itix]

Stupid question: is it possible to let the second core stand in as an FPU?

No. It would be very very slow.

[Yasu]

@itix

Even as a dedicated software emulation core?

[mbrantley]

Can I haz netflix? Who in their right mind wants to watch video on Amiga systems?

Uh oh, I might be identifying myself as not being in my right mind. But I watch video (and even produce video on occasion) on my AmigaOS systems all the time. So keenly interested in exploring the capabilities and limitations of this activity on these machines.

[nicholas]

Can I haz netflix? Who in their right mind wants to watch video on Amiga systems?

Who in their right mind does anything on an Amiga system in this day and age?

Because we can, no other reason is necessary ;-)

[bison]

Stupid question: is it possible to let the second core stand in as an FPU?

There was a discussion on EAB about that.  Can't find it right now...

[matthey]

Who in their right mind does anything on an Amiga system in this day and age?

Because we can, no other reason is necessary ;-)

We should be able to do general purpose computing on the Amiga even if it slower than the competition. The challenge of a small market like the Amiga is how to make it easier, cheaper and faster so it can be used more.

There was a discussion on EAB about that.  Can't find it right now...

This thread?

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=79940

[bison]

This thread?

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=79940

Yes, that's it.

[Iggy]

Yes, that's it.

No matter what forum its is discussed on this will distill (eventually) to two opinions.
One, "not good, we may be shooting ourselves in the foot here", and...
Two, "we need to wait and see"..
If your in the second camp, good for you!
You are more of an optimist than I am.

But since I have the option of running my OS of choice on a larger array of  hardware than OS4 users, I think I can be more discerning.

One, I can pay for an X5000, and spend more, but get decent hardware, or...
Two, I can wait for PCI-e G5 support when I will have have good hardware at a better price.

Thanks to my friends, I have this choice.