FPGA/Vampire vs WinUAE

[Duce]

"See the one x86/UAE guide for details"

Which one are you recommending? Link please

http://wowohl.de/Amiga_XP_x86.pdf

An older one, and for XP, but can fairly easily be adapted for a more modern version of Windows.  Can strip the cruft out of Vista or 7 just as easily as you can XP, and get the underlying Windoze OS underneath (which if you do things right, you'll never see anyways) as lean as possible, then out of the way entirely.

Only reason I'd not recommend XP is due to MS no longer supporting it on the consumer side, and the risk of underlying security vulnerabilities that come with that.

I've used this guide many a time for a dedicated UAE box where Windows is entirely invisible in the end and had nothing but luck with it, anyways, so good luck!

Could just as easily do it with Amikit or something as well.  It's not as fast of a solution as a dedicated Amithlon machine, but it's a hell of a lot less work and infinitely less finicky, hardware wise.  An Amithlon box is hard to beat if you have the right hardware for it, though - but this stripped down version involving windows and UAE works just fine too.

I've just got an Intel NUC type system (think Mac Mini footprint - mine is a Zotac, actually, not a NUC) on a VESA mount on the back of my monitor.  While I prefer modern, mechanical keyboards and laser mouse to the old Amiga legacy stuff, there's no reason you couldn't hook a big box Amiga keyboard and Amiga mouse up to such a machine for a more authentic "feel", with the proper adapters.

That seems to be the main gripe against UAE, anyways - "but it doesn't feel like an amiga with a PC keyboard and mouse!".  Well, use an Amiga keyboard and mouse then, strip Windows out entirely and boot 'er into WB right off the bat, and most Amiga fanboys wouldn't know the difference if they couldn't see the physical box running it.  

[kreciu]

... and from my point of view. Real Amiga hardware gives this "fun" of building it, collecting parts over time etc. I'm personally more interested in hardware part of Amiga hobby then software.

In case of UAE... I can get per-configured AmiKit and be still disappointed that there is not useful web browser (software that 99% of people use today ALL THE TIME!). Even FAST, I mean SUPER FAST AmigaOS on PC is basically useless at this point.

Windows 95 would do better...

I also like to listen to modules on real Paula and be amazed how well they sound on my original (old caps) A1200 - just get some nicer speakers!

[DutchinUSA]

Ok, cool .. that's the same one that I found after reading your post Duce .. hehe.

I just like to find something to do with some of these older machines that I got, I hate throwing stuff out that is still functional ... which is a bit of a problem in itself

I think it all started when my mom & dad's dryer broke down and they were ready to throw it out and buy a new one .. instead I opened her up and installed a new belt and they used that dryer for several more years .. :laughing:

[zylesea]

Chaps,

So I am looking at getting back into the world of Amiga and am torn between just going the emulation route, or getting hold of a Vampire v2 for one of my A600's.

My question is regarding the performance, and which would give the better results. I am no longer interested in gaming on the Amiga so it would be used for productivity stuff, Amos, AmigaE, BBS, etc.

I know most people would say to go for the real hardware. I already have an A500 and a couple of A600's, and an old Apollo A630 50Mhz which i never got working stably in either machine.

So is the FPGA route going to give me anything that isn't available to me running WinUAE on my i7? What's the speed difference likely to be, does anyone have any benchmarks or Sysinfo grabs to show off?

Also if going for a Vampire when they are available I can see this costing a fortune as I have plans to tower my A600, get a custom backplate made up for the case, extend all ports to the back, few expansions and such which so far all the bits tallies up to £300ish

Anyways, any thoughts, comments or info most appreciated. Ta

I was a happy WinUAE user on a PIII laptop back in the early 2000s parallel to my A1200/40+ppc. It was a pretty good workhorse and much faster than the A1200/40. It's the easy way to get back into Amiga. Close to no money investment.
If you then feel the desire to get real silicon you still can do.
Eventually I gave up WinUAE when MorphOS reached a good stability and switched completely to it. But I have good memories to WinUAE and I particularly liked it to use Windows and Amiga parallely on one machine.
I plan to get a Vampire myself though to get my fix in retro computing. Somehow this card appeals me. But rather for toying with it than to make my old A600 a workhorse again.

[kreciu]

I think it all started when my mom & dad's dryer broke down and they were ready to throw it out and buy a new one .. instead I opened her up and installed a new belt and they used that dryer for several more years .. :laughing:

It also started with my father and his cars... Now I have Chevy Impala 2000 with 187000 miles on it and I can do 1500 miles trip in -20C winter going 75miles/h constant and get 26 miles/gallon... I hope to get it up to let say 250000 or more. I think value of this car is like $1000 .

Same with A1200, but I need to wait for new Vamipre for it... and I can "drive it" for next 20 years.

BTW. Best possible recycling is it reuse stuff or use it until DEAD.

BTW2. I will try not to write off topic , it is sooooo tempting...

[kipper2k]

Curious on your thoughts how would that interact with Zorro expansions?

hmm, k, my thoughts on this are...


 what other options do i need  (at least for my own personal use), I'll have accelerator, RAM. HD, SD, Massive HDD space... i think that fulfils all my needs, not to forget SAGA and FPU as well, The core is still in its infancy, it is growing as we speak.

[IanP]

Since (win)UAE is free and most people have hardware to run it I see no reason not to install it. However, the Apollo core on the Vampire will open up new possibilities for the Amiga which if taken advantage of will bring new levels of performance to the classics. The Apollo core takes the 68K CPU forward several generations. If you want to use a real Amiga then the Vampire is the best upgrade path for it.

[QuikSanz]

hmm, k, my thoughts on this are...


 what other options do i need  (at least for my own personal use), I'll have accelerator, RAM. HD, SD, Massive HDD space... i think that fulfils all my needs, not to forget SAGA and FPU as well, The core is still in its infancy, it is growing as we speak.

Would be nice to have it share resources for lets say RTG, sound and other peripherals.

Chris

[QuikSanz]

I now looked and see you have "True Color" display but are there any aux audio inputs for example audio from CDROM?

[slimf]

If you were into gaming I would have said real Amiga or mist. / fpga replay with a real CRT like a 1084s.

But productivity, Win UAE will be a good start.

[guest11527]

In theory the A500 version will also work/fit in the A2000, if you dont want to place it in the CPU socket due to a mini megi chip or other addon then it can be placed in the co=processor slot. It would be  simple enough to make a small little adapter to make it fit there

Let's put it like this: I do not know enough about the electrical and mechanical implications of it, but there are a couple of software implications I'm worried about. The major trouble is DMA on Zorro - you not only need to get the protocol for the CPU right, you also need to be aware of caching issues with zorro.

One way or another, you need some (albeit simple) MMU to control caching at DMA boundaries or you run into the risk of corrupting data due to DMA and cache interaction. The technical details are a bit complicated but I can explain them when needed.

[OlafS3]

Chaps,

So I am looking at getting back into the world of Amiga and am torn between just going the emulation route, or getting hold of a Vampire v2 for one of my A600's.

My question is regarding the performance, and which would give the better results. I am no longer interested in gaming on the Amiga so it would be used for productivity stuff, Amos, AmigaE, BBS, etc.

I know most people would say to go for the real hardware. I already have an A500 and a couple of A600's, and an old Apollo A630 50Mhz which i never got working stably in either machine.

So is the FPGA route going to give me anything that isn't available to me running WinUAE on my i7? What's the speed difference likely to be, does anyone have any benchmarks or Sysinfo grabs to show off?

Also if going for a Vampire when they are available I can see this costing a fortune as I have plans to tower my A600, get a custom backplate made up for the case, extend all ports to the back, few expansions and such which so far all the bits tallies up to £300ish

Anyways, any thoughts, comments or info most appreciated. Ta

I think UAE and Vampire/Apollo are so to say twins, both need each other. I think 68k as a target for new software is not taken seriously as long as it only works virtual, on the other side of course UAE on modern hardware is faster and has more ram so you can do things on it that are not yet possible on real hardware. My idea is new software is written that requires many resources and only runs on UAE at first, this again creates need for faster and better FPGA cards. This is what I would call innovation circle. Also not everyone is interested in new real hardware and many people are certainly happy with UAE.

To your question... I do not know. For productivity UAE is a very good and cheap solution if you do not need real hardware and the original keyboards before you. I think it is more a emotional than a rational decision.

[psxphill]

To your question... I do not know. For productivity UAE is a very good and cheap solution if you do not need real hardware and the original keyboards before you. I think it is more a emotional than a rational decision.

For games you ideally want to use real hardware, a crt and a standard joystick as this won't introduce any latency. For everything else UAE is adequate.

An FPGA accelerator is cool though, which bypasses rational logic.

[wawrzon]

One way or another, you need some (albeit simple) MMU to control caching at DMA boundaries or you run into the risk of corrupting data due to DMA and cache interaction. The technical details are a bit complicated but I can explain them when needed.

to put it down in german: "kommt zeit, kommt rat!"
i think we can lean back and observe the results of ongoing development of this core, as soon the available hardware and the target will reach the big box amigas, the problem will become apparent and the priority will probably shift to having some soft of mmu solution for this. i assume an appropriate module will be developed and added to the fpga. in the meantime there are likely more pressing issues, so why not keep it in the back of the head until the right time comes?

[guest11527]

in the meantime there are likely more pressing issues, so why not keep it in the back of the head until the right time comes?

Certainly, I agree. At this time, no need to worry about it, at least not for the A600. However, it might not be quite as simple to create a version for the big boxes as probably hoped for. I'm not in a hurry either. Let's get this beast right, then worry about the details.

[Aegis]

I found some AIBB benchmarks for the Vampire and for the heck of it ran a few comparative tests in WinUAE - on an i7 with caches on in AIBB (v. important for JIT) WinUAE came out 5-7 times faster than the Vampire - with caches off JIT is actually slower.

Testing WinUAE with JIT disabled shows pretty comparable speeds so if you have a fast PC and you're curious to see how well a Vampire might perform for you just turn off JIT and run WinUAE at 'fastest possible'