vampire video speed vs dedicated RTG cards

[Motormouth]

I notice that many people are using RTG video cards with vampire 500 .

Why, is the video slow, refresh issues? etc.
How fast is the vampire video vs RTG cards.  

I guess it is possible to make a direct comparison with picasso II and some of the zorro III cards that have zorro II modes.  Anyone attempt this?
How about indirect comparisons? ie voodoo ati zorro III modes of picasso IV, cybergraphx, permedia based card, etc.

[gregthecanuck]

Here is an Apollo forum thread from 2015 showing P96Speed results for 640x480 and 800x600. Note that these are for a very old version of the core and are likely faster now.

According to a poster on that thread the Vampire was 2x the speed of a CV64 except for rectfillpattern.

http://apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=2¬e=133&z=5vTxib

[guest11527]

I notice that many people are using RTG video cards with vampire 500 .

Why, is the video slow, refresh issues?

I would believe this is because many graphic cards come with an on-board blitter which helps accelarating a couple of graphics operations. AFAIK, the vampire is a frame buffer only, or has only limited capabilities as far as blitter support is concerned.

[wawrzon]

im not sure it this is still the case but initial implementation or rtg on vampire was likely simple framebuffer, without any accel laike blitter, as thomas says. now it might be they have implemented some accelerated memory copy functionality into the core, maybe even masked and such, but i dont know it.

another issue is that vampire shares the same bus to memory for cpu and rtg, so it can starve with higher resolutions and frequencies, while cpu is doing much memory access. the solution to this is as far as im aware a lower rtg frequency, as long as the hdmi display device supports it.

[Motormouth]

I would believe this is because many graphic cards come with an on-board blitter which helps accelarating a couple of graphics operations. AFAIK, the vampire is a frame buffer only, or has only limited capabilities as far as blitter support is concerned.

im not sure it this is still the case but initial implementation or rtg on vampire was likely simple framebuffer, without any accel laike blitter, as thomas says. now it might be they have implemented some accelerated memory copy functionality into the core, maybe even masked and such, but i dont know it.

another issue is that vampire shares the same bus to memory for cpu and rtg, so it can starve with higher resolutions and frequencies, while cpu is doing much memory access. the solution to this is as far as im aware a lower rtg frequency, as long as the hdmi display device supports it.

This is quite interesting and helpful.  I wonder if blitter could be implemented in the FPGA, this would required programing of a specific video chip, which would be tricky or a custom video chip in FPGA which would require its own, albeit virtual, VLSI layout and new picasso96 driver.

It looks like Complete testing of different video solutions would require not only comparisons of different resolution, but also effect on CPU speed and memory transfer speeds.

[kolla]

The ultimate is to use FPGA based gfx card, like the mnt va2000, along with vampire

[Motormouth]

Here is an Apollo forum thread from 2015 showing P96Speed results for 640x480 and 800x600. Note that these are for a very old version of the core and are likely faster now.

According to a poster on that thread the Vampire was 2x the speed of a CV64 except for rectfillpattern.

http://apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=2¬e=133&z=5vTxib

This is probably more than fast enough for most applications.

[Motormouth]

The ultimate is to use FPGA based gfx card, like the mnt va2000, along with vampire

Interesting, I didn't even know that this mnt va2000 existed.  The cost is high, but then again this is an expensive hobby.

[guest11527]

The ultimate is to use FPGA based gfx card, like the mnt va2000, along with vampire

Actually, the VA2000 has pretty much the same problem as the vampire, namely having a considerably incomplete blitter that provides relatively poor speedups with graphics, or only in relatively rare cases. In terms of speed graphics cards based on dedicated (legacy) chips like the Cirrus series are still preferable, e.g. Matze's graphics card just works fine.

This being said, the FPGA solutions have a higher potential, but it will still take a while for them to catch up.

[kolla]

Interesting, I didn't even know that this mnt va2000 existed.  The cost is high, but then again this is an expensive hobby.

Yes, it is. My comment was not meant to be taken too seriously, it's just the aspect of filling the Amiga with FPGAs that I find funny

[Iggy]

Yes, it is. My comment was not meant to be taken too seriously, it's just the aspect of filling the Amiga with FPGAs that I find funny

Yes, and then we replace the Amiga itself with an FPGA board...

It IS getting a little weird.

[Motormouth]

Yes, it is. My comment was not meant to be taken too seriously, it's just the aspect of filling the Amiga with FPGAs that I find funny

Actually I find FPGA interesting.  In some ways they are emulation and in some ways they are actual hardware.

[wawrzon]

The ultimate is to use FPGA based gfx card, like the mnt va2000, along with vampire

actually it is better to use local rtg on the same fpga (which vampire already provides, as much as va2000) rather than behind (by todays standards) slow bus.

[wawrzon]

Yes, and then we replace the Amiga itself with an FPGA board...

It IS getting a little weird.

why? to each his own. while i d like to have an fpga expansion for my amiga (i dont have one) others may favor a new stadalone compatible system.

what it boils down to is to hold to most sommon denominator as closely as possible to be able to address and serve the widest fraction of audience, which is the suers of the genuine amiga (68k) software.

[Iggy]

Actually I find FPGA interesting.  In some ways they are emulation and in some ways they are actual hardware.

Nobody said they weren't interesting, i just feel like I'm "cheating" when I use hardware based on one. Like its not "real" hardware.

But the results are fascinating, and as I mentioned before when discussing ISAs, its really about what runs your software well.