vampire video speed vs dedicated RTG cards

[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.

[Motormouth]

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.

@Iggy I did not mean any disrespect and you have a a great point!!!   I think I am just anxious to get any new hardware after all these years.

[Iggy]

@Iggy I did not mean any disrespect and you have a a great point!!!   I think I am just anxious to get any new hardware after all these years.

No, no, I didn't take that at all that way.
I might buy one of the Vampire accelerators myself (and I have other fpga hardware), IF I'm "allowed" to obtain one via their weird marketing scheme.
Its just that real '020, '030, '040 & '060 based accelerators feel more "authentic" to me.
After all, I could have bought components like that when Amigas were still current.

Then again PC
I expansion boards and Radeon 9200 video cards aren't that authentic either.

And I'm not sure whether I want a ZorroII video card for my A2000 or not.
ZorroII transfer rates are incredibly slow.

[wawrzon]

blah blah blah..

[Iggy]

blah blah blah..

byte me ;-)

[fishy_fiz]

That's something I'd never considered before,.... the shared RAM bandwidth for "CPU" and video/rtg. Its no wonder benchmarks on the forum are restricted to 640*480 and 800*600.... they'd give better performance. The higher the resolution the slower both graphics and "CPU" will perform.

[orange]

@Iggy
I think its somewhere between "real" thing and  minimig, closer to real.
however its so fast, and lets you keep the case... so its obviously very desirable.
I'd just wait a bit longer, the production will surely go up.

[wawrzon]

byte me ;-)

[wawrzon]

That's something I'd never considered before,.... the shared RAM bandwidth for "CPU" and video/rtg. Its no wonder benchmarks on the forum are restricted to 640*480 and 800*600.... they'd give better performance. The higher the resolution the slower both graphics and "CPU" will perform.

yes, i think this is the reason. might be considered a hardware flaw and maybe to be corrected in future implementations. likely there is pros and contras using unified versus separate ram for main memory and rtg.

[darksun9210]

I'd imagine the pixel clock speed of cards like the cv64, PIV, CV64/3d and CVPPC can drive higher res screens.
i'm running 800x600x24@60hz on my vampire, and can probably push it to 1280x720, but to run "fullHD" 1920x1080, i would need to drop the freq to 24hz. something i probably wouldn't have to do with a "proper" card. and something i just can't be bothered to muck about with.

the vampire's "graphics memory" is a software assignable lump of shared space out the 128meg available on the Vampire - and the clock is based on the speed of the FPGA.

having said that, the vampire's 800x600 screen feels nice and smooth. smooth icon scrolling, smooth window movement. its just a nice place to be. no figuring out switching superlayers, or supergels on or off, or smart/simple window drawing. it just does it.

the CVPPC can ramp up to 230mhz@8bit on the pixel clock, and has 800Mb/s to its local ram. about  twice the vampire's clock, and about 5 times the ~150-160Mb/s ram bandwidth that the Vampire has.
not to mention hardware blitter, and other stuff built in, or sharing the ram bandwith with cpu fastram operations.

i did find find the maximum assignable bitmap area on a Permedia2 chip is 2000x2000. annoying when trying to run a three screen setup via a Matrox Triple-head-to-go box. was amusing seeing a guru meditation error spread over three screens

anyway, just my experience.

640x480x24@60=52.734375 Mb/s
800x600x24@60=82.39746094 Mb/s
1280x720x24@60=158.203125 Mb/s
1920x1080x24@24=142.3828125 Mb/s

[Motormouth]

@darksun9210

It is interesting to hear your actual experiences with the vampire.

[darksun9210]

when i have a bit of time, i'll try to do a comparison between my BvPPC, CV64-3D and vampire, and hopefully shed a bit of light where each tops out, and why etc. etc.

i think a massive thing for having rtg on a vampire is the ability to run chunky mode screens for things like 3d shooters, Scumm, and mac/pc emulators with no c2p slowdown.

[Gulliver]

when i have a bit of time, i'll try to do a comparison between my BvPPC, CV64-3D and vampire, and hopefully shed a bit of light where each tops out, and why etc. etc.

i think a massive thing for having rtg on a vampire is the ability to run chunky mode screens for things like 3d shooters, Scumm, and mac/pc emulators with no c2p slowdown.

I am looking forward to your review/comparison.

I always find enthusiasm overruns Apollo core users like a religious sect. So they tend to publish benchmarks that specifically favour their agenda or corner cases where they can show off.

I believe you are one of the first ones I see that dont belong to that group. I will love to see the pros a cons of the SAGA rtg implementation.

[a1200]

I love reading about and watching the YouTube videos showing the Vampire but I will never own one for the same reason I don't emulate - I am only interested in the nostalgia and admiring the engineering and software for the time. Only places I do cheat is replacing capacitors (or else the computer will eat itself) and a PCMCIA CF adapter (copying stuff from the aminet using parnet or floppies is one headache I can do without).

Edit: Oh and an SSD HDD. lol

[Motormouth]

I am looking forward to your review/comparison.
I always find enthusiasm overruns Apollo core users like a religious sect. So they tend to publish benchmarks that specifically favour their agenda or corner cases where they can show off.

This reminds me of the Amiga vs Atari ST benchmarking, or for that matter any benchmarking Thunderbird vs. Pentium III,  NVIDIA vs ATI, etc..........
I also like darksun9210's post.  It is an honest look.  I  discusses both the advantages and disadvantages of the product.

[Nickman]

I have an A500+ with an vampire.
Can run all the tests you want to see.

Link to programs and what to test and i'll post the results here.