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V2 Release 2.16 Is Readypage  1 2 3 

Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
27 Aug 2022 17:34





Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
27 Aug 2022 22:36


You can find the JIC files for V500 and V500 on our download section.


Renaud Schweingruber
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 378
27 Aug 2022 22:46


Here :
CLICK HERE 
:)


Darren Eveland

Posts 96
28 Aug 2022 04:37


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

You can find the JIC files for V500 and V500 on our download section.

Excellent.  Is vampireflash updated now to support this? Or currently does it require a USB Blaster to revert?

When I tried 2.16 initially a few days ago I just got no DIGITAL-VIDEO output, so I am hesitant to try this because I don't really want to open my computer case again ;)


Matt Alexandre

Posts 7
28 Aug 2022 18:21


Is the comment posted on a couple of the Facebook groups accurate in that this causes degraded behaviour (monochrome output)  on what you’ve defined as unlicensed cards? If so it’s unfortunate for whatever reason you’ve not mentioned  that on the announcement. While I note the comment around the ability to revert to a previous version if the Facebook comment around degraded behaviour is correct it would have been far better had there been some note on your announcement around the behaviour on these viewed unlicensed models. 

Hopefully this was just an oversight.

Btw My own V2 card predates any such issue so this doesn’t affect me personally.


Chris T.

Posts 136
28 Aug 2022 20:40


Are now the WHDLOAD Incompatibility of some games such as Gods, Lotus 1 and Legend of Faerghail for instance solved? I had shortly after starting the games freezes with Core 2.15. Core 2.14 was pretty messed up as my V2 did not want to start at all, just ended up with a black screen.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
28 Aug 2022 21:31


Matt Alexandre wrote:

Is the comment posted on a couple of the Facebook groups accurate in that this causes degraded behaviour (monochrome output)

     
The license check is not new.
Doing the license check is the normal behavior for a Vampire Core.
Many many cores did do license check, since many many years.
   
Maybe you know that Igor wanted that we develop this license check feature to prevent cloning of the cards? As there are people in the Amiga scene which run their business on cloning and selling other peoples work.
   
That cores will again do the license check should also not be a surprise. This was clearly announced in Discord, here in the forum, per mass-email and also in the Apollo Press release from 19th July.
   
Did you not read it?
 
 
To our information the reseller that unknowingly sold unlicensed cards have emailed and informed their customer about this.
The users should all have been informed in advance.
   
For over ninety-nine percent of Vampire users this all not a topic.
The few affected users need to get back to their reseller and ask the reseller to get the card licensed for them.
This is all no problem.
 
Apollo-Computer is supporting the resellers and users in this.
 
If you have any problems or question just email shop@apollo-computer.com - We will help you.


Matt Alexandre

Posts 7
28 Aug 2022 21:58


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

Matt Alexandre wrote:

  Is the comment posted on a couple of the Facebook groups accurate in that this causes degraded behaviour (monochrome output)
 

   
  Yes, the license check is not new.
  Doing the license check is the normal behavior for a Vampire Core.
  Many many cores did do license check, since many many years.
 
  Maybe you know that Igor wanted that we develop this license check feature to prevent cloning of the cards? As there are people in the Amiga scene which run their business on cloning and selling other peoples work.
 
  That cores will again do the license check should not be a surprise. This was clearly announced in Discord, here in the forum, per mass-email and also in the Apollo Press release from 19th July.
 
  Did you not read it?

Yes I read it - though as mentioned above this is not an issue personally affecting me. The point I am trying to make is that potential drama would be avoided if the announcement above made reference to the degraded behaviour on these cards so the owners of these cards are clear on what to expect before attempting an upgrade rather than these people seeing the announcement, performing the upgrade and only then realising they've only got a monochrome display.

If you choose to fall back on expecting every single user to have read through all the forum posts - I think that's a little unrealistic.

As I've mentioned this doesn't affect me anyway - there's just enough  drama in the amiga retro community that minimising any more (for me) is a good thing.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
28 Aug 2022 22:00


Chris T. wrote:

Are now the WHDLOAD Incompatibility

To run WHDLOAD games please enable GAME-MODE/TURTLE-MODE in your WHDLOAD config.
 
If you need any help in settings of WHDLOAD - this is not the topic for this. Please open a new thread or just simple talk to us on Discord. Our Discord support is perfect for answering this type of question too.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
28 Aug 2022 22:07


Matt Alexandre wrote:

Yes I read it

       
Then you knew about this in advance.
       
Lets remember, the license check is not a new feature of the core.
The Core license check feature was done by the core since over 6 years. And it was used before against cloners.
     
That this feature will again be enabled - was clearly announced.
People affected should have received personal emails by their resellers informing them about this.
   
   
There are over 10 thousand Vampire owners worldwide.
The 2.16 release gives thousands of people wonderful new features.
Lets us focus on what they receive and how to use it.
   
The handful people which unfortunately got a gray card know what to do - and we support them in this. They need to send their serial number to their reseller to get their card licensed - and the next update can include their card.     


Sean Sk

Posts 488
28 Aug 2022 23:44


Matt Alexandre wrote:

The point I am trying to make is that potential drama would be avoided if the announcement above made reference to the degraded behaviour on these cards so the owners of these cards are clear on what to expect before attempting an upgrade rather than these people seeing the announcement, performing the upgrade and only then realising they've only got a monochrome display.
 
If you choose to fall back on expecting every single user to have read through all the forum posts - I think that's a little unrealistic.

 
It's up to the reseller to communicate this effectively to each customer that buys a V2 product. If they are failing to do this, then this is on the heads of the retailer, since they themselves have been properly informed about this issue.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
29 Aug 2022 05:42


I think its a very general question:
 
Do you want to support people developing new things,
things that you like and want to use ?
or do you want to support cloners and thieves that parasite on other peoples work?
 
The Apollo-Computer and Apollo-Team goals always is and was to revive the Amiga. This is a very big goal and the amount of work to do this is endless. We did invest many many years to develop the CPU and the SAGA Chipset, we took great efforts to also develop a lot Software and new Games.
 
Everybody knows, people also need to eat.
This means to be able to continue to spend time on developing new hardware and new software for Amiga, the hardware sales also need to create a little revenue. Otherwise this work is not possible for such long time.
 
As soon the Vampire came to market and became a success there were also scene people which tried to parasite and benefit from our work. There were people like John Hertell, Nonar, Freemilk and Kipper which tried to take the development of the Team, and tried to sell cloned Vampires.
Igor who was once a good friend and team member, now also tries to sell hardware without giving the rightful fee to the team which work and development he sells.
 
 
You don't like that we enable the copy protection? We neither.
I really do not like to waste any time to develop a copy protection. I would rather spend my time on developing something more useful for example a new game.
But the Amiga world is still like it always was: You need to develop a copy protection or you can not survive and can not make even a living in the Amiga world.
 
 
In the end its your decision as customer:
Who do you want to support?
Do you want to support the people that do development?
The people that developed the CPU, the Chipset, the Software, the new Amiga?
 


Nick Fellows

Posts 176
30 Aug 2022 13:49


What would your CPU, Chipset and Software look like if it had not been for Motorola and Commodore/Atari who created the original reference design?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
30 Aug 2022 18:53


nick fellows wrote:

What would your CPU, Chipset and Software look like if it had not been for Motorola and Commodore/Atari who created the original reference design?

 
MOTOROLA did design the 68k CPU architecture.
The Motorola 68K CPU architecture is in many ways very much "inspired" by the PDP-11 from DEC.
 
The Amiga chipset was designed by Jay Miner and his team.
As you know Commodore and Atari have nothing todo with the design of the original Amiga chipset. Jay Miner took of course inspiration from other designs. The idea of DMA based chipsets with Sprites was popular, most Arcade systems worked like this too.
 
I think the 68K is in many ways a great and wonderful architecture.
Its very easy to learn.
Its very powerful - and thanks to AMMX its now many timer stronger.
 
The Amiga Chipset is very nice in its design.
Of course there were always some things which most coders wished that the Amiga chipset would support - which it not did. Like 16bit audio, like longer samples, like Chunky, like Truecolor, like 3D acceleration.

It was planned to develop all these and include all this in the Amiga chipset.
 
With Super-AGA we did develop all what was planned for the Amigathis.
We added to the AMIGA all features that the developer team always  wanted to do. :-)

And if MOTOROLA would have continued to improve the 68K family then I'm sure MOTOROLA would today produce 68k very similar to the 68080.

 


Krzysztof AT

Posts 48
30 Aug 2022 22:31


I just tested a new core. Most of the system seems to work fine, but I ran some demos, including Electric ocean, Lightshaft, SMTDFO. All of them had image distortions, namely red was the dominant color. So far I'm back to 2.15 which works perfectly fine.


Alexander Gent

Posts 75
31 Aug 2022 03:51


Could you please provide full release notes on this core 2.16 pre-release with complete changes from the last core 2.15 please?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
31 Aug 2022 07:28


Alexander Gent wrote:

Could you please provide full release notes on this core 2.16 pre-release with complete changes from the last core 2.15 please?

 
a) V2 release are enhanced to also support the V4 color port
this make V4 games show correct colors on V2.
 
b) TEX.B/W/L instruction
The TEX instruction is very useful for 3D games like Doom, Quake.
It highly improves 3D speed and is used by some games and demos already, there are future games in development that also require it.
 
c) STORE3M instruction, Store3m is designed for 2D Games. It can highly improves 2D game speed. Its heavily used by several new games and also by NEOGEO emulator.
 
d) MULalpha, Alpha blending of sprites or fireballs look great in games but was mostly never used in Amiga games. The reason is that alpha blending is very computing expensive and Amiga had problems do this. MULalpha makes Alpha blending in games or demos now super fast. Now Amiga games can freely use this
 
e) Core-Licence check re-activated. But this feature is not new. Several releases in that last 6 years also did this.
 
f) New Bootlogo
 
g) Some internal restructuring and some internal routing improvements
 
h) Internal decoder improvements


Chris T.

Posts 136
02 Sep 2022 15:17


What happens when one updates to the new Core and it turns out it is not licensed. Can one role back to former Core?


Tim Trepanier

Posts 132
02 Sep 2022 17:48


Chris T. wrote:

What happens when one updates to the new Core and it turns out it is not licensed. Can one role back to former Core?

Yes, you can "update" to your previous core.


Chris T.

Posts 136
02 Sep 2022 23:04


Without any limitations? How do you know :) ?

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