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Information about the Apollo CPU and FPU.

Explain How An MMU Workspage  1 2 3 

Markus (mfro)

Posts 99
20 Nov 2017 06:45


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

 
Markus (mfro) wrote:

    killer argument for Linux
   

    The killer argument is memory protection.
    You can prevent DMA from overwriting System resources.

 
  To be honest, I still do not understand how this is supposed to work (maybe I'm just too biased on how things "traditionally" work).
 
  For now, I seem to understand DMA would use the same translation tables than the CPU?
 
  Suppose some kind of system task is active and is busy copying disc sectors to user space. If we had a task switch, the
    TLBs for the new task would then suddenly be active for DMA as well? Without any additional means, DMA would then try to copy to (now) protected (or even remapped) pages? If this would be the case, you would have to reprogram DMA transfers on every task switch? Or does this just mean DMA transfers would need their own task context?
 
 
   


Olaf Schoenweiss

Posts 690
20 Nov 2017 09:53


Back in the days I bought a expensive A4000 with graphic card and 68EC030 because everything else was much too expensive. For strange reasons all software worked on it without MMU. I should have known better that something without MMU is crap. Thanks for explaining it


Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
20 Nov 2017 12:59


Account for sale wrote:

 
  Has anyone seen the hardware Apollo Core FPU in action on v4 yet?

CLICK HERE 
MIPS 92.26
MFLOPS 37.70


Markus B

Posts 209
21 Nov 2017 15:32


There is a lot of information on the HW enabled FPU. Some of it shown on the V2.

Looks like you have some doubt about it? If so, why?


Simo Koivukoski
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 601
26 Nov 2017 06:56


This is how it looks like with the 68080-FPU:




Steve Ferrell

Posts 424
27 Nov 2017 01:28



Enabling virtual memory on MacOS 9 and earlier is a waste of time.  Most Mac apps in those days didn't support virtual memory and crashed, often taking the OS down with it. And when the apps would run, the system became very sluggish and you'd still get out of memory errors.  Old versions of MacOS shipped with virtual memory disabled for good reason. This is also one of the reasons why MacOS was dumped in favor of Darwin.  The best solution then, just as it is now with MacOS 9 and lower is to add more RAM.


Jim Drew
Learn who I am!
Posts 67/ 1
28 Nov 2017 05:01


What does Speedometer 4.0x give you for FPU benchmark speeds with FUSION?  Test Shapeshifter against it.  I am curious just how much faster FUSION is with the Vampire core vs. a real 68040.  I know FUSION is way faster than Shapeshifter (2-5 times faster) on FPU tests than Shapeshifter.  I re-wrote Apple's Pack4 and Pack5 resources, which is their FPU library.  All system functions use the FPU when it is available.  That means EVERYTHING from calculating window position pointers to how many pixels need to be drawn - all done using the FPU.
   


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
01 Dec 2017 08:21


Jim Drew wrote:

Take a look at Apple's Virtual Memory - it was only limited by the hard drive size,

Virtual memory is limited by 2 things.
a) hard drive size
b) address space

In the early/mid 90th
* your computer had 16 MB -32 MB RAM
* your harddrive was 512 MB big
* your 32bit address space was 4 GB

Today the VAMPIRE
* your Vampire has 512 MB RAM
* your harddrive is 2 TB big
* your 32bit address space still is 4 GB

On AMIGA OS the address space is 2 GB.
We could solder 2 GB on a Vampire with real fastmem - if we needed.



Markus B

Posts 209
01 Dec 2017 11:26


Captain Zalo wrote:

The question is relevant. Some might want more memory. What's the reason for the toxicity?
  I'm sad to see someone with actual hopes for future use of Amigas get treated with account avatar- and namechange, then general bashing when most of the posts are relevant. Maybe Kolbjørn wants something more from the Amiga future than obsessing on 20 year old software? Is this how the community is supposed to be?

How is the question relevant? Why is the V2/V4 "unusable" with 128/512 MB of memory? How will 2048 MB of memory improve the product?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
01 Dec 2017 11:42


Captain Zalo wrote:

Some might want more memory.

 
Ok, lets look at it realistically.
Ideally CPU speed and memory should be somewhat balanced.
A Fast CPU without memory is useless, but also huge amount of memory on a slow CPU helps little.
 
Lets look what the VAMPIRE V4 system offer and then compare.
VAMPIRE 4
  CPU speed in range of 100-200MHz Pentium
  Fast memory: 512 MB
--
 
  Lets compare this existing real systems were sold.
  IMAC G3/333 MHz
  CPU PowerPC G3
  Fast memory: 32 MB
--
  IMAC G4/1000 MHz
  CPU PowerPC G4
  Fast memory: 256 MB
--
  APPLE PowerMAC G5
  CPU PowerPC 970 @ 2 GHz
  Fast memory: 512 MB
--
  Playstation3 CELL 3.2 GHz
  CPU PowerPC CELL
  Fast memory: 256 MB
--
 
If you compare the amount of fast memory, then
you can clearly see, that the VAMP comes with a very rich amount of fast memory.
 
I say that 128 MB fast memory on the VAMP-2 is plenty for AMIGA.
The 512 MB fast memory on the VAMP-4 is huge for AMIGA.
 
I dare to say that amount of fast memory on the VAMP4 does not limite the usage in any way. The clockrate limits us not the memory.

You have to understand that the ELECTRIC POWER BUDGET in the AMIGAS e.g A500/A600/ is limited. The 68080 CPU is very power efficient.
Nevertheless the whole Vampire needs to stay in the available power budget of the AMIGA.
Just adding extra gigabytes of memory could exceed the budget and then would require an extra power supply for the VAMP.




Sean Sk

Posts 488
01 Dec 2017 13:09


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

You have to understand that the ELECTRIC POWER BUDGET in the AMIGAS e.g A500/A600/ is limited. The 68080 CPU is very power efficient.
  Nevertheless the whole Vampire needs to stay in the available power budget of the AMIGA.
  Just adding extra gigabytes of memory could exceed the budget and then would require an extra power supply for the VAMP.

Thank you for mentioning this as this fact is often overlooked. I would imagine that not every Amiga user is going to go to the trouble of converting an ATX power supply for use with the Amiga and the design of the Vampire needs to take into consideration the existing PSU used by most Amiga users. I'm using an A500 PSU with the V600 and thankfully it's been stable as a rock.

As of yet I haven't used anything that has come anywhere near close to using up 128MB of memory.


Roy Gillotti

Posts 517
01 Dec 2017 14:44


Account for sale wrote:

@Gunanr
 
  The Vampire cards come with memory soldered on - they are maxed out. Hence you should compare with the  maxed out memory options of those system, not minimum spec. As it is, the V2 has equal or even _less_ memory than maxed out 68060 Amiga system, the V4 is on par with my A3000, and half of my Pegasos 1 and G4 Mac Minis.

Okay and your point? the V2 is likely more cost effective than anything you've mentioned, how much money did that 68060 with tons of RAM cost you? What does PPC systems have anything to do with this argument?

The V4s will have 512MB of ram, I barely use the 128MB on my V2 in most of my uses.




Captain Zalo

Posts 71
01 Dec 2017 14:45


Thanks Gunnar.

If the platform happens to get enough attention and sales, it might be a viable alternative to modern day low power computers.
Will the team aim for a future mITX board with Apollo core and SFX power header?

Personally, I'd love to see a proper mITX board with a passively cooled 080 ASIC @1GHz with an SODIMM header for memory and expansion-ports with Zorro and/or PCI capabilities in a few years. But to even step into such a market, you will need a large base of users and some sugar-daddies.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
01 Dec 2017 14:55


Account for sale wrote:

@Gunnar
   
The Vampire cards come with memory soldered on - they are maxed out. Hence you should compare with the  maxed out memory options of those system, not minimum spec.

 
Maybe you did not see the POWER BUDGET explanation.
The strength of the power supply of an A500/A600 is limited.
 
So the VAMP4 can either offer
- 512 MB fast memory and run in the Amiga-500 with the original power supply.
- Or it could offer more memory e.g. 2 GB but require an extra/upgrade Power supply to be used.
 
With the existing software for AMIGA, 512 MB is more then plenty.
So I think the VAMP 4 design choice is good.
 
But a VAMPIRE for a A3000/A4000 where you have much stronger power supply - can offer more memory without creating drawbacks for the  customers.
 
I can imagine that a VAMP4 for A4000 might be offered with 1 GB of memory. 1 GB of fast memory would be sensible number on AMIGA OS. As the available address space is 2 GB in total and you want to keep some space free to be able to add Zorro Cards.


Sean Sk

Posts 488
01 Dec 2017 22:20


Account for sale wrote:

  Also, wasn't it just the other week that people here were complaining about lack of more "modern" web browser? There are people showing up every now and then who want to port some "light-weight" browser to Amiga, but the lack of RAM makes it very hard - a somewhat slow CPU one can live with, it is the amount of RAM puts the real limit of what is possible.
 

 
  I think Arti had shown some video's of his OS3 port of Netsurf running on a Vampire and that looked pretty awesome. I wasn't aware RAM was an issue. I can't recall seeing that mentioned in any of the forums.
 
 
Account for sale wrote:

  I wish for a maxed out 68k Amiga system, one that pushes the limits for what is possible within the original concepts of the Amiga, one that brings the old software to new limits.
 

 
  This I can understand and agree with. But I'm also interested in seeing the Amiga platform move forward and become more modern.
 
 
 
Account for sale wrote:

  As things are, apollo core brings new limitations without really solving much of the old ones, a wee bit speed gain, yay.
 

 
  This I don't agree with. Any perceived "limitations" will disappear as future development continues with the Vampire.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
03 Dec 2017 16:52


Jim Drew wrote:

Now, back to why a MMU is needed for Mac emulation

As you know on the VAMP MAC OS runs fine, including Photoshop.

I doubt that many people will buy the VAMP to do photo layout but if the want then VAMP-4 will give them 512 MB fastmem to run MAC OS and for using Photoshop.
Do you know any 68K MAC which had this huge amount of memory and CPU power?

I understand that you say that are some MAC programs would benefit of Virtuel Memory - what do you think how many people MORE would buy the VAMP for this feature.


Stefano Briccolani

Posts 586
03 Dec 2017 19:09


MMU on Amiga is pointless. In my experience I never found a program or game for AmigaOS that required MMU (and who likes Amiga don't want to install Linux for sure). Apollo team have better and more important things to work on than waste time with silly requests


Mr Niding

Posts 459
03 Dec 2017 19:14


@Steve Ferrell

I guess SOME people would like to use the Vampire for as many tasks as possible, even if it doesnt make sense from a performance point of view.

Mac emulation has shown itself to be reasonably fast. If the emulators had been adjusted to utilize Vampires extra features, the performance would be even better.

Jim Drew, isnt this something you could do?

On the topic of photo editing etc; are there opensource programs of that type that can be converted to 68k+AMMX? Or will it require so much work that you might aswell start fresh/from the ground up..?




Steve Ferrell

Posts 424
03 Dec 2017 23:30


Account for sale wrote:

      He clearly says some MacOS programs won't even _start_ if virtual memory is not turned on, ie require compatible MMU, independent of how much RAM you may have.
         
          How many more would buy V4 if there was legacy compatible MMU available? Let's see... just about all Linux/68k developers and users would be a heck more interested, as would NetBSD/m68k developers and users. Then all the Atari people who want to keep compatibility. Suddenly it might also be possible (with some tweaking) to run Plan9, A/UX and NeXTSTEP, old SunOS of course, and how fun would it not to see the old Apollo product DomainOS running on V4. And of course it could open up the path for more old MacOS fans. So hard to say exactly how many more :)
       
        Also, there is... me.
     

     
I'm sorry, I must be confused because I thought this was a forum for people who are looking to expand their Amigas. 
     
But on a more serious note, if you put just half the amount of effort into trolling forums for Plan9, MacOS, Linux/68K, A/UX, NetBSD/m68K and DomainOS, etc...that you put into trolling an Amiga forum, you may actually find that even folks on those forums aren't interested in resurrecting those platforms.  They've died off for good reason and b@tching about YOUR desire to resurrect all these dead platforms on an Amiga forum isn't helping your case.  In fact it only worsens things because of the resentment that you create.
   
You're obviously not interested in running AmigaOS OS3.x or you'd have no complaints since an MMU isn't needed to run it.  So what is your angle?  Why are you so adamant that an MMU MUST be added to the Vampire?  Are you one of those folks who has been paid to troll here and attack the Vampire, or are you suffering from some undiagnosed psychological problem, or do you have a real need to run one of those other platforms on a much faster CPU so that you feel compelled to troll here?  Not that you will give an honest answer, but I'm just curious as to why you are obsessed with posting the same thing over and over and over.......
     


Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
04 Dec 2017 21:20


Steve Ferrell wrote:

  That's interesting because you post the same trash under the Vampire forums too.  And exactly as I predicted you didn't answer a single question.  You're just here to troll for the sake of trolling or you're being paid to do it.
 

I don't know what He did in the past here and why He is halfbanned and equiped with funny troll avatar, but now I cannot agree with You, Steve. He asked normall question and gives reasons why He ask about it. Gunnar said clearly Apollo team and 99,9% of us are not interested of supporting all of this dead platforms. He didn't attack anyone here, so relax please.
Gunnar, You said that Apollo-core has build-in MMU anyway. What's the different? Can this MMU be used under AOS somehow? Or it's just completly disabled?

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