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Vampire 2 A600 Gold 3 Better Sound?

Tony Day

Posts 62
09 Dec 2017 11:18


Was wondering. Does Gold 3 bypass the entire ECS chipset and run everything through the DIGITAL-VIDEO incl sound?

Im curious if it will implement the superior sound of the A1200 rather than the duller sound of the A500/600?

Thanks.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
09 Dec 2017 11:24


Tony Day wrote:

Was wondering. Does Gold 3 bypass the entire ECS chipset and run everything through the DIGITAL-VIDEO incl sound?
 
Im curious if it will implement the superior sound of the A1200 rather than the duller sound of the A500/600?
 
Thanks.

Yes, GOLD 3 can output Audio over DIGITAL-VIDEO

Both Amiga 600 and AMIGA 1200 support the same audio.
4 Channel each 8bit, or 2 Channel each 14bit.

Our updated AMIGA Chipset supports 8 channel with 16bit samples.
With 24bit Hifi-quality internal subsampling.


Tony Day

Posts 62
09 Dec 2017 11:55


Thanks for the reply Gunnar. I always heard that the A1200 had a static low-pass filter which made the sound crisper. Isnt that the case?

Trying to get 14bit playback on my A600 Vampire 2 but wont bother if the A600 cant do it. (until core3 that is).

My A1200 has an Aca030 so it cant even play mp3s


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
09 Dec 2017 12:10


Tony Day wrote:

Trying to get 14bit playback on my A600 Vampire 2 but wont bother if the A600 cant do it. (until core3 that is).
 
My A1200 has an Aca030 so it cant even play mp3s

In AMINET is a program to play 16bit waves
Its called "play16"
You can use it to play wave in pretty high quality on AMIGAs.

Or course to play MP3 well you need either 68060 or VAMP.


Henryk Richter
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 128/ 1
09 Dec 2017 12:11


Any Amiga can do 14 Bit. The Amiga chipset has two analog lowpass filters after the DAC. The stronger one with an effective frequency limit around 7 kHz (also called "LED filter" in some places) can be switched off. The second RC lowpass filter is fixed. That one is responsible for the "muffled" sound when replaying high rate content like MP3 or Wav.
 
  Please note that it takes some configuration to get 44 Khz (up to 57 kHz) sampling rate out of the Amiga. Starting with ECS (A500+,A600 and later), the Amiga can play at more than approx. 28 kHz. The trick is: the Amiga chipset must be in a double scan display mode (DBLPAL, Productivity etc.). When running Picasso96, only a single environment variable needs to be set (from CLI):
 
  SetEnv EnvArc:Picasso96/AmigaVideo 31kHz
 
  With this setting, you can use higher sampling rates (after a reboot). AHI will honor this setting, too (and actually check for it before switching high sampling rates on).


Vojin Vidanovic

Posts 770
09 Dec 2017 12:16


Tony Day wrote:

  Trying to get 14bit playback on my A600 Vampire 2 but wont bother if the A600 cant do it. (until core3 that is).
 

There is quite a list of Amiga apps that do support 14-bit
(Eagleplayer and HippoPlayer, PlayS3M, OctaMED Sound Studio, DigiBooster and HD-Rec) software mixing and 080 is more than enough
to handle it.

Tony Day wrote:

My A1200 has an Aca030 so it cant even play mp3s
 

You can, but with lower quality.
EXTERNAL LINK 
On 080, its no hustle and no need to lower quality.


Mallagan Bellator

Posts 393
10 Dec 2017 00:59


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

 
  Or course to play MP3 well you need either 68060 or VAMP.

Actually, it’s lower than that. I used to play mp3s alot with mpega and DiamondGui on my Amiga. It’s a 040 with fpu at 40 mhz. I played mp3s and wrote documents in kindwords at the same time. Worked pretty well


Mallagan Bellator

Posts 393
10 Dec 2017 01:07


Henryk Richter wrote:

Any Amiga can do 14 Bit. The Amiga chipset has two analog lowpass filters after the DAC. The stronger one with an effective frequency limit around 7 kHz (also called "LED filter" in some places) can be switched off. The second RC lowpass filter is fixed. That one is responsible for the "muffled" sound when replaying high rate content like MP3 or Wav.
 
  Please note that it takes some configuration to get 44 Khz (up to 57 kHz) sampling rate out of the Amiga. Starting with ECS (A500+,A600 and later), the Amiga can play at more than approx. 28 kHz. The trick is: the Amiga chipset must be in a double scan display mode (DBLPAL, Productivity etc.). When running Picasso96, only a single environment variable needs to be set (from CLI):
 
  SetEnv EnvArc:Picasso96/AmigaVideo 31kHz
 
  With this setting, you can use higher sampling rates (after a reboot). AHI will honor this setting, too (and actually check for it before switching high sampling rates on).

Surely this SetEnv line isn’t needed on the A1200 to run higher frequencies on Paula, right?


Mr-Z EdgeOfPanic

Posts 189
10 Dec 2017 07:39


@Mallagan Bellator

Also on the A1200 you need to do the SetEnv to enable 14bit playback.


Henryk Richter
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 128/ 1
10 Dec 2017 08:53


@Mallagan Bellator
This setting is needed _only_ with Picasso96 RTG. A stock A1200/3000/4000/500+/600 requires that you set a DoubleScan Screenmode (DBLPAL/DBLNTSC/Productivity) before you can use 44/48 kHz sound playback.

It's also not directly a Paula issue. Paula can be made to output up to 57 kHz (even on OCS), but only when being (in a manner of speaking) spoon-fed. The relationship between more than 28 kHz and the active screen mode comes from the Amiga DMA allocation. With 15 kHz screen modes, Paula is not getting more than 28867 effective DMA cycles per second.

Bottom line: Without double scan, you are limited to 14 Bit at 28 kHz. With double scan, you get up to 57 kHz.


Hans-Georg Winkler

Posts 29
11 Dec 2017 10:31


Thats realy great, I didn't know that! Tested it and the quality boost is incredible. It's intersting that the more than 25year old Soundchip of the Amiga can do that out of the box (Ok you need the CPU Power to do that ;-))


Estrayk / PaRaDoX

Posts 21
17 Sep 2018 22:35


I made an AUDIO versus between Amiga v600 vs Atari Falcon. I hope you like it.
EXTERNAL LINK


Martin Soerensen

Posts 232
18 Sep 2018 14:03


The Falcon sounds better but that is no wonder since the Amiga has a low pass filter which muffles the high frequencies.

I agree with a poster that Paula does produce a great sound quality considering it was 1985 and it was designed to be relatively low cost.


Henryk Richter
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 128/ 1
18 Sep 2018 15:04


Martin Soerensen wrote:

The Falcon sounds better but that is no wonder since the Amiga has a low pass filter which muffles the high frequencies.

There is a way around that by means of pre-emphasis.

I've included an (optional) highboost filter in the 14 Bit output plugin of Eagleplayer 2.05 that will compensate for the fixed Amiga lowpass. In my evaluation I got a near constant frequency response up to 18 kHz.

In the end, Paula can sound almost the same as a dedicated soundcard with a little help of signal processing.


A1200 Coder

Posts 72
20 Sep 2018 18:59


Martin Soerensen wrote:

The Falcon sounds better but that is no wonder since the Amiga has a low pass filter which muffles the high frequencies.
 
  I agree with a poster that Paula does produce a great sound quality considering it was 1985 and it was designed to be relatively low cost.

The point was here perhaps that A1200 doesn't have this second fixed lowpass filter that A500/A600 has, or the other earlier amiga models. This second filter can't be turned off, like the first one (the power led filter),so you're going to have better quality sound on an A1200 with high frequency sounds. On the other hand, low quality samples might sound worse on A1200 if you turn the power led filter off, as the lowpass filter tries to minimize those distortions.

EXTERNAL LINK


Avrit Sase

Posts 1
23 Jan 2019 17:59


Hi...i am actually surprised about how alpha this is, after years of gold3 aga previews on YouTube I expected it to be much more finished - this makes the AGA implementation on MiSTer shine in comparison.


Roy Gillotti

Posts 517
23 Jan 2019 19:00


Avrit Sase wrote:

  Hi...i am actually surprised about how alpha this is, after years of gold3 aga previews on YouTube I expected it to be much more finished - this makes the AGA implementation on MiSTer shine in comparison.
 

  Well it IS an alpha version... The core the MiSTer is running isn't trying anything new.  The Apollo Core development is likely more focused on the V4 right now, not trying to implement it on the V2.


Adam Whittaker
(Needs Verification)
Posts 270/ 1
23 Jan 2019 19:55


Avrit Sase wrote:

Hi...i am actually surprised about how alpha this is, after years of gold3 aga previews on YouTube I expected it to be much more finished - this makes the AGA implementation on MiSTer shine in comparison.

this was kinda how I felt when the gold 3 alpha came out - and I got pretty much told to shut up and put up... all I really wanted was native Amiga and RTG over the vamps video out lol - so now I just sit in the naughty corner and wait.



Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
24 Jan 2019 17:54


Adam Whittaker wrote:

  this was kinda how I felt when the gold 3 alpha came out - and I got pretty much told to shut up and put up... all I really wanted was native Amiga and RTG over the vamps video out lol - so now I just sit in the naughty corner and wait.

We are all in the same boat. I have never seen Mister AGA core to be the judge, and I am glad if its mature. Vampire GOLD3 is supposed to be overal "leap forward" from GOLD2 core and AGA Enhancer where I suppose AGA compatibility is just "piece of the slice". Seems even beta core succeeds more in advanced area (like all Amiga video and audio out to DIGITAL-VIDEO) so far - but that is just a public beta.

Final one should be the judge, Standalone "enabler" too (with further ehnacements) and likely "big Amiga thing" of 2019.

While I would love to see e.g. MOS 4 PPC64/x64, LibreOffice for OS4 and few more "promises done", I have more doubt it will happen 2019 then GOLD3 for all / Vamp Standalone and V4 models.

So a bit more patience before final judgement.

Current state is closer to "always in beta". So was GOLD2 core and now looks quite nicely done.


posts 19