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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

Newbie Questions

Neil Black

Posts 3
12 Nov 2018 19:31


Hi all, I've been following this forum for the last couple of months and what you have achieved is amazing.
I've bought a nice A600 with a few upgrades with the intention of vamping it, but I have a few questions.

1 - The v2 Vampire is limited in how much code can be put on it due to the storage capacity of the FPGA. At the moment there seems to be 4 core elements - CPU, FPU, SAGA and now AGA, but it is currently not possible to have all of them on chip at the same time on the v2. Will it be possible in future releases to pick and choose which elements to have running of your vampire, such as CPU, FPU and AGA?

2 - As well as buying a real Amiga, I've also been experimenting with WinUAE on my PC and Amibian on my Pi. How does the Vampire compare in terms of speed and compatibility against emulators?

3 - How does the SAGA/RTG work, does workbench automatically retarget itself to SAGA?

4 - I noticed that a new batch of v2 for the A500/A600 is currently being made, but with the v4 in development and a release date imminent, would I be better waiting a while and getting one of those, or  getting the v2 if I can get one now?

Thanks, Neil.


Andrew Miller

Posts 352
12 Nov 2018 20:10


Welcome.

1) Not sure they may be able to fit it all on the V2, but I did hear a while ago some of the FPU may be removed to allow the AGA to be implemented. As for picking and choosing whats on it, probably not. You can always go back to Gold 2.xx if you dont need/ want AGA and want the hardware FPU if they cant get it to fit.

2) Its faster than the Pi, probably not as fast as a high spec PC emulator. Compatibility its quite good as it implements the circuitry rather than emulating it in steps.

3)You need to use Picasso96 drivers to get it to work.

3) Not sure, could be released soon or more likely next year some time. It was originally scheduled for a Q4 2017 release.

Some more info here you may need EXTERNAL LINK


Andy Hearn

Posts 374
12 Nov 2018 20:19


Hey there, welcome. I'll have a go at answering as best I can.

1. no I don't think so. you will only have the option to "reflash" the FPGA with whatever core (closest) suits your personal requirements. so unless they release specific cores, then no.
for example, i'm really happy with core2.11 at the moment as my "daily driver" amiga, but i'll reserve judgement for core 3 as and when it arrives to see what that brings to the party. speaking only for myself, i'm not super needy for chipram or AGA, and I like the FPU now that I have it. other people have different requirements and ideas.

2. I can't answer for Amibian, but running winuae on a xeon 1650v4 takes me 1min 34secs to run the povray raytracing benchmark, vs around 31minutes 57secs for my vampire500V2 (core2.11 x11).
to put this into context, a 50Mhz 060 takes 1hr 10mins, a 25Mhz 040 takes 3.5hours, and a 50Mhz 030/882 takes 5hours 10mins.
compatibility seems very good from what I've seen

3. no. you need to run/install picasso96 graphics card driver software. then all system friendly software, and RTG aware stuff will run over DIGITAL-VIDEO - currently running my WB at 1024x768x16@50hz. no "normal" amiga modes run over DIGITAL-VIDEO until core3, so you'll have to figure out the usual RGB/Composite/Scart/indivision solutions otherwise.

4. entirely your call. you can put yourself in the queue for the v2 and if the V4 is released, then if I recall correctly, you may receive an email asking if you want to switch to the v4. but if you get your v2 in the mean time, then you'll have to pay again for the v4. probably you'll find a glut of v2's hit ebay when the v4 is finally shipping - however. the v2 is a thing *right now*(tm), and it exists, and works, giving super speedy CPU/FPU/RTG, IDE port, ram, digital video out, sdcard slot, and network.


Neil Black

Posts 3
12 Nov 2018 23:51


Thanks for the replies, how do I put myself in the queue to get one ?


Andy Hearn

Posts 374
13 Nov 2018 09:38


I got both my V500 and V600 via the Apollo-accelerators website
 
  EXTERNAL LINK 
  but I believe that resellers are getting on board too:-

  Amigakit
  EXTERNAL LINK 
  Relec
  EXTERNAL LINK 
  Amigastore.eu
  EXTERNAL LINK 
  Amedia-computer
  EXTERNAL LINK 
just spent about 20mins browsing amedia's website. they have both the V500 and V600 listed, plus lots of other fun stuff too!


Andy Hearn

Posts 374
13 Nov 2018 10:12


woops, just to add, as per another forum thread, a new batch of both V500 and V600's is currently in production, so I suspect resellers are awaiting re-stock. best check in with them first to see what their situations are.


Martin Soerensen

Posts 232
13 Nov 2018 10:39


Andrew Miller wrote:
2) Its faster than the Pi, probably not as fast as a high spec PC emulator. Compatibility its quite good as it implements the circuitry rather than emulating it in steps.

I like to think of it like this: The Vampire is like a Ferrari and WinUAE on a PC is a rocket. Sure, if your main goal is to simply get from point A to point B as fast as possible then the rocket will be the fastest, but it achieves this in a very different manner and not quite as elegant as the Ferrari. :-)

If you are doing a 3D rendering then it is all about getting to point B as fast as possible as watching it render the image line by line is pretty boring, but if you also want to use the system for games for example and need the system to be responsive to your inputs, then the Vampire will be the better choice. Try maneuvering a rocket round a race track.


Andy Hearn

Posts 374
13 Nov 2018 11:30


yeah i'd kinda like to echo that sort of sentiment. with a vampire you have:- your amiga mouse/joystick/keyboard, your floppy drive that you can just slap in one of those disks from the "good old days"(tm)
serial for midi, parallel for sound sampler... everything... just with the mod cons of today.

I did have to find a no-click app last night though as I share my office, but I did get looks of "what the heck?" when I started streaming an episode of topgear off the file server into a workbench window on an amiga500 (re-encoded to mpeg1 with a bitrate of under 1000kbs for stable network streaming)

oh yeah, but just so you're aware, the network module is extra, dupont wires to connect network module - extra again.. plus the wait for shipping.

posts 8