Overview Features Coding ApolloOS Performance Forum Downloads Products Order Contact

Welcome to the Apollo Forum

This forum is for people interested in the APOLLO CPU.
Please read the forum usage manual.
Please visit our Apollo-Discord Server for support.



All TopicsNewsPerformanceGamesDemosApolloVampireAROSWorkbenchATARIReleases
Documentation about the Vampire hardware

V5/V6 Card AGA/Chipmem Work Around Solution?

Antony Coello

Posts 153
21 Feb 2021 21:17


I was looking at E-UAE on CoffinOS a few nights back and was wondering, if its possible to emulate an A1200 at a fairly reasonable speed with a v5 or v6 card, then would it not be possible to strip down the emulation to just AGA and/or extra chip RAM, which should run a bit quicker, as a stopgap solution?

MagicMac on the Amiga is faster than the actual Mac it emulates, so I imagine, while its not going to be as fast as a v1200, it would fill the gap for now.

Obviously it would have to go through the RTG, as the OCS/ECS A500 does not physically have the colour bit depth.

Maybe something that can be achieved whilst we wait for the Gold 3 core? Has anyone looked into this?

How hard would this be to implement?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
23 Feb 2021 08:48


Antony Coello wrote:

v5 or v6 card,

There are not V5 or V6 cards

V4+ is the most advanced card available.


Antony Coello

Posts 153
23 Feb 2021 12:31


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

Antony Coello wrote:

  v5 or v6 card,
 

 
  There are not V5 or V6 cards
 
  V4+ is the most advanced card available.

Sorry Gunnar, I should have used their full names:  the V500v2+ and V600 cards.


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
23 Feb 2021 13:10


Antony Coello wrote:

if its possible to emulate an A1200 at a fairly reasonable speed with a v5 or v6 card, then would it not be possible to strip down the emulation to just AGA and/or extra chip RAM, which should run a bit quicker, as a stopgap solution?

See GOLD3 Alpha core
There is a turtle mode that can drop speed to stock A1200.

Alpha core
https://gold3.apollo-accelerators.com/#openModal

Most recent status update on getting it further
EXTERNAL LINK 


Antony Coello

Posts 153
23 Feb 2021 15:04


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

  See GOLD3 Alpha core
  There is a turtle mode that can drop speed to stock A1200.

Thanks for the FB  link Vojin.

I didnt mean intentionally to slow down the machine, I meant emulation would be (obviously) slower, but perhaps can match (or ideally improve) the speed of a standard Amiga 1200.

Didnt want to make any extra work for the Apollo team. Just wondered if this was a viable/quick to implement stopgap to stop all the 'is it done yet?' messages that will probably be sent until the final Vampire 500/600 GOLD 3 core is done.


Roy Gillotti

Posts 517
23 Feb 2021 15:09


From what I understand Gold 3 for the V2 Vampires was put on hold indefinitely. 


Peeri the Sunlight

Posts 71
23 Feb 2021 15:35


Now you lost the whole quite good idea..

The point was partially software emulate special chips (Amiga runned UAE.) but only parts that really need to be emulated. (Hybrid emulation mixed with real Amiga.) So take Aga / Denise or what ever you need and emulate them (by software(not by core)) and optimize them to run V500 and V600 / AMMX... all gfx output via digital video output. Slow for sure but how slow compared to real 14Mhz A1200...


Antony Coello

Posts 153
23 Feb 2021 15:49


Peeri the Sunlight wrote:

  Now you lost the whole quite good idea..
 
  The point was partially software emulate special chips (Amiga runned UAE.) but only parts that really need to be emulated. (Hybrid emulation mixed with real Amiga.) So take Aga / Denise or what ever you need and emulate them (by software(not by core)) and optimize them to run V500 and V600 / AMMX... all gfx output via digital video output. Slow for sure but how slow compared to real 14Mhz A1200...
 

 
  This is exactly what I was proposing.

Perhaps by not having to emulate ALL of the A1200 hardware, the overall system speed may be faster than the stock 1200.


Peeri the Sunlight

Posts 71
23 Feb 2021 16:26


To make emulation faster perhaps Core could have "hard coded trap list" which points to reserved memory area where emulation is placed, so basically take V4 core and remove all code what is not fitting to Cyclone, and point software address to emulate hardware by software.

Like soft FPU was done at first place... slow but compatible.

Then if there is any space left in cyclone, the most time critical and slowest routines can probably implement in FPGA.


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
23 Feb 2021 16:47


Antony Coello wrote:

 
    The point was partially software emulate special chips (Amiga runned UAE.) but only parts that really need to be emulated. (Hybrid emulation mixed with real Amiga.) So take Aga / Denise or what ever you need and emulate them (by software(not by core)) and optimize them to run V500 and V600 / AMMX... all gfx output via digital video output. Slow for sure but how slow compared to real 14Mhz A1200...
   
    This is exactly what I was proposing.
 
  Perhaps by not having to emulate ALL of the A1200 hardware, the overall system speed may be faster than the stock 1200.
 

 
  While it sounds nice, I doubt its easily feasable. Essentially Vamps offer either CPU and RTG replacement and use of onboard chips (GOLD2 cores) or tend to fully takeover providing all functionality possible (V4, GOLD3).
 
  I doubt that mixed approach could be easy for several reasons:
 
  - All chips except Paula and CIA are different from OCS ECS to AGA to my knowledge, maybe even more
  - Its not easy to provide full compatibility due to timings even with full emulation, and some mixed mode could introduce new incompatibilities
  - Downscaling CPU to free FPGA space would beat overall Vamp purpose and might need a new soft CPU other then 080
 
  Some more technologically knowledgeable person could add more risks and inabilities.
 
  Lets wait for current V4 core development to mature, and hope to see how mature GOLD2 and GOLD3 cores will be then - in year or two. Flashing between those two should be well enough options, while having highest degree of compatibility possible.
 
  One of proposed possible GOLD3 cores (AGA gaming) is close to what is desired.


Antony Coello

Posts 153
23 Feb 2021 19:45


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

  While it sounds nice, I doubt its easily feasable.

Fair enough. Im not an emulation expert. I did hear that UAE (unless on the standard A500 configuration) is not very accurate speedwise, so trying to synchronise timings with real hardware may be difficult.

posts 11