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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

Vampire Compatibility

Martin Myhre

Posts 1
27 Jan 2023 00:59


Hi,
Kind of n00b in the Amiga clone world... but.. If I purchase a Vampire V4 standalone... will I be able to run the old classic like 1992 Spaceballs State of the Art and 1993 Kefrens Desert Dream (and other demos from that era)?

I understand I would have to solve the "disk issue"-ish since the V4 doesn't have an old school 880k floppy...

But is the CPU/SoC close to compatible?


Danilo Drago

Posts 43
27 Jan 2023 06:26


latest beta 9 cores have introduced the virtual floppy (DF0 and DF1), so you can boot from it like as a Gotek drive.

ApolloTeam is been very busy lately to improve compatibility fixing Copper and Blitter bugs with certain demos/games.

Have the patience to wait and you will be rewarded.


Eric Gus

Posts 477
28 Jan 2023 02:28


Many of the old classics can run under whdload which lets you run things from the hard drive so the needing a floppy issue is kinda a non-problem now .. also some very old programs/games/demos were not coded to handle newer processors, whdload also helps to fix this by patching or other mods that allow the item to work on faster Amigas (like the vampire) and on newer OSs .. While not everything runs under whdload id venture a guess most of the things you likely want to run are already have whdload setups.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
28 Jan 2023 09:19


Amiga games always were not 100% compatible.
We all are aware of this.
Some rare games only ran on Amiga OS 1.2 and had issues with Amiga OS 1.3 and later. A number of Amiga games have issues with Amiga OS 3 and later. A couple of Amiga OCS games give problems on AGA. And a number of old games runs to fast on faster Amigas like Amiga 4000.
 
This all no news. There are always a few problem games.
All of us Amiga users fully know this.

As mentioned WHDLOAD allows to install games to harddrive and also fixes often bugs which gave compatibility problems.

In general the compatibility of the Apollo Cards is very good.
The V4 system allow to run at 3 different speeds.
* Amiga 500 like Speed.
* Amiga 1200 + 030 Accelerator Speed
* Maximum Speed (300 times Amiga 500)

Therefore you can run each game at the Speed it needs to run perfect.

V4 system also provide different hardware Zoom modes.
These allow you to display NTSC and PAL games pixel perfect in fullscreen on your game.

Game compatibility is a very important topic for the team.
And with the help of the community we have created a list of the most popular / most important top 100 Amiga games.
The team is right now testing all the games and will publish the result soon. I think the compatibility is much over 90%.




DiscreetFX Studios

Posts 140
28 Jan 2023 15:09


Thank you so much for all the hard work you have put into this. I have found compatibility to be excellent and improving all the time.


Darren Eveland

Posts 96
29 Jan 2023 00:49


DiscreetFX Studios wrote:

Thank you so much for all the hard work you have put into this. I have found compatibility to be excellent and improving all the time.

Yes many games work great.  I noticed some graphical glitching in Super Stardust AGA, is this normal? Vampire 1200 core 2.12.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
29 Jan 2023 15:00


Darren Eveland wrote:

  Vampire 1200 core 2.12.
 

 
Core 2.12 is about 3 years old.
I would recommend to update to a current core, current Core version is 2.16
 


Darren Eveland

Posts 96
01 Feb 2023 02:09


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

Darren Eveland wrote:

  Vampire 1200 core 2.12.
 

 
  Core 2.12 is about 3 years old.
  I would recommend to update to a current core, current Core version is 2.16
 

Upgraded to 2.16 for my V1200.  SuperStardust AGA (launched via iGame) still glitches a bit during gameplay (not in the tunnel, but in the asteroid game play).

Perhaps an option in WDHLoad needs to be set? I tried enabling No Cache but that made it slightly worse.

A1200/V1200, Core 2.16
Started computer in PAL
Booted CoffinOS
Launched iGame
Started SuperStarDust AGA
(output to 1084S monitor)
Completed tunnel sequence
Started first quadrant at next Starbase
Screen is glitchy

Thanks any tips appreciated.


Darren Eveland

Posts 96
07 Feb 2023 16:52


Is anyone able to test SuperStarDust AGA on their V1200? I am still getting the glitching.  I asked on discord but got no reply.

Thanks
Darren


Darren Eveland

Posts 96
08 Feb 2023 18:20


BigGun has replied on discord.

Thanks!


Allan Versaevel

Posts 111
02 Mar 2023 04:33


I have the same issue, was there a solution?


Mickael Mottier

Posts 1
02 Mar 2023 12:04


Hi
The issue is known. A future update is waiting for.




J I

Posts 29
02 Mar 2023 16:49


Quoting a previous post:

The V4 system allow to run at 3 different speeds.
* Amiga 500 like Speed.
* Amiga 1200 + 030 Accelerator Speed
* Maximum Speed (300 times Amiga 500)

How do you change the speed, is there a software to do that, or a hardware switch? I have a v4sa, thank you.


John William

Posts 563
02 Mar 2023 16:54


I guess...literally...the only way to have 100% compatible in Amiga games if these are RTG. Then you don't have to worry about compatibility anymore, or worry about AGA or OCS or PAL or NTSC.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
03 Mar 2023 06:50


John William wrote:

  I guess...literally...the only way to have 100% compatible in Amiga games if these are RTG. Then you don't have to worry about compatibility anymore, or worry about AGA or OCS or PAL or NTSC.
 

 
You dont know RTG systems much?
 
Amiga RTG systems not at all have the same features, not all offer same gfx modes, not all offer the same resolutions, not all offer features like sync to VBL, one might offer 3D acceleration while others might not, one might offer video acceleration others might not - and not all have the same speed - in fact they differ hugely in performance levels.
   
A game that runs smooth on one system with 50FPS, might have 3 FPS only on another RTG card.

RTG on Amiga is good for Workbench, but for games its totally unreliable platform. Some card might have the power to play games in 800 resolution in truecolor - while another RTG system will crawl in this screenmode and only 320 resolution games will run smooth.


John William

Posts 563
05 Mar 2023 02:07


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

John William wrote:

  I guess...literally...the only way to have 100% compatible in Amiga games if these are RTG. Then you don't have to worry about compatibility anymore, or worry about AGA or OCS or PAL or NTSC.
 

 
  You dont know RTG systems much?
   
  Amiga RTG systems not at all have the same features, not all offer same gfx modes, not all offer the same resolutions, not all offer features like sync to VBL, one might offer 3D acceleration while others might not, one might offer video acceleration others might not - and not all have the same speed - in fact they differ hugely in performance levels.
   
  A game that runs smooth on one system with 50FPS, might have 3 FPS only on another RTG card.
 
  RTG on Amiga is good for Workbench, but for games its totally unreliable platform. Some card might have the power to play games in 800 resolution in truecolor - while another RTG system will crawl in this screenmode and only 320 resolution games will run smooth.

Maybe. But that is not an issue at all. The best accelerator in the world is the Vampire. Obviously, that is the RTG market I am targeting. Games made using Vampire RTG mode and since it covers all Amiga models the concept of variation and difference will be eliminated. Besides, what you are describing also applies for PC. It is easy to upgrade your RTG card so it can be 100% to all games. Let us be honest, Amiga is niche. How many variations so RTG cards out there compared to PC/Mac/Linux? Assuming for dramatic reasons we say 20. Though, I doubt it. What with drivers and all...the different variation of cards can be dropped easily to 10. One out of ten will cover all the games out there. Simply put, buy that card. At least you can buy and remove card to replace it with one that covers all. You cannot do that with custom chipset.

Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-custom chipset, however, what with Vampire and RTG I am more pro to RTG and pushing for RTG native Amiga games. Who knows, perhaps in future, majority of Amiga market will have v4 as their accelerator card for their Amiga...the whole idea of rtg system issue as described above will disappear.



Amiga 4Life

Posts 101
27 Mar 2023 04:20


.... those Rtg cards/modes are designed for Workbench, mainly to get the desktop and productivity apps off the chipset and onto a display with higher resolutions, more colors, faster screen redraws , the ability use Vga monitors...  When you see the advertisements for Rtg cards there is no mention of games (no where), only Workbench and paint applications..... when you look through Amigas gaming library you'll see all of the hit titles were created with the chipset...20+ years of Rtg cards and they haven't been able to attract or establish a solid gaming base....

Many Amigans don't want to accept it but bigbox Amiga is not a game machine.....
A lot of a500 games don't run on expanded big boxes, anything with 3.x, o60 @50mhz, 2MB chipram upgrade, your going to run into problems....

Also, keep in mind that "keyboard case" Amigas 500/600/1200 are game console like in nature, at some point newer chipsets may need to break some compatibility for the sake of adding newer features and gaining better performance...
Look at PS2, most PS1 games are compatible not all...
Look at Sega consoles "Sega Master system, Game gear, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast", none of these systems are software compatible....

After seeing the Ammx Dragon's Crown demo (Imo) breaking some (5%) compatibility is worth it if the Sprites/characters are going to look and move like that....

With bigbox Amiga compatibility with Video taoaster is mandatory. Compatibility with Ahi and Rtg is necessary... the only reason I didn't buy Prisma megamix was it lack Ahi compatibility.. Ahi compatibility would have given it access to ahi capable software ..(Rec-Hd, DigiBooster, Sample manager, SoundFx, etc.)


Amiga 4Life

Posts 101
27 Mar 2023 04:25


@John William
Looking back at Rtg cards Picasso iV and CyberVision 64 these cards never reached their full potential. Dsp and Mpeg modules were planned but never released. These modules would have given bigbox Amigas the ability to play mp3's and mpeg-1 files with low powered cpu's.... look at Picasso displaying a live tv broadcast on workbench.. EXTERNAL LINK ........

Look at ZZ9000, no mention of games, you get Workbench on a hi-def display....

posts 18