 Documentation about the Vampire hardware |
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Leon de Rooij
Posts 3
15 Sep 2024 22:20
| Hi! I've been reading a lot about the vampire v4 and am considering to buy one to put in an Amiga 500. I would love to use my Lacie Electron 22 Blue IV monitor with it: EXTERNAL LINK - so that would then be using an hdmi to vga converter. (curious if someone could advise one ? do i need one with external power ? and I believe I read it's best to have one that has analog audio out from the converter and not try to use the audio output directly from the Amiga?)
But I wonder whether all modes are supported ?
Saw in some forum post that Vampire supports these modes:
AMIGA PAL 50 Hz
AMIGA NTSC 60 Hz
RTG Modes:
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304x224
320x200
320x240
320x256
480x270
640x200
640x360
640x400
640x480
640x512
720x576
800x600
848x480
960x540
1024x768
1280x720
1280x1024
1920x1080
But thinking Amiga PAL would flicker a lot at 50Hz, maybe NTSC res at 60Hz would be do'able ? Or is there possibility to double the 50Hz ? And wondering about the other resolutions, does 1280x1024 have a refresh rate that looks good on a crt ?
Supported resolutions and refresh rates according to specs of my monitor are:
640 x 480 @ 50 to 160 Hz
800 x 600 @ 50 to 160 Hz
1024 x 768 @ 50 to 160 Hz
1280 x 1024 @ 50 to 127 Hz
1600 x 1200 @ 50 to 109 Hz
1800 x 1350 @ 50 to 98 Hz
1800 x 1440 @ 50 to 92 Hz
1856 x 1392 @ 50 to 95 Hz
1920 x 1440 @ 50 to 92 Hz
2048 x 1536 @ 50 to 86 Hz
Hope this combination would work, or do you really advise to use an lcd from the tested monitors page: https://www.apollo-computer.com/peripherals.php#Monitors ?
I read somewhere that flicker fixer support is available, but could not find documentation for how it works, is some link available for that somewhere ?
Thanks for you time and best regards,
Leon
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Roy Gillotti
Posts 521
16 Sep 2024 00:05
| So for The V4 Firebird for the A500, it can run in two modes. The default mode runs in mode where all the Amiga chipsets are working as Commodore intended, all the original OCS/ECS games will output through the original RGB output, anything that uses RTG graphics, like Workbench with Picasso96 drivers enabled goes out the H.D.M.I. port. However there is a SAGA mode, it's enabled by a setting a jumper, it will output entirely out of the H.D.M.I port, give you AGA graphics, more chipram and other cool features... this mode you will need some sort of VGA adapter for your old CRT.
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Crew Mitglied Nummer 6
Posts 3
16 Sep 2024 09:36
| Dear Leon,
the Vampire V4 is great hardware and the Firebird for the Amiga 500 is a great solution with which you can also play AGA games.Firebird
AMIGA PAL Lowres/Hires/SuperHires
NTSC Lowres/Hires/SuperHires
Both normal and interlaced
the lace Amiga screens are automatically de-interlaced
this is very handy for old programs, old games using interlace or Workbench in interlace mode
The Firebird support PAL and NTSC in 1-8 Planes , with normal Mode or EHB or HAM6 or HAM8 On RTG you have the following modes available $01 = 320x200 |
$02 = 320x240 |
$03 = 320x256 |
$04 = 640x400 |
$05 = 640x480 |
$06 = 640x512 |
$07 = 960x540 |
$08 = 480x270 |
$09 = 304x224 |
$0A = 1280x720 |
$0B = 640x360 |
$0C = 800x600 |
$0D = 1024x768 |
$0E = 720x576 |
$0F = 848x480 |
$10 = 640x200 |
$11 = 1920x1080 |
$12 = 1280x1024 |
$13 = 1280x800 |
$14 = 1440x900 I recommend you use a modern DIGITAL-VIDEO monitor, the picture is simply better and it doesn't flicker. I hope I was able to help you and if you have any further questions, you can always get in touch here or in the Discord. Best regards
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Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6254
16 Sep 2024 10:05
| Everyone is different and has a different taste
In my opinion a modern H-D-M-I monitor has a very nice look.
The picture is clean and not does not flicker at all.
Its very "calm" and not tiring to the eyes.
For me this is excellent for working long hour with my Amiga.
I personally find to so much better than working with an old VGA monitor.
The Apollo-Card allow you to use modern H-D-M-I monitors and I would use this option.The Firebird will give out the Amiga picture over H-D-M-I, and it will add scanlines, and CRT effect ... so that the old games look a lot like they were originally looking on the Amiga monitor...
So for me the games look pretty good and "right" this way. And you also have the option to play games still using the old 1084 is you prefer this monitor. So you have all options.
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Leon de Rooij
Posts 3
16 Sep 2024 19:11
| Thank you all for your reply :) ok, was mostly looking to see if i could give the crt a dual purpose as it's currently used for a retro pc. But maybe indeed if i want to also get into programming for the machine then spending long evenings on a larger lcd may be nicer.. thanks again :)
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