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

Vampire Compatible Hardwarepage  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 

Daniel Sevo

Posts 299
26 Jan 2017 15:05


Nixus Minimax wrote:

Roman S. wrote:

  One more reason for clockport splitter compatibility in Vampire 1200...
 

 
  What is that good for?
 

Its pretty obvious they refer to the possibility of adding a Prisma soundcard.
Even if Apollo-core gets an integrated SuperPaula at some point, its tough competing with a DSP (the one used in the Prisma card) fairly specifically designed to encode and decode a number of specific sound formats.




Marcus Gerards

Posts 58
26 Jan 2017 18:07


Daniel Sevo wrote:

  Even if Apollo-core gets an integrated SuperPaula at some point, its tough competing with a DSP (the one used in the Prisma card) fairly specifically designed to encode and decode a number of specific sound formats.
 

 
  And it's pretty useless to "compete", since the Apollo's power could be put to better use in the meantime.
 
  One of the strong points of the Amiga has always been its expandability. The dream Amiga of 2018 will probably be an A4000 with a V4000 (hope so), a Prisma (or successor) a FPGA Zorro III gfx card (like this one: https://github.com/mntmn/amiga2000-gfxcard) and some USB solution built by whomever.
 
  For the A1200, it would be better to feature an additional clockport in the V1200 itself. You can connect multiple expansions to the original A1200 clockport, but they won't always work together, at least not at the same time. The builtin clockport is just too slow.
 
 
 


Daniel Sevo

Posts 299
26 Jan 2017 23:30


Marcus Gerards wrote:

Daniel Sevo wrote:

    Even if Apollo-core gets an integrated SuperPaula at some point, its tough competing with a DSP (the one used in the Prisma card) fairly specifically designed to encode and decode a number of specific sound formats.
 

 
  And it's pretty useless to "compete", since the Apollo's power could be put to better use in the meantime.
 
  One of the strong points of the Amiga has always been its expandability. The dream Amiga of 2018 will probably be an A4000 with a V4000 (hope so), a Prisma (or successor) a FPGA Zorro III gfx card (like this one: https://github.com/mntmn/amiga2000-gfxcard) and some USB solution built by whomever.
 
  For the A1200, it would be better to feature an additional clockport in the V1200 itself. You can connect multiple expansions to the original A1200 clockport, but they won't always work together, at least not at the same time. The builtin clockport is just too slow.

 

They have to draw the line somewhere I guess (with the design of the V1200) so it doesn't turn into "V1200 Forever". Its possible however that the expansion port(s) it will have could be used for something similar.
And **IF** it will eventually happen, the Amiga Reloaded mobo is likely to feature faster clock ports. Would be a nice base for a V1200 expansion card. (Provided they'd be compatible of course).




Retrobrain Johnny

Posts 12
27 Jan 2017 01:44


Would the Vampire500V2 work together with a ACA500plus or would there be conflicts? Not a big deal if it wouldnt work as im planing on putting the vampire in my A2000, im just curious :)


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
27 Jan 2017 08:16


Marcus Gerards wrote:

And it's pretty useless to "compete", since the Apollo's power could be put to better use in the meantime.
 
  One of the strong points of the Amiga has always been its expandability. The dream Amiga of 2018 will probably be an A4000 with a V4000 (hope so), a Prisma (or successor) a FPGA Zorro III gfx card (like this one: https://github.com/mntmn/amiga2000-gfxcard) and some USB solution built by whomever.
 
  For the A1200, it would be better to feature an additional clockport in the V1200 itself. You can connect multiple expansions to the original A1200 clockport, but they won't always work together, at least not at the same time. The builtin clockport is just too slow. 

Hello Marcus...

But why would you want an external GFX card - if an external Zorro3 GFX card - is a _LOT_ slower than then build in SAGA GFX function of the Vampire?




Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
27 Jan 2017 10:13


It's slower because Zorro III is slow, or it's slow because this FPGA card is slow (for now)?
IMHO both sides have some right. It's better to have device "all in one", but mayby some one want to use some old expansion, for own reasons.
Gunnar, can You tell something more about this Vampire expansion port? Is it somehow backward compatible with Amiga clock port? Or can it be?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
27 Jan 2017 11:02


Its great to see how well other existing hardware works with the Vampire.

You can of course use other Zorro cards in combination with Vampire.

But you have to be careful not to downgrade your Vampire like this.
   

For example using a FAST-IDE Amiga card from another vendor would be a downgrade and using it will be slower than using the build in SAGA Fast-IDE.
   
Also using a Zorro FPGA GFX card would effectively be a downgrade in all aspects. As the SAGA does supports more formats, more memory, more speed, higher resolutions, and offers more features - video modes
   
With the Vampires  the need for extra cards should be come lower now.
As the Vampire cards offer expansion ports, for which good Wifi / network upgrades are currently tested.. And these are available for $5 price.
 


Nadyr Nick

Posts 54
27 Jan 2017 11:47


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:
As the SAGA does supports more formats, more memory, more speed, higher resolutions, and offers more features.

   
    and Warp3D ?
  If there is Warp3D in SAGA It's not needed buy a Mediator PCI plus Voodoo3/4/5 PCI card, for stuff 68k Warp3D
   
   
Marcus Gerards wrote:

    The dream Amiga of 2018 will probably be an A4000 with a V4000 (hope so)

   
    this is Amiga users' dream; news about V4000 ?


Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
27 Jan 2017 12:29


SAGA is still under development, even if today we have no Warp3D option that's not mean we'll not get it in future.
About V4k, I think it's planned, but nothing is done yet, we get V600 and 2 different V500 boards last time, now V1200 is under development. After that V3k/V4k will be produced I think. We shouldn't push Apollo team so much. They work fast and good on current core for small Amigas. If something will be done for V500, it will be automaticly ported to Vampire for big models.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
27 Jan 2017 12:37


nadyr nick wrote:

and Warp3D ?

Actuaally Apollo AMMX does overlap in features already with the GFX features of the Voodoo..




Wawa T

Posts 695
27 Jan 2017 14:01


you can wrap around alains wazp3d adding hardware acceleration where applicable and see what comes out of it. sources are free.


Ian Parsons

Posts 230
27 Jan 2017 14:41


wazp3d needs fpu so not an option yet. Haven't looked at the source but I suspect it's not written in 68k asm so to make use of AMMX it would probably be easiest if there was an AMMX library it could call.


Wawa T

Posts 695
27 Jan 2017 14:56


wazp3d is written in c, obviously. it as no modular backend as warp3d. which contains multiple files for particular hardware, i dont remember the setup exactly. however it was effectively wrapping calls to gallium on aros for hardware acceleration and it wraps 3d calls to an accelerated win dll on winuae. so i think, there is no necessity for fpu if other accelerated hardware can be spoken to for particular functions, say ammx asm inlines in c code.


Eric Gus

Posts 477
27 Jan 2017 22:46


Michal Warzecha wrote:

  V3k/V4k will be produced I think.
 

 
  That would be fantastic if they ever did  a Vampire that would work in my A3000 ..that machine really does deserve a nice upgrade like the Vampire. (its like the A600 of the Amiga desktops)


Marcus Gerards

Posts 58
07 Feb 2017 10:56


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  But why would you want an external GFX card - if an external Zorro3 GFX card - is a _LOT_ slower than then build in SAGA GFX function of the Vampire?

My current setup includes a Radeon card, which delivers resolutions of 1920x1200@60Hz and more. That's the resolution I use and more, than the Vampire can handle currently. Concerning the aforementioned Z3-FGPA-gfxcard: It's fully open source (including drivers), which I like in this case and also a bit of competition, which won't hurt. :)

I've also to admit that while being a huge fan of your current project, I don't like the "Vampire is all you're going to need"-attitude shining through your posts. Who knows, it may be "what do you need real Amigas for, buy standalone Vampire" next...



Nick Fellows

Posts 176
07 Feb 2017 11:02


Not sure why you would need a Prisma wouldnt the vampire take care of  this functionality and also be more flexible?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
07 Feb 2017 11:02


Marcus Gerards wrote:

  Z3-FGPA-gfxcard: It's fully open source (including drivers),
 

 
Actually I think its drivers was based on our opensource drivers.
;-)

The Vampire can also drive pretty nice resolution like 720p or even 1080p/FULLHD.

The RADEON might be nice card in itself but its seriously crippled by the BUS its connected too.
Of course all Z2/Z3 cards are also crippled by this.

So in real live running something like a Game or doing video play back on SAGA video out just works so much better than on any Zorro card.




Marcus Gerards

Posts 58
07 Feb 2017 12:15


nick fellows wrote:

Not sure why you would need a Prisma wouldnt the vampire take care of  this functionality and also be more flexible?

Does the Vampire support FLAC or mp4 audio playback? My typical application is compiling while listening to music - why should I bother the Vampire's CPU if a cheap card like the Prisma can deal with the audio? The Vampire can use its power for the compiler/editor, (and hopefully some Enforcer-like tool in the near future) ;)


Marcus Gerards

Posts 58
07 Feb 2017 12:19


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  So in real live running something like a Game or doing video play back on SAGA video out just works so much better than on any Zorro card.
 

True, but that's not my application here. The limitations of the ZorroBus only become obvious if I try to use a text editor in 1920x1200x32. :D

16but is quite fast.

Are you planning to increase the resolution/display refresh rates of the SAGA-part?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
07 Feb 2017 21:20


Marcus Gerards wrote:

  Are you planning to increase the resolution/display refresh rates of the SAGA-part?
 

 
I think the support right now is pretty good.

* SAGA does supports huge number of mode GFX formats.
  I think it supports far more different formats than any other card for AMIGA
  PLANAR/CHUNKY/15/16/NEO/24/32/YUV ...
  And also the litt endian PC formats!
 
* SAGA resolution resolutions support is freely programmable.
  You can view resolution of 1920x1080 and even higher
  The resolution support is a bit depending on your TV though.
  Personally I think workbench looks best on a normal sized monitor in 960x540 to 1280x720
  But you can go higher.
 
 
I have to say that I'm pretty satisfied with the options today.


posts 121page  1 2 3 4 5 6 7