@ppcamiga1

Which is faster, an emulated 68k or an emulated PowerPC? That’s what really counts when it comes to speed, as none of them are readily available in ASIC.

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ppcamiga1 Quote:

matthey stop this crap. 68k is not as fast as ppc. Prices of ASIC 68k with MMU and FPU are pure BS compared to prices od ppc. FPGA 68k still has not compatible MMU and FPU. 68k is not good enough to jusftiy resignation from ppc and will be not by many years.

The 68060 had competitive performance with the x86 Pentium and significantly better PPA (Power Performance Area). It also outperformed at the same clock speed the PPC 603 using a newer chip fabrication process. The 68060 had a deeper pipeline which is necessary for higher clock speeds yet the shallower pipelined PPC 603 was clocked up after another die shrink and the cache sizes were doubled. Motorola politics necessitated the transition to PPC. The Apollo core also shows very good performance per MHz especially considering it is in a restrictive low end FPGA. An ASIC with a similar number of transistors would cost roughly as much as a Raspberry Pi Pico ASIC to produce which results in a $4 US board with the ASIC costing less.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP2040

There are customers lining up for the RP2040 ASIC. It is cheaper than paying the premium cost of a high margin commodity chip provider like NXP (Motorola/Freescale) or IBM. A more powerful ASIC is desired for the Amiga but this gives an idea of the difference in performance and price when moving from FPGA to ASIC. The value of an ASIC over a FPGA actually grows as performance increases and it becomes very cheap to add in full features rather than use FPGA handicapped features. The cost of producing an ASIC is affordable for even a small business.

OlafS25 Quote:

I have discussed with amiga game developers... it is similar to the attitude of demo developers. They like the "limitations" of the old hardware, to be magicians who can do something most others are not able to. Even Vampire is already too modern to them. That is the reason why we not have new games that are specially using new features. The only exception are ports from PC world like Blood and many others. The same is true for your preferred hardware platform PPC. It is perhaps faster as current 68k hardware (we will see what PiStorm will offer in future and what Vampire will bring) but it is still not comparable to modern hardware. And it lacks the "fun factor" 68k offers (expecially the old hardware). So in short... I do not see changes there, at least not until the user base is a lot bigger and attracts additional indy developers from outside. Currently we have what we have.

A good judge of success is whether new Amiga hardware can attract indy games and retro remakes with enhancements. There are many ex-Amiga users in the game development industry but AmigaOne hardware has failed to attract much interest. Even the Intellivision Amico has attracted more interest. Despite the popularity of the Raspberry Pi, it has mostly used emulation for gaming failing to create a cheaper gaming platform than modern consoles. Some people think it is a good gaming platform though.

https://bits.p1x.in/raspberry-pi-4-as-perfect-indie-console/ Quote:

My initial impressions of the latest Pi are very positive. I think it will create a new branch in the history of personal computers. It will be the same home hacking computer as Acorn was with first ARM processor. With all the accessories and screens its very easy to make your own computer or console. Community is huge. It's easy to find answers and useful projects. The only difference is now we have a horsepower to play with!

The Acorn was nothing for gaming (and hacking) compared to the 68k Amiga though.

@matthey

if the main motivation is making money and you develope games for different platforms you would be happy to get hardware on same level because it makes supporting a platform much easier. But today the "fun factor" to do something special on the hardware using all sort of tricks is main motivation of the devs. The more powerful the hardware becomes the less interesting it becomes because with enough resources "everybody" could do it. And to be a platform competing with mainstream platforms you would need both competitive hardware and OS and even then you would still have a much smaller user base. There is no easy way to overcome this, at least on the short run.

Nevertheless the games that are now developed are fun even if not fully using better hardware right now.

If new developers from outside might be attracted has to be seen. It would also depend on if the user base grows.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 20-Dec-2021 at 12:03 AM.

@kolla

Stop this. Nobody sane will waste time for developing for emulator.

@matthey

No. 68060 not outperformed 603 at the same clock.
68060 has worse performance per clock than 603.
https://www.math.utah.edu/~mayer/linux/bmark.html
And 68060 has slower clock than 603.
603 was the slowest cpu used in ppc amiga.

For now prices of 68060 with MMU and FPU are pure BS.
Nobody produce affordable 68060.

Stop this crap.

@ppcamiga1

do you not understand?

Nobody sane wastes his time to develop for a niche like PPC either

PPC is too small to be commercial attractive either. People that are still developing do it for fun mainly (earning some money is a plus so to say). Doing a new OS based on Unix/Linux would not change anything. Then why develop something for it if Linux versions work?

BTW FPGA is not emulation. If you are really a developer you should know the difference

Last edited by OlafS25 on 20-Dec-2021 at 08:06 AM.

@ppcamiga1

RISC is outperforming CISC even at the same clock?

That is indeed revolutionary knowledge nobody knew until now. Up to now always opposite was true

Wow

@ppcamiga1

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ppcamiga1 wrote: @kolla Stop this. Nobody sane will waste time for developing for emulator.

If I was to develop for OS4 right now, what would be most sane?
* use my 30 year old A3000 with CSPPC and native OS4 tools
* use my latop, code using modern tools, build and test on OS4 under emulation

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@OlafS25

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Nobody sane wastes his time to develop for a niche like PPC either

Actually, being capable to develop for a niche like PPC can be very profitable, and very sane. It might even be the only option there is.

What's not sane, is thinking that developing for Amiga - regardless of 68k or PPC - can be profitable.

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PPC is too small to be commercial attractive either.

But its install base is quite large, and quite a few are located in places where they won't be replaced any time soon. And they still need to be programmed and developed for.

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People that are still developing do it for fun mainly (earning some money is a plus so to say)

A lot of development for PPC also happens out of necessity and customer demands.

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Doing a new OS based on Unix/Linux would not change anything. Then why develop something for it if Linux versions work?

Right - a new OS based on Linux would just run Linux programs already. What a tragedy that would be :)

Last edited by kolla on 20-Dec-2021 at 08:52 AM.
Last edited by kolla on 20-Dec-2021 at 08:52 AM.
Last edited by kolla on 20-Dec-2021 at 08:51 AM.

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@ppcamiga1

"developer"? "developer" is not a badge you gain writing a ton of posts in a silly forum. To be a "developer" usually you need to be working on a product. What are you "developing", just out of curiosity ? You'd gain a ton of support if you wrote about your project, and maybe even some helping hands.

now, getting serious, the only Amiga expected to sell in volumes is TheA500. Like it or not, it qualifies both as classic and emulation. Unless you're "developing" something which can target also that machine, you really are beyond insanity at this point. Then by all means, also toy with OS4, which is a nice craft, nothing wrong in spending your time the way you like

Being just a reader for a while. 10 last new A1200's , a few A500, Tower 060'PIV etc a room for Amigas and two magazines still comming (Thank You).

Work done with A4000 in the 90's , different countries, banking, Really Cool Hotel adverts, printing. Hobby music, Animations, drawing, digitising with DigiView Gold. 2000+ Disks, Tens of boxed Games.

Action Replay newest, TAC-2 a few, Memory, turboes, tens of thousands spent in different currencies. Many Friends in this hobby.

Can You Think as an AmigaFan? ;)

Not Really as having this Win7 fast as a computer should be with all the Opera and Printing etc.

Would Gladly Buy a new Net program like it was the Best even in my recommendations back then IBrowse was recommended at Nordea Bank at their net and HP Xpress C460W driver for the AmigaOne XE G4 would be needed with the best available Graphics card. (Some Radeon) Just under this table. Please! How Hard is that to have a superfast virus free working machine?

Bought these kind of programs for Amiga a long time ago. In pc they are "free".

In reality just want a fast boot, net, and printing. Waited for many years.

Thank You For Reading and Sorry for if bad words. Very nice memories and still occasionally running. Just got the hopes too up with the most expensive NG at the times like the A4000 was.

Please prove me wrong with the missing Net PRogram and printing.

PR

@kolla

we here discuss about desktop amiga market, not embedded industrial solutions. Or Server Systems with Power Processors... you certainly know

Not a tragedy but why do you not download a free-of-charge linux distribution, install a amiga-like theme and use it right now? In this case you can forget it anyway.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 20-Dec-2021 at 09:44 AM.
Last edited by OlafS25 on 20-Dec-2021 at 09:43 AM.
Last edited by OlafS25 on 20-Dec-2021 at 09:39 AM.

@OlafS25

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we here discuss about desktop amiga market

The what? Once you speak of "desktop amiga" as some sort of "market", you have already thrown sanity overboard.

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not embedded industrial solutions. Or Server Systems with Power Processors... you certainly know

It is quite unclear, when you write things like
Quote:

PPC is too small to be commercial attractive either

because AMIGA - in all shapes and forms - is too small to be commercial attractive, regardless of what architecture.

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Not a tragedy but why do you not download a free-of-charge linux distribution, install a amiga-like theme and use it right now? In this case you can forget it anyway.

Where do I find this mythical end-of-all-desires "amiga-like theme" that you speak so highly of?

Last edited by kolla on 20-Dec-2021 at 10:04 AM.

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@kolla

But after all You use Your soft on A3000?
That's very different from emu68k where fast 68k not exist and soft is always used on emulator.

@ppcamiga1

As a developer you surely have already started your unix with Amiga graphics project?

@IridiumFX

What You wrote is pure BS.
Nobody sane will develop for emulator.

@OlafS25

What You do not understand is to attract new developers You have to provide something as fast and as comfortable as at least chip pc from w95 era.
Which means 24 bit, MMU, FPU, net, speed at least Pentium.
68k is too expensive or too underpowered.
Which means You should accept ppc.

Of course on commodity hardware You have to provide something at least on level that commodity os reach twenty years ago.

@Rose

I'm happy with ppc.
I leave this people that want switch to sometnig else.

@ppcamiga1

Quote:

ppcamiga1 wrote: @Rose I'm happy with ppc. I leave this people that want switch to sometnig else.

Have you skipped your meds? It's you who have been rambling about new OS. So since you are developer, are you working on it? Last time I checked ppc ain't OS.

@Rose

He's too busy, developing super secret "ppc" things. Stuff so secret he's the first to be unaware of them. The whole NG community depends on his rants ... ahem ... products