@Yssing
The sysinfo numbers are quite unimpressive when compared with emu68, which is already 3x faster on a similar species hardware, 2x still put it bellow emulation.

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@pixie

SysInfo does not measure performance of the ARM components such as ARM Graphics Library and ARM native Datatypes. The real world performance is higher than the simple MIPs test that SysInfo does.


@Yssing

Thanks, we are working to port components progressively over to ARM from 68K for even better performance.

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@amigakit

I took the value you presented as 2x speed increase, sysinfo doesn't have to datatypes into consideration. If overall you have speed increases above the 2x presented it is to hard to fallow that that increase will also be present on the datatypes, that's not rocket science after all.

Emu68 speeds are also way higher in real case then other solutions done for arm.

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@Yssing

Quote:

"ARM Native Support: AK-PNG datatype converted to native ARM from 68K code giving up to double speed when decoding PNG files." That is exactly what we need :) Absolutely brilliant!

This week we hope to release another free A600GS update with the new AK-JFIF datatype. This an ARM JPEG datatype replacing the 68K datatype. This will give the system another speed boost with JPEG images.

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Quote:

pixie wrote: @Yssing The sysinfo numbers are quite unimpressive when compared with emu68, which is already 3x faster on a similar species hardware, 2x still put it bellow emulation.

But you can't use Emu68, unless you already have an A1200 system with an accelerator, as emu68 only "replaces" CPU, not the system part.

I was watching an eBay auction few weeks ago, and an NTSC A1200 with a crappy LC 060 ended at $1,700.
Since I'd like to have a Pistorm, that'd put it over $2,000.That's just ridiculous!


A600GS is, quite literally, less than 10% of that price! Some people would probably complain even if it was handed out free, I guess...


But, speaking of SysInfo numbers (257 MIPS if I recall correctly for A600GS), from my personal perspective, is better than V4 (~175-ish, not entirely sure right now, as there's multiple cores and frequencies), which means that in theory it should run my flatshading engine as fast or faster (than V4SA), as I'm using only Integer ops (which is what SysInfo very roughly (!) measures), as long as A600GS can do 32-bit memory access fast (which it should, as it's a modern ARM CPU, so no bandwidth issue like on AGA systems).


Yes, I am entirely guilty of being the target market for this HW

@Heimdall

Quote:

A600GS is, quite literally, less than 10% of that price! Some people would probably complain even if it was handed out free, I guess...

I am not complaining, I just expected it to have a bigger difference. You point out the price, but I was pointing out solutions, and who knows if tomorrow we get an all round cheaper solution based on Emu68... like PocketStorm, where you no longer are forced to have an Amiga.

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@Heimdall

Quote:

But you can't use Emu68, unless you already have an A1200 system with an accelerator

I have 4 Emu68 systems, none of them A1200.
One A1000, one A500 and two A600s.

And I'm really looking forward to Emu68+Minimig and no dependency on old motherboards.

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Internal testing of the new native ARM datatype, AK-JFIF has given good results: a 4x speed increase in JPEG decoding and display over the 68K version. We hope to release this soon to A600GS end users.

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Quote:

pixie wrote: I am not complaining, I just expected it to have a bigger difference.

Matthey & Hammer explained the reasons for the performance of various RISC CPUs in several threads around here. In short, and I am GROSSLY oversimplifying here (but that's OT in this thread), the performance of those CPUs in emulating 68000 code doesn't linearly scale with frequency (the dreaded "RISC Pipeline Bubbles").

Quote:

pixie wrote: You point out the price,

Of course I am pointing out the price considering the original, reference HW solution (A1200 + PiStorm + Pi) costs upwards of $2,000 while A600GS is merely $150 !
Out here, in the real world, Price Matters. To me, anyways. And who knows, maybe even to more people...

Quote:

pixie wrote: but I was pointing out solutions, and who knows if tomorrow we get an all round cheaper solution based on Emu68... like PocketStorm, where you no longer are forced to have an Amiga.

Yes, that'd be nice. While I am still on the good side of 50, I might die of old age before this solution manifests into something you can order from the store (like with A600GS - which you can order **right now**).

And then, depending on which FPGA board it uses (the final board might end up being bigger - thus expensive), it might end up being more expensive than V4, at which point, the $1,700 price tag for OG NTSC HW stops looking so ridiculous...

Quote:

kolla wrote: I have 4 Emu68 systems, none of them A1200. One A1000, one A500 and two A600s.

My apologies, I should have said "Original HW" and not single out poor A1200 (as if it was special in any way, shape or form)...

@Heimdall

Quote:

A600GS - which you can order **right now**

Please do, they are cheap, nothing to lose. Whatever you make run on it will also work fine on just about all “modern� Amiga incarnations (unless you lock your software to their proprietary ARM extensions or online store).

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@kolla

Developers wouldn’t necessarily call the ARM Graphics Lib directly on the A600GS and A1200NG. They would use the Datatypes and graphics functions which in turn are patched to call the ARM native functions.

So if a developer uses the JPEG datatype for instance they will receive a 400 percent increase in speed over the standard 68k datatype. Graphics library functions such as line drawing and alpha blending are seamlessly handled by the ARM graphics library.

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@amigakit

ARM graphics library? Could you give me few more hints? Is the API public? Or is it just regular graphics.library that is implemented on the ARM natively perhaps?

Because line drawing functionality would certainly be very useful to offload from 68k as my flatshader draws the horizontal lines to fill the triangles.

@Heimdall

There's already an Amicube, and while its price isn't as good as the PocketStorm's (theoretically), it isn't that bad either.

When I think about the PiStorm, I think from the perspective of someone who already has one. Besides, I don't know how emulation compares to the real thing anymore. I don't know if emulation gives you the same experience as FPGA or a real Amiga. My WinUAE on a beefier machine certainly doesn't, but there are too many variables, like the host OS and the LCD screen. Meaning, if I were to buy an A600GS because it's cheaper, I might end up having the same issues I currently have with my WinUAE setup. As such, it would in the end cost me more than a real Amiga, since I wouldn't be getting the same experience, it would just duplicate the issues I already find on my setup.

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@amigakit

Quote:

Graphics library functions such as line drawing and alpha blending are seamlessly handled by the ARM graphics library.

That's real nice! Something like the composition engine for AmigaOS 4? Would it be possible to have a native gfx driver, calling the hardware directly?

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@pixie

Quote:

There's already an Amicube

No yet there isn’t.

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@kolla
Quote:

kolla wrote: @pixie Quote: There's already an Amicube No yet there isn’t.

My bad, it is still in development, but since it had minimig v.1.98 on sale I pictured he would also have amicube, both of which he develops

https://www.minimig.ca/

Last edited by pixie on 20-Feb-2025 at 07:25 PM.

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The following software updates for the A600GS have been uploaded today through the in-built live update system. They are available to download for all registered AmiSphere users:


46.1.1009 (20/02/2025):

A600GS:

* Update Spanish translation

SystemV46:

* Add ARM based AK-JFIF datatype for 400% speed up on 1080p JPEG image.

OctaMED SoundStudio:

* Add "Projects->Open Recent ..." menu and supporting "Open Recent Projects" window. Save a list of opened and saved projects, limited to 10 and avoiding duplicates.

* Add new ED_NOTEOFF AREXX command and map this to "Left Shift F1" This allows easy editing of midi note off commands (inserts 00FFF in command section of a track line)

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The following software updates for the A600GS have been uploaded today through the in-built live update system. They are available to download for all registered AmiSphere users:


46.1.1015 (28/02/2025):

A600GS:

* Add Italian language translation thanks to Samir Hawamdeh

* Add test for RDB based HDFs, when RDB found omit altered options to allow correct handling by AmiBerry

* Suppress editing of DEVICE VOLUME and BOOTPRI for RDB based HDFs as these are all in the control of the RDB

* Add option to limit Z3 memory space used to 1Gb, this should allow RTG and Z3 memory to be used on OS variants that inadvertently impose this limit.

YAM:

YAM v2.10 has been rebuilt with important bug fixes implemented. A new YAM support page has been added to the Wiki for A600GS / A1200NG users: https://wiki.amiga.org/yam

* Regenerate the flex generated C files from HTML2Mail.l and ParseMail.l with flex version 4.6 (run on the A600gs itself 🙂 ) as the OS4 version used for cross compiling was just slightly too old and caused occasional crashes.

* Fix bug in RecipientString GoActive method, custom MUI class that could set the same input handler on the window more than once and cause lock-ups due to queueing a node twice.

* Fix equivalent issue in GoInactive method

The last two fix an issue with the Forward window locking up and also the Edit draft window in some circumstances

AmiBerry:

Minor refactor of Z3mem options parsing to allow setting up of multiple Z3 memory "cards" , the previous parser would overwrite the same memory bank with the subsequant options causing some quirky side effects! The end result of this is to allow combinations of memory like 512 + 256 (for 768 total)

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