Hi

What is the speed limit of V4 Vampire what kind of MHz would it max out at. Is there faster FPGA out there that could be used in the future ??

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Vampire v4 SA

@g01df1sh
The Cyclone 3 used on the V2 has been clocked from ~70MHz to upto about 107MHz on some boards but not all. The Cyclone 5 may be able to clock in a slightly higher range but not much, maybe up to ~120MHz IIRC. The C5 will have other advantages such as larger caches and full FPU with full SAGA.

Yes there are faster FPGAs but the price rises exponentially for the faster chips.

@g01df1sh

And a larger capacity of the same FPGA fmaily might also allow more speed. You can make certain tradeoffs, such as performance vs area. If the design is kindof a tight fit, then it may be making choices to fit into a smaller chip, which works somewhat against speed. More room could allow to relax that fitment goal, and allow the design to spread out and take up more space in a somewhat higher-performing result. I don' tknow if that might or might not be a current restriction, but as more features are added in (FPU for example), then it could come into play at some point.

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Once their core is final they should do a kickstarter to build ASICS.

@kamelit0

Hmm is og posible to make a pair with an raspberry pi to do some of the emulation so the fpga can concentrate on saga and cpu stuff

Last edited by retro on 30-May-2018 at 10:26 AM.

Quote:

retro wrote: Hmm is og posible to make a pair with an raspberry pi to do some of the emulation so the fpga can concentrate on saga and cpu stuff

This is called MiSTer



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- Altera Cyclone V SE FPGA bigger than any other existing FPGA Clone
- ARM Cortex A9 dual-core CPU at 800MHz.
- HDMI video and audio allowing connect to any modern monitor/TV.
- DDR3 1GB available for both ARM and FPGA.
- High speed ARMFPGA interconnect due to both are in the same chip.
- Linux on ARM provides support for many I/O devices and file systems.
- Board is mass and freely available for 130USD (99USD for students/professors).
- Supporting Minimig AGA/ECS core, emulating a CPU with the speed of 40MHz 68030- Supporting
- many other FPGA Clones.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

The ARM is not used for hardware Emulation, but for fast File I/O and other things.

Last edited by OneTimer1 on 30-May-2018 at 06:43 PM.

@retro

I think that is what Mike of FPGAArcade wanna do, do the CPU using an ARM.

@retro

What do you see Rpi doing in software better than can be done in hardware?

One issue I have seen with Rpi is how to connect it in a worthwhile way... Have that part of your computer going over USB, does that make sense? Have that part of your computer going over ethernet, does that make sense? Rpi does not have PCI or PCIe type of connection available... Do I want to connect my CPU to my GPU over SPI bus? Probably not... Can I connect a keyboard to Rpi by USB and then get to tht from FPGA over SPI or USB, that would probably be OK...

It really depends on what you want to get from the Rpi, if this idea makes sense or not.

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@OneTimer1

I was under the impression that the MiSTer did 68k in a softcore implementation within the FPGA, not as an ARM software emulation. (I could be wrong, bu thad not before realized the ARM being in this thing. I don't have one myself yet...) Some FPGAs, like Xilingx Zynq or Altera SoC parts, do have ARM processors and peripherals inside, but that does not mean they are actually in use by a particular retro-computer implemented/loaded into it. Those ARM processors and other pieces could simply be sitting there completely idle, or potentially even disabled and turned off for power savings.

Now, they could make use of the ARM stuff for the power-on system menu, choosin gwhich retro-computer to load into the FPGA to run. I'm not familiar with how they do that part of this sort of thing.

I myself have taken to a personal preference of anything like one of htese retro systems, accelerators, etc. should go with an FPGA including a hardwired ARM in it, for any beneficial offloading, ARM-native porting, "PowerUP"-alike, and taking advantage of any peripherals (USB, DDR controller, SATA, GPU, whatever might be in there) for Amiga-native driver coding and direct usage instead of making a softcore equivalent. (ie. Use some hardwires Mali GPU instead of making a softcore PicassoIV or Voodoo3 clone, as much fun as those could be)

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There are quite a few boards around that combine FPGA with ARM, in addition to the DE-10 nano that is the basis of the MiSTer, as well as a good handful of FPGA boards to fit onto a Raspberry Pi. I am quite confident that the future will only bring more boards, with improved performance and capabilities.

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@billt

Yes, there are sort of two routes here...
* software emulator that offloads to the FPGA - UAE with FPGA enhancements.
* softcore implementation that use software emulation of CPU - Minimig with software emulated CPU.

I suspect the latter is a lot easier to accomplish.

You are correct in regards to what the ARM is used for on the MiSTer - it boots Linux and runs the MiSTer software which "emulates" the firmware of the MiST (well, that is more or less how it started out, but it has evolved quite a bit from that), to drive the menus, file I/O for disk images etc. It currently also acts as "endpoint" for the serial device of the Minimig core, so if you fire up Term (or NComm, VLTjr...) you get a login prompt for the Linux side, or you can use the menu and select that you want to use the serial port for Internet connectivity and it will load a PPP server on it, so you can connect with Roadshow, Miami or AmiTCP etc.

However, I know that the maintainer is eager to get a move on the Hybrid emulation/FPGA thing, it has been discussed quite a bit and was one of the scoring points for this system initially. It just takes time and quite a bit of research and engineering to pull it off, and some good cooperation with other projects who try accomplish something very similar would certainly be very nice.

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@billt

Quote:

billt wrote: @OneTimer1 I was under the impression that the MiSTer did 68k in a softcore implementation within the FPGA, not as an ARM software emulation.

Correct!

Thats Why I wrote:
The ARM is not used for hardware Emulation, but for fast File I/O and other things.


But a Raspi might be as fast as MiSTer and cheaper.

@OneTimer1

Quote:

But a Raspi might be as fast as MiSTer and cheaper.

It's not the ARM CPU that is carrying the vast cost of the MiSTer, once you want to attach an FPGA to the Pi, the price goes up as well :)

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@kolla

Quote:

It's not the ARM CPU that is carrying the vast cost of the MiSTer, once you want to attach an FPGA to the Pi, the price goes up as well :)

Correct!

- FPGAs are expensive
- FPGAs needs a lot of power (not for mobile)
- FPGAs have less gates than modern CPUs

If you can do your task with a MCU, don't use a FPGA. An Amiga emulated on a Raspi will always be cheaper and faster than a FPGA needed for the full hardware emulation of an Amiga.

Somehow I like the idea of 'real hardware' and Freescale has dumped the 68k so we can't have 68k CPUs for less than 20€ with the performance of a 400MHz 68060 ...

There is nothing like a modern 68k so all of us who wants 'real hardware' should look for an FPGA solution.

@OneTimer1

The CPU emulation is not what makes UAE crawl :)

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@billt

What do you see Rpi doing in software better than can be done in hardware?

i my idear is to make a cheap "amiga part" emulation of the hardwere with a little requering and then use the v4 board for the powerfull thing like FPU,SAGA,and apollo cpu core and then get more power were you want it.

@retro

but is it likely that the vampire team would do an combi betwin
MiSTer and vampire v4 ?

JIT software emulation is already much faster than FPGA, so if you want the best performance, you'd simply offload everything to the CPU (ie. not use an FPGA at all). Even my Pi 3B+ gets about 210 MIPS, Vampire is ~100 I believe. WinUAE on my desktop system is in the range of thousands of MIPS.

It's mainly an ideological/dogmatic thing IMO. FPGA is more "pure" to some than software emulation. Those who can't accept replacing their Amiga with emulation might still be willing to consider FPGA.

I use both my MiST and 3B+ for Amiga stuff. What I actually like about the MiST is that the performance and capabilities "feel" like my slightly expanded '030 A1200 from ~1995. Sure you can turn off JIT on the Pi for similar performance, but that introduces other problems like stuttering and so on.

@retro

Quote:

but is it likely that the vampire team would do an combi betwin MiSTer and vampire v4 ?

What is the difference between a MiSTer and a Vampire V4 standalone?

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