@matthey

Quote:

There are at least 3 CPU cores and 3 Amiga chipset cores being used in FPGA hardware. How many do we need? Do you think the different AmigaOS flavors are helping the Amiga market instead of splitting it too?

Well, what can one do when Atari guys are doing the vast work here... TG68 and M68k (fpga arcade) are the same (fork, play, merge), Fx68k is a pure cycle exact 68000. Both were mostly made for Atari, not Amiga.
Then there is AC68080 that noone (developers) really cares about.

As for Amiga chipsets, there's really just the Mimimig.
And SAGA that noone (developers) really cares about, rumoured to become open sourced for wider adoption years ago, it is currently still limited to one piece of hardware, which for some reason isn't so popular among developers.

Quote:

How does Quake play on the MiST though? No room in the FPGA for an FPU?

Noone tried to add FPU to TG68 yet - the MiST was never meant for that. The MiSTer, however, has plenty of space for an FPU, should one appear. Chances are that software emulated CPU with FPU (which already exists) will reach performance required to Quake before that happens.

But really, for quake, which doesn't benefit at all from Amiga chipset and is only hindered by it, why not just run it on more suited hardware that you can grab out from any el-waste bin?

Quote:

kolla Quote: So you want an ARM based device built into a mini A500 case, running Linux and an emulator and a nice front-end for launching old games. And you say this is what the masses want? Is that what Matthey wants, you think? :) ARM has convenience but no superiority when making an ASIC compared to a 68k SoC. The convenience is payed for with royalties which hinders competitiveness with mass production. Making an Amiga emulator on low cost ARM hardware would no doubt be cheap but it requires more resources hindering competitiveness and is nothing to build on. Response times can be worse too. The new NeoGeo MVSX arcade table top has about double the response time of the original 68k NeoGeo hardware for example. Most people consider this to be acceptable and it looks like a good product but it could be better. Maybe they would use a 68k SoC if one was available and avoid the input latency. Maybe an Amiga 40 board like I proposed would do the job. Maybe others would make their own arcade cabinets too. Like the Raspberry Pi, make it cheap and open up a world of possibilities. That is what the Amiga was about too and emulation doesn't cut it, especially when a real 68k wouldn't cost much more if mass produced and should attract more software and development support.

A long winded way to say that you are no fan of the mass produced TheC64/TheC64 mini systems and similar "minis"which for the most part are emulators.

It looks to me that you will never see what you desire. Unless you go out and make it yourself.

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@Rose

Quote:

Rose wrote: And even more importantly, it exists unlike superior fantasy asic which is rambled about in every second thread.

Right, and it exists in several different variants and price classes (oh no - splitting the market!!!11) so that different customer needs and requirements can be met.

That said - I have personally mostly moved over to OrangePi Zero, since it comes with exactly my needs (ethernet and wifi), so I only use Raspberry Pi Zero W (serial port and wifi) here and there.

Last edited by kolla on 04-Jul-2021 at 12:23 PM.
Last edited by kolla on 04-Jul-2021 at 12:20 PM.

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@kolla

You can even order your custom batch to split market even more!

https://hackaday.com/2021/07/03/a-custom-raspberry-pi-spotted-in-the-wild/

@Rose

Quote:

Rose wrote: @kolla You can even order your custom batch to split market even more! https://hackaday.com/2021/07/03/a-custom-raspberry-pi-spotted-in-the-wild/

Oh cool, but Orange Pi really got me covered :)

http://www.orangepi.org/orangepizero/

But yeah, goddam market splitters!!!

https://www.armbian.com/download/



PS - m68k stand aside!
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-vax/2021/07/03/msg003899.html

Last edited by kolla on 04-Jul-2021 at 12:29 PM.

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@kolla

Quote:

Noone tried to add FPU to TG68 yet - the MiST was never meant for that. The MiSTer, however, has plenty of space for an FPU, should one appear. Chances are that software emulated CPU with FPU (which already exists) will reach performance required to Quake before that happens. But really, for quake, which doesn't benefit at all from Amiga chipset and is only hindered by it, why not just run it on more suited hardware that you can grab out from any el-waste bin?

For Quake's dumb frame buffer requirements, C= AGA is faster than IBM VGA.

For emulated classic Amiga, I have WinUAE 4.9 Beta 23 configured with AmigaOS 4.1 FE, CyberStorm PPC, and Voodoo 3 PCI G-REX on PCMR. PCMR also emulates PS3, Wii U, and Xbox 360. I might be interested in A1222 after WinUAE 4.9 Beta 23's AmigaOS 4.1 FE/PPC/Voodoo 3 experience.

Last edited by Hammer on 05-Jul-2021 at 07:33 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 05-Jul-2021 at 05:08 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 05-Jul-2021 at 05:07 AM.

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@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @kolla Quote: But really, for quake, which doesn't benefit at all from Amiga chipset and is only hindered by it, why not just run it on more suited hardware that you can grab out from any el-waste bin? For Quake's dumb frame buffer requirements, C= AGA is faster than IBM VGA.

Who said anything about IBM VGA?

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@Thread

Just to check, does anyone actually enjoy Quake 1? I thought the Quake 2 story mode was good but the Quake aesthetic is just disjointed and odd medieval mixed with fantasy!

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@matthey

Quote:

ARM has convenience but no superiority when making an ASIC compared to a 68k SoC. The convenience is payed for with royalties which hinders competitiveness with mass production. Making an Amiga emulator on low cost ARM hardware would no doubt be cheap but it requires more resources hindering competitiveness and is nothing to build on. Response times can be worse too. The new NeoGeo MVSX arcade table top has about double the response time of the original 68k NeoGeo hardware for example. Most people consider this to be acceptable and it looks like a good product but it could be better

I don’t get it, you kinda make the case for Arm here? The pay royalties bit I completely don’t get as considering you can get a pi zero for £6 that can run Amiga emulator, how much cheaper would we really need to go?

Emulation of the Amiga is pretty dam good and hopefully gets a little better on Arm but like you again point out for most people it will be good enough, the hard core guys will still have there real Amigas or FPGA boards anyway.

I think if a remake A500 mini Batman pack came out for under $100 it would do pretty dam well, it just a shame that its not going to happen. Plus it’s annoying to know it’s not the hardware, software that stopping it from happening, it’s just licensing, trade marks and pi rights that is stopping from ever happening. Not just Amiga trademarks, but the Batman ip rights and games rights I’m sure would be dam hard to get cleared too.

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BigD Quote:

Just to check, does anyone actually enjoy Quake 1? I thought the Quake 2 story mode was good but the Quake aesthetic is just disjointed and odd medieval mixed with fantasy!

Quake 1 generally received better reviews than Quake 2. I enjoy Quake 1 more and in my opinion the graphics, sound, level design and playability are better in Quake 1. The fantasy theme mixed with modern weapons is strange and interesting. I didn't think I would like the mix being more of a purist but ended up enjoying it. Quake 2 had technical improvements making it more like modern FPS games and it played ok but it was nowhere near as polished.

amigang Quote:

I don’t get it, you kinda make the case for Arm here? The pay royalties bit I completely don’t get as considering you can get a pi zero for £6 that can run Amiga emulator, how much cheaper would we really need to go?

Two businesses have computer boards produced. Business A has to pay a per board fee to produce the board while business B does not. Which business has a competitive advantage?

With ARM, it's more like the following.

Two businesses have computer boards produced. Business A pays a up front fee and per board fee to produce the board but the board is easier and faster to develop. Business B has to spend more money and time developing the board but this allows more customization and there is no per board fee. Which business has a competitive advantage?

The answer is not as clear here but business B still has a production advantage and if the design can be reused in other products, the development disadvantage is reduced. The customizability may give business B a competitive advantage but business A may have an advantage being quicker to market. I believe an Amiga board would benefit more from customization than it lose from a delay to market, especially in the Raspberry Pi board price range where there isn't as much competition.

amigang Quote:

Emulation of the Amiga is pretty dam good and hopefully gets a little better on Arm but like you again point out for most people it will be good enough, the hard core guys will still have there real Amigas or FPGA boards anyway.

Emulation wastes processing power and memory increasing the cost of a board and giving a production disadvantage. Also, emulated hardware will receive little to no developer support.

amigang Quote:

I think if a remake A500 mini Batman pack came out for under $100 it would do pretty dam well, it just a shame that its not going to happen. Plus it’s annoying to know it’s not the hardware, software that stopping it from happening, it’s just licensing, trade marks and pi rights that is stopping from ever happening. Not just Amiga trademarks, but the Batman ip rights and games rights I’m sure would be dam hard to get cleared too.

Moving most of the game sales and distribution online is probably the way to go. Getting the rights to older games would take some work and time.

Last edited by matthey on 06-Jul-2021 at 12:03 AM.

Quote:

kolla wrote: Who said anything about IBM VGA?

If AGA is good enough to play full-motion video like Time Gal in HAM8 (8 bits) mode, then it's good enough frame buffer for Doom and Quake.

Quake and Doom benchmarking contests against PC Master Race are futile. Modern PC hardware is both retro and modern since legacy support wasn't removed.

My interest for fast 68K is just alternate timeline "What IF" retro during the 486-to-Pentium transition time period. Can C= pull-off SNES SuperFX2 stop-gap "can it play" Doom PR question.

Last edited by Hammer on 06-Jul-2021 at 03:20 AM.

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@Hammer

My point was that you get hardware for free that is a heck lot more capable for playing Quake etc than what the Amiga ever was. And at the time Quake was released, VGA was already decade old and long replaced, this was mid-late 90s and well into WXGA era.

Last edited by kolla on 06-Jul-2021 at 06:51 AM.

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@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @Hammer My point was that you get hardware for free that is a heck lot more capable for playing Quake etc than what the Amiga ever was. And at the time Quake was released, VGA was already decade old and long replaced, this was mid-late 90s and well into WXGA era.

Quake DOS was released on June 22, 1996.

Pentium 120 was released on March 27, 1995
Pentium 133 was released on June 1, 1995.
Pentium 150/166 was released on June 4, 1996.
Pentium 200 was released on June 10, 1996.

GLQuake was released on January 22, 1997

In 1996, WXGA (1366 × 768) resolution with Quake DOS is slow. Read https://thandor.net/benchmark/33


https://www.soldcentralfl.com/quakecoop/compare1.htm
WinQuake results, all tests were performed using 512 x 384 DirectDraw resolution with view size set to 110.

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@matthey

Quote:

Emulation wastes processing power and memory increasing the cost of a board and giving a production disadvantage.

Again I never heard anyone complain about how much power a Pi uses.
Memory, again 1gb pi is overkill for Amiga emulation, more is nice for things like rabbit hole / host Os. But if we are just aiming to recreate a A500 spec machine then I don’t think we have to worry about it too much.

Quote:

Also, emulated hardware will receive little to no developer support.

It depends on what the goal of the product is. Im thinking of just a mini computer / console like the ones we all seen made by Nintendo/sega/Atari/c64 etc they were not there to really restart development on 16bit platform and re-launch them, they where there for a little bit of nostalgia and a way of playing some of the old classic titles on that platform. Now I feel An Amiga version could offer so much more as unlike a lot of these platform the Amiga community kept going and had more modern things like a web browser, a full OS, loads of serious software etc, so it could offer a more modern system. Would that increase developers to work on making games ‘ software for the platform I don’t know but I think at the very least it would raise awareness that the Amiga was more than just a gaming system which is a very common view I get.

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@amigang

Quote:

But if we are just aiming to recreate a A500 spec machine then I don’t think we have to worry about it too much.

Young kids play more advanced and fun games on there mobile phone this days.

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@NutsAboutAmiga

true but then I still see these for sale which I just dont understand

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8290922?clickPR=plp:31:32

Plus the mini console I pointed out all sold in at least there 1,000s which for some might be a failer, but for the Amiga community be a huge win.

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@amigang

There is a age group between 0 to 10, the adults do not trust that the kid will lose the phone, or ruin it, and because parents don’t wont there curious kids to find Pornhub.
So the parents buy there kids a low cost toy, to play games on.

Not being able to go on the internet, not being able to tamper with things, is a niche market.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 07-Jul-2021 at 12:48 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 07-Jul-2021 at 12:35 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 07-Jul-2021 at 12:31 PM.

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amigang Quote:

Again I never heard anyone complain about how much power a Pi uses. Memory, again 1gb pi is overkill for Amiga emulation, more is nice for things like rabbit hole / host Os. But if we are just aiming to recreate a A500 spec machine then I don’t think we have to worry about it too much.

If Amiga 500 performance is all that is required, a FleaFPGA Ohm can do the job and sold for $45 without mass production. A mass produced version could be half the cost and wouldn't need emulation. Embedding a RPi using Amiga emulation in a product would work too for low spec Amigas. For Amiga market demand and value, higher spec hardware is wanted but emulation is inefficient at providing this and bigger FPGAs necessary for a more modern CPU are too expensive to provide it. Maybe RPi emulation would come closer to the performance desired than a FPGA but an Amiga SoC ASIC could have better performance while being cheaper to produce than the ~$10 FPGA in the FleaFPGA Ohm.

amigang Quote:

It depends on what the goal of the product is. Im thinking of just a mini computer / console like the ones we all seen made by Nintendo/sega/Atari/c64 etc they were not there to really restart development on 16bit platform and re-launch them, they where there for a little bit of nostalgia and a way of playing some of the old classic titles on that platform. Now I feel An Amiga version could offer so much more as unlike a lot of these platform the Amiga community kept going and had more modern things like a web browser, a full OS, loads of serious software etc, so it could offer a more modern system. Would that increase developers to work on making games ‘ software for the platform I don’t know but I think at the very least it would raise awareness that the Amiga was more than just a gaming system which is a very common view I get.

Most of these mini consoles are mass produced which means creating an SoC ASIC can be a cost reduction. An ARM SoC using 68k emulation can be used or a properly developed 68k SoC ASIC could be used which would cost more to develop but could be used in other products, could have much better performance, could have better compatibility for 68k hardware and could be a real target for development. It would be safer to target a bigger market than just the Amiga by using a $10 FPGA for the chipset of other 68k hardware like the Sega Genesis, NeoGeo, X68000 and Atari ST (8 bit CPUs and chipsets could be simulated as well). The FPGA would likely raise the price a little above a RPi but it would have a huge retro game library. Cheap 68k hardware with or without an FPGA should be appealing to the embedded market as well. Instead of thinking about using emulation on a RPi, people would be thinking about how they could use the 68k and FPGA simulation in other products.

Last edited by matthey on 07-Jul-2021 at 02:46 PM.

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @kolla Quote: kolla wrote: @Hammer My point was that you get hardware for free that is a heck lot more capable for playing Quake etc than what the Amiga ever was. And at the time Quake was released, VGA was already decade old and long replaced, this was mid-late 90s and well into WXGA era. Quake DOS was released on June 22, 1996. Pentium 120 was released on March 27, 1995 Pentium 133 was released on June 1, 1995. Pentium 150/166 was released on June 4, 1996. Pentium 200 was released on June 10, 1996. GLQuake was released on January 22, 1997 In 1996, WXGA (1366 × 768) resolution with Quake DOS is slow. Read https://thandor.net/benchmark/33 https://www.soldcentralfl.com/quakecoop/compare1.htm WinQuake results, all tests were performed using 512 x 384 DirectDraw resolution with view size set to 110.

Meh.. so can we agree that "IBM VGA" wasn't very relevant in 1996 when Quake was released, and is even less relevant today?

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@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

Young kids play more advanced and fun games on there mobile phone this days.

Which is a great reason for an Amiga branded smartphone, I think.

@davidf215

An Android Telephone branded Amiga? Its not really a Amiga is it, its like stamping Lada on a Ferrari.

I think the mobile market is over crowded and market is full of chines copycats, so wherry low margins.

Porting AmigaOS to an ARM telephone only lower the security of telephone, and exclude play store apps. plus no SMP, so you be running on a single core. most telephons comes with at least 4 cores now.

Running AmigaOS on top EUAE on top of Android be issues as well Amiga apps not designed for mobile phones, window management be horrible to use. And battery time is decrease as ARM chip is running at full speed to emulated Amiga hardware.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 07-Jul-2021 at 04:56 PM.
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Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 07-Jul-2021 at 04:46 PM.

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