Vampire 600 V2 - Amiga 600 FPGA accelerator Pre-order
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Sorry, may be I miss some posts in this thread, but where I can find detailed specifications of Vampire V2?
I've reread first post and dedicated site, but all that I can find is: "Emulated MC86K or MC68020 based on available cores capable anywhere from 2Mips to 300Mips, 64 MB of FastRam".
How about _real_ specs? CPU type and speed? MicroSD max size and speed? hdmi resolutions? Compatibilty and incompatibility with other boards (indivision ECS?)?
I've reread first post and dedicated site, but all that I can find is: "Emulated MC86K or MC68020 based on available cores capable anywhere from 2Mips to 300Mips, 64 MB of FastRam".
How about _real_ specs? CPU type and speed? MicroSD max size and speed? hdmi resolutions? Compatibilty and incompatibility with other boards (indivision ECS?)?
Yes I know that you have to do this on the V2 but mine arrived already sanded, and that is good. I said it because if not people would have asked me to polish it. But it's done already and the vampire fit well on top of the CPU and even without the white plastics parts it will not get loose. Would you mean that I have to sand my CPU too ?
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The Processor of the Vampire V2 is a new 64Bit FPGA softcore design called Apollo. It is backwards compatible to the MC680X0 line. It is a work in progress and the full specification has not been fixed yet, it continues to improve with each release. The card has 128MB of RAM which is shared by the processor and the onboard graphics of the Vampire 2. Size and speed of the MicroSD will depend on the card you use, the driver which is under development, the file system you use and the speed of the core which as previously discussed is still improving. The next release is likely to make a wide range of resolutions and colour depths available over HDMI (currently only 320x240 and 640x480 are supported in 8bit, 15bit and 16bit IIRC). I can't comment on compatibility with other boards other than to say indivision ECS is a non-standard graphics architecture for the Amiga and the Vampire is designed to augment the standard graphics architectures.
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The indi ECS isn't really a "non-standard" graphics architecture, In fact it's more an interceptor of the graphics signals. the reason it doesn't work with vampire 2 is more likely because the vampire 2 seems to emulate a lot of the amigas chipset internally, so I suspect you'll find a lot of a600 add ons don't work with it as the a600 is more of a host to the vampire. IMHO. Still..... The vampire 2 is a very nice bit of kit and design
The V2 does not currently emulate a lot of the Amiga's chipset internally - actually I don't think it emulates any part of the custom chipsets yet. It has a CPU, memory, SD controller and HDMI output, but the latter two exist in parallel with the existing custom chipset. It is planned to have SAGA implemented as well which can replace the ECS chipset, but again, this will exist in parallel. The A600 is far from just a docking station for the Vampire in its current state. The reason it doesn't work with the Indivision ECS is because it uses the memory that the Indivision uses for registers so they can't coexist. Otherwise it would probably work just fine.
Got my Vampire 600 v2 up n running, so far no real issues. As promised I took a few pictures of the "fitting process" and they can be seen here:
http://www.exretro.com/galleries/commodore/amiga/Accelerators_and_CPUs/Vampire/index.html
Maybe it could be of help to someone who still hasn't done this yet.
After fitting all the hardware, it booted without hick-ups and I ran Sysinfo (3.x). Did not get the same stellar result as some other ppl, but it might just be that the core wasn't updated to the latest and greatest.
I have no games on the CF card, and no GoTek drive on my A600, so I tested a couple of games from floppy. First test was Psygnosis Infestation. Ran fine through the intro, then Guru. Tried Microprose F1 GP. Worked fine, but not sure it ran smoothly. Could be the Chip ram issues I've heard about with previous core versions. WB feels *very* snappy.
That's it for now, will do more testing in the days ahead.. (need to install WHDLoad ;-)
http://www.exretro.com/galleries/commodore/amiga/Accelerators_and_CPUs/Vampire/index.html
Maybe it could be of help to someone who still hasn't done this yet.
After fitting all the hardware, it booted without hick-ups and I ran Sysinfo (3.x). Did not get the same stellar result as some other ppl, but it might just be that the core wasn't updated to the latest and greatest.
I have no games on the CF card, and no GoTek drive on my A600, so I tested a couple of games from floppy. First test was Psygnosis Infestation. Ran fine through the intro, then Guru. Tried Microprose F1 GP. Worked fine, but not sure it ran smoothly. Could be the Chip ram issues I've heard about with previous core versions. WB feels *very* snappy.
That's it for now, will do more testing in the days ahead.. (need to install WHDLoad ;-)
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Checked Vampire2 by playing a hour in "deluxe galaga" - no issues found.
But found some strange behaviour of onboard IDE - it won't boot from CF every reboot (this can be a mobo problem too).
1) Does microSD card should work? What device should I use? Can't find anything using scsi.device.
2) What about kickstart in kickstart socket? Since I have 3.1 in Vampire - can I remove kickstart from mobo? Or may be swap to old-one from secondary a600? Does OS or some software require kick on mobo?
Does it have 020 instructions now?
But found some strange behaviour of onboard IDE - it won't boot from CF every reboot (this can be a mobo problem too).
1) Does microSD card should work? What device should I use? Can't find anything using scsi.device.
2) What about kickstart in kickstart socket? Since I have 3.1 in Vampire - can I remove kickstart from mobo? Or may be swap to old-one from secondary a600? Does OS or some software require kick on mobo?
Where X=?
Does it have 020 instructions now?
Yes, but I want to know what I got for now?
Of course, but some cardreader is limited to some sizes. So, for example, I've got a bunch of 64 gb microSD cards, should they work in Vampire2, or I need a smaller size?
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@easy_john
1. Offical Apollo-core page says pretty clearly SD-card is "coming soon", so no, not working yet.
2. I still have my KS in the mobo socket, but I heard, you don't need it. It is my understanding, that as long as the Apollo-Core CPU is active, it does not read the ROM from the motherboard socket.
Apollo-core is currently the most feature compatible 68k CPU of all. It is however not a final product. So current instruction set is at least up to EC040 and probably 060 + a number of new instructions never seen in previous 68k CPUs
("EC" meaning, no FPU and no MMU)). MMU is not a priority, but FPU is planned. Not sure exactly which implementation though.. as there are quite a few differences between the old 68881/2, the one in the 040 and then the 060. Missing instructions in an FPU can always be trapped and emulated by CPU but then you likely need an updated library for that.
With FPGA your CPU specs and speed can change a lot between versions, so the fact is that as we speak, people have different versions of the core running in their Vampires. Your specs right now are probably something similar to a 68EC040 (could be 060 but not sure why no benchmark prog is identifying it as a 060 rather than 040) running at 133MHz but with much higher memory bandwidth than anything previously seen on Amiga.
Regarding your Micro SD cards, I have a few myself, not worrying about that right now. When the SD driver is ready, we will know and then it makes sense to spend time on thinking what size to get.
Regarding Vampire testing.. I also noticed soft-boot (Ctrl Amiga Amiga) does not work well.. On at least one occasion I got red flashing screen. Then I simply turned off the PSU and turned it on again and everything worked just fine again. (Computer boots off a pretty standard 4GB CF card.)
1. Offical Apollo-core page says pretty clearly SD-card is "coming soon", so no, not working yet.
2. I still have my KS in the mobo socket, but I heard, you don't need it. It is my understanding, that as long as the Apollo-Core CPU is active, it does not read the ROM from the motherboard socket.
Apollo-core is currently the most feature compatible 68k CPU of all. It is however not a final product. So current instruction set is at least up to EC040 and probably 060 + a number of new instructions never seen in previous 68k CPUs
("EC" meaning, no FPU and no MMU)). MMU is not a priority, but FPU is planned. Not sure exactly which implementation though.. as there are quite a few differences between the old 68881/2, the one in the 040 and then the 060. Missing instructions in an FPU can always be trapped and emulated by CPU but then you likely need an updated library for that.
With FPGA your CPU specs and speed can change a lot between versions, so the fact is that as we speak, people have different versions of the core running in their Vampires. Your specs right now are probably something similar to a 68EC040 (could be 060 but not sure why no benchmark prog is identifying it as a 060 rather than 040) running at 133MHz but with much higher memory bandwidth than anything previously seen on Amiga.
Regarding your Micro SD cards, I have a few myself, not worrying about that right now. When the SD driver is ready, we will know and then it makes sense to spend time on thinking what size to get.
Regarding Vampire testing.. I also noticed soft-boot (Ctrl Amiga Amiga) does not work well.. On at least one occasion I got red flashing screen. Then I simply turned off the PSU and turned it on again and everything worked just fine again. (Computer boots off a pretty standard 4GB CF card.)
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Ok, no problem.
That why I asking for specs - I've spend some time to find, that I can't see any of my SD cards in VampireV2. If I found this info earlier - will save some time for me.
Checked - Yes, my amiga able to boot without kickstart on mobo.
It's better, than I've expected. I think, that only 020 set is planned to support.
As I said, final result will be better than 060 CPU, (it is already faster) but maybe you are thinking about previous Vampire v1 which was more of a 020 implementation (TG68.c). It is also true that initially, the Vampire 600V2 was going to have a similar TG68.c softcore in the FPGA.. Meaning ~020 CPU, so it is understandable that you might have seen this info.
However, something happened one day when Majsta contacted BigGun (Gunnar von Boehn) and asked for advice how to add better caches to the current TG68.c design. What happened next, transformed the entire project into something bigger. BigGun explained that the 020 isnt really designed to use large caches and offered instead his own softcore (Apollo-core). In order to fit it into Majstas chosen FPGA however, they needed to do a cut down version of the core, because it wouldnt fit in the FPGA Majsta initially chose for the V2. Further discussions led to the redesign of the Vampire board to use a much more capable, but still affordable FPGA, namely the Altera Cyclone III.
Cyclone III can easily fit the entire Apollo-core CPU, but not only that, there's "room" for more. So stuff was added.. Stuff like HDMI, Picasso 96 etc.. And of course the memory was doubled from 64 to 128MB. In the future, apart from the SD card support, Super AGA will be developed further allowing A600 to play AGA games, not only RTG.. Also, 16-bit sound with output over HDMI is on the to-do list. So as you can see, this went from a modest upgrade of the Vampire V1 to a revolutionary product that takes the 68k Amigas to a new level. These are good times for reviving the 68k scene and continuing to ignore the PPC Amiga path ;-)
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Well, it's usual that people who has not been following this thread since long time ago can concur in the same question.
That's my case. It's better to ask, than read 90 pages of comments.
So i guess the only thing i can do... Is to wait for Kipper2k to answer... If he manages to do it sometime in the future...
Not quite comforting, since i've mailed him a couple of times, first one many weeks ago and i had no response so far.
Some friends of mine with the same issue...
Well, anyways. Thank you for the information.
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uigiflip
Member
I think Majsta is checking them once he gets to you on his list. i think yours is in the valid rom folder though.
incoming review from Dan Wood https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4nYiUwSqo220UNT1xrpZ_Q
incoming review from Dan Wood https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4nYiUwSqo220UNT1xrpZ_Q
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CraigsBar
New member
Good, that will give me time to save some euro do I can buy a minty 1200 first
allanmb
New member
Yeah I saw that, which is why I was asking about a date for the 1200. As in, are we talking months away or years away?
I assume the 500 edition will be soon. i.e. a couple months
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Don't think you'll hear an official release date for the Vampire 1200. Theoretically it could be this year but it will only frustrate you if you set up some date that can't be kept. One step at a time
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