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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

More ChipRam In Next Core Possible for V500?page  1 2 

Patrik Rendel

Posts 32
12 Jun 2020 14:05


Hello,
  is it possible to raise up the ChipRam in the next Core Update for V500?
 
  It would be nice to have more then only 512kb or 1MB through modding the Board.
 
Edit:
The 2MB MegiChips and other similar Hardware can't be put in. The Vampire is with all relocators directly above the fat agnus or too close to it.
 


Roy Gillotti

Posts 517
12 Jun 2020 15:57


Patrik Rendel wrote:

Hello,
  is it possible to raise up the ChipRam in the next Core Update for V500?
 
  It would be nice to have more then only 512kb or 1MB through modding the Board.
 
  Edit:
  The 2MB MegiChips and other similar Hardware can't be put in. The Vampire is with all relocators directly above the fat agnus or too close to it.
 

Well essentially this will happen with the gold 3.x update if and when that happens. Since Gold 3 will introduce AGA, essentially the only way to do that is to bypass most of the custom chips and Chipram on the Amiga itself and it was stated you may be able to even allocate more than 2MB to chipram, too.



James Leadbeater
(Needs Verification)
Posts 12/ 1
18 Jun 2020 16:21


dont hold your breath - i get the distinct impression Gold3 is vapor ware... we have one crappy alpha and then get fobbed off! love the V2 but you guys should have finished this before moving onto V4 and dropping us V2 people like something hot!


Markus B

Posts 209
18 Jun 2020 16:38


That's a strange way to look at the situation.
Were you promised the AGA core when the product was released?


Roy Gillotti

Posts 517
18 Jun 2020 16:51


Gold 3 on the V2 is problematic in many ways, for one a full implementation would require sacrifices in functionality. Not only due to lack of FPGA space on the Cyclone III, but to implement the features like AGA/OCS/ECS and sound over H.D.M.I requires bypassing most of the original chipsets, things like floppy drives,etc stop working. That is likely not anything that can be solved easily or without additional hardware modifications.
 
  A lot of these were never promised for the V2, the Gold 3 alpha cores on the V2 were a stepping stone to V4SA production before devs had there hands on V4 prototypes. Youtube videos of core development likely brought people in to thinking that these features would be coming on the V2 for sure. It still may happen, I can't say for sure, I'm just an observant user here.


Ian Parsons

Posts 230
18 Jun 2020 20:29


See the post from Gunnar from one week ago in the thread about audio over digital video output. It says the intention is still to back port the AGA core from the v4 to the v2 when they have got the bugs out of it.


Eric Gus

Posts 477
19 Jun 2020 06:58


Ian Parsons wrote:

  See the post from Gunnar from one week ago in the thread about audio over digital video output. It says the intention is still to back port the AGA core from the v4 to the v2 when they have got the bugs out of it.
 

 
  Yea and I am in favor of waiting .. even if it takes another year or two .. honestly been waiting decades.. whats another couple .. and I would be ok loosing floppy and other things .. as long as I got the choice eg stick with a 2.x core if I want those things .. or go full on 3.x with all the new features.. ..
 


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
19 Jun 2020 07:37


Maybe it makes sense to speak a little bit about our roadmap.

Our project started with the goal of the NATAMI.
This means the goals is to revive the Amiga and to develop the "next" model - which Commodore never brought out.

Our goal includes
1) an improved 68K CPU, better than what Motorola did develop.
2) an improved Super AGA chipset which adds new features to the Amiga.
The VampireV4SA is this new Amiga.

The prime goal of the V2, is to be an Accelerators.
The V2 is a very good, polished accelerator.
You can plug it, and it will turns your old Amiga into the fastest Amiga on earth. The V2 gives you not only the fastest 68K CPU available but also adds for you truecolor video modes.
The V2 models with IDE port also give you the fastest IDE controllers for Amiga that you can buy.
The V2 also offers extra features like Ethernet or SDcard access.

I think the V2 is an excellent accelerator which turns any old AMIGA into the fastest AMIGA which can be used for lot fun stuff like e.g. listening to MP3.




Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
19 Jun 2020 08:29


Back to the question of adding more chipmem to the A500 via the Vampire.

First of all, let us make clear:
that the Amiga by Commodore is NOT designed for this to be possible.
The place where the Vampire is plugged is not designed to add more chipmem - there are simply wires missing!

This means there is no way to easily give you more chipmem.
There is nothing I can do with working for you
here 1 hour, or 1 day or even 1 week long.
The reason is simply - that there are wires missing.

This means is impossible to add more chipmem this way to the AMIGA.
The only option that we can do - is "pull" all the Amiga to the Vampire side. This means to re-create all the Amiga chipset inside the Vampire.
This is a hercules task on which we work now since some years.



VosCo Boss

Posts 6
19 Jun 2020 16:14


In my opinion the only proper A500 board for a Vampire is the rev 8a / A500+ as that can easily be expanded to 2mb. Another option is a megachip that solders straight onto the mainboard, removing the fat agnus socket.That will be low enought to allow an accelerator over it. But that's more expensive than an A500+ board :-)


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
19 Jun 2020 17:27


Speaking about chipmem

I see the situation as this:
The Workbench will use Vampire-fastmem for Display.
Also Icons and Window content can be placed in Vampire-fastmem.

This means chipmem is only used for Floppydisk buffer, and besides this totally free.

Chipmem will of course be needed to play old games.
I think that really the most games will need 512 KB.
Some games might need 1 MB.
I'm not aware of any ECS games needing 2MB?
Are there any at all?

Do you miss anything on A500 if you have 1MB instead 2 MB?



Roy Gillotti

Posts 517
19 Jun 2020 18:03


I'm not aware of any ECS games needing 2MB?

 
  I can only think of one at the moment, it's Primal Rage, despite WHDLoad claiming AGA it runs ECS, and has a 2MB Chipmem requirement.


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
19 Jun 2020 18:28


Wasted Dreams, Hell Squad seems to require 2MB Chip.
 
  Dungeon Master II: The Legend Of Skullkeep seems too.
 
  With mentioned Primal Rage that should be the rare cases of ECS 2MB Chip games often masked as AGA. Some games were half bright but had AGA anims if AGA is present :) Everything seems to be possible in Amigaland.
   
    Hired Guns needs 1MB Chip for additional sounds and other mem, I suppose we pass.

james leadbeater wrote:

dont hold your breath - i get the distinct impression Gold3 is vapor ware... we have one crappy alpha and then get fobbed off! love the V2 but you guys should have finished this before moving onto V4 and dropping us V2 people like something hot!

That would be nice line of thinking, if it wasn't the other way around: AGA core was always V4 thing, V2 alpha core is just "datestamp port" in development. V4 Standalone core core needs love too and reverse engineering job seems very demanding.


Mr Tpod

Posts 6
19 Jun 2020 21:32


Final Odyssey - the CD says 2mb (1mb chip & 1mb any). In reality it needs more than 1mb chip (works fine with 2mb chip ECS machine or even 1.5mb in WinUAE).


Eric Gus

Posts 477
20 Jun 2020 09:11


The real need is for A500s that (like mine a rev5) are stuck at 512kb chip (and my Agnus is NTSC only -- cant do PAL) (to get more than that, I have to resort to hacking the motherboard, finding rare 3rd party hardware expansions etc) .. in my case moving all the Amiga custom chips into the vampire is a very good trade-off to get past the physical motherboard/design limit on video display modes and chip ram limits without resorting to finding unobtainium "megachips" at insane ebay prices if you can actually locate one. Core3 on the V2 Its still a very very good tradeoff to do this even if it means loosing some things like legacy ports, floppy disks.. having the increased chip ram (beyond 512kb) allows the use of WHDLOAD etc. (you can't really run whdload with 512kb chip) and makes the entire computer far more usable than it would have been otherwise without moving the custom chips into the fpga. ironically the older Amigas (1000s, early 500s, 2000s) benefit significantly more than the newer ones from this as they need the boost and "upgrade" in hardware more so than other later models do because of issues like this. (just my thoughts as someone who has a 512kb chip, NTSC locked machine -- it cant do PAL display modes amiga, the Agnus is too old a revision and doesnt support pal/ntsc modes its just ntsc).


Jamie Chapman

Posts 69
22 Jun 2020 20:02


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

Back to the question of adding more chipmem to the A500 via the Vampire.
 
  First of all, let us make clear:
  that the Amiga by Commodore is NOT designed for this to be possible.
  The place where the Vampire is plugged is not designed to add more chipmem - there are simply wires missing!
 
  This means there is no way to easily give you more chipmem.
  There is nothing I can do with working for you
  here 1 hour, or 1 day or even 1 week long.
  The reason is simply - that there are wires missing.
 
  This means is impossible to add more chipmem this way to the AMIGA.
  The only option that we can do - is "pull" all the Amiga to the Vampire side. This means to re-create all the Amiga chipset inside the Vampire.
  This is a hercules task on which we work now since some years.
 

And at which point the amiga becomes just a power supply,  mouse and keyboard, so you would be better off with a standalone.  I think the ultimate miggy should be the A1200 with all its custom chipsets, and the vampire for fast 68k ,  network and  video out.  Anything more standalone is what you are after. 



Tim Waite

Posts 42
22 Jun 2020 21:02


Patrik Rendel wrote:

 
  The 2MB MegiChips and other similar Hardware can't be put in. The Vampire is with all relocators directly above the fat agnus or too close to it.
   
 

 
  A lot of A500 machines can take 1MB or more on the MB with the proper 1 or 2mb agnus chip.
 
  You would install a 8375 Agnus for the A500+ and mod the board for the 1MB on the motherboard and another 1MB on the A501 slot using a A501+ type expansion.  Depending on the A500 mb Revision, it can take some work.  Rev 8a is the A500+ version.
 
 
Rev 6A can take a 8372B 318069-03 and get 2MB also.
EXTERNAL LINK 




Carlos Milán

Posts 95
22 Jun 2020 22:32


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  The prime goal of the V2, is to be an Accelerators.
  The V2 is a very good, polished accelerator.
  You can plug it, and it will turns your old Amiga into the fastest Amiga on earth. The V2 gives you not only the fastest 68K CPU available but also adds for you truecolor video modes.
  The V2 models with IDE port also give you the fastest IDE controllers for Amiga that you can buy.
  The V2 also offers extra features like Ethernet or SDcard access.
 
  I think the V2 is an excellent accelerator which turns any old AMIGA into the fastest AMIGA which can be used for lot fun stuff like e.g. listening to MP3.

I couldn't agree more with this. The V2 has turned my 600 in the Amiga I ever wanted: small and portable, with more power than a 68060, RTG graphics and speedy networking through PCMICA slot. While I would love to have AGA or Linux-friendly MMU, I cannot ask anything more to what the accelerator is capable of doing today.



Mark Mc Fadden

Posts 36
22 Jun 2020 23:01


Jamie Chapman wrote:

 
Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  Back to the question of adding more chipmem to the A500 via the Vampire.
   
    First of all, let us make clear:
    that the Amiga by Commodore is NOT designed for this to be possible.
    The place where the Vampire is plugged is not designed to add more chipmem - there are simply wires missing!
   
    This means there is no way to easily give you more chipmem.
    There is nothing I can do with working for you
    here 1 hour, or 1 day or even 1 week long.
    The reason is simply - that there are wires missing.
   
    This means is impossible to add more chipmem this way to the AMIGA.
    The only option that we can do - is "pull" all the Amiga to the Vampire side. This means to re-create all the Amiga chipset inside the Vampire.
    This is a hercules task on which we work now since some years.
   
 

 
  And at which point the amiga becomes just a power supply,  mouse and keyboard, so you would be better off with a standalone.  I think the ultimate miggy should be the A1200 with all its custom chipsets, and the vampire for fast 68k ,  network and  video out.  Anything more standalone is what you are after. 
 
 

  I agree, my v1200 is for CPU improvements on my original Amiga 1200 ive had since '92 and possible RTG support. I have 0 interest in it taking over my A1200 chips. Thats the dunction of the standalone.


John William

Posts 563
23 Jun 2020 01:23


Patrik Rendel wrote:

Hello,
  is it possible to raise up the ChipRam in the next Core Update for V500?
 
  It would be nice to have more then only 512kb or 1MB through modding the Board.
 
  Edit:
  The 2MB MegiChips and other similar Hardware can't be put in. The Vampire is with all relocators directly above the fat agnus or too close to it.
 

Stop changing the nature of your A500 to wanting AGA and 2 chip RAM. If you want that, V4 or a1200 is the way to go. Personally, I prefer V4 over A1200 due to having 11 CHIP RAM and 512 MB fast RAM and is better than all the vampire v2 series.

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