| NATAMI MX Day #12 | page 1 2 3 4 5 6
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Annika
Germany
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Posts 19
11 May 2011 06:33
| Good morning!
Yesterday we spoke about what a child's play updating your new computer is.
Today I would like to show you what a CPU is.
CPU means computer brain.
And your new computer comes with a real cool brain.
Here is a picture of it:
The Brain is this card, which is called 68060.
People say its the best computer brain ever made by an old company called Motorola. The 68060 is hidden below the green cooler thingie.
Thomas said you do not need this cooler but my Dad said he did always put a cooler on all his AMIGAs even his A1000 - so he will continue to do this now. Dad simply opened our old PC and took a screwdriver and popped a cool green passive cooler from the mainboard and put it on the NATAMI brain. So don't get confused by the "Epox" printed on the cooler there is nothing from Epox on this board. Might be cool to get some Coolers with an "Amiga checkmark" or maybe even better a nice "Princess Logo" printed on them. :-D
The Brain comes with something called "memory" to hold its ideas and programs.
Here you can see the two chips containing the "memory".
Dad says this card has the fastest memory ever used in any AMIGA - including both 68k and all PPC Amiga's ever built.
Dad said a cool feature is that you can run the brain-card in different modes:
Mode 1) The card will add 3 MB of real fastmem to the system.
And use 1 MB to buffer the Kickstart/OS of your system in ultra fast memory. The added memory comes in addition to all the memory that the mainboard. Dad said 1 MB is reserved for Kickstart to also allow AROS to run in here which needs 1 MB.
With this mode enabled your fastmem in the workbench will grow. With this mode enabled you could in theory even use ALL the memory on the mainboard as chipmem.
This means games which need less than 3MB of program space could use 512 MB to hold their GFX.
Mode 2) The other mode allows you to use the memory as a second level cache. We are currently playing around with this idea to test this option out. The cache will not add any memory to the system but use the onboard ultra fast memory as cache to keep the most often used parts of your program in this fast "memory". Dad says as most AMIGA programs are smaller than 4MB this gives a great boost. Thomas and Dad believe that this option is even more flexible than the first one.
In theory we could add other combinations and try them out also.
For example we could add a mixed mode which keeps the Kickstart always in super-fastmem and uses the rest of this super fast memory to accelerate the system in general.
What do you think?
Which mode makes most sense in your opinion.
Which shall we try out?
I'm curious to hear your opinion!
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Geir E
Norway
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Posts 104
11 May 2011 06:51
| Mode two sounds more sensible in my ears. I would guess most would develope software to use a 256/256 share because it is convinient. When the Playstation 3 can do what it does with 512/512, it shouldn't be that of a problem for a platform that probably won't receve much studio support. And if some garage coder needs 512MB of chip ram, there should be room for improvements in his code. But I'm not one of the experts here. :)
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Gunnar von Boehn
Germany
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Posts 5775
11 May 2011 07:18
| Geir E wrote:
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When the Playstation 3 can do what it does with 512/512, it shouldn't be that of a problem for a platform that probably won't receve much studio support.
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Actually the Playstation 3 has 256/256 MB and not 512/512. The memory connection between CELL CPU and its 256 MB has high latency (slow) but reaches a very good throughput.
The memory connection to the "chipmem" on the Playstation has extrem high latency (very slow) and very bad performance if the CPU would want to read out data from the chipmem.
In this regard the NATAMI is surpassing the PS3 easily. In other words the Playstation does not have more memory than the NATAMI. They have the same but the NATAMI is a bit more flexible in regards of using the memory as you can reconfigure the chipmem size.
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Andi Friede
Germany
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Posts 24
11 May 2011 07:50
| Good morning Annika! Hope the nasty summer cold is gone!
Interesting post you have shared with us. I also would propose to test the second mode. Your Dad has already explained that the chip RAM is really enough at the moment :-) Cheers
Andi
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Samuele Bortolatto
Italy
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Posts 3
11 May 2011 08:00
| I think the 3rd one it's more interesting! But seriously, I think the second one could be very cool!
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Geir E
Norway
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Posts 104
11 May 2011 08:19
| Gunnar von Boehn wrote:
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In other words the Playstation does not have more memory than the NATAMI. They have the same but the NATAMI is a bit more flexible in regards of using the memory as you can reconfigure the chipmem size.
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My bad, my memory is a bit fragmented early in the morning. But that ought to emphasize that being able to set 512mb as chip shouldn't be a priority. 256MB is plenty - I would hope that would be the limit people develope against, so one does't have to constantly change the settings even how easy it is. To put kickstart in this memory would probably not hurt as well. I'm amazed that you get natami-related things done with three kids and a day job. :)
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Christian Kummerow
Germany
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Posts 314
11 May 2011 10:23
| Annika wrote:
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What do you think?
Which mode makes most sense in your opinion.
Which shall we try out?
I'm curious to hear your opinions...
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Second Level Cache. Makes it the Amiga really much Faster if the Kickstart is in that Mem instead of Fastmem?
Many things are overpatched and require anyway additional space in Fastmem.
Until now its not possible to Build a OS3.9 witch is Compatible at
all. I asked the Remus author why i get Hits with the new Rom and "VTSchutz". He told me Remus dont build a rom in the same way like original Roms are, there is missed a Jump code.
I stopped the experiments, makes no sense to continue if the first
Bugs are found after 5 Minutes. But i think this bug can avoid games
to run too. The 68060FE is not running right now with 133MHZ if it require no
cooler right?
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Thierry Atheist
Canada
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Posts 1830
11 May 2011 10:29
| I really don't know how much more of this I can take? The NatAmi is surpassing even MY grand ideas of enhancements!!!! Just to make sure I understand though, all three of these are available at all times, at boot-up as choices through an entry in the startup-sequence, correct? So, you could leave the NatAmi to always bootup in any of those three modes, but need to reboot if you want to change them, right? I love all 3 options, used as and when necessary. The NatAmi should be able to surpass PlayStation 2 in performance, and even PlayStation one was able to do some truly amazing games, but it's lack of RAM really held it back! Having access to 512 Megs of chip ram (fed by compact flash cards) may make some very stunning games possible!!! I firmly believe that MPEG2 playback IS possible!
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Niclas Aronsson
Sweden
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Posts 57
11 May 2011 11:19
| But isn't all this moot ? Consumer MX boards will not have the 060 card by standard ?
I thought that the 68050 inside the FPGA was the plan with a 060 card as an optional card for developers/enthusiasts.
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Jakob Eriksson
Sweden
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Posts 1097
11 May 2011 11:52
| Yes, 68060 is optional. It has an MMU, which makes it simpler for developers to debug programs during development. It is also useful if you want to run Debian or other Linux on your Natami.
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Gunnar von Boehn
Germany
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Posts 5775
11 May 2011 12:18
| Jakob Eriksson wrote:
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Yes, 68060 is optional. It has an MMU, which makes it simpler for developers to debug programs during development. It is also useful if you want to run Debian or other Linux on your Natami.
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I don't want to run Linux.
Most real AMIGA fans will think like me. But the 68060 CPU card is COOOOL nevertheless.
Because of three reasons:
* The 68060 is the very best 68K CPU ever made by Moto.
* The 68060 Natami CPU Card is the fastest 68060 card ever made.
* Having such a card allows you to also use it in addition!!
Two 68K are better than one! To me these are three very good reason to have one. :-D
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Serge Alves
France
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Posts 28
11 May 2011 12:39
| I pray to get the FPGA 68050 CPU at the first public batch of Motherboards because a real 68060 should put the Natami to a too high price for lot of people including me. The 68060 CPU card MUST be only an option for people having needs of it and money.
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Christian Kummerow
Germany
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Posts 314
11 May 2011 13:55
| Serge Alves wrote:
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I pray to get the FPGA 68050 CPU at the first public batch of Motherboards because a real 68060 should put the Natami to a too high price for lot of people including me. The 68060 CPU card MUST be only an option for people having needs of it and money.
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I pray that the 68050 get a MMU or you cant buy a Natami without a 68060 Card. Or i have to write in all my Software Manuals "no Bugreports without a Enforcer Log".
Anyway, if the Natami ppl dont get the 68060 at a good price it would be better do ship the CPU-Board without it. Many ppl still have a 68060 Rev.6 or may can get it cheaper on ebay.
I could even get&solder all the connectors by myself.
The board seem to come without it from the Factory and that means Handwork(usual expensive) by the Natami Team. That can save money. But anyway, nobody knows if this rumours about such high prices like 750-800 EUR are true.
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Alex Quartex
Italy
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Posts 6
11 May 2011 14:56
| Hi,
it will possible to use the 2 cpus (68060 and FPGA emulated) in the same time / program ?
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Samuel D Crow
USA
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Posts 1295
11 May 2011 15:35
| Alex quartex wrote:
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Hi,
it will possible to use the 2 cpus (68060 and FPGA emulated) in the same time / program ?
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That's the intent, although it won't be symmetric multiprocessing like Linux/Mac/Windows uses.
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Lord Aga
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Posts 129
11 May 2011 16:12
| Gunnar von Boehn wrote:
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I don't want to run Linux.
Most real AMIGA fans will think like me.
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You bet we do ! :)
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Wojtek P
Poland
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Posts 1597
11 May 2011 16:19
| Annika wrote:
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I'm curious to hear your opinion!
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Mode 3) as mode 2 + any virtual memory software using RAM: (located in chipram) as swap device.This was you end with truly flexible chip/fast ram. less total memory for programs - more free chipram. This is not new invention. This effectively gives best possible cache replacement policy and fastest "L2 cache" possible - treating SRAM as "memory" and slow DRAM as "swap device".
http://itee.uq.edu.au/~philip/Research/Architecture/rampage.html For that it would be adventageous to put kickstart code in VM too and only little code for managing VM as resident.
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Wojtek P
Poland
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Posts 1597
11 May 2011 16:54
| Lord Aga wrote:
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Gunnar von Boehn wrote:
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I don't want to run Linux.
Most real AMIGA fans will think like me.
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You bet we do ! :)
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telnet some.host.running.linux
if you want linux.
Or install X11 port for Amiga to run X11 programs from linux
(or any other unix).
That's all.
EXTERNAL LINK
(but not tested by me)
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Chris Dennett
United Kingdom
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Posts 135
11 May 2011 18:48
| I have one of those Epox heatsinks too in the drawer, they are from old Via chipset motherboards :)
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Asaf Ayoub
United Kingdom
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Posts 332
11 May 2011 18:52
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Nice, with this kind of configuration, we can modify a RAD: disk and create a RAH: (Recoverable Amiga Harddrive) partition so a Workbench harddrive image can be kept in a special memory area for super fast instant access to Workbench - even after restart.cool bananas !
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