| List of Probable Use-cases for Robin | |
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Claudio Wieland
Germany
| | (Natami Team)
Posts 703
08 Nov 2009 21:08
| Hi all What is Robin most probably going to be used for? I'd say.. () 3D transformations
() 3Dcore feeding
() audio mixing and playing
() video/audio codecs
() procedural textures (?) What about really powerful particle systems? They are the "bread and butter" of modern game engines..
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Samuel D Crow
USA
| | (Natami Team)
Posts 1295
08 Nov 2009 22:46
| Physics acceleration, as Marcel mentioned in the other Robin thread, is a heavy burden on main CPUs. But that would have to wait for a future Robin core. Vector processing is hard enough without full-width vector registers. In its current state, we could probably use two Robins in parallel as SPUs and put all of the FPGA functionality on a PCI card to plug into the back of another computer. That's not necessarily a good thing though I have been looking for a good reverse-bridgeboard type module.
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Marcel Verdaasdonk
Netherlands
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Posts 3976
09 Nov 2009 01:05
| well it's registers are a but too small but cryptology is an option when browsing a secure website. Decoding video and audio. during games, all 4 threads could have their own goals sorta speak.
one feeding the 3dcore with what is needed.
one doing special fx
one doing audio
one doing FPU math. For scientific ends the robin would be considered too weak.
This could be underestimation but it could be very well true.
Time will tell. Robin should be used to create illusions like the flow from source to sink. This is physics same is having a bouncing ball, or several.
maybe even have invisible springs between then, that usually creates fun effects and dynamics. but overal i think Robin should be a media processor, a math processor, a dynamic processor.
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Anton Antsnark
Russia
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Posts 143
13 May 2010 20:55
| is it possible to use Robin as HW-accelerator for processing RAW-files from digital camera? :) (anyway, there is no software with such functionality, smth like GIMP or DCRAW)
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Thierry Atheist
Canada
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Posts 1828
14 May 2010 04:09
| Samuel D. Crow wrote:
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In its current state, we could probably use two Robins in parallel as SPUs and put all of the FPGA functionality on a PCI card to plug into the back of another computer. |
Hi Samuel,2 Robins? 1. Is this anything like the Altivec on a PPC?
2. How many could be put in there, for instance, we get the NatAmi 68070 ASIC, at 1.4 GHz, so, it's custom, could there be 4 or even 8 Robins?
3. I know the FPGA has limited resources, but a custom ASIC, could it have 4 or 8K (or more) of cache RAM in the CPU for each one (I guess that would be level 1 cache?). Although our graphics and all other co-processors are technically LESS capable than what ATI and nVidia are making, at least our co-processors would be running FASTER than theirs, especially the sound unit!!! Like, what Creative Labs sound card would be operating at 1.4 GHz??? :-DDD
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Samuel D Crow
USA
| | (Natami Team)
Posts 1295
14 May 2010 05:40
| They are using the exact same techniques and coming up with such things as CUDA. As long as we avoid patented techniques we are safe but we need to be careful. Personally, I think we need to keep stuff like this in mind for the future but get things running now.
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Gunnar von Boehn
Germany
| | (Moderator)
Posts 5775
14 May 2010 06:37
| People get back to earth please!
What about really powerful particle systems? They are the "bread and butter" of modern game engines..
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Modern PC games - will not run on the NATAMI.
You can forget about this.
Modern PC games need just to much CPU power.
And no commercial company will care for porting a modern game like "Diablo 3" to AMIGA.
Is totally out of scope.
We do NOT have the crew/men power nor the budget to create a custom ASIC running at this speed.
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Claudio Wieland
Germany
| | (Natami Team)
Posts 703
14 May 2010 10:27
| Who said "modern *PC* games"? If you reread, I wrote "modern game engines". Small, but important difference :) . I'm not talking about 48 pixel shaders or such, like in XBOX360. But particle systems are a typical example for off-loading stupid, repetitive work to a machine like Robin. I hope that clears the misunderstanding.
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Samuel D Crow
USA
| | (Natami Team)
Posts 1295
14 May 2010 16:27
| Irrlicht can run on OpenGL ES 1.1. That would certainly be handy to have.
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Do you have questions about the Natami?