Home   News   Concept   AMIGA-Compatible   Hardware   Forum   Questions+Answers   Pictures   Contact & Team

Welcome to the Natami / Amiga Forum

This forum is for AMIGA fans interested in the new NATAMI platform.
Please read the forum usage manual.



All TopicsNewsQAFeaturesTalkTEAMLogin to post    Create account
Do you have questions about the Natami?
Post it here and we will answer it!

MP3s On Natami
Chuck T
USA

Posts 673
21 Feb 2010 05:02

I was watching the discussion on amiga.org about MP3s.
 
  Would the Natami need a hardware decoder in FPGA to free it up so it can multitask and do everything else or would you not bother and leave it up to the CPU to decode?
 
  I'm just curious as to what you decide to do.  I'm sure you all are busy and doing an excellent job.

Gunnar von Boehn
Germany
(Moderator)
Posts 5775
21 Feb 2010 08:18

Chuck T wrote:

  I was watching the discussion on amiga.org about MP3s.
   
  Would the Natami need a hardware decoder in FPGA to free it up so it can multitask and do everything else or would you not bother and leave it up to the CPU to decode?
 

 
Well, MP3 decoding is not problem at all on 68060.
MP3 decoding is no problem at all on classic AMIGA with 68060 CPU.
And you can do this nicely in parallel to normal computing usage.

Now the 68060 on the NATAMI is "A LOT" faster than the 68060 in any normal classic AMIGA. Its higher clocked and has much faster memory.
So you can ballpark assume an about doubled Computing performance.
Also on the normal classic you need complex 16bit to 14bit transcoding for output on old PAULA - which was extra work on classic. You don't need this for Natamis Audioi Chip "Pamela" anymore.  Which means you get higher quality output on NATAMI for less computing cost.
 
 
 
MP3 decoding should be roughly twice as fast on NATAMI as on classic with 060 CPU. So its really no problem at all.
 
 
As you certainly know our "plan"  is to include the ROBIN core.
By the time ROBIN becomes available it could even do thinks like MP3 decoding in parallel fully for free.
 
 
Cheers

Erik Bauer
Italy

Posts 301
22 Feb 2010 16:16

@Gunnar:

With "fully for free" do you mean "Without any main CPU intervention" or "Robin will have a dedicated MP3 decoder that will allow it to decode Mp3 without consuming resources that can be used for 3D GFX calculations"?


Darren Eveland
Canada
(Natami Team)
Posts 50
22 Feb 2010 21:17

Gunnar wrote:

@Gunnar:
 
MP3 decoding should be roughly twice as fast on NATAMI as on classic with 060 CPU. So its really no problem at all.
 
 
As you certainly know our "plan"  is to include the ROBIN core.
By the time ROBIN becomes available it could even do thinks like MP3 decoding in parallel fully for free.
 

Well I would hope this ROBIN is done on the first pass.  Playing an MP3 back with my various 060 cards, even overclocked to 66MHz, can take upwards of 40% CPU time or more, depending on the bit-rate of the MP3.  Add the fancy audio program effects like visualizations and you are easily approaching 100% of CPU cycles.

When you are doing other tasks such as web browsing or remote desktop it REALLY slows it down, too.

Simple MP3 hardware decoding chip added would be extremely nice.  I don't think such chips cost so much.


Marcel Verdaasdonk
Netherlands

Posts 3975
22 Feb 2010 21:54

Well that considered the data transfer rate is increased significantly.
Oh, and BTW Darren Welcome to the forum. ;)

Darren Eveland
Canada
(Natami Team)
Posts 50
22 Feb 2010 22:17

Marcel Verdaasdonk wrote:

Well that considered the data transfer rate is increased significantly.
  Oh, and BTW Darren Welcome to the forum. ;)

Hi Marcel, thanks :) I am keenly interested in this project and have read from the sidelines up until now.

I very much hope this project comes to consumer release - I will be the first in line to buy one.

I have three A4000 systems - all with Cyberstorm PPCs.  So for me it's frustrating trying to play back MP3's and still have alot of my CPU sucked up. 

Even under OS 4.0 classic with 604e 233Mhz I can get upwards of 40% cpu usage to play back audio files.

So anything that can be done on NATAMI natively to speed this process up would be greatly beneficial.  I would pay extra $50 bucks for this feature easily.

posts 6