| CPU |
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Is the Natami team still evaluating the ColdFire CPU or don't you expect any performance gains by using a V5-core? |
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The 400 MHz ColdFire V5 is certainly a very powerful CPU.
To be able to get the ColdFire we would need to "bake" chips.
Baking chips is not a target that we can reach without help as require a major investment.
If we "bake" our own chip we would of course have to option to bake our own 68K_CPU design.
If we bake our own "softcore" into a chip then we could as reach very high clockrates. Our softcore would then provide better compatibility than the ColdFire.
The ColdFire is 68k compatible, but to get maximum performance out of the
ColdFire for AmigaOS, some patching of Kickstart and Workbench will be mandatory.
By going for our own N68070 design we will save any patching and time.
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Do you think you can break 1ghz with ColdFire or 68k you are talking about? |
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No, the 1 GHz barrier will not be broken by these chips.
The New 68K chips that we are developing will be in the range of 100-166 MHz inside the FPGA.
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Which is better? A real 68060 CPU or the new N68070? |
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The 68060 which run max with 90-100 MHz is the only one in production and Freescale can stop production at any time.
68060 is Expensive and has no memory controller and old 3.3 voltage use.
The "Self-Made" 68K provides a lot of advantages:
- Cost reduction
- Possible to add new faster and cheaper DDR memory.
- Higher clockrate of 133-166 MHz inside the FPGA.
- Memory latencies will be reduced.
- Powerful multimedia instructions could be used.
The Natami-68070 could be made to be a lot more compatible with 68000 games.
Getting it to be more compatible to the 68060 is simple.
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Will Natami use a 64 bit 68070 processor? |
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64-Bit is no advantage for AmigaOS as it is NOT designed for more memory.
For integer the "golden" mix of best performance is still 32bit.
It will make sense to add a wider SIMD unit (64-128 Bit)
A 64-bit CPU bring only one advantage: more memory than 4GB.
All structs and pointers in AmigaOS are designed for a 32bit CPU.
A 64-Bit CPU brings many disadvantages over a 32-Bit CPU.
What we should do is adding a 64-Bit wide databus as this will increase the performance.
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Does the Natami processor need cooling? |
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The 68060 runs perfectly fine passive cooled.
The new 68060 revision 6 that the Dev-boards have are produced in a smaller structure need even less power than the 68060 used in the old Amiga cards.
None of the Natami chips require even a passive heatsink.
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Is a Memory Management Unit planned for your NEw 68K chip? |
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No, not for the first CHIP generation.
If you want a MMU you can use the 68060 CPU card,
There are many good reasons not to include a MMU:
A MMU adds latency to all memory accesses.
This extra latency will always be there, even if the MMU is not used.
A chip design can try to hide the latency in a longer pipeline. Without such a latency the chip will always be faster.
The performance loss caused by the MMU can be quite heavy.
For the silicon that a fast MMU would need, adding something like ALTIVEC into the CPU would be a better choice.
The 68060 developer boards are capable to boot NetBSD or Linux if they wish to do so.
The great feature that Amiga users are so proud of, is to have HW acceleration for everything and by design just cannot be used under Linux.
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Don´t you need to create a new architecture for ColdFire or is it the same because the ColdFire is compatible to the 68060? |
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We did some research in this area, and we came to the conclusion that it's possible to build our own 68k CPU that we could include in our FPGA.
We found out that we could build a new 68k CPU that is even more compatible to older 68000 Software than the 68040 and 68060 CPU.
This new 68k CPU is more powerful than the 68040 and 68060.
The combination of these advantages makes the Self-Made 68k CPU (N68050/070)
very attractive for us.
I believe that our design will be ideal for the next Natami design.
We will ship the Natami60 board with a 68060 CPU.
Later when our 68k FPGA CPU is finished the Natami60 board could install it into their FPGA with a simple firmware upgrade.
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How does Natami compare to PPC accelerators used in 'classic' configurations? |
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A 100 MHz 68060 has a similar performance as a 100 MHz PPC.
Our goal is that the Natami will be powerful enough for DVD/Xvid/DivX playback.
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| FPGA |
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How much can be gained by transferring the FPGA to a custom fixed function chip ? |
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Oversimplified answer:
- A - Medium price FPGA ~ 100-200 MHz
- B - Very expensive FPGA ~ 250-500 MHz
- C - Custom Chip based on little reworked FPGA code ~ 500 MHz
- D - Custom Chip complete redesigned 500 MHz - Several GHz
But creating custom chip (ASIC) does cost a lot of money.
Option C costs some money but less than a million.
Option D is too expensive for the Amiga market.
For the best price/performance mis we target solution (A) for now.
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Will the FPGA be possible to have more 68070 or SuperAGA cores ? |
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AmigaOS is designed to run very good with a 25 MHz CPU.
The AmigaAGA chipset is running at 3.5 MHz and was 16 Bit.
In an effortable FPGA, SuperAGA could be running in 100-200 MHz and in 32 Bit.
SuperAGA Blitter is thereby 100-200 times as fast as the Amiga AGA.
The original Amiga always was a multicore design with :
- the GFX Chip with sprite features.
- the blitter
- the copper
- the Audio DMA
- the CPU
In addition to this Natami has
- 3D core with texture engine
AmigaOS is perfectly designed to make use of the Amiga hardware features.
Natami with SuperAGA is the only chipset worldwide making this again possible.
PC GFX Card were never used by any OS as efficiently as the AmigaOS did use the Amiga chipset.
With SuperAGA and the N68070 softcore, the Amiga Workbench will run on Natami many times faster than it currently does on WinUAE using a fast PC.
A multicore CPU is not needed.
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Regarding sprites - Have these been enhanced? Size? Number? Etc... |
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Sprite capabilities are unchanged and are the same as AmigaAGA.
Using sprites make still sense for a mouse pointer.
8 Sprite channels with max 64 pixel width each and max 16 colors
In today games BOBS have replaced sprites.
Bobs are images that could be copied onto the background image.
Bob support is as follows:
- 16 Million colors max
- Unlimited size and number
- Copy, rotate and scale
- New ColorKey bob don't need a Blitting-Mask
The SuperAGA blitter has the power to blit the whole screen thousand times per second.
The SuperAGA supports Gouraud shading, Z-Buffer, Bilinier-Interpolation.
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Why is Natami not cycle exact? |
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Cycle exact was never needed on Amiga.
The Amiga OCS, ECA and AGA is 16bit, 3.5MHz cycle frequency.
Denise was fetch bitplane and sprite data using 16bit.
Lisa could fetch bitplane and sprite data in a 32bit reads.
Natami is running (worst case) 32bit 100-150MHz cycle frequency while still maintaining software compatibility.
There never was something like 100% cycle exact on Amiga.
Different Amiga models used different speeds of ROM/memory.
So even an A600 was never 100% cycle exact to an A1000 or A2000.
What is useful for compatibiliry is a cycle exact Copper mode.
And the Natami support two Copper speed (slow-compatibility) and (new-fast).
SuperAGA is faster than AGA but also compatible.
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Does SuperAGA support 1080P resolution? |
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If SuperAGA runs in the FPGA on the Natami60 board at over 145 MHz then this resolution is possible.
Technically 1080p is possible, but it is not guaranteed that the Natami60 will
run at this clockrate.
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Graphics cards are used in SLI mode to increase frame rates on x86 PCs.
Is it possible for 2 SuperAGA FPGA's on the same motherboard to do the same
in an Amiga? |
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The Amiga architecture is build around different DMA channels.
Everyone has its own distinct task.
The power of the Amiga originates in the perfectly matching cooperation of all DMA channels.
A PC has only one DMA channel in its concept. The CPU today ia a
brute-force general purpose calculation monster. It can do everything on its
own, so the GFX memory is not really part of the architectural system.
On the Amiga it is the central part.
You may translate your question in Amiga terms like "is it possible to add a second blitter DMA channel to the system".
The original blitter is a pure 2D unit, so the computations the blitter can do are not that time-consuming that it would be any benefit in adding a second blitter DMA. But technically the answer is "yes".
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Where are the 16/32 bitplaned display modes? |
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The native supported pixel formats are:
BIT = Bitplanes, COL = Colors, MC = Memory consumption (bit) per pixel
MOB = Memory Operations by Blitter per pixel.
BIT COL MC MOB
1 2 1 4
2 4 2 8
3 8 3 12
4 16 4 16
5 32 5 16
6 64 6 24
7 128 7 28
8 256 8 32
24 16M 24 6 (chunky-planar mix mode)
8 256 8 2 (chunky mode)
16 65536 16 2 (chunky mode)
32 16M 32 2 (chunky mode)
Planer Mode:
+ Reduce colors to limit the amount of needed memory for a screen.
- Very slow in drawing single pixels.
Chunky Mode:
+ Operations use less memory, no mask needed, speed x2 in 2D
+ Well suited for 3D or 16/32 bit modes
SuperAGA also supports special formats as HAM and YUV.
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Can you tell me something about the SuperAGA blitter |
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SuperAGA blitter
- 100+ FPS with most games with effects
- Screen redraw x10+ per frame
- Virtually unlimited playfields in realtime
- Opaque, semi-transparent or translucent playfields / overlay
- Free bob scale, resize and rotate
- ColorKey support
- Alpha blending, translucent shadows, semi translucent fire or explosions
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What is better 256 color or 256 color planar mode?
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Comparing 256 Color chunky screen vs 256 color planar mode:
- On Planar the Blitter needs to do 32 Memory operations to update a single pixel
- On Chunky the Blitter needs to do 2 Memory operations to update s single Pixel
Both Planar and Chunky have the same speed when doing big memory block moves.
But if you paint row of pixels like in DOOM or Quake chunky mode is 16 times faster.
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SuperAGA supports 16-bit chunky modes, would a 16-Bit planar mode make sense too?
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Lets compare a Hicolor chunky screen vs Hi color planar mode:
- On Planar the Blitter needs to do 64 Memory operations to update a single pixel
- On Chunky the Blitter needs to do 2 Memory operations to update s single pixel
Both Planar and Chunky have the same speed if big memory blocks are moved.
But if you paint row of pixels like in DOOM the chunky mode is 32 times faster.
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What is the Natami's power consumption ? |
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The SuperAGA plus new N68070 core will in total need 2-3 watt.
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Can we have a Natami motherboard with a minimum of 256 MB and two slots ? |
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There are two big reasons that speak against slots.
Slots are expensive and slots will cause issues as there are many different memory DIM models.
DIM slots require higher testing budget and a lot longer time.
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Could you please clarify Natami60 developer board? |
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The Natami60 developer board will come with FPGA and a 68060 CPU card.
We are working on a new 68k CPU that can be loaded into the FPGA.
This new 68K will even be slightly more compatible to 68000 software than the
Motorola 68060 CPU.
We hope that this new 68k CPU will also as fast or faster as the 68060 CPU.
This FPGA-68K can be installed into the FPGA of the Natami60 systems.
Effectively these boards will then have two 68k CPUs if they have the 060-CPU Card installed.
There might be other parties producing other bigger or smaller boards based on the SuperAGA chipset as well.
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Will the boards for the final users (not the Dev-boards) be complete boards? |
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The consumer boards and Natami60 developer boards will include:
* Pre-installed with a legal, licensed copy of AmigaOS
* Amikit
AmiKit is a pre-configured AmigaOS environment.
Amikit includes a task manager, web browser, and many useful applications, tools, icons and games.
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If we happen to buy one developer board, how we can upgrade to a new board so that we will have Ethernet? |
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The developer boards comes without Ethernet on board, but as it has several PCI slots, a normal PCI Ethernet card can be added.
We will preinstall all the developer boards will a network card.
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The first batch of Natami will be developer boards means that some bugs will occur, will a firmware upgrade be available? |
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Yes. The whole idea of the developer board is to allow debugging and upgrading of the firmware.
The developer board is fully designed for upgrading and testing.
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Would Natami include some ACPI features like power button press event detection, timer Wake up and Wake up signal from a PCI or USB device? |
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Natami is quick to boot and fast system.
Workbench loaded in 1.5 seconds.
There is no "Booting up delay" and no "Shutting down time".
Natami does not see much benefit of Wake up signals.
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Why couldn't a flicker fixer be added into the design? |
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For a real flicker-fixer you need memory AFTER the video stream is created.
An interlaced video frame consists of two alternating single frames.
An odd one followed by an even one. The odd one contains only lines 1, 3, 5, and the even ones 2, 4, 6.
Because these frames are alternating there is no point where the displayed image is "complete". For that you need memory to store for example the even frame.
At the next odd frame you can insert the line 2 after line 1 is finished and, before line 3 starts. Only on this point the picture is really complete, but this is AFTER the flicker-fixer.
When the Amiga/Natami frame generator is in interlaced mode it starts drawing the odd frame beginning from line 1. At the end of the line a modulo value of one line is added to the position counter. So that the next line drawn is line 3. At the end of the display the beam position is set to the beginning of line 2. This is usually done by the copper.
- Games rarely used interlaced screens.
- Deinterlacing demos or games look IMHO very bad.
- Scandoubling games or demos look much better.
Using interlaced screens for Wrokbench or applications makes no sense on Natami as you have all these screen available as non interlaced as well.
Deinterlacing applications screens is not needed as you can simply promote the "old-interlaced" screen to the "new-noninterlaced" format with software, as you did on AGA for PAL to DoublePal screen.
A hardware interlacer is neither needed nor useful.
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How will the RGB part work? Will no standard Amiga RGB connector-plug be added to the Natami? |
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The Natami distinguishes two video categories in general.
High speed and low speed.
The primary display is the "high speed" VGA. It behaves like the known RGB port. Its scanrate is flexible and programmed as introduced in ECS.
For resolutions greater than 800x600 the boundaries of those registers are gone, the registers are still the same.
All modes less than 30kHz line frequency are automatically scan-doubled.
The "high speed" video is mapped also as a "low speed" video signal.
All television standards are mapped 1:1 so there is no difference to the old 640x256 for PAL or 640x200 for NTSC. All other resolutions are scaled to fit.
This "low speed" video is available as S/VHS PAL or NTSC and as pure RGB with sync. The RGB port is only available internally, there won't a 23pin SUB-D port.
Limitation: no flicker-fixer.
There is no way to enhance anything.
A complete frame has to be stored for that. This takes memory.
We already have two memory buses in the design.
So there is only a scan doubler.
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Will the internal RGB port have some kind of standard plug as well? |
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The RGB signals will be available internally on a PCB connector.
Explicit documentation on IO etc. will follow.
A backplane adaptor is needed. But really easy to build.
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Can I reuse my old AMIGA GFX card in the Natami? |
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The SuperAGA chipset is a lot faster than the AGA chiopset every AMIGA GFX card.
SuperAGA is not only superior in speed but also superior in compatibility to all AMIGA GFX cards.
SuperAGA extensions the origianl chipset in a fully Amiga compatible way. (Screen dragging, using Copper in old and new modes on one screen, Genlock support) its all possible.
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I see that you added great new GXF features to the original AMIGA chipset. Did you improve the Audio features as will? |
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Audio is improved to support high quality resolution, and high sampling rates.
Natami supports 16bit samples and 24-Bit Audio out. SuperAGA provides a Multitasking friendly and DMA driven support for hundreds of simultanous Audio channels.
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Can we use normal pc cases to house Natami? |
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The developer boards will have a standard PC size motherboard.
You will be able to use standard PC case for this.
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Is there to be a preferred compiler language/environment that can be used on the Natami that source will get released for? |
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All Amiga software runs on the Natami.
This means you can use anything for development ranging from SEKA-ASM over StormC, to GCC. Or you could use AMOS or the great Amiga Oberon.
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Do you think there is a chance to play new games in the future on Natami?
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We have no doubt that the powerful SuperAGA chipset will allow people to write very good quality games.
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Would games like Half-Life or Quake be possible on Natami? |
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The Natami is powerful enough to run games like Half-Life 1, Robin Hood,
Age of Empires, and Quake 1,2,3.
The Natami is not powerful enough for games like Quake 4.
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How to program the Natami? |
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The "normal" Amiga programming books are a very good start.
The Natami is a 100% compatible Amiga, so everything of the "old" development documentation is still true.
We are working on development tools that we will ship with the Natami developer boards. This will allow you to compile Amiga tools out of the box.
We are working on programmer documentation for the new SuperAGA hardware features. This documentation will have the same style and
(hopefully the same good quality) as the original Commodore docs.
Our target is to have all this ready together with the developer boards.
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Is the Natami faster than a current console? |
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The goal of the Natami/SuperAGA design is not to beat the PlayStation 3.
The NatAmi intends to improve the original Amiga design to be more useful today.
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What operating systems will the Natami support? |
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Our target for supported operating systems are exclusively AmigaOS and AROS.
All the clever features of the original Amiga hardware and Natami hardware can never be properly used by Linux.
Linux trades speed for security. Security is most important for a server.
For a hardware platform that provides heaps of clever hardware acceleration, Linux will disappoint you as it can never use these features fully.
Linux by design can never use the blitter and hardware features as closely integrated into the OS as the original AmigaOS did.
MorphOS is a nice OS. But its PPC only and closed source.
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Will the Natami be compatible to the CD32 Amiga console? |
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The Natami is mostly compatible with the CD32.
The CD32 had a chip called AKIKO which was used to help converting pixels from CHUNKY to planar.
There is a simple reason why SuperAGA does not include the AKIKO:
SuperAGA already provides real chunky pixel format. So working with chunky and then copying the chunky screen through AKIKO into a planer screen to be able to display it, is not needed anymore.
Implementing AKIKO is not a challenge at all, its not needed as AKIKO dependent games are rare. |
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I emailed you recently, why didn't I get any answer yet? |
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Sorry, but we got an overwhelming response and only have limited resources
in our team. That is why we have to concentrate on hardware and software work. If possible,
you will get an answer.
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My question is not answered here, What shall I do? |
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Please visit our forum. We will answer all your questions.
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