MiSTer FPGA Forum

ZigZag wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 8:37 amTo those distressed by the concept of utilising the ARM CPU to expand a virtual Amiga's functionality, MiSTer's ability to recreate hardware in FPGA is superb, and there's no reason a faithful, original specs Amiga in pure FPGA can't coexist with one which expands possibilities & functionality using the ARM CPU. Why impose unnecessary restrictions on developers? If you don't personally want to use some features because they are not "pure FPGA" no one will hold that against you. Developers are free to develop as they wish, and you can use your MiSTer in any way you want.

chaos wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 10:14 am Maybe if disk speed is of concern, a better option would be to implement direct SD card access in the FPGA. Actually, that is something I'll put on my TODO list ...

chaos wrote: ↑Mon Aug 24, 2020 7:32 am I haven't looked into how the ARM <-> FPGA communication is implemented in MiSTer, so I can only speculate what might the problem be. Linux in general does offer many options to tune CPU and IO usage, so that is something that could be looked at.

Moving the CPU to ARM, which handles reading the SD card, could actually prove beneficial, as there would be less need to transfer IDE data from ARM to FPGA.

But an even better option would probably be to use the secondary SD card, and either add a small CPU in the FPGA to handle it, or even better, implement raw direct access to SDcard, that is, implement an IDE to SD card converter.

And there's still the option of writing a DMA IDE driver and implementing a DMA capable SD card interface.

Just some thoughts, but something that I''ll look into in the future.

kathleen wrote: ↑Sun Sep 13, 2020 12:53 pm I've just tried the new Miniming-RTG beta core for the Mist. After having installed the Picasso96 and applied some required changes, I was able to run the workbench in RTG resolutions, none of the programs I tried worked but this is normal. It is really an early beta version. The good thing is to see that the work is moving forward. Cannot wait to see this new Minimig core mature and also ported to the Mister.

kathleen wrote: ↑Sun Sep 13, 2020 12:53 pm none of the programs I tried worked but this is normal.

kolla wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 2:57 pm

kathleen wrote: ↑Sun Sep 13, 2020 12:53 pm none of the programs I tried worked but this is normal.

What programs? Of course a lot of classic software was written for native chipset and will never work well with RTG.

kathleen wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:36 pm I tried Deluxe paint V which did not work and also Abank, I tried a 3rd one but don't remember the name. I was knowing that there was few chances to get them running and it was not the aim of my test, just wanted to at least be sure that the WB was well working in the RTG resolution which is for me already a great step forward. I understood that this is quite challenging with the Mist, but this is a good starting point for the Mist of course but also for the Mister.

kolla wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:06 am Right. DeluxePaint is one of those programs that rely heavily on the chipset. One of the features of DPaint V was RTG support, but mind you - this was 1995, RTG as we know it today was at its infancy, CyberGraphX had just been introduced, P96 still didn't exist, people with graphics cards were more likely to be using "old" RTGs like EGS, Retina etc.

uigiflip wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 4:57 pm found deluxe paint v crashes when try to open in a rtg mode also iv and 5.2

robinsonb5 wrote: ↑ I think the concern here isn't about "purity" as such, more that there are already situations where input responsiveness (which is one of the Amiga's defining characteristics) is slightly compromised - such as during disk access.
I don't imagine it will be an insurmountable problem, but certainly something to keep in mind as more facilities are handed off to the ARM.

kolla wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 10:38 pm

robinsonb5 wrote: ↑ I think the concern here isn't about "purity" as such, more that there are already situations where input responsiveness (which is one of the Amiga's defining characteristics) is slightly compromised - such as during disk access.
I don't imagine it will be an insurmountable problem, but certainly something to keep in mind as more facilities are handed off to the ARM.

My “concern” (not really) is that as more and more is handed off to the ARM... why not just go all the way, and run FS-UAE on the ARM? That would give RTG, fast CPU, fast I/O etc that people want, right?