That would be very simple definition of PMC (more detailed definition on Wiki). When you try to google some of the PMC models, you will find huge number of various models, some focued on networking, some on development, some just for RAM and some for computing power.

The common features of all Sonnets, Killers and many PMC cards are PowerPC CPU, own RAM and PCI compatibility. Most of the PMC cards uses PowerPC CPU which is no surprise for me, these CPUs have been proven as stable, powerful and cool.

So on the one hand we have a special PMC card, with a special PCI compatible bus in a special physical format, then we need a PCI card which can “carry” the PMC card on itself. These are called PMC Carrier Card PCI. When you put both together, you have an ultimate PowerPC Amiga accelerator to the Mediator PCI!

Let me introduce 3 models:

What I have right now on my table is brand new Ragnarok (PrPMC-8150) and Abaco Ramix PMC239/F carrier PCI. They look sexy, right?

Plug them both together… What a sexy looking hardware combo!

When Ragnarok is in and Amiga booted, ensure you have the latest PCI.library from Elbox in version 13,6+ and also latest powerpc.library from the Sonnet Hacking project. Then use command “pciinfo” which will show list of PCI devices in your Amiga. In my case I have just Voodoo3 and Ragnarok.

Everything interesting starts with InitPPC command. 384 MB RAM is added to your Fast RAM what amaze you already at first impression. Hey why 384 and not 512 you may ask? Answer is simple, because Elbox didnt count with it and allocated only 512 MB for entire PCI space. Out of the 512 there are 64 megs for Mediator itself and 64 megs for Voodoo3. That means “only” 384 MB is available for the PowerPC PCI accelerator. Situation is even worse when you use Voodoo4/5 or Radeon because these cards allocate 256 MB of the PCI space, then only 192 MB is left for the PowerPC card.

“Hey ELBOX – in 2019 – your 512 MB PCI space for Amiga MEDIATOR is not enough anymore!” ;o)

OK lets go on with our testing. I usually check the PowerPC with “getinfo” command which tells you all features and parameters of the PowerPC like frequency, bus frequency, L2 cache, etc.

You can see the Bus frequency is 100 MHz which is very nice for a SDRAM card. Maybe just 512 kB of L2 looks a bit small for high-end G3 processor. 2 MB would suit better it Ragnarok. Anyway you may be wondering how many MIPS makes such 800 MHz cpu in Syspeed, lets find it out ;o) (comparison with 604e/200)

912 MIPS that’s more than 3 times faster than stock Cyberstorm PPC! Stunning! So how fast it can do some math test?

For a UltimatePPC comparison check the previous articles or click directly for Sonnet G3/500 and here for Sonnet G4/400 results.

There is one more feature especially made for PowerPC 750 FX and thats the overclocking. Part of the software package from the developer are 3 commands “getspeed”, “gettemp” and “setspeed”. Overclocking never been easier! You just write command “setspeed 850″ and your clock raise from 800 to 850, or 900, or 950, … Reboot makes clock back to default. But use that comman only at your own risk!

With slight overclock to 950 MHz – MIPS breaks 1000 …

I will not make paricular videos for each of the game now. I prepared another commented video where I show usage of Ragnarok from initial installation, initiation, testing and playing games. So enjoy.

Congratulation you made it to the end of this article. Let me summarize what Amiga Ragnarok is about. I remember when Hedeon published first screenshots of his attempts to hack Apple origin CPU card to work in Amiga hardware / OS back in February 2015. Initial results were so synthetical, just Cyberman command in shell. Back then, who could imagine how far this project will evolve. 5 main hardware models now supported for bigbox Amiga mediators. Its a huuuge achievement of Hedeon, author of the Sonnet Hacking Project. Its unbelievable how smart some Amigians are I mean re-purpose general hardware into Amiga is simply genial. Especially with Killer K1/M1 running as Amiga CPU accelerator – than phrase “Turn Lead into Gold” comes to word. With the latest evolution of the project – PMC cards – it looks like we are hitting limits of Classic Amiga architecture. Its unbelievable how far beyond CyberstormPPC speed was achieved.  I wish Elbox pay attention to this project, because only Hedeon made Shark PPC dream the real thing.

New WarpOS game ports have been made (by Cowcat and Wrangler) since the project started (DukeNukem, BlitzQuake, BlitzQuake2, Hexen2, Quake 3 Arena, OpenArena, SmokinGuns, ReturnToCastleWolfenstein). Classic Amiga is in the renaisance not just because of Apollo Core, but also because of Sonnet Hacking Project.

I wish one more thing, actually two ;o) I wish Radeon Warp3D for OS3.X will actually happen and for second Elbox will update Mediator to support more memory. It seems the old Amiga Voodoo driver got to his limits (for example overclocking from 800 to 950 did not cause any FPS increase in Quake3, which is strange). Maybe someone can improve Voodoo driver or even better make a Radeon one, then I think we will be able to enjoy Ragnarok power even more.

I am curious what the Sonnet project will evolve next. Maybe we will see another hardware supported, maybe new game and software ports, maybe graphics speedup due to some hw/sw breakthrough and maybe somebody will hack it to boot PPC OS (Amiga/MorphOS/AROS/Linux) ;o) Thanks to Hedeon and all involved to keep the Classic Amiga spirit alive!

Except some USB and ethernet port the Killer contains a Motorola PowerPC CPU called PowerQUICC II Pro and 64 MB DDR2 (PC2100 266 MHz) onboard. PowerQUICC II Pro is nothing then enhanced good old 603e which we know for its usage in Blizzard PPC cards. MPC8343E is the complete name of the CPU which runs either 400 MHz for M1 version of the Killer or 333 MHz for K1 version. My 400 MHz M1 is cooled by a massive passive ;o) For more detailed review check THIS article.

OK so we have an enhanced 603e clocked at 400 MHz with 64 MB onboard DDR2 running in a Mediator 3V. Hedeon the developer of the project included support of K1 and M1 cards as an WarpOS accelerators and this finally brings an cheaper alternative of the rare and expensive Sonnet Crescendo cards.

In the previous article I compared G3 and G4 Sonnet Crescendo cards. I will use the G3/500 results and compare Killer M1 to it. I used latest PCI.library from Elbox v13.6 and latest Hedeons powerpc.library build 410. Testing machine for this article was following:

Lets first compare the accelerators parameters…

Killer looks like outsider in this comparism, less memory, less CPU frequency and missing L2 cache. But how is it in a real usage? Lets begin with math calculation benchmarks.

UltimatePPC (smaller = better)

Result: G3/500 absolutely wins, its simply more faster processor for math.

Syspeed

Result: Sonnet due to faster CPU wins at MIPS and MFLOPS, but Killer M1 rules in the memory tests thanks to his DDR2. Who could expect that?

Voxelspace (highest settings)

Result: I would say same persormance at 320×240, but Sonnet works better in higher resolution. This is surprise for me, I expected software rendering will be much more easy for Sonnet.

GearsPPC

Result: Sonnet wins, but Killer M1 isnt bad at all.

FroggerNG (Mpeg4 360p, depth 24, fps 25)

Result: Surprisingly Killer skipped less frames which means it played the 360p xvid more smootly then Sonnet.

Quake (timedemo demo1)

SW¹ = Quake WOS software rendering

HW² = Blitzquake v5.7 minigl rendering

Result: Killer M1 slightly better in software rendered Quake, but Sonnet runs faster in MiniGL version.

Quake 2 (timedemo 1, demomap demo1.dm2)

Result: Sonnet is clear winner for Quake2.

What is the conclusion of the Killer M1 accelerator? Let me describe PROS and CONS.

PROS:

• Still good price, I would say the cheapest Amiga PowerPC accelerator right now
• Availability is higher then of Sonnet cards
• “Massive passive” keeps the card and few chip underneath very cool, which is good especially for A3000 and A4000 claustrophobic desktops
• very fast DDR2 RAM onboard
• Compact size, it is one slot PCI card (the Sonnet requires at least two PCI space because of high RAM modules)

CONS:

• 64 MB RAM and no possibility of extension (unfortunately not enough for some games)
• No L2 cache

Conclusion can be following. First of all it is worthy to mention Sonnet and Killer PPC cards are now supported by all Mediator 3V busboards including A1200, A3000 and A4000. So if you have Mediator 3V model and you have one PCI slot empty, its maybe a good time to search for Killer card as they are still available on the market for a good price. Because most probably sooner or later we can expect price raise as the Amiga community did for Sonnets (cards before Sonnet project were worthy 40 USD, after two year of the project price raised to 500 USD).

You can easily play MP3s, MPEGs, plenty of good old WarpOS demos and PC conversion games like Quakes, Dooms, Duke, etc… Card would be perfect if it is equipped by 128 or rather 256 MB of RAM, but who knows, maybe some hack will be discovered. Or be just happy some clever Amiga guy called Hedeon hacked an ordinary PC ethernet adapter to run WarpOS games instead of calculating network packets. Isnt that genious?

I am happy Killer owner and I am finally back after year of silence. And when I mentioned silence, I made a first “english” commented video for you. Enjoy…

It is absolutely the same PCB, just with different CPU. This brings a question, if exchanging the CPU we could change G3 to G4?

Parameters of both compared cards are following:

I used latest PCI.library from Elbox v13.5 and latest Hedeons powerpc.library build 332. Testing machine was following:

I was worried about stability of G4 accelerator in the desktop version of Mediator, because this one does not have additional power molex plug. G4 consumes slightly more power then G3, but I havent noticed any stability issue so far. Just to mention that testing Amiga 4000 uses 300W ATX PSU build in the original PSU case.

This is how WhichAmiga tool sees both cards:

WhichAmiga

Then I started some benchmarks:

UltimatePPC (smaller = better)

Result: G3/500 mathematically beats G4/400, most probably frequency is the key here).

Syspeed (PowerPC benchmark G4/400 x G3/500 x 604e/200)

Result: G3/500 better in MIPS and MFLOPS, but G4/400 rules with memory performance.

Voxelspace (highest settings)

Result: I have no idea why it is both same result. Strange.

GearsPPC

Result: G3/500 is winner here.

FroggerNG (Mpeg4 360p)

Result: Mpeg4 360p video played on G4/400 is much smoother (it skipped only 14% frames), the G3/500 skipped 29% of all frames.

And then tested Quake and Quake2 games:

Quake (timedemo demo1)

Result: Slightly faster with G4/400.

Quake 2 (timedemo 1, demomap demo1.dm2)

Result: Also just slightly faster with G4/400.

Sonnet Crescendo 7200 G4/400 is very rare and very valuable card these days. I was very curious how fast is G4/400 comparing to G3/500 and obviously in most of the tests G4/400 was really slightly better. But just slightly, except video player. The biggest advantage called Altivec cannot be used yet, so G4 cannot show its real power now. Lets wait…

Lets start with FPSE emulator of PSX. WarpOS version discontinued even before author added sound support. FPSE is in very early version, only software rendering works (Warp3D is very buggy and experimental), but anyway I wanted to compare FPSE gaming performance while running on Sonnet against CyberstomPPC run. Result is way better then with 604e, but games are still not 25fps. Next time I will check some 2D PSX games, but now check how Colin McRae Rally and Tekken3 runs on G3/500 MHz on Classic Amiga:

Next Game, Payback, is not as smooth as expected. The performance problem is caused by audio control. Payback unfortunately does not use standard AHI but instead utilize its own 12bit sound system. Generally speaking its playable but you will get much better game experience on CyberstormPPC and sound is glitchy on Sonnet as well.

Next game titles are pure pleasure to play and shows off real Sonnet power. Crossfire2 is not Warp3D game, but supports WarpOS and RTG which will be playable even for Radeon owners. Lets see how it goes:

Shogo time! This game was ported by Hyperion back in time and its well known as most hardware demanding game ever released for classic Amiga. Blizzard PPC users remember this game only as interactive slideshow and Cyberstorm PPC is required to get decent framerate but with Sonnet its completely different story. Check this out:

As announced, there are two new WarpOS game ports: Hexen2 and Quake 3 Arena. Hexen2 is available for MorphOS but now its ported to AmigaOS3 and it runs quite well even on good old Blizzard and Cyberstorm PPC cards. But again Sonnet brings it to different level with high framerate and supersmooth gameplay:

Iconic Quake3 Arena is gaming legend of late 90s and for many years it was just dream to play it on classic Amiga – until now! To be correct, there was OS4 port but running it on Blizzard or Cyberstorm PPC card and was more pain than pleasant game experience. With more processing power available to classic Amiga, thanks to Sonnet, the WarpOS Quake3 Arena port was born. Current version Alpha8 Release 2 is well playable and we hope the development will continue. So far game has extreme RAM requirement: minimum 192 MB. Current port supports single and also multiplayer games (LAN and Internet tested) and I will show you my game play with 2 bots in Q3DM1 map:

Its impressive how this project progressed from speedy Mandelbrot pictures to Quake3 Arena playable on Amiga 4000. Successful Amiga exploitation of this old piece of hardware originally produced for Apple Macintosh made it practically impossible to find and its price skyrocketed.

Hedeon’s succesfull attempts attracted more people and development team was formed. Opening Pandora’s box – Sonnet card running on Amiga via PCI was just beginning. Availability of suitable hardware holds back user base of the project and it was main concern of the development team so they went further. They found hardware suitable for Amiga Mediator which will take the Sonnet project “To infinity …and beyond!”

Early January 2018 team presented first results of running G4 based CPU card and they are impressive. There is chance for even more and faster cards being made Amiga compatible. Even more promising is that Hedeon recently informed that he successfully ran basic functionality of Sonnet card on his Amiga 1200 equipped with Mediator for few hours. Lets keep fingers crossed that this will advance similar way as on Amiga 4000.

Další novinka byla možnost spaní na 8mi postelích ve dvou separovaných místnostech, což mi správce budovy nabídl jako revanž za změnu místnosti pro samotnou akci. Z možnosti spaní jak na hotelu jsem dostal jen samé pozitivní reakce.

Pak tu byla jedna změna, která se týkala organizace. Bohužel můj brácha nemohl z rodinných důvodů pomáhat s organizací během celé akce, pomohl tedy s tím fyzicky nenáročnějším a to nanošením/vynošením a transportem. Ale tím, jak byla nízká návštěvnost, tak se akce dala celkem dobře kočírovat i v jednom člověku. Nesmím zapomenout, že roli spolu-organizátora převzala moje dcerka eli-3d, která se “starala” o návštěvníka nižší věkové kategorie ;o) Příští rok však dostaneme zpátky velké prostory v přízemí a věřím, že budeme i v plném stavu tedy já + brácha + Eli.

Letošek jsem přípravám věnoval opravdu hodně času. Měl jsem takový skromný plán koupit všechny modely Amig a ukázat je ve funkčním provedení. Jenže sami víte, že Amigy jsou dnes velmi drahý artikl a tak nebylo v mých možnostech všechny modely zakoupit. Proto jsem požádal některé své dobré kamarády, jestli by pro výstavu nezapůjčili modely, které nevlastním. A povedlo se, na akci jsem otevřel takovou malou interaktivní Amiga výstavu skládající se z náseldujích strojů:

Amiga 1000

Amiga 500+

Amiga 2000

Commodore CDTV

Amiga 600

Amiga 1200

Amiga CD32

Amiga 3000

Amiga 4000

Amiga 4000T

Jediná Amiga, která chyběla byla Amiga 3000T, ale co naplat, prostě nebyla k dispozici.

K modelům Amig jsem připravil štítky, keré návštěvníkům ukázaly data kdy byl konkrétní model vyráběn, jakou cenu měl při uvedení na trh, konkrétní výbavu apod. K tomu všemu jsem připravil přehlednou časovou osu výroby všech modelů, ze které člověk jasně viděl, které Amiga modely se vyráběly krátce a které po delší dobu.

Další novinkou RESETkání byl malý bazárek. Ne všechno se prodalo či rozebralo, ale něco málo přeci jen. Myslím, že bazárek bude mít příští ročník znovu své místo.

A jdeme dál… Letos jsem měl na akci dvě Amigy 4000 vybavené PowerPC procesorovou kartou Sonnet Crescendo 7200. Obě Amigy fungovaly již na nové PowerPC.library, což jsem už před nedávnem demosntroval ve svém článku tady na webu. Pro návštěvníky jsem tedy zkusil ukázat něco nového a to fungující Shogo jakožto nejnáročnější WarpOS/Warp3D hru pro klasické Amigy a také jsem obě Amigy sesíťoval pomocí USB Ethrnet adaptérů i se svou hlavní Amigou 4000T, která též obsahuje PowerPC procesor. Kluci se nedali dlouze pobízet, zasedli k Amigám a rozpoutali deathmatch řežbu.

Než přejdu k dalším novinkám, nebyl jsem jediný, kdo měl letos přednášku. Lisiak4 nám ukázal svůj pokrok v ASM programování a předvedl ukázky ze své hudební rutiny. Mně, jako člověku, co zná maximálně VBA/VBS či Pacsal, to přišlo naprosto šílené. Za mě tedy kloubouček dolů Lisiaku ;o)

Co se nepovedlo minulý rok, to se povedlo tento. Minulý rok jsem měl několik měsíců před akcí objednaný Vampír 600, jenže ten do doby akce nestihl dorazit, protože co si budeme nalhávat, přednost dostali jiní nejspíš VIP. Letos jsem si řekl, že sebou nenechám takhle vyjebat a otravoval jsem Apoláky a zejména Majstu na IRC co to šlo. Můj stalkering pomohl a Vampír 500v2+ ke mě dorazil několik dní před akcí. Jako důvod urgencí jsem nemusel ani lhát, prostě jsem chtěl při příležitosti brněnské akce udělat premiéru jejich akcelerátoru, nic víc. A to se také povedlo. Sice jsem nestihl připravit tolik věcí, kolik jsem toho chtěl, pač času už moc nebylo, ale ukázal jsem nějaké hry, dema, video přehrávání, rychlost IDE, možnosti SAGA RTG a hlavně Shapeshifter (MAC emulátor), který se mi za pomocí získaných hardfilů povedlo celkem úspěšně rozjet a oddemonstrovat. Takže ano, Vampír 500v2+ je pecka, modlím se, aby to chlapcům vydrželo a pokračovali v podpoře, protože zatím je to z poloviny funkční turbína a mnozí z nás čekají zejména na implementaci FPU.

Na párty dorazil DaMi s novým A1200 šasí a tím šťastným majitelem se stal Solaris. Probrali jsme dobré, ale i špatné stránky tohoto produktu, ale řekl bych, že těch kladných stránek je více.

Další novinkou byl Mouse/Joy USB adaptér, který k0x čerstvě dovezl z Polska. Jedná se o chytrou redukci na USB, která rozpozná USB myš, joystick, joypad a ihned funguje. Testovali jsme to na několika myších, USB joysticku a USB joypadu. Všechno nádherně fungovalo.

Víc novinek už asi nebylo, ale na tak malou party to stačí, nemyslíte? ;o) Ale párty by nebyla párty, pokud by na ní nebyla také zábava. Zapařily se klasické mulťáky jako Dune3 aneb Achutung Die Kurve, MasterBlaster, hodně jsme hráli SuperTennisChamps. V posledním jmenovaném se nám povedlo jednou porazit i počítač a vůbec těch infarktových utkání jsme sehráli celou řadu. Běheme akce jsme řešili klasické HW a SW problémy (nestabilita Codexovy Amigy způsobená zdrojem, nastavení XAD archivace v DOpusu, BPPC a BVision problémy u Springiho, atd…). Mnozí si sedli ke svým Amigám s tím, že přesně věděli co budou celou dobu hrát (k0x a jeho ProjectX, DaMi a jeho Turikán), někteří spíš klábosili a byli rádi za skělou společnost dobrých známých.

Jako předminulý a minulý ročník, i letos jsem si připravil znalostní Amiga kvíz respektive kvízy dva (opět jsem zvolil excelentní SCALA MM400). Nesmím zapomenout poděkovat Předsedovi, kterého jsem kontaktoval s prosbou, jestli by mi jako herní odborník nepomohl s otázkami v herní sekci. Pomohl a poslal mi otázky, které byly velmi originální, zajímavé, ale také nebyly jednoduché. Účastníci se tímto dozvěděli pár nových faktů a doufám, že se i pobavili.

Na každé akci vždycky určitou část věnuji také demoscéně. Nebylo tomu jinak ani letos a pustil jsem několik letšních demo novinek jak na AGA stroji, tak i na OCS. Zejména Macínovi jsem pustil některá hi-tech dema, která si později odnesl na flashce, že to doma prubne na svém Apollo 1260/80.

Občerstvení a samoobsluha opět fungovala, i když se muselo chodit o dvě patra dolů. Separátní prostory na spaní s postelemi se také osvědčily. Celkem bylo na akci přítomno 16 dospělých (včetně mě), 2 děti, 18 Amig, 2 Meky a 2 PC. Vypilo se 21 Starobrn a pouze 4 Plzně. Na to, že byla opět rekorně nízká účast se vybralo slušných 76,6% nájmu a to zejména díky několika lidem, kteří přispěli ještě částkou navíc.

Co se nepovedlo… No především se mi nepovedlo být zdravý a doufám, že jsem nikoho nenakazil i přes to, že jsem se dopoval vitamíny, léky, bonbóny co to šlo. Prostory nebyly ideální, museli jsme zatemňovat okna, často větrat vysokou teplotu. Vypůjčený projektor neměl rád analogový vstup z jakékolikv Amigy, fungoval pouze digitální, takže promítat jsem mohl pouze z HDMI na Vampírových Amigách. Tím, jak byla kuchyňka daleko, někdo z ubytovaných studentů či neslyšicích residentů si chodil pro naše chlazené nápoje zejména pro energeťáky, protože jich zmizelo asi osm. Někdo z nich si též odsypal asi půlku instantního kafe. Holt nebyli jsme poblíž a nebyla možnost to mít pod kontrolou. Příště už bude vše při starém hezky v přízemí s funkčním projektorem na stropě a občerstevním po ruce.

Chtěl bych všem ještě jednou poděkovat za účast, doufám, že se akce líbila a že RESETkání zůstanete věrní i příští ročník. Já se pokusím zase něco vymyslet, aby to byla akce sice tradiční, ale se několika příjemnými novinkami.

Because my OS was full of patched libraries, drivers and binaries directly for sonnet.library I decided to make new OS from scratch, installed WarpOS, Mediator, P96, Warp3D and replaced powerpc.library. All went fine and I have full functional G3 in my classic Amiga.

Part4 will focus on comparison between two Amiga setups:

• Amiga 4000T, Cyberstorm PPC 604e/333 + 060/50 + 128 MB, CyberVision PPC
• Amiga 4000, Cyberstorm MK3 060/50 + 128 MB, Sonnet Crescendo 7200 G3/500 + 128 MB, Voodoo4 4500

Both setups run the same software, same version of WarpOS and Warp3D. But they have different PowerPC model, different graphics card (Voodoo vs Permedia2), different graphics drivers (Picasso96 vs CybergraphX), different CPU accelerator connection (FastCPU slot vs PCI slot) and different RAM type (DRAM vs SDRAM). I will show not just the games and their framerates, but I will also compare setups in software rendering, video encoding, math and memory tests. PowerPC 604e is very powerful and unique procesor. G3 (PowerPC 750) came up after 604e, but surprisingly its not direct successor of 604e but its next generation of 603e (604e was dead end). So in my case I will not compare two related generations of PowerPC, but it does not matter (comparison between 603e with G3 may come later).

OK lets start with WhichAmiga summary of both systems:

Moving to first tests. Syspeed software will show us some basic PowerPC benchmarks (MIPS, MFLOPS and memory performance). Here is the result:

UltimatePPC is small benchmark showing math calculations (smaller = better):

Next comparison I made is video decoding. I began with AMP2 which is the best WarpOS MPEG2 player for Amiga. Testing file is in 360p (640×360).

AMP2 clearly showed Cyberstorm PPC is not able to play 360p mpeg2 smoothly and G3 rules here completely without single frame skipped.

When moved to powerpc.library good surprise was FroggerNG that started to work. So for me it was finally opportunity to check how MPEG4 xvid works and how fast it is. For testing purposed I converted one demoscene video into xvid in two resolutions 240p (428×240) and 360p (640×360). I tested videos in 24bit fullscreen, started with the bigger video in 360p and then 240p so you can see how it should run smoothly.

240p xvid video is fine for both as both have 0% skipped frames. Playing 360p xvid then showed big difference between both Amigas. Both couldnt run it smoothly, but G3 won the fight quite obviously. What I also noticed was the quality of the picture, Picasso96 screens looks way better then on CybergraphX and what I like also is the Picasso96 shows even 240p video stretched to fullscreen. So G3 on Picasso96 is the winner again.

Lets move to Warp3D benchmarking now. I will start with classic Warp3D demo called GearsPPC. This one has 3 performance modes as shown in the table below:

Next Warp3D testing was done with two demos made by Encore demoscene group (Sulaco and By Night). I run both demos in fullscreen 640x480x16bit.

You were probably mostly interested in real games comparison. I have 3 games tested for this purpose: Quake, Quake2, Heretic2. All 3 games were tested in software rendering mode and also in hardware (in case of Quake, I used from different ports Quake WOS and BlitzQuake 5.7).

Quake WOS is very well done WarpOS port. This software rendering only game was tested in two resolutions 320×240 and 640×480.

BlitzQuake is currently still developped Quake port with hardware rendering. I tested the latest version 5.7 in three resolutions 320×240, 640×480 and 800×600.

Quake2 from Hyperion is very good port supporting software and hardware. Tests were done on both rendering modes and in resolutions 320×240 and 640×480.

As you can see Quake2 on Sonnet in 640×480 is even faster then BlitzQuake.

Last game for performance comparison is Heretic2. Again its a very good Hyperion port supporting software and hardware rendering. This game uses enhanced Quake2 engine and its the most performance hungry game engine I tested in this article. I was testing Demo version (unpatched = blending problems on Permedia) and I am not sure if that is also problem of the games demo version, but timedemo command seems to be buggy here. Instead of faster move, it shakes during the timedemo play. Anyway the FPS result is fine. At the end of the demo you can see the demo play without timedemo enabled to see how smooth is the gameplay on both configurations.

Conclusion? Guys I love G3 in my Amiga and I wish someone will compile QUAKE 3 ARENA for WarpOS.

OK what is the VA2000? It is a FPGA based graphics card for Zorro equipped Amiga computers featuring new modern standards like high resolutions, color depth over DVI-D/HDMI and compact size. Besides HDMI port it has a hacker-friendly expansion header for upgrades and custom mods and also features a slot for MicroSD cards that can be mounted in AmigaOS as a disk storage (right now not bootable). Author of this card is MNT’s Lukas F. Hartmann and Scarab Hardware, makers of the miniSpartan 6+.

Graphics card is autosensing the Zorro version just like CV64/3D, so either you get 4 MB Zorro2 card or 32 MB Zorro3 card. Especially the fact we have 32 MB Zorro3 card is unique. Lets check authors description of the cards features:

• Up to 1280x720p HD screen resolution at 8bit 256-colors “Chunky”, 16bit or 32bit color depths.
• Experimental 1920×1080 Full HD screen resolution if your monitor supports 30Hz.
• Other supported resolutions: 320×200, 320×240, 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768
• Tested with applications like IBrowse, Netsurf, MysticView, PPaint, TVPaint, Frogger (Video player) and games like ADoom, Abuse, ScummVM (play Full Throttle on your Amiga!)
• DVI-D / HDMI graphics output
• RTG compatible driver (Requires 68020 or better CPU)
• MicroSD card reader (use MicroSD volumes in AmigaOS)
• Uses 4MB of Zorro II address space or 32MB of Zorro III for graphics memory (the most on any Amiga graphics card)
• Amiga Autoconfig (TM) compatible
• Autosensing Zorro II/III compatibility
• User upgradeable Spartan 6 LX25 FPGA core (flash from Linux/Windows machine via USB port)
• Completely Open Source: https://github.com/mntmn/amiga2000-gfxcard
• Recognized by latest boards.library
• Officially supported by Amiga NetBSD 7
• Reported to work on Amiga 500 and GBA computer with Zorro adapter and turbo card

Hardware installation

You get card in a nice box with short manual, metal backplate and Logo sticker. There is no floppy disk or CD with drivers, but its absolutely not needed, all can be found on the mnt web. Card size is similar as Deneb, so it does not collide with ISA or PCI card in the row. Be careful then with pluging the card by the good side up. When Amiga started the VA2000 should light up a green LED.

Software installation

Very easy is also the software installation. Once you have Picasso96 installed (for uaegfx), you just:

• copy the mntgfx.card into Libs:Picasso96 driver
• copy Picasso96Settings to Devs:
• rename uaegfx monitor to va2000 and edit icon parameter BoardType=mntgfx
• reboot and choose one of the new screenmodes

Development ongoing

The card author still develops the drivers and firmware and I have to admit card is better version by version. Latest upgrade from version 1.3 to 1.4 boosted some of the functions more then 12 times. Firmware upgrade action itself is very easy:

• close jumper on the card to enable USB powering
• plug USB cable between card and PC
• doubleclick on the *.bat file

Note: Please ALWAYS read a Readme file and do the firmware upgrade accordingly. My description of the upgrade may not describe entire upgrade process.

Usage

Since the first driver release the real usage is now way better. It is usable for most of the RTG applications and games. Just check the video below ;o)

Benchmarks

In the Syspeed benchmarks below you can see its still not as fast as other graphics cards on Amiga, but its improving by every fw/driver upgrade and I bet it will exceed them very soon.

From the left: VA2000 firmware 1.4; VA2000 firmware 1.3; BVision PPC; CVision PPC; Voodoo3 3000

Bugs and graphical glitches

I should mention there are also some graphical glitches which I can see when using VA2000:

• When running 320×200 screenmode (space between 200 and 256 height is messy)
• During Syspeed graphical and Intiution tests (bckground of the windows is messy)
• When playing Napalm game (mouse is drawing artifacts)
• When playing video (Riva) in wb window (artifacts appeared on the right side to the players window)

But I am sure with the next fw/driver versions author will remove these bugs and improves the speed as well.

Impressions, wishes, future

Generally I am very excited about this card, its very cool, modern, compact, unique with its 32 MB, it has big performance potential and author is very communicative with community trying to improve thigs he gets reported.

Author is also working on a video module (small card plugged to video slot and connected to gfx card) which should work just like Picasso4. Author has planned it already because VA2000 pcb contains the video module pins already (only the connector itself is missing). Then you wont need any scandoubler or additional monitor-signal switcher and VA2000 will be complete graphical solution for your Amiga.

My secret wish is the Warp3D support (something like Voodoo3 emulation) in the future. Anyway VA2000 will have a big future between the Amiga Classics hardware I have no doubts.

Unfortunately I couldnt use my own Voodoo4 for the demonstration videos because I recetly borrowed it to my friend for emergency case. So I made the demonstration videos on my spare Voodoo3 and I could compare it with conclusion that the Voodoo3 and Voodoo4 are providing similar performance and in some tests Voodoo4 is slightly better.

There are few games and demos which utilize hardware accelerated graphics. Lets start with well known benchmark for Warp3D – GearsPPC.

This benchmark provides 3 options selected by numeric keys:

[1] = Silver gear (spinning of the detailed 3D gears model)

[2] = Gold gear (less detailed 3D model then silver one = faster)

[3] = Both gears (most complex test)

[F] = realtime framerate calculation

Next I will demonstrate two demos by Encore group Sulaco and By Night. Both demos are very nice (music, graphics, execution, design) and most what is most important in this case – well coded – so they run flawlessly on accelerated gfx board equipped Amiga.

Lets move on games. Several well known ported games and some origin games utilize graphics acceleration. First game I would mention is Quake, actually BlitzQuake which has been recently optimized and development is still in progress. Sonnet developer modified WarpOS version 5.6 which is very stable and allows  to play Quake mods like Omicron (multiplayer/bot), Malice (total conversion), Hypnotic, QuakeRally, etc… Benchmark used for this game is timedemo demo1 in 320×200 and 640×480. Results below the video:

What a surprise – next in line is Quake2 – well known title released when PC 3D accelerated era just begun and this game was one of first games to take full advantage of this technology. Official Amiga port made by Hyperion works very stable on any Amiga with graphics card based on Permedia2 or Voodoo chipset. Running this game on Sonnet moves the gameplay to another level. Recorded video shows slightly less framerate on Voodoo3 in comparison what I used to see on my Voodoo4. I will check it later, but still 30 fps is good enough.

Lets change a genre and check game called Wipeout 2097. This one was probably the first PowerPC+Warp3D commercial game ever released for Amiga and it was running quite well even on the low-end Blizzards PPC. Wipeout is not just a port PC game. Amiga version features many new options released only for this platform such as changing view distance (clipping), fogging, gamma correction, filtering options, level of details, etc… which can be changed real-time during the gameplay with F1-F10 keys. My problem in that time was lack of graphics board so I could just test the game on my friends Amiga equipped with BVision PPC. Then I forgot about the game completely because I preferred first person shooters and realtime strategy games. Anyway now Wipeout is ported to Sonnet and I think I will give it a try this time because the game runs really very smoothly 30-50 fps.

Heretic 2 is the last game I will demonstrate today. As I mentioned in my previous article part2 I used to play this game on very low-end Blizzard PPC with AGA in SW rendering in about 10-15 fps which would be today absolutely beyond imagination. But hey I was happy in that days and my only problem were the bosses at the end of every level who used lot of magic what took the framerate down to 5 fps. Then it was quite challenging ;o) Anyway with Sonnet version I enjoy absolutely different game. I can even focus on a nice level design, meeting with bosses does not mean framerate handicap now and I can imagine with Sonnet I wouldn’t be so much easily hunted victim in deathmatches.

Maybe you are missing some major game title here and you are right. Games like ADescent, Descent Freespace, Payback, Shogo either does not work well on my setup or they are still not well optimized. Also only few “early” Warp3D demoscene productions work fine (I mean these were mostly programmed during the Permedia2 only era). But things are slowly and surely moving forward and sonnet library has been already updated more then 200 times and author keeps going. One day we may have all PowerUP and WarpOS stuff compatible with Sonnet Crescendo G3/G4 cards just like our Blizzards and Cyberstorms PPC.

OK this is the end for today part. If you think this is all what Sonnet on Amiga can offer you, then you are wrong. What to look forward in 4h episode – you will see emulators in action and some other stuff. Stay tuned stay Powered ;o)

UPDATE:

Some of you were disapointed I did not test higher resolutions then 640×480. Honestly 1024×768 is very unstable with Warp3D and even sometimes 800×600 does graphical glitches (at least on my configuration, cannot say this about others). Anyway I tested 800×600 with BlitzQuake (timerefresh = 57 fps, timedemo demo1 = 29 fps) and Heretic2 (timerefresh = 35 fps).

Now moving to software rendered voxels called Voxelspace from HaagePartner. Its a flyby benchmark where you change various parameters with function keys. I tested 320×240 and 640×480.

First game on my list is Earth 2140 (demoversion). I am a Napalm game fan I love Earth 2140 as well. This game has even a mission pack which means dozens of hours of fun in advance. Game runs with Sonnet quite fine, but still there are some problem with sound and sometimes with performance.

I know guy, who just love playing Doom on every platform it was ported (officially or unofficially). So especially for him I would begin the first person shooter games with ADoom. This game port has been patched from the WarpOS version. When playing ADoom in 320×200 the fps counter shows 35 constantly so to see what is the real framerate we have to run game in timedemo mode. I measure not less then 110 fps. When the framerate in 320×200 is over 100 fps why not to try higher resolutions? Well with Sonnet the ADoom is nicely playable even in 800×600. Hey Mr. Carmack who said Amiga is too weak to port Doom for it? Check this out!

Next game Quake is also from ID Software and for me personally it was a blast when it was firstly ported  to PowerPC. After the terrible experience with Clickboom´s Quake “running” on my 040/33 then with PowerPC version I could finally play the same game in acceptable framerate and fullscreen. Of course on Blizzards PPC I could play it just in 320×200 or 400×300. But G3 has way more power and as you will see in the video below this game is still smooth in 640×480 and even playable in 800×600. Please note this is all software rendered.

Quake evolved to Quake 2. Most of the people knows this game only in accelerated mode, but this game also supports software rendering. Of course 320×200 looks like Minecraft these days, but in higher resolution game looks much better. Lets see how G3/400 fights with software rendering in Quake 2.

When Heretic 2 was released for Amiga it was the most power hungry game of all games ever made for this platform. Our local Amiga club bought one copy of this game and some of us who had already PowerPC equipped Amigas could start enjoying this game. I had the lowest configuration from them (603e/175 MHz + AGA) so I could play this game only on software rendering 320×240. Even though I enjoyed my 10 – 15 fps gameplay including local network deathmatches which we played with others. So how the software rendered game works on Sonnet? Lets check…

OK this is all for today even when there are few more plain 2D games I could show you. You can guess what will come next. YES I will finally show hardware accelerated games and demos, so you can see the power produced by G3 + Voodoo3 in classic Amiga.

• G3@400 MHz (512 kB L2 @ 133 MHz)
• G3@400 MHz (1 MB L2 @ 200 MHz)
• G3@500 MHz (1 MB L2 @ 166 MHz)
• G4@400 MHz (1 MB L2 @ ? MHz)

I was paying attention about this project since the beginning because I was always fan of PowerPC running in Classics. First idea of bringing G3/G4 to Amiga classics came out of phase5 when they announced new G3 and G4 Blizzards and Cyberstorms. But it all ended on the paper and we have never seen even a prototype picture. Then Elbox came out with their Shark PPC which is most probably just Sonnet card dressed with custom passive cooler and it ended somewhere in the software development phase. Where both companies with teams of developers did not succeed only one smart guy moved way further and started to have very good results. This was impulse for me and my friend to start looking for Sonnet cards available on e-shops around the world. Thanks to my friend’s detective abilities we both soon became owners of Sonnet Crescendo 7200 400/512 models which is the lowest of the 7200 model family, but it is absolutely enough anyway.

Before I get to the report of the real Sonnet usage let me quickly describe how this thing works (from the user, not developer perspective). Sonnet card is a PCI card that has own memory (typically 128 MB) and of course own CPU. The best comrade for Sonnet is Voodoo3/4/5 card (Voodoo4 in my case). The other PCI cards are not recommended since they may interrupt the entire symbiosis between CPU and GPU cards. Both cards communicate over the fast PCI BUS using their own memory allocated withing the 512 MB PCI memory space provied by the Mediator and they do not care about the rest of Amiga (well except paula DMA audio). That is why I have no other PCI card used in the Mediator and my Deneb is rather set for Zorro2 mode.

I wont describe installation process or any details. Right now I will just show how this works in my Amiga 4000.

Lets start with some photos of the HW:

Now lets check what is on the screen. Here is pciinfo listing all PCI hardware I have attached:

Whichamiga command shows then the entire hardware configuration:

Getinfo shows some more details about PowerPC:

Syspeed comparing to other Blizzards and Cyberstorms PPC (check also the memory organization):

And some math benchmarks:

In the Part 2 I will continue with Sonnet demonstration this time with more entertaining stuff. Stay tuned…