True 16MHz Mode

[dhedberg]

Congratulations! This is pretty awesome! Impressive work!

[mikro]

I wanted to ask earlier but seeing the Falcon numbers made me nearly sure... don't you find that 1000% blitting increase suspicious? Now, compared to the Falcon, it's just a little over 100% (what I find believable) but what I certainly don't find believable is that Falcon has a 1000% faster Blitter than plain ST. (as the new Blitter has around 1150% speed increase against plain ST)

[exxos]

I wanted to ask earlier but seeing the Falcon numbers made me nearly sure... don't you find that 1000% blitting increase suspicious?

No why ? It runs double the speed of a ST with blitter as expected. If you watching the video you can clearly see its running way faster than a ST with blitter (8MHz) .

Now, compared to the Falcon, it's just a little over 100% (what I find believable) but what I certainly don't find believable is that Falcon has a 1000% faster Blitter than plain ST. (as the new Blitter has around 1150% speed increase against plain ST)

A plain ST doesn't have a blitter, so the Falcon will be around 1000% faster than a ST on blittering because the ST doesn't have a blitter.

When blitter is added, you get around 650% increase in block copying. That's the whole point in the blitter, fast block copy. The CPU takes a lot of cycles to access RAM, the blitter does not, so you get huge speed gains of around 650%. Any benchmarks will show this. You can also confirm this with franks blitter demo where the CPU only manages something like 3 bobs, the blitter more like 20 ( I don't know exacts off hand, but go try it out).

In terms of ST with blitter at 16MHz , is basically the same as a 16MHz blitter on the falcon. Benchmarks show they are about the same as expected.. around 100% for both. A 16MHz ST with blitter runs at 1000%. A ST 8MHz with blitter runs at 650%.

So I don't really get the confusion ?

[mikro]

So I don't really get the confusion ?

Oh, now I get it. I totally overlooked the fact that the reference ST doesn't have a Blitter! Thank you for the detailed explanation.

[exxos]

This is the Alpha mod board. As before, USA (or anyone really) may want to order these from OSH themselves...

I will be ordering some myself (can put some in my store) but its not worth USA guys paying postage just for this board..

16mhzAM.zip

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[PhilC]

But how good does the Frontier demo look?

[PaulJ]

Thanks Exxos.. So Is the issue with a normal STF just the dynamic memory.. Since it appears that the memory controller can run at the higher speed I'm wondering if a stf could be accelerated if it has Exxos's memory upgrade using the sim?

[kodak80]

This is the Alpha mod board. As before, USA (or anyone really) may want to order these from OSH themselves...

I will be ordering some myself (can put some in my store) but its not worth USA guys paying postage just for this board..


16mhzAM.zip

I am looking to order this board from OSH but was wondering if the blue gnd track in the image is supposed to be connected? I see the bottom has a GND fill, but this track seems odd?

16mhz-gnd.png (4.99 KiB) Viewed 5808 times

[exxos]

I am looking to order this board from OSH but was wondering if the blue gnd track in the image is supposed to be connected? I see the bottom has a GND fill, but this track seems odd?

Was probably just there while I hooked the via up to gnd or something thats all. The gnd fill gets rid of it anyway..

I do similar on loads of stuff like the remake board...

Its just making sure stuff goes where I want how I want.. and a "note" not to run any tracks over the signal on that layer as its a important trace not to chop up...

6.jpg (34.51 KiB) Viewed 5801 times

[kodak80]

OK, thanks for confirming. Will get these ordered from OSH and then wait for them to arrive.