(11-09-2021, 04:44 PM)Tyrving Wrote: Happy to help!
I have watched a fair bit of nandland videos, it's a shame he stopped posting frequently - glad to hear the go board is a good product.
Honestly, I don't know a whole lot about this stuff - I just purge the spammers, approve posts, and answer the questions I can. I can't say I have noticed any retro gaming posts on any of the three boards as of yet. Most of the posts are concerning hardware/software issues, but if you want to check out the "show and tell" category in the forum, you might find something (a brief search for SNES returned only this thread, I think you are out of luck).
I know there is an (incomplete) GPU tutorial, where Justin walks you through designing a GPU to render a 3d model, and send that to a little display over some non-consumer-grade protocol, directly wired to an Au. Probably not super helpful, just putting that on your radar. I think the HDMI element has been "coming soon" for quite a while now, so hopefully it will be released soon. Justin, if you read this - any updates?
As for the amount of RAM in the FPGA's-
As I'm sure you know, the Au+ is EXPENSIVE - see if you can make use of the 256mb of DDR3 on the Au - which you probably already know about, but I dont want you to spend another $200 on the Au+ just to realize it is complete overkill. I understand you can also get another 400Kb of distributed ram out of the Au, should that be useful. Souce: https://www.xilinx.com/content/dam/xilin...-guide.pdf
Based on Wikipedia, the SNES has a total of 192KB of RAM (128 general purpose, 64 audio + video) - although the SNES's CPU runs an order of magnitude faster than the Au clock. As you know your project (and FPGA's) better than I do, I won't make any claims as to whether a product I do not fully understand will suit your needs - but the numbers you found appear correct based on my reading of the Xilinx datasheets.
This sounds like a super cool project - I would love it if you kept me and the forum updated on any progress!
Mark
Hi Mark, thx so much for your extensive answer and information.
I appriciate it a lot
I am puzzled by two things concerning RAM and one thing consering clock speeds, perhaps you (or someone of the community) can help me out (one more time
)?The Amiga System (the most demanding core I want to 'emulate') uses 512KB RAM,
So to run games I need to have direct access to 512KB RAM or more.
My initials thought was to use the Xilinx Artix 7 XCA7A100T (135 x 36kB = 4860 kb = 607,5 KB Block RAM) as the heart of my handheld system (a nice but expensive handheld system
) My 3 questions are:1.) The XCA7A100T has a 1188 Kb (= 148,5KB) Maximum Distributed RAM, is this a problem for me since the Amiga core nees 512KB at once?
2.) If I choose the AU board (way more wallet fiendly, but: Xilinx Artix 7 XC7A35T > 50x 36Kb = 1800 Kb = 225 KB Block RAM); how can I 'transfer' or make use of the DDR3 memory (where there is plenty off) for direct access for the FPGA, so the Amiga Core sees this as 512KB+ RAM?
3.) Is it possible to work with custom clock speed / crystals with for example the BR expansion board? thus 'emulating' the 4 different cores at their right speed?
Cheers, Jeroen