TF530 as MD 68030 turbocard?

For hardware talk only (please avoid ROM dumper stuff)
Post Reply
Matej
Very interested
Posts: 62
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 12:48 pm

TF530 as MD 68030 turbocard?

Post by Matej » Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:48 pm

With latest demoscene production there is sense using Amiga/Atari turbocards inside our Sega MD/Genny...
Here is Terrible Fire TF530 turbocard.It works on Amiga also on Atari ST too.It is opensource...

GitHub
https://github.com/terriblefire/tf530?files=1

Picture
Image

Specs:
68030 cpu 40mhz possible
Fpu
2mb ram
Ide for CF

Now imagine that 3d demos, games or using fpu for realtime synth/samples generation on pcm channel...

Can we adapt it for Sega too?
Price is good 70-100USD.

TmEE co.(TM)
Very interested
Posts: 2440
Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:37 pm
Location: Estonia, Rapla City
Contact:

Re: TF530 as MD 68030 turbocard?

Post by TmEE co.(TM) » Mon Oct 09, 2017 2:51 pm

I have doubts it remains compatible enough with existing games and whatnot. Even 68010 breaks a lot of games.
Mida sa loed ? Nagunii aru ei saa ;)
http://www.tmeeco.eu
Files of all broken links and images of mine are found here : http://www.tmeeco.eu/FileDen

Sik
Very interested
Posts: 939
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 3:03 pm
Contact:

Re: TF530 as MD 68030 turbocard?

Post by Sik » Mon Oct 09, 2017 4:35 pm

Even overclocking the 68000 is enough to break a lot of things.

Also you won't gain that much with speeding up the CPU aside from software rendering, because the VDP can't keep up with a much faster CPU (I think the limit is a 68000 at 10MHz, anything that can use the bus faster than it will break the VDP). We can easily replace RAM but we can't replace the VDP.

Probably the best you'll be able to get is a 68000 with different microcode like this one, which has faster multiplication and such but uses exactly the same bus cycles (it also means it's still horribly slow at memory access which tends to be the biggest blocker in software rendering):
https://dcd.pl/ipcores/61/
Sik is pronounced as "seek", not as "sick".

Matej
Very interested
Posts: 62
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 12:48 pm

Re: TF530 as MD 68030 turbocard?

Post by Matej » Wed Nov 01, 2017 6:49 pm

You dont need compatibility for demoscene...Or 3d homebrew games...So special VDP in FPGA with more MHz?Maybe with hires modes and truecolor and simple 3d gpu...

Yukiko
Interested
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Nov 18, 2017 9:33 am

Re: TF530 as MD 68030 turbocard?

Post by Yukiko » Wed Jan 10, 2018 3:01 am

There is also the Wicher 500i Ex Accelerator.

CPU: MC68000
Max. clock: 50MHz
RAM: 1-8 MB SIMM 72 (FPM,EDO)
IDE controller
SPI controller

I want to try it out. Probably will be a bit expensive.

Chilly Willy
Very interested
Posts: 2984
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2007 9:33 pm

Re: TF530 as MD 68030 turbocard?

Post by Chilly Willy » Wed Jan 10, 2018 3:42 pm

Matej wrote:
Wed Nov 01, 2017 6:49 pm
You dont need compatibility for demoscene...Or 3d homebrew games...So special VDP in FPGA with more MHz?Maybe with hires modes and truecolor and simple 3d gpu...
Put wait states on VDP accesses, and anything else that doesn't like to go fast. Have 1 or 2 MB of local ram at full speed for best performance.

Sik
Very interested
Posts: 939
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 3:03 pm
Contact:

Re: TF530 as MD 68030 turbocard?

Post by Sik » Wed Jan 10, 2018 11:28 pm

I recall Jorge once bringing up that the VDP can happily take the 68000 running at MClk/2, but the surrounding components need to be changed to cope with it (and also faster RAM).

Would be interesting to see what a ~26MHz 68000 could do.
Sik is pronounced as "seek", not as "sick".

Chilly Willy
Very interested
Posts: 2984
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2007 9:33 pm

Re: TF530 as MD 68030 turbocard?

Post by Chilly Willy » Thu Jan 11, 2018 4:40 pm

Sik wrote:
Wed Jan 10, 2018 11:28 pm
Would be interesting to see what a ~26MHz 68000 could do.
Or ColdFire at 260 MHz. :twisted:

Sik
Very interested
Posts: 939
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 3:03 pm
Contact:

Re: TF530 as MD 68030 turbocard?

Post by Sik » Fri Jan 12, 2018 11:51 am

ColdFire lacks a lot of instructions though, and the ones that remain aren't even encoded the same way from what I gather =/ May as well throw in a 2GHz ARM CPU instead.
Sik is pronounced as "seek", not as "sick".

Chilly Willy
Very interested
Posts: 2984
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2007 9:33 pm

Re: TF530 as MD 68030 turbocard?

Post by Chilly Willy » Fri Jan 12, 2018 4:49 pm

Sik wrote:
Fri Jan 12, 2018 11:51 am
ColdFire lacks a lot of instructions though, and the ones that remain aren't even encoded the same way from what I gather =/ May as well throw in a 2GHz ARM CPU instead.
The CF68KLib allows most ColdFire processors to run 68k code; it supports 68000, 68020, 68030, 68EC040, 68EC060, CPU32, and CPU32+ instructions, though no FPU or MMU instructions. This would slow 68k code compared to native, but it would still blow a 680x0 of any variety out of the water. There have been ColdFire accelerators made for the Atari ST and Amiga that take advantage of this.

Post Reply