Sunrise:

Thx for the reply.
Just see my impatients as a positive thing (I 'm really want to see(buy, use, etc) a new MSX. I just wanted to get some feeling for in which stage the development is.

I can imagine that it is a demanding job to run the Sunrise 'business'. You still have spare time?
Please continue the great work!!

Sonic_aka_T and D-Tail:

Implementing R800 in FPGA doesn't mean it is equally fast at the same clockspeed. Or am I wrong?

It should be.

Quote:

It should be.

But R800 compatibility can have an an other implementation then the original design.

See AMD and Intel..and therefore other CPU performance..

Or am I talking B*llSh*t?

Quote:

But R800 compatibility can have an an other implementation then the original design. See AMD and Intel..and therefore other CPU performance.. Or am I talking B*llSh*t?

That's correct.
Basically R800 is a better implementation of the Z80 design. (Plus the added multiply unit ofcourse).
Improving upon the R800 implementation is hard, as it already executes one instruction per clock.

There are 2 ways you can improve the speed:
1. Increase clockfrequency. This needs FAST RAM, as the R800 already uses a few tricks to get the maximum performance out of its (IIRC) 150ns RAM. Any clock increase will need to be coupled with faster RAM. Ofcourse RAM nowadays is as fast as 2ns

2. Make a superscalar implementation, which means executing more than 1 instruction in parallel each clock. This massively complicates the architecture, putting the Z80 on the level of the Intel Pentium, complexity-wise.

About the memory access times... I heard the GT and ST had another type of memory. IIRC the GT memory had a lower access time (not much, about 10ns or so, but still... )

Actually, GT's are normally a bit slower than ST's. It has to do with the refresh period needed for 512K which is higher than with 256K or 1024K(!).

The effective speed of a R800 using 256/1024K is 6.72MHz, while with 512K it is 6.47MHz.

This info comes from a cpu speed utility written by AtoC, a japanese MSX expert.

YAY! I've got the owning Turbo R then A1ST w/256 kB RAM! No memory expansion for me anymore

Hey man, 256 KBytes is quite enough, but 512KBytes or better yet 4MBytes are so much better... Even if GuyveR800 is right about CPU speed, most of the time you will run in Z80 mode, so it's irrelevant...

I dunno about you, but 90% of the time I use my turboR, I'm running in R800 mode.

wasn't there a tool called chgcpu to change it to R800?!

There is, but it'll boot on R800 by default. Unless you're using like DOS1 or old software. What surprised me though, is that a lot of games run just fine in R800 mode.

Quote:

There is, but it'll boot on R800 by default. Unless you're using like DOS1 or old software. What surprised me though, is that a lot of games run just fine in R800 mode.

it does not surprise me at al! Most games are VDP interupt based. So even if you whould have a 1Ghz R800.. Aleste 2 (for instance) whould always play the same on a VDP at 60Hz..

Quote:

Quote: There is, but it'll boot on R800 by default. Unless you're using like DOS1 or old software. What surprised me though, is that a lot of games run just fine in R800 mode. it does not surprise me at al! Most games are VDP interupt based. So even if you whould have a 1Ghz R800.. Aleste 2 (for instance) whould always play the same on a VDP at 60Hz..

Yeah, all konami games are interrupt trigger animation routine.

Indeed you can acelerate a konami game 2 times or faster, with a simply POKE hack.

The best game for speed up, konami's soccer.

Quote:

Why doesn't Sunrise reply on my questions earlier in this thread? Okay, I know that they don't have to anwser but at least they can say:'We can say nothing!' Or not? Or maybe I am just impatient I really hope that there will be an new board with fast CPU, fast(er)VDP and USB. Also a combination with MBIOS would be nice

About the last sentence

you're asking if MNBIOS will to support a new msx hardware.?

The more probably is that MNBIOS will be adapted to that new hardware.

Overall because this OS got the more easy to implement new hardware, I mean "storage hardware". By example the Parallel port for send or receive files of the LPadial can be implemented without any problem just using the same library than LPADIAL already developed (I/O), and all function to the kernel can be used with a little bridge. Without the need to do a complete routines services.

Mounting a new FDC as the PC (1.44 or 2.88), is easy to do, except by the FORMATTING service, 1k or 1k1/2 of code, and ready...

That is the wonderful of the system, using a only one game of routines services for ALL things.

On other hand, the memory management can be adapted to anything.... that mean maybe to delete features if the new msx card not support sub-systems. Is a shame that the hardware enginners not talk or collaborate, is a shame that they don't want to discuss the new standard creation. Overall because, a new mother need new things..... to create the same thing than a msx2 or msx turbo R is a shame when is possible to create a new full hardware compatible standard

Flyguille:

I meant adaptation of MNBIOS for the new MSX-board(s).

I just wanted to make a point that it would be a pitty if your OS/BIOS not will be used by the developers.

I even think that it could boost the hardware development because somebody 'just' has to write a driver for MNBIOS.

Quote: 'Is a shame that the hardware enginners not talk or collaborate, is a shame that they don't want to discuss the new standard creation. Overall because, a new mother need new things..... to create the same thing than a msx2 or msx turbo R is a shame when is possible to create a new full hardware compatible standard'

I agree for 100%, just a new fast MSX2+ is nice (and I probably would buy it) but really need some new things (USB, WLan, etc).

Hmmm...What do you think about a new MSX-board with a v9958+v9990 compatible VDP (FPGA-based and equal performance compared to v9990) and a eZ80 @ 50Mhz as CPU (Multi-CPU extendable so if you need more power add another eZ80-card), USB-interface for example communication with PC devices that could be used on MSX.

And of course a reasonable price....lets say 200-300 euros for the basic system with the above specs and a 50-75 euros for a extra eZ80 card...

Of course we need a OS like MNBIOS capable of fully exploiting a Multi-proc MSX.

Yess...I know...am a dreamer..