There has been an active initative at getting some PCI cards with PPC CPUs working on Amiga systems as old school PPC cards on PCI enabled big box Amiga computer. That means it is possible to run WarpUp PPC software on Amiga with modern PPC hardware. What is old is new again!
I have been following this project with some interest from time to time but never pulled the trigger to get the relevant hardware to get a setup going.
Partly it was because I was swamped with Amiga hardware projects, partly because PPC on 68k Amigas was not really that relevant anymore – unlike yesterday when it was the next logical step for the Amiga to evolve to. Secondly, I could not wrap my head around how to set it up or where to find an affordable card.
But times change and I reconsidered that last opinion about it not being relevant when I skimmed through the supported applications a year or so ago.
Emerson-Motorola PrPMC8005E PPC card
One supported PPC card by the initative to get PPC working on PCI Amigas is the Emerson-Motorola PrPMC8005E that I was lucky to be able to pick up for a very reasonable sum on Ebay. All I needed now was a weekend to get the this insane setup going.
The PrPMC8005E-2261 contains a 450 MHz MPC7410 G4 PPC CPU and 128 MB memory. It is a PMC card and fits a PCI card that acts as a PMC carrier on the Amiga.
Originally this CPU card is not meant to be used on an Amigas at all, I think the main use is in industrial applications and in telecommunication, but exactly how and why – No idea!
Before I continue, lets look at some previous Amiga PPC setups I toyed around with a few years ago.
Previous Amiga PPC setups, time flies…
This was a top of the line Phase 5 turbo board that I got when I purchased an Amiga 4000D second hand in 2007. This was the top model from Phase 5 that had a 233Mhz PPC chip and a 68060 68k CPU. I had a CVPPC graphics card for it and was running SCSI with a 10k HDD that sounded like a jet once spun up. It was a fast setup but was highly complex in setting up. It was also noisy and hot running. I remember I spent a few days trying to get it going before being successful. I think I paid 400 euros for the complete system.
Here is another Phase 5 turbo card, it is the Phase 5 BlizzardPPC, I remember that it had a 68040 68k CPU and a PPC clocked at 200Mhz (I think). I have forgotten where I got this card from, I guess it was in a bundle, possibly with an Amiga 1200 tower, I had the BlizzardVision graphics card for it too.
Here is my Amiga 4000D setup from 2007 with the CyberStormPPC installed. Not much has changed with today really, just the shape of the hardware and the amount of machines.
I got AmigaOS4 for classic PPC system and installed that on the computer above. Then I played around with some software in 68k Workbench, but no matter how I twisted and turned things I felt like I had expensive hardware that I used too little and just heated up the Amiga 4000 too much – So I sold it all!
…and now I am back (never sell stuff).
PMC PPC PCI carrier board
So to use the PMC PPC card above on the Amiga you have to add it to a PMC carrier that slots into a PCI slot. This version of the PMC carrier was made by a friend in the hobby that I met on a Discord channel we frequently visit. It has a small 5v 40 mm fan to cool the PPC card that sits under it.
The Emerson-Motorola PrPMC8005E PPC PMC card is mounted to the PMC carrier board. As you see it is a perfect fit. The 3D printed bracket has holes for ventilation.
As you can see, the card is really slim even though its a sandwich. The CPU on the PPC card sits under the heatsink on the left side.
Installing the PPC card in Amiga 4000D
My Amiga 4000D has a Firebird PCI daughter board installed. The PPC card is inserted in the top PCI slot. The card under the PPC card is a normal PC 3DFX Voodoo 3 card, without it the PPC card wont work.
The Voodoo 3 graphics card is the AGP version, that is why the bracket is not flush with the case as there is an adaptor that converts AGP to PCI and takes up some space. Bottom slot contains a Multifix-AGA scandoubler.
My original plan was to use a 3DFX Voodoo 4 card but my Voodoo 4 failed to work in my setup in combination with the PPC card for some reason. Thus so I chosed a Voodoo 3 instead that is better supported on the Amiga.
Here is the setup from the top. Even with active cooling this is a really hot running setup, no joke. The 3DFX Voodoo 3 graphics card gets very hot. I wont be running long sessions with the lid on (if at all) and will possibly move the PPC/3DFX setup to a tower setup in the future to enable better cooling if possible.
To run the A4000D/PPC/Voodoo 3 setup reliably with the case closed would take some extreme cooling mods and cooling improvements to the A4000D case. Not sure how to or if I want to chop up this 350 euro replica case to enable more fans, but clearly something has to be improved if this is the way forward.
Problems with running PPC based Warp 3D software
As is de-rigeur when dealing with Amiga hardware something has to be weird and strange, unexplainable or simply illogical or based on an error or fault that can not be guessed by mere mortals (or it might be me who f”d up when building something in this Amiga).
In this case everything worked fine, including PPC programs, except Warp3D enabled PPC programs that crashed the system – All the time.
68k Warp3D applications worked fine. Non Warp3D PPC applications also ran fine. It was just PPC Warp3D applications that failed to run.
Can you guess how I fixed it? -By not running power to the Molex connector on the Firebird.
- With the Molex connected, crashes.
- With no Molex connected to Firebird, could run PPC GLQuake all day happily. Why? -No idea.
Some demo PPC software on the Amiga
PPC was thought of as the next generation CPU for the Amiga. It was logical because both PPC and 68k was made by Motorola and 68k was not developed anymore. Motorola was not Intel which was considered Wintel and was lame and dumb.
It was a different time back then and it was much more fanatical, had they chosed ARM or Intel for the Amiga in the middle of the 90ies then probably half the user base would have left the Amiga community in disgust. Even if it could have been better.
I still remember a guy on an IRC channel who wanted to #%&& Collas for 4-5 hours straight in a channel when Collas had said that the next gen Amiga would be based on Linux back in 1999.
In hindsight PPC was maybe not the right choice, but who knew it back then. What everyone wanted was the OS, Workbench, to be fully ported to PPC.
That eventually happened with AmigaOS4 around 2006 for owners of a Phase 5 PPC accelerators. Using AmigaOS4 classic was nice but limited as it only supported system friendly software, understandable as it is just like AmigaOS4 for next gen hardware.
Thus for most PPC owners, they still run Workbench on 68k CPU while the PPC CPU is just sort of a co-processor that runs PPC applications launched from the 68k Workbench when needed.
But that does not mean there are no interesting PPC software to run. You wont see them here today though as I was just trying my PPC card out with some standard software such as:
Warp3D Gears demo
This is just a demo to check that Warp3D and PPC is working. Imagine the gear spinning around very smoothly. There is a 68k executable too, that is great stuff if one want to compare performance between PPC and 060.
WarpUp Voxelspace
This is another PPC demo, the Voxelspace demo where you can travel around a voxel landscape. Hit F1 to render the voxel landscape with 060 or PPC and see the impressive speed up with it running on the PPC CPU.
PPC GLQuake
Off course, the raison d’être for having hi-end Amiga systems – trying out Quake on it for 15 seconds and then doing something else.
Links
Here are some links about PPC on the Amiga: