18.Aug.2025
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FPGA: Apollo core 11k
The Apollo Core is an FPGA reimplementation of Motorola's m68k series, which also includes its own graphics output called Super-AGA. The current version 11k can be installed in all models of the V4 series. Read the official press release:
Hello Amiga and Vampire fans
The new Core Release 11K is finished and ready for you.
One year development time went into this Core release.
What does it bring you?
- Compatibility with a number of games has been improved
- The CRT like display of old Amiga games got nicer, making the game look even more authentic now.
- The built-in deinterlacer/flicker fixer has been improved so that you can use old games or applications that used interlaced modes
- For improved compatibility with old games, the CPU speed can now be set in 4 stages: A2000 speed, A1200+ speed, A4000 speed, full throttle.
- The FPU (floating point unit) has been improved / compatibility has been increased
- Some FPU commands like FADD / FSQRT have been accelerated
- The CPU has become more powerful - this is very noticeable in demanding tasks such as video playback or demanding games like Robin Hood.
- Maggie 3D texture mapping has been significantly improved.
- Maggie has become much faster,
- and Maggie also supports more features and alpha blending modes.
- We added new screenmodes.
- System Super-AGA DMA was upgraded to do 256 Bit bursts
ROM Improvements
- The ROM includes a debugger like "actionreplay" this is very useful for coding or for hacking games.
- The built-in drivers can now also boot from the SD port (not just from CF).
- Users can now save their preferred settings for SAGA or CRT mode in the software acceleration settings – no more cumbersome jumpers required.
- IDE drivers support now CDrom, and several drives in connected.
- IDE drivers support also several controllers, e.g. IDE on A600 mainbaord + IDE on Manticore.
This release includes a great many improvements and over a year of work.
In my opinion, this is the absolute best core.
The new cores work very good together with APOLLO-OS distro 9.5.
If you want to install your own OS version, or continue to run older release - please mind that you need to update some tools/drivers.
We improved the way IDE drivers are loaded.
This change does require that you update APOLLOMAP and APOLLOFLASH tool!
In general I would recommend to either use APOLLO-OS 9.5, or if you run anything else to update the whole SAGA-Driver package.
Please note that the Accelerators Cards not need a jumper anymore for selecting Super-AGA /CRT mode. They will per default run in Super-AGA mode and you can by software set them in the mode you want. We will publish a tool maybe with gui for this soon.
Please remove the jumper! If you dont want to run them in Super-AGA mode, please wait with the update for the tool the coming days. (dr)
[News message: 18. Aug. 2025, 16:49] [Comments: 0]
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