Commodore 64 Graphics Accelerator - Beam Racer

[@egumit]

Pricing ?

[@CityXen]

beamracer.net has them for 124 euros

[@gertachimrenel595]

As usual, much to expensive.

[@tonibianchetti]

The fact that raster effects remain on screen after freezing with the the Ultimate demonstrates how the new copper-like feature remains active once programmed even when the CPU (and VICII) do other jobs. Marvellous. Still, the jaw dropping demos are yet to come. Looking forward!

[@CityXen]

Absolutely, can't wait to see this being put to the test.

[@bravestbullfighter]

They need to release a full on demo or game to demonstrate its full capabilities. The short demos so far are rather unimpressive considering the relatively high price.

[@silverdr]

You are right. Just bear in mind that those are simplified programmers' _examples_, not "demos" (in the demoscene meaning of the word) meant to show how to program this or that feature. How to create this or that synthetic display mode, etc. As such - they are highly limited and can be neither complex nor visually expressive. True demos are in the works though.

[@75slaine]

Looking forward to what mad cap experiments you come up with for this. 1 Cityxen 1 Channel !! CityXen rulez, all else dr00lz

[@CityXen]

We hear you loud and clear. From all the feedback we've seen it is unanimous, the only thing that will change is that THE channel will have more content in the future!

[@nevilovermann797]

Djises, that music is nightmarefuel.

[@CityXen]

Intro, first background music and outro are Amiga PT mods by Mygg. His soundcloud is listed in the description. We made sure to get permission before using them. The last two background music are Amiga PT mods by our very own Deadline of CityXen, and you can find those on the channel here. There are links to download those mods on the videos. The patron music is from the free audio KZbin library, it is called Dorris Day by DJ Williams. Sweet dreams!

[@nevilovermann797]

@@CityXen Thank you ! :D

[@christophermccann1218]

I think you meant to say the *_GIF_* on the webpage, not "gahiff".

[@CityXen]

Oh no, I intentionally did it for comments. Thanks! 🙏

[@Breakfast_of_Champions]

What are the announced specs? Does it run Crysis?

[@ericanderson85]

It has been confirmed to run Crysis.

[@10MARC]

Interesting new add on. It would be cool to have an FPGA replacement for dead VIC-II chips. I wonder if that is possible...

[@CityXen]

No doubt that would be very cool indeed to have that option

[@r3rossi]

Check out kzbin.info/www/bejne/n5W4l4uXnJ2jh9E . I started a project for a drop in replacement for the VIC-II and am posting updates on its progress.

[@rwxdesigns]

There is, it's called Kawari. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y2WtZHiEfaiCftE

[@Nightshft42]

Very cool! I hope this archieves success!

[@CityXen]

Sadly, it is probably too niche of a product to ever be popular. It really is dependent on software developers to adopt it and write software. For these reasons it will most likely always be a novelty. It would be cool to see some software that makes use of it though.

[@TheHighlander71]

Dangit, it's super cool to see what you can do with an fpga. Very nice.

[@CityXen]

It really is!

[@hayesmaker64]

struggled to get my beam racer to fit securely into the spacer on mine (using breadbin).. even with much force it wouldnt go in, and in the end i broke a leg on the Spacer that came with the beam racer - gotta order a new one :(

[@CityXen]

Bummerville... Well at least a socket like that doesn't cost a whole lot

[@hayesmaker64]

@@CityXen did yours fit with no problem? I don't understand what the problem was with mine

[@CityXen]

@@hayesmaker64 it did take a bit of force to get it in there, was a very snug fit. It seemed like it kept wanting to pop out, but eventually it fit in there nice and snug. In fact at first was a bit concerned, but it did work.

[@Sinistar1983]

Could this in theory run pal games/demos because if the graphics can be offset, then it may allow for code to be compiled quicker.

[@CityXen]

Not sure about that. You'd have to ask the beam racer team.

[@Sinistar1983]

@@CityXen thanks anyways, have a fantastic night

[@joecan]

Doesn't that cpld have enough muscle to completely replace a vic-2?

[@CityXen]

And the rest! ha ha

[@Plan-C]

Love it ... AND absolutely LOVE the music!

[@deadlinecxn]

This is such a cool product, it's too bad they aren't a lot of them around or folks aren't making software that takes full advantage of it.

[@dr.ignacioglez.9677]

I REALLY LOVE C64 👍🥂🎩

[@stephenwalters4798]

Now what would be really cool is a device like this for the vic-20 and another for the c16 and plus4.

[@CityXen]

I think it would be great if some of this kind of tech would be made to make straight up VIC chip replacements without any of the zoom zoom. Everything else is readily available except for these.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

or one that could do the TED chip's video modes from the C16/Plus4 and also emulate the various 80-column mode solutions for the C64, all on the C64...

[@ZXSpectrum128K]

Have you seen the doom running through a raspberry pie for the c64 be nice if it could be combined with beam racer or 80 column 256 colours n super cpu!

[@CityXen]

Haven't seen that one yet. Some folks do love to port the Doom to all manner of strange mechanisms. The Beam Racer is pretty cool, it's a shame that there isn't much software for it other than the included demos. To that point, not many folks have one. So it's really more of a novelty than a practical piece of kit. It might be really cool to get this thing to work with GEOS somehow to have accelerated graphics. Not sure if GEOS has provisions for "graphic drivers" or not though. Probably not. I don't think the developers of the C64 or software for it were thinking or planning abstraction layers. It would be also cool if the new C64OS could somehow make use of the accelerated features somehow. The possibilities are numerous, nonetheless.

[@ZXSpectrum128K]

@CityXen what modes are offered full tech specs anywhere?

[@ZXSpectrum128K]

@CityXen kzbin.info/www/bejne/qouUoaSqiqaqa9Esi=xGXZEKD2IbFqlZN0

[@NickFellows]

I've registered my interest in for the next batch of these. Are there any options for developing for it via VICE or something else ?

[@CityXen]

We didn't make this, just so you know. They do have a forum, and in there is some discussion and images of them getting it to work in Kernal64 emulator. I am sure it is just a matter of time before someone adds it into Vice.

[@ChadDoebelin]

New subscriber! Checking out your channel, I haven't seen the beamracer yet, very cool!

[@CityXen]

It is a pretty cool and novel thing to play with.

[@MMSZoli]

Well, frankly speaking, after so many efforts to add complex circuitry, create a copper-life speedup, and Lumafix pro, something extra useful could came into picture: 80 or 64 character more for easier programming, or even a C65 compatible fast hires mode for GUIs. with it's own memory, could it be a problem? Maybe, but this is how PC Video cards work

[@CityXen]

It's pretty neat, not much widespread software for it unfortunately.

[@silverdr]

BTW - to make things more "kosher", the chip, which lies at BeamRacer's core is marketed as a CPLD rather than an FPGA :-)

[@CityXen]

Thanks for the schooling! I can understand purists wanting to keep things stock, but for some of us, tricking out old machines is very cool and analogous to hot rodding old cars to get under 5 seconds on the strip, NHRA style. The best part is, it will allow you to "drive on the street" with old games with the way it doesn't interfere with the C64 operations.

[@silverdr]

@@CityXen Absolutely!

[@robert8192]

with all the add-ons to the C64, I imagined a new one because of this one.. You could devise a new BASIC rom.. maybe 55-60K with all new features added in.. for VIDEO using this add on.. and of course SOUND.. You could make one hell of a great basic.. Then using a BASIC COMPILER, your game could be encoded over to pure assembly.. WOW would that be a neat system.

[@CityXen]

That would be very interesting to see!

[@ssdravidian]

So more colors, more pixels, more sprites ? What’s the story ?

[@CityXen]

I don't think it does those things, think of it more like you can create more advanced copper lists, and load in bitmap graphics into it's 512k onboard RAM for instant access. Much like an nvidia card for PCs where it loads in textures so the CPU doesn't have to deal with it. It would be perfect for a new type of GEOS or super cool demos. Their website details all of the things it can do in the documentation section, and the example programs don't seem to cover everything it can do. The VBASIC that it comes with is pretty cool too.

[@ssdravidian]

@@CityXen So basically a coprocessor to offload the 6510. so no more wait states?

[@Sinistar1983]

@@ssdravidian theoretically so, if the kernel wasn't so slow. You could achieve high data transfer rates at super efficiency.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

@@CityXen so, do those features stay inactive unless there are specific program calls made to it? otherwise, it would potentially mess up graphics on a computer platform whose [unified] custom graphics chips didn't really have their own dedicated RAM to use and also alternated CPU cycles. [whether we're talking the C64's VIC-II or the A8's ANTIC/GTIA]...

[@CityXen]

@@TheJeremyHolloway The way it works is, it powers up inactive. The cpld then monitors a vic register. In your software you actually have to write a string of bytes to that register in a specific order, and then it activates the device. If the software doesn't do this, then it will behave as if the beamracer doesn't even exist. I'm not sure off the top of my head, but it is in the documentation and wiki.

[@TheSulross]

Hmm, needs to be hacked to work with Tandy CoCo or the Dragon so could be programmed using the superior Motorola 6809 (or even the Hitachi 6803) - as a Dr. Frankenstein's mashup retro computer, that would be a blast!

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

Don't forget the Vectrex. That also used a 6809. A few years ago, there was a CoCo III fan who added a 6809 to Atari 8-bits to prove that its custom chips would perform much better with the 6809 than the 6502 although if I remember correctly, his main aim was getting MicroWare OS-9 working on the Atari 8-bits.

[@pjcnet]

The whole point of retro gaming is the nostalgia of using historical tech, also there's the challenge for clever programmers to scrape every last drop out of the original hardware and we've seen some incredible more modern games and demos. Upgrading to modern hardware in any way beyond just storage capacity and loading speed in my opinion completely destroys the whole point, it's not real Commodore 64 any more once you use a modern graphics accelerator and anything impressive you see using that is just cheating, but each to their own.

[@CityXen]

@@pjcnet that certainly is one point of view. Thanks for sharing that. Some people like to play with them and do weird interfaces and such, such as this card. We do not begrudge any of that, and you shouldn't either. After all, the end life of the machine was decades ago. Why hate on folks that just want to experiment with the cpld/fpga stuff? Endless possibilities really. Why do people modify old cars from years gone by? Why not?

[@pjcnet]

@@CityXen Old cars are a bit different, but personally I'd still rather have the original vehicle as it was, as I said however, each to their own.

[@CityXen]

@pjcnet cars are a bit different, but to the point, some folks like to mod older things with new tech. It's called retrofitting.

[@NealioSir]

That background audio in this video is just annoying. Not nostalgic, just annoying.

[@CityXen]

Thanks for the update

[@AndersLercheFX]

What a horrible music!

[@CityXen]

No, it's good

[@SocrateTheCat]

Even if technically it's great. This type of hardware breaks the standards and what makes the strength of the c64. How many programs will use this hardware? It will be for a minority audience. And who says minority unfortunately says oblivion.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

As long it's active gamers, it could thrive. Look at what the Super Game Module is doing for the Colecovision for its active fan base currently.

[@SocrateTheCat]

@@TheJeremyHolloway Have you seen the Commodore 64's software library compare to that of the Colecovision? We aren't going to readjust everything for this hardware. Anything that breaks a standard of an existing machine will have little or no success, even if it's great. Just look at the past.