Vampire 2 Review - The Fastest Amiga Ever?!

The Vampire 2 is an incredibly fast FPGA accelerator for the Commodore Amiga 600, pushing it to speeds and power far beyond what was previously possible. But how good is it, and what can it do?
Vampire 2 websites: www.apollo-accelerators.com/
www.kipper2k.com/accel600.html
My retro gaming podcast: theretrohour.com
My Facebook: / kookytech.net
My Twitter: / danwood_uk
My Website: kookytech.net

[@mariuszfuchs2010]

Amiga was my first computer in 1988 I was so impressed with performance and software can do. Shame that lost behind competitors. But still have the lovers. VIVA AMIGA

[@olboe2008]

Awesome hardware. Amiga was a big part of my past as I was the Action Replay developer

[@JesusisJesus]

You must have God-like powers. You developed the Action Replay?

[@steve24822]

Olaf Boehm I have an action replay card for the commodore 64. Very cool.

[@IntrinsicPalomides]

I had ARs for my C64s and Amigas. I actually blew my SID chip on the C64 as i plugged the AR in while it was running as i didn't wanna start loading the game again lol.

[@chocobillysranch9205]

Was the Action replay developed on the Amiga?

[@olboe2008]

@@chocobillysranch9205 AR Amiga was developed on Amiga

[@justinholmes5614]

Superb review ! Once I finish tinkering with my A1200 setup, I'm after a vampire and a 600 for my self. AGA support has me sold. The 600 was the machine I had as a boy. My Dad got one for the kids to keep our sticky fingers off his 1200 :)

[@belstar1128]

Now the amiga port of outrun will finally be playable.

[@SammYLightfooD]

The EAB thread of the cannonball engine brought me here! =P

[@philiprowney]

I PM'd and 're-sold' a palette of 20 A500's, one was dead, one had no voltage to RF. The other 18 sold on for £200 a pop. When you go to work one working as a field service Engineer and find they are selling everything one Monday morning, you think on your feet. My bro was working for a company in East Anglia that feel on it's sword. I took RF'less 500 + Philips CM8833, got an A590 +2Mb +20MB Connor drive + 1/4 tape drive on SCSI box [ KNOWS TAR very well ;0) ] and started writing 100% portable UNIX code. I ended up a coder because of this machine. The g/f used to call it 'the wife'. Great work Konrad :0D

[@evoblade2000]

I love the pure joy in your voice, Dan.

[@TYNEPUNK]

Exactly what I have been waiting for, what a video, perfect! Cheers mate!

[@ChipsHandonJr]

Damn. Would love to see how the Vampire does in 3D rendering. I used to do 3D animations on my 600HD back in the day, this card would have made things a lot easier.

[@DLiberator78]

Thanks for uploading this Dan, as a lifelong Amiga fan it is great to see people still developing hardware and software for it. The Vampire 2 chip looks amazing and really pushes the hardware way above it's original design. Unfortunately I don't have an Amiga A600 but I do have 2 x A1200 so I look forward to a A1200 Vampire being released some time in the future.

[@Ichinin]

I remember when the 68060 accellerator card was released for the Amiga 4000, it was the worlds fastest Macintosh for a while :) Would have been nice to see some rendering in Real 3D or Imagine.

[@MrDaveP75]

When I heard you mention this on your podcast I wasn't interested but having watched this comprehensive tutorial I'm a lot more sold on it. Thanks.

[@P5ychoFox]

I've played Gloom on CD32 but seeing it through the Vampire 2 was something else. Very impressive. Great video.

[@jacobware1912]

I love the Amiga 600, especially with all of the upgrades readily available and still being produced

[@EvilDreamcaster]

Gaaah I just gave my Amiga 600 away, still I really enjoy these quirky videos from the amiga-age. Keep up the good work Dan.

[@justgreatideas]

Brilliant development I will be ordering one and watching progress with the same excitement! Keep us updated great video

[@CrashMidnick]

Thanks for the review and good choice for the games !! Keep going mate, your videos are perfect !

[@paulisthebest3uk]

OMFG at the DHRYSTONES speed test result in SYSINFO. I almost fell out of my chair when i seen it! Wow

[@iggienator]

I think FPGA chips are a great deal for the future of retro imitation/recreation. Imagine a all in one System for the living room with original and up to date features at the same time...

[@MrYendor65]

My first computer was a TI99/4a My second was a Commodore 64. I've always wanted a Amiga but was just to poor to get one but I always followed there progress. Now we're in the 21st century and I still love Amiga! I never got to own one but now times has changed. I have the fastest gaming processor today (8700k) and the best graphics card. (1080 ti). Loved the video, took me back to the days when I longed for one. Thanks for sharing this video!

[@DogsBAwesome]

Anyone who can program an FPGA gets's my respect.

[@kingsknightuk]

subbed!!! just bought a A600 off ebay because of this video and pre order myself one a Vampire 2 card! Thanks for the video!!

[@kipper2k]

Awesome video, as a sidenote and updating the news a little bit, the A600 is now not the fastest... The A500 is now the fastest due to the new IDE implementation. The Vampire 500 is achieving IDE (CF card) reads of up to 11.5MB/sec which is 4 times faster than a standard a600/a1200. As we progress we are trying to improve so hopefully the specs will improve accordingly.. (i really don't understand the thumbs down you received, was it something you said ??... Kipper2k

[@kneehighspy]

excellent review as usual Dan. keep up the great reviews.

[@JorgeRosa]

- I had an ZX Spectrum 48K, then an Timex Sinclair 2068, then an Atari 130XE, then an Amiga 600, then an Amiga 1200 AGA across that years. - And since my friends had all the other "dream" machines, like the Commodore 64, Amiga 500, Atari 600XL, Atari 520ST, Atari 1024FM, Amiga 4000, etc... I was very luck to see, play games and code on all those machines too... I´ll never forget those days... Was a real magical era! - Can´t forget ours firsts multiplayer games (everyone on the same computer)... And (mostly) because playing the "Barbarian" and "Skidmarks" with my friends, we destroyed so many many tvs, computers, keyboards, joysticks... Unforgettable days !!!... eheheheh... :) - My favourite software ever, was not a game, was "OctaMED" on the Amiga! :D

[@TheGoose81]

I have to say, I was blown away by this video!!!! I can honestly say this - I have an A1200 with the ACA1233 accelerator, and the Indiv Mk2 Scandoubler, and there is no way I can run Gloom like you can with the Vampire 2! And to be able to run the Demos which I simply cannot run, due to the 030 on my accel card is just amazing! Same for the game and other apps too. Maybe I should just sell my ACA1233 and Scandoubler now, and put that money aside for when they release the Vampire for the A1200!! The specs you mentioned sound INSANE!! Very good video and well done! Would be nice to learn some more from you about the applications I saw on your WB 3.9 setup. I didnt even know WB 3.9 would install on a A600 as I know you need the 3.1 Rom in the A1200 for that!

[@Scripture-Man]

Great video, really well presented. The Vampire 2 is quite amazing. This is how the Amiga should ALWAYS have been. If this chip had come as standard back in 1992, the Amiga would surely have reigned supreme, and everyone on the internet would probably be using Amigas today!

[@Nostalgianerd]

Mac running on Amiga **mind blown**... I've actually sold my A1200 in anticipation of getting one of these instead. I always thought Gloom and Alien Breed 3D II were AGA only.

[@notacop1477]

they are

[@JesusisJesus]

This is awesome. Wouldn't it be cool if you could take this back in time about 25 years and show them....?

[@c0smiq]

Amiga would win and the world would be a better place! ;-)

[@SymbolicSplenetic]

New time travel life goal.

[@n00g75]

i see it .. dont need to go back .. i was a original amiga nerd back in the big days of the amiga .. demoscene and everything. ;) AND I DO SEE IT! its unbelieveable .. and did he mention that he has a 4gb card? wtf? what type of card is it? and how much does it cost? must be something arround 20k or even more. who needs that much space anyway? this has to be a fake or he mispoken or so. if not .. this has to be magic or something supernatural (maybe he sould his soul to the devil!?) and need this dude needs to call me too. he really must be from the future ;)

[@TexasCat99]

They wouldn't have been able to replicate it. The technology was not there. Yeah, they would poop thier pants to see running on an any ECS hardware. But OS was only 3.0. SD memory? Etc. There's a reason we didn't have a PlayStation 4 back in 1995.

[@TexasCat99]

Also for perspective, my $300 cell phone hustle is a quad-core running 1.5 gigahertz... It's not much bigger than two 3.5 inch floppies stack on top of each other.... It's more powerful than any Amiga out there and it fits in my hand. I love my Amigas but I like the new technology too.

[@onaretrotip]

Wow, this is great! I'd be very interested in the A1200 version. Exciting!

[@keithbeesting]

Excellent video Dan the Vampire looks amazing cant wait for the A1200 version very tempted to get an A600 again in the meantime

[@SirHackaL0t.]

Cheers for the video. Takes me back a few years seeing some of the games.

[@Atheist7]

YOU... WANT... ONE!!!!!!

[@tenwierdufos]

Never owned an Amiga and grew up with all the PC stuff. But I still can't stop watching these videos. I very much like the idea of the Vampire, shows how much of a following these things have!

[@MykpCoUk]

Great review Dan. Watching closely for the A1200 version.

[@paulgates6829]

Another great video Dan and well done for not running Doom! That POP sprite looks great running Fusion. Hopefully they can get all the video outputs out of HDMI soon. The A1200 one almost seems like a dream come true lol

[@JafarCalley]

I loved the A600. I took it on stage for years as a live sequencing/sampling platform before upgrading to an A1200.

[@SammYLightfooD]

I'm currently not a vampire fan but this video contents is very interesting and well presented. Thanks Dan!

[@turtleryde9365]

I started with a computing with A600 I loved it dan

[@Chuck_vs._The_Comment_Section]

After all these years it is still amazing what the AMIGA is capable of! Only AMIGA makes it possible!

[@voffie]

Nice, this is really cool news. Can't wait to get my hands on the 1200 version, sounds absolutely insane!

[@Flofutz]

Your videos made me getting my 600 back up and running.... and now in know what i will buy for it

[@jrherita]

Vampire's two biggest achievements - a from scratch 68K compatible superscalar core, and actually extended the modes of the Amiga chipset (Example: Vampire supports chunky AND planar -- in a way that's compatible with the original chipset). This is a real 'postview' of how the Amiga could have advanced back in the day had Motorola not given up on 68K (both overpricing 68K in the late 80s, and underdeveloping it in the early 90s).

[@Harp00nX]

They had to give up with the 68k line or Intel would have left them behind almost immediately with the Pentium range (you might as well say the 486). PC's only advance because Intel keep putting old CPU technology to bed quite quickly forcing users to keep buying the latest processors.

[@jrherita]

I respectfully disagree - the 68K is a CISC design that could have been extended just as well as x86. The 68060 was superscalar, just like the Pentium, with the 68060's main weakness being they hadn't fully pipeliend the FPU like Intel had the Pentium.. OTOH the Pentium pipelined FPU cost a lot of die space and at this point Motorola was already committed (thanks to moneys from IBM, Apple) to PowerPC. The Pentium also benefited from constant investment in fab technology that Motorola didn't push as hard. Though my original reference though was that Motorola priced the 68020 and later processors much higher than the equivalent x86 chips during the time period that could have helped push up performance on all 68K platforms.

[@BeyondTheScanlines]

I've only followed the Vampire at a cursory level (no A600 here), and damn. I'm seriously impressed with the performance. Certainly so when seeing Alien Breed 3D II ('cause even under *UAE, I never got it feeling solid). Roll on the A500/A1200 versions. I'd certainly be tempted to rip the accelerator out of my A1200 for one of those. ^_^

[@johansjg]

Great review! i´d love to see a video on how to properly setup the software to work on the vampire 2.

[@amigatroels3645]

Great informative video as always Dan! Thumbs up :)

[@iainmclaughlan1557]

I think my Amiga A600 is great. Had it since April 1994 and still have it set up and use it.

[@sullivanradley]

Wonderful job, Dan! Sorry that it took me over a year to re-take an interest in the Amiga.

[@gnuttz1972]

Crazy how slow the speeds we put up with 7mhz? Just shows how efficient the Amiga os and programmers were. I remember the first pc with windows I faced was 133mhz 32gb ram in about 1996 - slow as a sloth. I use macs now much better. Viva Amiga !

[@jayranks3724]

love all your Commodore videos. Brings back alot of good memories. Did you present the Gem Am show this morning?

[@etmax1]

Best computer of its time, I still have my Amiga 040 and an A500. I loved the programming environment, programming for the Amiga was always more fun than for a PC. I must add though that seeing the Vampire2 run a MAC emulator faster than a MAC is zero surprise, The 68k MACs left a lot of the graphics manipulation to be handled in SW which seriously took the performance edge off. Seeing a 68k processor that has access to the Amiga's graphics acceleration HW and so lightening the load on the CPU, of course it's going to do well. When you emulate an Amiga on a PC all of the machine code has to be interpreted and converted to Pentium machine code which is an enormous performance hit. Add to that the image bit mapping between PC and Amiga are very different that adds additional challenges.

[@doctorcrankyflaps1724]

Love your videos Dan.

[@SteveBenway]

Gobsmacked. I've always been happy with my 1200 tower with 060 board, but... blimey!

[@manueljesus3147]

This trounces the 060. wait until the next core comes out ;)

[@krecikowi]

I would not mind one of those in my A1200

[@BerryTheBnnuy]

I'm not a fan of the 060. Too many compatibility issues.

[@VSigma725]

I definitely would rather have a 1200 version of this than paying out for something using an old 020 or 030 processor.

[@BerryTheBnnuy]

V. Sigma, the 1200 version is being worked on, and it's way more powerful. Also... doesn't the 1200 _come_ with an 020 on board? Oh wait, sorry, it's an EC020, which is even worse. So, I don't quite understand what you're getting at with that... What does it matter? Or do you mean an accelerator using an 020 or 030?

[@n_3719]

You could even fit an entire Amiga on an FPGA. I haven't tried it (yet) but I tried to fit an sparcstation 5 on an FPGA couple of years ago.

[@mick2d2]

Can't wait for the A1200 one! Great video, thanks for sharing.

[@amigan34]

Suuuuperb! Finally after two decades something useful on amiga.

[@sabin1981]

Great video, I love seeing more about the Vampire and its incredible capabilities. I'm confused about one thing though, you say that you have to use SCART for workbench/older games but the devs are adding AGA chipset Core at a "later date" which would let you run entirely from HDMI ... but... isn't the AGA Core out now? It's been out for a while, hasn't it?

[@Spudcore]

I have that same Logitech speaker system with the big knob! What a different world we could be living in if Amigas had been this powerful back in the 90s. Those FPS games are silky smooth, very nice indeed. That Payback intro was pretty damn exciting too.

[@AdiSneakerFreak]

how good is that vampire card tho Dan, excellent vid as always pal :)

[@Noone-of-your-Business]

Informative and interesting. So glad to see someone who is able to _explain_ what they are doing. Too many KZbinrs cannot or simply _do_ not do that. One question, though: since this card features a non-68000 CPU, I suppose it does have slight compatibility issues? Back in the 90s, I installed a 68010 CPU (hoping for a meager speed boost of less than 10%, which I found completely neglible ever after), and I found that I had to revert to the original 68000 for about 5% of my games (which were really the point of getting a speed upgrade). Does this apply to the Vampire 2 as well?

[@amigang]

Wish I haddent seen this, the vampire 1200 might make me dust off my old power tower Amiga, will keep an eye on this project. Good vid as always.

[@daga68]

Hi there, awesome video, would love to see early amiga games like "Obliterator" that taxed the cpu like crazy, running smoothly on Vampire 2

[@hubby00n6]

Great video thanks a lot for all the goodies, could you please make a demo with 3D software from the old days Calgary, sculpt 3D and tests with pagestream? Loved the gloom and fusion emulation

[@GadgetUK164]

Fantastic! Nice to see your experiences with the Vampire 2! Looking forward to the 500 and 1200 models!

[@pfc.thomas348]

I remember this one video game, they would sing this weird song "are you there space station amigos oh" (Help needed finding this rare and Fun classic game)

[@bobingabout]

To note: The 600 is actually a shrunk A500+, not an A500. The A500+ apparently only came out a couple of months before the A600 was released, based on the A3000 hardware.

[@GamingHistorySource]

This is friggin Amazing !! I can't find an Amiga 600 on ebay now. lol Will it work on other Amiga Models ??

[@ace3093]

Amazing! I cannot wait for the 1200 version. Thanks for the video I just wonder if the card with hdmi output would fix all the NTSC issues I have on my USA amiga?

[@namakudamono]

Great video! Very impressive hardware, even if the scrolling performance in the high-res Workbench and iBrowse looked rather sluggish. Were you using the RTG version of AB3DII? Still great memories using the Amiga, and later years putting the 'AmigaInABox' package together. Maybe I should pick up an A600 and this board and relive my teens?

[@AdiSneakerFreak]

Dan I must say the A600 was great for me, I really like its small form factor, which actually was really well suited to the compact 'in bedroom' gaming market of the time.

[@judgegroovyman]

AdiSneakerFreak ditto. Hundreds of hours in my bedroom pinball fantasies, mega ball, llamatron, populous, assassin se, goal!, and I even did reports and made spreadsheets of which drawer each of my cds were in!

[@LotoTheHero]

FGPA's really are awesome. That's a really cool piece of tech there! :D

[@DoktorLorenz]

Eagerly awaiting the A1200 version, i'll buy it for sure when its announced.

[@jetgold]

super great video, and heck yes if one has this Amiga hardware to be able to run it on flat panels so easily the way to go for sure. best of luck great channel sorry to comment on old video for you new for me lol.

[@ericfresh]

I can't wait to get one for my 1200!

[@EdgeOfPanic]

Nice video man, i ordered one too, hope to get it this year though this vampire thing really took off! And Your workbench needs some Birdie2000 and magic menu :-)

[@greg5450]

Hey Dan, which classic WB version would you recommend to use (clean install) with vampire2 on a600? I have p96 version but I get some intuition messages and the HDMI out goes black for a second or two usually when I start one of games included in classic WB. It just seems as Gold2 Core is bit unstable or my a600 is allocating or looking for video memory for any new opened app (opening new windows) other that that if I just start the computer after clearing intuition messages and don't do much it's stable but it does freezes sometimes mostly then amiga is accessing CF card. Tried 4 different CF cards too but seems like a G2 core is unstable... Thank you! Great videos, learned a lot from you! Cheers!

[@RetroMMA]

Watched the whole video despite never owning an A600. Really impressive stuff! I'd be interested in the A1200 version.

[@RasVoja]

Great one! Hope you do vamp stand-alone this automn

[@cwxdaf152]

I loved my A600. Best Christmas ever. So ner!

[@amigaoldskool]

Vampire 2 seems a great piece of kit .. as you said switching from scart to hdmi would do my nut in ..just need a modem tv for the high res .... Gloom, AB2KG, Payback runs perfect on the Vampire wow !! couldn't believe the frame rates and the demos scene a lot of these now needs the 060 to run should be a doddle now I got the mickey taken out of me buying the A600 when I was at school than buying A500 glad I did now Cheers Dan cracking review .

[@Checkmate1500]

Absolutely amazing Dan, this would be very cool if the A500 version worked in my A1000 :-)

[@VigilanteGamer]

I wonder if this will lead to a small industry of software and games designed to run only on amiga upgraded with these cards. Amigas might become usable modern machines for browsing etc.!

[@nathanwolf4444]

I'm sure it is possible. Anywhere there is money to be made, there will be time and effort applied. I don't see any large software houses dedicating resources to it but I'm quite certain the "home brew" scene could end up developing some thing.

[@ClayMann]

the best bet would be some kind of emulator to tap into more games like the Mac one. Depending on how fast they end up going in the future.

[@ChaosEmerald85]

you seen the ARMIGA project?

[@nukester.]

I guess not =)

[@nukester.]

www.armigaproject.com/ how do you tag someone in YT? @a survivor

[@amigaoldskool]

Defo watching this after the footy been waiting for this video cheers Dan ;)

[@twowheelsrulecagersdrool6239]

Holly shit. When I had a Lucas Board for my A1000 built I thought that was fast. (68020 with an 881 or 882). There was also a Frances board that would have held 4 MB of 32 bit memory as well but the guy in Ontario Canada no longer made those. Amazing to see that the Amiga is still going strong. Almost makes me want to get one again.....

[@AmstradExin]

I have a 020 board for the A1000 too, but withut the chipmem its quite useless...

[@twowheelsrulecagersdrool6239]

I thought it was OK at the time. Ran a BBS on it. My A3000 was a much better machine.

[@AmstradExin]

Twowheelsrule Cagersdrool I would love a 1MB Chipram thing on my A1000. The 020 Turbo has 33Mhz and 8mb RAM...

[@twowheelsrulecagersdrool6239]

Ya. The A3000 has 14 Meg of ram (yes I still have it) and a hard drive. I don't use it anymore but maybe I need to get it going again.

[@indiosse]

The a1000 can run the Amiga 500 vampire 2 I believe. Also the vampire 2 May have a chipmem patch this year and it won't even be 2 meg only :)

[@MrFixer1983]

Great video, I hope they will make some kind upgrade for the A500.

[@indiosse]

I am working on the first ever amiga 600 laptop built from original amiga 600. it is the first to use an original pc laptop case, it uses a pc case and its matching pc lcd monitor. it has working laptop buttons for sound and monitor functions attached to the lcd controller, sounds: uses the pc speakers and a headphone socket. i have also managed to build in a keyboard that fits in the hole for the pc one, it also has a vga out for a monitor and it supports the vampire 2 and the aca620ec and the indivision ecs. its supports df0: as an external device. it has 2 fans for cooling, one under, one on the back. this was a 2 year project, i will make only 5 additional to sell! watch out for me on youtube!

[@callecam]

Will you do a Vampire V4 board/Vampire V4 standalone video?

[@cartayno]

Mighty impressive! almost seems wasted on the 600 ;) I love that there are still HW manufacturers looking after Amiga fans all these years later :)

[@rodhalliwelloutabout.4161]

I still have a fully loaded Amiga 3000 tower with Keyboard & Mouse. Been knocked about a bit but still works.

[@313Games]

Got to get this for my A500!

[@anomn_feck3387]

wow this vid makes me want to get an amiga and the vampire card, intriguing

[@Atheist7]

Yes... YOU WILL!!!!!!

[@frazzleboy]

Great video mate, thanks

[@markwhatever256]

Fantastic Video, best Vampire 2 video yet and so glad you looked at Gloom and Alien Breed 3d 2 rather than the usual doom etc. Video is too short :(, please revisit it again when youve tried some more cool stuff, F1 GP( might need the mod ), Frontier, maybe Genetic Species? Oh podcasts are brilliant btw, listen every week, keep up the great work.

[@Chrispynutt]

Hi Dan, quick FYI the beta of the AGA core is now out. Imagine that, finally a compact A1200 alike.

[@TheFusedplug]

Nothing compares to the joy you can get from adding power to an existing older system I really want someone to do the same with the 128k Spectrum or indeed the 16k/48k speccies where you just shove an expansion port accelerator in the back and make it fly as fast as possible, there are already WI FI devices made for the Spectrum too but an FPGA expansion module would put a smile on many Spectrum owners face :) I'm off to search for an A1200 and look at what Vampire 2 will bring to it although I need to set it up to read SD cards etc and a PCMIA Ethernet card I will be busy next year catching back up with A1200 I miss mine a lot

[@grandetaco4416]

I'm curious if you tried out any of the old rendering software such as sculpt or imagine and what kind of speed you are getting out of those using the highest rendering settings?

[@MEGAMIGA]

This is really impressive! It runs circles around my Blizzard 060...

[@getter7seven]

Definitely impressive---if they can keep nailing the Vampire generations to come with more and better features, it will definitely arrive at a fine place indeed.

[@d_vibe-swe]

Really cool! Looking forward to the Amiga 1200 version :)

[@VrillonAura2012]

wow i was just reading about this ,amazing to see this card in action wish i kept my old a500 now arg

[@Atheist7]

GOOD NEWS! They WILL MAKE a STANDALONE! You won't need ANYTHING from the old hardware!!!! Sometime in 2017 is their goal!

[@cerulean-crystal]

ive had a 600 for years and loved it