The Ultimate-64!

[Ian J]

http://1541ultimate.net/content/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74&catid=9

Thought this was the C64 equivalent of the Spectrum Next but it looks lacking.

HDMI output but with SD resolution seems pointless.

 

[comradekingu]

Better than requiring a scaler. You could always upscale.

Would this thing run noise demos?

How much power does it run total? A USB powered variant would be even more sleek.

 

[elw3]

Totally interests me.
It would be great to fill in new, or rather modernized, life into this old case. But is it worth 200 bucks?

 

[canseco]

If the Ultimate II+ is included on the board, it's worth it.
The only thing i miss is the expansion port.

Thought this was the C64 equivalent of the Spectrum Next but it looks lacking.

The equivalent could be the new FPGA board Individual Computer is doing or MEGA65.

 

[Eight Bit]

I'm also interested,
A 2nd SID socket has been added to the design now, which can also be used for a SIDFX board. The user port and IC address pins are made available on the board too.

Though I have plenty of real C64's.... This adds a lot of convenience... *Grin*

I own both the 1541U and U2 cartridges and they are my most used C64 tools and have for me proven their worth 1000x. In fact we run the demo compo's on U2's on the X-parties and they never fail. So I have a lot of faith in Gideon. Ultimate-64 Will be super cool!

I'll wait for what Jens brings in regards to his Reloaded MK3 board before making a decision on which system will future-proof the C64 platform for me though I played around a little with a chameleon cartridge at last X and that impressed me too. It's going to be the predecessor of the Reloaded MK3 board so has a head-start in regards to this FPGA business compared to Gideon's.

Fun fun fun!

 

[pmprog]

If the Ultimate II+ is included on the board, it's worth it.

In that spec, it says it is

So I an insert an Ultimate-II+ module and have an awesome system?

• You could, but you don't need to. The Ultimate-II+ is fully integrated into the Ultimate-64 board.

The equivalent could be the new FPGA board Individual Computer is doing or MEGA65.

I'm keeping a close eye on all of them. Whilst I've got my dev board booting the MEGA65, the thing with that is that there's little to no software for a C65, so you're practically switching to C64 mode for everything. If this Ultimate64 or the Individual Computers unit work like a C64 with SuperCPU and REU that might be a neat thing. The Turbo Chameleon, by Individual Computers, supports REU, and I believe you can use it as a CPU accelerator, so if IC use the same FPGA design, that might be really sweet.

 

[Eight Bit]

I know the Ultimate U2 has REU emulation as well, but it doesn't work for me anymore because I hotwired the $DE00 expandion port pin to my SIDFX
I might need to put a switch in between.

 

[canseco]

Whilst I've got my dev board booting the MEGA65, the thing with that is that there's little to no software for a C65, so you're practically switching to C64 mode for everything.

I'm not surprised that C65 doesn't have too much software, as it was a prototype and only a few ended in the hands of Commodore workers.
But i don't see too much software for SCPU or REU either, even if there's been some movement in the community in the last years, in part because of TC64, U2+.

I don't expect too much things to be made, but at least having the same support as SCPU, REU, and the new GEOS is enough.

 

[pmprog]

During my attempts to make a bullet hell on the C64, it got quite slow when all 256 of my bullet slots were in use, so I was thinking of trying to do some research on how to support CPU accelerators (I believe the Chameleon also works as an accelerator too, but not looked into how to do that yet). I've not really done anything else to the game for a while because, well, it just wasn't even interesting to play. Maybe I should do some research on what makes bullet hell games.
I did have another idea for a C64 project that would make use of a REU (and probably a SCPU), but I'm not sure how much time I'm going to put into C64 dev.

 

[levi]

Yeah, as far as I recall, bullet hell games came in with the 68k boards - old 6502 CPUs don't have the grunt, and the graphics asics from back then generally can't help can they can't draw that many sprites at once, so you have to render them using the CPU. These accelerators normally give you an identical core, just clocked a lot faster (so on a C64, a fast 6502), and presumably they have RAM clocked a lot faster too, which should help in tracking more bullets than you can hold in the 6502's limited register set.

 

[pmprog]

Well, Dragon Attack on the Amstrad certainly seems to play well, and that runs a Z80

This was what inspired me to produce this

I have some ideas to try and improve the gameplay, and change the way bullets are fired. To be honest, there's probably ways to speed up my pixel plotting too, but if I can sort out the "naff" gameplay, then I'll ask on CSDb for help on performance

 

[levi]

I'd not seen that game before - that's quite impressive for an Amstrad! Tigermoth looks like nice work too!

 

[Ian J]

The Amstrad is really getting some love, making it do things I never thought possible back in the day.

 

[pmprog]

Does look neat... The C64 won't be out-done though ;-)

 

[Ian J]

Sam's Journey does look really Sweet.

The point of my post is that the Amstrad 464 & 128 could never do scrolling very well, but it looks like some very clever people (batman group) have cracked both horizontal & vertical scrolling (though not seen them working at the same time) so it could have had much better games out in it's heyday.

 

[pmprog]

The point of my post is that the Amstrad 464 & 128 could never do scrolling very well

Yeah, but it was in a Commodore related thread, so we needed balance. Looks very impressive... what has also peeked my interest, is what came up in the related:

Now, curiously enough, the other potential C64 project I was thinking about was a hopefully better implementation of Street Fighter 2. I've been fiddling around looking at what I can do with the sprites, and using the SNK vs Capcom sprites from the PocketNeoGeo, should be able to make a reasonable looking version for the C64; and I understand the mechanics in fighting games better than bullet hells

 

[Ian J]

Does look neat... The C64 won't be out-done though ;-)

Now available on pre-order:

http://www.protovision.games/development/sams_journey_reg.php?language=en

 

[rSl]

update:
the u64-board is shipping now, i'm really interested in reading reviews soon!

 

[Eight Bit]

I have received mine last tuesday
[doublepost=1521900934,1521900617][/doublepost]I'm not at home right now but I have taken a couple of pictures..
1st commando pic is u64 on a tft, 2nd is the same but with scanlines switched on and the 3rd is u64 on a crt

 

[rSl]

I have received mine last tuesday
[doublepost=1521900934,1521900617][/doublepost]I'm not at home right now but I have taken a couple of pictures..
1st commando pic is u64 on a tft, 2nd is the same but with scanlines switched on and the 3rd is u64 on a crt

congrats for owning such a beauty! around the end of this year, i'm in too, for shure.
so in the meantime, feel free to post any news here if you like/time permits...

edit:
i saw board #11 at lemon64 and you have #12, this is so cool!
hope you get the userport ext-header pins straight again nicely, this seemed to be a packaging issue with the included ac-adaptor.