> > I wasn't expecting the "there are better and cheaper FPGA boards",
> > as we've been told that this is a "cheap" FPGA board. So, FPGA
> > wizards, is this a valid criticism? If so, what do we do about it?
> > If not, how can we set the record straight?
>
> It appears from my reading that a lot of the problem is just dyslexia --
> e.g. people reading "3S400" instead of "3S4000". Also, there were some
> wild comparisons to much more expensive boards whose main advantage is
> apparently speed.
Would it be worthwhile to add a "Note: 3S4000 not the smaller 3S400"
in the appropriate places? It would help avoid this mistake. On
the other hand it adds clutter and insults people who actually
bother to read carefully.
The comments from "fpgaprogrammer (1086859)" appeared to be thoughtful
rather than a knee-jerk reaction.
If you're interested in FPGA programming and a novice at it,
you'll want to get a MUCH MUCH MUCH cheaper Spartan board
(like 50 to 150). See http://digilentinc.com/ [digilentinc.com]
for good starter boards.
If you're serious about FPGA programming (or just willing to pay
$1500 to $3000) you will definitely want to get a board with a
Virtex or Stratix on board:
http://www.xilinx.com/products/devkits/HW-V5-ML501-UNI-G.htm
[xilinx.com] If you want to have it on PCIx:
http://www.xilinx.com/products/devkits/HW-V5-ML555-G.htm
[xilinx.com] You can also get FPGAs socketted for AMD's
Hypertransport bus and Intel's FSB:
http://xtremedatainc.com/ [xtremedatainc.com] (Altera FPGAs)
http://drccomputer.com/ [drccomputer.com] (Xilinx FPGAs)
http://nallatech.com/ [nallatech.com]
http://celoxica.com/ [celoxica.com]
(some of these vendors also sell PCI solutions)
FPGA programming environments still mostly suck. it's a market
impeded by proprietary standards and a whole lot of NP-Hard
algorithms. We're working on it...
and later:
my point is that there are a dirth of FPGA boards with better
cost/performance value that could be used to prototype a
graphics rendering FPGA system. Physical hardware isn't the
limiting factor to an open source graphics card; the open source
FPGA 3-D rendering code is the real missing piece. In fact,
making a board was probably a distraction for this project because
by the time the firmware is ready for real graphics workloads the
FPGA on-board will be obsolete.
Here's some examples of 3-D engines for FPGA from the 6.111 lab at MIT:
3-D Pong (using rasterization):
http://web.mit.edu/6.111/www/s2006/PROJECT/7/main.html [mit.edu]
Ray Tracing:
http://web.mit.edu/6.111/www/s2007/PROJECTS/5/main.html [mit.edu]
There are hundreds of videos and code for FPGA projects up at
http://web.mit.edu/6.111 [mit.edu] (see project appendices for code).
This one does miss the point a bit, implying that the goal is a FPGA
graphics board, when the real goal is an ASIC board. (and organizations
for creating other FLOSS-friendly hardware)
> > The lack of "I for one welcome our FPGA overloads" is curious. :-)
>
> I'm sure that was terribly funny, but I have no idea what you meant.
> Maybe I'd need to know Slashdot better?
Sorry, a large fraction of Slashdot threads include a "I for one welcome our
<foo> overloads" posting.
The overall tone was more negative than I was expecting. Certainly some
complaints are expected, but I was expecting more positive responses, since
a lot of slashdoters are into FLOSS.
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