Warp3D setup trouble - A1200 BPPC Voodoo3
 

Greetings!

Have spent a few hours trying to get my tower converted Amiga 1200 up and running. I initially thought there was something wrong with my accelerator card, but concluded with the issue being the Warp3D setup itself (or related software). Running PPC software that wasn't 3D accelerated worked just fine.

Quick specs:
- 3.2 ROMs and OS 3.2.2.1
- Picasso 96 3.4.1
- Amiga 1200 rev. 1D4 (new caps and timing fix)
- Blizzard PPC 060 @ 66 MHz 603 @ 330 MHz
- New Corsair RM750 PSU (with load on 12v and voltages fed additionally to the original PSU connector and floppy connector)
- Mediator 1200TX
- Voodoo3
- Soundblaster 128
- Fast Ethernet NIC
- BlueSCSI with a 100GB PFS3 partition
- Yamaha CD-RW SCSI

I have spent quite a bit of time searching through old forum posts and various documentation. Initially trying to run the Warp3D demos resulted in a crash regardless. After all the reading, the information puzzle is starting to come together. Replacing all the driver files with the correct ones, and adding all screen modes, things started working a lot better.

The current state is that I can run the PPC Warp3D demos just fine, but the 68K ones does not work.
Running the windowed gear demo pops up the window, but it is blank. The workbench becomes very sluggish (moving the mouse cursor is very choppy). Closing the window results in the workbench becoming smooth again, but the graphics are not right. Icons become blank, buttons on top of windows become blank etc.
Running the full screen gear demo results in a gray and white flashing screen.
Running WarpTest gives me a blue screen with some text options. Regardless of what I select, the screen remains blue.

At the moment I have not enabled BPPCFix or installed PPCLibEmu, as I want to focus on one thing at a time. Just don't want to add too many variables to the mix.

When installing WarpUP, I were a bit unsure about a couple of options that might affect the situation. One screen in the install script gave me the option "WShell compatible", which I didn't select. What exactly does this do? The other were a screen where I should select which graphics card I have. I chose "other gfx". Should I have selected something else?

The workbench is running in 1024x768 16-bit, and as mentioned, the PPC gear demos and glSokoban work just fine. Lower resolution screen modes are added in Picasso96 with all color depth options for each.

I assume if any of the supplied demos does not work, a problem is present.

Any suggestions are very welcome!

BPPCFix not installed is weird as Warp3D for the PPC only works for WarpUp. And that doesn't run when ppc.library is active (which you need BPPCFix for).

I am still guessing for an installation error.

1) Warp3D should be installed from the Elbox site, not from Aminet for Mediator cards.
2) There should be a fix installed to remove the libs from memory that were auto-started from the firmware.
3) Did you put the jumpers correctly on the mediator? Do you have MMU = on? (here a report would be nice).

Hi,

Attatched is the report generated by the Mediator Configuration utility.

The jumpers on the card are set as follows:
Memory Window: 8MB
Config: Open
Wait: Open
Wake-up: Open

Running WarpUP software displays a pop-up window that requests to terminate the ppc.library file. My understanding is that BPPCFix terminates the library file at boot and thus removes that pop-up window. More a convenience thing than a necessity as far as I can tell.

What are the differences between what is contained on the CD and the archive available for download on the website? I've come across some old forum posts where people state it is necessary to e-mail them, as the one contained on the CD is wrong. However, we are talking about posts made over 20 years ago. As far as I can see, both the web-archive and the CD files are the same.
I did install what is on the CD, however. After installation, I deleted the Amiga 4000 files and replaced them with the Amiga 1200 files. The Elbox website lists which files are for what system, and what location they belong.

I would just get the newer ones from their site. Also, you give up 8MB of gfx mem for DMA. Was that set-up by the installer? I would put it at 14 or 15.

See also

https://github.com/Mediators/UnreliableGuide

I'll try changing some of the variables and report back how it went. :)

The 8MB is set by the configuration tool, yes. That's the maximum it allows me to add, eventhough it recommends 12 or something. Perhaps this can be set manually too.

Changed around some of the variables, but none seem to have effect.

Some changes I made:
In ENVARC:Mediator:
Warp3D=No
VoodooMem=12
VoodooInt=No

In ENVARC:PowerPC:
force=1

In ENVARC:Picasso96:
ShowModes=All

I do also see in threads like this one that ENVARC:Warp3D should exist as well, but I can't find this drawer in my system.

The Warp3D that can be downloaded from Elbox seem to be the exact same version as on the Mediator CD. I installed this to see if it made any difference. The file versions are the same, and it copied over the Amiga 4000 files, just as the installer on the CD. I manually removed these and copied over the Amiga 1200 files. In the end, this made no difference to running the 68K demos.

With all these changes I at least haven't made anything worse. PPC demos run fine, but 68K demos do not.

There could potentially be fpu issues stopping the 68k versions working. The Phase5 060.lib is tied to the wb3.1 math libs and using any other versions is a roll of the dice regarding compatibility although the os3.9 libs seemingly work ok. I'm not familiar with how 3.2 does things.

Pardon my late reply. Has been busy the past few days...

I'll try some different libraries and report back. Looks like BPPCFix can disable the resident 68k libraries as well. Probably should start there.

I were told my OS install have something called OxyPatcher applied. This program is present in the WBStartup drawer. Tried renaming WBStartup to something else and rebooting, but it didn't improve things on the Warp3D demos.

Apologies for the delayed response.

Tried to look up if OS 3.2 does anything differently regarding the math libs. Although nothing very clear, I have found some posts like this one that suggest they have been tinkered with.

Found that I have some math libs called HSMathLibs that I purchased years ago. Installed these without any change to the 68k gear demos.

Afterwards I installed the latest MMULib from Aminet and added the "040" parameter to the BPPCfix line in the startup sequence file. I confirmed that the 68060.library version numbers were different afterwards to verify the ROM library were disabled. Still no change to the 68k gear demos.

Various software like WhichAmiga and such does detect that the FPU is present. I have run various demoscene stuff and found no trouble doing so. My assumption then is that there's nothing physically wrong with my CPU/FPU.

I will roll back to an older backup of my hard drive image and install the software again. This time using the Warp3D archive from the Elbox website. I still have not found out what the differences are, as the downloadable archive and the CD contents seem to be the same.

Interesting re: old HSMathLibs. I have these as well and have wondered if it would add any positive or negative effects. I know your post above doesn't answer this directly but I would love to figure out if there is a difference either way.

Another late reply, but have taken the time to roll back the system and set things up again.

I did things in a different order this time. Started with WarpOS and PPCLibEmu and chose "no gfx card" this time. Then did the Mediator drivers, updated the files with later versions from the website, and finally installed Warp3D from the website archive. It didn't include the demos, so copied these from the CD. Just like the CD installer, it copies over the wrong drivers. Deleted them and copied the correct ones to the appropriate drawers. Set up the Voodoo3 card to a 16-bit PC screenmode and ran the 68k gear demo. Success!

I don't know if this is just a strange coincidence, or of the Warp3D files from the website archive are slightly different. I also find it strange that Elbox somehow after 20+ years hasn't been able to correct the files on the CD.

Regardless, it works now. Thanks to everyone that contributed with suggestions!