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MartinW · 28 December 2019, 15:07

SO, finally got enough screen modes working to have a good play about last night. I also installed a network module.

Very much a mixed bag. If I were to be brutal I would certainly say that this is not ready for general release yet. BUT, I understand the need to get it out into the hands of more people in order to test loads of scenarios and get stuff working. I just hope people are realistic in their expectations. Hopefully a lot of these issues will move quite quickly after the holidays.

So right now the biggest issue still seems to be video. As with nearly every Amiga out there as soon as you go beyond PAL / NTSC or the high res versions things become an exercise in frustration. But that's pretty normal for Amiga. What is less so is that the HDMI output is prone to locking up and crashing requiring a power off if it goes into a mode the monitor doesn't support. I think that is a known issue. I don't know if it is drivers or core.

So, about that "mixed bag". This thing is fast. Obviously we know that. Some things I was blown away by how smooth they were. All the doom variants for example - a much better experience than my 68060/100. Freespace - blimey! Never played that before so I can't comment on how it compares. But then I was quite suprised that Worthy crashes at the title screen just as it tries to draw the main menu.

I'm using a CF to SD card adapter plugged into the 44pin header and this works well and is again fast. 10Mbit/s+ according to sysinfo. That's good for an Amiga for sure. But PFS3 corrupted on reset once and I had to re-image. We'll put that one down to me not noticing the drive was active? The external SD works very well for file transfer once I had got it setup correctly (formatted Fat32 from Windows, but there are other ways). It can also load "kick.rom" from external SD too which is also working well.

I'll leave it there for now but I can look at specifics if anyone is interested I guess. So in summary, do I regret buying the V4? Hell no. With one proviso, that it continues to evolve and improve but things are very active and especially given it was Xmas, people were very responsive. But if you are not an experienced user and you are expecting a "just works" experience then it may be prudent to not sweat over availability, sit back and wait a while. I think all the time you will be waiting, this will be improving.

Oh, while writing this,I got a resolution to why Worthy doesn't work. It's related to caches I beleive. If you turn off fastmem then the V4 obviously does that, but also goes into a slow or regular kind of mode. There's still 11+MB of chip mem available but sysinfo will report your machine as 2MIPs. And sure enough, in this mode Worthy worked perfectly. So it may be the answer to a lot of other things that I saw which crashed too like WHDLoad demos. Given Worthy is a title from 2019, maybe we'll see an update so this tweak isn't necessary? For all I know, it may have already been fixed, I don't really track things that well so I don't know if there have been any updates to Worthy since I bought it.

[EDIT] I just wanted to add that I also have a GB-A1000 with 68060 running at 100Mhz, RTG grphics and 128MB fast. While I won't be in a rush to sell that, it was (mostly) built with my own hands afterall, I can't really see me using it anymore. I can see the V4SA completely replacing it! And I consider that high praise indeed.

28 December 2019, 15:07	#403
MartinW Registered User Join Date: Mar 2017 Location: Minehead / UK Posts: 608	SO, finally got enough screen modes working to have a good play about last night. I also installed a network module. Very much a mixed bag. If I were to be brutal I would certainly say that this is not ready for general release yet. BUT, I understand the need to get it out into the hands of more people in order to test loads of scenarios and get stuff working. I just hope people are realistic in their expectations. Hopefully a lot of these issues will move quite quickly after the holidays. So right now the biggest issue still seems to be video. As with nearly every Amiga out there as soon as you go beyond PAL / NTSC or the high res versions things become an exercise in frustration. But that's pretty normal for Amiga. What is less so is that the HDMI output is prone to locking up and crashing requiring a power off if it goes into a mode the monitor doesn't support. I think that is a known issue. I don't know if it is drivers or core. So, about that "mixed bag". This thing is fast. Obviously we know that. Some things I was blown away by how smooth they were. All the doom variants for example - a much better experience than my 68060/100. Freespace - blimey! Never played that before so I can't comment on how it compares. But then I was quite suprised that Worthy crashes at the title screen just as it tries to draw the main menu. I'm using a CF to SD card adapter plugged into the 44pin header and this works well and is again fast. 10Mbit/s+ according to sysinfo. That's good for an Amiga for sure. But PFS3 corrupted on reset once and I had to re-image. We'll put that one down to me not noticing the drive was active? The external SD works very well for file transfer once I had got it setup correctly (formatted Fat32 from Windows, but there are other ways). It can also load "kick.rom" from external SD too which is also working well. I'll leave it there for now but I can look at specifics if anyone is interested I guess. So in summary, do I regret buying the V4? Hell no. With one proviso, that it continues to evolve and improve but things are very active and especially given it was Xmas, people were very responsive. But if you are not an experienced user and you are expecting a "just works" experience then it may be prudent to not sweat over availability, sit back and wait a while. I think all the time you will be waiting, this will be improving. Oh, while writing this,I got a resolution to why Worthy doesn't work. It's related to caches I beleive. If you turn off fastmem then the V4 obviously does that, but also goes into a slow or regular kind of mode. There's still 11+MB of chip mem available but sysinfo will report your machine as 2MIPs. And sure enough, in this mode Worthy worked perfectly. So it may be the answer to a lot of other things that I saw which crashed too like WHDLoad demos. Given Worthy is a title from 2019, maybe we'll see an update so this tweak isn't necessary? For all I know, it may have already been fixed, I don't really track things that well so I don't know if there have been any updates to Worthy since I bought it. [EDIT] I just wanted to add that I also have a GB-A1000 with 68060 running at 100Mhz, RTG grphics and 128MB fast. While I won't be in a rush to sell that, it was (mostly) built with my own hands afterall, I can't really see me using it anymore. I can see the V4SA completely replacing it! And I consider that high praise indeed.