A3000 WHDload crashes with PreLoad enabled

[Armitage]

Hey all again, I'm back with my second (of only two, hopefully) issues I've run across since setting up this machine for the first time. The issue is that WHDload games almost all crash right away when the PreLoad (usually the default option) is enabled. Most of the time the crash is something like:


Exception "Access Fault" ($A008)
PC = $7F80884 (ExpMem $4EB84)
Long Write to $809A6F8


When I specify "NoPreload", most games work fine, both PAL and NTSC. A few still do weird things like Sierra games. They won't crash, but the graphics are all glitched up. The odd thing is the same Sierra game plays fine from floppy or if I perform a HD install from floppy. Other games (e.g. Out of This World) play fine for a few levels and then lock up randomly.



The system: A3000-25 w/2MB chip, 2MB Zip, and 8MB Zorro2 (8-Up! card). WB3.1.4.1, latest version (not the beta) of WHDload.


I suspect it's a memory issue based on the error message, so I have run a memory test program and all 12 MB check out okay. I have tried also some of the recommended WHDload tooltypes such as MEM_REVERSE, NOCACHE, and NOAUTOVEC. The only option I've put in the global config file is MMU.


I'd like to get PreLoad working because there's an awful lot of screen flashing and audio dropout when loading from disk occurs. Any ideas what to look at? Thanks!

[jotd]

Yeah, some games are unplayable without PRELOAD / the OS save/restore routines are good but in some cases it can confuse games and crash (DMA registers are write-only! and some CIA values aren't readable properly)

You could try with NOMMU. It's "dangerous" but if it works for you...

If you could disable the 2MB of zip ram (whatever it is), this would clear things up / make your config more "generic".

Also note that some games have issues and may crash or not depending on the location of the fast memory. For instance, if the game wrongly reads an address location most signficant byte and tests some bits, it can "work" or not depending on the address location. Those are vicious bugs to find. But it cannot happen for ALL games.

There's also the option to test with JST (6.1) just to see if you're luckier.

[StingRay]

First of all, check your HD's MaxTransfer settings.

[Toni Wilen]

Assuming A3000 SCSI: it does not have any max transfer bugs.
Does it work without the Z2 RAM board? (If you find small enough game that still fits in RAM) Perhaps it has issues with A3000 SCSI DMA?

[Armitage]

Sorry, I should have clarified: I am running an SCSI2SD as my only HDD. ZIP ram is just the on-board fast RAM. I will have to test without the Z2 board.

Thanks!

[TjLaZer]

Didn’t know NOPRELOAD was a tool type. I thought you just delete it or put it in ( ).

[Armitage]

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

Didn’t know NOPRELOAD was a tool type. I thought you just delete it or put it in ( ).

You're right, it's not in the documentation. I must have picked it up in a Google search or something while trying to troubleshoot. I assume by changing the tooltype to NOPRELOAD I'm just breaking PRELOAD which had the intended effect so I never noticed it wasn't a valid option

[Firestone]

Is there an acceleratorboard in your A3000? And if it is, what type?

[Armitage]

Originally Posted by Firestone

Is there an acceleratorboard in your A3000? And if it is, what type?

No accelerator. The only card in the system is the 8-Up! Z2 RAM board that it came with when I bought it. I haven't yet tested removal of the card as the machine only has 2MB of fast RAM on-board but I'm looking to beef that up a bit.

[Firestone]

Does it have the "Superkickstart"-ROM ?

[Armitage]

Originally Posted by Firestone

Does it have the "Superkickstart"-ROM ?

It's running official Hyperion A3000 3.1.4 ROMs installed into the ROM tower. I haven't messed around with any software kickstarts except for putting the vanilla A500 kickstart needed for WHDload in place.

[Firestone]

I have a similar setup here. I can do a test here if you give me the name of the game that's not working?

[Armitage]

Originally Posted by Firestone

I have a similar setup here. I can do a test here if you give me the name of the game that's not working?

Cool, thanks! So far I think the only thing that does work with PRELOAD is Arkanoid. Perhaps because it's so small it never needs to use the expansion RAM? Basically everything else crashes right away: Out of This World, all Sierra adventures, Monkey Island, Cannon Fodder, etc.


Just a thought: could it be something to do with the ROM timing jumpers? When I installed the new 3.1.4 ROMs, the system wouldn't boot at all (black screen). It took a lot of troubleshooting to discover that when I lowered the ROM timing from the original setting (210ns/280ns) to a faster setting, the machine would boot fine. I currently have it on the fastest setting (90ns/160ns) because it booted and everything runs great with the exception of WHDload.

[Firestone]

Tried Cannonfodder now. It crashed the first time with PRELOAD activated.
Then I removed the Preload-tooltype and the game started (of course with the screen flashing when disk is accessed).

I tried once more with PRELOAD and NOMMU tooltype active, and the game launched.

Tried one last time with only PRELOAD as the option and game crashed.
I just relaized that my TCP/IP stack was running, and this is known to crash these loaders. Quitting MiamiDX resulted in game working just fine with the PRELOAD-option.

Have you tried launching these games when you boot with no startup-sequence?

I don't have the 8UP-board installed (actually I got one of them somewhere, but not installed). The zip ram-banks are all populated on the motherboard resulting in a total of 16MB fastram.

[Armitage]

I do not have a TCP/IP stack so no issue there. Great idea with booting with no startup-sequence. I did that (along with booting into PAL) and everything I tried started fine with no memory errors! A few things still had graphical glitches or crashed later (Sierra game displayed an error message, Flashback crashed after the intro scene played) but this is a huge improvement from where I was before!

Here's my startup-sequence in case anything jumps out. Warning, I've never set up an Amiga before so this could be a mess.

; $VER: Startup-Sequence_HardDrive 45.4 (28.5.2018)
; Startup-Sequence for hard drive systems

If Exists C:LoadModule
   C:Version exec.library version 46 >NIL:
   If Warn
      C:LoadModule ROMUPDATE
   Else
      C:LoadModule LIBS:intuition.library
   EndIf
EndIf

C:SetPatch QUIET
C:CPU CHECKINSTALL

C:Version >NIL:
C:AddBuffers >NIL: DF0: 15
FailAt 21

C:MakeDir RAM:T RAM:Clipboards RAM:ENV RAM:ENV/Sys
C:Copy >NIL: ENVARC: RAM:ENV ALL NOREQ

Resident >NIL: C:Assign PURE
Resident >NIL: C:Execute PURE

Assign >NIL: ENV: RAM:ENV
Assign >NIL: T: RAM:T
Assign >NIL: CLIPS: RAM:Clipboards
Assign >NIL: REXX: S:
Assign >NIL: PRINTERS: DEVS:Printers
Assign >NIL: KEYMAPS: DEVS:Keymaps
Assign >NIL: LOCALE: SYS:Locale
Assign >NIL: HELP: LOCALE:Help DEFER
Assign >NIL: LIBS: SYS:Classes ADD

; Required for VIM
Assign >NIL: VIM: DH1:vim-5.3
Assign >NIL: home: DH0:
Alias vi vim
Alias grep Apps:AGrep/AGrep

BindDrivers
C:Mount >NIL: DEVS:DOSDrivers/~(#?.info)

IF EXISTS DEVS:Monitors
  IF EXISTS DEVS:Monitors/VGAOnly
    DEVS:Monitors/VGAOnly
  EndIF

  C:List >NIL: DEVS:Monitors/~(#?.info|VGAOnly) TO T:M LFORMAT "DEVS:Monitors/%s"
  Execute T:M
  C:Delete >NIL: T:M
EndIF

SetEnv Language "english"
SetEnv Workbench $Workbench
SetEnv Kickstart $Kickstart
UnSet Workbench
UnSet Kickstart

C:AddDataTypes REFRESH QUIET
C:IPrefs
SYS:Prefs/FPPrefs
C:ConClip
APPS:NoClick/NoClick

Path >NIL: RAM: C: SYS:Utilities SYS:Rexxc SYS:System S: SYS:Prefs SYS:WBStartup SYS:Tools SYS:Tools/Commodities Apps:vim-5.3

IF EXISTS S:User-Startup
  Execute S:User-Startup
EndIF

Resident Execute REMOVE
Resident Assign REMOVE

C:LoadWB
EndCLI >NIL:

[Firestone]

Is mmulib (mmu.library) installed by any chance?
And what tools are present in SYS:WBstartup/ ?

[Armitage]

Originally Posted by Firestone

Is mmulib (mmu.library) installed by any chance?
And what tools are present in SYS:WBstartup/ ?

mmu.library is installed in Libs: along with 68030.library. I have the following tools enabled in Sys:WBstartup/ :

• AssignWedge
• ClickToFront
• MagicMenu
• Rewincy
• ToolsMenu
• WindowTiler

Thanks for your help!

[jotd]

whdload has pre/post scripts. Useful to configure commands to stop/restart TCP stacks that can enable external interrupts and crash the games, turn off/on JIT (emulator). Avoids booting with a degraded config just to run whdload. Kind of defeats the purpose...

[Toni Wilen]

Just wondering if it is related to reported SCSI2SD sync mode corruption here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=94530 (check only last few posts). A3000 SCSI afaik will use sync mode if available.

[Armitage]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Just wondering if it is related to reported SCSI2SD sync mode corruption here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=94530 (check only last few posts). A3000 SCSI afaik will use sync mode if available.

Good to know. I checked and my SCSI2SD is an older 5.x model that doesn't offer the sync mode so I should be okay there.


Unrelated issue: I figured out why F5 wasn't working in Monkey Island -- Apparently the WindowTiler tool is interfering; disabling it fixed the problem.