BlizKick, BlizzardPPC, and multiple reboots

[amipal]

Good evening,


I have an A1200T with BlizzardPPC, FastATA, OS3.9, and Oxypatcher. Booting from power-on takes minutes, as it needs to reboot at least three times for the various hardware drivers and software solutions to add in their bits of code.


I've read that BlizKick can alleviate this, as you can use executables as modules within it.



Has anyone done this for the following startup programs, and did it work reliably?

• Fastata.driver
• setpatch
• OpenOxyPPort

Thanks,
Paul

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by amipal

Good evening,


I have an A1200T with BlizzardPPC, FastATA, OS3.9, and Oxypatcher. Booting from power-on takes minutes, as it needs to reboot at least three times for the various hardware drivers and software solutions to add in their bits of code.


I've read that BlizKick can alleviate this, as you can use executables as modules within it.



Has anyone done this for the following startup programs, and did it work reliably?

• Fastata.driver
• setpatch
• OpenOxyPPort

Thanks,
Paul

I can only speak about the FastATA.driver as I used to use it myself. It is not romable, and thus can neither be added to a custom ROM nor blizkicked.

Setpatch is also a bit tricky but newer versions have a noreboot option that you can set if something, e.g. oxypatcher, reboots the machine later on anyway.

[daxb]

The ata3.driver has also a resident on/off option. Use "set echo on" or the "interactive" option on top of you startup-sequence to trace/show what happens (what does the resets). Usually you should be able to start with only one reset at boot time. And you may post your S-S.

[zipper]

The latest Oxypatcher (3.14) doesn't reboot anymore.

[amipal]

Okay, here goes... my startup-sequence:

C:OpenOxyPPort

C:CheckLMB
IF WARN
    SYS:Prefs/ATA3Prefs
ENDIF
C:ATA3.driver QUIET RESIDENT
C:stack 8192

C:KeyCheck 59
IF WARN
    execute S:CD32-startup
ENDIF

; $VER: Startup-Sequence_HardDrive 40.2 (25.2.93)
; Startup-Sequence for hard drive systems

C:SetPatch QUIET ;SKIPROMUPDATES scsi.device

; StackAttack: Programs started after StackAttack will have a minimum
; Stack of 5000 bytes that will be further increased by 500 bytes

C:StackAttack MIN=5000 ADD=500

CyReq ;for ReqAttack

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

C:MakeDir RAM:T RAM:Clipboards

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

C:MountENV NOREQ
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: LIBS: SYS:Classes ADD
Assign >NIL: HELP: LOCALE:Help DEFER

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

C:LoadMonDrvs

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

C:AddDataTypes REFRESH QUIET
Run >NIL: "C:VisualPrefs"
C:IPrefs
C:FPPrefs
C:ConClip

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

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

Resident Execute REMOVE
Resident Assign REMOVE

C:LoadWB
copy ENVARC:SYS/def_ram.info RAM:Disk.info
EndCLI >NIL:

So as you can see, the three patches mentioned are the main culprits.

My user-startup is just for program assigns.

Total time to usable system: 1 min 50 secs

Thanks,
Paul

[amipal]

Originally Posted by zipper

The latest Oxypatcher (3.14) doesn't reboot anymore.

Interesting... mine is v3.13. Any idea where to grab the latest version?


Thanks,
Paul

[amipal]

Originally Posted by torsti76

I can only speak about the FastATA.driver as I used to use it myself. It is not romable, and thus can neither be added to a custom ROM nor blizkicked.

Okay, that one is a bit more understandable, being that it needs to initiate the PowerFlyer hardware.

Originally Posted by torsti76

Setpatch is also a bit tricky but newer versions have a noreboot option that you can set if something, e.g. oxypatcher, reboots the machine later on anyway.

My Setpatch is v44.38.


Thanks,
Paul

[daxb]

With the new Oxypatcher version you should save one reset. If you remove the "Resident" option from ata3.driver then it doesn't do a reset but it behaves a bit different. The default SetPatch call should do a reset too. The switches NOROMUPDATE and/or DISABLEROMMODUELS will/shall avoid a reset.

Does the BlizzardPPC card do a reset to remap ROM to RAM?

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by daxb

With the new Oxypatcher version you should save one reset. If you remove the "Resident" option from ata3.driver then it doesn't do a reset but it behaves a bit different. The default SetPatch call should do a reset too. The switches NOROMUPDATE and/or DISABLEROMMODUELS will/shall avoid a reset.



Does the BlizzardPPC card do a reset to remap ROM to RAM?

It does, i.e. blizkick does. However, remapping the ROM on this card significantly improves system speed, thus I'd rather go with this reset.

[amipal]

Originally Posted by amipal

Interesting... mine is v3.13. Any idea where to grab the latest version?

Ah, I can see it is on the FTP server - just not able to access at present!

[zipper]

Got it long time ago, here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/x2hqi6kx6k...er314.lha?dl=0

[ancalimon]

I have a Blizzard 060 (used to have a blizzardppc and bvision) on my 1200 and FastATA MK4. Using blizkick is fairly straightforward but with ata3.driver, you need a second or a third reboot in order to get drives that are after 4gb barrier.

I think if you run ata3.driver before blizkick, it gets removed from memory after the reboot. And if you run ata3.driver after blizkick, it needs to reboot the system once so as to activate partitions after 4gb barrier.

[amipal]

Originally Posted by zipper

Got it long time ago, here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/x2hqi6kx6k...er314.lha?dl=0

Many, many thanks, zipper!

:edit
Downloaded and installed, and just done a test render with C4D. All working fine, and OxyPatcher patching away. Thanks once again, zipper!

[amipal]

Originally Posted by ancalimon

I have a Blizzard 060 (used to have a blizzardppc and bvision) on my 1200 and FastATA MK4. Using blizkick is fairly straightforward but with ata3.driver, you need a second or a third reboot in order to get drives that are after 4gb barrier.

I think if you run ata3.driver before blizkick, it gets removed from memory after the reboot. And if you run ata3.driver after blizkick, it needs to reboot the system once so as to activate partitions after 4gb barrier.

Thanks, ancalimon. I thought that might be the case.
That's a good tip on the startup-sequence placement for ata3.driver, though.

[daxb]

Originally Posted by ancalimon

Using blizkick is fairly straightforward but with ata3.driver, you need a second or a third reboot in order to get drives that are after 4gb barrier.

That is not true. You don't need a second or third reboot. That is just a configuration issue. ata3.driver can be resident or not (reboot or not).

I think if you run ata3.driver before blizkick, it gets removed from memory after the reboot. And if you run ata3.driver after blizkick, it needs to reboot the system once so as to activate partitions after 4gb barrier.

The think the best is do have this start order:

BlizKick     ; can load the OS 3.9 modules, kick ROM with reset
ATA3.driver  ; without resident option (can also set with ATA3Prefs!)
SetPatch     ; with the option that doesn't force a reset and no ROM modules loading (instead load modules with BlizKick)

This way you should have only one reboot when cold boot. After a soft reset no second reboot should happen. However, ATA3.driver behaves a bit different when no resident option is used. E.g. if you start without S-S ATA3.driver needs to be started manually if you or a program want to access connected HDs, else you have the same limits that has the ROM scsi.device. You may need to activate partitions that aren't active by manually access them. I start a script in S-S with simple do "DH3:, DH4:, ..." to activate them.

If you read the manual of the three programs and understand it it should be more clear.

[ancalimon]

Originally Posted by daxb

That is not true. You don't need a second or third reboot. That is just a configuration issue. ata3.driver can be resident or not (reboot or not).

The think the best is do have this start order:

BlizKick     ; can load the OS 3.9 modules, kick ROM with reset
ATA3.driver  ; without resident option (can also set with ATA3Prefs!)
SetPatch     ; with the option that doesn't force a reset and no ROM modules loading (instead load modules with BlizKick)

This way you should have only one reboot when cold boot. After a soft reset no second reboot should happen. However, ATA3.driver behaves a bit different when no resident option is used. E.g. if you start without S-S ATA3.driver needs to be started manually if you or a program want to access connected HDs, else you have the same limits that has the ROM scsi.device. You may need to activate partitions that aren't active by manually access them. I start a script in S-S with simple do "DH3:, DH4:, ..." to activate them.

If you read the manual of the three programs and understand it it should be more clear.

Are you sure that you can access large partitions that are outside of 4gb limit this way without corrupting them?

[daxb]

I'm not sure what you mean be "this way", but generally it will work. You have to make sure that ATA3.driver is running/used. Filesystem limits should also take into account. You can use HDDReport to check if access to >4GB is ok.