19 January 2020, 07:47 | #1 |
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Workbench 3.1 Increase Serial Port Speed Options?
I have been looking for several hours and have not yet found an answer to something I am certain others answered years ago...
Using an A2000 with a 68030 25mhz (a2630) accelerator, 1m chip, 8m fast memory The amiga serial port settings gui goes 19200, then 31250 and that's it. I hear about people getting reliable connections with 56k even up to 115k. I'd settle for 38400, etc. Anything above 19200. is there some kind of serial port configuration tool someone has put together that handles higher "serial rates"? If there is a manual way to tweak some file, I'm game, but all I'm seeing is binary configuration files... How are others accomplishing these higher rates with amiga explorer? |
19 January 2020, 09:29 | #2 |
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Serial prefs on the Amiga only apply to the SER: DOS device. Apps using serial.device directly usually have their own way to configure the serial speed.
The same applies to AExplorer, too. Serial prefs are ignored. AExplorer is configured by tooltypes or command line arguments. If you run AExplorer from Workbench check icon information. You can set serial speed as text. Anyway 38400 probably is the maximum you can get from the Amiga's serial port. For higher speeds you need at least a different driver (like 8n1.device or baudbandit.device), most likely you need a Zorro expansion with better serial ports. |
19 January 2020, 09:54 | #3 | |
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Quote:
the serial speed in the AMiga depends of cpu power in Aexplorer I have configured it to 115200 in both computers and file transfer works at such speed this is on A1200 + 020/28mhz which is aprox the minimum cpu to work at 115200 in the case of OP a 030/25mhz is enough to work at 115200 8n1.device or baudbandit.device are very old buggy and don't work wirh Aexplorer |
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19 January 2020, 21:35 | #4 |
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Thank you for your assistance! Because of you guys (and me going back and RTFM for AExplorer), I figured out how to adjust the AExplorer parameters on the Amiga side. On the PC Side, it requires not only tweaking of AExplorer on the PC, but it seems to need the actual Com port settings on the PC to match the AExplorer software settings. If all the 3 pieces were (PC AExplorer, Amiga AExplorer and the PC Com Port settings) match, it works.
That said, I have been unable to get reliable transfers above 19200. A file starts then stops in a few seconds, or the AExplorer UI on the PC starts giving communication errors. I did try the 8n1.device at 38400, but it is inconsistent and never works with multiple files. Always stops prematurely. I suspect the best way to do this may indeed be to get a zorro based IO expansion card. If I go the route of an IO card, is TCPIP faster than a GOOD serial port? I'm guessing yes? |
19 January 2020, 21:52 | #5 |
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If you have a Zorro-based Amiga IMHO the better would be to get an Ethernet card (like X-Surf for example). This way transfers would be much faster than over serial and yourwouldn't be limited to Amiga Explorer but could use FTP, SMBFS and the like. Not to mention connecting directly to the internet.
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19 January 2020, 22:54 | #6 | |
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Quote:
Amiga explorer works at 115200 through the normal A1200 serial port perhaps you are using some unregistered/bad cracked Amiga explorer? plz note they limit the speed if not registered correctly |
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20 January 2020, 19:42 | #7 |
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Screen depth affects serial speeds. Less colours = faster.
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20 January 2020, 20:41 | #8 |
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Yes and RTG frees bandwidth - my A4000 did 115200 fine under RTG graphics and 060 accelerator. Anything more got into troubles.
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20 January 2020, 21:03 | #9 |
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21 January 2020, 03:27 | #10 |
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Misclegend: I purchased Amiga Forever Premium and have a legitimate license, legitimately installed with the license key. That is not the problem.
You guys can argue all you want, but for the sake of knowledge, I set my a2000 to low rez not interlaced, and 2 colors, then restarted it. AExplorer now reliably and consistently works at 38400! It's weird and doesn't make much sense to me, but it does indeed work. It definitively does not work at higher resolution modes, but does in lower ones. I'm going to try middle resolutions and see when the slowness breaks 38400 connection speed. Does interlace mode use more cpu cycles than non-interlaced? I hope to find out soon... Again, this is an A2000 with a CBM A2630 running at 25mhz, with a 1mb Fat Agnus, a super denise and 8 meg of fast memory from a CBM a2058 RAM card. For the record, I am a tech "geek" and have been a software developer/tester (in the aerospace industry) for nearly 40 years. I am methodical and reliable in my testing methods. |
21 January 2020, 03:58 | #11 |
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Followup to my testing works in high rez with 4 colors fine. If it's changed to 16 colors it does not work.
Side issue.... What/how is super high rez used? I have a 4k monitor attached to my amiga and even with that very high rez monitor, in super high rez, everything is very blocky, to the point of being "uncomfortable to read"... Is there a way to get the fonts to look nice in super high rez mode? |
21 January 2020, 04:24 | #12 |
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Does work with 8 colors too, just not 16 colors or in super high rez mode. This sort of makes sense. The more colors, the more data per pixel needs to be sent.
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21 January 2020, 10:44 | #13 |
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Short answer: The internal Amiga serial port is CPU driven and has no buffer, so it requires very rapid and frequent interventions from the CPU every time a single byte is sent or received. This means that anything that reduces the available CPU or bus time can cause issues with serial. Some programs might cope better than others by using robust protocols, so you might find that some programs work at 115,200 baud while others don't.
On the Amiga, the more colours used, the more time with the chipset in control of the bus is needed, leaving less time available for the CPU, and the same with the resolution. AGA Amigas have faster chipset buses so are better able to deal with such colour depths and resolutions using less bus time. Additionally, if there is any software running that places a heavy load on the CPU, it makes it more likely that the CPU misses one of the few bus slots available, meaning serial transmission errors are more likely. Bottom line, everyone will have different results here - just because someone gets 115,200, doesn't mean everyone will. 57,600 was what I tended to find as the fastest speed that would work reliably on stock Amigas, but I could use 115,200 on my accelerated A1200 if I didn't stress the CPU. Additional serial ports dramatically improved that situation - a HyperCOM board let me run at 115,200 solidly and reliably, regardless of colour depth and CPU load, and could even run at 460,800 (though very little else could use that speed except other HyperCOM boards). |
21 January 2020, 11:48 | #14 |
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21 January 2020, 17:22 | #15 |
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Interesting - I wasn't aware that DMA load would affect custom register access/interrupt latency when running code from fastram - or maybe I just didn't remember
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21 January 2020, 17:26 | #16 |
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All custom registers (which includes serial port and interrupt registers) unfortunately have exact same CPU access speed limits as chip RAM. Without it this problem would not exists if system has Fast RAM.
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21 January 2020, 20:59 | #17 |
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I just tested in my A1200 if screen modes or color depth affect the serial transfer rate and I found that works at 115200 even in pal 640x512 in 256 colors
but usually I use a workbench in 32 colors When transfering data from PC to Amiga I can't do anything other thing because the cpu in my A1200 is 100% busy I have a tra1200 turboboard 020/28mhz btw, is a bit faster than the 030/25hz which OP have Now in the PC I use a USB > serial adapter because my motherboard do not have a normal serial port in the Amiga I'm using OS3.9 and serial.device V 43.6 which comes with it |
22 January 2020, 00:45 | #18 |
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@Etze The A2630 I have has 2mb ram on it. No daughterboard attached (yet)...
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23 January 2020, 09:38 | #19 |
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CPU fastrom to move kickstart into 32-bit memory on these boards makes a large speed difference.
Btw, I would recommend buying the ZIP RAM chips to get it up to the full 4MB 32-bit mem. |
26 January 2020, 18:53 | #20 | ||
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Quote:
but they do not tested it on the Amiga 2000 OP try this Quote:
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