ACA500 plus?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

I've added a description of that to the Wiki on january 5th already:
http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/ACA500plus

Thanks for info. I was wondering what aca.resource was used for since I could see it in the menus but had no idea whether I should have it on or off. It is not mentioned on that wiki link though that the flashrom tool is made available through that option.

If this:
http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/DiskImageGui
and this:
http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/ImageMount

Both of those require KS 2.04+. fmsdisk doesn't have any special KS requirements, but from the documentation it doesn't have any boot support. It is just a virtual floppy meant for extracting/mounting .dms images amongst others.

[amigoun]

Still some issues with AR3 save-states. It seems the memory limiting function of AR3 in ACA does not work properly. And that is most likely the main reason why save-states do not work correct.
Simply pressing F3 in AR opens menu when is possible to limit available mem. When done, simple reset makes Amiga boot with memory limited (on real hardware). But with ACA-AR3 memory is still remains full - but internaly AR3 thinks it is already limited, so allows SQ function to work. And this obviously leads to problems.

[amigoun]

I also noticed ACAs system info reports on my A500+ 2MB chip ram even if the trapdoor expansion ram card is not connected.

[Schoenfeld]

These Action Replay memory limiting functions will be addressed in the next update. Please note that AR3 is an expansion that was developed when Kickstart 1.3 was state-of-the-art, so these will not work with 512K-sized Kickstarts. However, they will be "back to working" under Kick1.3 with one of the next updates.

Chipram recognition is a different story - thanks for the report. Please provide more information: Is it a Rev.8 board, or a real A500+ with 1M chipram on-board and an optional 1M in the trapdoor slot? What's the physical Kickstart ROM you have? And what version of the Menu System are you using?

thanks,
Jens

[amigoun]

Thanks & looking forward for fixed AR3. It is my favourite piece of hw, and I am very happy it is implemented in ACA500plus.
Cocerning ChipRAM, I have real A500+ (mb rev 8A) with 1MB chip onboard and opt. 1M in trapdoor. System menu v0.77 and kick 2.05 same with 3.1. Updated to 0.79 and bad recognition still persists.

[demolition]

I can confirm the A500+ issue. In my A500+ Rev 8A, the ACA says 2MB chip mem no matter whether the 1MB in the trapdoor is connected or not. I have a KS3.1 physical ROM. Using 0.80 menu.

Booting into WB, it shows the correct 1MB chip.

[demolition]

Found some other potential conflict. I was testing out the ACA500p in my 500+ and if I enable VBR move in the menu, all WHDLoad slaves would crash after load with a memory access error at around $f00000 (from memory, can take picture later if you like so you can see the exact wording).

The CPU in my 500+ is a 68010 which has a VBR register unlike the 000 but that CPU should be disabled with the ACA500p attached, right?

With VBR Move disabled in the ACA menu, the slaves would run fine and the quit key still worked in the 3 different slaves I tested, but not sure if those slaves were already fixed to enable quit on 68000 or the VBR was required.

Edit: Was just thinking that perhaps the WHDLoad version I have installed is not the latest one if that matters.. Think it might be <18.0.

[el_pasi]

Indeed some WHDLoad-games don't work if VBR move is enabled.
At least Paradroid 90 (install v0401.1), Rainbow Islands (v1.4.1), Uridium 2 (v0801.1) didn't work with my setup. Also Formula One Grand Prix (not whdload-version) is incompatible. It crashes when race should start. But all these games work fine with same ACA500+ settings, only VBR move must be disabled. I also quickly tested bunch of other WHDLoad-games (Gods, Phantom Fighter, Pinball Dreams, Rick Dangerous 2, Sensible Golf, Shadow Of Beast, Speedball 2, Turrican 2, Xenon 2) and those had no issues with VBR move. I tested with WHDLoad v18.2, and Amiga 500 Rev6A, ACA 500+ Firmware 0.79.

[Schoenfeld]

This WHDload update fixes VBRmove issues:

http://whdload.de/whdload/whd183.lha

Please report back if you still find problems. Please use this with the latest menu version V0.79 (note that user "demolition" got a test-version V0.80 that is not yet ready for release).

Jens

[demolition]

I still got the same problem using 0.80 and WHDLoad 18.3 in my A500+ as you can see here. This particular error was from Giana Sisters SE V1.0. The game runs with VBR move disabled and can also quit.

I tried a few games and some of them, instead of producing this error like last time, just flashed the power LED, although it just kept doing that and never showed a guru.

[remowilliams]

Forgive the ignorance here - but if I've got an A500 with a 512K trapdoor and ECS NTSC Agnus (id=$0030) - am I supposed to be able to get a configuration with 1MB chipram?

And the reason I ask, is because I can't

[demolition]

You will need a 1MB Agnus. Not sure if ECS Agnus can also be 512k?
What does WhichAmiga says regarding the Agnus model?

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by demolition

This particular error was from Giana Sisters SE V1.0.

This looks like a word or long-read from an odd address, which is not supported by the 68000. The weird part is that the program counter appears to be within Kickstart.

Originally Posted by demolition

I tried a few games and some of them, instead of producing this error like last time, just flashed the power LED, although it just kept doing that and never showed a guru.

I know you're in direct contact with Toni - if you can condense this down to the shortest-possible path to reproduce this and send it to him, he can investigate it.

thanks,
Jens

[Toni Wilen]

whdload

This is really strange suggestion but does it work if you also enable Action Replay III? Don't even need to map it to button press, only to enable it. (EDIT: also try to map something to at least one button)

[el_pasi]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

This WHDload update fixes VBRmove issues:

http://whdload.de/whdload/whd183.lha

Please report back if you still find problems. Please use this with the latest menu version V0.79 (note that user "demolition" got a test-version V0.80 that is not yet ready for release).

Jens

Thanks Jens, WHDLoad v18.3 did solve those VBR move -problems concerning Paradroid 90, Rainbow Islands, Uridium 2 and possibly some other titles. I tested several WHDLoad-installed games and so far haven't found more issues on my setup. And with WHDLoad v18.2 already majority of games worked, also Giana Sisters SE (V1.1).

[demolition]

For the record, I found out that my problems were caused by aca.resource being disabled. If you want to have VBR move enabled and use WHDLoad, aca.resource should also be enabled.

[Psygore]

Originally Posted by demolition

For the record, I found out that my problems were caused by aca.resource being disabled. If you want to have VBR move enabled and use WHDLoad, aca.resource should also be enabled.

Confirmed for GianaSisters whd version.

[remowilliams]

Originally Posted by demolition

You will need a 1MB Agnus. Not sure if ECS Agnus can also be 512k?
What does WhichAmiga says regarding the Agnus model?

Thanks for that, WhichAmiga says its Agnus 8372a

So here's the strange part - I can enable it now and it does work.

The first few hours I spent playing with the board there was nothing I could do to enable the F5 1M Chip RAM expansion option. I tested enabling/disabling the trapdoor RAM and booting into WB1.3, and every time it showed the correct lower/higher amount of memory.

So after a couple of hours the only changes I had made to the setup (not even physically moving it) was to plug a joystick into the machine and run Dragon Breed WHDload.

After playing that a bit and rebooting - voila. I suddenly find that the 1MB Chip RAM option is available, turn it on and proceed to run some WHDload stuff that requires 1MB Chip.

Now I'm not complaining now that it works, but somethings odd.

I've got an ACA1220 Accelerator, that wouldn't boot with an ACA500Plus, but when reading the manual it suggested pulling it out a couple of mm, which did the trick
What I noticed while I had the ACA1220 disabled was that my current CassicWB CFcard wouldn't boot, error saying "Stack Overflow" but when I got the card working it booted fine ?
Also I cannot select Action Replay Roms with the ACA1220 connected, is this normal ?

[appiah4]

Excuse my illiteracy what is VRM move?