Sonnet 7200 PCI programming

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Cego

i've been abstinent from this project for a few weeks now and in fact i will be for a few weeks more as my A4000 is at my parents place.
But i was wondering if changes happened regarding AHI? 68k version was slowing down performance considerably.
Another thing i was wondering about is MPlayer. Fab did a very nice port for MorphOS. Would it be possible to port this to WarpOS?

The source is here: http://fabportnawak.free.fr/mplayer/src/

I know it uses MUI4, but maybe a CLI command would be suffiecient to begin with.

Well sure it's possible, I had a lot of Mplayer built before but then we changed the SDK and stuff, have to revisit that.



AHI hasn't really been looked at lately, ideally AHI would get rebuilt as PPC version but all of the device drivers are 68k, so I don't know how much this can be improved. Ideally all of the channel mixing and frequency changes be done PPC side then just the stereo channels have to go over to the 68k side-maybe that's reasonable/possible, I don't know.

[amigoun]

I finaly found a solution. I deleted the default scummvm.ini and it created new, directory listing now works, changes are written to the file.
I guess, the original ini I had installed did not have edit flag set.
So far, I started few games, and I am amazed how well it works
What about that DosBox, is there any improvement with this new SDL?

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by amigoun

I finaly found a solution. I deleted the default scummvm.ini and it created new, directory listing now works, changes are written to the file.
I guess, the original ini I had installed did not have edit flag set.
So far, I started few games, and I am amazed how well it works
What about that DosBox, is there any improvement with this new SDL?

Dosbox.... ah it's too early to say. I noticed in certain situations that it seemed faster but I haven't rebuilt it freshly. Previously I had to set cycles at 1500-1750 for sound to not skip, I was able to run the same games with the new version at 3000 cycles without sound skipping-all of which is not terribly fast or all that useful for anything but some basic 320x200 VGA DOS games like Sierra games which are in ScummVM. Will post more when I know more.

[amigoun]

Regarding the ScummVM. What is the best AHI settings? If I set it to 8bit DMA, its fast, but plays only left channel mono, and if I set to other modes, I get stereo but there are interuptions, sound is not continous.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by amigoun

Regarding the ScummVM. What is the best AHI settings? If I set it to 8bit DMA, its fast, but plays only left channel mono, and if I set to other modes, I get stereo but there are interuptions, sound is not continous.

14-bit Stereo Fast modes should work too, at least I tried them. The most important thing is to make sure the output rate in ScummVM matches whatever you set in AHI device 0. For older games that'll be 22050, though it might be 11025. Games with a CD Audio track might want 44100.



And as usual AHI 4.18 is recommended, though I'm kind of just going by what Novacoder says.

Paula Fast 8-Bit Stereo++ seems to work ok as well. Reducing scalers can also help here.

[Wrangler]

Just dropping by to say excellent work on the MOS2WOS GCC compiler and associated toolset, leading to some cool conversions. Keep it coming!!

[BULI]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

14-bit Stereo Fast modes should work too, at least I tried them. The most important thing is to make sure the output rate in ScummVM matches whatever you set in AHI device 0. For older games that'll be 22050, though it might be 11025. Games with a CD Audio track might want 44100.



And as usual AHI 4.18 is recommended, though I'm kind of just going by what Novacoder says.

Paula Fast 8-Bit Stereo++ seems to work ok as well. Reducing scalers can also help here.

If speed is enough, and I don't need to use in AHI 8Bit DMA (all sound in left output channel :-( ), I'm using 8bit Stereo++, or 14 bit stereo++, in my experiences: the best quality and fast enough (better than all FAST modes).

Because it is very frustrating, when all sound is in one stereo channel (AHI mode 8 bit DMA), I switch "on" 3D effect in mixer for Sound Blaster- interesting effect.

[grelbfarlk]

I'd like someone with a Zorro Sound card supporting AHI to see if those modes work any better than SB128 on PCI. I think a while back someone mentioned 16-bit modes worked perfectly on some card like maybe a Tocatta (?) that didn't work for me with SB128.

Tested FLAC with Secret of Monkey Island, which seems ok if anyone decided they had too much HDD space. If anyone has OGG soundtracks give that a test.

[nexus]

cego
" i came to the conclusion that PPC in a classic is a nice toy, but nothing serious to work with."
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php...r-4000Di-MKIII
how is it not serious?

[grelbfarlk]

Just for laughs I tried building PrBOOM, it seems to basically work. Give it a try, it's up in the zone. That is if you want an inferior port of ADoomWOS with questionable stability and no documentation.

[Cego]

@nexus

even though its a G4, i cant do 90% of the stuff that i'm doing on my MorphOS machine. I just dont think that PPC is suited for a classic system. It's just overkill IMO. So I will stick to 68k only.

If anybodys interested in the Sonnet G4+Mediator combo please declare interest in the Amibay thread.

[Wrangler]

I'd wanted to try this this out for you using my newly arrived Toccata, but adding the Toccata makes my whole system unstable (I think adding anything extra now makes it wobbly). Sorry mate!

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

I'd like someone with a Zorro Sound card supporting AHI to see if those modes work any better than SB128 on PCI. I think a while back someone mentioned 16-bit modes worked perfectly on some card like maybe a Tocatta (?) that didn't work for me with SB128.

Tested FLAC with Secret of Monkey Island, which seems ok if anyone decided they had too much HDD space. If anyone has OGG soundtracks give that a test.

[nexus]

Originally Posted by Cego

@nexus

even though its a G4, i cant do 90% of the stuff that i'm doing on my MorphOS machine. I just dont think that PPC is suited for a classic system. It's just overkill IMO. So I will stick to 68k only.

If anybodys interested in the Sonnet G4+Mediator combo please declare interest in the Amibay thread.

thats ridiculous to say not suited or overkill really no such thing

[nexus]

Originally Posted by Wrangler

I'd wanted to try this this out for you using my newly arrived Toccata, but adding the Toccata makes my whole system unstable (I think adding anything extra now makes it wobbly). Sorry mate!

i have a melody z2 just havent had a chance to mess with it yet

[starship]

I have prisma megamix on zorro slot.
It is not a sound card , it is music card but I play mp3(48000khz stereo) and flac very well while playing quakewos,hereticwos,adoomwos vs.
of course only compressed music formats.
and Earth2140.wos not playing on me from build 312 to 336.
It is playing very good on build 310.

[Cego]

Originally Posted by nexus

thats ridiculous to say not suited or overkill really no such thing

no it’s not. 1. you don’t have to take it personal 2. how about just respecting my decision and my opinion? Is it so hard for you to accept that i don’t find it useful and suited for a classic system? it is still very underpowered for a PPC, doesn’t offer me enough new possibilities and at the same time it is quite demanding, especially when i think about the poor 5V rail on the 4000 motherboard.
i try to be respectful, but you don’t have to moan about this on every forum.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Wrangler

I'd wanted to try this this out for you using my newly arrived Toccata, but adding the Toccata makes my whole system unstable (I think adding anything extra now makes it wobbly). Sorry mate!

Did you play with the swap jumper on the Mediator at all? Is it when the Toccata is active or just once it's inserted in the system?
Not a big deal, I'm just curious.


And keep the personal stuff personal. Opinions are free, one of the reasons there are so many of them.

[nexus]

Originally Posted by Cego

no it’s not. 1. you don’t have to take it personal 2. how about just respecting my decision and my opinion? Is it so hard for you to accept that i don’t find it useful and suited for a classic system? it is still very underpowered for a PPC, doesn’t offer me enough new possibilities and at the same time it is quite demanding, especially when i think about the poor 5V rail on the 4000 motherboard.
i try to be respectful, but you don’t have to moan about this on every forum.

what are you talking about?
i took nothing personal and second this is a g4 at ~450mhz you knew that from the beginning you have been using a sonnet for quite sometime
and just a few months ago you were saying the opposite

what i dont respect is how you bought that g4 sonnet just recently and now are charging more than you paid
and how you sat here for months saying how great it was that you can use a ppc in a classic asking for our help and for us to make things work for you
then you call our work a toy and nothing serious
also you earn respect and from your answer to my question about why it wasnt serious i dont respect it and dont have too

now what i did say on amibay which i posted the link here was that you should have let those know here not there that it was for sale
where is this moaning you speak of on all these forums?


anyways your statement doesnt even make sense the 5v rail is not a problem the 3.3v vrm is on the mediator or sonnet
only time 5v is a issue is if your psu is dying or bad caps on the mobo

[BULI]

Originally Posted by starship

I have prisma megamix on zorro slot.
It is not a sound card , it is music card but I play mp3(48000khz stereo) and flac very well while playing quakewos,hereticwos,adoomwos vs.
of course only compressed music formats.
and Earth2140.wos not playing on me from build 312 to 336.
It is playing very good on build 310.

I'm using Delfina Flipper (clock port for Zorro) and it works great with Sonnet (play Quake + mp3), but in FroggerNG when play bigger movies (biger resolutions mpeg2, DivX etc) with hardware decoding option give lag voice and distorted sound :-(
But when play mpeg 1 video (VCD), hardware decoding work great with Sonnet and Delfina Flipper

[nexus]

anyone heard from stedy?
curious how the carriers are coming along