Cybervision64-problems

[lomaxx]

I bought an Amiga4000T with Cyberstorm60/50, Cybervision64, Xsurf-Network-card and 3 SCSI-CDRoms, which are connected via 2 Controllers some while ago. Now i am trying to set up the Cybervision64.

It's scandoubler-throughput works fine. Also I installed the drivers, but the system crashes when i enable a cybervision-graphicmode. To be more precise: I run "Screenmode", choose any of the available cybervision-modes and then click "use". After that all windows close and the new mode shows correctly. I also can move the mouse-pointer arround then. Even AMIGA+E (execute command) and starting a shell ("cli") works. But the system either locks up or crashes when i double-click a harddisk-icon (it's window still opens and i still can move the mouse or start a shell) and then click some symbol in that window. Or when i click a diffrent harddisk-window afterwards. In other words: As soon as i open 2 windows the system crashes.

I just tried starting directory opus from cli. Runs nicely, even when i browse through the directories. Running a WHDLoad-installed demo (DesertDreams) runs too, when started from cli.

Things i already tried:

- cleaning the card from dust
- putting it into a diffrent slot (the only other free slot i have)
- pushing all chips on the card (after grounding myself)

Any clues what might be causing this? I didn't yet try to completely format the system-disk and reinstall workbench. Since i am not sure if i am able to set everything up correctly again Also i read a thread about someone who did that without any improvement. So if anyone knows this symptom and can make guesses at what exactly might be wrong, then i would be thankful for any hints.

[lomaxx]

I just booted a diffrent harddisk that i found in the boot-menu and noticed that the workbench is running flawless in a higher resolution there. So the card seems to be ok! So i will try to set up a totally new system on the other harddisk.

Thanks for now and all your help. I will message again if i have other problems!

[Zetr0]

Well done lomaxx, I am glad that it sounds like it was only a software fault. if its worth anything on my A12 tower setup, I had to Install, re-install, then download stuff from aminet before i could my Cybervision to work properly!

[lomaxx]

Good to know that. I won't give up after the first try then ... unless it is working. But before starting a reinstall i think i fill first start two other threads:

- How to exchange the the battery in a 4000T
- recommendations for a new installation (i think i saw some threads on that and will search for them first)

Please don't answer these questions here. I don't want to get off-topic.

[lomaxx]

Hm ... interesting: I started a new installation by formating the old partitions with SFS2, installing OS3.1, installing cyberstormdrivers (040-, 060-libs), cybervision64-drivers and AMICDFS, changed resolution and everything worked fine in a high cybervision-mode-resolution.

Now i did the OS3.5-preinstallation and the same bug is back.

...well...I try to track down the error or stick with 3.1.

Edit: And of course ... Miami needs OS3.5 as it seems, so i can't stick to 3.1.

[Zetr0]

I wonder if its a picasso/CGX library failure... hmmm....

[zipper]

Originally Posted by lomaxx

Hm ... interesting: I started a new installation by formating the old partitions with SFS2, installing OS3.1, installing cyberstormdrivers (040-, 060-libs), cybervision64-drivers and AMICDFS, changed resolution and everything worked fine in a high cybervision-mode-resolution.

Now i did the OS3.5-preinstallation and the same bug is back. .

Probably messed your 040/060 libs installation again, putting original 040 library onto P5 stub 040 library?

[lomaxx]

Originally Posted by zipper

Probably messed your 040/060 libs installation again, putting original 040 library onto P5 stub 040 library?

Unfortunately this is not the problem/solution. The preinstallation doesn't change both libraries as far as i can tell (unfortunately the installation-log is not created although i chose to get one). I reinstalled the original P5-040/060-Libs as well as the newest of them that i could find, but it didn't change the situation.

[zipper]

Originally Posted by lomaxx

Unfortunately this is not the problem/solution. The preinstallation doesn't change both libraries as far as i can tell (unfortunately the installation-log is not created although i chose to get one). I reinstalled the original P5-040/060-Libs as well as the newest of them that i could find, but it didn't change the situation.

Well, I never got 3.5 to install properly - perhaps some icon related problem, so I installed everything manually. Wasn't too hard job but took some hours. And no problems to get it to work.

[lomaxx]

Victory! After confusing myself and my Amiga beyond the point of return i managed to now have Amiga OS3.5 running in a 1024x768-16bit-Cybervision-mode. I just have to see if the system is stable, but so far it's all running fine. Unfortunately i doubt that i can give exact hints to those, who are having the same issues, since at some point i just did a "I don't care anymore what's happening"-installation. I try to give a description anyway:

I started with a backup of my latest running 3.1-installation. This installation consists of the newest 040-, 060- and cybervision-drivers from P5 that i could find, MUI, Miami (in oposite to my above info Miami does run on 3.1 as i found out) and AmigaTradeCenter.

Then i tried to install systempatch2.lha (found at aminet). It wanted me to install OS3.5. So i did like it demanded, switched to a standard screenmode to be able to continue and installed systempatch2 afterwards. I noticed that the 040-/060-libraries had been replaced by this, checked their versions and again replaced the 060-library with the newest one i had (the other versions seemed to be equal).
After that i actually wanted to install fblit.lha (aminet), but while installing was noted that i shouldn't install it together with other graficdrivers like P96 or CGX. I was unsure what do then, since i tried CGX (Cybergraphics, "CGXV41_r70a.lha", found at aminet) before and was left with a locking-up bootlogo. Despite my bad experience with it, i decided to give it another try. This time i didn't care about the "please do uninstall other driver-software first"-message while installing and left the original Cybervision64-drivers installed.
I am not sure anymore which options i chose while installing ... memclock=50Mhz, passthrough:no, bootlogo: no, most speed-enhancements: yes (unless they sounded too unstable). After installation i came up with the idea of enabling the high-resolution BEFORE reseting the system. So i chose the screenmode which i have now, opened two windows to see if it still crashes (which it did - as i expected) and then reseted the amiga to be surprised with a nicely booting and running system.

So now i am not sure which part of the above did it or what issues i will be running into next, but for now i am happy and hope that this confusingly writting 'diary' helps anyone with the same issues.

[lomaxx]

hehe, the next issue is coming up: the screen does not switch from workbench to a demo/game that i started with WHDLoad =) I will be working on this.

Edit: Solved by setting "PASSTHROUGH"-tooltype of the CVision64-monitor-file in Devs to PASSTHROUGH="YES".

[Zetr0]

LOL!!!

Well played lomaxx!!! scoring 1 for the good guys mind you from the read of it,.... imma thinking it a 3 point field goal!

[lomaxx]

Soooooo...you thought this is the end? You reallly thought i would shut up now enjoying my workbench till the end of my days?

You were SOOOOOO wrong! Guess what? .... The problem returned!

After configuring my desktop and system for the past days without experiencing this issue anymore i am now sitting in front of a constantly reseting amiga as soon as ... well ... you know when the reset occurs: ... OS3.5 ... Cybervision-mode ... few clicks on workbench ....

All of the three backups, which i made in between and which used to work before, do not work anymore. So either it's an inconsitant hardware-problem with the cybervision (but why does it work with OS3.1 then?) or a virus(?) (but why does the other OS3.1-version on the other boot-partition still work then?) or some icon-related-problem??? (is there a tool to convert/fix all icons?).

I have no clue and for at least today i give up. I will lean back and enjoy some games, started from a low-res OS3.5-desktop and using the cybervision only as scandoubler.

... this is Lomaxx signing out ... maybe for the last time ...

[lomaxx]

... or maybe not for the last time.

Maintenance-diary - Entry #362:

So, yesterday, after a short game of Pang, i came up with the idea that the SFS-filesystem might be the problem. I created a third bootpartition, formated it using FFS and not SFS, copied my latest OS3.5-backup to it and booted the system from that partition -> The error was gone.

With a little bit of hope brought back to my mind i decided to sleep and did some testing today:

- booting from the FFS-partition -> still worked nicely
- booting from the SFS2-partition -> still didn't work
- reformating the SFS2-partition and backuping to it -> didn't work
- reformating the SFS2-partition with FFS and backuping to it -> DID work.

So i started to investigate further into my SFS-setup. First i wanted to test the existing SFS2-partitions and noticed that SFSCheck doesn't seem to work with SFS2. I also found a thread that says that it doesn't. Beside that i found information, that the only diffrence between SFS and SFS2 is that SFS2 can handle files larger than 4GB. And since i probably won't need that i decided to try on SFS1 instead.

First i followed the tutorial i followed the first time setting up SFS2 as well:

http://eab.abime.net/faq.php?faq=ami...e_sfs_hd_guide

Alas i still ran into some problems after installing SFS1, formatting and SFSchecking. So i tried various solutions, used hdinsttools ("hdinst.lha" on aminet) and experienced a little with the MASK- and MAXTRANSFER-values in the partition-settings. This page holds quite interesting information on them:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~hjohn/SFS/mask.htm

So far i only tried two settings. SFScheck shows no more errors now that i managed to correctly install SFS1 to the disk and reformated the partition with it. I also did a few tests as mentioned on the page above: moved a ca. 10MB large LHA-file to and from the SFS1-partition and tested it with no errors showing. And unpacked the same archive to SFS1-partition and packed it back to some other partition. The resulting test-archive had the same size as the originial archive and tested correctly.

So to put it short: everything with SFS1 seems to be fine, just that my system crashes when i boot it from that partition.

I will continue to experiment with the MASK/MAXTRANS-settings some more or stick to FFS =/

[lomaxx]

I now tried all mask/transfer-settings mentioned at the link above, i think.
None of them makes things better or worse.

... lowres-OS3.5-SFS: works ... high-res-OS3,5-FFS: works ... highres-OS3.1-SFS: works ... high-res-OS3.5-SFS: worked for a short period of time in between but at first and now does not. Does this even make sense?

I guess i am stuck unlesss someone has an idea.

[alewis]

What version of Cybergraphics are you using?

try swapping from Cybergraphics to Picasso96 drivers, instead. I had major problems getting my OS3.9 install to work with a C64/3D and Cybergraphics, the problem went away when I changed to P96 drivers...