Kick ROM into RAM without Accelerator

[IvanEBC]

Hi Guys.

I get alot of raised eyebrows when asking this but usually followed by .. yeah i THINK you can.

When looking at Blizkick i noticed it said it could be done on an A4000 CPU....

I actually dumped the rom using the Blizkick tool but not really certain it can do what i'm looking for.

So yeah, Have an Amiga 4000/040, no accelerator but plenty of memory, is there a way to get that rom file into FAST memory for a speed boost just like my A12000/ACA and A600/Furia MAPROM features can do?

Thanks.

[plasmab]

From http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php...l=1#post629775

Yes, it's possible. You have to turn on the Maprom on your 3640 board and use this great tool, which is called BlizKick.
http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/BlizKick

As far as I remember the syntax goes like this:

C:BlizKick Devs:Kickstarts/kick40068.A4000 CPUCARD QUIET

I have never tried this though.

[trixster]

The CPUCARD flag works fine with an A3640 and blizkick. I did it with my old card. There's a maprom jumper too.

Blizkick does not work if you've done the 64mb motherboard hack.

[IvanEBC]

Oh wait, i'm about to get schooled here... so my Amiga 4000-040@25Mhz .. the actual CPU, which has been removed before, its that seperate card..... that is actually called the "A3640"... Ohhhh right... i never gave it a name previously, just figured it was a daughter board type thing to house the CPU but never had a name .... .. light bulb is flickering brightly now......

PS No 64mb hack, its the standard 16mb, and a bigram plus 256mb...

[trixster]

It'll work fine on your setup. Your 040 cpu sits on the A3640 accelerator card. Where this card lets itself down compared to third-party accelerators is it doesn't have local fast ram and is slow to access motherboard ram due to (unnecessary) waitstates.

I recommend reading the docs thoroughly though as blizkick can be tricky to set up correctly. But when it works it's absolutely great.

[IvanEBC]

Boot Loop!

Had it at the first line of my Startup - and progressively moved it down, it only delays the bootloop... took off "QUIET" to see if i could catch an error but i caught it just saysing "something like, mapping v40.68, then reboots.

The docs say if using an 68040, then it doesn't matter where i run it (apparently other roms need to have setpatch run first).

Would it be bad to run this way lower like .... end of user-startup?

*shakes head* yeah i never quite understood how telling a machine to reboot in the startup wouldn't cause this type of issue anyways, i guess that's why i avoided it, but hey, the hint of a speed increase, i'll do anything

[plasmab]

I've never tried this but i'd expect it to be something like...

If KICK < 31
BlizKick ............
End If

That way it would only reboot if the kickstart version was too old... But this is utterly uninformed and no to be taken as a reliable source of info...

Question. If you just run it from the workbench CLI and let it reboot what does the kickstart get reported as?

[trixster]

The ideal way to use blizkick is to have it at the top of the startup-sequence and to use it to not only kick the rom into ram (and also kick an updated rom if necessary) but also to add in the modules which normally get added by setpatch if you have bb1&bb2 installed. This way you remove the additional reboots, everything gets sorted by blizkick in one reboot. You have to make sure you add enough buffers with the buffer command though otherwise you can get errors.

If blizkick works correctly then it doesn't send itself into a reboot loop as it recognises that it's already been actioned.

[trixster]

Of course, you can make a custom rom and have blizkick kick that, that saves a long drawn out blizkick command line!

[trixster]

You can just use the * flag to kick the installed rom into ram, try that.

[IvanEBC]

Originally Posted by trixster

You can just use the * flag to kick the installed rom into ram, try that.

So first line of startup-sequence .. just have

C:BlizKick Devs:kickstarts/kick31.rom *

For the rest of the replies, yeah this is a very fresh 3.9 install but this just might more more complex than i'm ready for, reading the docs isn't a great help because i don't understand alot of the terminology.

[IvanEBC]

Originally Posted by trixster

You can just use the * flag to kick the installed rom into ram, try that.

No Worky doing
blizkick kick31.rom *

(I'm shortening paths in forums for sake of less typing)

[Sir_Lucas]

Hi. Can you try this line?

C:BlizKick Devs:Kickstarts/kick40068.A4000 CPUCARD QUIET

[trixster]

If I remember correctly you take out the kick31.rom bit.

So: C:Blizkick * CPUCARD QUIET

This should kick the existing rom into fast ram, nothing more. What rom is installed in your machine?

Have to set the maprom jumper on the card itself?

[IvanEBC]

[QUOTE=trixster;1164350]If I remember correctly you take out the kick31.rom bit.

So: C:Blizkick * CPUCARD QUIET

This should kick the existing rom into fast ram, nothing more. What rom is installed in your machine?

Have to set the maprom jumper on the card itself?

what now? *Googles* Oh crap, didn't even know i had too, again, been using these others with his function built in, didn't know .. i'm checking now..
Was set to what appeared to be "DIS" and is now on "EN"

It works now ..... thanks for persisting with me. I left it on the full path to my kick and NOT "*" and i have Kickstart 3.1 - v40.68

[Sir_Lucas]

Great that it works
Now, use the new icon.library You'll notice an immediate speed increase. You don't need Loadmodule, because BlizKick does the job.

http://aminet.net/package/util/libs/IconLib_46.4

[IvanEBC]

Originally Posted by trixster

The ideal way to use blizkick is to have it at the top of the startup-sequence and to use it to not only kick the rom into ram (and also kick an updated rom if necessary) but also to add in the modules which normally get added by setpatch if you have bb1&bb2 installed. This way you remove the additional reboots, everything gets sorted by blizkick in one reboot. You have to make sure you add enough buffers with the buffer command though otherwise you can get errors.

If blizkick works correctly then it doesn't send itself into a reboot loop as it recognises that it's already been actioned.

Now it is working cause ... Jumper!

I'm curious about this .... i'm still fairly close to a base install with BB1+2. I've not messed with optimisations much yet, can you push me in the right direction for adding in these setpatch modules.... sounds like a great idea.

[IvanEBC]

Originally Posted by Sir_Lucas

Great that it works
Now, use Loadmodule and use the new icon.library You'll notice an immediate speed increase.

http://aminet.net/package/util/libs/IconLib_46.4
http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/LoadModule

Probably suits another thread, i see alot of this type of info and it is spread around everywhere...
So reading the readme there, you use loadmodule which is doing the same as blizkick, but for files in the libs: dir?

Do you have a suggestion of which libs will have the best speed impact?

As for Icon library, i think it was the same author, but i installed one that used some "setpch" and it read my current icon.library and adjusted it, saved my old one and produced a new one.

[IvanEBC]

Originally Posted by Sir_Lucas

Great that it works
Now, use the new icon.library You'll notice an immediate speed increase. You don't need Loadmodule, because BlizKick does the job.

http://aminet.net/package/util/libs/IconLib_46.4

I might be done then....
But in my head, if there is a disk based library i can see (IE Icon.library) then isn't loadmodule loading that into FAST mem for quicker access?

I'm working fast and already had loadmodule.lha on the miggy - won't install

[trixster]

you dont need loadmodule or loadresident if you're using blitzkick.

Give me a bit and i'll drag up an old example of my config for you to have a look at.