VA2000 Support Thread

[IvanEBC]

Originally Posted by trixster

It sounds to me like you need to send the card back to the board designer for inspection.

I went this route but in a different way.

Cause of the postage time, i'd say 2-3 weeks, and "inspection" time, i could potentially be without the product for 2 months, that's a long haul for someone who uses the system everyday (True!)

So i offered - i'll pay for another, but keep the money on ice and send me another, if that one plays up as well, i'll send it back, if it works, i'll send the original one back. Once he gets either back, he would refund the money, i said i'd cover postage and fees but he has suggested i need to wait for more firmware updates incase it is something he can fix. Because i had the bigramplus issue, i feel Lukas thinks that fixing that MAY indirectly solve this as well. I'm not an electronic engineering type, so i can't say whether this is true or not, and him not answering me about a second one suggests he didn't wish to offend me with refusal, so i'm sitting tight in the hopes that a future firmware update will give me a working CX tool as that's really the last and only thing i want working on this, as Workbench is a piece of art, but these games in the top corner just looks wrong and distracting.

[kolla]

This is probably a silly issue, and slightly off-topic - when I try to open the schematics for the board (amiga-gfxcard.sch) in KiCAD, I get:

The following libraries were not found:

* amiga-gfxcard-rescue
* opendous

I admit though, I am just looking for the Zorro edge connector, as I want to draw a vey simple Zorro board myself, use it as way to learn the basics of KiCAD

[ninevoltz]

Originally Posted by kelihlodversson

Hello everyone

I'm interested in the firmware side of the VA2000 card and have been playing around with the Github source. There is however a problem with opening the project in Xilinx ISE. It seems that all generated cores are missing from the project.

Does anyone know where to get the missing files or what parameters were used to generate them?

I created a fork of Lukas's project on github, and added the missing IP cores, and changed a couple of the clock frequencies. My monitor complains about the refresh frequency in most modes, so I changed the pixel clock to 60MHz instead of 75MHz. I also changed the "Zorro sampling" frequency to 133MHz instead of 150MHz. For some reason, if I have it set to 150MHz, the colors get "washed out" (best way I can describe it.)

It would be nice if you could adjust the pixel clock in Picasso96 settings. I imagine it could be done with PLL dynamic reconfiguration. It would also be really cool if you could update the core directly from the Amiga. I imagine that could be accomplished with partial reconfiguration. There could be a core loader called from startup-sequence. The core is only ~600k so it would take less than a second to load it.

I'm going to try out version 1.7.2 tonight to see what improvements it makes. My only problem with the board right now is that it won't run ZDoom or ScummVM RTG. And scrolling in a CLI can be really slow.

I'm working on improving my VHDL and Verilog competency by starting a project to run an emulated VIC-20 or C64 on the VA2000. If they will fit with the VA2000 core, I could output the graphics directly to video RAM by opening a window and reserving that memory as the C64's framebuffer. If there isn't enough space on the LX25, I will just use the HDMI output directly and forward mouse and keyboard over the Zorro bus. I have a steep learning curve to get over before any of this will work, and I haven't devoted much time to it yet. I imagine once winter starts I will have more time to focus on playing around with that. All of my work will be on github as I progress.

[mntmn]

@IvanEBC, thanks for your new report. Maybe you can try the new firmware? It works for me fine with a BigRamPlus that I recently bought.

I just released, after much testing, FW1.7.2:

http://mntmn.com/va2000/

The drivers archive include an "rtgpatch" Tool that patches one JSR out of rtg.library (found via breakpoint debugging) and this fixes the "pixel junk" phenomenon in DirOpus 4 and other applications that open a screen.

Regarding the missing files from the Xilinx project: these are two XCO IP Cores made with the IP wizard. One is the Clock Wizard and the other is a FIFO. The step by step instructions to create the FIFO are on the bottom of this page: http://hamsterworks.co.nz/mediawiki/...2B_DVID_Output

The clock wizard (DCM) has to be setup like this:
1. Input clock 50 MHz, only check Frequency Synthesis
2. CLK_OUT1 150 MHz (for RAM & bus sampling)
3. CLK_OUT2 25 MHz (for SD Card)
4. CLK_OUT3 75 MHz (Pixelclock 1)
5. CLK_OUT4 40 MHz (Pixelclock 2)
All other options disabled.

The file sdram.v is obsolete and can be deleted from the project.

@ninevoltz looking very much forward to your C64 core!

[ninevoltz]

Version 1.7.2 of the mntgfx.card does not work in my A3000. My workbench is blank with just a mouse pointer and the title bar with no text. Switching the driver back to V 1.7 it works fine. See the attached photo. EDIT: I just reinstalled Picasso96 and it works with 1.7.2 now. Something must have gotten corrupted.

I also discovered tonight that Fusion (Macintosh emulator) has the same graphics problem as ZDoom and ScummVM.

[klx300r]

@ Lukas / mntmn[/QUOTE]

just flashed with this latest v1.72 and I only get a blank screen. Can boot up early setup via DVI only, HDMI says connected on my screen but see only black screen ??
- tried swapping zorro ports
- checked cable connection

A4000, CS-MKIII, X-surf-100: so far only versions that works nice with my x-surf-100 is v1.42

[Etze]

Originally Posted by ninevoltz

My workbench is blank with just a mouse pointer and the title bar with no text.

I have the same problem. I wanted to try to reinstall P96 tonight. So good to know that it should work afterwards.

Originally Posted by ninevoltz

EDIT: I just reinstalled Picasso96 and it works with 1.7.2 now. Something must have gotten corrupted.

Did you use the patched rtg.library?

[ninevoltz]

Originally Posted by Etze

I have the same problem. I wanted to try to reinstall P96 tonight. So good to know that it should work afterwards.



Did you use the patched rtg.library?

I tried the patch, but it didn't make any difference in this case. I was having trouble getting Fusion to start, it kept saying it could not initialize the video hardware using p96refresh. That's what made me decide to reinstall Picasso96.

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by mntmn

To re-flash your card without taking apart the Amiga, you can leave a USB cable connected to the card and lead it out through the back (maybe leave one slot bracket open). You can re-flash the card while the Amiga is turned on (for example when you are in early boot). Just remember to _NOT_ set the PWR jumper when the card is inside of the Amiga.

What script then should one use for reflashing the card straight from the Amiga? The ones you provide are for Linux and windoze systems.

[mntmn]

Originally Posted by Phantom

What script then should one use for reflashing the card straight from the Amiga? The ones you provide are for Linux and windoze systems.

Sorry, I misread the question before. It is not possible to flash from the Amiga side. The process can just be made more comfortable by having a permanent USB cable leading out of the Amiga and connecting a laptop as needed.

[bubbob42]

Originally Posted by mntmn

Sorry, I misread the question before. It is not possible to flash from the Amiga side. The process can just be made more comfortable by having a permanent USB cable leading out of the Amiga and connecting a laptop as needed.

The Amiga has to be turned on and the jumper on the VA2000 must not be set in this case?

[Etze]

Originally Posted by bubbob42

The Amiga has to be turned on and the jumper on the VA2000 must not be set in this case?

Yes, this works - just tried it (to go back to 1.7.1...)!

[JimDrew]

Originally Posted by ninevoltz

I also discovered tonight that Fusion (Macintosh emulator) has the same graphics problem as ZDoom and ScummVM.

Which video driver are you using with FUSION? If I had one of these boards I could easily determine the problem. I guess I should figure out how to obtain one.

edit: Lucas contacted me, and I ordered a board. I will look at making a P96 video driver in assembly with the various acceleration features - and look at the Mac driver.

[ninevoltz]

Originally Posted by JimDrew

Which video driver are you using with FUSION? If I had one of these boards I could easily determine the problem. I guess I should figure out how to obtain one.

edit: Lucas contacted me, and I ordered a board. I will look at making a P96 video driver in assembly with the various acceleration features - and look at the Mac driver.

I used Fusion 3.2, with the p96refresh driver. The graphics appear, but they are bunched up to the top half of the screen, and repeat 3 or 4 times horizontally. ZDoom and ScummVM RTG do the exact same thing. They all work fine with my RetinaZ3BLT video card.

That would be awesome if you can contribute to bug fixing the VA2000 drivers. It would be nice if I could finally box up my Retina board and put it in the storage closet.

[JimDrew]

Have you tried the direct driver? All Amiga programs expect the video board memory to be contiguous (that is how every Amiga video board was made), but I do not believe (based on a comment by Lucas in the PM) that the memory on the VA2000 is fetched contiguously. That would definitely be a hardware issue at that point that would need to be corrected, if true.

[Locutus]

Originally Posted by JimDrew

that is how every Amiga video board was made

Not entirely true, the Picasso and some other Z2 boards support segmented mode in which they only provide a small window in the I/O space allowing one to use 8MB ZII memory.

[JimDrew]

Lucas' board apparently uses 512 byte aligned video lines. That would be a problem for any program that accessed the video board memory directly, which is what FUSION does.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Locutus

Not entirely true, the Picasso and some other Z2 boards support segmented mode in which they only provide a small window in the I/O space allowing one to use 8MB ZII memory.

Aren't you mixing up the Picasso with the Retina here? That's why the original Retina (not BLTZ3) is not supported by Cybergraphx or Picasso96.

[Locutus]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Aren't you mixing up the Picasso with the Retina here? That's why the original Retina (not BLTZ3) is not supported by Cybergraphx or Picasso96.

The PII has a jumper setting for it.

[LooZee]

Lukas,

the HDMI output seems to be very strange for some modes. 800x600 modes work on my Samsung SyncMaster P2450 and P2470HD monitors, 640x480 doesn't. On my Samsung 55" TV when using the "Test" button in Screenmode Prefs, 1024x768 works, but after "Save" the signal is lost.

I also had to remove the VA2000Cx card and use an old Flickerfixer again, because most modes either don't work on my displays or the screen is truncated by ~30 pixels on the left and right side. This is even worse on the big TV where it's ~50 pixels. I guess this also has to do with the (non-standard?) HDMI output.

Oh, and another thing. I never managed to format the SD card. PFS3 always gives me a "write error -3 on block 0".

Update:
I flashed ninevoltz' version with the 60Hz pixel clock. This seems to fix the problems with the HDMI output (or my monitors' input). Still have to test with the Cx card, maybe tomorrow.

RTGPatch creates a problem. Using the patched rtg.library, Filer ( aminet.net/util/dir/Filer4_07.lha ) opens an empty screen. The menu still shows, but everything else is gray. Went back to normal original rtg.library.