[SAS/C] Making malloc() allocate in fast RAM instead of chip RAM?

[8bitbubsy]

How do I do this? I am using SAS/C 6.58 and I'm programming an application that I want to use fast RAM!

My S3M loader seems to just crash in the sample loader...
It managed to allocate all the sample data memory, but somehow after reading X amounts of bytes (quite many too) fread() returns 0 as in no byte read/written to buffer, then the Amiga crash. What the..?
I use the SAS/C "cpr" debugger, and traced through the code and found out that it indeed crashes in the sample load loop, but only in the middle of the reading -- not on first sample etc.

This is weird, it allocates all the sample data (200kB+) but fails in the read/write loop, maybe I need to set some special compiler switches to access over 65535 bytes or to make it fast RAM "compatible"?

[Ed Cruse]

Originally Posted by 8bitbubsy

How do I do this? I am using SAS/C 6.58 and I'm programming an application that I want to use fast RAM!

My S3M loader seems to just crash in the sample loader...
It managed to allocate all the sample data memory, but somehow after reading X amounts of bytes (quite many too) fread() returns 0 as in no byte read/written to buffer, then the Amiga crash. What the..?
I use the SAS/C "cpr" debugger, and traced through the code and found out that it indeed crashes in the sample load loop, but only in the middle of the reading -- not on first sample etc.

This is weird, it allocates all the sample data (200kB+) but fails in the read/write loop, maybe I need to set some special compiler switches to access over 65535 bytes or to make it fast RAM "compatible"?

Malloc() should allocate from fast ram first and then chip ram. If you are getting chip ram then there's probably no chunks of contigous fast ram big enough for the allocation.

I've never had a problem with my SAS/C not going over the 16 bit limit and I don't remember ever having to tell it to.

[Leffmann]

Probably an error in your code, but if slowmem and chipmem will not do (though they should) and you must have fastmem, then use AllocMem:

#include <exec/memory.h>
#include <clib/exec_protos.h>

APTR ptr = AllocMem(1000, MEMF_FAST);

if(ptr != NULL)
  FreeMem(ptr, 1000);

EDIT: this may allocate slowmem too of course since AmigaOS treats them the same, but it does avoid chipmem if you think that's what's causing the error.

[8bitbubsy]

I'm such an idiot. You know, endianness on 68k.
I read shorts and ints from a file that was made on DOS, without swapping the nybbles. It all works now.

Also, the 65535 code boundary got fixed by setting CODE=FAR in the compilation option.

Life saver (so slow it's only good to use it in loaders):

void swap16(unsigned short *data)
{
    *data = (*data >> 8) | (*data << 8);
}

void swap32(unsigned int *data)
{
    *data = (*data >> 24)
    | ((*data << 8) & 0x00FF0000)
    | ((*data >> 8) & 0x0000FF00)
    | (*data << 24);
}