Individual Computers - New accelerator cards for A600 & A1200

Originally Posted by johnim

hi Mr.EE

are you trying AGA games on your A600

hehe, no. I tried OCS/ECS Games only.

Originally Posted by schoenfeld

Mr.EE: Please wait for the results of demolition's test. I've sent him a modified ACA620 that will most likely fix the problems he reported. If it does, I'll exchange yours as well and apply the fix as a precaution to all other accelerators.

Jens

That sounds good.

[gunni]

I'm having similar problems with whdload crashing since installing my aca620. some (cracked) floppies now crash on loading also.havent tested extensively as yet as currently away from home but shall get back on it at the weekend.

[scu98rkr]

Im also having problems with my ACA 620 and WHDload.

I have 3.1 kickstart, I have 2MB chip ram but the expansion is an old original one. I have yet to enable the whole 11MB of ram. I have a 4GB ide to CF hardrive. Workbench 3.1

about 50% of the games crash back to workbench leave a window saying suspend, restart or quit and giving a memory address.

ie fire and ice, zeewolf2

The machine itself and workbench do not crash.

Is this just a600 issue with WHDload ? Would I be better with the more RAM installed ?

Does any one know if Fire and Ice should work on WHDload ? It does play but then crashs out randomly.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by scu98rkr

Im also having problems with my ACA 620 and WHDload.
about 50% of the games crash back to workbench leave a window saying suspend, restart or quit and giving a memory address.

First try to clean your CPU pins thoroughly with isopropanol as they won't be very clean after 20 years. While it did not solve my stability problems entirely, it did help a lot with the stability.

[scu98rkr]

ok its a 2D June Bug revision btw

[lukassid]

Does this chip in the left hand bottom corner meant to look like that?

Looks like it's about to melt.

[mfilos]

It's just fine mate.
It was sanded by default as Jens said to one of his posts. Was the same lot as the ones used in ACA1231 series where he wanted IC sanded to lower the IC's height, being able to mount a heatsink that would have problem attaching to this IC.

It's nothing to worry about afaik.

[lukassid]

Oh, that's great news, I didn't noticed that when I bought it.

[scu98rkr]

Hi I tried what demolition said and cleaned the old CPU. Made no difference for me, but then I would nt say my aca 620 was unstable to begin with. It is stable it just cant run a large number of games.

Unstable for me would describe the machine doing something and then not being able do it again 2 minutes later and crash. Or alternatively having it on for a long time and then it crashing because it got hot.

The machine is stable workbench runs and doesnt crash. Also some games are stable ie Dune II

What happens is when I try to run certain games through WHDload (have nt tried other methods yet) the games close and go back to workbench saying 'illegal instruction called' 000x000 or something like that. Can write down full details next time.

I get 3 options quit suspend restart.

If I quit Im back in Workbench and everything is huncky dory if I restart the process happens again.

The games ie Body Blow, Fire and Ice, zeewolf2 tend to be ones with large sprites and smooth movement.

Other older games ie chuck rock, streetfighter, battle ilse with more stuttery movement tend to be ok.

Also I have removed the PCMCIA CF card. I never had a PCMCIA SRAM card.

[roy bates]

@scu98rkr

have you tried the readme files in those whdload packages?

normally theres something like nomovevbr,nommu etc in the readme's for peaple having trouble running the games.

im not saying this is what it is,just saying its worth a look.

also please make sure you have all the relivent kickstart files for these,if you dont hey wont work properly.


sorry to jens here,just trying to eliminate the obvios.

[scu98rkr]

Yeah I asked this on my previous post. I think its quite likely I have have issues with my WHDload set up.

But would the games load at all if I had it wrong ?

Mind there is a large number maybe 50%.

I need to dig my disks out again and try and run from floppys.

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by scu98rkr

Yeah I asked this on my previous post. I think its quite likely I have have issues with my WHDload set up.

But would the games load at all if I had it wrong ?

Mind there is a large number maybe 50%.

I need to dig my disks out again and try and run from floppys.

if you open a thread about trouble with whdload games peaple will try to help

if its not setup properly some games will load some wont,some will throw out errors in the way you discribed.(this could be missing kickstart files or even some tooltypes in the icon need changing)

[mfilos]

I see a lot of people having problem with the new ACA620 accelerator and WHDload gaming or freezes.
I'd suggest to open a ticket or contact the vendor you purchased the item for, in order for them to isolate the problem. I guess if there is a general issue, they will contact Jens for everyone's behalf.

I can say that the whdload games which crash on the ACA 620 all run on my ACA 1231 without any problems. So it must be the combination A600+ACA620.

[Toni Wilen]

It may not have anything to do directly with ACA620.
Non-AGA hardware + 68020 + very fast ram combination didn't exist previously.

(Similar compatibility issues are very common in emulation when something suddenly runs faster than previously or have different timing)

[scu98rkr]

Well there was the aca 630. Mfilos do you have any problems with WHDload on your 600 ?

If you get say Fire and Ice running and then tell me which setting you used. I'll test on my 600 with the 620 and the same setting.

That should tell us whether those with crashing games have set up WHDload wrong or its the 620 ?

Although would be best done on the same computer with both a 630 and a 620.

[Riempie]

Well, I received my aca 1232 (thx Amigakit!) and I must say I am surprised. This seems to be the most stable aca-card I have. I have the aca 1230 28 mhz, aca 1230 56 mhz and the aca 1231 42 mhz. Only the aca 1232 seems to be stable in combination with super highres resolutions (with Indy MK2) on my rev 1d4 (no timing fixes) and also on my rev2b a1200 (with timing fixes). The CPU also isn't getting hot. So what's different with the aca 1232 compared to the others? Only thing is though it doesn't seem to work with my wireless pcmcia-card. Still have to test this further though...

But this card is a beauty! Thx Jens

Ps. Still satisfied with all other aca cards, because they work fine on high res laced resolutions.

[mfilos]

Originally Posted by scu98rkr

Mfilos do you have any problems with WHDload on your 600 ?
If you get say Fire and Ice running and then tell me which setting you used. I'll test on my 600 with the 620 and the same setting.

Fire & Ice runs just fine on my ACA630 and my ClassicWB 3.9 environment mate.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Riempie

So what's different with the aca 1232 compared to the others?

The CPUs are used, and they're mostly scratched. There's hardly a chip that doesn't have a dent or scratch. The 030 processors are tested @40MHz before they are mounted on the 33MHz board. All 020 processors are tested @25MHz before they are mounted on the accelerators.

If you take a closer look at the card, you'll find *lots* or larger ceramic capacitors. This is accounting for high ripple on old power supplies. These 1206-size caps are 10µF (yep, the expensive stuff). Also, the PLL that generates the fast logic/memory clock has a separate filter for it's power.

Apart from that, the logic is pretty much identical to the 1231 logic. Memory timing has minor tweaks, but these are accounting for the differencies between Winbond and Etron. No difference in access speed. If Winbond hadn't increased their prices so much, I'd have used them on the ACA1220/1232 as well. This way, I found a way to push the Etron chips to their limits without affecting stability.

I'm still "officially a fan" of the 200MHz Winbond SD-Rams, but their performance is not required on these accelerators. I only buy them for the Chameleon, where the Minimig core makes use of the low first-access-penalty.

Jens

[DonAmiga]

I seem to be getting whdload game graphic glitches and game crashes which sometimes the hole system freezes needing a reboot. This may not have anything to do with the ACA620 but if I take my CF-hdd out and stick it into my ACA630 all the games that didn't work, work ok. If I just mess around in the workbench, which I did for about 4 hrs last night, there's no sign of anything wrong! So maybe it just the way things are setup or acatune! I don't know! I'm just trying to be helpful in providing information so things can be ruled out I've just been choosing random games, e.g. batman the movie, starwars, T2

I have checked all the cpu legs with good magnifier and cleaned. My system is running ClassicWB 68k 1.3 theme setup by fitzsteve, 3.1ks-rom 603 expansion, June bug rev 1.5

You can see the graphic glitches in the photo then a few more mins the game will crash sometimes with illegal error message!