VA2000 Support Thread

[JimDrew]

What is the RTG patch for? Why is it needed? I am trying to get up to speed while I wait on my board to arrive.

[ninevoltz]

Originally Posted by JimDrew

What is the RTG patch for? Why is it needed? I am trying to get up to speed while I wait on my board to arrive.

It is supposed to fix some graphics glitches in Directory Opus.

[IvanEBC]

Originally Posted by 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.
Lukas / mntmn

Great news Lukas.
It worked, i'm now on 1.7.2.
UPDATE: BigRamplus Tested and working
UPDATE: I haven't configured the CXtool yet but i will. Have attempted but nothing seems to happen, will open a seperate thread or email.

This is the first time she booted to OS without a hitch, and even noticed the garbage just before workbench is no longer a thing.... that alone is worth the price of admission.

the RTG patch though.
BEFORE the patch.....
The way i tested is ... if i double click an image in Dopus4, it uses the built in Dopus viewer in some bad screenmode, and yeah, i get the garbage on the side of the screen. But i also have visage setup using the RTG screenmode so if i select the same image and click "show", i get a much more prettier version of the image but still has the garbage.
After the Patch.....
If i double click an image i simply get NO image at all, maybe a coloured block, no garbage visible though.
But if i select the same image and click "show", i get a much more prettier version of the image and the garbage is gone. A good win.

I can live with that for now, but i'll see if it affects me in other ways.

I know i've been a tough customer, but the work is paying off, and hopefully i'll whizz through the cxtool config and bigramplus.

Thank you Lukas.

[zeGouky]

Hello Lukas,

is there any chance to see 50hz support for the VA2000CX?

Thanks

[mntmn]

Hi everybody,

with great help from thor I was able to understand what is causing "pixel junk" and some other corruption in P96. P96 has some bugs when framebuffer rows are not linear but aligned to bigger boundaries as in VA2000.

So I decided to completely rework the framebuffer scanout and change the model to linear addressable memory. This fixes all known graphical bugs, including stuff like corrupted corners of MUI speech bubbles. Moreover, probably all demos and software that used the graphics memory directly now work.

Here is a beta version of the firmware and driver (this driver is incompatible to older firmware!):

1. http://dump.mntmn.com/va2000-1.8.2beta1.bit
2. http://dump.mntmn.com/mntgfx.card.182beta1

File number one has to be renamed to va2000.bit and copied to the xc3sprog folder in an existing extracted firmware update archive. Then just run flash.bat or flash.sh as usual.

The driver has to be renamed to mntgfx.card and placed in Libs:Picasso96.

This beta version has one known bug caused by imperfect RAM refresh handling: rarely, a pixel with wrong color can appear somewhere on the screen. This will be fixed in the final version.

Looking forward to your test results.

PS: rtg.library patch is no longer necessary. Please revert to original rtg.library.

[ninevoltz]

Lukas,

I tested your beta 1.8.2 core and driver, it seems to have fixed everything, ZDoom, ScummVM RTG, and Quake all work perfectly. Only thing I can't get to work is Fusion. It keeps complaining that it is "unable to initialize the video hardware!" and refuses to start using p96refresh. I have noticed a random orange pixel occasionally like you mentioned. Fusion has a pretty crappy interface for setting it up, but it seems to work better for me than ShapeShifter does. It shows all zeros for the monitor ID in the p96refresh options. It doesn't appear that you can change it manually either. I will play around with it some more this weekend to see if it's a problem with my setup before you waste any time looking at it.
Thanks!

[JimDrew]

Crappy interface? It's very simple and easy to use. You don't need to change much of anything, it just works out of the box.

I am waiting for my board to arrive from Lukas, and then I can test FUSION and PCx on my systems here.

If you are seeing all zero's for the monitor ID then it sounds like you didn't use the P96 software to setup all (or any?) of the video modes. This is no different than using the PicassoIV, Cybervision64, etc. with the P96 system.

[Drewlio77]

Any quick tips on getting the SD card to mount? I have has very little luck in regards to this.

Thanks,

Drewlio77

[ninevoltz]

Originally Posted by JimDrew

Crappy interface? It's very simple and easy to use. You don't need to change much of anything, it just works out of the box.

I only say this because it's impossible to undo video settings. If I choose p96refresh and decide to change it to p96directXL, I can't. Also, when I choose a device to add I can't undo it. Have to restart the program or even delete PRAM.

[JimDrew]

You can undo ANY of the settings. Read the manual that came with FUSION when you purchased it!

Hint - HOLD the SHIFT key and select a driver to remove it.

[ninevoltz]

Originally Posted by JimDrew

You can undo ANY of the settings. Read the manual that came with FUSION when you purchased it!

Hint - HOLD the SHIFT key and select a driver to remove it.

Oops! My bad! Anyway, Fusion works perfectly now, it was because I forgot to copy Lukas's Picasso96Settings to /Devs. Working great now.

Jim, here's another one to solve. When I have FreeWheel (for my PS/2 wheel mouse on a Cocolino) in my WBStartup, and I run Fusion, my Mac mouse pointer wanders randomly all over the screen. Any idea how to fix that, other than removing FreeWheel?

EDIT: it seems to be the Cocolino, not Freewheel. I'll have to dig out my old Amiga mouse and try it.

[JimDrew]

I have no idea what Cocolino is. You can try changing the ADB setting to see if that corrects. You can try the ISO driver instead of the standard one. You could also try changing from hardware to software. I made these options for various track balls.

[klx300r]

@ mntmn

Hi Lukas, without having to double post here please have a look over at the amiga.org support thread when you get a chance

[ninevoltz]

Originally Posted by JimDrew

I have no idea what Cocolino is. You can try changing the ADB setting to see if that corrects. You can try the ISO driver instead of the standard one. You could also try changing from hardware to software. I made these options for various track balls.

Cocolino is an adapter to connect a PS/2 mouse to Amiga's mouse port. I changed the Fusion ADB to software, which seems to have fixed my wandering mouse pointer. Thanks Jim!

[klx300r]

Originally Posted by klx300r

@ mntmn

Hi Lukas, without having to double post here please have a look over at the amiga.org support thread when you get a chance

Lukas ?

[mntmn]

Hello again!

Firmware release 1.8.3 is now finished:
http://mntmn.com/va2000/

It brings a de-interlacer ("flicker fixer") for VA2000CX and new linear memory model, which fixes all Picasso96 related bugs and makes it compatible with all games and demos that previously showed only pixel garbage. Enjoy!

Hi Lukas,

I posted my VA2000 to you last week and sent you an e-mail with the shipment info.

I know you're busy with many things, so thank you for taking time to help us out with any problems.

[JimDrew]

The new de-interlacer is fantastic! Nice job, Lukas!

[Drewlio77]

Adding scan line emulation would be an added bonus. I find it gives the display a more classic look since the Amiga graphics were designed with CRTs in mind.

Drewlio77

[ninevoltz]

Thanks for the update Lukas! When you have the time, could you push the source code to your github? (I have to change the pixel clock for 1024x768 to work correctly on my monitor.)

I ran some benchmarks today, to see how VA2000 performs on my A3000 with Cyberstorm mkII '060@50MHz (OS 3.9), comparing it to my RetinaZ3 BLT. I also compare it with WinUAE on my AMD Phenom 3.2GHz PC, and an overclocked A3000 with Cybervision.

Running Quake at 320x240@8bit I get 5.6 FPS with VA2000, and 6.4 FPS with Retina. The rest is in the attached text file generated by SysSpeed. I used 800x600 for the video tests.