Sonnet 7200 PCI programming

[trixster]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

@Trixster:

Seeing that your Amiga crashes with the Mediator settings needed for the A1200, better send a mail to Elbox.

I think it’s Wrangler who was doing that testing for you, I dont have a Mediator A1200 system.

[Hedeon]

Originally Posted by trixster

I think it’s Wrangler who was doing that testing for you, I dont have a Mediator A1200 system.

Oops. Ok.

[Hedeon]

Originally Posted by indigolemon

Killer K1 in the post, and have a 1200 with the Mediator TX in it. Happy to help by testing as required once it gets here

I kind of know what is wrong and not sure if I can fix it. I wouldn't recommend getting anything for the a1200 at this point.

[indigolemon]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

I kind of know what is wrong and not sure if I can fix it. I wouldn't recommend getting anything for the a1200 at this point.

Not a worry man, it was not an expensive card, and sure someone else will take it off my hands if it proves I can't use it

[trixster]

900mhz ok so far



I wonder why grelbfarlk’s memory is a little faster?

[nexus]

maybe look at your ram timings?
he is always tweaking
or maybe you 2 have different ram chips

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by trixster

900mhz ok so far



I wonder why grelbfarlk’s memory is a little faster?

Yeah you caught me. I've tweaked the memory timings a bit, I can give you the turbo-mem version, but it's not really much faster and I figured I only had a sample size of one to tell whether it's stable or not. So I didn't really pursue with Hedeon making it standard.

[Hedeon]

That, and I don't see a 1:1 translation to real-life applications. My 450MHz Harrier card is faster in writing (up to 2 times) than this 900MHz card for example. I think it is a bogus benchmark.

[grelbfarlk]

Yeah, me/we/somebody thought SysSpeed just reacted really well to more L2 cache like the whole test set fits in it. Warprace is also pretty suspect too as that gives 1800MB/s in some tests.

If you look back at my old Rapture overclocking, every 50MHz makes the memory test in Sysspeed noticeably slower. But RAM is just one component of overall performance.

With the tweaked RAM settings it's worth maybe another 1-1.5 FPS in GL games, so hardly worth it.

          Demo  Sonnet 500MHz G3    PrPMC 450MHz G4   Killer NIC 400MHz   Ragnarok 950MHz RAM+
                320x240  640x480   320x240  640x480   320x240  640x480    320x240  640x480
QuakeWOS  (2)    68.3     24.6       93.0     40.3      60.0    25.3      119.3     50.4
glQuake   (1)     x       48.9        x       50.1       x      44.5        x       54.0
Quake II  (1)     x       51.2        x       55.1       x      44.3        x       66.6
Quake III (4)     x       28.3        x       32.0       x       a          x        x

Take the Ragnarok results with a large grain of salt, in tested GL games GL_Texturemode is set to gl_linear for quality. And Hedeon's other settings are probably not the same as mine.

[jbenam]

Okay, so I've been following this from the sidelines (lurking) and I'm ready to get onboard Congrats to Hedeon et al for the massive achievements posted in this thread.

I'm looking for a Mediator 4000Di currently, but it shouldn't be too difficult to get one so I expect to nab one soon (if you have one you don't need anymore, PM me!).

I can see people referring to cards using codenames - I've grasped most of 'em, except the Ragnarok. What is that? Some super-secret card muggles don't need to know about?

As for the Rapture, I just see crazy prices going around - I suppose someone must've caught wind of this thread and just thought of gouging us all?

Anyway, I'm on the lookout for a LittleWeenie (tm) on Fleabay, but I don't expect one to pop up soon.

I also need to put my m4d BGA soldering sk1llz to use, so I'm kinda prepared to do freakish PPC transplants and the likes.

tl;dr - can someone PM me where I can find a cheapish card I can start with? Thanks

[strim]

Originally Posted by jbenam

I can see people referring to cards using codenames - I've grasped most of 'em, except the Ragnarok. What is that? Some super-secret card muggles don't need to know about?

The code names for cards are used just to protect against scalpers in initial phase of development. It's not that anyone wants to limit availability of hardware to the users.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by strim

The code names for cards are used just to protect against scalpers in initial phase of development. It's not that anyone wants to limit availability of hardware to the users.

Indeed, I was just joking around I'll wait for a kind soul to send me a PM, then

[nexus]

Originally Posted by jbenam

Indeed, I was just joking around I'll wait for a kind soul to send me a PM, then

the little weenie is this https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-XPS-73...sid=m570.l1313
better grab 1 now

[Wrangler]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

Seeing that your Amiga crashes with the Mediator settings needed for the A1200, better send a mail to Elbox.

I'll get on it. Been having too much fun with overclocking. Next project: reading the 750FX temp through software.

[Hedeon]

Originally Posted by Wrangler

I'll get on it. Been having too much fun with overclocking. Next project: reading the 750FX temp through software.

There is a spot for source code on our git, of course.

[Hedeon]

Originally Posted by nexus

the little weenie is this https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-XPS-73...sid=m570.l1313
better grab 1 now

It should probably run out of the box, but the library will report its speed wrong and therefore the internal clock will be mis-read and more timing stuff.

But if someone has one and is willing to read out some data I'll have that fixed in 5 minutes.

A1200 support is zero on these cards. (In contrast to the other cards which have very basic unofficial support).

[nexus]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

It should probably run out of the box, but the library will report its speed wrong and therefore the internal clock will be mis-read and more timing stuff.

But if someone has one and is willing to read out some data I'll have that fixed in 5 minutes.

A1200 support is zero on these cards. (In contrast to the other cards which have very basic unofficial support).

dont think so as the firmware set it to 333mhz but the chip should be same 400 as on all
the pcie version that doesnt use heatsink is also same chip
also since we arent using the full SoC it should be using way less power and producing less heat

[Hedeon]

Originally Posted by nexus

dont think so as the firmware set it to 333mhz but the chip should be same 400 as on all
the pcie version that doesnt use heatsink is also same chip
also since we arent using the full SoC it should be using way less power and producing less heat

Don't think so regarding what? The library needs to know what PLL settings go to what speed. It only knows 400MHz at the moment. So it will have the internal library timing wrong, which is bus clock / 4 for time base and decrementer updates. Unknown bus clock (in case of the 333MHz version) means unknown internal timings regarding the library and it will report the SysTime wrong and also have a wrong quantum/slice for the task switching.

[nexus]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

Don't think so regarding what? The library needs to know what PLL settings go to what speed. It only knows 400MHz at the moment. So it will have the internal library timing wrong, which is bus clock / 4 for time base and decrementer updates. Unknown bus clock (in case of the 333MHz version) means unknown internal timings regarding the library and it will report the SysTime wrong and also have a wrong quantum/slice for the task switching.

the internal clock should be 400 as the cpu is a 400/266 chip that they down clocked
400mhz is the stock setting for 8343 rest run 667mhz(8347/8349)
there is no 333mhz chip sold the 400/333/266 are just dividers it runs at to run low power in embedded devices eg routers etc
only reason i can see why the K1 is the only card at that clock is cause it was the cheaper option at the time with the M1 being the flag ship with everything enabled eg FNAapps were not on default in K1
since none paid that ridiculous price in the gaming world for a nic which was the market for this they made all versions after which are pcie cards stripped of every costing $$$$$
so thats what they are just a 8343 though they did atleast change the ddr400 to ddr2 and add extra 64mb
im also guessing that the faster and extra ram is because instead of using fpga and that broadcom nic to do the work they used the 8343 built in versions of those
but just guesses
pcie versions were the cheapest the M1 being the most expensive
this is why i hope the pci to pcie adapter work ok in mediator as there are mny of the cheaper pcie variant due to dell/alienware using them

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by nexus

the internal clock should be 400 as the cpu is a 400/266 chip that they down clocked
400mhz is the stock setting for 8343 rest run 667mhz(8347/8349)

Right but what I think Hedeon is saying is the library is going to read out the PLL however that is set {firmware?, resistors?} and the library timing is going to be set up wrong. Which is easily solvable, like he says just needs to dump some info out of it and set it up for the current operating speed.



Or if it's software programmable (which it probably is) then switch it to 400Mhz or whatever multiplier you want.