WHDLoad, Turrican and Accelerator issues!

[BarryB]

Not sure where to post this, hardware, games or WHDLoad

OK, I'm trying to figure out why out of 3 Accelerator cards I have only 1 will play Turrican without noticeable issues on my A1200!!

The cards I have tried are:
Microbotics M1230XA 030/40Mhz 32mb
ACA1232 030/40Mhz 128mb
Blizzard PPC 060/66Mhz 64mb

The problem is the game takes much longer to load using the ACA1232/BPPC than the M1230XA, up to 6x longer!! The game also has noticeable slowdowns when using the beam weapon and loads of rocks are on screen, using the beam weapon on hidden blocks causes slowdown as more power ups appear from the block, same slowdown when using beam weapon on the little bugs that drop the grey crystals. These issues aren't noticeable on the M1230XA so why do the other 2 cards exhibit this massive slowdown and loading issue?

I've posted about this issue in the ACA500 thread in the News section as I thought it was the ACA1232 as Jens mentioned it's an Asynchronous design so won't 'talk' to the Chip Ram at fullspeed, but after trying Turrican on a BPPC 060 and getting the exact same issue I'm now wondering what the heck is going on?

This is a Bustest of my M120XA:

BusSpeedTest 0.19 (mlelstv)   Buffer:     262144 Bytes, Alignment: 32768
========================================================================
memtype   addr       op         cycle     calib         bandwidth
fast      $08338000  readw     159.8 ns   normal      12.5 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $08338000  readl     204.2 ns   normal      19.6 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $08338000  readm     193.5 ns   normal      20.7 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $08338000  writew    155.6 ns   normal      12.9 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $08338000  writel    156.3 ns   normal      25.6 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $08338000  writem    142.3 ns   normal      28.1 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $00068000  readw    1208.2 ns   normal       1.7 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $00068000  readl    1209.0 ns   normal       3.3 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $00068000  readm     881.8 ns   normal       4.5 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $00068000  writew    849.3 ns   normal       2.4 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $00068000  writel    856.5 ns   normal       4.7 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $00068000  writem    843.8 ns   normal       4.7 * 10^6 byte/s
rom       $00F80000  readw     356.7 ns   normal       5.6 * 10^6 byte/s
rom       $00F80000  readl     356.2 ns   normal      11.2 * 10^6 byte/s
rom       $00F80000  readm     322.1 ns   normal      12.4 * 10^6 byte/s

This is my ACA1232:

BusSpeedTest 0.19 (mlelstv)   Buffer:     262144 Bytes, Alignment: 32768
========================================================================
memtype   addr       op         cycle     calib         bandwidth
fast      $083E8000  readw     126.8 ns   normal      15.8 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $083E8000  readl     153.3 ns   normal      26.1 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $083E8000  readm     138.9 ns   normal      28.8 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $083E8000  writew    101.4 ns   normal      19.7 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $083E8000  writel    101.4 ns   normal      39.4 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $083E8000  writem     90.2 ns   normal      44.3 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $00060000  readw    1200.4 ns   normal       1.7 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $00060000  readl    1199.2 ns   normal       3.3 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $00060000  readm     875.4 ns   normal       4.6 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $00060000  writew    839.0 ns   normal       2.4 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $00060000  writel    842.6 ns   normal       4.7 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $00060000  writem    842.9 ns   normal       4.7 * 10^6 byte/s
rom       $00F80000  readw     126.9 ns   normal      15.8 * 10^6 byte/s
rom       $00F80000  readl     152.5 ns   normal      26.2 * 10^6 byte/s
rom       $00F80000  readm     139.4 ns   normal      28.7 * 10^6 byte/s

And lastly my BPPC 060:

 BusSpeedTest 0.19 (mlelstv)   Buffer:     262144 Bytes, Alignment: 32768
========================================================================
memtype   addr       op         cycle     calib         bandwidth
fast      $76488000  readw      54.7 ns   normal      36.6 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $76488000  readl      93.7 ns   normal      42.7 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $76488000  readm      92.6 ns   normal      43.2 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $76488000  writew     70.4 ns   normal      28.4 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $76488000  writel    141.4 ns   normal      28.3 * 10^6 byte/s
fast      $76488000  writem    141.0 ns   normal      28.4 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $000C0000  readw    1338.3 ns   normal       1.5 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $000C0000  readl    1338.7 ns   normal       3.0 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $000C0000  readm    1340.3 ns   normal       3.0 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $000C0000  writew    838.4 ns   normal       2.4 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $000C0000  writel    839.5 ns   normal       4.8 * 10^6 byte/s
chip      $000C0000  writem    839.7 ns   normal       4.8 * 10^6 byte/s
rom       $00F80000  readw      54.8 ns   normal      36.5 * 10^6 byte/s
rom       $00F80000  readl      92.6 ns   normal      43.2 * 10^6 byte/s
rom       $00F80000  readm      93.2 ns   normal      42.9 * 10^6 byte/s

Anyone have any idea what is going on?

[retrogamer]

A new Turrican slave will come soon.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?...light=turrican

[BarryB]

@retrogamer: I know about that thread and Wepl has also sent me an updated slave to try but it made no difference!! But I have since found out why those 2 Accelerators slowdown

I was in the shower earlier and this problem was bugging me and I just got to thinking what's the difference between the M120XA and the ACA1232/BPPC? Then suddenly I realised one thing, I had NO SHAMPOO Actually, what I realised is that my M1230XA has NO MMU

By default WHDLoad will use the MMU on an 040/060 but DISABLE it on an 030 if it has one according to the docs! So, I just used the Tooltype NoMMU in the Turrican icon then ran the game and promptly got a warning from WHDLoad about the current MMU setup maps memory $0...$1000 to fast mem and probably won't work, so I did what most people would do and ignored it

Luckily the game loaded, and with the MMU ignored Turrican now loads MUCH faster. After pressing the fire button it takes about 4 seconds (not 18) to load the game and there are no noticeable slowdowns like before!!

So now I've discovered the reason why this game slowdowns can anything be done to safely ignore the MMU on my BPPC (haven't tried the ACA1232 yet) so this game runs without the earlier warning?

*EDIT*
After reading the WHDLoad docs some more, the Tooltype ChipNoCache MUST be used on the BPPC as per reasons given in the CPU Cache Handling section and explains the slow loading I'm seeing of 5x. This is in place of NoMMU and while it has vastly improved the loading and slowdown, it's still not as good as using NoMMU!!

[Turran]

Originally Posted by BarryB

@retrogamer: Then suddenly I realised one thing, I had NO SHAMPOO

Great. Now people at work are looking at me funny for suddenly laughing out loud. =)

[Bamiga2002]

Try a combination of "ChipNoCache" and "BranchCache" as WHDLoad-tooltypes. Works for some games.

[BarryB]

@Turran: And your colleagues will never know what you're laughing at

@Bamiga2002: I'll set them globally in WHDLoad.prefs and see what happens!! Except I can't set BranchCache in the prefs? Can it only be set in the Tooltype?

[Bamiga2002]

Put directly into game-tooltype.

[BarryB]

Maybe Placebo effect but the game seems to run better without BranchCache? Anyway, threw a sickie in work today for a few days so can play a bit more

[AmigaDweeb]

Almost a decade later... interesting

Was trying to fathom similar on Discord here recently... https://discord.com/channels/3735440...10521278267405