Sonnet 7200 PCI programming

[Hedeon]

With the standard settings (320x240) I get 75FPS with the current library (the one I posted yesterday) and the 800MHz Ragnarok on my AA3000+. Voxelspace is 68K limited as it spends a lot of time using the 68K.

With the Mediator and the last ASM library I get 100FPS. I noticed before there is a speed difference between the Prometheus and the Mediator. Also ASM vs C is to blame in this 75 vs 100 FPS.

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

With the standard settings (320x240) I get 75FPS with the current library (the one I posted yesterday) and the 800MHz Ragnarok on my AA3000+. Voxelspace is 68K limited as it spends a lot of time using the 68K.

With the Mediator and the last ASM library I get 100FPS. I noticed before there is a speed difference between the Prometheus and the Mediator. Also ASM vs C is to blame in this 75 vs 100 FPS.

Okay, that's a huge difference. I get between 6 and 8 FPS in Voxelspace for the windowed and fullscreen 640x480x8 modes.

Do you agree that this speed difference has to be sorted out first before going the step towards Warp3D?

EDIT: Will collect details about my system and put it in the next post.

[Hedeon]

640x480x8 = 35 FPS here

[torsti76]

Here we go:

Machine is an AA3000+ with standard 3.1.4 Kickstart ROMs

Hardware:
- Voodoo3 2000 (16 MB)
- Harrier G4 128 MB on PMC239/F (all bought from Sax)
- BigRAMPlus
- A3640

Alternatively, at the beginning of the PowerPC journey on this machine, I've had a CSPPC 60/604 with 128 MB 60 ns EDO instead of the A3640 and BigRAMPlus. But with its own PPC on board and fragmented MMU setup I removed the CSPPC in favour of the A3640+BigRAM for now.

Had similar speed figures in VoxelSpace while the CSPPC was still in place (w/o WarpUP installed, of course, to not interfere). Framerate with the Harrier was around 10 FPS with the 060 as compared to the 040.

Software:

(1)
- Fresh install of OS 3.1.4.1
- MMUlib 46.20 including installation of the matching processor library
- P96 2.2 (Licensed Icomp version)
- Latest powerpc.library from @Hedeon (posted here earlier today)
- prometheus.library 4.0 (22.12.20) - Filesize 6956
- Demo Folder from WarpUP distribution (Voxelspace, cybermand, ...)
- Warp3D 4.2a from aminet
- Nothing added to startup-sequence except stackattack and a few additions to PATH (for MuTools and the like)

(1a)
- Same setup, minimal startup:

C:SetPatch QUIET
C:CPU CHECKINSTALL

RAM:ENV stuff

Monitor drivers

(2)
- Fresh install of OS3.9 + BoingBags up to latest 3&4
- MMUlib 46.20 including installation of the matching processor library
- P96 2.1b (Shareware version from Aminet)
- Latest powerpc.library from @Hedeon (posted here earlier today)
- prometheus.library 4.0 (22.12.20) - Filesize 6956
- Demo Folder from WarpUP distribution (Voxelspace, cybermand, ...)
- Warp3D 4.2a from aminet
- Again, nothing added to startup-sequence except stackattack and a few additions to PATH (for MuTools and the like)

(2a)
- Same setup, minimal startup:

C:SetPatch QUIET
C:CPU CHECKINSTALL

RAM:ENV stuff

Monitor drivers

Voxelspace shows the same low FPS in all the above setups.

[Hedeon]

Prmscan and showconfig and MuScan always appreciated.

[Hedeon]

Oh like I said, Voxelspace is 68K limited. Maybe it's your 040 being the bottleneck. In combination with slow motherboard RAM (or, God forbid, even the RAM from the BigRamPlus).

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

Prmscan and showconfig and MuScan always appreciated.

Coming...

[trixster]

for comparison, here are my voxelspace results:

Full Screen Ragnarok 800mhz Mediator (library = asm #450 17.13)
320x240 = 63fps
640x480 = 28fps

using the latest C lib i have (library = 17.14 dated 19/06/20 86,632bytes)
320x240 = 62fps
640x480 = 28fps

Full Screen Apocalypse 450mhz Prometheus (library = 17.14beta 90,932bytes)
320x240 = 64fps
640x480 = 32fps

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

Oh like I said, Voxelspace is 68K limited. Maybe it's your 040 being the bottleneck. In combination with slow motherboard RAM (or, God forbid, even the RAM from the BigRamPlus).

I only have two different accelerators atm, the A3640 and the CSPPC. Switching between the two doesn't make much of a difference. 8 FPS (A3640) vs. 10 FPS (CSPPC w/ 060@66 MHz). Leaving out the BigRAMPlus does not make a difference at all...

[Hedeon]

No clue. Only if you left on debugmode maybe. So also always post ENVARC:sonnet stuff

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

No clue. Only if you left on debugmode maybe. So also always post ENVARC:sonnet stuff

ENVARC:sonnet is empty/non-existant.

Okay, will move the CSPPC back in (didn't try yet with today's powerpc.library), throw out the Bigram and see if sth. changed.

EDIT: Screenshots added to previous post.

[trixster]

I think I need at least DisHunkPatch 1 in env:sonnet on my Mediator system - if i remove that then blitzquake (for instance) will crash on loading with a instruction exception. This is not the case with the Promethues system

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by trixster

I think I need at least DisHunkPatch 1 in env:sonnet - if i remove that then blitzquake (for instance) will crash on loading with a instruction exception

Okay, added it. Doesn't make a difference for Voxelspace though.

Replaced A3640+BigRAM with CSPPC now. Moved 68040.library out of the way and added "P5Init" to the end of MMU-Configuration.

Gives me a whopping 10 FPS in VoxelSpace 640x480x8

I get the feeling that something's wrong with my FireStorm hardware-wise.

@Hedeon could what I am seeing be attributed to an interrupt line not being connected or something like that (I don't expect you to know, just like an educated guess ;-)?

[Hedeon]

The old prometheus library forgot to initiate the interrupts, but the latest one does. You could see what measureconwos tells you.

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

The old prometheus library forgot to initiate the interrupts, but the latest one does. You could see what measureconwos tells you.

For 50000 context switches:
~507 microseconds/switch.

Is this a reasonable figure?

[trixster]

@torsti I edited my dishunkpatch post - it only affects my mediator system, not the Prometheus one!

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by trixster

@torsti I edited my dishunkpatch post - it only affects my mediator system, not the Prometheus one!

Thanks. Unfortunately, I don't see any difference whether it's there or not.

[torsti76]

Okay, Voxelspace sorted. I've had my workbench screen in a 16bit PC mode. With 8 bit, Voxelspace is at around 25 Hz.

Funny enough, the fullscreen version that switches to 8 bit also ran slow while workbench was set to 16 bit. Well, and it still does...

Could this be a P96 problem after all?

Symptoms now:
If started as windowed version on a 1280x768x8 WB screen, Voxelspace runs at 25 FPS. (actually, the gauge is alternating very quickly between 25 and 50).
If started as fullscreen version choosing 640x480x8, it has around 8..10 FPS.

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by trixster

@torsti I edited my dishunkpatch post - it only affects my mediator system, not the Prometheus one!

Can you try "Pixelomania" from the WarpUP Demos and post the result for your Prometheus/Apocalypse setup?

For me it's 39.435865 seconds.

[trixster]

I'm using a 1280x1024 16bit PC screenmode for workbench, so something is still amiss with your setup

32.983 seconds for pixelomania