Sonnet 7200 PCI programming

[BULI]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

And this is improved by using Radeon RAM as Mediator swap space?

I don't need and don't use Radeon RAM as system memory, but parametr (Mediator/RadeonSysMem=1 is need to proper work OVERLAY video (in players like: FroggerNG or AMP2).

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

13MB vs 15MB on the Voodoo as P96 available VRAM?

Because Radeon has its own VRAM (also Mediator buffer is in Radeon RAM), Voodoo3 have full VRAM for applications (16MB VRAM).

[BULI]

Originally Posted by Cowcat

"Smokin' Guns" is not the perfect example of good maps, even the MOS port suffers a little with a GFX/32mg VRAM. But it's ok to check out stuff. (Reminder: Gotta upgrade the crap of it).

Great idea

[starship]

can you share with us please if you have ?
It is dream for me

[Hedeon]

The Radeon driver W3D driver (Hyperion) is dependent on the R200 2D driver (Aeon), that's the problem.

[BULI]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

The Radeon driver W3D driver (Hyperion) is dependent on the R200 2D driver (Aeon), that's the problem.

It's very frustrating knowing this driver exists but no one wants to share it.
I understand that Hyperion is not a charity organization, but don't understand why they don't want my money.
And very sad that Hyperion don't want make AOS4.1 for "Sonnet cards".
I have AOS4.1 Final Edition on Blizzard PPC, and this system have few things amazing for me, like:
- near prefect and fast emulator of SNES
- great and fast emulator PSX (playable with sound on CyberStorm PPC, and without sound on Blizzard PPC)
- .mp4 video player
- M.A.C.E,- wonderfull shooter
- WWW browser

Power of "Sonnet cards" with G4 450mhz, or G3 800mhz with 256MB or 384MB are much more that every Blizzard PPC or CyberStom PPC have, and much more ram that the fastes and expensive CyberStormPPC..
Have potential, have driver, have OS but don't have enough goodwill- sadly..

[jbenam]

I don't think that AOS4.x is still in active development. Arguably development slowed down massively in 2012, probably when they were still hoping to shift some Amiga X1000s. They then realized that the Amiga NG dream was never coming true and went into maintenance mode.

The last "real" version that came out was in 2014, then two minor patches came out in 2018 and 2020 but nothing else.

It would be great to have AmigaOS4 for Sonnet.library cards, though. It would be an inexpensive way for most of us to finally get it on real hardware.

[Hedeon]

There was a short time that it was possible. Sadly, also here parts were moved to AEon (ExecSG, amongst others).

[BULI]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

There was a short time that it was possible. Sadly, also here parts were moved to AEon (ExecSG, amongst others).

And there's nothing we can do?

[Hedeon]

I'm not saying that AEon is the culprit here btw. Just that the stuff (sources) and rights are all over the place.

I was thinking at that time using the OS3 boot loader together with the non classic parts of OS4 as the chip set is out of reach for the PPC on the PCI bus. So everything non-PCI should be provided by USB. Including HDD. Effectively making the Amiga a big dongle.

[grelbfarlk]

On the same note, it should be possible to boot a Lunix on the PPC in much the same way, using a PCI SCSI (maybe IDE) and USB. Just make sure the PPC hasn't booted yet and you don't initialize the PCI.library. I've written about this before but just because we're on the topic again.

[Hedeon]

How do you load and start the kernel?

(Fun note, I looked at the Haiku kernel for inspiration for the WOS kernel inside the sonnet library. But only for startup, exception vectors and context switching)

[grelbfarlk]

So, the firmware supports these HDD controllers. I only had a weird OEM version of a 53C810 and it refused to see the disks on it. I was meaning at some point to find a generic Symbios Logic PCI card to try again... some day. But basically I plug in a serial cable to the Ragnarok, open up Term on an AGA screen and it's sitting at the PPCBug boot menu. You select S (for system startup) instead of D (for diagnostics) and you can select your controller and boot device which gets saved on the NVRAM on the board.

1 PC8477 $800003F0 1
2 PC87303IDE $800001F0 2
x NCR53C810 Any PCI** *
x NCR53C825 Any PCI** *
x NCR53C875 Any PCI** *
x SL82C105 Any PCI** 4
x PBC-EIDEF1 Any PCI** 4

This install guide for LynxOS assumes you hooked up a CDROM Drive.
http://www-f9.ijs.si/~rok/detectors/...tall_guide.pdf
It does mention this too, I forgot the details of Monarch mode:

The PrPMC800 processor board is a PMC card that connects to a PPMCBASE
board, deriving its clock from the PPMCBASE board. The PrPMC800 board
operates in Monarch or non-Monarch mode, depending on the PMC slot of the
PPMCBASE board it is connected to.
When connected to the Monarch slot, the board can access the PCI bus and can be
booted from the network, disk, flash or cPCI backplane. When connected to the
non-Monarch slot, the board can only be booted from flash or a KDI download
from the Monarch board

Then from there I guess one could try Debian or Lubuntu or MintPPC I suppose. Again something that needs to support the USB card. Or some kind of other serial interface. Almost seems like it may be easier to troubleshoot with network boot to get it going.

Here's the PPCBug manual:
https://www.slac.stanford.edu/grp/lc...27s_Manual.pdf

[BULI]

BTW.
Quake GL (BlitzQuake - thanks CowCat) on Apocalypce 450Mhz and Voodoo3
[ Show youtube player ]

[trixster]

Subscribed @BULI

[BULI]

Originally Posted by trixster

Subscribed @BULI

THX.


Quick test of cheap video grabber HDMI via USB- only 30FPS VIDEO :-(
[ Show youtube player ]

[BULI]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

And this is improved by using Radeon RAM as Mediator swap space? 13MB vs 15MB on the Voodoo as P96 available VRAM?
I guess I could see it because my workbench is smaller usually, maybe 1000x600x16 or 1280x720x16.

On my BlitzQuake setup, and when Workbench have high resolution desktop and more bitmaps in system and VRAM is smaller, Quake GL have problem with smooth animation (I will show video soon).

[spudje]

Moving to this thread again. Still not everything is running, but making good progress on my:

AA3000+
Voodoo 3
Apocalypse 128MB

Warp3D gearsPPC & 6k work
Wipeout works
Payback works WOS & Warp3D, but screen flickers a bit (in none PC screenmode, not tried PC screenmode yet)

But Quake 1 (Latest Blitzquake) & 2 (Latest Cowcat) won't run.
BlitzQuake 68k works fine
BlitzQuake PPC gives me Data Storage PPC exceptions
Quake2 gives me either grey screen, no screen (display cuts out) or similar Data Storage PPC exceptions.

AHI not installed (yet), but I cannot imagine that's the issue, since BlitzQuake 68k runs and also has the -ahi switch when executed.


Update:

With AHI installed, BlitzQuake PPC started working!

However Quake2 is still a no go. This is driving me nuts. I ran fine (apart from overheating crashes) on my A4000 Mediator setup.

[Cowcat]

@spudje

All stuff that needs to be running on Sonnet alike hardware needs AHI to run.
For Q2 check if snd_paula.dll is there and remove it: Use only snd_ahi.dll.

Hopefully you run my BlitzQuake and not the old-old-old from Aminet (that is broken for warpos).

Maybe a look to SnoopDos while you try to run the games?

[Wrangler]

Spudje: you mentioned non-PC screenmodes. I think you should stick to PC screenmodes as they are much more compatible.

[spudje]

Thanks a lot guys!

Originally Posted by Cowcat

@spudje
All stuff that needs to be running on Sonnet alike hardware needs AHI to run.
For Q2 check if snd_paula.dll is there and remove it: Use only snd_ahi.dll.

Hopefully you run my BlitzQuake and not the old-old-old from Aminet (that is broken for warpos).

Yes, I'm using 7.3 Blitzquake. Thanks for the additional help, I'll try it out.

Originally Posted by Wrangler

Spudje: you mentioned non-PC screenmodes. I think you should stick to PC screenmodes as they are much more compatible.

Tried PC screenmodes as well in the mean time, no difference.

Are there any Warp3D and/or P96 ENVARCs that must be set?