Sonnet 7200 PCI programming

[Hedeon]

Does not really matter, I think, as the bottle neck are context switches. And on the Mediator/Prometheus you really should measure PPC PCI card memory to VGA PCI card memory. Z3 is not used in those cases. I think Elbox advertises 166MB/s?

I expect G-Rex to be in the same ball park regarding PCI to PCI. I would also expect G-Rex faster than 20MB/s when using the Blizzard CPU? It is directly connected to the PCI bus through a mini connector, is it not?

The only trouble would be with the limited number of DMA capable PCI slots on the G-Rex. So when 1 slot available (some have 2), the PPC card should go in there and it would mean no other DMA capable cards like RTL8139 (can use 8029) or SB128, I would expect.

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

Does not really matter, I think, as the bottle neck are context switches. And on the Mediator/Prometheus you really should measure PPC PCI card memory to VGA PCI card memory. Z3 is not used in those cases. I think Elbox advertises 166MB/s?

I expect G-Rex to be in the same ball park regarding PCI to PCI. I would also expect G-Rex faster than 20MB/s when using the Blizzard CPU? It is directly connected to the PCI bus through a mini connector, is it not?

The only trouble would be with the limited number of DMA capable PCI slots on the G-Rex. So when 1 slot available (some have 2), the PPC card should go in there and it would mean no other DMA capable cards like RTL8139 (can use 8029) or SB128, I would expect.

How to measure PPC PCI card memory to VGA PCI card memory?

[Hedeon]

Originally Posted by neocdtv2

Just wanted share:

My Config:
Amiga 1200, TF1260, Mediator 1200 TX 2018, Radeon 9250 (i think), Killer K1.
OS 3.1, MMUlib, pci.library 13.9/13.10, powerpc.library 17.13b
Result:
Killer K1 initializing every time
Quake WOS w/o sound works rock stable
Frogger WOS w/o sound works rock stable
Mediator-ENVS:
PPCPCI: Yes
NoCache: Yes
MMU: Yes
RadeonMemory: 32 (it think it the right name)
RadeonMemoryOS: No (it think it the right name)

You should also post the ENVs from ENV-powerpc as I think there are some experimental ones just for the A1200 in 17.13.

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

You should also post the ENVs from ENV-powerpc as I think there are some experimental ones just for the A1200 in 17.13.

Hmmm my ram:env/ does not contain a powerpc directory, where can I find these envs?

I'm running really with default settings.

[Hedeon]

Sorry.... dir is called sonnet, not powerpc.

[DarrenHD]

Originally Posted by neocdtv2

Not sure how much there are BlizzardPPC Rev. 2 users, but I guess that this will be one of the fastest solutions, since the pci bus is the fastest?
Well my Prometheus PCI over Z3 can do 7.5/MB/s from Fast Ram to Video Ram
My Mediator TX in 1200 can do 8.2/MB/s from Fast Ram to Video Ram.

I would assume that G-REX would rock 20MB?

I get 19.xx MB/sec writing to video memory on my GREX-4000. Still double as fast as a Mediator or Prometheus, but a far cry from the 50MB/sec that was advertised by phase-5 I attached to this message the program I used to measure it. Run it from a shell.

I never tried my Sonnet PPC in the GREX as it would be kind of redundant since that system has a CS PPC already.

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

Sorry.... dir is called sonnet, not powerpc.

no powerpc and no sonnet dir, would/should this dir be always created?

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by neocdtv2

Just wanted share:

My Config:
Amiga 1200, TF1260, Mediator 1200 TX 2018, Radeon 9250 (i think), Killer K1.
OS 3.1, MMUlib, pci.library 13.9/13.10, powerpc.library 17.13b
Result:
Killer K1 initializing every time
Quake WOS w/o sound works rock stable
Frogger WOS w/o sound works rock stable
Mediator-ENVS:
PPCPCI: Yes
NoCache: Yes
MMU: Yes
RadeonMemory: 32 (it think it the right name)
RadeonMemoryOS: No (it think it the right name)

68060 at 100Mhz sometimes a PPC exception comes up, but at 50Mhz the system is really stable. On very rare occasions also at 50Mhz sometimes the PPC exceptions occurs.

Will add a PCI Sound Card and see what is gonna happen

@Hadeon: again great work!

Added FM801, installed AHI provided by Elbox version 5.7 68k.
Quake WOS with sound works pretty well, demo was running ~30min.
Frogger WOS with sound works pretty bad, also trashing after ~1min the system.
AmigaAmp with Load Buffer 256Kb, Play Buffer 1s and PPC Prio 25, seems to work also ok, but I've made just 3 runs, so would need more testing to make a better statement about the stability. Other settings were crashing the system after 30s-1min.

The order of the cards is from TOP:
0: Radeon
1: Killer K1
2: empty
3: empty
4: Terratec 512i (FM801)
5: empty

If FM801 installed in:
slot 2 - card was not recognized properly
slot 3 - a constant distortion, like ticking-overlay could be heard during quake wos

I've got the feeling that the system become more unstable since the sound card got installed. I'm getting sudden freezes, also when not using the sound card and/or the PPC side.

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by neocdtv2

Added FM801, installed AHI provided by Elbox version 5.7 68k.
Quake WOS with sound works pretty well, demo was running ~30min.
Frogger WOS with sound works pretty bad, also trashing after ~1min the system.
AmigaAmp with Load Buffer 256Kb, Play Buffer 1s and PPC Prio 25, seems to work also ok, but I've made just 3 runs, so would need more testing to make a better statement about the stability. Other settings were crashing the system after 30s-1min.

The order of the cards is from TOP:
0: Radeon
1: Killer K1
2: empty
3: empty
4: Terratec 512i (FM801)
5: empty

If FM801 installed in:
slot 2 - card was not recognized properly
slot 3 - a constant distortion, like ticking-overlay could be heard during quake wos

I've got the feeling that the system become more unstable since the sound card got installed. I'm getting sudden freezes, also when not using the sound card and/or the PPC side.

Interesting observation: the system never freezes during a ppc program is running e.g. i can run quake wos with ahi/fm801 for hours or listen to mp3 using amigaamp 2.x with external wos decoder also. If the system freezes then between executions or when I run and quit quake wos for multipletimes over and over again. At some point starting of the next quake wos it will crash.

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

You should also post the ENVs from ENV-powerpc as I think there are some experimental ones just for the A1200 in 17.13.

added today:

ENVARC:Sonnet/SetCPUComm = 1

Improved stability with AmigaAmp and External (WUP) engine.
With set to 0:
1. start amigaamp
2. select file
3. play file
4. close amigaamp
5. start amigaamp
6. select file (freeze or)
7. play file (freeze)

With set to 1, this behaviour is not reproducible anymore.

PS.: Tried today my Apocalypse from A4000TX, but no chance to get it working with 1200 Mediator TX, I'm just getting PowerPC does not respond :/

[neocdtv2]

How does the build-numbers from jenkins (https://jenkins.sakura-it.pl/job/sonnetamiga/) 454, 452 correlate with the released version like 17.13b, 17.14?

Where can I find older version of the sonnet library like 11.xx, 12.xx etc?

[Hedeon]

Originally Posted by neocdtv2

How does the build-numbers from jenkins (https://jenkins.sakura-it.pl/job/sonnetamiga/) 454, 452 correlate with the released version like 17.13b, 17.14?

Where can I find older version of the sonnet library like 11.xx, 12.xx etc?

17.12 is real WarpOS last version.
17.14 is part of https://github.com/Sakura-IT/PowerPCAmiga which does not contain any of the A1200 code.
17.13 contains all builds from the link you gave. See it as 17.13.454 etc.

18.x = ReWarp

As it spoofs powerpc.library I need versions newer than the last real version (17.12) otherwise stuff will fail on the version check.

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by neocdtv2

added today:

ENVARC:Sonnet/SetCPUComm = 1

Improved stability with AmigaAmp and External (WUP) engine.
With set to 0:
1. start amigaamp
2. select file
3. play file
4. close amigaamp
5. start amigaamp
6. select file (freeze or)
7. play file (freeze)

With set to 1, this behaviour is not reproducible anymore.

PS.: Tried today my Apocalypse from A4000TX, but no chance to get it working with 1200 Mediator TX, I'm just getting PowerPC does not respond :/

Observation:
If I run Quake WOS with the MUI starter, I can run and quit the game for about 4-5 times after that I will get a:
a. PowerPC Exception Datastore Exception
b. I_Error: Can't allocate 33xxxxxxxx bytes

If I run Quake WOS from a shell, I can run and quit it w/o any problems. Tested like 40+ times.

Question:
Can I only run programs for the powerpc.library from the shell?

PS.: I have ramlibpatch and stackattack installed, mmulib with CacheInhibit on PPC address range.

[Hedeon]

Originally Posted by neocdtv2

Question:
Can I only run programs for the powerpc.library from the shell?

It should work from the WB. However, A1200 is not officially supported. That being said, maybe the MUI frontend does not give back the memory and the system runs out of it.

I just run it from my WB with a script with an icon attached to it.

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

It should work from the WB. However, A1200 is not officially supported. That being said, maybe the MUI frontend does not give back the memory and the system runs out of it.

I just run it from my WB with a script with an icon attached to it.

I'm aware that 1200 support is not really supported, that is why I'm so impressed, that it is working so well.

I also made a shell script with an icon and iconx, but the behaviour is the same.

If the ppc is initialized once and working, it does not crash if running programs from the shell.

[neocdtv2]

Is there maybe a Quake WOS version, which is able to display the game in a window on the workbench?

[Hedeon]

Originally Posted by neocdtv2

Is there maybe a Quake WOS version, which is able to display the game in a window on the workbench?

QuakeWOS is the software rendered Quake, right? Don't think there is a version of that that can run in a window. Did you try anything HW 3D?

EDIT: nvm, I see that you are using a Radeon.

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

QuakeWOS is the software rendered Quake, right? Don't think there is a version of that that can run in a window. Did you try anything HW 3D?

EDIT: nvm, I see that you are using a Radeon.

I also have a Voodoo3, but warp3d is not working on my 1200-Setup with Killer K1. Apocalypse is responding just PowerPC not responding, tried with Voodoo & Radeon.

I asked about wht quake wos with window support for a friend whose setup is:
Amiga 4000TX, Mediator 3000T/4000T, Radeon|Voodoo3 and Apocalypse, where after 5-8min quake wos makes the amiga reset and we were hoping to see maybe some error, 'cos till now we are clueless, what the problem could be.

[Hedeon]

glQuake then. -window. But a reset is not PPC related, but 68K. Probably bus error as that happens with a Zorro timeout due to slow access. I see it more with Prometheus than mediator.

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

glQuake then. -window. But a reset is not PPC related, but 68K. Probably bus error as that happens with a Zorro timeout due to slow access. I see it more with Prometheus than mediator.

Correction, the ppc program here quake wos is exiting and not showing any exception, sometimes it just stops, but one can switch to workbench and use the system.
If we run the quake wos from shell, I should at least be able to check the exit/return code right? How to check the exit/return code in amigaos shell?