P96 3.0.0 (and later) news and support

[Etze]

No one is forced to pay as soon as the downloads are expired. I paid ONCE and am happy with version up to 2.4.4. After that I just waited for a good reason to pay again. More than a year. The draggable screen and the palette-thing for the ZZ is such a good reason and I’m happy to pay a few € for these features.

[Thomas Richter]

There's a small set of updates for the Picasso IV card, which are also related to updates for Cirrus 5434-based cards, namely the Piccolo64 and the GBA PII++, Matze's graphics card.

Due to a timing issue, the Picasso-IV did not initialize the "attribute controller" correctly, which caused the bottom screen on a split-screen setup to pan along with the top screen if the top screen was an autoscroll screen. Then, the P-IV memory window did not work well with screen dragging, so it is now disabled as soon as the screen starts getting dragged. Also, the P-IV supports 32 bit RGBA-modes which were not enabled previously. They now are available, but unfortunately do not support memory windows (aka "Overlays"). There is a PIP test program in Aminet that demonstrates how to use them.

Finally, some news for the P-IV (Cirrus 5446) and Cirrus 5434 based designs: With some trickery, these chips do support hardware cursors on planar screens, so a soft sprite is no longer necessary for these modes.

[jurassicman]

I did buy this about two years ago and yesterday I bought the new release but I'm having troubles with it.

I have an A1200 with Blizzard PPC, Mediator with Radeon 9250 & Indivision MK2cr (with ratte switch monitor), etc.. and OS 3.1.4.
I installed the new drivers as an update of previous installation, selected Cybervision3D and after the installation I renamed the Cybervision3D monitor as Radeon exactly as I always did.
After a reboot I can see my WorkBench screen and everything seems fine except for a thing.

All the other monitors aren't seen anymore!

In particular if on the Indivision Config Tool I try to open a PAL or an HighGFX screen I get a message saying that the monitor isn't installed (Can't open screen. Is this monitor driver installed?) and if I try to open a monitor on "Screenmode" I get a message that says that I don't have enough memory (The testscreen could not e opened This can be due to a lack of free video-memory. If you have defined a large screensize, you should decrease it and try again. You should not use this screenmode with the current settings).

Useless to say that I have 256 MB of Graphic Memory and, above all, I never had similar issues before installing the new P96 drivers...

Please, I need some help 'cause in order to use the other "monitor devices" I had to do a rollback (fortunately I did make a backup of my CF before installing the new drivers) and I tried to install the new Picasso drivers a few times having always the described issue.

[Thomas Richter]

There is currently one known issue on none-3.2 machines for opening native screens, it is due to an intuition hack that was necessary on older Os variants. I have a fix for this, but I need Jens to put it online, so please stay tuned.

[jurassicman]

Thanks Thomas... good to know that it is a known issue and that you have a fix for it. I'll stay tuned.

[Hedeon]

I am not seeing it in the icomp shop. So much for my impulse buy.

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

I am not seeing it in the icomp shop. So much for my impulse buy.

You have to be logged in at the icomp shop to see it.

[Thomas Richter]

And here we go, thanks for waiting:

iComp released today the 3.2.1 "hotfix" of the 3.2.0 release, which fixes the compatibility issue with older intuition versions that has been reported here.

There are a couple of other very minor changes:
- In some cases, when blitting between non-compatible aperatures, the aperture-switch
can be avoided because the source, as viewed through the aperture of the destination,
is identical to the destination format.
- Picasso96Mode now also auto-generates double-scanned modes for each regular VESA
mode which then generate the classical Amiga Hires 1:2 aspect ratio.
- In case a mode is changed with the right-hand side gadgets of Picasso96Mode, the
mode information in the mode window above is now updated immediately and not only
after the mode changes have been accepted. This is much less confusing.
- If in case of a mode change the maximum pixel frequency is exceeded, Picasso96Mode
forgot to update the pixel frequency slider to the maximum possible pixel frequency.
Now the proper information is reprinted.
- The bitmap allocation function did not allow intuition v40 (Os 3.9 or below) to
allocate native bitmaps anymore. This has been fixed. Allocation of RTG bitmaps
through intuition continued to work. There was no problem with Os 3.1.4 or above.
- The maximum screen width of the S3 trio and S3 virge chip drivers were limited to
4096 bytes, even though the current algorithm of deriving the value of the row-
scan register would allow up to 8184 bytes per row. Thus, the maximum row width was
extended, enabling some additional screen modes such as 1024x768 32-bit BGRA.

I'll probably explain more of that in another post, along with the still missing improvements of the 3.2.0 release (there are really plenty).

[jurassicman]

Just downloaded... I'll check it out later, thanks.

[tomcat666]

Since 3.2.0 some games display corrupt screen. In 3.1.2 everything was perfectly ok. I tried different modes and even promoting the screen to what it should be but there is always the same corruption - screen is squeezed to the left and wrong colours. For example ADescent (http://aminet.net/package/game/shoot/ADescent020) :



Reverting the libs back to 3.1.2 everything is fine.

[Swe_Kryten2x4b]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

Since 3.2.0 some games display corrupt screen. In 3.1.2 everything was perfectly ok. I tried different modes and even promoting the screen to what it should be but there is always the same corruption - screen is squeezed to the left and wrong colours. For example ADescent (http://aminet.net/package/game/shoot/ADescent020) :



Reverting the libs back to 3.1.2 everything is fine.

Look what you made me do...now I had to try. I can reproduce that for ADescent but not for anything else I've tried with. I've tried:

ScummVM, AmiDuke, Quake, Quake 2, Spear of destiny, Diablo, Earth2140, ADoom, ZDoom, FoundationGold, Hexen, Heretic, & openDUNE.

All works as intended. P96 3.2.1 and AmigaOS 3.2.1.

[tomcat666]

It was one more, but for the life I cannot find it now.

[jurassicman]

I confirm that with the 3.2.1 release on my OS 3.1.4, now I'm able again to open the other screens (PAL, HighGFX, etc..) so the bug has been fixed, thanks.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

Reverting the libs back to 3.1.2 everything is fine.

There is not enough data in the original games distribution for reproduction. The game complains that it misses the "DESCENT.TEX" or "DESCENT.TXB" files, and I have no idea where to get them. I found a source of the game data ".PIG" and ".HOG", but that's it. Is there anywhere a complete installation that is playable from scratch without hunting the internet?

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

There is not enough data in the original games distribution for reproduction. The game complains that it misses the "DESCENT.TEX" or "DESCENT.TXB" files, and I have no idea where to get them. I found a source of the game data ".PIG" and ".HOG", but that's it. Is there anywhere a complete installation that is playable from scratch without hunting the internet?

I have sent you a PM with the link where you can get the working version for testing. Hope it helps.

Thank you!

Best regards,
Tomaz

[wiz12]

When updating P96 to a new version, what is mandatory to update in the update selection screen? Graphic card drivers and Libraries or just update everything?

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

Since 3.2.0 some games display corrupt screen.

This program does something extremely stupid. It allocates a CHUNKY screen with a PLANAR custom bitmap. I have not the slightest idea what this should be good for, but it is nonsense. What P96 has to do here (and already does) is that it allocates its own bitmap for the screen, a chunky one of course. What 3.2.1 broke is to remove (by error) the logic in BltBitMap() that detected the case the the target bitmap was actually not the fake planar bitmap provided by the user, but the chunky P96 screen bitmap. Thus, whoever created this stuff deserves a slap in his face for stupidity. I added a workaround, but I'm not considering an update at this time because it's really an idiotic program that triggers this. As soon as there are sufficient other bugs accumulated, I'll provide the update.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by wiz12

When updating P96 to a new version, what is mandatory to update in the update selection screen? Graphic card drivers and Libraries or just update everything?

I suggest to update everything. Old drivers continue to work with new libraries, but not vice versa. But, as in general, I touch both, there is no reason to update only parts of it.

[gdonner]

Originally Posted by jurassicman

I confirm that with the 3.2.1 release on my OS 3.1.4, now I'm able again to open the other screens (PAL, HighGFX, etc..) so the bug has been fixed, thanks.

And FWIW, 3.2.1 is (in my experience) very solid now, without any more crashes or glitches--especially when running DOpus 4.17. This is on my A4000 w/ZZ9000.

It also feels noticeably snappier/more responsive than before. Now just need to install it on my A3000.

Thanks again Thomas!

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

TI added a workaround, but I'm not considering an update at this time because it's really an idiotic program that triggers this. As soon as there are sufficient other bugs accumulated, I'll provide the update.

Thank you for checking this out and figuring out a workaround