Help setting up Prometheus Firebird and Voodoo3

[trixster]

Hi,

I’m trying to set up p96 for Voodoo3 on my Prometheus Firebird daughterboard. At the moment all I’m getting is either a grey screen with red block mouse pointer, or no signal from the V3 when testing with picasso96prefs. This is if I use the earliest files versions available. Testing Some resolutions lock the machine up

I’m experienced with using p96 with a mediator set up.

So it’d be helpful to know exactly what file versions are required and where they need to go.

I’ve tried files from the Matay CD ISO, from the Prometheus 2.5 update relates, plus the Prometheus.library v3.0. I’ve also tried the card drivers from picasso96 2.0 (which was on the Matay cd) and from picasso96 2.1b

If someone has a working set up, please could they list where the necessary files need to go and what version/file size they are.

As far as I can work out, it should be:

Expansion:Prometheus.library (if using pre-version 2 library)
LIBS:Prometheus.library (if using v2 or v3)
LIBS:Picasso96/3dfxvoodoo.chip
LIBS:Picasso96/Prometheus.card
DEVS:Monitors/Prometheus (and the tooltype points to Prometheus)

With the most up to date files in place, my voodoo3 is correctly recognised with prmscan, and picasso96prefs sees the Board which I can attach to the defined screen modes, but the option to test each resolution is greyed out and p96prefs complains that the resolutions and colour depths aren’t compatible with my graphics card....

I’m running OS3.9 with bb1&2

Fblit and ftext are disabled. Are there any other known issues I need to be aware of, like the issue with fastlayers.library

[DarrenHD]

Originally Posted by trixster

Hi,

I’m trying to set up p96 for Voodoo3 on my Prometheus Firebird daughterboard. At the moment all I’m getting is either a grey screen with red block mouse pointer, or no signal from the V3 when testing with picasso96prefs. This is if I use the earliest files versions available. Testing Some resolutions lock the machine up

I’m experienced with using p96 with a mediator set up.

So it’d be helpful to know exactly what file versions are required and where they need to go.

I’ve tried files from the Matay CD ISO, from the Prometheus 2.5 update relates, plus the Prometheus.library v3.0. I’ve also tried the card drivers from picasso96 2.0 (which was on the Matay cd) and from picasso96 2.1b

If someone has a working set up, please could they list where the necessary files need to go and what version/file size they are.

As far as I can work out, it should be:

Expansion:Prometheus.library (if using pre-version 2 library)
LIBS:Prometheus.library (if using v2 or v3)
LIBS:Picasso96/3dfxvoodoo.chip
LIBS:Picasso96/Prometheus.card
DEVS:Monitors/Prometheus (and the tooltype points to Prometheus)

With the most up to date files in place, my voodoo3 is correctly recognised with prmscan, and picasso96prefs sees the Board which I can attach to the defined screen modes, but the option to test each resolution is greyed out and p96prefs complains that the resolutions and colour depths aren’t compatible with my graphics card....

I’m running OS3.9 with bb1&2

Fblit and ftext are disabled. Are there any other known issues I need to be aware of, like the issue with fastlayers.library

Can you run the Picasso96 installation again and choose Update installation and choose your monitor capabilities, like you do with the Mediator? Or setup your own modes (and test them) in Picasso96Mode?

I have a real Promethus (actually it's upgraded to the Firestorm firmware), but I actually haven't used it in about 4 years as I'm using my Mediator now with the Sonnet PPC. So unfortunately my memory is foggy as to how to set it up, but I seem to recall it wasn't very hard or different than the Mediator.

[trixster]

Fixed it - it needed mmulibs to be installed.

[DarrenHD]

Originally Posted by trixster

Fixed it - it needed mmulibs to be installed.

Excellent. And you're very lucky to have the AA3000

Hese is doing amazing work, as are others re-making the classic mainboards (and upgrading them).

[trixster]

Hopefully Prometheus will get some attention later this year

[dkedrowitsch]

Hey Trixster! I'm enjoying my AA3000+ very much as well.

I got my Firebird running fairly easily with P96 and a PCI graphics card, albeit I used an S3 ViRGE I had laying around rather than a more difficult to find Voodoo 3.

Please let me know if you manage to figure out how to get OpenPCI working on it. I've got a Realtek 10/100 board I'd like to use, but getting OpenPCI going has been impossible so far.

Near as I can tell OpenPCI requires prometheus.library v3 which appears to be a mythical unicorn. There is a v3 here, but I'm not convinced this is a working source:

https://github.com/jeperk/OpenPCI/tr...Prometheus-3.0

That file is considerably larger than v2.5 and simply refuses to load on boot. If this truly is is the appropriate library, perhaps it requires different code in the CPLDs to function?

I've spent quite a few days looking around and have yet to find any clear documentation on how to get OpenPCI working on Prometheus and exactly what files are need and where to find them.

Having inexpensive PCI Ethernet would really be the cherry on top for my AA3000+... although next I'd probably try to get a USB board going too.

Cheers!

[trixster]

I got v3 from a post on A1K forum, it is just a few bytes larger than the 2.5 update version

[trixster]

https://www.a1k.org/forum/index.php?...6/#post-333867

Remove .pdf from the downloaded file

I’m not planning on using openpci until there’s progress with the sonnet project, but I’d be interested to see how you get on. My plan is to add a ZZ9000 to the machine and use the Ethernet and usb on that card, with the Voodoo3 providing RTG

[dkedrowitsch]

Thank you! If I get this all going I might try to gather all of the setup information into one location online somewhere.

Do you know if the ZZ9000 has been made to work in the AA3000+ yet? I don't know much about them yet but last I heard there was some issue with it, I'm hopeful it doesn't have anything to do with the 3.3v Zorro BUS termination used on the Firebird...

Is there a working USB stack for that ZZ9000?

My hope is to go the more frugal route and get RTG, Ethernet, and possibly even USB going via the Prometheus...

[trixster]

The ARM allows the usb to be used for storage but there’s no usb stack for Poseidon.

I will have a ZZ9000 next week so I will test then.

[dkedrowitsch]

That worked, prometheus.library v3 is loading and my S3 RTG is still working great.

OpenPCI appears to be working too and is able to enumerate the Prometheus and PCI boards as well. Now to figure out the whole graphics card memory as DMA buffer thing to use my RTL8139 nic...

[dkedrowitsch]

Hello Trixster,

Out of curiosity, what firmware are you running in your Firebird/Prometheus?

In my efforts to get PCI FastEthernet going, I've upgraded the firmware to Michael Boehmer's "Fire Storm" firmware that's supposed to provide fully functional DMA. Unfortunately I haven't had much success with it yet.

According to this blog entry (https://leblogdecosmos.blogspot.com/...rometheus.html) the Fire Storm firmware is supported by prometheus.library v3, which thanks to you I am now using.

Unfortunatly after programing the CPLDs with the Fire Storm firmware, something is definitely not right. The system will boot and I can see the new manufacturer/product IDs for the Fire Storm firmware, prometheus.library is loading, but PrmScan 1.6 doesn't see the Prometheus anymore. OpenPCI does detect it, but it's listing of the PCI boards doesn't include any PCI device/manufacturer IDs for them anymore--those fields are now blank.

I've reached out to the other of that Blog post to hopefully get some more information from him, and in the meantime I've rolled back to the original firmware so my Prometheus is functional again.

But I'm curious to know what firmware you're using.

Regards

[trixster]

Hi, I’m not sure how to determine what firmware is on the board - what do I need to do?

[dkedrowitsch]

If your AA3000+ was assembled by Hese, I suspect you have the original production firmware since that's the version he provided to those of us who assembled the boards ourselves.


That's the version I'll continue to use unless I manage to figure out how to make use of Michael Boehmer's improved version.

[trixster]

Bit of a thread update - both Wrangler and I now have firestorm firmware working ok, so Prometheus now has proper dma. Voodoo3 and 100mbit NIC working fine.

I’ve also installed the ZZ9000 and this is partially working fine too with the latest 1.6.2 firmware - i say partially because warm reboots cause a garbled screen when loadmondrvs starts the zz9000 monitor driver. This has been replicated with Z2 fw. If the machine is turned off/on then it boots perfectly with the zz9000 rtg. If the voodoo is used as the main card then the zz9000 can be switched to after any number of warm reboots. If I warm-reboot using PAL monitor driver, manually invoke the zz9000 monitor driver, I can ‘test’ screenmodes in ScreenMode or picasso96prefs, but actually then using the screenmode creates a garbled screen.

In order for The zz9000 to work (ie to allow the machine to actually boot) another zorro card needs to be in the machine, such as a prisma megamix or zorram, so I think there’s an autoconfig clash between the zz9000 and the Prometheus unless there’s another card in place.

Regarding the warm-reboot issue: I’ve tried everything I can think of other than an os reinstall or rom swap (currently using 3.1.4 roms).

I’m on the zz9000 irc so am in contact with the developers, but it’s hard to trouble shoot when I don’t know anyone else with this hardware and firmware combination! Probably going to send the zz9000 to wrangler to test

I am theorising that something is not resetting or flushing on the zz9000 Between warm reboots, and the Prometheus does not like this. But the output of zzdiag does not appear to support this and the developers think it must be a setup or software conflict.

[torsti76]

Well, I'd really love to help since I have a ZZ9000 laying around, too. But unfortunately my AA3000+ is still a blank PCB and two boxes of components. And with the current childcare situation I'm afraid this won't change anytime soon... :-(

[DarrenHD]

Originally Posted by torsti76

Well, I'd really love to help since I have a ZZ9000 laying around, too. But unfortunately my AA3000+ is still a blank PCB and two boxes of components. And with the current childcare situation I'm afraid this won't change anytime soon... :-(

I am in the same boat. My AA3000+ is complete but waiting for shipping to resume between Finland and Canada. And my Zz9000 has been ordered but I have not received it yet. I'm in batch 5 so I don't expect the ZZ9000 until the fall.

[spudje]

Similar situation here. My AA3000+ is still on the to do list of the person who will build it for me and ZZ9000 waiting in its box here. On the other hand, he did build me an Amy-ITX in the mean time