New product: MNT ZZ9000

[qz3fwd]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

At some point, someone will probably figure out how to run Quake on the ARM CPUs

Or an OpenGL implementation or a hardware video decoder for mpeg2/h264! Wouldnt it be cool seeing 1080p video decoded on a 30 year old Amiga-admittedly the Amiga's IO throughput would likely be a problem even for DVD quality mpeg2.

[Boing-Ball]

Originally Posted by Jope

Hmm, some of us owners might say things like it replaced my Picasso IV, but I don't think Minute himself has marketed it as such?

You can check what his selling points are from: https://mntre.com/media/ZZ9000_info_...resources.html



What are your requirements for a Picasso IV replacement?

So reading the information you were kind to provide;

The card is supposed to work with the following:

RTG with P96
Network with Sana-II driver (obviously a TCP stack is required)
USB is supposed to work. With what? Chris Hodges Posiedon USB?
1GB RAM? Mine only has 128MB Z3 RAM?

But from I have been reading thus far, RTG works, Network appears to work. Z3 FastRAM is problematic? USB works or doesn’t?

I’m very surprised people are buying this card since 2019 with things not working? I know the Amiga and Commodore systems are old, now having new hardware is great. But paying a lot of money for a new card without it properly functioning is hard to take. Should really be mentioning this on the website.

Granted the PIV doesn’t have built in Network, USB or Z3 RAM. But is working as intended. Yes the Villagetronic brand is no longer. But it looks to work. For USB and network a X-Surf100 with RapidRoad for the rest.

Just waiting on a replacement A4K Daughterboard to see how I fair with my ZZ9000. Fingers crossed this is what I need. If not, will be looking to what I have described above to replace it.

[Damion]

I suppose intended use is a subjective thing. RTG with an integrated scandoubler and digital output is already awesome, add the ZZ9000AX and you have a dream come true for many (hardware MP3 decoding was always a unicorn thing, and what did exist was permanently stuck with whatever bugs it came with). Image quality will of course be far superior to any of the old cards if using an LCD.

For ethernet and USB, I'm happy to support Jens or use a DENEB/Freeway or Ariadne (etc).

That said, I'll keep my PIVs, but it's nice not to have to try to hunt down another one, or be limited to a flaky Delfina for MP3 decoding. The promise for improvement and bug fixes is a very welcome development in the Amiga world.

Plus, I think much of the fun of this hobby is the quest for improvement and perfection (tough to put a price on that!)

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

USB is supposed to work. With what? Chris Hodges Posiedon USB?

The USB works for mass storage devices and there is a separate Amiga driver to access those. No hotplug.

It is not a generic USB host like you would use with Poseidon.

1GB RAM? Mine only has 128MB Z3 RAM?

The Z3 RAM (256MB) and RTG video memory (128MB) segments of it are exposed to the Amiga, the rest is only visible to the SoC and is used for audio buffers, ethernet buffers and that sort of thing.

https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...&postcount=123 has a showconfig screenshot of the two autoconfig boards that the ZZ9000 exposes.

But from I have been reading thus far, RTG works, Network appears to work. Z3 FastRAM is problematic? USB works or doesn’t?

Z3 FastRAM works just the same as any other Z3 Fast board. So it's there, it works, it will be the slowest bit of Fast RAM in any Z3 Amiga. Exactly the same results as with other vendors' Z3 Fast boards.

USB works, but the devil is in the details; it is not a generic USB controller.

I’m very surprised people are buying this card since 2019 with things not working?

Maybe it isn't as not working as you make it out to be? Someone having a gripe with a feature of the card or finding a glitch is just that, a gripe or a glitch. If you pick through vintage Amiga expansions with the same amount of scrutiny, you will also find incompatibilities and glitches. They are mostly known and people work around them or avoid non-working hardware combinations. At least with the ZZ the glitches can still be fixed since the designer of the hardware is active.

I use RTG and Network all the time, currently I'm running the RAMless firmware since I don't need the RAM, but back when it was always there, I just allocated it all as a second RAM disk for my temp files. Worked fine, no data corruption, it can't break the laws of physics so it is Z3 speed.

I have the AX audio expansion because of completionist reasons, but I don't really make that much use of it. I've fully configured it though, so in the rare times when I run some AHI program, it is now in CD quality instead of Paula quality. The MP3 decoder also works fine and it leaves a lot of CPU time free, if MP3 on the Amiga is a use case for you.

The USB implementation doesn't really fulfill any need I have, so I don't use it. In my opinion it is the weakest part of the card, as I would also prefer to have a fully featured Poseidon compatible USB port if I were to use one. The USB port's capabilities are documented on the product page in the FAQ section and the features section, what you read there is all you get.

I know the Amiga and Commodore systems are old, now having new hardware is great. But paying a lot of money for a new card without it properly functioning is hard to take. Should really be mentioning this on the website.

Mine works fine. There were bugs at first, but all the ones that affected me were ironed out. And if someone else finds bugs, they can report them and work with Lukas to test the fixes.

Just waiting on a replacement A4K Daughterboard to see how I fair with my ZZ9000. Fingers crossed this is what I need. If not, will be looking to what I have described above to replace it.

USB will probably be not what you want, but everything else should be totally fine.

And if your setup has an issue, then I hope you can find the time to work with Lukas to iron it out.

[stevelord]

Originally Posted by mousehouse

and the fact that I can code custom ARM apps that I can address from the Amiga. Not enough time to do much with it but at some point I'll get around to writing a Mandelbrot routine that uses the ZZ9000 CPU-FPU or some other pointless but fun app.

Looking forward to the improvements over time which I'm sure there will be.

I don't know about now but for the entire time I've had my ZZ9000 (I stopped updating firmware before 1.9 as I had a steady state and 1.9+ got a little weird) I've never been able to run custom ARM apps. Even the demo apps don't work <1.9 (at least on my A4K).


If it did, I would've been writing stuff for this a couple of years back.

[Boing-Ball]

Hmmm…. The USB side of things would have been a good feature if it supported USB devices like the Elbox Spider and Indivision RapidRoad devices.

Well time will tell when I try all this out for myself. Great information being communicated.

[IvanEBC]

Hi guys

I've always had minor issues with my ZZ9000 on my Amiga 4000 (Dopus freezing when scrolling, solveable by not using the ZZ9000 Fast Ram).... solvable but not ideal.
Side Note: My Z-Surf 1000 also only works in Z2 mode and not Z3) So i decided to get a new Daughterboard thinking this may solve some problems from Amigastore.eu which arrived today.... but i can only get an initial boot with NO RTG.... (which is normal) but when i do the first reboot which would show me my RTG workbench...... with the new daughterboard, i get nothing, she isn't even booting ...
Is the ZZ9000 known to be fussy with 3rd party daughterboards? I picked this one as it was a replacement board and not trying to be fancy.

I swear i saw a 3rd party FAQ once but i cannot find it now as if it was listed as such, it would be there.

This is the one i got... https://amigastore.eu/en/760-amiga-4...ard-b-v12.html

EDIT: I put the original Commodore Daughterbaord back in and everything works again with the original issues.
So my simple question is if others have tried the same daughterboard and had success or failures...

Thanks.

[Boing-Ball]

Originally Posted by IvanEBC

Hi guys

I've always had minor issues with my ZZ9000 on my Amiga 4000 (Dopus freezing when scrolling, solveable by not using the ZZ9000 Fast Ram).... solvable but not ideal.
Side Note: My Z-Surf 1000 also only works in Z2 mode and not Z3) So i decided to get a new Daughterboard thinking this may solve some problems from Amigastore.eu which arrived today.... but i can only get an initial boot with NO RTG.... (which is normal) but when i do the first reboot which would show me my RTG workbench...... with the new daughterboard, i get nothing, she isn't even booting ...
Is the ZZ9000 known to be fussy with 3rd party daughterboards? I picked this one as it was a replacement board and not trying to be fancy.

I swear i saw a 3rd party FAQ once but i cannot find it now as if it was listed as such, it would be there.

This is the one i got... https://amigastore.eu/en/760-amiga-4...ard-b-v12.html

EDIT: I put the original Commodore Daughterbaord back in and everything works again with the original issues.
So my simple question is if others have tried the same daughterboard and had success or failures...

Thanks.

Will let you know. Have the exact same Daughterboard arrived today. Planning on using the ZZ9000 a FastLane Z3 and possibly a BFG9060. But will try with the bog standard 030/25 first.

[Boing-Ball]

Okay. So my Amananet A4K Daughterboard arrived from Amigastore.eu. Unfortunately mine didn’t get the extra floppy power connector soldered on. So luckily I had one spare and did that job myself. Have now got connected a ZZ9000 in the bottom slot with the Video native board connected. A Gottagofaster 256MB Z3 RAM card and a Phase 5 FastLane Z3 SCSI card (minus the 16MB extra RAM removed from the board). 16MB Fast in the motherboard and the standard 030 CPU board plus FPU at 25mhz. So far so good. Still trying to find the drivers for the RTG side. Downloaded the latest Firmware download. Have Version 3.34 of P96 from Individual Computers (Paid for). Instructions I have found are to install P96 with the “altais” card driver. Then run the ZZ9000 install. Instructions being used here
https://mntre.com/media/ZZ9000_info_...-manual-r2.pdf

Any help on the drivers would be appreciated. Any chance if anyone has them to put up on the Zone perhaps?

[Jope]

https://source.mnt.re/amiga/zz9000-firmware/-/releases

ZZ9000 Amiga Driver Installer Package 1.12 (LHA) is visible there. Unfortunately Gitlab is not at all Amiga web browser friendly. You could of course check the url from there and then use aget on the Amiga to download directly to the Amiga.

The driver package installer is still written to replace the Altais driver you selected when installing P96. Unfortunately P96 doesn't have a better officially supported way of installing a 3rd party card driver, so you can just install with Altais and then run the ZZ9000 installer.

[Boing-Ball]

Originally Posted by Jope

https://source.mnt.re/amiga/zz9000-firmware/-/releases

ZZ9000 Amiga Driver Installer Package 1.12 (LHA) is visible there. Unfortunately Gitlab is not at all Amiga web browser friendly. You could of course check the url from there and then use aget on the Amiga to download directly to the Amiga.

The driver package installer is still written to replace the Altais driver you selected when installing P96. Unfortunately P96 doesn't have a better officially supported way of installing a 3rd party card driver, so you can just install with Altais and then run the ZZ9000 installer.

Good Stuff. Thanks.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

Okay. So my Amananet A4K Daughterboard arrived from Amigastore.eu. Unfortunately mine didn’t get the extra floppy power connector soldered on. So luckily I had one spare and did that job myself. Have now got connected a ZZ9000 in the bottom slot with the Video native board connected. A Gottagofaster 256MB Z3 RAM card and a Phase 5 FastLane Z3 SCSI card (minus the 16MB extra RAM removed from the board). 16MB Fast in the motherboard and the standard 030 CPU board plus FPU at 25mhz. So far so good. Still trying to find the drivers for the RTG side. Downloaded the latest Firmware download. Have Version 3.34 of P96 from Individual Computers (Paid for). Instructions I have found are to install P96 with the “altais” card driver. Then run the ZZ9000 install. Instructions being used here
https://mntre.com/media/ZZ9000_info_...-manual-r2.pdf

Any help on the drivers would be appreciated. Any chance if anyone has them to put up on the Zone perhaps?

Tbh, I had to do it a couple of times before it started working, can't really say what I did right or wrong, but I followed the instructions in the printed manual that arrives with the card. Some stuff is better installed in the right order.