02 February 2014, 19:07 | #1 |
Amigaholic
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: UK
Posts: 4,759
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WHDLoad, Turrican and Accelerator issues!
Not sure where to post this, hardware, games or WHDLoad
OK, I'm trying to figure out why out of 3 Accelerator cards I have only 1 will play Turrican without noticeable issues on my A1200!! The cards I have tried are: Microbotics M1230XA 030/40Mhz 32mb ACA1232 030/40Mhz 128mb Blizzard PPC 060/66Mhz 64mb The problem is the game takes much longer to load using the ACA1232/BPPC than the M1230XA, up to 6x longer!! The game also has noticeable slowdowns when using the beam weapon and loads of rocks are on screen, using the beam weapon on hidden blocks causes slowdown as more power ups appear from the block, same slowdown when using beam weapon on the little bugs that drop the grey crystals. These issues aren't noticeable on the M1230XA so why do the other 2 cards exhibit this massive slowdown and loading issue? I've posted about this issue in the ACA500 thread in the News section as I thought it was the ACA1232 as Jens mentioned it's an Asynchronous design so won't 'talk' to the Chip Ram at fullspeed, but after trying Turrican on a BPPC 060 and getting the exact same issue I'm now wondering what the heck is going on? This is a Bustest of my M120XA: Code:
BusSpeedTest 0.19 (mlelstv) Buffer: 262144 Bytes, Alignment: 32768 ======================================================================== memtype addr op cycle calib bandwidth fast $08338000 readw 159.8 ns normal 12.5 * 10^6 byte/s fast $08338000 readl 204.2 ns normal 19.6 * 10^6 byte/s fast $08338000 readm 193.5 ns normal 20.7 * 10^6 byte/s fast $08338000 writew 155.6 ns normal 12.9 * 10^6 byte/s fast $08338000 writel 156.3 ns normal 25.6 * 10^6 byte/s fast $08338000 writem 142.3 ns normal 28.1 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00068000 readw 1208.2 ns normal 1.7 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00068000 readl 1209.0 ns normal 3.3 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00068000 readm 881.8 ns normal 4.5 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00068000 writew 849.3 ns normal 2.4 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00068000 writel 856.5 ns normal 4.7 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00068000 writem 843.8 ns normal 4.7 * 10^6 byte/s rom $00F80000 readw 356.7 ns normal 5.6 * 10^6 byte/s rom $00F80000 readl 356.2 ns normal 11.2 * 10^6 byte/s rom $00F80000 readm 322.1 ns normal 12.4 * 10^6 byte/s Code:
BusSpeedTest 0.19 (mlelstv) Buffer: 262144 Bytes, Alignment: 32768 ======================================================================== memtype addr op cycle calib bandwidth fast $083E8000 readw 126.8 ns normal 15.8 * 10^6 byte/s fast $083E8000 readl 153.3 ns normal 26.1 * 10^6 byte/s fast $083E8000 readm 138.9 ns normal 28.8 * 10^6 byte/s fast $083E8000 writew 101.4 ns normal 19.7 * 10^6 byte/s fast $083E8000 writel 101.4 ns normal 39.4 * 10^6 byte/s fast $083E8000 writem 90.2 ns normal 44.3 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00060000 readw 1200.4 ns normal 1.7 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00060000 readl 1199.2 ns normal 3.3 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00060000 readm 875.4 ns normal 4.6 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00060000 writew 839.0 ns normal 2.4 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00060000 writel 842.6 ns normal 4.7 * 10^6 byte/s chip $00060000 writem 842.9 ns normal 4.7 * 10^6 byte/s rom $00F80000 readw 126.9 ns normal 15.8 * 10^6 byte/s rom $00F80000 readl 152.5 ns normal 26.2 * 10^6 byte/s rom $00F80000 readm 139.4 ns normal 28.7 * 10^6 byte/s Code:
BusSpeedTest 0.19 (mlelstv) Buffer: 262144 Bytes, Alignment: 32768 ======================================================================== memtype addr op cycle calib bandwidth fast $76488000 readw 54.7 ns normal 36.6 * 10^6 byte/s fast $76488000 readl 93.7 ns normal 42.7 * 10^6 byte/s fast $76488000 readm 92.6 ns normal 43.2 * 10^6 byte/s fast $76488000 writew 70.4 ns normal 28.4 * 10^6 byte/s fast $76488000 writel 141.4 ns normal 28.3 * 10^6 byte/s fast $76488000 writem 141.0 ns normal 28.4 * 10^6 byte/s chip $000C0000 readw 1338.3 ns normal 1.5 * 10^6 byte/s chip $000C0000 readl 1338.7 ns normal 3.0 * 10^6 byte/s chip $000C0000 readm 1340.3 ns normal 3.0 * 10^6 byte/s chip $000C0000 writew 838.4 ns normal 2.4 * 10^6 byte/s chip $000C0000 writel 839.5 ns normal 4.8 * 10^6 byte/s chip $000C0000 writem 839.7 ns normal 4.8 * 10^6 byte/s rom $00F80000 readw 54.8 ns normal 36.5 * 10^6 byte/s rom $00F80000 readl 92.6 ns normal 43.2 * 10^6 byte/s rom $00F80000 readm 93.2 ns normal 42.9 * 10^6 byte/s |
02 February 2014, 19:12 | #2 |
Zone Friend
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Sweden
Age: 44
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02 February 2014, 20:11 | #3 |
Amigaholic
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: UK
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@retrogamer: I know about that thread and Wepl has also sent me an updated slave to try but it made no difference!! But I have since found out why those 2 Accelerators slowdown
I was in the shower earlier and this problem was bugging me and I just got to thinking what's the difference between the M120XA and the ACA1232/BPPC? Then suddenly I realised one thing, I had NO SHAMPOO Actually, what I realised is that my M1230XA has NO MMU By default WHDLoad will use the MMU on an 040/060 but DISABLE it on an 030 if it has one according to the docs! So, I just used the Tooltype NoMMU in the Turrican icon then ran the game and promptly got a warning from WHDLoad about the current MMU setup maps memory $0...$1000 to fast mem and probably won't work, so I did what most people would do and ignored it Luckily the game loaded, and with the MMU ignored Turrican now loads MUCH faster. After pressing the fire button it takes about 4 seconds (not 18) to load the game and there are no noticeable slowdowns like before!! So now I've discovered the reason why this game slowdowns can anything be done to safely ignore the MMU on my BPPC (haven't tried the ACA1232 yet) so this game runs without the earlier warning? *EDIT* After reading the WHDLoad docs some more, the Tooltype ChipNoCache MUST be used on the BPPC as per reasons given in the CPU Cache Handling section and explains the slow loading I'm seeing of 5x. This is in place of NoMMU and while it has vastly improved the loading and slowdown, it's still not as good as using NoMMU!! Last edited by BarryB; 02 February 2014 at 21:59. |
03 February 2014, 10:05 | #4 |
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Location: Stockholm / Sweden
Age: 49
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03 February 2014, 17:25 | #5 |
BlizzardPPC'less
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Try a combination of "ChipNoCache" and "BranchCache" as WHDLoad-tooltypes. Works for some games.
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03 February 2014, 18:13 | #6 |
Amigaholic
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: UK
Posts: 4,759
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@Turran: And your colleagues will never know what you're laughing at
@Bamiga2002: I'll set them globally in WHDLoad.prefs and see what happens!! Except I can't set BranchCache in the prefs? Can it only be set in the Tooltype? |
04 February 2014, 00:03 | #7 |
BlizzardPPC'less
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Put directly into game-tooltype.
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04 February 2014, 09:37 | #8 |
Amigaholic
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: UK
Posts: 4,759
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Maybe Placebo effect but the game seems to run better without BranchCache? Anyway, threw a sickie in work today for a few days so can play a bit more
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17 January 2023, 08:46 | #9 |
Mutation Software
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Sconnie Botland
Age: 59
Posts: 850
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Almost a decade later... interesting
Was trying to fathom similar on Discord here recently... https://discord.com/channels/3735440...10521278267405 |
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