MAPROM and IDEtweak advice

[Hiddenevil]

Could someone help me.

I have a 68020TK accelerator in my A500+ and I'm having issues getting these programs to run as desired.

Firstly I'm not clear on whether I need to add "MAPROM kickfile quiet" to the user startup or if I just run it once and the changes are permanent.

Secondly using IDEtweak, I can't seem to change the WAITSTATES from 14 to 10. I type the command to change it to 10, but when I check the status, it's still reading 14.

[Hiddenevil]

If anyone can help me here, I'd really appreciate it

[captain_zzap]

First you’re missing the file you want to map.
Then you need to add the „MAPROM kickfile sys:Kick.rom quiet" to your startup-sequence right at the top. Once your kickfile is mapped it stays mapped until you turn off your Amiga. If the mapped kickfile is different from the installed rom you’ll get a guru, but after that system will boot fine from the mapped rom.
As for the idetweak options, do different values change anything? Also the latest version of the maprom utility includes the idetweak feature and perhaps any other bugfixes.
You can get the latest version from 01/14/2020 here https://www.a1k.org/forum/index.php?.../#post-1109207

[demolition]

I use these lines at the top of my startup-sequence to enable maprom and tweak the IDE:

maprom kickrom quiet
maprom waitstate 5

The attached image shows that you can see them becoming enabled when you run the status command.

And yes, you do not need to use the idetweak tool since its functionality has been merged with maprom. You may need to tweak the waitstate number as it depends on your particular HW. I found a setting of 5 to be stable for me.

[Hiddenevil]

Right, so does that mean I don't need to use idetweak?

maprom kickrom quiet - this command has to be RUN EVERY time at start up?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Hiddenevil

Right, so does that mean I don't need to use idetweak?

maprom kickrom quiet - this command has to be RUN EVERY time at start up?

'maprom waitstate 5' does the same as 'idetweak waitstate 5' so idetweak can be discarded.

And yes, you do need to run maprom after every power cycle since it will start up with the defaults of maprom disabled and waitstates set to 15. It will remember the setting through a reset though. So add in the top of your startup-sequence. If you add it to user-startup you will not get the benefit of the much faster boot since it will not be activated until booting is almost complete.

[hooverphonique]

VBR2FAST should also give a speed increase..

[Hiddenevil]

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

VBR2FAST should also give a speed increase..

What does that effect?

At the moment I’d like to improve the IDE speeds, it could just be me but my A500+ seems to take a while drawing icons when I open a drive.

Certainly if I compare it with my ACA1230 1200.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Hiddenevil

At the moment I’d like to improve the IDE speeds, it could just be me but my A500+ seems to take a while drawing icons when I open a drive.
Certainly if I compare it with my ACA1230 1200.

Maprom made a big speed improvement in my case - ide speed not as much, but still worthwhile.

Which resolution/color depth are you using on the 500? Using too many colors will make it very slow no matter how fast the CPU and IDE is. Keep it at 8 colors to make it reasonably responsive. The AGA chipset on the 1200 is a massive improvement in this regard.

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by Hiddenevil

What does that effect?

I don't know your hw specifically, but it strongly suggests that it moves the interrupt/exception vectors to fastmem, which is faster than having them in slowmem (where they are located by default).

[demolition]

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

I don't know your hw specifically, but it strongly suggests that it moves the interrupt/exception vectors to fastmem, which is faster than having them in slowmem (where they are located by default).

Yes, the speed benefit probably won't be very noticeable, but there's not really any reason not to use it since it shouldn't cause any adverse effects.

[Hiddenevil]

System is an 500+ with 68020TK 8mb fast mem and 2mb chip.

My card
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php...rator-by-Matze

[demolition]

I think that VBR2FAST might just be utilizing the VBR move feature of the CPU just like http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/vbrmov23? All 68010+ CPUs can do this so it is not special for the accelerator (unless it shadows the original VBR pointer).

WHDload also moves the VBR to a custom handler in fastmem that captures keypresses so it can apply a universal quit key.

[Hiddenevil]

Tried using the waitstate command and it changes nothing. Please see attachment.

[Hiddenevil]

I couldn’t help notice my Fuse Map has a different value $700 and not $000 like in the screen shot posted by Demolition.

[demolition]

Do you know if your card has the latest firmware? And my fuse map is $F000 after maprom not $0000, but the difference might just be if we're using different memory configurations. I have only enabled 6+1.5MB where I guess you have all 8+1.5MB enabled. I cannot enable it all since I need that 2MB memory space for my RTG card.

[Hiddenevil]

How do I find out? I've not done anything with it since I bought it off Viktor. And he appears to have vanished :-(

[demolition]

Well, when did you buy it? If within a year, then it is surely on the latest FW.

[Hiddenevil]

Nah it was last year when I bought it. Don’t remember exactly when, but I had to repair the A500 before I could use the card and it took me a while to get round to doing it. So was at least 5-6 months before I actually had the accelerator out of its box.

[Hiddenevil]

Can you upgrade the FW on them?