Getting RTG screenmodes to work in A4000

[protek]

I have an A4000, 3.1.4 ROMs and a clean install of AmigaOS 3.2. I have a PiccoloSD64 RTG card that’s known to be working when I used to have 3.1/3.9.

Picasso96 installs without problems, I selected my RTG card during installation. When I run PicassoMode, it displays a list of screenmodes and palettes associated with my card. All options are greyed, though, so I can’t test or use them. None of the modes are listed under the system screenmodes. If I try ot add a new item in PicassoMode, the whole system crashes. Also, in PicassoMode, the Attach function lists no boards.

System diagnostics shows the RTG card and states it okay.

Any ideas?

[Jpor]

Originally Posted by protek

I have an A4000, 3.1.4 ROMs and a clean install of AmigaOS 3.2. I have a PiccoloSD64 RTG card that’s known to be working when I used to have 3.1/3.9.

Picasso96 installs without problems, I selected my RTG card during installation. When I run PicassoMode, it displays a list of screenmodes and palettes associated with my card. All options are greyed, though, so I can’t test or use them. None of the modes are listed under the system screenmodes. If I try ot add a new item in PicassoMode, the whole system crashes. Also, in PicassoMode, the Attach function lists no boards.

System diagnostics shows the RTG card and states it okay.

Any ideas?

I don’t know much about your card. But if it’s anything like setting up a Voodoo 3 or Radeon card using a mediator. I take it the card is in Devs:Monitors?
All drivers are installed in the Picasso folder?

[protek]

^Card is in Devs/Monitors and Picasso drivers are in the default folders suggested by the install script.

[freakofnature]

Have you tried Prefs/Screenmode first? PicassoMode is for creating new custom modes or altering the current sets to fit your needs, e.g. to fine tune the screenmode for unsupported monitors.

Run Screenmode to test and save the mode for daily use.

[DarrenHD]

Originally Posted by protek

I have an A4000, 3.1.4 ROMs and a clean install of AmigaOS 3.2. I have a PiccoloSD64 RTG card that’s known to be working when I used to have 3.1/3.9.

Picasso96 installs without problems, I selected my RTG card during installation. When I run PicassoMode, it displays a list of screenmodes and palettes associated with my card. All options are greyed, though, so I can’t test or use them. None of the modes are listed under the system screenmodes. If I try ot add a new item in PicassoMode, the whole system crashes. Also, in PicassoMode, the Attach function lists no boards.

System diagnostics shows the RTG card and states it okay.

Any ideas?

Can you not just copy in an existing Picasso96Settings file and put it in DEVS: ? A Settings file with all the modes.

[protek]

Originally Posted by freakofnature

Have you tried Prefs/Screenmode first? PicassoMode is for creating new custom modes or altering the current sets to fit your needs, e.g. to fine tune the screenmode for unsupported monitors.

Run Screenmode to test and save the mode for daily use.

Screenmode only lists native RGB modes.

[protek]

Originally Posted by DarrenHD

Can you not just copy in an existing Picasso96Settings file and put it in DEVS: ? A Settings file with all the modes.

Maybe, I need to check that out.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by DarrenHD

Can you not just copy in an existing Picasso96Settings file and put it in DEVS: ? A Settings file with all the modes.

The existing settings must be from someone with the same kind of GFX board so that the settings are bound to the correct board.

[protek]

Is the PicassoMode crashing when trying to create new screenmodes an incompatibility issue with AmigaOS3.2 and/or 3.1.4 ROMs? I heard that there are differences between Picasso96 versions.

[Jope]

Which P96 version are you on currently?

There have been some 3.1.4/3.2 related updates to it in the recent years.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by protek

Picasso96 installs without problems, I selected my RTG card during installation. When I run PicassoMode, it displays a list of screenmodes and palettes associated with my card. All options are greyed, though, so I can’t test or use them. None of the modes are listed under the system screenmodes. If I try ot add a new item in PicassoMode, the whole system crashes. Also, in PicassoMode, the Attach function lists no boards.

If the "attach" function lists no boards, then the board is not recognized by expansion or the monitor driver is not loaded. It can surely not show graphics on such a board then. Please check in the boot menu whether your board shows up. If so, also make sure that the monitor corresponding to your hardware is loaded.


If the board does not show up in the boot menu, then this is a hardware issue, not a software issue. If you see crashes, please run MuForce and report the "hits" to get them addressed (note well that I cannot read your mind - without having this output I cannot do anything).


Thank you.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by protek

Is the PicassoMode crashing when trying to create new screenmodes an incompatibility issue with AmigaOS3.2 and/or 3.1.4 ROMs? I heard that there are differences between Picasso96 versions.

No, there is no such thing. P96 requires only 3.1, and will also run on a bare-bone 3.1 system. It is recommended to get 3.2 for some minor features, and P96 can then avoid certain hacks that are natively supported by 3.2 such as the hires cursor on ECS/OCS machines or system-friendly screen dragging of VGA mode.

[protek]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

If the "attach" function lists no boards, then the board is not recognized by expansion or the monitor driver is not loaded. It can surely not show graphics on such a board then. Please check in the boot menu whether your board shows up. If so, also make sure that the monitor corresponding to your hardware is loaded.


If the board does not show up in the boot menu, then this is a hardware issue, not a software issue. If you see crashes, please run MuForce and report the "hits" to get them addressed (note well that I cannot read your mind - without having this output I cannot do anything).


Thank you.

The board does show on the boot menu and is working. The card is in monitors/devs but how do I make it sure it is actually loaded?

[nogginthenog]

Does it appear correctly in Tools/ShowConfig?

[freakofnature]

Has startup-sequence all required entries to load monitor files? Maybe there's some sort of "exclusion"?

[protek]

The card shows on showconfig.

Also I noticed that the system crashes if I try to drag any icon anywhere, so it’s not just Picassomode. What might be causing this?

[PeterK]

Originally Posted by protek

Also I noticed that the system crashes if I try to drag any icon anywhere, so it’s not just Picassomode. What might be causing this?

Maybe it could be the new intuition.library of 3.2 that gets in conflict with other programs. I had a discussion with another user who had a similar problem and where his system freezed when he dragged icons around and LockSmith found a Semaphore deadlock. This did not happen with the older intution.library v45.13 of the 3.1.4.1 update. You could also try the old-intuition.library v40 to replace Libs:intuition.library. Edit the startup-sequence like this:

Version exec.library version 47 >NIL:
If Warn
  LoadModule  L:System-Startup ROMUPDATE
else                                                 ; <==== here
  LoadModule >NIL: Libs:intuition.library DOWNGRADE   ; <==== here
EndIf
SetPatch >NIL:

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by protek

The card shows on showconfig.

Also I noticed that the system crashes if I try to drag any icon anywhere, so it’s not just Picassomode. What might be causing this?

Have you tried your system on WinUAE?

I tried to install "Piccolo SD64 Zorro II, on OS3.2 "Clean" and had no problem with the icons, see screenshot.

Driver Video used "Picasso96_1.25" downloaded from Aminet.

While the Video Card "Piccolo SD64 Zorro III" on OS 3.2 on WinUAE on my system is not detected, I need to check if this happens with other OSes as well.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by protek

The board does show on the boot menu and is working. The card is in monitors/devs but how do I make it sure it is actually loaded?

For testing, you can just double-click the monitor icon and then run P96Mode. Are the tool types in the monitor icon correct? In particular, check the BOARDTYPE. Is it correct and does it match your graphics card?

[protek]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

For testing, you can just double-click the monitor icon and then run P96Mode. Are the tool types in the monitor icon correct? In particular, check the BOARDTYPE. Is it correct and does it match your graphics card?

From the monitor tooltype:
Boardtype=PiccoloSD64
Settingsfile=sys:devs/picasso96settings
(Borderblank=yes)
(Bigsprite=yes)
(Softsprite=yes)
Ignoremask=yes

Doubleclicking the monitor doesn’t seem to have any effect on how P96mode behaves.