PiStorm for Amiga1200?

[Turrican_3]

Performance of the PiStorm-SD virtual drive seems to be very good, roughly 10x according to Sysinfo (compared to the internal IDE with an SD adapter)

But since we are still in the relatively early days of this accelerator I chose to leave the internal SD/IDE adapter to be able to run basically everything (PiStorm1200 can be fully disabled)

I purchased an extension cable though for the PiStorm SD, as it will be basically impossible to access it once the A1200 case is closed (it currently isn't because I still have to make some adjustments to my configuration but it obviously isn't meant to stay like this)

[MartinW]

Thanks for the info. I did see that it could be fully disabled and initially I thought that was really good for compatibility with demos in particular but of course fully disabled means no extra ram either so we will have to see just how useful that is. Given I don't generally use floppies, no extra ram might be asking a little much.

But yeah, we will see. Like you say, early days and it's exciting to be along for the ride.

The pistorm turned up today which I wasn't expecting as I didn't get an email to say it had dispatched. I took one look at how my Pi Zero 2W might fit and decided it was worth ordering a 3A+ instead !!

So we will wait until tomorrow evening now.

[Turrican_3]

Back when you could get this stuff for cheap I got a 2MB PCMCIA RAM card so my configuration should be relatively safe. Of course 4MB would have been better but hopefully compatibility will significantly improve with time and disabling the accelerator will be required in fewer and fewer cases. :-)

[MartinW]

Been thoroughly enjoying digging into this tonight. The initial install was super easy and super quick and for bragging rights the speed figures using bare metal EMU68 are astounding. Ordinarily I'd say that sheer Mips and MFlops aren't really a big deal and I'd rather have compatibility, but I've worked on some stuff before where that kind of raw power would have been really handy because I had to abandon it because it was simply too slow.

So then I started to dig on discord and explore the FAQs and started to realise just how much more there can be to this than raw power if you go the Pi OS route, sacrifice some raw speed for Amiga utility instead. Great work from all involved is all I can say!!

I'm glad I picked up a couple of new SD cards now to explore the options.

[Turrican_3]

Yeah it's a little (?) awesome project!

I picked up some Lightwave projects of the good old times when I was experimenting a bit with 3D and well... 20-ish old Turrican3 would have been blown away by (almost) real time rendering I guess, to say the least.

[MartinW]

So, quick question for anyone - when setup with the emulation running on top of PiOS (sorry, not sure how this is referred to?), I can't reboot the Amiga with CTL-A-A, I have to SSH in and restart the emulation. Is this normal? It doesn't sound like it to me, but then I discovered the Amiga utility to trigger a reboot of the emulation so maybe it is? Seems odd though.

[itsmedoofer]

Mine turned up unannounced from AmigaKit yesterday, not moaning, pleasant surprise after a shite day, already had a sd prepared so was up and running in about half an hour, really pleased. Put a 3b+ in with the intention of ripping a Pi4 out of my RetroPi setup later but I don't think I'll bother, the speed is phenomenal more than I'll ever need to be fair.

Probably need to do a fresh install of WB to really make the most of it, one 1200 was setup as stock + 8Mb the other for my Blizzard 1260, but that can be the project over Easter.

Is anyone here using the RTG capability? Need to read up on that, the videos I've seen don't show RTG being feedthrough for aga, don't think I could live with that to be honest....

[Jope]

RTG is separate from the Amiga's custom chip modes and at least currently the PiStorms don't have a facility to sample the Amiga's video output for automatic switching.

[MartinW]

Yeah, right now it's 2 monitors and even if it was one I can't imagine it would be the way that I would want it, so I'm assuming I'll live without RTG on the 1200.

I have lovely picture in 15Khz with my BenQ over VGA. Given it has no HDMI input I'd want to take the output from the Pi and mix it into the VGA connector (BenQ can do 15Khz and VGA happily) and I can't imagine anyone else wanting to go that way!

[Dunny]

I use a switching box - RGB via SCART to the box from the Amiga, Micro HDMI from the Pi. The box has a switch on the front to change the input, and it's all send via HDMI to my TV. Super useful.

There's a project in the works to - as mentioned - sample the Denise output and bung it in an RTG window for a PIP mode which is progressing nicely and will definitely be going into my A1200.

[MartinW]

Maybe I'll review it when the ability to merge into one monitor becomes a reality. The MiSTer can run with HDMI, as can the Next and the PiStorm so it just leaves the GBA-1000 which to be honest is starting to look more and more redundant. SO maybe a new HDMI monitor might be the way to go instead.

I can see me putting that up for sale at some point.

[itsmedoofer]

Originally Posted by Jope

RTG is separate from the Amiga's custom chip modes and at least currently the PiStorms don't have a facility to sample the Amiga's video output for automatic switching.

Thanks!

That's what I thought, no big deal quite happy with the setup as it is to be fair.

[itsmedoofer]

Is there anyway of mounting the Pi boot partition on the amiga ? Thinking for tweaks and updates...

[FOL]

Originally Posted by itsmedoofer

Is there anyway of mounting the Pi boot partition on the amiga ? Thinking for tweaks and updates...

Yes, check discord emu68 faqs. Someone posted a mount script there.
Works fine as long as you add to make partition writable in cmdline.txt.

[antiriad76]

Does anyone know if there are any issues with using a GPIO Ribbon Cable-extender so that you can mount the RPi outside the case?

Due to the current situation with the RPIx I have to share RPIs between projects. I just want to be able to disconnect/reconnect the RPI to the Ribbon cable instead of opening the whole case.

I really don't want to sink +100$ for a RPi just for spares.

My understanding is that having long GPIO cables can cause interference due to the long cables acting as small antennas.

I can get the GPIO extender in various lenghts 20cm, 30cm, 40cm etc

Are there any issues with any of these extenders?

Thanks

[MartinW]

Originally Posted by antiriad76

Are there any issues with any of these extenders?

Yes, nothing to stop you trying, but according to the FAQ in the Discord server, it ain't going to work. The signals are right up on the limits of GPIO bandwidth as it is. They even say that SD card extenders are a no-go too, although many of us do use them.

In summary, try if you want, but apparently it doesn't work (not tried myself).

[alexh]

Originally Posted by antiriad76

any issues with using a GPIO Ribbon Cable-extender so that you can mount the RPi outside the case?

Not going to work. They are right at the limit of GPIO speed.

Ask around, blag a 3a or something.

[StevenJGore]

Thought I'd ask here rather than create a new thread.

What's the maximum resolution of the RTG output on a pistorm32-lite with a 3a+?
Does the onboard wi-fi work?

[tomcat666]

For RTG whatever is the maximum resolution of the rPI that you are using, so you can get 4K on your amiga and it works.

on board wi-fi works only when using Musashi. On Emu68 it is not implemented yet.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

What's the maximum resolution of the RTG output on a pistorm32-lite with a 3a+?

In theory it can be anything the Pi supports but because the driver has no hardware acceleration, not even bitblt, it can become very slow. 1280x720x16@60Hz is perfectly useable.

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

Does the onboard wi-fi work?

Not yet when using Emu68, sort of with Musashi (the Wifi side of things such as SSIDs and passwords are on the Pi side not the Amiga side, the Amiga just sees an ethernet connection) but for all intents and purposes yes.