PiStorm for Amiga1200?

[StevenJGore]

Thanks guys. I'm trying to decide whether to get one, and potentially replace my Vampire V2 V1200. It has good RTG and the wired ethernet works very well, but the pistorm2's power is calling out to me!

[MartinW]

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

Thanks guys. I'm trying to decide whether to get one, and potentially replace my Vampire V2 V1200. It has good RTG and the wired ethernet works very well, but the pistorm2's power is calling out to me!

Do you REALLY need the extra horsepower though? I'm not trying to dissuade you as I have one and love it, and I wouldn't really call it that expensive, but let's be fair, if the V2 Vampire is anywhere near the performance of the V4 standalone that I used to have then I'd say your just as well with that. You have SAGA and the extra instruction set too.

I don't know the V2 V1200 vampire but I was going to get an Icedrake, I just couldn't justify the spend when they eventually came out and I'd added import fees and all the rest of it on top.

[UberFreak]

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

Thanks guys. I'm trying to decide whether to get one, and potentially replace my Vampire V2 V1200. It has good RTG and the wired ethernet works very well, but the pistorm2's power is calling out to me!

If your main use is gaming (WHDLoad) or scene demos, I advise you to wait.
I've made the switch from V2 to the Pistorm32 and the difference in compatibility is night and day.
On the V2 nearly everything works (or can be made to work), but on Pistorm there are issues with most of what I tried to run, be it using WHDLoad or not.

I know work is being done to improve these issues, but it's not there yet.
Overall I regret selling my V2, but at least I have my old 060 accelerator to fall back on.

[StevenJGore]

Originally Posted by MartinW

Do you REALLY need the extra horsepower though? I'm not trying to dissuade you as I have one and love it, and I wouldn't really call it that expensive, but let's be fair, if the V2 Vampire is anywhere near the performance of the V4 standalone that I used to have then I'd say your just as well with that. You have SAGA and the extra instruction set too.

I don't know the V2 V1200 vampire but I was going to get an Icedrake, I just couldn't justify the spend when they eventually came out and I'd added import fees and all the rest of it on top.

You can never have too much horsepower!

The V2 vampire and the V4 standalone / Icedrake are all the same performance, about 165 MIPS (without overclocking). The appeal of the pistorm2 (and the V2 V1200) for me is that only the processor and RTG are emulated; custom chips and the rest of the A1200 are all still used.

[UberFreak]

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

The appeal of the pistorm2 (and the V2 V1200) for me is that only the processor and RTG are emulated; custom chips and the rest of the A1200 are all still used.

On V2 there is no custom chips emulation, its only an accelerator + RTG.
V4 Icedrake can be set to function this way as well (via a jumper).

[StevenJGore]

Originally Posted by UberFreak

If your main use is gaming (WHDLoad) or scene demos, I advise you to wait.
I've made the switch from V2 to the Pistorm32 and the difference in compatibility is night and day.
On the V2 nearly everything works (or can be made to work), but on Pistorm there are issues with most of what I tried to run, be it using WHDLoad or not.

I know work is being done to improve these issues, but it's not there yet.
Overall I regret selling my V2, but at least I have my old 060 accelerator to fall back on.

That's extremely useful to know. Thank you!

I play a mixture of classic WHDLoad games and all the newer games since then, including ports.

[tomcat666]

Originally Posted by UberFreak

On the V2 nearly everything works (or can be made to work), but on Pistorm there are issues with most of what I tried to run, be it using WHDLoad or not.

I know work is being done to improve these issues, but it's not there yet.
Overall I regret selling my V2, but at least I have my old 060 accelerator to fall back on.

No idea what you tested but like 90% of WHDLoad games run on pistorm and pistorm32 out of the box. I have tested A LOT and most of the stuff works. You do need the NoAutoVec and NoMMU switches present (which i think is also the case for the blood suckers). There are certain games still that don't work. Of the literally over 1000 WHDLoad games I only had a problem with these:

https://justpaste.it/7no3u

The rest I could get to work out of the box.

[UberFreak]

There's a big difference between "runs" and "runs properly".
What I've encountered mostly is a mix of incorrect speed (sometime crawling, sometimes too fast), graphics glitches, audio garbled or plays at incorrect speed, missing channels etc, the issues vary.

I didn't run that many games but I did run hundreds of scene demos, ranging in requirements from 68000 up to 060.

Originally Posted by tomcat666

No idea what you tested but like 90% of WHDLoad games run on pistorm and pistorm32 out of the box. I have tested A LOT and most of the stuff works. You do need the NoAutoVec and NoMMU switches present (which i think is also the case for the blood suckers). There are certain games still that don't work. Of the literally over 1000 WHDLoad games I only had a problem with these:

https://justpaste.it/7no3u

The rest I could get to work out of the box.

[klx300r]

Originally Posted by UberFreak

If your main use is gaming (WHDLoad) or scene demos, I advise you to wait.
I've made the switch from V2 to the Pistorm32 and the difference in compatibility is night and day.
On the V2 nearly everything works (or can be made to work), but on Pistorm there are issues with most of what I tried to run, be it using WHDLoad or not.

I know work is being done to improve these issues, but it's not there yet.
Overall I regret selling my V2, but at least I have my old 060 accelerator to fall back on.

My PiStorm32 with Pi3A+ is running all the games I normally play great (WHDLoad & non) and I would say 90% of all my 060 demos too so I’m very happy with that. I haven’t tried RTG but I’m very happy that it runs all my stuff straight from the same HD when my 030 accelerator was in it so it’s exactly the same Amiga except a much faster CPU and lots more fast ram

[Lemaru]

Originally Posted by UberFreak

There's a big difference between "runs" and "runs properly".
What I've encountered mostly is a mix of incorrect speed (sometime crawling, sometimes too fast), graphics glitches, audio garbled or plays at incorrect speed, missing channels etc, the issues vary.

I didn't run that many games but I did run hundreds of scene demos, ranging in requirements from 68000 up to 060.

Im guessing when it comes to WHDLoad you haven't made any of the recommended changes for anything you find you have issues with. Like enabling CACHE mode for WHDLoad, and editing the EmuControl settings. Stuff isn't always just click and expect things to rub perfect, but with the right settings, most stuff runs as it should.

Better to also provide examples of the ones with issues you have found. Things can't be fixed if no one reports stuff.

Chances are most of them will run fine with the right settings

[mschulz]

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

You can never have too much horsepower!

The V2 vampire and the V4 standalone / Icedrake are all the same performance, about 165 MIPS (without overclocking). The appeal of the pistorm2 (and the V2 V1200) for me is that only the processor and RTG are emulated; custom chips and the rest of the A1200 are all still used.

Emu68 on PiStorm does not emulate RTG…

[StevenJGore]

Originally Posted by mschulz

Emu68 on PiStorm does not emulate RTG…

Perhaps 'emulate' was the wrong word, but the pistorm does have RTG, doesn't it? Definitely sticking with my V2 V1200 if not.

[Lemaru]

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

Perhaps 'emulate' was the wrong word, but the pistorm does have RTG, doesn't it? Definitely sticking with my V2 V1200 if not.

It does indeed have RTG, it's just not emulated. The only emulation is of the 68k CPU

[mschulz]

Originally Posted by StevenJGore

Perhaps 'emulate' was the wrong word, but the pistorm does have RTG, doesn't it? Definitely sticking with my V2 V1200 if not.

It does have RTG in form of video core driver. This is as far from RTG emulation as possible. Just like e.g. CyberVision64 is not an emulation of RTG

[UberFreak]

Don't you mean disable CACHE?
At least that was always the recommendation on 060 and Vampire.


Regarding playing with EmuControl, according to what I've read, on the CaffeineOS distribution this is already handled in the WHDLoad startup/cleanup files.
Is this not correct?

Originally Posted by Lemaru

Im guessing when it comes to WHDLoad you haven't made any of the recommended changes for anything you find you have issues with. Like enabling CACHE mode for WHDLoad, and editing the EmuControl settings. Stuff isn't always just click and expect things to rub perfect, but with the right settings, most stuff runs as it should.

[itsmedoofer]

On the discord and I think the GIT page there are some recommendations for options to add to the WDHLoad startup config, not having used Caffeine I can't say if they are present or not, but with the them and the 27th April nightly I have fairly good compatibility. If I get on the PC later I'll post the relevant bits from my config.

Post some of the titles you have been having issues with and you never know you may get a solution or at least confirmation its not just you, the devs are present here so it wouldn't be in vain....

[Lemaru]

Originally Posted by UberFreak

Don't you mean disable CACHE?
At least that was always the recommendation on 060 and Vampire.


Regarding playing with EmuControl, according to what I've read, on the CaffeineOS distribution this is already handled in the WHDLoad startup/cleanup files.
Is this not correct?

No, you add the CACHE option to the tooltypes for any of the WHDLoad stuff you run. They have also now added this as a global option in the latest WHDLoad version to help PiStorm users. Alternatively you can use JST instead of WHDLoad which has the same effect

Some stuff still needs you to set emucontrol settings specific for the program you want to run.

It really is worth PiStorm users visiting the discord once in a while as this gets covered there pretty often along with recommended settings when people report issues with certain things.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by mschulz

It does have RTG in form of video core driver. This is as far from RTG emulation as possible. Just like e.g. CyberVision64 is not an emulation of RTG

And that driver is 68k code that accesses the graphics hardware directly, right?

[Darkhelmet]

Hi.
I have allready bought Pistorm32 lite.
But the Rashberry Pi 4b is sold out everywhere except for the 2 gb version.
My question is do i need the 8 gb or 4 gb version at all???

[daxb]

If you want to use the RPi 4B only for PiStorm Amiga then the 2GB version is enough. As far as I know more then 2GB won't or can't be used.