Apollo 1260/50 inbound.

[Toryglen-boy]

Howdy, lucky enough to scoop one of these up for a good price, and it's on it's way, should be here in a few. Running an ACA1233n on a 2B board at present, and i have to say i am surprised, it's running sweet as a nut, not a single crash, but i wanted something nippier. My question for the Amiganauts, is this, what do i need to do to get the best out of it? i have heard about things like :

CMQ060, BlazeWCP, FBlit, FText, and MCP etc. but looking for some advice regarding optimizing a system for best performance with the Apollo card. Whats the best libraries, tool types or mods for running AIBB etc. just anything really, any good pragmatic advice, based around personal use.

oh! already have an ATX power supply enroute.

thanks

[Pat the Cat]

Number one on my list would be 60060.library and maybe MMU.library from ThoR. The latter is beyond my ability to setup correctly without a large amount of time. Way out of practice.

If you don't get those right to begin with, everything else is largely academic.

One of the reasons I find 040 and 060 cards very fiddly. Nice thing about 030 cards, they are mostly "fire and forget", they work pretty good straight out of the box. At worst you will have to change the maths libraries to take account of an FPU, but they fire up very quickly.

I will admit, an 060 Amiga is very very nice, compared to using a stock A2000 20 years ago.

[Damion]

Fabulous card, I found mine to be exceptionally stable, fantastic for demos, good compatibility with WHDLoad.

Thor's processor libraries are indeed the way to go here. (Sidenote: You can tweak the caching options for the PCMCIA address range via the mmu-configuration file, speeding things up a little.) Lots of useful tools in the archive, and the docs are *superb*.

RemAPollo is a similar tool to Blizkick for the Blizzard cards (kickstart remapping + tons of other features), it can also utilize many of the modules from the Blizkick archive. Very handy if you want to use Piru's exec, for example. These two you'll definitely want.

Overclocking may require bridging power to the floppy connector to keep things stable, otherwise no major issues. Also, there's a modification to utilize a 64MB SIMM in a single socket (normal limit is 32MB per socket), if you intend to keep the desktop case and need the RAM for some reason... (I can think of a few demos that require it). There's a fellow on the AmiBay forum who sells the boards for the modification.

You'll have fun, that's one beast of a card.

[Toryglen-boy]

thank you kind stranger, unfortunately, while my knowledge is better than a layman's, it's not that great

if you have any ideas, as to say .... the best things to install to get the best out of it, and maybe more importantly, the order in which to install them, that would be a great help

Originally Posted by Damion

Fabulous card, I found mine to be exceptionally stable, fantastic for demos, good compatibility with WHDLoad.

Thor's processor libraries are indeed the way to go here. (Sidenote: You can tweak the caching options for the PCMCIA address range via the mmu-configuration file, speeding things up a little.) Lots of useful tools in the archive, and the docs are *superb*.

RemAPollo is a similar tool to Blizkick for the Blizzard cards (kickstart remapping + tons of other features), it can also utilize many of the modules from the Blizkick archive. Very handy if you want to use Piru's exec, for example. These two you'll definitely want.

Overclocking may require bridging power to the floppy connector to keep things stable, otherwise no major issues. Also, there's a modification to utilize a 64MB SIMM in a single socket (normal limit is 32MB per socket), if you intend to keep the desktop case and need the RAM for some reason... (I can think of a few demos that require it). There's a fellow on the AmiBay forum who sells the boards for the modification.

You'll have fun, that's one beast of a card.

[Damion]

Let's step back a bit, and I'll apologize in advance if I cover anything too obvious.

I would start by installing the standard Apollo libraries. Once everything is up and running smoothly, and you've verified that things are working as they should, proceed to further tinkering. (One thing at a time, then test, as it's easy to lose track and become frustrated). Sit back and enjoy some good 68060 demos, like this one.

One caveat with this aspect: Since the 68060 cards became popular after the demise of C=, most versions of setpatch (ran from your s:startup-sequence during boot) are only checking for the existence of a 68040, then loading the 68040.library if required. Since the processors are different enough for this not to work, a 68060.library was needed. How most manufacturers navigated this issue was to include a "dummy" 68040.library, which *then* loads the correct 68060.library. When installing the Apollo CPU libraries, you'll want only the *dummy* (small filesize) 68040.library, in addition to the 68060.library. (Should all be clear in the install notes.) Some later versions of setpatch are smarter, loading the correct processor library without needing a workaround.

FBlit, FText, and BlazeWCP are very easy to deal with, and will make a nice practical improvement. If desired, you can use something like P96Speed for comparison testing while you're getting things tuned.

Once you have all this going, perhaps it's time to try installing the mmulib package. The installer works well, but it's always a good idea to be familiar with everything being installed and its purpose. (Fortunately, the docs are stellar). To start, you'll want the 680x0.libray, 68060.library, and mmu.library installed. (See above caveats regarding the loading of the libraries, the mmulib package has it's own methodology here). Then, some basic tools in your c: drawer, to be executed from s:startup-sequence--mufastrom (maps the kickstart ROM into your accelerator memory for speeding things up, with some other nice options), mufastzero (remaps more, iirc you'll need this to get the exec.library in fastram, along with mumove4k). These things go towards the beginning of your startup-sequence, and the docs will specifiy exactly where (generally right before, or right after, setpatch). The mmu.library will warn you if anything is seriously out of whack, usually providing some clues.

Finally, it's time to play with RemApollo and the Blizkick archive. While not strictly necessary, it's fun to play with the modules, and (outside of burning a custom kickstart) the best way to use Piru's exec44, if you want to try it. Ultimately, you might find it helpful to have a few different startup-sequence scripts to switch between while testing different configurations.

Lots of other tinker-tools you can play with in between things, but this is the basic approach I would suggest. I may have forgotten some important details...

edit: Tools like scout are really useful for checking things along the way, for example, verifying if things like the exec.library are mapped properly. (Even sysinfo works, in a pinch.)

[trixster]

Hsmathslibs and peterk's icon.library

[mjnurney]

These cards are superb and should run extremely stable. i have link in Amibay on setting them up if you are a member there.

I also have a link to the libs and what additions to startup are required.

have fun.

[daxb]

If you want to use/install RemApollo (use the latest version 1.8) then I would recommend to read the docs at least one time very carefully to prevent pitfalls or more then one reboot. MMULib and RemApollo are working fine together when correct installed. Used OS version is also important and used SetPatch version. There are some differnt installations/launch order that can be used and will work. General S-S order is RemApollo first then SetPatch then other patches. As already mentioned here don`t install all the stuff at once.

[DesktopDynamite]

Originally Posted by mjnurney

These cards are superb and should run extremely stable. i have link in Amibay on setting them up if you are a member there.

I also have a link to the libs and what additions to startup are required.

have fun.

Hey, I just installed mine today, and had a 4gb cf card prepped with its libraries.

IF I want to start from scratch and use another OS, say stock WB3.1 or ClassicWb, Betterwb4.0, what is the first thing I should do, am on amibay too btw, if you can point me to the links you suggested I would be grateful.

[Toryglen-boy]

it never turned up .... got lost in the post. gutted.

[DesktopDynamite]

OK found the tutorial on amibay by mjnurney, gonna give it a try. http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php...201260%20guide

[trixster]

Originally Posted by Toryglen-boy

it never turned up .... got lost in the post. gutted.

That's real bad luck man, gutted for you