Amiga 1200 - TF1260 - ShapeShifter

[Lamaman71]

Hi Folks,

I've an A1200, TF1260 (LC), Indi MK3. Booting from the TF IDE with a custom 3.2 ROM. Running OS 3.2.

Since I've a shiny new TF1260 I thought Id give ShapeShifter a "blast". Tried several different configurations and the emulator either crashes after emulator startup or, typically, runs very very slowly. I've no idea why.

Can someone give me a few tips? I wonder if its the absence of an FPU....but I suspect that's unlikely.

[Aardvark]

Shapeshifter's native video driver slow, use MuEVD instead.
SoftwareFPU might help with stability https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/softwarefpu-307
Maybe try another Mac ROM. Performa 580/588 has been working well for me.

[Lamaman71]

Yeah, I am using MuEVD.
Ill look at the performa ROM though, thanks!

[Lamaman71]

Ack. Its still pants.

First of all - with my A1200 - should Shapeshifter be running poorly? Or am I looking at issues around my OS or configuration?

[supaduper]

Contact this guy on Exxos forum, he got shapeshifter working with his TF1260 and some links to his files there too

see link below
https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/vi...shifter#p76098

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by Lamaman71

Ack. Its still pants.

First of all - with my A1200 - should Shapeshifter be running poorly? Or am I looking at issues around my OS or configuration?

Sorry to resurrect this, but did you ever get this working? I decided to give it a bash myself. I just get crashes when I try to do the stage where I format the partition I created using the system 70 boot disk. Not using the TF1260 IDE myself.

[derSammler]

or, typically, runs very very slowly. I've no idea why.

Get the correct Mac ROM:

If your Amiga is fitted with a 68040/060 processor, you should use a 1MB
ROM, as under the other sub versions, the performance of the system will
drop notably. With a 68020/030 processor, a 1MB ROM is not necessary (and
a pure waste of memory).

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by derSammler

Get the correct Mac ROM:

I have 1mb roms for this.

[Reynolds]

ROM setting has to be as "ANY". OTher option is 24Bit DMA which is a working but snail-slow way. Also for GFX speedup on AGA Savage is the fastest driver but there are others which could do their work well. I'd also check the partition's buffer set to an appropriate level.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by Reynolds

ROM setting has to be as "ANY". OTher option is 24Bit DMA which is a working but snail-slow way. Also for GFX speedup on AGA Savage is the fastest driver but there are others which could do their work well. I'd also check the partition's buffer set to an appropriate level.

I just left rom setting at Any.

Buffers for the partition is 100. Partition size is 1 GB. Block size is 512kb as this is what the manual suggests.

GFX I had set to Amiga bitplanes. Also tried with Amiga Window as well.

[Aardvark]

Shapeshifter Mac partitions must be located within the first 4GB of the drive, otherwise it's going to corrupt whole thing. HD images works just as well though.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by Aardvark

Shapeshifter Mac partitions must be located within the first 4GB of the drive, otherwise it's going to corrupt whole thing. HD images works just as well though.

Shite!

Well don't remember that in the manual. Right I'll try it again with HD file instead may be.

[rabidgerry]

na same thing, doesn't boot once I start trying to do the installation and formatting, just crashes the Amiga. Not sure if it's anything to do with prepareemul. I have that in startup sequence and A1200 switch enabled. I presume if I had done this wrong I would not be able to boot at all?? I dunno. I do have Move 4k in startup also from MMULib installation, but taking all MMUlib options out of startup doesn't do anything to help either so I just left them in.

[derSammler]

If you use 3.1.4 or 3.2, neither Prepareemul nor Move4k are needed. The OS takes care of that already. If you use them anyway, try removing both.

Also, since you have a 060, try booting MacOS 8 instead. ShapeShifter needs to do lots of patching, as MacOS can not run out-of-the-box on a 060. It may not support that for System 7 (the docs aren't clear in this regard).

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by derSammler

If you use 3.1.4 or 3.2, neither Prepareemul nor Move4k are needed. The OS takes care of that already. If you use them anyway, try removing both.

Also, since you have a 060, try booting MacOS 8 instead. ShapeShifter needs to do lots of patching, as MacOS can not run out-of-the-box on a 060. It may not support that for System 7 (the docs aren't clear in this regard).

Ok so I had a bit of success. I am not sure if it was using a different rom or because I switched off the REMAP8K that helped. I also had enabled the NOCOPYBACK tool type in the icon.

So I also continued with the 1gb partition I created. The partition is at the end of my CF hard drive. Not within the first 4gb of the card. I'm not sure if it will break later or not, but I managed to get it to format this, and then eventually install 7.3.5. I am about to attempt updating to 7.6.1.

May be I will stretch to MacOs 8 at a later stage. I know nothing about Macs, I predominantly just want this installation simply to get access to the games Alone in the dark being one of them. So I will be happy with what ever MacOS allows me to play that game.

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

I predominantly just want this installation simply to get access to the games Alone in the dark being one of them. So I will be happy with what ever MacOS allows me to play that game.

In my case I downloaded CaffeineOS Storm, it's for PiStorm equipped Amiga's but you can just copy it's ShapeShifter folder to your TF1260 Amiga and and have access to all the pre-configurd Mac games including Alone in the dark. Works a treat.

[derSammler]

Originally Posted by Aardvark

Shapeshifter Mac partitions must be located within the first 4GB of the drive, otherwise it's going to corrupt whole thing. HD images works just as well though.

Can you please give a source for that? It's hard to believe given that ShapeShifter was from a time when 64-bit addressing was already established and I can't find that limitation in the docs either.

I want to make sure that this is actually true, as I have left 2.5 gb free on the end of my 16 gb SD card and wanted to use that for a Mac partition.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by wiz12

In my case I downloaded CaffeineOS Storm, it's for PiStorm equipped Amiga's but you can just copy it's ShapeShifter folder to your TF1260 Amiga and and have access to all the pre-configurd Mac games including Alone in the dark. Works a treat.

would you believe, this is exactly what I did first! I had the inspiration to install it myself on my regular HD because of that. But I couldn't get it to run.

Now, perhaps this is because of the things I later discovered, like turning off REMAP8K and enabling.

Initially what I did nicked the roms from that installation.

Anyways I got it running now!

Couple of questions though, Alone in the Dark runs slow, anyways to improve this? I thought 060 would have a significant improvement given I watched videos of it running about the same speed on 030's?

I tried Doom II as well and it was, a "picture", never mind "slide show". I must have some config stuff not optimised.

@wiz12 you were able to lift those installations and run directly on your TF1260 without doing anything?

[derSammler]

I thought 060 would have a significant improvement given I watched videos of it running about the same speed on 030's?

Common misunderstanding. Since you are limited to AGA with the TF1260 (afaik it does not offer RTG), any access to chip mem is slower than with a 030, as the 040/060 lacks the 68000 bus interface and has do use additional hardware to make it compatible. That causes lower speed of chip ram. And since you have to use AGA, this impacts screen updates as well. A fast CPU does not help if you can not update the screen fast enough.

There are patches you can install to make chunky-to-planar conversion faster. You should also, when using hardfiles, use a different file system like SFS or PFS, as FFS has terrible performance when seeking in large files. But I doubt you can overcome the bandwidth limit of AGA.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by derSammler

Also, since you have a 060, try booting MacOS 8 instead. ShapeShifter needs to do lots of patching, as MacOS can not run out-of-the-box on a 060. It may not support that for System 7 (the docs aren't clear in this regard).

Shapeshifter definitely supports System 7 on an '060.

Originally Posted by derSammler

Can you please give a source for that? It's hard to believe given that ShapeShifter was from a time when 64-bit addressing was already established and I can't find that limitation in the docs either.

Shapeshifter originally predates large device support in Amiga OS. Though the latest versions were released after OS 3.5, I don't see anywhere to say that it was updated to support large devices - none of the Shapeshifter readmes since OS3.5 was released contain this in their lists of updates, and it lists OS 2.1 in its system requirements. It's dangerous to assume it supports >4GB drives.

Aside from that, it's worth noting that the partition size used must also be supported by the version of Mac OS. Earlier versions of System 7 only support 2GB.

Originally Posted by derSammler

You should also, when using hardfiles, use a different file system like SFS or PFS, as FFS has terrible performance when seeking in large files.

FFS seek performance can be dramatically improved by using both extra buffers and a larger block size.