A1200 PCI questions

[cloverskull]

Hey folks! I’m finally going to build a proper A1200 tower in the next couple of days, as long as my BPPC arrives undamaged

I have a couple of questions that I’ve seen mentioned elsewhere but am unclear on the technical implementation details and am hopeful someone here has feedback.

First off, I have multiple PCI cards for the Mediator. I’d like to use this primarily as an OS3.9 machine (since I have an X5000 for 4.1FE already). That said, I have a Radeon as well as a Voodoo 3.

So, getting to my question, essentially I’d prefer to use the Voodoo 3 for Warp3d compatibility, but the Radeon has a ton of RAM. Is it possible to have both cards and simply not use the Radeon for any type of video output?

Second, I also have a PCI TV card. I seem to recall reading that it _is_ possible to redirect the native AGA output into the TV card and thus display any native AGA signals directly in a window on Workbench. Is this also the case? A single VGA output solution is ideal

Third, and this is frankly probably very stupid to ask but it’s actually not simple for me to find direct answers...how does the sound card work with AHI as well as native sound output? I can see where the CD-ROM connects to the sound card but am not clear about native sound output.

Fourth, I have all my computers sharing a KVM switch for video and USB. My keyboard and mouse are joined into a single USB cable. I have a PCI USB card. Does this suggest that my keyboard and mouse will work via the KVM into the Spider II USB, or will I need a separate keyboard/mouse combo for this machine? For some reason I seem to recall that WHDLoad won’t work with USB but could be wrong.

Anyway, thanks for reading. In case this information is valuable for other people, I’ll probably update this original post with these details as I figure things out. I may start another thread specifically for the software configuration (os3.9+boingbags+cwb3.9+warpos+ppclibemu+bppcfix+mediator+warp3d) elsewhere, since it seems somewhat complex in and of itself.

Cheers.

[crazyc]

Not really an expert but:

I believe you can run the voodoo and radeon together. I have an old mediator so dont have enough slots though to do it myself.

I run the native sound into the line in on my soundcard to mix with the cd audio.

If the usb doesn't work then consider a sum usb for the keyboard, which won't be affected by whdload.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by cloverskull

So, getting to my question, essentially I’d prefer to use the Voodoo 3 for Warp3d compatibility, but the Radeon has a ton of RAM. Is it possible to have both cards and simply not use the Radeon for any type of video output?

I've never tried such a setup, but I believe it should be possible. Picasso96 supports multiple cards. However, the Radeon RAM will be very slow compared to the RAM on the Blizzard. You can fit 256MB to the BlizzardPPC - I would suggest maxing that out instead if you really need that much RAM.

Second, I also have a PCI TV card. I seem to recall reading that it _is_ possible to redirect the native AGA output into the TV card and thus display any native AGA signals directly in a window on Workbench. Is this also the case? A single VGA output solution is ideal

Yes, I used to run this setup back in the day. The TV card works using an overlay directly into the graphics card's memory, so once the TV window is opened and the video set up, the OS isn't needed to display the picture. The downside of this is that you'll be using composite video from the Amiga's native output and scaling it - the results won't be particularly pretty. But it works reasonably well.

Third, and this is frankly probably very stupid to ask but it’s actually not simple for me to find direct answers...how does the sound card work with AHI as well as native sound output? I can see where the CD-ROM connects to the sound card but am not clear about native sound output.

As suggested above, running the native audio into one of the sound card inputs will do just that. Once the Mixer program is run during startup, the sound card's inputs and outputs will be set up, and the native audio will be passed through without further OS intervention. Other sources like CD-ROM can be run in the same way, limited only by the number of physical inputs on the sound card.

Fourth, I have all my computers sharing a KVM switch for video and USB. My keyboard and mouse are joined into a single USB cable. I have a PCI USB card. Does this suggest that my keyboard and mouse will work via the KVM into the Spider II USB, or will I need a separate keyboard/mouse combo for this machine? For some reason I seem to recall that WHDLoad won’t work with USB but could be wrong.

Yes, here is where you *do* need the OS running - the USB stack requires AmigaOS to be fully running to work, so your keyboard and mouse inputs will only be effective when using system-friendly software. WHDLoad itself isn't the problem, but practically every single WHDLoad-based game is not system-friendly and will shut down the OS, including the USB stack and thus your keyboard, mouse and joystick inputs from there. You'll need native inputs for software that reads them directly, like games. Again, as suggested, there are USB adaptors for native input, though they tend to not like combined devices and usually need a separate, dedicated keyboard and mouse, which means your KVM probably won't work.

[cloverskull]

Thanks everyone! Looks like I should be in pretty good shape here. My new A1200 mobo and the BPPC should both arrive either today or tomorrow so I’ll update the OP with what ends up happening. I may ask some other questions here...so again, thanks everyone for responding thus far. Very helpful.

[johnnybarker]

Just to add with running the radeon and voodoo in the same system. Yes, it does work fine in OS 3.9- I currently have both in my a4000. Unfortunately I could never get it to work properly in OS4.1FE which was a shame because I would be nice to use a voodoo for 3.9 and radeon for 4.1. I can't remember what the problem was now though.

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by johnnybarker

Just to add with running the radeon and voodoo in the same system. Yes, it does work fine in OS 3.9- I currently have both in my a4000. Unfortunately I could never get it to work properly in OS4.1FE which was a shame because I would be nice to use a voodoo for 3.9 and radeon for 4.1. I can't remember what the problem was now though.

I think 4.1 just plain refuses to boot with 2 graphics cards as they are automatically configured by the OS.

@OP as you have BPPC then the Voodoo would be the way to go so you can enjoy the Wapr3D/PPC games like Wipeout 2097, don't worry about the Radon Ram, 256mb (even 128mb) on the Blizzard is plenty.

Mediator software can be a pain to setup, I suggest you take backups along the way in case something breaks, OS3.9 with BBs/WarpOS be a good start, back that up then start with the Mediator software.

[cloverskull]

Thanks for the follow ups here. @johnnybarker - as I have an X5000 for OS4.1, I don’t really have a need to boot OS4.1 on the A1200 and am ok with that issue.

Nevertheless, that’s pretty interesting lol.

@Fitzsteve - for some reason I think the dual GPU idea came from one of your posts long ago. Interesting to hear that it’s unnecessary! On the one hand, I’d like to use the extra GPU since I paid for it (lol) but on the other hand fewer unnecessary cards plugged into PCI slots is better, I suppose.

My A1200 mobo is floating around in the mail somewhere, I’m a bit alarmed that it hasn’t been delivered and there are no tracking updates. The BPPC has arrived, however, so I am hopeful to get started on this soon.

One other q I have for the group, due to my relative noob-ish-ness with some of these hardware setups, is that this BPPC has SCSI. Presumably using the SCSI here is faster/better than the IDE on the motherboard. Is there a simple howto for getting the SCSI set up? :P I suppose I’d need a SCSI -> IDE adapter and IDE to CF adapter, but then also am of the impression I’ll need some sort of SCSI termination as well as a CD-ROM. If anyone has some really straightforward one or two sentence BLUF on how to accomplish this I’d be very appreciative!

[Daedalus]

SCSI is awesome, like a different league to the onboard IDE. It can do many times the speed of onboard IDE with a fraction of the CPU time. But peripherals and cables are much more expensive and it's fussy about correct setups. Having said that though, once you adhere to the basic rules, it generally works well unless something's faulty. Most issues with SCSI tend to be down to a less-than-ideal setup, with the "ah, it works for slow IDE so it'll be fine for SCSI" approach not being valid

Things to bear in mind:
- Termination. There must be a termination at each *physical* end of the chain. No more, no less. No termination part way along, no termination at the last device with some extra unused cable hanging on the end, no skipping the termination because you might add something to the chain later. Controllers often have termination built in - sometimes it can be disabled/enabled with a jumper. If it does, this must be at one end of the cable. If it doesn't, the controller can't go on the end of the cable and you'll need to terminate the end some other way. The good news is that pretty much every device has termination built in and an enable/disable jumper, so you probably won't have to buy stand-alone terminators.

- Each device must have a unique ID. This is typically set with jumpers or DIP switches on the device. Some can use any ID (0-7 on lower SCSI setups, 0-15 on higher ones), some have a limited selection, say 5 or 6. The ID doesn't have to have any relation to position on the cable. And the controller counts as a device and thus has it's own ID that you can't use. IIRC this is typically 7, but worth checking.

- SCSI is mostly forward- and backward-compatible between different bus types, but going from one type of connector to another may need very expensive adaptors depending on the buses used. Other bus conversions are simpler, but may still need termination of any unused bits. The entire chain will run at the speed of the slowest portion. For simplicity, try to get all your devices to be the same type.

Now, with that out of the way, onto the devices. SCSI-IDE adaptors are great, but they're crazy money these days. In fact, most SCSI gear has gone up dramatically recently due to many older systems being SCSI only, including music samplers and other such gear you might not think of. SCSI Zip drives in particular are crazy money due to being sought after to replace failed drives in samplers and sequencers.

A far better idea for hard drive replacement is the SCSI2SD board. Still expensive for the faster models, but they take an SD card and present it as a hard drive to the SCSI chain, and can run at close to 10MB/s with minimal CPU overhead. These have a standard 50-pin interface, and CD-ROM drives with this same interface are relatively common, though far more expensive than their IDE counterparts these days, which are practically free.

[cloverskull]

This is great advice!

I'm chomping at the bit to get started here - my A1200 seems to be stuck in the mail for now lol. I'm thinking of getting a SCSI->SD card adapter and then separately a SCSI CD-ROM and keeping things pretty minimal in that regard. Performance is absolutely what I'm after so I'll be curious to see what kind of r/w speeds I can get!

I appreciate the info here once again - I look forward to doing a bit of a rewrite of the original post once I have things set up.

[crazyc]

For speed I believe you need to make sure you get the V6 (or above if there is) SCSI2SD adapter. But check it as I am not sure....

[cloverskull]

I was reading that the V5 is the one with the pass-thru SCSI which would enable me to chain a CD-ROM but I'm...pretty ignorant about this stuff :/

[Daedalus]

The V5 is much slower - the V6 is the one that you want from a performance point of view. SCSI is a chain by nature, and another key rule is that it's a single chain - no branches. I'm not sure what the V5 can do that the V6 can't - maybe it's an external-style connector versus an internal one.

[johnnybarker]

+1 on the V6. They are pretty good.

I still would keep an eye out on ebay for the scsi to ide cards as they come up occasionally and are a bit more versatile than the SCSI2SD. The best model for a narrow scsi bus would be the Acard AEC 7720U (not UW). I bought one within the last year for £90 off ebay which is actually cheaper than a SCSI2SD V6. The seller had a few at the time and at least one more has come up recently but now gone again.

I have also just flashed a 7722 with the firmware from the 7720 and have tested it in a powermac G4 and can confirm it works. The 7720s are made for ATAPI devices and are much cheaper to buy. I have not been able to test it in an amiga yet as I don't have suitable cables/adapters for narrow scsi and my cyberstormPPC is waiting to go for repair.

[Vypr]

Just one thing to point out, OS4.1 doesn't support the SCSI interface on the Blizzard PPC card. Found that one out the hard way

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by johnnybarker

I have also just flashed a 7722 with the firmware from the 7720 and have tested it in a powermac G4 and can confirm it works. The 7720s are made for ATAPI devices and are much cheaper to buy. I have not been able to test it in an amiga yet as I don't have suitable cables/adapters for narrow scsi and my cyberstormPPC is waiting to go for repair.

I would not recommend the reflashed 7722 for Amigas. They work for a while, eventually throwing HDD read/write errors. That is on WarpEngine, CSPPC, A4091 and on a Fastlane. I tried every combination of LVD/SE termination, terminating with SCSI-2 active terminators, with an SSD, mechanical HDDs, CF adapters.
I could successfully copy many gigabytes which made me think it was working fine but run the system long enough and it will lead to errors.
Eventually I found enough 7720s to replace them and all of my problems went away.

[cloverskull]

I remembered that I actually /have/ an ACARD SCSI->IDE adapter, and I searched high and low and eventually found it, and alas it's a 7722. But fear not! I managed to find a cheap copy from Hong Kong which I ordered and intend to test as well as a SCM-PCD 60B.

My SCSI chain will be:
BPPC -> ACARD(to IDE to CF) -> SCM-PCD 60B -> SCSI CD-ROM.

All of these items have been ordered and are on their way. I also got some physical termination devices since they were cheap and I figured, why the heck not.

I ordered a lot from amigakit to support true Amiga vendors and am hopeful shipping doesn't take /too/ long considering I'm way out here in California. But I did assemble most of the tower thus far. Pretty exciting! I broke the floppy cable and had to order a replacement. Oh well.

So, I have the BPPC which I believe runs the PPC at 330mhz. I also have a Ragnarok PMC card and PCI carrier. I know the A1200s aren't really supported but some people have gotten this working through some hacky methods. My question is, how tough would it be to install this hardware /with/ the ppc card on the BPPC in order to do some testing? Is this even possible by today's standards?

Oh, and do I need to terminate the motherboard IDE if I'm running everything off the accelerator's SCSI?

Final q for now...the 060 is a Freescale that Stachu upgraded and runs at 66MHz (maybe 60, can't remember). There is no cooling but also not a ton of space in the case. Do I need a heatsink and/or fan on this?

I'm sure I'll think of more questions lol. Thanks for humoring me.

[trixster]

“ but some people have gotten this working through some hacky methods”

Nope, it really doesn’t ‘work’. You might get doom or quake to ‘work’ for a bit but that’s about it. Check the sonnet thread. A1200 is not supported. It might be fun to tinker with for a bit, but it is not ‘working through some hacks methods’.

[cloverskull]

Ah, fair enough. I thought I saw the sonnetppc project was being rewritten in c and there was some intent to bring A1200 compatibility but maybe not. In any case, I’ll hold onto that extra PPC card just in case

[grelbfarlk]

It's worth a try though, I think Indiegoleludallasmon was the one that got the furthest with it. I don't know that there were enough people really testing it and with everything you never really know how much was user error or hardware issues or just actual it doesn't work™. But both people were using KillerNICs I don't know if anyone tried a Ragnarok.

[cloverskull]

Man, I could really use a hand. I'm banging my head against the wall just getting the BPPC to work in WinUAE, let alone bare metal hardware.

I install OS3.9, BB1+2, CWB3.9, and then the next thing I want to do is enable and configure the emulated BPPC. I have several ROMs for the BPPC, for what it's worth, each versioned independently.

The problem is that when I install the phase5 libs, shut WinUAE down, change accelerator from a B1230/IV to the BPPC, every time I boot I get an error message of "Invalid resident library" and I'm completely stuck. Any help moving past this would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT - started from scratch and got things to boot. Now I'm trying to figure out which 060 libs I should use (Thor's libs? Phase5's?) and am struggling with bppcfixfix. I just get an error that it can't patch anything I've tried patching with so far.

Is there some reason the built-in 060 libs are bad, necessarily?