Prometheus - Best Practices?

dkedrowitsch · 31 January 2020, 17:19

Greetings!

I've recently completed building one of Hese's AA3000+ motherboards with the Prometheus PCI bridge built into the daughter board.

Using the prometheus.library v2.5 found on an Archive.org snaptshot and Picasso96 I'm was able to get an S3 ViRGE PCI graphics card working quite easily. But beyond that I'm struggling to understand what capabilities and PCI boards are actually supported by Prometheus.

I see there's OpenPCI support which should allow the use of an RTL 10/100 Ethernet board, but from what I understand this also requires updated firmware with DMA support, which I also read is not supported by the original prometheus.library. Additionally, OpenPCI supposedly requires prometheus.library v3, but I can not find any evidence this even exists. I assume getting all of that going must be possible because I have read posts regarding people successfully using their Prometheus with OpenPCI.

So my question is, is there a current "getting started" or "best practices" for someone new to PCI on the Amiga to follow? And is there a repository (or even a recent collection of links) somewhere where all the needed software/drivers can be found?

My end goal is to use my S3 ViRGE and a 10/100 Ethernet board. Could anyone steer me in the right direction on how to get from here to there?

Cheers!

Hedeon · 31 January 2020, 17:27

Evidence of V3:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=100676

Google:

https://github.com/jeperk/OpenPCI/tr...Prometheus-3.0

dkedrowitsch · 31 January 2020, 19:52

@Hedeon Yes, thank you. I've seen those references and have tried the library in that Git repository without success--it simply fails to load.

Is there any documentation to support that's the actual v3 library I should be loading? And if so, which code should I be using in the CPLDs?

Hedeon · 31 January 2020, 20:05

Those are different questions than in the OP. But the first link links to a post to someone who has it all running with OpenPCI, albeit with a voodoo3.

Other drivers are at

http://bvernoux.free.fr/DevPCI.php

MBoehmer:

http://www.e3b.de/prometheus/

dkedrowitsch · 31 January 2020, 22:01

Nope, Trixster is using the bare bones prometheus.library and supported graphics card...no OpenPCI.

So at this point his setup and mine are identical except I'm using a lowly S3 ViRGE and he's using a Voodoo.

I'm trying to take the next step to get OpenPCI functional as well so I can use 10/100 Ethernet and perhaps even USB...

Hedeon · 01 February 2020, 02:46

I am pretty sure he installed Prometheus v3 and openpci.2.1 looking at his screen shots not available here. Plus openpci.does not have rtg drivers. Except the Radeon from Ratte.

But that's it for me. Good luck.

dkedrowitsch · 01 February 2020, 03:20

Thanks, I reached out to him and he supplied a link to prometheus.library v3 which is now working for me.

So at this point I have my S3ViRGE RTG graphics working via prometheus.library, OpenPCI loaded and working with my Prometheus... now I just need to figure out what's needed to get the RTL 10/100 SANA-II driver to work...

Once I get this all figured out I plan to create a document that should hopefully help any others.

Cheers!

torsti76 · 01 February 2020, 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkedrowitsch

Thanks, I reached out to him and he supplied a link to prometheus.library v3 which is now working for me.

So at this point I have my S3ViRGE RTG graphics working via prometheus.library, OpenPCI loaded and working with my Prometheus... now I just need to figure out what's needed to get the RTL 10/100 SANA-II driver to work...

Once I get this all figured out I plan to create a document that should hopefully help any others.

Cheers!

Oh yes, please share your findings.

Btw., the DMA capable firmware is also available on the net. Have to search my bookmarks...

dkedrowitsch · 02 February 2020, 02:42

Well, the firmware is here:

https://leblogdecosmos.blogspot.com/...rometheus.html

And according to this blog post, prometheus.library v3 is the one to use with that:

https://leblogdecosmos.blogspot.com/...rometheus.html

...which Trixster kindly pointed me to here:

https://www.a1k.org/forum/index.php?attachments/24843/

But, unfortunately everything is not playing nice together. I installed the "Fire Storm" firmware, the new Manufacturer/Product ID correctly shows up as 3643/200. prometheus.library v3 loads but PromScan 1.6 does not seem to detect anything. OpenPCI v2.1b4 does detect the Promethus, but the PCI cards are showing with blank Manufacturer/Device IDs.

So at this point I went back to the original Prometheus firmware and everything is back to normal.

Has anyone successfully run the E3B "Fire Storm" firmware? What could I be missing?

trixster · 02 February 2020, 18:55

Any update? Very interested to know if you’ve got the new firmware working.

dkedrowitsch · 02 February 2020, 19:29

Unfortunately no, not yet.

I'm a bit baffled because I've seen posts by folks using Prometheus with OpenPCI and boards that do DMA to the video card memory, but I have yet to find any details as to how they actually accomplish it.

I'm sure it boils down to the simple question, "What prometheus.library needs to be used with Michael Boehmer's Fire Storm firmware?"

I've tried v3 which was rumored to work here (https://www.a1k.org/forum/index.php?...6#post-1303324), but just as the user asking in that post, sadly 3v does not seem to work.

I will continue to hunt and update if I make any discoveries.

dkedrowitsch · 03 February 2020, 19:17

I emailed Michael Boehmer to see if he could perhaps shed some light on the subject.

It would be fantastic if there were a way to get this going, I believe a Prometheus running this firmware would be superior to a Mediator since as I understand it, Elbox may have changed something in their software to break OpenPCI support.

As soon as I hear anything I will be sure to post an update.

dkedrowitsch · 04 February 2020, 15:42

I found a thread on the a1k.org forum that seems to explain why I'm not having any luck.

According to this post: https://www.a1k.org/forum/index.php?...4/post-1148777

The Fire Storm firmware does indeed require a different driver and prometheus.library v3 is NOT it. Supposedly a1k forum member MastaTabs created a prometheusPCI.library for Michael's firmware but I don't think it was ever published besides some testing.

I sent him a PM asking if he could share it, hopefully he gets back to me with some good news... Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, Matay also had an improved firmware 50/27 that was available for free to anyone who sent in their Prometheus for the upgrade. Apparently it adds busmastering and somewhat functional DMA support. But for the life of me I can not find a copy of that firmware either.

Does anyone know of a copy of that anywhere? Trixster, any chance you could ask around in your circle?

torsti76 · 04 February 2020, 19:33

Thank you for doing and sharing all this research!

I've got the PCBs and all parts ready to build an AA3000+. Only need to find the time for assembly.

As it seems, when I finally come around to it, all problems will have been solved by you guys already. I really appreciate that.

dkedrowitsch · 04 February 2020, 19:45

You're most welcome.

Just so you know though, the Prometheus in it's original form and as implemented on the Firebird doesn't really have any problems. It just doesn't support DMA so it's really only useful for PCI RTG Graphics and maybe 10MBit Ethernet.

My effort to find out how to use the new firmware is purely out of desire to get DMA support because with that, OpenPCI and it's larger collection of drivers become a possibility... $10 USB 2.0 and FastEthernet boards being the two big ones for me.

torsti76 · 04 February 2020, 20:16

Yes, I know. Also, DMA would be a mandatory precondition to get the sonnet library running, which in turn would make this machine even more amazing...

(cf. https://github.com/Sakura-IT/PowerPCAmiga/issues/5 )

trixster · 05 February 2020, 17:21

@dkedrowitsch did you set DMAsize=2048k in the Prometheus monitor driver tooltypes?

DarrenHD · 05 February 2020, 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkedrowitsch

You're most welcome.

Just so you know though, the Prometheus in it's original form and as implemented on the Firebird doesn't really have any problems. It just doesn't support DMA so it's really only useful for PCI RTG Graphics and maybe 10MBit Ethernet.

My effort to find out how to use the new firmware is purely out of desire to get DMA support because with that, OpenPCI and it's larger collection of drivers become a possibility... $10 USB 2.0 and FastEthernet boards being the two big ones for me.

Yeah the Prometheus is fine hardware....the issue has always been software support. I only ever used a graphics card and 10Mbit network card on mine, I don't think anything else worked under OS 3.x. We may have had the SATA card working on AmigaoS 4.x classic, but I can't remember if it worked or not.

dkedrowitsch · 06 February 2020, 17:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by trixster

@dkedrowitsch did you set DMAsize=2048k in the Prometheus monitor driver tooltypes?

Good question! I've got it set to 512K, but I think that should be OK because when I do DMAList it shows the NIC and USB boards consuming some of that but there's still quite a bit available.

Or is 2M required? I don't have very much PCI memory to spare since I'm using an S3 ViRGE which currently only has 2 megs on it.

Are you successfully using OpenPCI devices? I've tried two different RTL8139 NICs and while AmiTCP is able to load the device for it, no network activity at all. Commodore A2065 and Prometheus RTL8029 (10-meg PCI) Ethernet boards both work fine though, so I'm sure AmiTCP isn't to blame. The RTL8029 is *DOG* slow, my old A2065 runs circles around it when accessing my NAS via NFS.

I've also tried a USB 2.0 board with the NEC D720101 chip (same chip as Elbox Spider) using ArakAttack and Poseidon, Poseidon can see the USB interfaces "online" them, but does not detect any connected USB devices.

I should have never sold my Deneb years ago when they were still being made... I've actually got a mint PAL/UK A1200/ACA1233n-40 up in offer for trade of one on AmiBay.

dkedrowitsch · 06 February 2020, 17:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarrenHD

Yeah the Prometheus is fine hardware....the issue has always been software support. I only ever used a graphics card and 10Mbit network card on mine, I don't think anything else worked under OS 3.x. We may have had the SATA card working on AmigaoS 4.x classic, but I can't remember if it worked or not.

Agreed! Well, hopefully MastaTabs or Michael Boehmer get back to me with a copy of the secret prometheusPCI.library that supports the DMA firmware...

I actually broke down this morning and ordered an X-Surf/RapidRoad for my AA3000+, but I would still really like to see the Prometheus able to work to it's full potential.

31 January 2020, 17:19	#1
dkedrowitsch Registered User Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Boyertown, PA USA Posts: 35	Prometheus - Best Practices? Greetings! I've recently completed building one of Hese's AA3000+ motherboards with the Prometheus PCI bridge built into the daughter board. Using the prometheus.library v2.5 found on an Archive.org snaptshot and Picasso96 I'm was able to get an S3 ViRGE PCI graphics card working quite easily. But beyond that I'm struggling to understand what capabilities and PCI boards are actually supported by Prometheus. I see there's OpenPCI support which should allow the use of an RTL 10/100 Ethernet board, but from what I understand this also requires updated firmware with DMA support, which I also read is not supported by the original prometheus.library. Additionally, OpenPCI supposedly requires prometheus.library v3, but I can not find any evidence this even exists. I assume getting all of that going must be possible because I have read posts regarding people successfully using their Prometheus with OpenPCI. So my question is, is there a current "getting started" or "best practices" for someone new to PCI on the Amiga to follow? And is there a repository (or even a recent collection of links) somewhere where all the needed software/drivers can be found? My end goal is to use my S3 ViRGE and a 10/100 Ethernet board. Could anyone steer me in the right direction on how to get from here to there? Cheers!

31 January 2020, 19:52	#3
dkedrowitsch Registered User Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Boyertown, PA USA Posts: 35	@Hedeon Yes, thank you. I've seen those references and have tried the library in that Git repository without success--it simply fails to load. Is there any documentation to support that's the actual v3 library I should be loading? And if so, which code should I be using in the CPLDs? Last edited by dkedrowitsch; 31 January 2020 at 19:58.

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31 January 2020, 17:27	#2
Hedeon Semi-Retired Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Leiden / The Netherlands Posts: 1,994	Evidence of V3: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=100676 Google: https://github.com/jeperk/OpenPCI/tr...Prometheus-3.0

31 January 2020, 20:05	#4
Hedeon Semi-Retired Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Leiden / The Netherlands Posts: 1,994	Those are different questions than in the OP. But the first link links to a post to someone who has it all running with OpenPCI, albeit with a voodoo3. Other drivers are at http://bvernoux.free.fr/DevPCI.php MBoehmer: http://www.e3b.de/prometheus/

31 January 2020, 22:01	#5
dkedrowitsch Registered User Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Boyertown, PA USA Posts: 35	Nope, Trixster is using the bare bones prometheus.library and supported graphics card...no OpenPCI. So at this point his setup and mine are identical except I'm using a lowly S3 ViRGE and he's using a Voodoo. I'm trying to take the next step to get OpenPCI functional as well so I can use 10/100 Ethernet and perhaps even USB...

01 February 2020, 02:46	#6
Hedeon Semi-Retired Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Leiden / The Netherlands Posts: 1,994	I am pretty sure he installed Prometheus v3 and openpci.2.1 looking at his screen shots not available here. Plus openpci.does not have rtg drivers. Except the Radeon from Ratte. But that's it for me. Good luck.

01 February 2020, 03:20	#7
dkedrowitsch Registered User Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Boyertown, PA USA Posts: 35	Thanks, I reached out to him and he supplied a link to prometheus.library v3 which is now working for me. So at this point I have my S3ViRGE RTG graphics working via prometheus.library, OpenPCI loaded and working with my Prometheus... now I just need to figure out what's needed to get the RTL 10/100 SANA-II driver to work... Once I get this all figured out I plan to create a document that should hopefully help any others. Cheers!

02 February 2020, 02:42	#9
dkedrowitsch Registered User Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Boyertown, PA USA Posts: 35	Well, the firmware is here: https://leblogdecosmos.blogspot.com/...rometheus.html And according to this blog post, prometheus.library v3 is the one to use with that: https://leblogdecosmos.blogspot.com/...rometheus.html ...which Trixster kindly pointed me to here: https://www.a1k.org/forum/index.php?attachments/24843/ But, unfortunately everything is not playing nice together. I installed the "Fire Storm" firmware, the new Manufacturer/Product ID correctly shows up as 3643/200. prometheus.library v3 loads but PromScan 1.6 does not seem to detect anything. OpenPCI v2.1b4 does detect the Promethus, but the PCI cards are showing with blank Manufacturer/Device IDs. So at this point I went back to the original Prometheus firmware and everything is back to normal. Has anyone successfully run the E3B "Fire Storm" firmware? What could I be missing?

02 February 2020, 18:55	#10
trixster Guru Meditating Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: England Posts: 2,337	Any update? Very interested to know if you’ve got the new firmware working.

02 February 2020, 19:29	#11
dkedrowitsch Registered User Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Boyertown, PA USA Posts: 35	Unfortunately no, not yet. I'm a bit baffled because I've seen posts by folks using Prometheus with OpenPCI and boards that do DMA to the video card memory, but I have yet to find any details as to how they actually accomplish it. I'm sure it boils down to the simple question, "What prometheus.library needs to be used with Michael Boehmer's Fire Storm firmware?" I've tried v3 which was rumored to work here (https://www.a1k.org/forum/index.php?...6#post-1303324), but just as the user asking in that post, sadly 3v does not seem to work. I will continue to hunt and update if I make any discoveries.

03 February 2020, 19:17	#12
dkedrowitsch Registered User Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Boyertown, PA USA Posts: 35	I emailed Michael Boehmer to see if he could perhaps shed some light on the subject. It would be fantastic if there were a way to get this going, I believe a Prometheus running this firmware would be superior to a Mediator since as I understand it, Elbox may have changed something in their software to break OpenPCI support. As soon as I hear anything I will be sure to post an update.

04 February 2020, 15:42	#13
dkedrowitsch Registered User Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Boyertown, PA USA Posts: 35	I found a thread on the a1k.org forum that seems to explain why I'm not having any luck. According to this post: https://www.a1k.org/forum/index.php?...4/post-1148777 The Fire Storm firmware does indeed require a different driver and prometheus.library v3 is NOT it. Supposedly a1k forum member MastaTabs created a prometheusPCI.library for Michael's firmware but I don't think it was ever published besides some testing. I sent him a PM asking if he could share it, hopefully he gets back to me with some good news... Fingers crossed! In the meantime, Matay also had an improved firmware 50/27 that was available for free to anyone who sent in their Prometheus for the upgrade. Apparently it adds busmastering and somewhat functional DMA support. But for the life of me I can not find a copy of that firmware either. Does anyone know of a copy of that anywhere? Trixster, any chance you could ask around in your circle?

04 February 2020, 19:33	#14
torsti76 Registered User Join Date: May 2018 Location: Germany, Baden-Wuerttemberg Posts: 387	Thank you for doing and sharing all this research! I've got the PCBs and all parts ready to build an AA3000+. Only need to find the time for assembly. As it seems, when I finally come around to it, all problems will have been solved by you guys already. I really appreciate that.

04 February 2020, 19:45	#15
dkedrowitsch Registered User Join Date: Nov 2018 Location: Boyertown, PA USA Posts: 35	You're most welcome. Just so you know though, the Prometheus in it's original form and as implemented on the Firebird doesn't really have any problems. It just doesn't support DMA so it's really only useful for PCI RTG Graphics and maybe 10MBit Ethernet. My effort to find out how to use the new firmware is purely out of desire to get DMA support because with that, OpenPCI and it's larger collection of drivers become a possibility... $10 USB 2.0 and FastEthernet boards being the two big ones for me.

04 February 2020, 20:16	#16
torsti76 Registered User Join Date: May 2018 Location: Germany, Baden-Wuerttemberg Posts: 387	Yes, I know. Also, DMA would be a mandatory precondition to get the sonnet library running, which in turn would make this machine even more amazing... (cf. https://github.com/Sakura-IT/PowerPCAmiga/issues/5 )

05 February 2020, 17:21	#17
trixster Guru Meditating Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: England Posts: 2,337	@dkedrowitsch did you set DMAsize=2048k in the Prometheus monitor driver tooltypes?

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