Sonnet 7200 PCI programming

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by AlphaAmiga

What would perform better in a A1200 & Mediator TX, a Killer K1 or a Sonnet Crescendo? Or is there no appreciable difference?

Not sure if Crescendo will even work in a 1200 e.g. a Apocalypse does not work. K1 will work, but has only 64MB.

[AlphaAmiga]

Originally Posted by neocdtv2

Not sure if Crescendo will even work in a 1200 e.g. a Apocalypse does not work. K1 will work, but has only 64MB.

Thank you - so I take it that the K1 would only ever have access to that 64MB Ram and nothing that would be on the A1200's accel card?

[neocdtv2]

The problem is that accessing accelerator memory from pci would really really really slow.
Im not sure how slow, but e.g. with cgxbenchmark I get like 8MB/s with 68060@100Mhz from Fast Ram to Video Ram, so I would assume the other way around would be similar.
TF accesses its memory with 60-80MB/s, I would assume that the K1 does it much faster. So a drop to 8MB/s would not really a killer for the card.

The other question is for course, what do you want to run on the killer, and if 64mb is maybe enough for you? Quake GL WOS does need 64MB and since only like 62MB are availble it does not work. Quake WOS works. Please also keep in mind that 1200 is no reallly supported.

[Hedeon]

glQuake should work?

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

glQuake should work?

Indeed GLQuake should work on the KillerNIC, we have benchmarks from it, but those weren't on an A1200.

          Demo  Sonnet 500MHz G3    PrPMC 450MHz G4   Killer NIC 400MHz
                320x240  640x480   320x240  640x480   320x240  640x480
QuakeWOS  (2)    68.3     24.6       93.0     40.3      60.0    25.3
glQuake   (1)     x       48.9        x       50.1       x      44.5
Quake II  (1)     x       51.2        x       55.1       x      44.3
Quake III (4)     x       28.3        x       32.0       x       a

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

Indeed GLQuake should work on the KillerNIC, we have benchmarks from it, but those weren't on an A1200.

          Demo  Sonnet 500MHz G3    PrPMC 450MHz G4   Killer NIC 400MHz
                320x240  640x480   320x240  640x480   320x240  640x480
QuakeWOS  (2)    68.3     24.6       93.0     40.3      60.0    25.3
glQuake   (1)     x       48.9        x       50.1       x      44.5
Quake II  (1)     x       51.2        x       55.1       x      44.3
Quake III (4)     x       28.3        x       32.0       x       a

Interesting. I can start Blitzquake_WOS (Version 150), but only if I configure a dummy map for the beginning and then i see the menu i.e. new game, options etc. As soon, as i start a new game, i get "can not alloc ~42MB chunk" or similar error.

[Hedeon]

You want the Cowcat remastered version.

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

You want the Cowcat remastered version.

Got that one also (glquakewos_gcc_7), now I might misconfigured some stuff, because Gears PPC and Encore are running but, glquakewos_gcc_7 is either freezing on the loading screen before the demo is loaded, or if +map dummy is used it freezes on pressing a keyboard key. Not really sure, which version I've used first for testing.

[Hedeon]

using -ahi ?

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

using -ahi ?

-ahi or -noaudio

[neocdtv2]

With Cowcat version (glquakewos_gcc_7) I'm getting I_Error: Z_CheckHeap: next block doesn't have proper back link

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by neocdtv2

With Cowcat version (glquakewos_gcc_7) I'm getting I_Error: Z_CheckHeap: next block doesn't have proper back link

That sounds like a problem with your game data.

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

That sounds like a problem with your game data.

Strange because, clickboom quake and quake wos start with this files w/o a problem. But I've installed the speed up from aminet: http://aminet.net/package/game/patch/Qboost4 and managed to run glquake in workbench window and noaudio.
Timedemo demo1:
320x240 ~82FPS
512x384 ~60FPS
640x480 ~45FPS

It can be launched like 50% of the time, either it will freeze somewhere in the menu or throw a powerpc exception during startup.
Did not manage to run with -ahi, always ends up with powerpc exception.

PS.: The same Files from id1-dir works on BlizzardPPC, so i guess something is not getting loaded correctly when using K1.

I've tested so more with BlizzardPPC at freezes also, so I would assume, that well I have some power supply issues with my setup :/

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by neocdtv2

Strange because, clickboom quake and quake wos start with this files w/o a problem. But I've installed the speed up from aminet: http://aminet.net/package/game/patch/Qboost4 and managed to run glquake in workbench window and noaudio.
Timedemo demo1:
320x240 ~82FPS
512x384 ~60FPS
640x480 ~45FPS

It can be launched like 50% of the time, either it will freeze somewhere in the menu or throw a powerpc exception during startup.
Did not manage to run with -ahi, always ends up with powerpc exception.

PS.: The same Files from id1-dir works on BlizzardPPC, so i guess something is not getting loaded correctly when using K1.

I've tested so more with BlizzardPPC at freezes also, so I would assume, that well I have some power supply issues with my setup :/

Installed in BPPC 1x128MB Simm (before was 2x32MB) and now Blitzquake WOS is not freezing anymore. But K1 is still the same, usually when i open the console and as soon as I type the first letter it freezes, so I can't really do a benchmark :/

[DarrenHD]

Hey guys. If I enable the "KeepAmigaVideo" environment variable in Picasso96 (eg. set it to 31Khz), my sound playback is like slow motion and distorted. If I delete that environment variable and reboot, then sound plays back OK. (AmigaAMP 2.25 with WarpUP decoding). Is this normal behaviour?

(Amiga 4000/Mediator, Voodoo3, Sonnet PPC). Paula Audio via AHI.

Thanks!

[neocdtv2]

Originally Posted by DarrenHD

Hey guys. If I enable the "KeepAmigaVideo" environment variable in Picasso96 (eg. set it to 31Khz), my sound playback is like slow motion and distorted. If I delete that environment variable and reboot, then sound plays back OK. (AmigaAMP 2.25 with WarpUP decoding). Is this normal behaviour?

(Amiga 4000/Mediator, Voodoo3, Sonnet PPC). Paula Audio via AHI.

Thanks!

Which AHI modes did you use for Paula? 8Bit, 14Bit?

[grelbfarlk]

That's happening to me too with Paula Hifi 14bit++ calibrated 44100 mode. If I reduce the frequency in AHI to 22050, it sounds ok.

[DarrenHD]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

That's happening to me too with Paula Hifi 14bit++ calibrated 44100 mode. If I reduce the frequency in AHI to 22050, it sounds ok.

Thanks for confirming. I'm using normal Paula 8-bit DMA. I can try a 14-bit mode with the KeepAmigaVideo env. variable set to 31Khz @22050.

[neocdtv2]

pci.library 13.15 got released: http://www.elbox.com/downloads_mediator.html
some time ago @25 Mar 2023

[DarrenHD]

Originally Posted by neocdtv2

pci.library 13.15 got released: http://www.elbox.com/downloads_mediator.html
some time ago @25 Mar 2023

I'd really love some release notes on this. I think the guy's name is Pavel? Anyone have contact with him?