New GBAPII++ RTG-ZorroII graphic cards

[apex]

I am using this card and it was running out if the box. Maybe a defect?

[Jpor]

Originally Posted by apex

I am using this card and it was running out if the box. Maybe a defect?

It can depend on your monitor as well. See you other post on support/hardware

[wazza]

Originally Posted by JustPhil

In need of rtg advice, i have a gbaII++ rtg card that i can't seem to get a display out of.
I installed the picasso 96 drivers making sure I selected the piccolo sd64 driver in particular.
I installed the gbaII++ driver software.
I went into prefs/picasso96 mode and assigned settings to the card.
The driver installers recognise the chip i have on my card.
WhichAmiga recognises the card and how much memory it has.
Sysinfo recognises the card and how much memory it has.
But when i change the screen settings i get nothing, the Denise output goes grey but the rtg never displays anything, I've tried a couple of versions of both drivers and a couple of different monitors but still, nothing.

At this point I'm stuck, I've got nothing everything should be working but it just refuses and I can't come up with a solution any help would be great and frankly a bloody relief at this point.

This might be stating the obvious but have you tried plugging your monitor into the other output on the bracket? I can only see the RTG output on one of the two (can't remember which off hand). If you see a grey screen you're using the wrong one.

[mandrakerino]

Sorry guys need some help.

Have my gbapii++ connected this way to my Amiga500. You can see a Matze zorro ii adapter as well as an aca500+ and aca1234. Card is correctly installed on WB 3.2 however I see frequent freezes expecially at higher resolutions. What can it be? Maybe need to connect external power om Matze adapter? Picasso drivers are the latest ones from iComp. Also there is an ECS V3 flickerfixer inside

Giuseppe

Inviato dal mio SM-G991B utilizzando Tapatalk

[jdryyz]

Putting aside that Matze hasn't been on EAB for a while, I still think this is the best place to post this.

I recently got one of these. Seller says it was tested. The board looks quite nicely built too. I did not find anything out of place with the soldered components.

My problem is I am simply not getting any screenmodes!

I used Matze's own guide for the software install found here:

https://gitlab.com/MHeinrichs/A500-GraKa

The board is in an A3000 with kickstart 1.4 ROMs. I am softkicked to 3.2.2. OS is the same.

Hardware is detected in expansion diagnostics and in SysInfo. Here is some helpful screen shots:

[wazza]

You need to set up the screen modes in the Picasso prefs program before they will be available for you to use in Screen mode prefs. Sorry if I am stating the obvious but I do remember when I bought this card it took me a while to figure things out (I'd never used P96 before).

One other thing I remember is that switching NOBLITTER to NO in the tool tips drastically improved performance of the card. I'm not sure why it comes switched on as default but get rid of it!

[jdryyz]

Ohh, sorry, I forgot to mention that I cannot use the Mode Prefs program either! This is what happens when I open it:

[jdryyz]

Some progress has been made.

I decided to manually remove all of the Picasso96 2.1e and GBAPII++ driver installation bits. I never liked that P96 v2.1e gave me a warning right off about detecting that my "Picasso II was in segmented mode" even when it is not....and it is also not really a Picasso II.

I installed my updated Picasso96 3.2.1 installation. I know this is not the latest available but I have not paid the update fee.

Next the GBAPII++ driver install. This will complain when it does not find "fastlayers.library". I know that later P96 installations have made it obsolete but in order to proceed with the installer, I manually added it. The driver installed.

Something was still wrong, and this happened the last time also. The GBAPII++ monitor driver was missing the ".info" file. I do not think it will properly activate without it. I manually added it and rebooted.

With this later P96 install, the P96Mode program now works but I was not able to see the board. I went to the monitors folder and double clicked on GBAPII++ and then relaunched P96Mode. The board is seen now! See attached.

So I proceeded to add the board and then saw this warning (attached). I removed any invalid resolutions and scrolled down to the bottom of the P96Mode window to click the "Save" button. It then informed me a reboot would be required. I previously selected Save from the menu bar which did not tell me a reboot was necessary. Not sure if it still saved the settings but I knew I wasn't seeing the entire mode window appear which made me scroll down.

Following the reboot, the screenmodes were STILL not available! Hmmm.....so I double clicked on the GBAPII++ monitor driver again and opened screenmode prefs. The screenmodes are now there! I was able to test an 800x600 screen just fine. The output was a tad darker than I was expecting. It was also falling outside of the border of my display but then I remembered I was using a VGA connection. Hitting the "adjust" button in the LCD monitor menu lined it all up.

Sooo......what is the deal with the monitor file not activating the screenmodes on startup?? My other two native drivers (PAL and NTSC) activate just fine. I double checked my startup sequence. It does have "LoadMonDrvs >NIL:" in there. While I am talking about monitor drivers, does the PiccoloSD64 still need to be in DEVS/Monitors along with GBAPII++?

If I can fix this last part, I am done.

[jdryyz]

SOLVED! Turns out there was a simple explanation.

Monitor files will not activate automatically if the "Executable" flag in the info file is disabled. This was yet another quirk of that driver archive perhaps, or my dearchiver is botching up file attributes. This doesn't explain how I was still able to manually execute it by a double-click, however. Perhaps nothing should have happened or I should have seen an error pop up.

After enabling it, I am now able to get my screenmodes to appear on startup. Likewise, I am able to set my preferred RTG screenmode and have it stick.

The GBAPII++ is working better than expected in my A2000, probably thanks to the '040 helping to push those pixels.

Now I have to sort out the VGA output and how I can get it to switch between that and my RGB2HDMI for native screenmodes. I have an idea but it might still require some manual control.