Where are those 4 Mb of my CV64/3D on my A2000 ???

[Effy]

I've got several things to find out on my A2000. This is just one of those things. My A2000 has got 1 Mb chip (standard) and 2 Mb fast on the 68030 card.  I thought I would have at least 2 Mb chip memory in my workbench when using the Cybervision64/3D but no way, only have got 1 Mb chip and that's gone very fast. Any bright ideas might be very welcome !!!   ;-)
Oh, I'm also using OS3.9 which does consume a tiny bit more memory ...

[ltstanfo]

Effy,

If I recall correctly you are running up against a hardware problem.  The graphic chip on the A2000 is 1MB only.  In order to take advantage of more chip memory, you would need something like the old DKB Megachip adapter, which allowed you to use the later AGNUS graphics chips.  There may have been other adapters that did similar things but I helped several users with their Megachip installations and it made the A2000 a much nicer machine. Check Ebay, they turn up from time to time.

Regards,
Lee Stanford

Effy wrote:
I've got several things to find out on my A2000. This is just one of those things. My A2000 has got 1 Mb chip (standard) and 2 Mb fast on the 68030 card.  I thought I would have at least 2 Mb chip memory in my workbench when using the Cybervision64/3D but no way, only have got 1 Mb chip and that's gone very fast. Any bright ideas might be very welcome !!!   ;-)
Oh, I'm also using OS3.9 which does consume a tiny bit more memory ...

[Effy]

So in order to use a gfx card on a A2000 you need to install a MiniMegachip to get 2 Mb of chip ram ??

[ltstanfo]

Effy,

It has been some time since I played with an A2000 but I believe the answer is yes....IF YOU WANT TO ACCESS MORE THAN 1MB (up to 2MB) OF VIDEO (chip) RAM .  The graphics card may have 1-4MB of RAM on it but the AGNUS chip on the A2000 can only process up to 1MB at a time (native).  I recall a similar problem on a friend's A2000 when trying to use a Picasso IV.  The DKB Megachip fixed his problem  I'm guessing (but not 100% certain) this would fix your problem as well.

You can use any Zorro II video card on an A2000 but you may not have the benifit of the full memory on the card without a Megachip.


Regards,
Lee Stanford

Effy wrote:
So in order to use a gfx card on a A2000 you need to install a MiniMegachip to get 2 Mb of chip ram ??

[WalkernyRanger]

No it will allow you to have up to 2megs of chip ram.  But since you will be using a gfx card, most of that chip ram will be used for things other than graphics.  Your 4mb gfx card will handle most of the graphics.  You can't really acces those 4mb ram for anything other than gfx.  I do remember ther being a program that tricked the card into letting you use 1mb as fastram.  Try Aminet.

[redrumloa]

Huh? weird questions!

What are you using? P96 or CGFX?

Also Workbench LOVES to use chipram for gfx and icons etc. Use a program like WB2FAST to redirect all chipram usage.

[Effy]

On the hd there was already Cgfx V4 and Picasso96, but at first I had no cdrom and used Cgfx V3 floppy to change settings, but not much result ...

[Thomas]

You shouldn't use OS3.9 with only 2MB of fast RAM. According to the prerequisites you need at least 6MB. And you shouldn't use Zorro cards to expand your fast RAM. All Zorro cards together cannot have more than 8MB. So if you have a 4MB graphics card and a 4MB RAM expansion no other card will run. As I understand in your case the graphics card comes last and does not work for that reason.

What you need is a good processor card with lots or RAM on it. RAM on the processor card does not go into the Zorro area.

As an answer to the subject: the memory on the graphics card does not show up anywhere in AmigaOS. It is only accessible by the graphics card and by the graphics driver. Nevertheless the size of the graphics card memory reduces the size of the Zorro memory area.

As told before there is a hack that configures part of the graphics card memory as fast RAM. But this wasn't the intention of the creator.

Bye,
Thomas

[Effy]

Damn, forgot something to add. You may be correct Thomas. On my turboboard there is 2 Mb of Ram but since this is far from enough to run OS3.9 I got myself a Nexus scsi card with 4 Mb of Ram so that makes 6 Mb Fast Ram which should be enough. And that's the point where I couldn't find my gfx card anymore. Didn't know you could only add up to 8 Mb of Ram through Zorro ??!

[Quixote]

Thomas wrote:

...All Zorro cards together cannot have more than 8MB. So if you have a 4MB graphics card and a 4MB RAM expansion no other card will run.

:-? Really? By that logic, installing an 8MB RAM expansion would block any SCSI controller, graphics cards, ethernet cards, bridgeboards, etcetera, from running.  A SCSI A2000 with 8MB fast RAM wouldn't even boot!

;-) Actually, RAM cards don't use memory, they provide the memory that is accessed by any processors with access to the Zorro data bus, such as the Amiga's CPU, and any other Zorro cards.

:-? I think...

[Crumb]

The available chip ram won't be increased if you add a graphic card, the effect of the graphic card is that most of the graphics will be stored in the gfx card local ram and not in the chip memory, I wouldn't increase the amount of chip ram because as redrumloa has said if you use some patches the OS will use the gfx card local ram for almost everything. What you should do insted is try to increase the quantity of ram in your accelerator board, do not use Zorro ram cards, they use 16bit ram and will slow down your system a lot. I guess your accelerator will use ZIP chips or something difficult to find, but if you have a graphic card it would be a good idea to add more 32bit fast ram. If you use picasso96 and you want to see how much gfx card ram you have free search availP96, If I remember correctly there are also some patches that allow you to use the gfx card ram as fast ram, with only 2mb of fast that would help you to run some apps...

@Quixote:
In addition to the 8mb memory zone there is an additional space of about 384kbs for the zorro cards configuration, that's the cause an A2000 still can use the scsi chip of a controller even if it has 8mb fitted, and sometimes even more cards if they don't require ram. A gfx card usually needs some 16bit space free to work.