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Author Topic: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?  (Read 14034 times)

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Offline humppaTopic starter

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2007, 02:42:38 PM »
@DrBombcrater

Quote
If only it were that simple!

The NV3x series are not all exactly register compatible.


Ok, that explains a lot. I thought they'd at least be compatible regarding 2D-acceleration.

In any case it should work with Quadro-cards that are using the same chips as their Geforce-counterparts. Does Kernel 3.10 already have their PCI IDs? If not, would it help if I look them up for you (for adding them in a future version)?

On Amithlonopen I read that you were working on Voodoo3 support at some point, but only had a half-working beta version at that time. Any possibility for sending me that kernel? I'd really like to test...
 

Offline DrBombcrater

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #15 on: March 12, 2007, 09:31:25 AM »
@humppa

Quote
In any case it should work with Quadro-cards that are using the same chips as their Geforce-counterparts. Does Kernel 3.10 already have their PCI IDs? If not, would it help if I look them up for you (for adding them in a future version)?

The PCI ID list for 3.10 is mostly a direct pull from NVidia's Windows drivers (with known incompatible cards excluded) so Quadro cards should be picked up. No guarantees that they'll work, of course. I've never even seen a Quadro in the flesh.

Quote
On Amithlonopen I read that you were working on Voodoo3 support at some point, but only had a half-working beta version at that time. Any possibility for sending me that kernel? I'd really like to test...

That effort came to nothing when the last motherboard I have that can take an old AGP 2X card broke and took the Voodoo with it. The V3 is such a museum piece now that it seemed silly spending money to replace the boards, not to mention that development time is better spent on other things.

Stuff like support for modern AC97 codecs and Gigabit ethernet would probably still be unfinished had sufficient time been allocated to finish the Voodoo driver.  :-(
 

Offline sicky

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #16 on: March 12, 2007, 11:02:36 AM »
@TrevorDick

How are you getting on with your Amithlon system?

Regards

Mick
 

Offline humppaTopic starter

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #17 on: March 12, 2007, 11:44:16 AM »
Hmm, I just discovered that all 8bit modes have the colours completely mixed up. I am using "VESA-1" in Picasso96Mode.
All 16bit and 32bit modes look fine and I can use resolutions from 640x480 up to 1280x1024.
All ECS games or system-friendly demos that open an own screen look wrong too. Is there any way to make software which uses the OCS/ECS chipset in a system friendly way more compatible with Amithlon? Has anybody already tried ModePro?
Do I still need to keep the PAL/NTSC screenmodes or can I delete them (colours look wrong on them too)?

Btw, I tried to extend beyond the standard VESA-settings, but none of my Setconfig settings (pixelclock, etc.) are picked up by Picasso96Mode.
 

Offline DrBombcrater

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #18 on: March 12, 2007, 12:20:16 PM »
@humppa

Quote
Btw, I tried to extend beyond the standard VESA-settings, but none of my Setconfig settings (pixelclock, etc.) are picked up by Picasso96Mode.

The VESA system provides a set of pre-defined screenmodes. You can't alter those in any way, so any changes to parameters like the pixelclock are simply ignored. There's no way to fix this as it's a limitation of the way VESA works.

VESA is better than nothing but only just...

Changing the pixelclock and defining new modes requires a card that has specific driver support.
 

Offline humppaTopic starter

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #19 on: March 12, 2007, 12:24:58 PM »
I just got myself a cheap FX5200 on ebay, hopefully this will eliminate the few remaining issues (scrolling speed and 256 colour modes).
 

Offline Methuselas

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #20 on: March 12, 2007, 03:30:32 PM »
Humppa, if it makes you feel better, I've never seen any problems with my FX5200 and I've been using it steadily for almost 4 years now. I was going to build a new Amithlon box and get a new gfx card, but seeing as I haven't had problems with the 5200, I may just save myself the cash and not build a new one.


@Bombcrater,

What's the Ram limit on Amithlon now? Did you push it to 3GB, by chance, 'cos I'd like to max my ram slots, at least, if I can.  :-D

Also, I may be able to donate an older motherboard that supports 2X AGP, if you can get yourself another Voodoo. I'd like to get some sort of 3D accelration, one day.

Shame we can't use QuarkTek for Amithlon.
\'Using no way as way. Having no limitation as limitation.\' - Bruce Lee

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Offline DrBombcrater

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #21 on: March 12, 2007, 06:21:42 PM »
@Methuselas

Quote
What's the Ram limit on Amithlon now? Did you push it to 3GB, by chance, 'cos I'd like to max my ram slots, at least, if I can.

Ahh, that's a bit of a sore point. Because of the way Amithlon and the support kernel work it's not really possible for them to deal with more than 1GB of memory (and to make it worse any graphics card memory is mapped into that 1GB space, so '1GB' is probably about 700MB if you have a 256MB gfx card fitted).

But it's easy enough to tell the kernel to simply ignore any extra memory by using the 'mem=' parameter (ie, adding 'mem=512m' to the kernel boot string tells it to use only 512MB). I run Amithlon on a machine with 2GB ram and a 256MB gfx card using that method.

I had hoped to include a hack in the next kernel that boosted usable memory to 1.5GB, but testing has revealed this causes major incompatibilities on machines with crappy BIOSs (and there are lots of those) so it'll have to be pulled.

Quote
Also, I may be able to donate an older motherboard that supports 2X AGP, if you can get yourself another Voodoo. I'd like to get some sort of 3D accelration, one day.

I suspect the cost of sending a motherboard across the Atlantic would be rather more that its worth, but thanks for the offer  :-D

As for 3D, none of the kernel drivers will ever do that, period. The APIs in use are very basic and simply don't permit it. I've heard the tales about a working 68k Voodoo3 3D driver for Amithlon but I don't know anyone who's ever seen this mythical beast actually working.
 

Offline humppaTopic starter

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #22 on: March 12, 2007, 07:23:36 PM »
@Methuselas

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Humppa, if it makes you feel better, I've never seen any problems with my FX5200 and I've been using it steadily for almost 4 years now.


Great. Hope to get it working too then. Only really sad to give up on the Geforce 6800 (passively cooled, extremely fast, 16 pipelines). The fastest Amithlon compatible card seems to be the 5950 Ultra (very noisy!). Whatever, the FX5200 should be fine for my purpose (testing Amithlon).  

Quote
I was going to build a new Amithlon box and get a new gfx card, but seeing as I haven't had problems with the 5200, I may just save myself the cash and not build a new one.


Yeah, what about a NForce4 system with a 5950 Ultra for Amithlon? :-D

Sad to hear about the 3D stuff. I only barely know about Quarktex, but what are the reasons why it doesn't work with Amithlon?
 

Offline Shadowolf

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #23 on: March 13, 2007, 06:49:01 AM »
Hi!

I am also looking for a new card.

Quote

When I got the driver working on the first generation FX cards (5200, 5600, 5800) I expected it not to work with the second generation cards (5700, 5900 and 5950) but in fact it worked fine on the 5900 and 5950, but broke horribly on some 5700s. Not all, just some of them.


Unfortunately my "WinFast A350 XT TDH" from LeadTek with
FX5900 only gives me blinking keyboard LED's.
As does an Asus 6600GT but this was expected.

Any recommendations for a modell/brand with a 5900/5950
on it to go for that actually works with Amithlon?
 

Offline humppaTopic starter

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #24 on: March 13, 2007, 08:40:43 AM »
Quote
Unfortunately my "WinFast A350 XT TDH" from LeadTek with FX5900 only gives me blinking keyboard LED's.
As does an Asus 6600GT but this was expected.


Are you really sure this is caused by the GFX cards and not by some other issues? Have you changed AGP Aperture Size in your BIOS? Which kernel are you running? Make sure that all updates are installed.
With the latest kernel, both of your cards should at least be supported by VESA. My Geforce 6800 works fine with Amithlon, there is just no HW-acceleration (only VESA).
I also was first stuck with the flashing LED problem. However, all went fine after I upgraded to a recent kernel and limited memory to 512MB ("mem=512m").
What kind of chipset do you have (mainboard)?
 

Offline DrBombcrater

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #25 on: March 13, 2007, 03:57:42 PM »
@Shadowolf

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Unfortunately my "WinFast A350 XT TDH" from LeadTek with FX5900 only gives me blinking keyboard LED's.

Flashing LEDs mean the kernel has crashed, which is almost always due to address space problems. Nothing to do with the gfx card at all.

There is 4GB of address space available on 32-bit processors (or 64-bit ones like the Athlon 64 when running in 32-bit mode). The Linux kernel splits that 4GB into 1GB kernel address space and 3GB user space.

On an Amithlon system your main RAM, plus any gfx card memory, plus some other bits and pieces, all has to be mapped into that 1GB kernel space. If that cannot be done the kernel will just give up and crash, causing flashing LED syndrome.

The cure, as humppa mentions, is to add 'mem=512m' to your kernel boot arguments. That instructs the kernel to ignore any memory past 512MB, leaving another 512MB of space available for the graphics card and other stuff.
 

Offline Methuselas

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #26 on: March 13, 2007, 05:57:44 PM »
Quote

humppa wrote:

I only barely know about Quarktex, but what are the reasons why it doesn't work with Amithlon?



It was a wrapper written for WinUAE that emulates 3D acceleration with Warp3d. I'm not sure how they did it, but I tested it and it worked, rather nice. Slower than dog sh!t, running Windoze *AND* UAE, but fairly impressive, nonetheless.

It won't work here, I'm sure, since the driver requires one (or something else, rather) on the Windoze side.  :-(


@ Doc

Has TV outs been tested on Amithlon or am I going to have to use a TV/Card? My thoughts were to make a low-footprint desktop case and make a 100% compatible "Amiga". I planned on using it for old school gaming and for coloring my graphic novel. (Yes, I know that photoshop is better - I use it. Yes, I know that Photogenics isn't as good. The fact of the matter is, I want to do all the colors on my Amiga, so I can brag about it.  :-D )

So far, I've just had a completely emulated RTG amiga. I've even got an old school catweasel for this project. This is the closest I'll ever get to a "Bad Ass PPC Amiga", unless they pull their heads out of their @$$e$ and give me something that I can actually purchase.
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Offline Shadowolf

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #27 on: March 13, 2007, 06:08:47 PM »
You guys rock, adding "mem=512m" indeed did it.
I only wish someone told me on the Amithlon mailing-list
around Christmas when I wrote that the 5900XT does not work.

I have a NForce2 with XP2400+ and 1gig of DDR.
And using the TI4200 I do not have to limit the memory,
it just works with kernel 3.10.

I just though 3.10 has pushed that limit a bit at least.

Okay, I tested the 6600GT again and it works,
the 5900XT is in my wife's PC, can't grab that now. :-)

The 6600GT is damaged though, possibly due to overheating
thanks to a failing fan I always have some nasty stripes
all over the screen.

Nonetheless I did a test-run with P96 speed.

| Resolution....: 1024 x 768 x 24         |
| Depth/Colors..: 16777216 colors         |
| Testlength....: 13                      |
.============= SPEEDRESULTS ==============.

| GF4200TI                          | GF6600GT
| RectFill()..............3818 op/s |.....137 op/s
| RectFill() Pattern.......651 op/s |.....146 op/s
| WritePixel().........1658235 op/s |.1685334 op/s
| WriteChunkyPixels().....5964 op/s |....1360 op/s
| WritePixelArray8()......5972 op/s |....1365 op/s
| WritePixelLine8().....122431 op/s |..119386 op/s
| DrawEllipse()..........66897 op/s |...54337 op/s
| DrawCircle()...........66385 op/s |...51251 op/s
| Draw().................17519 op/s |....8825 op/s
| Draw() Hor/Ver.........43759 op/s |...17552 op/s
| ScrollRaster() X.........365 op/s |.......1 op/s
| ScrollRaster() Y.........368 op/s |.......1 op/s
| PutText()..............28155 op/s |...11327 op/s
| BlitBitMap()...........23365 op/s |......80 op/s
| BlitBitMapRastPort()...21985 op/s |......80 op/s
| BitMapScale()............810 op/s |......25 op/s


Looks like hardware-acceleration is at least working
partly with the 6600GT.
What really makes it unuseable is the ScrollRaster() speed.
But this can also be due to the fact the card
is partly fried.

Have a nice day - Shadowolf
 

Offline Ratte

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #28 on: March 13, 2007, 07:02:03 PM »
Hi Gary,

nice to see you ...

> * ATI cards work, at least the 7xxx, 8xxx and 9xxx families do. But the driver is buggy, slower than the GeForce one, and won't be developed any further. DVI is known to work on the 7000 and 7500, but seems to be broken on anything else.

Thanks for the clear statement,I asked many times on amithlon-open and didnt get any responce.

I am using a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB and DVI works perfectly.
But I have to use "vesa-modes" for bugfree screens.
If I use hw-acceleration my mouse-pointer is trashing some pixels.
But ... hey ... i repeat my self and you got this bugreport last year ... and you promised a "bugfree" kernel for end 2006.

Now I must read your statement ...

Its  up to you .. it s your time and your hobby.
But i am a little bit angry about this "late" statement.

Btw.: I still wait for the GPL Sources from 3.10 or 3.0.0t1 ... i think we can support you.

br
Andre aka Ratte
 

Offline Ratte

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Re: Amithlon & GFX-cards: any advice?
« Reply #29 from previous page: March 13, 2007, 07:14:22 PM »
Quote

Methuselas wrote:

It was a wrapper written for WinUAE that emulates 3D acceleration with Warp3d. I'm not sure how they did it, but I tested it and it worked, rather nice. Slower than dog sh!t, running Windoze *AND* UAE, but fairly impressive, nonetheless.

It won't work here, I'm sure, since the driver requires one (or something else, rather) on the Windoze side.  :-(


You need a PCI-Virge next to your AGP-Card, AGP must init FIRST (BIOS-Setting).
And some Mediator-Files.

Uncompress the Elbox archive, and choose "Install".
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
This will trash your P96 setup. So make sure you have a backup to go back to if things don't work out, or if you just want P96 back. You have been warned!

When the install is complete, quit and restart. If all went well, you will now see the Cybergraphics logo appear on the monitor connected to the Virge, and then have Workbench appear on it. Hooray! You are now running Cybergfx, and the card is fully under the control of the Elbox driver. You can do everything with it that you could do with a "real" Mediator and Virge --- define your own modes with cgxmode, run software on it, drag screens.....

.... Warp3D (without dragable screens).