WarpOS/PowerUP issues

[T5unami]

Hello,

after a couple of years of absence from the Amiga scene (dodgy A1200 mobo, Powerflyer issues, being sold a duff PPC board......) I have returned to the platform I first started using in 1987 (I still have the trusty A1000 Dad bought home from work all those years ago:) ).  

My current system consists of:

A1200 rev 1D housed in a Power Tower
Blizzard PPC 603e/240Mhz + 040/25Mhz with 128mb Ram
DCE B-vision (using CGX V3 that came with the card)
Powerflyer Gold
OS3.5

I've only recently purchased the PPC/B-vision, and am having a couple of issues relating to WarpOS/PowerUP.
Having read a bit, I decided to opt for WarpUP, as it appears better supported than PowerUP, I currently have version 5.1 installed (V14, not V7 compatible version).

If I try starting an app that requires WarpOS, I get a message requesting I terminate ppc.library, before it can run.  As far as I can see I have no instance of ppc.library anywhere, so I'm guessing it's rom resident on the PPC boards flash rom?? If I select the terminate option, some apps, eg AmigaAmp work flawlessly, however other apps crash for no apparent reason eg. The demo of Wipeout2097 complains about not having enough graphics memory even if I set the b-vision to it's lowest available mode (8bit, 640/480), it requires Warp3D which I also have installed. Payback WOS just gives a blank screen (68k version works fine on the b-vision and AGA).  Any app requiring RTGMaster (I have a WOS version installed) either crashes imediately, or works for a few seconds before locking up.

Any ideas - should I re-install the V7 compatible version of WOS etc??

thanks in advance for any help you can give:)

[doctorq]

First of all, welcome to Amiga.org. Good to see people that are returning home to where they belong :-)

There is a resident ppc.library in the flash rom of the PPC card, so you should try downloading BPPCFix here. Place the program in C: and put this line as the first one in your startup sequence.

C:BPPCFix INSTALL REBOOT >NIL:

From the same homepage you might want to download ppclibemu. That could also cure some of your problems regarding running power pc software.

[Lando]

If you use Piru's BlizKick in your startup-sequence you can add BPPCFix to the arguments.

[itix]

RTGMaster was always troublesome. Install older version or something, but it does something nasty which crashes most systems.

[JKD]

RTGMaster would crash like hell on my 'standard' A4000 w/CSPPC/060 and indeed on my CSMKII...one to avoid where possible!



and the responsible coder now works on OS4, I hope he learned since then ;-)

[T5unami]

Thanks Guys, and thanks for the welcome :-D

You've given me plenty of ideas to have a play with:)

I also have another question. I bought a PCMCIA Network card from Power ages ago.  Unfortunately, I could never get the thing to work, due (I think) to my old A1200 Mobo killing it.  I've tried it in the A1200 I'm  using now in the hope it was just a faulty PCMCIA slot on the old 1200, but to no avail - I have tried using cardreset, and cardpatch.  

As there is no chance Power will replace it, and I don't really want to risk shelling out 60quid to Power for potentially the same to happen again, does anyone know anywhere I can get a cnet.device compatible PCMCIA card?  As they're pretty old 16bit cards, no main-stream PC stockist seems to have them any more (or any of the local independents for that matter). Also I don't really want to buy from e-bay if I can help it.  

[T5unami]

I have yet another question!!!

I've been away from the Amiga scene for nearly 3 years, but I've still been following the general happenings, however I am a little hazy on a couple of things (sorry if these are stupid questions btw).

1) There appear to be a couple of competing Amiga like OS'es, Pegasos, and MorphOS.  Will either of these run on my "classic" system (specs in my first post), and if so how good is compatibility with old Amiga applications - will they run directly, or do you need specific versions for the OS?

2) Amiga OS4. I know that at present, it runs on the A1, and a developer version has been sent to customers.  Is there going to be a version that will run on classic hardware with PPC boards?  I seem to remember reading this would be the case, but I can't remember where!

[Warface]

Both MorphOS and AmigaOS4 has an internal betaversion since quite a long time that runs on the Classic hardware. The hard question is when will these be available to the public - and I have no answer, as probably no one has. :-)

We can but hope for them.

MorphOS is rumoured to do almost everything my version does on my Pegasos, so it should be a killer for Classic hardware. And probably the same applies to AmigaOS4  :-)

[T5unami]

Lando wrote:
If you use Piru's BlizKick in your startup-sequence you can add BPPCFix to the arguments.

I tried this, but I think I may be doing somthing wrong as the Miggy had a bit of a fit!

I added

C:BBPCFix INSTALL REBOOT >:NIL which worked okay, but then I decided to be flash, and use Blizzkick as well to take advantage of it's ability to kick any KS into the Blizzards fast ram.  Having enabled maprom on the blizzard I tried:

C:Blizkick * BPPCFix

It gave an error saying the module BPPCfix is too large which according to the blizkick docs is to do with the ram the blizzard allocates to maprom only being 512k (makes sense as KS is only 512k).  Any idea what I'm doing wrong. Maybe I'm using a v-old version of Blizkick and/or BPPCfix?? or equally likely, I used the wrong sytax in the command??

Also I use ata3.driver (the driver for the Power Flyer), which is pretty much strait after:

C:setpatch SKIPROMUPDATES scsi.device

should the blizkick line be before or after setpatch and ata3.driver - any ideas??

[x56h34]

Turn off the MapRom in the BPPC boot menu. It needs to be done when using BlizKick with CSPPC or BPPC cards. This will let BlizKick do it instead of your PPC card directly. Other than that, make sure that BlizKick line is the first line in your startup-sequence file.

[T5unami]

Thankyou for your help people! :-D

I have now resolved a lot of issues re warpUP/Warp 3d, I discovered the version of CGFXsystem library supplied with the b-vision was too old to work with Warpup/warp3d properly.  I've now installed the version on the OS3.5 CD, and now the whole system is a lot more stable, and indeed faster:-)

I also downloaded the most recent version of powerpc.library which again, helped no end.  I got Blizkick working, but it seems to have a bit of a clash with the ata3.driver s/w for the PowerFlyer, so I'm going to live without it for now.

Now I have another qustion.  I want to add a heatsink to the Permedia2 chip on the b-vision, and maybe also a fan.  I have had a look at places like Maplins, and RS, the closest thing I can find which may do the job is a 486 heatsink/fan combo, but even it looks far too large for the permedia unfortunately.  Can anyone suggest a specialist supplier that might have a suitable unit??, or a viable alternative??

[JKD]

Look for something like a Chipset Cooler or heatsink they sell for RAM chips.

I modified mine by sawing  a quarter out of a 486 heatsink then mounting the fan on the GFX board to blow air through the fins horizontally...but there's a lot more room in an A4000 tower..

[T5unami]

JKD wrote:
Look for something like a Chipset Cooler or heatsink they sell for RAM chips.

I modified mine by sawing  a quarter out of a 486 heatsink then mounting the fan on the GFX board to blow air through the fins horizontally

thanks for the chipset cooler suggestion, I think I may have found a suitable candidate:

http://www.casetech.co.uk/product_info.php/cPath/29_170/products_id/826

it's a little bigger than the Pernedia chip, but should fit okay. Not too sure the blue LED is essential though......

JKD wrote:
...but there's a lot more room in an A4000 tower..

I think I have plenty of room  for it in my Power computing 1200 tower system:-)  It's bigger than either of my 2 PC towers!!