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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: haywirepc on October 20, 2011, 07:18:57 AM
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For a long time now I have wanted to build an amithlon machine. I suppose because I have a dedicated emulated amiga booting straight to os3.x on a spare pc I have never gotten around to it.(This setup replaced my real amigas some time ago) For most things, the dedicated emulated amiga does everything I want, but I'm really interested in seeing the difference with amithlon, from all I heard is sounds really great, and I'm really excited to get an amithlon machine working.
Some time ago I got a supported video and soundcard on ebay. At least I think these are supported, I believe someone here made some suggestions, and from those suggestions, I got these :
AOPEN NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440-SE
Sound Blaster PCI 128 Sound Card CT4750
Whats left is that I need an amithlon supported network card for internet. Can someone who has an amithlon machine working with networking working for internet PLEASE tell me what network card you
are using and what steps you need to take once amithlon is booting to
have internet working?
I have a couple of spare pc's that are 2ghz or so. I'd like to get amithlon going on one of them and if it works out, I will get a faster pc to use for this... One of my friends has a few 3.4ghz dells that would be great for this I think, but funds are tight so I want to try it first on the stuff I already have around.
Also, for those of you who already have amithlon working well, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. From what I've seen, its not
so simple to get amithlon installed and running from anything other than the cd boot.
Also, I have some general questions :
I think several people mentioned that usb does not work or is not fully supported on amithlon, so I was wondering what you do for a joystick?
Are joysticks supported, and if so, can you suggest one that works easily with amithlon? I guess you can use the keyboard, but thats kind of lame.I'd really like to be able to play games with a joystick.
What about USB pen drives? I use these on all my other systems for transferring data around. No go?
How about dvd drives and playing dvds on your machine with amithlon?
Cd/dvd burning?
Does Octamed sound studio work well and can you use 16 bit samples and mixdown to 16 bit masters?
What about dual or triple booting linux/windowsxp/aros?
Anyone using one of these amigakit keyboards/mice? :
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=985
Is it better to go ps2 or usb for amithlon? Same for mice they have with boingball?
I'm hoping an amithlon machine can replace my current setup, which is just a dedicated pc running amigaforever but with windows shell removed so it just boots up straight to os3.x. Like I said, this seems to work okay for most things, and I like being able to run all applications that bang the hardware, I play alot of games on this box, and I also have it set up next to my main pc running demos alot. Its 2ghz but some of the more demanding aga games and demos lag and don't play very well on it.
Any help or advice from people already running an amithlon machine would be very much appreciated. I will update this thread as I go so maybe others can benefit from my experiences here and the advice I'm hoping to get along the way.
Thanks,
Steven
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I'll answer in no particular order here :)
1stly, custom chipset software......
This requires some form of UAE, although with the help of a great little bit of software called EUAL-Load this can be done in a nice simple, "double click icon to run" type way for installed to harddrive software, and a simple def icon definition can deal with launching adfs/etc. This is the one thing that has made me upgrade my amithlon box to the degree I did. 68k uae doesnt use the hosts cpu, so effectively you have an x86 cpu emulating a 68k cpu emulating a full amiga (including cpu). Despite this though it's more than usable on my core2duo@3.86ghz. Performance is akin to my 40mhz '040 for ocs/ecs and maybe 2/3rd of that for AGA software. In short dont expect Winuae type speeds for custom chipset software, but its enough that Im seldom left wanting. The vast majority of software that needs more grunt can be run on RTG anyway, and amithlon absolutely flies in these conditions.
These speeds are based on euae-0.8.29-wip4 as well. Some of the older UAE's are a lot faster (albiet with thier own cons). Im actually trying to get a x86 amithlon native EUAE build working at the moment too, so expect a good 50 or more % additional speed there too.
For sound, amithlon is AHI based (no paula), but you can use Nuldehpah (probably misnamed, cant recall exactly, but it comes with amithlon OS3.9) to reroute what normally would be paula sound through ahi.
Octamed Sound Studio coincidently Ive just been experimenting with on Amithlon and was pleasantly surprised to find it works without issue.
In reagrds to watching DVDs, in theory yes, but there's no software to do the job yet :)
There is a 68k mplayer build, and ffplay, not to mention trusy ol' froggerng and moovid, so watching videos is possible, but DVDs themselves, unfortunately not yet.
Burning discs: Sure, but again youre restricted to what software is available for 68k amigas. Fryingpan, makecd, etc.
For USB, while I dont use it myself (I have no key) poseidon should hopefully do the trick here and cover whatever USB functionality it provides. Without it USB mice and keyboards still work though (or perhaps more accurately "can" work, they do for me, but Ive heard of people that have had problems).
One thing to remember, is that with amithlon youre at the "mercy" of AmigaOS. You can only do what you can do on AmigaOS. There's no host OS supplimenting functionailty that normally you need to get through amiga os (as is the case with winuae). While it can mean it requires a bit more effort, I personally prefer things this way.
As for NICs easy answer: realtek rtl8029 or 8139 (via open pci driver). Long answer, whatevers available through kernel side driver pack, which is quite a few :)
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won't somebody please think of the children?
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Ah, I just noticed I didnt answer your question in regards to networking with Amithlon. Once you have your supported nic it's just a matter of setting up a 68k tcp/up stack inside amiga os. Ive always just used Genesis, mostly because it's what comes with OS3.9 (which is part of the amithlon cd).
Everything is done from within AmigaOS with amithlon (apart from initial install of kernel and bootloader).
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I've been using Amithlon for over 5 years now and it is great. My sysem is a PIII-1000 with 768 MB RAM and 49 GB of Hard Drive Space (1-40 GB IDE and 1-9 GB SCSI). It has a 3COM (3C905C-TX) NIC and a SoundBlaster 128 sound card. It has a 32 MB NVidia TNT2 video card and can do resolutions up to 1280x1024 at 16.7 million colors. I even have a working CD-Writer on it (using MakeCD software).
I have it hooked up to my home network running at 100Mb/Full. I use AWeb 3.5.08 for browsing.
I have gotton AHI working on my sound card and can play both MOD's (HippoPlayer) and MP3's (AMPlifier).
I have it on my Windows network so it can access my file server and use my network printer.(with SAMBA).
I use the Genesis TCP/IP stack that came with Amithlon's OS3.9 system. I never got DHCP to work, so I configured it with a static IP. Works fine.
An old PIII-1000 should be plentiful and cheap (even free). And 8/9 year old hardware should be supported by the available kernals. Using some of the newer kernals, you should be able to install on P4 and new x86 machines. But even with the PIII, its a speed demon compared to the classic Amigas and even some of the NG Amigas.
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I'll answer in no particular order here :)
1stly, custom chipset software......
This requires some form of UAE, although with the help of a great little bit of software called EUAL-Load this can be done in a nice simple, "double click icon to run" type way for installed to harddrive software, and a simple def icon definition can deal with launching adfs/etc. This is the one thing that has made me upgrade my amithlon box to the degree I did. 68k uae doesnt use the hosts cpu, so effectively you have an x86 cpu emulating a 68k cpu emulating a full amiga (including cpu). Despite this though it's more than usable on my core2duo@3.86ghz. Performance is akin to my 40mhz '040 for ocs/ecs and maybe 2/3rd of that for AGA software. In short dont expect Winuae type speeds for custom chipset software, but its enough that Im seldom left wanting. The vast majority of software that needs more grunt can be run on RTG anyway, and amithlon absolutely flies in these conditions.
These speeds are based on euae-0.8.29-wip4 as well. Some of the older UAE's are a lot faster (albiet with thier own cons). Im actually trying to get a x86 amithlon native EUAE build working at the moment too, so expect a good 50 or more % additional speed there too.
For sound, amithlon is AHI based (no paula), but you can use Nuldehpah (probably misnamed, cant recall exactly, but it comes with amithlon OS3.9) to reroute what normally would be paula sound through ahi.
Octamed Sound Studio coincidently Ive just been experimenting with on Amithlon and was pleasantly surprised to find it works without issue.
In reagrds to watching DVDs, in theory yes, but there's no software to do the job yet :)
There is a 68k mplayer build, and ffplay, not to mention trusy ol' froggerng and moovid, so watching videos is possible, but DVDs themselves, unfortunately not yet.
Burning discs: Sure, but again youre restricted to what software is available for 68k amigas. Fryingpan, makecd, etc.
For USB, while I dont use it myself (I have no key) poseidon should hopefully do the trick here and cover whatever USB functionality it provides. Without it USB mice and keyboards still work though (or perhaps more accurately "can" work, they do for me, but Ive heard of people that have had problems).
One thing to remember, is that with amithlon youre at the "mercy" of AmigaOS. You can only do what you can do on AmigaOS. There's no host OS supplimenting functionailty that normally you need to get through amiga os (as is the case with winuae). While it can mean it requires a bit more effort, I personally prefer things this way.
As for NICs easy answer: realtek rtl8029 or 8139 (via open pci driver). Long answer, whatevers available through kernel side driver pack, which is quite a few :)
Do you use Kernel 4?
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Nope, Im still using Kernel3.10.
I have used kernel4 before, but I changed motherboards in my amithlon machine a little while ago and set things up from scratch. For no reason in particular I initially set it up using kernel310 and it all behaved perfectly so never bothered changing it.
To be brutally honest kernel3.10 using a p45 based board seems a better experience than kernel4 did with a g31 based board. Both give me a core2duo amithlon machine and kernel4 gave me no particular problems, but it just "feels" a little better and more stable with what Im using now (kernel3.10/p45 chipset mobo).
May well be more hardware related than the kernels themselves, but as they say, "if it aint broke, dont fix it" :)
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Fishy, I sent you a pm with two network cards I found on ebay. Let me know which you think would be best to buy... I'll buy them both if necessary...
Once I get the network card, I will have all the parts I need to give an installation a go...
Thanks for everyones help so far!
Steven
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I have ordered a realtek 8129 network card. Once that arrives I should have everything I need to complete the build. Does anyone have links to any guides for installing amithlon to the hard drive?
Steven
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Here's what I've been using for hardware.
EMachine *t6528 (built in NVIDIA video support)
Dell dimension 3000 (needs gfx card)
Of course sound and nic cards are needed.
USB untested.
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Thanks does anyone have a link to an amithlon install guide? Other than booting from the cd I have no idea...
Steven
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Depends on how youre setup. Are you using one or 2 drives. Two drives gives the advantage of being able to dedicated a drive to rdb. One drive means you need to use a bootloader and make an AmithlonVirtualHarddisk device (essentially just a partition).
There's plenty of way to do the above, but personally I just used an AROS nightly disc, live booted, and created the partition with aros hdtoolbox.
Anyway the process goes a little something like this (assuming 1 drive):
Use either FDOS or a Win98 boot disc/cd and create a small fat partition (10 meg should be more than enough, but I used 50). System format that partition (format c:/s). Copy over the isolinux directory to the fat partition.
Boot amithlon cd to minimal Workbench setup. Use hdtoolbox to prepare amithlonvirtualdisk partition how you'd like it.
Install OS3.9 with the os3.9 installer.
Reboot computer to fat partition (which is should do by default).
Create autoexec.bat file that contains:
cd c:\isolinux
loadllin @kernelscriptname
Reboot, and so long as youve applied the "boot" tag to an amiga os partition amithlon should now boot into os3.9.
The default "kernelscriptname" is either "small" or "amithlon", but personally Ive editted them and just renamed to "test". The editting is essential for updating to a later kernel and mostly just required removing "emubox.gz" (name of old kernel) with the name of the new kernel ("kern310" in my case).
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I really need to make a video explaining all that I've learned, just been too busy or tired as of late.
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Yeah seems kind of complicated getting amithlon installed. Would be alot more amithlon users around if this wasn't so involved.
Steven
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fishy_fiz,
I have two potential systems I could try amithlon on. One is a Alienware box sporting a Tyan MPX (S2466) AMD-760 motherboard and 2 Athlon MP 2400+ CPUs and some sort of Nvidia Quadro video board. I think it is a AGP based video.
The other is a dual core (not core2) P4 3.0ghz with intel 945 based motherboard.
Which of these clunkers do you think would be best?
thanks
_nate
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Yeah seems kind of complicated getting amithlon installed. Would be alot more amithlon users around if this wasn't so involved.
Steven
Keep your eye on http://www.commodoreamiga.ir
You might be in for a nice surprise in the not so distant future. ;)
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Thanks for everyone chiming in and giving me some advice. I really hope I can get this to work! Thanks especially to Fishy, but I'm still not sure I understand your instructions for installing amithlon to boot from the hard drive....
Two drives gives the advantage of being able to dedicated a drive to rdb
What is rdb? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by rdb?
I also don't understand whats with the small fat drives, why? And are you saying I can use an aros (or do you mean icaros) live cd and make the fat partiotions with hd toolbox? OR a win98 floppy/fdisk will work for this? I used win98se for years too long, so I definitely know how to use fdisk and windows/dos to set up drives. So I suppose that would be easier for me. I never used hdtoolbox much.
So I'm sure I understand, I suppose your using the fat drive just to boot to the amithlon install? Because just the isos I have (Two cd-roms) are like 600-700 megs each. So first I setup the fat partition first, then boot
with the amithlon cd and use hdtoolbox for format/partition the rest of the
drive? What filesystem should I use for this?(I'm pretty sure I will just be using one hard drive) So I set up the fat drive, boot to amithlon cd, setup the rest of the hardrive as the rest of the drive being the amithlonvirtualdisk partition...Install amiga os3.9 with the amigaos installer onto the amithlon partition,reboot setup autoexec.bat on fat drive...
Question, I don't think I've ever used loadlin on any dos/windows pc before, what is that? It just runs the kernelscript for amithlon? And do I have to modify the kernal script so it knows where the amithlon partition is or is named or what? Also, how to I make sure I apply the boot tag to the amigaos partition, is that done in hdtoolbox and do I need a seperate partition for amigaos3.9 and amithlon or can't I just put them both on the amithlon partition, which will be the entire drive except for the fat partition in my case.
Also, on the fat partitions, it has to be made a bootable partition and boot to lets say windows98 in my case, (format c:/s/v/u) ?
Also, am I right in that the machine will boot dos first then boot to the
amithlon install? Argh, my head hurts. There is something to be said for AROS. I wish there were a simpler way to install this.
Sorry this is a bit confusing and I want to try and make sure I understand.
New network card should be here this week and I'm going to build the computer first and then give the full installation a try.
Thanks for trying to explain this to me Fishy, I think I understand, but its a bit perplexing. I really hope I can get this to work!
Steven
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For now, just boot this floppy with the Amithlon disc in the CDROM drive and choose the automatic installer.
http://jope.fi/amithlon/ide.zip
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@bbond007
By the sounds of it both would be roughly on par in terms of end results, so I guess just use whichever one gives you less grief :)
The p4 (from an amithlon perspective) might be fractionally faster (although I think maybe an athlon mp might have a larger cache than a normal xp cpu? (which helps with emulation)), but also p45 chipsets tend to work quite well.
Although in the early years amithlon was a better match for amd hardware intel support has probably surpassed it.
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@bbond007
By the sounds of it both would be roughly on par in terms of end results, so I guess just use whichever one gives you less grief :)
The p4 (from an amithlon perspective) might be fractionally faster (although I think maybe an athlon mp might have a larger cache than a normal xp cpu? (which helps with emulation)), but also p45 chipsets tend to work quite well.
Although in the early years amithlon was a better match for amd hardware intel support has probably surpassed it.
The Alienware case is kinda cool too. Think I should pull the 2ND CPU?
What is the best supported video card?
thanks, _nate
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@Haywirepc
**updated enough for now, will get back to it later**
Sorry, I was in a little rush when I wrote the initial reply about installing amithlon and I probably didnt explain things too well.
I'll write this stuff in detail, both in the form of "how" and also "why". It's actually not as complicated as it might sound and once a person goes through it, it all makes sense, but as with anything can sound a bit daunting without hands-ons use.
Maybe this post could be pointed to in the future or copied and pasted elsewhere?
Anyway, it goes a little something like:
Well firstly amithlon is a little different to most emulators. To simplify things a little its more a way to run amiga os3.x on pc hardware rather than something like uae which emulates an entire amiga utilising many host os features.
Harddrives:
Amiga OS uses rdb. Both a "real" amiga and a harddisk image in winuae do and so does amithlon. In short its what amiga drives use. Unfortunately pcs dont cant boot from this, but instead use mbr. Both cannot co-exist in "normal" circumstances.
Because of this a mbr must be used to actually boot an os. This is why a fat partition needs to be created. To copy the bootloader, etc. to. From there the amiga os drive is "initiated". This (the amiga drive) can be a physical drive or an amithlonvirtualdisk "partition" (or other storage media if a person has a mind to). If you have more than 1 physical hardrive and its practical installing the bootloader to the non AmigaOS drive has an advantage or two, but really way either is fine.
Both methods have pros and cons. A dedicated amigaos only/rdb disk can be swapped back and forward between an amiga and winuae more easily, but using a small fat partition on the same drive doesnt rely on external media, or another harddrive to boot.
Right now Im just using 1 drive, but I have does it other ways too.
Installing to harddrive:
Now to setup with 1 drive I first created a "boot" partition. I just used a win98boot disk, used fdisk, created a 50meg partition and did a system format on that partition (format c:/s). A FreeDos cd should also be fine.
Once that was done I copied the entire isolinux directory from the amithlon cd. This was done by simply used "md c:\isolinux", then going into the isolinux directory on the cd and doing a "copy *.* c:\isolinux".
Ok then, amithlon files copied across and we're nearly ready to boot however we've not yet set up a harddrive for amiga os yet. There's plenty of ways to do this, but personally I like to have an aros nightly disc on hand as it can be handy for dealing with amiga os harddrives. To set up the amiga drive with aros load up aros hdtoolbox and create a new partition with type amithlonvirtualhardisk (type76 I believe). Save the changes and youre good to go.
Reboot the computer, but this time with the amithlon cd and let it boot into the minimal amiga os setup it provides. Once youve done that load up hdtoolbox. Select your harddrive and you should see the "harddisk" we created with aros hdtoolbox. You'll see both the actual physical harddrive and the virtual disk we created here. Make sure you dont select the physical disk or you'll undo the work we already did. Select and partition to your liking. Make sure to set the partition you want to boot with (check the boot box).
Once youve done that format the unitialized partitions that appear on the desktop (a quick format will suffice). Youre then ready to install amiga os, which is in the amigaos3.9 directory on the amithlon cd.
Remove the cd and do a ctrl+amiga+amiga and AmigaOS3.9 should boot from harddrive.
We're not quite done yet though. If you recall we booted from cd here, and there's just one more step before it'll boot from harddrive. Boot back to your fat dos/freedos partition and create an autoexec.bat file. This just needs to contain "cd c:\isolinux" and one the next line, "loadlin @amithlon".
Autoexec.bat I guess is something like amiga oses startup sequence and the above simply tells the computer to change to the bootloader directory (isolinux) and use it with the script named "amithlon" (which selects kernel and applies a few properties).
All being right in the world and you should be good to go.
Common problems at this point:
Problem: I only get a 640x480x8bit screenmode.
Why: One fo 2 things. Youve either not installed the Amithlon updates or your hardware isnt supported by the kernel youre using. No OS will work without the drivers setup. Why should Amithlon/OS3.9 be different?
Solution: Install the amithlonupdate archive found on aminet. If this doesnt fix things update the kernel (see Updating Kernel section(to be added shortly)).
Problem: Screen image is a garbled mess. Somethings happening, but I cant see what.
Why. This is usually just the kickstart3.1 screen. The movement you see is the disc inserting. It usually occurs either when the OS isnt yet installed, not boot partition is selected for amigaos, or hardware wasnt initialised properly, which goes back to a problem with your "boot" partition. Usuaully a kernel or script problem in this case.
Solution: Either install AmigaOS, set the boot tab on the partition you want to boot from, or double check everything in your fat "boot" partition".
Problem: Screen image is garbled, but it looks like the image is AmigaOS in some form (very grey with black lines).
Why: most common cause of this is that an Amiga drive has been partitioned, and a boot tab selected, but no OS installed.
Solution: hold both mouse buttons down and boot from hdh0: then unselect boot tab, install amigaos, and reselect boot tab. If no hdh0: is available then an AROS live booting disc + aros hdtoolbox can be used to unselect the boot tab on the amiga drive.
Updating The Kernel:
Seeing as the Amithlon kernel is located on a fat partition we need to access this somehow. If a person has installed the Amithlonupdate archive they can simply bring up a shell and type "setconfig dosmount "" and reboot. This will mount the fat partition on the Workbench. Of course you dont need to do it through amigaos, it all depends on how your computer is setup. DOS, Windows, whatever, its all fine. Once you have access to your isolinux directory on the fat partition simply copy the kernel your updating over and we're halfway there. Once that's done you need to edit the files called "amithlon", which is simply a script that decides the kernel and a few properties.
Change it so it reads:
kernel4 init=/linuxrc console_level=0 root=/dev/ram0 initrd=smallird.gz vga=769 ramdisk_size+2410 leavepages=5400
Its actually pretty close to how it originally is. Ive simply changed the 1st word (the kernel filename) and added a little to ramdisk_size and leavepages.
Either back-up original script under a different name 1st or save this changed script under a different name though, if only incase of typos. If you change the new scripts name though make sure you change you autoexec.bat file to make loadlin use the new script. At the moment it should be loadlin @amithlon.
n.b. Still in process of updating........
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@bbond007
Yeah may as well remove the 2nd cpu I guess as it wont be used.
As for video card I guess it depends on what a person wants from it. A gf5950 is the fastest supported card with full 2d acceleration, but matrox card can have dual monitor display. Personally Ive taken a liking to my Matrox g550. Both outputs work and it seems a very flexible card for making custom p96 screenmodes.
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Sorry this message will be so winded, but I wanted to be sure I explain whats wrong, what I tried to fix my problems and so on.
Today my realtek 8029 network card arrived, so I put together the system I intended for amithlon testing. It is an amd3000 sempro 1800mhz compaq machine with 1 gig of ram. In installed the sb128 pci and a nvidia agp geoforce4 mx4 video card with 64 megs of ram in in. I disabled the onboard sound and onboard lan in the bios.
When I turn on the machine I see the compaq splash screen, and I can then edit the bios. I have the machine set to boot from cd first. When I let it boot (using the amithlonv1.3 part 1 ISO on cd) i get the amithlon selection screen where you can select the boot you want. When I select VGA, Vesa, or matrox I get the gfxcard reset message then I get a screen with hmmm... like a screen which looks like the horizontal hold is off or something, wavy lines like the monitor can't handle something. I am using a very old crt 20 inch monitor. I tried also using a 15 inch led lcd and I get the same wavy lines. I also tried a 17 inch lcd and a 15 inch crt monitor, on all of them I get the same wavy lines after boot.
On the garbled bad/screen
Just to check, I tried standard vga, same thing, force vesa, same thing, matrox, same thing, nvidia vga same thing. When I try nvidia tft, I get invalid sync on all 3 or 4 monitors I tried it on. The 20 inch crt can do 1600x1200 on windows or linux, so I'm not sure why it wouldn't work?
When I boot it with the 1.3 rescue option, it boots to os3.x low res desktop. When I use 3.10 rescue option, again it boots to workbench screen at low res. When I use 4b rescue option, it seems to have the screen problems again. When I use 4b+sata I get the same garbled screen where it looks like horizontal or verical hold is screwed up. Using the 1.3 or 3.10 rescue option, I do get a workbench screen, but if I try and edit the screen prefs it gives me the same wavy lines/bad screen.
I'm not sure what is causing this, I would think a geoforce 4mx with 64 megs of ram is supported, I bought this video card specifically because I was told it worked with amithlon. Just a side question, but does anyone know if that card works with AROS, or linux/compiz? I suppose if it won't work for amithlon and I'm forced to buy another video card for amithlon I can use it for linux or aros.
Does anyone have any idea what is causing this screen problem? Booting to the rescue thing, in screen prefs it only allows 640x480, which kind of sucks. Also, I don't know if maybe it will work if I do the complete install? but I don't want to do all this to find out the video card won't work and have to do all that again. Installing amithlon to hard disk appears to quite quite alot more involved than aros or linux/haiku or any other alternative os that I have tried. I tried two other nvida cards I have around. One is a newer nvidia card with 512 megs ram and two heads. I don't have a newer to older vga adapter but I think on that card it was assuming the monitor was on the bigger newer monitor connection and its not, it was connected to the head with the older vga connection. After boot, I get a blank screen. I also tried another nvida card I had around that has an older vga connection, not sure what the card has but works in linux/compiz. On that card I get the same wavy lines after boot when selecting nvidia vga. When selecting nvidia tft I get a blank screen/nothing. With that card selecting vesa or vga, and I get the wavy lines.
I'm not sure what is causing the video problems. I also tried selecting pci and agp in bios settings with the same results on all video cards/monitors.
To be honest, I think a couple years ago I had similar problems just like this and promptly gave up on amithlon after trying it on like 4 or 5 different computers. I'd really like to get this working but I have no idea why the video would not be working at more than 640x480 in the rescue option. Its really frustrating especially when I bought hardware right off the supported list.
For testing purposes, I loaded the latest puppy linux iso on a cdrom and tried booting that with both the old nvidia card I have, and the geoforce 4mx. Sound, video, and network all work fine in puppy linux, and video wise, I can set the screen to 1600x1200 on the big crt monitor I intended to use for this amithlon machine.
I'm willing to keep trying, but does anyone know if the geoforce mx4 works with AROS? If I can't get this going, this box will become an AROS box. I have a soundblaster emu10k, and I think the realtek 8029 network card works with AROS, but I'm not sure. Anyone know if the realtek 8029 works with AROS?
I haven't given up yet, but I don't know what else to try. Any ideas?
I'm about out of hair pulling for today, I can try some new things tomorrow I suppose.
Steven
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Ah, ok. "Normal" Amithlon isnt like that. Sounds like these are unofficial (and to be brutally honest it sounds cumbersome).
The 640x480x8bit screenmode with the "rescue" disk sounds like its simly using vesa modes, and without the amithlon update.
I'll update my previous lengthy explanation and fill in gaps (and correct a few typos that may potentially confuse things)......
edit: I'll mark the top of that post as "updated" or similar so people know when its done (might take a while is all and its quite likely some people will read it between now and then).
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I tried my geoforce4 mx400...
Was stuck in Vesa.
Ordered this, and the proper options showed up as they should (with the kernel 4 and drivers).
http://www.ebay.com/itm/310350335883?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
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If the fx5200 will work fine, I'm fine with buying it... I think AROS also supports that video card if I'm not mistaken. Ideally, I'd like to have video/network and sound that both amithlon and aros fully support, so I can dual boot AROS and Amithlon...
And if someone has a link to a better amithlon ISO file that I should be using, instad of the ISO's I got from another amithlon thread here on amiga.org, I'd sincerely appreciate it....
Steven
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I checked the AROS hardware compatibility info on AROS.ORG realtek 8029 is fully supported on AROS, and I think the geoforce 4 is but no open gl...?
The fx5200 is supported on AROS, but I think that IS the older agp NVDIA card I already have and tried with amithlon, (Looks very similar to the fx5200's with 128 megs of ram I saw on ebay, it has just a vga out and svideo out.
I'd be happy to buy an fx5200 if it is sure it to work, but I don't have a spare monitor that uses the newer monitor connection so I'd prefer to avoid a dual head card that has both newer and older style monitor connections because I think the older vga connection on the dual head cards is the second monitor and amithlon and AROS as I recall don't figure out like okay the only monitor is plugged into the older VGA port... And you just get a blank screen. I wish I had an adapter for newer to older style monitor plug so I can see if this newer nvidia dual head card I have is working....
Steven
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Sorry, Ive not updated the earlier post yet. Real life got in the way. I'll do it shortly.
As for the gf 5200 I can only say "possibly" as to whether or not it'll work. Some gf 5xxx series cards work, some dont. Ive had a 5200 that worked and 1 that didnt. A gf pcx 5300 didnt (essentially gf5200 on pci express interface). A gf5500 did a, gf5700 didnt, a gf5700 ulta did. Theyre all Ive tried, but Ive heard similar hit and miss stories from other who have used gf5 cards.
From what Ive seen and heard 5200 and 5500 are the 2 that seem to have the highest success rate.
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I checked and the nvidia older card I tried IS a nvidia 5200 with 128 megs of ram. It gives the same garbled screen on amithlon that the others do.
I think the newer nvidia card I have here that i tried IS an fx5500 dual head with 512 megs ram, and it too does not work right, but I suspect it may be sending the video to the newer monitor connection and I don't have a spare monitor with a newer connection. I wish I had an adapter so I could tell for sure. It would be a huge pain in my ass to try and test that on my main monitor.
EDIT - The newer one,Its actually an fx 6200 dual head nvidia card with 512 megs.
So thats an fx6200 card, an fx5200 card with 128 megs ram, and a geoforce4 with64 megs of ram, none working with amithlon, but all seem fine with linux.
I may just give up and turn this box into a spare aros box.
Amithlon sounds fun, but I already have a pc running winuae that is fine for most things and works great, with almost anything I use it for.
Steven
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The thing is though Amithlon is actually quite simple once you understand it. Takes about 10 minutes in total to get it installed, including installing AmigaOS.
The "garbled screen" is just the normal "insert disc" kickstart3.1 screen. It often goes wonky. Only shows up when things arent setup right and it being garbled means nothing in regards to whether the gfx card is supported or not.
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Allrighty then, I suppose I will give it a go at a full installtion tomorrow then and see what happens. I think the fx5200 would be best video card option since it is supposed to be supported by amithlon and it is also supported by AROS. I can always just reformat the hard drive for AROS only if it really dosn't work out after I give it a shot.
If amithlon DOES work after full installation,
For the simplest dual booting I can put a second harddrive in for AROS and just disable the first drive if I want to boot to AROS.
Steven
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Despite the hours Ive spent typing these "guides" I must admit Amithlon may not even be a better option for you. I guess it comes down to what a person wants. If you want an AmigaOS sytem Id chose amithlon any day of the week, if I played classic games more than I used the OS then Winuae might be a simpler option.
Are you (rhetorical) willing/wanting to install a tcp/ip stack? Care to set up and learn e-uae, define def icons to auto launch adfs, install things like EUAE-Load to be able to play whdload games and use custom chip banging apps, install rtg patches, create custom p96 screenmodes, etc, etc.?
It's kinda dumbed down, but easier to use for some things vs. faster, more authentic (minus custom chipset) and soley relying on amigaOS.
It is a learning experience if youre used to Winuae though. Many Winuae users might be a bit lost when trying to rely soley on AmigaOS.
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Fishy, I do appreciate the time you took to try and help me get it going thank you. Today I spent all day trying to install amithlon to the drive as you described but no go. I'm beginning to think there is some kind of hardware problem with this pc or its ram or something not set correctly in the BIOS perhaps? When I try and boot this pc aros (icaros desktop) live dvd, when I select native screen modes I get a very low res looking screen with a big mouse cursor and looks low color. When I move the mouse the machine freezes and then reboots itself. It did that with all 3 video cards.
Since I happen to see the ram test on the amithlon boot cd, I ran that and the memory passed. I'm not sure what else the problem could be. I didn't try to do much with the computer when I booted to puppy linux and I think thats just vesa graphics... So no way to tell if there is some disconnect between the computer and the graphics cards?
Ordinarily, I just just buy a couple of spare pcs from ebay but I'm laid off my job right now and broke so I can't afford more spare parts or ram.
I don't know why I keep thinking there may be a problem with the ram but I had a very strange problem like this with a pc before and it turned out to be bad ram. I don't have another memory test program, but I did run the amithlon memory test and the memory passed, both when I tried each 1gig by itself in the machine individually, and when I put them both in at the same time.
Right now, I just booted AROS to vesa 1024x768 and I am waiting while it installs to the hard drive. (I forgot how long that takes in AROS!) I'll let you know what happens. If AROS won't work in native modes, there is definitely something wrong, I am using the nvidia 6200, but can pull and replace with the other two video cards once aros is installed I think...
Otherwise I will try pulling and replacing the video cards and re-install aros with each of the other two video cards.
Steven
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haywirepc: I've not had the opportunity to read this full thread, but you booting into Amithlon using Kernal 3 or 4 in your Kernal partition with boot script modified, correct?
If not then your NVIDIA card probably will display garbage on the screen.
I can say that the card I just bought is working perfectly with my Amithlon set up, and that I've had no hassles.
For what ever reason, both of my towers are not playing friendly with AROS, but it did boot using the Native NVIDIA drivers, but I've not gone as far as testing any 3D games or what have you.
Anyhow, I second what Fish says. Amithlon does reward you once you work out all the kinks. I spent about a week trouble shooting it on both my machines, and now I feel that I (for the most part) have all the vital stuff down.
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@bbond007
Yeah may as well remove the 2nd cpu I guess as it wont be used.
As for video card I guess it depends on what a person wants from it. A gf5950 is the fastest supported card with full 2d acceleration, but matrox card can have dual monitor display. Personally Ive taken a liking to my Matrox g550. Both outputs work and it seems a very flexible card for making custom p96 screenmodes.
I think I have an old MatroxG200 in my junk....
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@bbond007
Cool, should work nicely. If/when you do get around to getting an amithlon machine up and running properly Id be interested to hear if you get any artifacts. I used a g200 briefly before finding the g550 card and while it was nicely supported I did get a bit of screen garbage from time to time. A "refresh" from drop down menus in Workbench fixed it, but it was always just a matter of time before it happened again.
I suspect though it was the card itself rather than amithlon/os3.9, but I never found out for sure.