Setting up Picasso II

[blakespot]

I just got a Picasso II to go with my A2000 '060.

I installed two driver disks from web download - recent vers. I see three Picasso II entries for each res in ScreenModes. base, HiColor, and TrueColor.

Whenever I pick a mode, it jumps to that mode and shows just a grey screen. Doing passthru from Indvision ECS. Passthru works.

What is my issue with just grey screen?

Thanks!



bp

[blakespot]

So, I attached the screenmodes to the card via Picasso96Mode in SYS:Prefs after install. That seems to have worked - it found modes that it claimed were not suitable for the card and I told it to erase them. The modes it found seemed indeed not likely to work on the card.

Testing the modes left, it shows the test image fine thru the PII card on my 19" Sony Trinitron CRT. I think the screensaver kicking in even is in a PII mode. I save, reboot.

When I pick a PicassoII mode in ScreenModes, it still just gives me a grey or white screen. It shows on both the 1084 and the Sony attached to the Amiga, so it's showing a ECS mode. This is not the same result as the black screen with warning about sync out of range generated by the Sony when I feed it a test mode with too low a scanrate. It's just not kicking in the PII mode.

I installed Picasso96 from Aminet. Seems to have gone fine. All files seem to be in place.

Any ideas? Thanks.




bp

[blakespot]

On re-reading, you are getting a P2 test screen in Picasso96, but the modes does not show up in the normal Prefs:ScreenMode program? If it is the latter, then there is a monitor file issue  where the Amiga is either not storing Picasso96 info properly or the information is not available to the Prefs:ScreenMode program after reboot

This is the scenario.



bp

[blakespot]

So I can confirm, the test screens in Picasso96Modes and the screensaver that kicks in with inactivity run in RII modes. But not the PicassoII screenmodes listed in Prefs SCreenModes. They are listed, and the PicassoII monitor file looks ok as far as its attribs.

All other files are in place. Do I need LoadMonDrv? I dbl-clicked on the PicassoII mon file before choosing screenmode for PII and it made no diff. Oy.


bp

[blakespot]

Check the modes if their vertical frequency (refresh rate) fits your monitor specs - what's your monitor and which refresh rates does it support?

They fit. It's a 2005 or so 19" Sony CRT - top end. The thing is, it's not even trying to go to that mode -- there is no click / glitch where the vidcard tries to take control of the screen. When I was in Picasso96Modes and tested a mode with, for instance, too low vertical refresh, the CRT went black and fed me its own "out of scan range" message. Nothing like that going on here.



bp

[blakespot]

So I re-ran the Picasso II install disk on the system and it copies some files in that it indicated were not there at the time. (Odd, I'd run the install disk before.) It added, among other things, a Picasso monitor type in Devs:Monitors -- there was just a PicassoII there before, added by the Picasso96 installer. Now there's both.

Then when I booted I got a CLI warning that context could not be set for "PicassoII" or some such, and I was in a different, lower res screenmode. The Picasso II screenmodes were gone from ScreenMode - replace with "PICASSO:640 x 480" ... etc. So I re-ran Picasso96Modes and now it can't find a board to bind to, in the menu. Oy.

I then re-ran the Picasso96 installer, but it's made no difference. I can't seem to get the Picasso II modes back in there. RTG modes are there, but they're labeled PICASSO: as opposed to PICASSO II: - so something is different.

I seem to be worse off than I was.

Also, I am using 3.1 which lacks LoadMonDrvs -- instead there are those two code chunks to do with VGAOnly and the list for Monitors that _is_ in place, 3.1 style, and is before IPrefs is called...

Oy. Painful.



bp

[blakespot]

I figured it out. Problem was the damned ChangeScreen app sitting in WBStartups... I removed it -- boom -- things work. (After I removed the old Picasso II driver stuff.)



bp

[blakespot]

Hi i have to ask how fast is your 2000? it must be some machine you got there

I just added a 68060 50MHz w/ 128MB fastmem to it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blakespot/7809604298/in/photostream

Was running with a ~14MHz 68020 for a while, before.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blakespot/7802866670/in/photostream

Been fun playing lately!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blakespot/7818702416/in/photostream





bp

[blakespot]

Is it possible for me to define a res in Picasso96 of my own? I'd like something between 800w and 1024w -- maybe 920w. If so, how do I do that?

Using a Picasso II on the A2000.

Thanks.



bp