Shapeshifter and RTG

[Xanxi]

Hello.

Shapeshifter again.

On my A4000 (40Mhz 040 WarpEngine), with a CyberVision64/3D running with Picasso96, Shapeshifter is set to "external video driver" and i have installed the picasso96 driver supplied within the latest archive of Picasso96.

However, the display is quite slow, with a slow refresh, even slower than on my A1200-060/AGA. I have tried 8 bits, 15 bits and 16 bits Cyber643D modes to output the Mac in 256 colors. It does not seem to be better with the CyberGrpahx/Picasso option instead of External.

I'm sure i am doing something wrong here as a RTG board should be faster than mere AGA.

Any idea?

[Xanxi]

Still no good with my shapeshifter slow display problem.

I have tried the Picasso96 external driver, the Cybergraphx/Picasso96 internal Shapeshifter setup and the CardTrickEVD driver with direct mode, but i still can't have a faster display than mere AGA.
I'm using 800*600 8 bits mode.
I have not checked the "larger memory block" in the RAM setup to ensure that there is FastRAM available for the video (and there is indeed plenty).

Benchmarks show that my display is only about 0.110 the speed of an equivalent real Mac.

Am i still missing something?

[Xanxi]

Piru wrote a few patches for the CardTrick and PIPin drivers, IIRC there was an issue with the blitter acceleration not being enabled with the latest ShapeShifter. I recall after applying the patches it worked as it should.

Yeah i have downloaded the correct files from the Piru website and applyed the patch, but still no acceleration.

[Xanxi]

The refresh rate was set to 1.

I have just done everything that LaserBack said at 640*480 reslution and with Speedometer 4.02 i still have 8 bits graphic results equal to 0.174 Quadra 605 with CardTrickEVD and only 0.125 with Picasso96 driver.
It's a bit better than my previous results in 800*600.

[Xanxi]

Thanks for those advices.
I prefer to stick with Picasso96 that i am using for years and seems to be better for fine tuning on modern LCD monitor.

Could any of you try the graphic part of Speedometer 4.02 for MacOS and post the results?

[Xanxi]

Great news!! It seems i have find the solution tonight. I am now reaching 1.468 compared to the Quadra 605.
I have just changed the setting for the memory allocation of the ROM to "any" instead of "allocate first".
Now the Mac is flying.

Besides, i can state that direct mode from CardTrickEVD is faster than Picasso96 internal and external drivers.

Thanks to all

[Xanxi]

Hello folks.

I could again use your help about the setup of Shapeshifter video drivers, this time in my A2000, which is also 68060.
I have a GVP Spectrum 28/24 board and i have set Shapeshifter with the patched CardTrickEVD the same way as i did some months ago with my A4000.

The problem is i only get in 800*600 8 bits about 0.515 of the speed of the video part of the Quadra 605.
Meanwhile, my A1200 with AGA get about 0.7 and my A4000 with Cybervision 64 3D had about 1.4 (it is dead now).

Even if the Spectrum is less powerful than the C64 3D, and the A2000 is only zorro2, i believe it should still be better than AGA.

So is there some specific trick with this board i should know?

As is, it is not possible to play nicely any Dark Forces or Duke 3D. Both these games were very good on the A4000.

Thanks for your help.

[Xanxi]

Cannot say but AGA at best does 7 MB/s when ZorroII is limited to max 3.5 MB/s - perhaps that explains it?

I don't know. AGA is obviously less powerfull than the Cirrhus Logic chip from the Picasso2 and GVP Spectrum board.
I forgot to mention that Fusion in direct mode gives exactly the same results at benchmarks than Shapeshifter direct mode with CardTrickEVD. Perhaps is there something to speed things up directly in Picasso96? Is the direct mode still related to Picasso96 settings or is it true direct banging of the hardware?

[Xanxi]

AGA has more bandwitch than ZorroII. Cirrus chip is faster when blitting, but that won't make c2p games run faster on ZorroII. Anyway all these problems sound weird... What P96 settings are you using? Do you have all caches enabled? Do you leave enough free fast ram?

I hope you don't have enabled some weird 24bit address mode.

My A4040/25 with CV64 was 6-7 times faster than the first PPC Mac with speedometer using Fusion/Shapeshifter IIRC.

I have the feeling that you are the guy who is going to find the solution :-)

Here is a pic of my 800*600 8 bits Picasso 96 setup. What do you think?



CPU caches are all on and as a matter of fact the emulated MAC outperform the Quadra 605 several times regarding the CPU score.

What 24 bit adress mode are you talking about?