Pistorm operation

[mschulz]

An attempt to run games and/or demos from floppy directly means, they see several things at once:
1. A 68040 CPU wich they eventually have no support for
2. A CPU with enabled caches (JIT cache) which will cause a lot of trouble if they are using self-modifying-code
3. An awfully fast CPU which they are eventually not ready for - e.g. the coder might have assumed that some CPU operations will be slow enough that a blitter which they use finishes operation before CPU - this may lead to catastrophic results (glitches) if coder does not wait for blitter ready before re-using it.
4. Eventually the game or demo is not even ready for more recent kickstart if they were jumping directly to ROM violating normal way of using the kickstart.

As someone else wrote - this is the reason why WHDLoad was created. It not only allows to use floppy-only games from HD, it also can adjust several critical things on the CPU before launching game/demo. Plus, as in case of Emu68, one can run EmuControl there in order to slow CPU down to a level which the game/demo is happy with.

One can adjust Emu68 parameters on boot already to solve at least some of this things but this is a tedious work, better use WHDLoad for that.

[mschulz]

No issues there. What you have to remember that if running directly from a floppy disk, then the SD card on the Pistorm32 doesn’t run first. Hence no EMU68 emulation and setting up of Pi RAM as fastRAM. Therefore you will only see a stock A1200 config of 2MB Chip RAM. The PiStorm has to setup 68040 emulation first. It is not like other A1200 accelerators wher they will activate automatically and give you what you want on power up.

This is absolute rubbish. Emu68 is starting on boot already giving you all features as soon as Amiga starts. Already first CPU instruction of kickstart is executed by properly set up Emu68 with all the memory available (but not yet configured by exec.library).

Emu68 with PiStorm is exactly like any other A1200 accelerator. It is activated automatically and gives you everything on power up.

[mschulz]

I have tried that myself and I am absolutely sure that I know how it is working. In case you don’t trust me feel free to ask Emu68 author. But I am more than sure he will give you the very same answer. Literally identical answer.

[mschulz]

I assume that OP has correctly configured his pistorm, yes. Ptherwise one could also say that pistorm does not operate without a raspberry pi installed. For it to operate one needs a SD card with a FAT partition and raspberry + Emu68 files on it. No other partitions are necessary for Emu68 to operate and yes, you can boot from floppy with all features of pistorm/emu68 enabled.

Here, state of the art demo launched from floppy, Emu68 (including rgb pass-through enabled) running: https://youtu.be/14bMg5kGVkk?si=moRhHjwZSDwMlKKd

[mschulz]

The PiStorm SD card doesn’t need any special formatting?

If you are not intending to use part of the microSD then no - you don't need any special formatting. A single FAT partition with Emu68 files from GitHub is enough.

Just to back up my helpful claim here:

Maybe ask the author for Emu68 instead?

[mschulz]

Do you have any useful links to backup your claim there?

He asked author of Emu68. I think this is the best place to ask and get a reliable answer.

[mschulz]

Would be helpful for the OP to know how to contact with a link. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Emu68 author can be contacted through several channels:
1. GitHub, for example through "Issues" page: https://github.com/michalsc/Emu68/issues
2. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/michal_schulz
3. Discord: https://discord.gg/TEu3gpmc
4. Twitter: https://twitter.com/michal_schulz
5. PM on amigaworld.net: https://amigaworld.net/userinfo.php?uid=4679
6. PM on amiga.org: https://forum.amiga.org/index.php?action=profile;u=610

He is very rarely on amiga.org but can be reached in many other ways too...

[mschulz]

I'm happy you have moved this to another thread, yet, that would be the great opportunity to fix the statements where you were wrong:

1. "What you have to remember that if running directly from a floppy disk, then the SD card on the Pistorm32 doesn’t run first. Hence no EMU68 emulation and setting up of Pi RAM as fastRAM." - wrong.
2. "The only time EMU68 gets a chance to be setup is when no Floppy disk is in the drive." - wrong.

Also please note that my first post, right behind yours, gave OP detailed information why running games/demos directly from floppy may be problematic. Hence, the complaint that it took so long to give some answers was, well, wrong (again).

Sincerly,
Michal Schulz, author of Emu68...

[mschulz]

Ah sorry, it wasn’t you who moved the thread.