CSA Derringer '030 @ 50 MHz accelerator

[hamtronix]

My apologies to anyone sick of seeing me ask about this unit but I thought I would while I wait for my RAM to arrive which may make all this moot.

I have a CSA Derringer '030 @ 50 MHz with 882 FPU in my A2000 with the 68000 installed for booting to either.
It has no RAM yet so that must be taken into account.
I am running WB 3.1 it is fairly stock as I just got the ROMs and OS last Friday. I also have 8 MB of RAM on my SCSI card and 1 MB chip.

The '030 seems to be configured correctly (no jumpers incorrect, all chips functioning, etc.)As mentioned, it has no RAM yet. WB 3.1 Auto recognizes everything and doesnt actually require the software call added in the startup-sequence.

Heres my issue : It doesnt seem to be running at the proper speed. In fact when I boot to the 68000 its the same speed as when I boot to the '030. Which I verified by sysinfo and AIBB. And both of the programs recognize the chips as well.

why am I not seeing the increase in speed even without the onboard RAM?

It is fun to be messing with AmigA again after all these years.

[joekster]

Without the ram, it will only be 10-25% faster than a stock 68k. You could remove the 68k to be sure that it really is using the 030.

[hamtronix]

joekster wrote:
Without the ram, it will only be 10-25% faster than a stock 68k. You could remove the 68k to be sure that it really is using the 030.

the thought of removing the 68000 did occur to me but I dont have any spare blocks to put on the jumper to indicate that you do or dont have it installed so I didnt want to chance screwing something up.

Is there any reason that the jump from 7MHz to 50MHz would have such a small impact on speed? Seeing as its 7 times increase it just seems strange to me.

[Piru]

Is there any reason that the jump from 7MHz to 50MHz would have such a small impact on speed? Seeing as its 7 times increase it just seems strange to me.

Going thru the slow Zorro II bus for memory kills the performance. As long as the code/data fits the caches it's running at full speed.

BTW it might be worth checking that the caches are properly enabled. To check use c:CPU command.

[hamtronix]

Piru wrote:

BTW it might be worth checking that the caches are properly enabled. To check use c:CPU command.

I was mucking about with the 'driver' programs from CSA but I will check CPU command some more to make sure it is enabled. I wish there was more comprehensive information on what the heck all the caches do. I spose that I cant destroy anything with software (unlike the Pet Poke command)

[Piru]

Well, the worst that can happen is that DMA gets corrupted until you reboot.

Anyhow, it depends a bit on the accelerator, but some might require tool like Enforcer to do proper setup for caches. Typically this is only needed if the system nukes when data cache is enabled.

Anyhow, don't expect great gains from just the 030 caches, it only has 256/256 bytes, which isn't much. Having local memory on the accelerator should help the performance quite a bit.

[LoadWB]

From experience with the Derringers, PUT SOME RAM ON IT.  You will most certainly not enjoy performance increases without it.  The best gain you will get is programs that use the FPU, but like Piru said, memory fetches through the Zorro II space will kill your performance gains.  32MB 72-pin SIMMs should be dirt-cheap second-hand these days.

Also, the stock OS3 CPU command works with the Derringer's caches.  I will have to boot up the 500 to remind me if the Derringer requires a special program to add the 32-bit memory to the system -- I seem to recall that it does, but I may be confused with the MTec-020 which required its own software for everything.

[EDIT:] I just re-read and saw that your RAM is on its way.  So, this would be more for advice to others with the same unit. :-)

[hamtronix]

LoadWB wrote:


Also, the stock OS3 CPU command works with the Derringer's caches.  I will have to boot up the 500 to remind me if the Derringer requires a special program to add the 32-bit memory to the system -- I seem to recall that it does ...

Yes, there is a couple pieces of softeware - D3 and Caches . D3 is the one that controls copying files into and recognizing the RAM on the board.

Once the 72 pin RAM is on the board should I see improvements within the OS or is it only within programs you run from the OS?

[rkauer]

hamtronix wrote:

Yes, there is a couple pieces of softeware - D3 and Caches . D3 is the one that controls copying files into and recognizing the RAM on the board.

Once the 72 pin RAM is on the board should I see improvements within the OS or is it only within programs you run from the OS?

 You'll notice that ALL system will become more and more fast. No doubt on this.