OS4 Classic BPPC/060 A1200 Radeon

[nyteschayde]

So, I have an A1200 upgraded with a Blizzard PPC, a Mediator 1200 SX, Voodoo3, Fast Ethernet Card, roughly 160MB RAM and a Catweasal PCI card. I just bought a Radeon 9200 Pro card and I was wondering if it's possible at all to use it.

Elbox, being slower than molasses in their responses, have not surprisingly not gotten back to me yet.  Their site seems to indicate that I should be able to use it. I have both the Mediator CD and the 3.12 update mentioned on their site but I don't see anything regarding Radeon drivers.

Will it simply not work? Tell me there is a way!

[ikepgh]

According to their site it supports these bios:

Radeon.card driver (ver. 1.12 dated 03 Oct 2009) supports Radeon gfx cards equipped with the following BIOS versions:

BK-ATI VER008.015.041.001 2003/10/30 01:36
BK-AMI VER008.011.006.000 2004/09/22 02:44
BK-ATI VER008.017D.016.00 2005/06/13 14:23
BK-ATI VER008.017D.031.000 2006/05/09 16:24
BK-ATI VER008.017D.031.000 2006/08/03 04:44
BK-ATI VER008.017D.016.004 2006/09/28 09:41
BK-ATI VER008.017D.031.000 2006/11/23 19:12
BK-ATI VER008.017D.016.000 2007/04/27 05:36
BK-ATI VER008.017D.031.000 2007/10/11 14:06
BK-ATI VER008.017D.031.000 2007/11/13 16:32

If your card is not supported, basically you have to, put the card in a PC, use the ATI bios dumping tool to dump the bios, send it to Elbox for inclusion/support.  They send you a compatible driver.

IKE

[NioByte]

As far as I know even if you do have a card that has the correct BIOS version it still will not work under Amiga OS 4.0 Classic.

I am unable to get my ATI Radeon 9200 Pro cards to work under AmigaOS 4.0. I have got a 64 MB and a 128 MB version both do not work.

Basically Amiga OS 4.0 decides to go on an infinite reboot.

Hans-Joerg Frieden (Rogue) has replied on the Amigans.net forums stating that it cannot be done at the moment in the current kernel update for classic 'February 2008' for Amiga OS 4.0 classic.

http://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&type=&topic_id=2364&forum=3

Rogue mentioned:
"The Radeon driver in AmigaOS 4 relies on the BIOS to set up the card, so it won't work as-is on the Classic. I'll look into this if we release an update for the Classic version (note the 'if'; I don't know if or when one is planned)."

When 'if' they do plan to release another update, that is on his list of things to do. At the moment OS 4.0 only has compatibility for the use of Radeon cards on the AmigaONE. Amiga OS 4.1 and beyond on the SAM boards has full support of course.

BTW, how did you get the Voodoo 3 and the Ethernet to work under Amiga OS 4.0. I have had no luck with this. I have also posted this elsewhere on these forums: http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=50242

You can only try the latest Mediator drivers under Amiga OS 4.0
I have had no luck so far getting any of my devices to be recognised under Amiga OS 4.0. Then again I am even having similar issues under Amiga OS 3.9.

Good Luck.

[HammerD]

As far as I know even if you do have a card that has the correct BIOS version it still will not work under Amiga OS 4.0 Classic.

I am unable to get my ATI Radeon 9200 Pro cards to work under AmigaOS 4.0. I have got a 64 MB and a 128 MB version both do not work.

Basically Amiga OS 4.0 decides to go on an infinite reboot.

Hans-Joerg Frieden (Rogue) has replied on the Amigans.net forums stating that it cannot be done at the moment in the current kernel update for classic 'February 2008' for Amiga OS 4.0 classic.

http://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&type=&topic_id=2364&forum=3

Rogue mentioned:
"The Radeon driver in AmigaOS 4 relies on the BIOS to set up the card, so it won't work as-is on the Classic. I'll look into this if we release an update for the Classic version (note the 'if'; I don't know if or when one is planned)."

When 'if' they do plan to release another update, that is on his list of things to do. At the moment OS 4.0 only has compatibility for the use of Radeon cards on the AmigaONE. Amiga OS 4.1 and beyond on the SAM boards has full support of course.

BTW, how did you get the Voodoo 3 and the Ethernet to work under Amiga OS 4.0. I have had no luck with this. I have also posted this elsewhere on these forums: http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=50242

You can only try the latest Mediator drivers under Amiga OS 4.0
I have had no luck so far getting any of my devices to be recognised under Amiga OS 4.0. Then again I am even having similar issues under Amiga OS 3.9.

Good Luck.

The OS4 beta team is aware of this issue and we have some hardware to test.  I can give no guarantees on the future, but only to tell you that we have notified Hyperion of the situation with the Radeon on classic.  If there is any update to the situation you can be sure it will be posted here.

[nyteschayde]

I am not able to use the card but I did manage to prevent the unlimited reboot for OS4 classic while the card is in the mediator. That simply required me to go into the /KickStart directory and modify the config. I commented out the line that tries to load Radeon support.

Frankly I am amazed that I found it as easily and as quickly as I did because to be honest I had no idea that the /KickStart directory was even there or what it's purpose was. But using some floppies I created a quick boot RAD device with 3.1 installed and it was enough for me to tinker with my OS4 boot drive. My accelerator gives me plenty of RAM to have a full 3.1 installation in memory.

Good to know about the Radeon stuff. Now that the OS4 team can do whatever they want I really do hope they provide a 4.1 for OS4 Classic. I can understand why they might not do so but I can still hope that they will, right?

I would really like to see PPC mac support for OS4 but failing that I'd really like to see OS4.1 Classic.

[nikodr]

Good to know about the Radeon stuff. Now that the OS4 team can do whatever they want I really do hope they provide a 4.1 for OS4 Classic. I can understand why they might not do so but I can still hope that they will, right?
I would really like to see PPC mac support for OS4 but failing that I'd really like to see OS4.1 Classic.

Maybe someone like Piru could tell us if it would be possible for a 200/233 mhz board like cyberstorm to support amiga os 4.1 .I think it may not be possible without being very slow ?

[Piru]

Maybe someone like Piru could tell us if it would be possible for a 200/233 mhz board like cyberstorm to support amiga os 4.1

You will need to ask Hyperion.

[nikodr]

Thanks Piru.Probably only hyperion could really know.
However i think that features like :

Hardware compositing engine (Radeon R1xx and R2xx family)
Implementation of the "Cairo" device-independent 2D rendering library could be a little difficult for a processor of only 200/233 mhz.

And since the required hardware for amiga os 4.1 is AmigaOne (SE/XE/µa1-C), Pegasos II or SAM440ep / SAM440ep-flex then things could be a little difficult for the classic phase 5 users.
(with only 256 mbytes of ram,if timberwolf is ported how much memory would be left if someone opened 5-6 tabs of heavy pages ?)

Os 4.1 need a radeon 9250 to run well,that would mean that most classic users could only work with a3000/4000 with mediator solution.1200 mediator solution would not run well.

Off topic but to me it seems that since the appearance of sam and os 4.1 ,os 4.0 seems like it has been left behind by hyperion.

[Ratte]

If .. if .. if ...

If Hyperion reatictivated the GRex-Support, it could be a step closer to usable system.
A 233/604 System with direct PCI-bus (GRex) and a Radeon could be fast enough.
Half power of a brandnew SAM

[HammerD]

If .. if .. if ...

If Hyperion reatictivated the GRex-Support, it could be a step closer to usable system.
A 233/604 System with direct PCI-bus (GRex) and a Radeon could be fast enough.
Half power of a brandnew SAM

My understanding (and I could be wrong, but...) is that at the time of OS4.0 classic development no documentation was available for the GRex PCI board, and thus support was not added.  I have no indication the situation (re: documentation) has changed.

The real problem - on OS4.0 classic is the lack of ram.  Sure you can get by OK by limiting your open programs, but the 128MB limitation on the Cyberstorm PPC does tend to hurt after awhile.  Blizzard users are lucky and can live in the luxury of 256MB ram...not so for us CS PPC users :-)  But OS 4.0 is still fun to use, even in 128MB.  You can still browse the web, listen to internet radio, go on IRC, FTP, etc...

[HammerD]

PS - one user has the Elbox Radeon driver working on the A1200/Blizzard PPC with Amiga OS 4.0.  You have to comment out all existing gfx drivers in kicklayout, use a supported Radeon (see Elbox's site), and the version 1.4 of their Radeon driver.  Elbox's PCI.library in libs:, s:vendors.txt, c:pciinfo, devs:monitors/radeon and radeon.info, libs:picasso96/radeon.card  (version 1.4).

Does not seem to work on Cyberstorm, though.

[spirantho]

The problem on OS 4.0 is - as HammerD says - the lack of RAM (which, incidentally, is a limitation of the CPU slot, not Phase5's or Hyperion's fault). Yet OS 4 supports swap files, which would be dead handy, just not on the Classic platform where it's most needed!

I wish Hyperion would either do OS 4.1 for the Classics or even just a patch to add virtual memory - it'd make the Classic much more useful.

[Crumb]

@NioByte

OS4 should support your Voodoo3 OOTB. Have you installed the update? If you have problems with it remove the Voodoo3 (or even mediator) so it boots on PAL and later install the update.

Your network card should be a Ethernet RTL8029 10Mbit card. Ethernet 100Mbit cards like RTL8139 won't work.

You don't have to install any Elbox driver. If you want to use Elbox drivers you'll have to disable PCIGraphics.card and voodoo3.chip (avenger?) in the kicklayout and copy your files from a 3.x install. The later has the advantage of allowing the use of Elbox drivers for soundcards/tv cards/ethernet 100/usb2 with poseidon2.2 but I don't think it's comfortable.

@nyteschayde

go to kicklayout file and comment the PCIGraphics.card file and Radeon.chip too. Then you'll be able to use OS3 Mediator drivers (but it won't be available from a fresh boot). If you have your files on an AmigaOS3.x partition copy them from there to the OS4 partition.



P96 prefs are quite crap because it requires stupid steps like forcing the user to add the gfx card despiting the fact it's the only gfx card available. It's a nightmare from usability viewpoint. But using tooltypes were you have to add lines like you were a linux user editting a textfile is even worse. Don't worry since you can still use P96 prefs file instead of tooltypes.

[Crumb]

@spirantho

I wish Hyperion would either do OS 4.1 for the Classics or even just a patch to add virtual memory - it'd make the Classic much more useful.

so true... CSPPC uwscsi could deal very well with swap partitions. But IMHO they should fix the BlizzardPPC scsi driver issue. It seems they don't know how to make a new blizzardppc scsi driver and they don't know how to use blizzardppc scsi 68k driver (that works flawless in 68k). They should ask Ralph Schmidt for help but their pride and ego makes them prefer to leave blizzardppc users without scsi suppport. That's sad.

[HammerD]

@Crumb

I don't think it's a fair statement to say "their pride and ego" prevented scsi support.  Unless you have claims to back that up?

How about politely asking Ralph Schmidt for blizzard ppc scsi documentation?  See what kind of response you get.