Retina Z3 BLT & 1MB ChipRAM

[dangermouse]

Hi

Just a quick question. My Amiga 4000 basically only has ~1MB ChipRAM free after booting into OS 3.9. Even after booting with a 3.1 Install Disk I still only have ~1MB ChipRAM available.

The 4000 has a Retina Z3 BLT installed and, according to the BBoAH, this card uses 1MB ChipRAM. My question is does the card take 1MB of RAM just by being installed and without drivers? I was expecting, booting from the 3.1 Install Disk, to have closer to 2MB (no drivers being loaded that I'm aware of) but it made no difference. Actually, I say that, but booting with the 3.1 Install Disk I actually had a shade less. I'm assuming this is because I have my OS 3.9 to use 'other memory' for graphics which wouldn't be the case when booting from the install disk.

This wouldn't bother me but a) a lot of WHDLoad games aren't running anymore and b) I'm concerned there may be an issue with the 4000 itself.

I did notice in the 'WhichAmiga' program that one line read '-1MB ChipRAM' or something along those lines (sorry, I'm at work and don't have the machine handy).

Any insight appreciated

Thanks

[amigadave]

Easy way to find out is to just remove the RetinaZ3 and then boot to check if all your Chip RAM is there again.

[pwermonger]

It's possible that a RTG graphics card in Zorro has to map chipRAM to be able to use as a means to get teh graphics info programs expect to put there. This said from someone who has no idea really.
 
If that were the case I'd assume all Z3 (probably Z2 as well) graphics cards would grab some chipRAM.
 
Best way to test is to remove it and boot the machine with just the 3.1 floppy. If you are still seeing the same chipRAM then either you have programs loading into that instead of Fast or something's wrong. Remember, a lot of Amiga cards seem to (at least to me) load some of what they need to operate even without loadig drivers from disk on startup. They have ROMs on board and the Amiga does autoconfigure them. So it's possible some software is loaded from the Retina even before you load any Picasso or Cybergraphics drviers from disk. though again I dont really know for sure.
 
My Retina ZIII went a little bad before I got an amiga that could run it reliably. I have a 4000/040 but its one with the buggy ZIII and 3.0 processor card so using any ZIII cards that run sustained data like a graphics board cause crashes when the 040 decides to grab things it shouldnt. Stpidly I left the Retina in the machine though and by the time I moved it to my new 4000/030 it started having artifacts appear on its screens. I maybe should try it in my 3000 to see if that is an issue with the 4000 when I have time.

[zipper]

My RTG Workbench has usually about 1.9M Chip free, everything possible is loaded into Fast RAM. I'm using P96 with Voodoo3 or PicassoIV.

[Chrome]

I did notice in the 'WhichAmiga' program that one line read '-1MB ChipRAM' or something along those lines (sorry, I'm at work and don't have the machine handy).

Any insight appreciated

Thanks

Any chance of having faulty chipram simm?   Check SysInfo or similar for more info about memory.