Mac / pc partitions within the first 4GB?

[rvo_nl]

Something entirely different, back in the days I used to have a dedicated Mac and PC partition to play around with Fusion and PCx. Do I need to keep those partitions within the first 4GB of the harddrive? I now have them 'at the end' of my drive, but Im afraid the emulation uses some form of low-level harddrive access that might cause trouble.

[Thomas]

I know for sure that PC-Task and ShapeShifter are not able to access outside of the first 4GB, so I'd assume that other programs have the same limitation. They were all written long before larger harddrives have even been thought of.

[kvasir]

I'm afraid Thomas is right, at least with PC-Task and Shapeshifter. When I upgraded my HDD to 40GB from 2.1GB, I re-formatted the 1st 1 GB of my system partition with shapeshifter several times before I finally figured it out. (I REALLY needed more coffee that day... :-D ) Ironically, though, hardfile emulation is actually faster than a partition if you have SFS and the right hardware. (060+192MB fast here, installed Win95 on both a partition and hardfile with a stopwatch, the hf+sfs was faster. I'll post the results if I can ever find them) If you want actual partitions, though, they need to be < the 4GB barrier. (Actually, I remember why it took so many times to get it to work here. The Macintosh partition crept over the 4gb barrier by a handful of KBs, and that was enough to kick MacOS into a "reformat the Amigas partitions" loop....)

[rvo_nl]

thats quite a useful tip. are hardfiles under fusion/shapeshifter/basilisk faster than partitions too? and the hardfiles can ofcourse be located outside the first 4gb right?

thanks both!

[amigadave]

I'm afraid Thomas is right, at least with PC-Task and Shapeshifter. When I upgraded my HDD to 40GB from 2.1GB, I re-formatted the 1st 1 GB of my system partition with shapeshifter several times before I finally figured it out. (I REALLY needed more coffee that day... :-D ) Ironically, though, hardfile emulation is actually faster than a partition if you have SFS and the right hardware. (060+192MB fast here, installed Win95 on both a partition and hardfile with a stopwatch, the hf+sfs was faster. I'll post the results if I can ever find them) If you want actual partitions, though, they need to be < the 4GB barrier. (Actually, I remember why it took so many times to get it to work here. The Macintosh partition crept over the 4gb barrier by a handful of KBs, and that was enough to kick MacOS into a "reformat the Amigas partitions" loop....)

Interesting and useful info, thanks.  I was just contemplating setting up either PCTask, or PCx and Fusion, or Shapeshifter on my newly reconfigured A1200/060 w/256mb RAM.

[kvasir]

Interesting and useful info, thanks.  I was just contemplating setting up either PCTask, or PCx and Fusion, or Shapeshifter on my newly reconfigured A1200/060 w/256mb RAM.

256MB!?!?!?!? I thought I was overdoing it with 192MB!!

[marcfrick2112]

256MB!?!?!?!? I thought I was overdoing it with 192MB!!

Ha, 256MB isn't overkill at all... Ya never know when you might need it.....  Some of those scenes from the LightROM series are pretty huge, at least one needed more than 64MB to load, then it just went from there....

:roflmao:

[amigadave]

Yeah, 256mb of RAM in an Amiga seems like a lot, but if I run a MacOS emulation and a MS-DOS or Windows emulation all at the same time (like I used to do with my A2000 and my Bridgeboard setup a long time ago), it will bite into that large RAM pool in a big way.  At least I don't have to worry about running out of RAM too often and I figured the Blizzard060 w/SCSI-2 add-on card has a maximum capacity of 256mb, so why not fill it up.  I did have a very hard time finding the right simms for it though, but finally got them and I am happy I did.

[kvasir]

Yeah, for running multiple emulators you'll need that. Though, even with a 060, it takes forever to get anything done on mine if both pc-task and shapeshifter are running, so the 192MB isn't too bad a deal. I have a 1260 too, and I thought the onboard was limited to 64MB? I have a 128MB stick in the SCSI board, though.

[omnicron10]

I am glad to see you got your A1200 working so well. About time!  Now I want to play with my A4000 more!  I would bring it down to your place for a visit but it seems like Amigas die when they are moved to your house!

[amigadave]

I am glad to see you got your A1200 working so well. About time!  Now I want to play with my A4000 more!  I would bring it down to your place for a visit but it seems like Amigas die when they are moved to your house!

Hey, don't go spreading that rumor around.  They aren't dead, they are just resting until I can put them back together the way I want them set up. :lol:  

As you know, getting newer 18gb and 36gb SCSI-2, or SCSI-3 drives to work on my CyberStorm accelerators has been the biggest problem and why both of my A4000's are in pieces at the moment.  Now that the A1200 is running the way I want it, I will have more time and motivation to get the A4000's sorted out and running with the drives I want and Toaster/Flyer cards inside of them.


Edit:  And that is UP to my house you "Flat-Lander" :roflmao:

[Flashlab]

Another vote for hardfiles here! I use them with Shapeshifter and they are faster than partitions in my case. Other advantages are that they are more flexible (multiple files of maximum 2Gb) and can be anywhere on your HD.

I use SFS BTW!

[zipper]

The latest Fusion should work on over 4 GB IIRC but its not guarantied. Never tried it.

[rvo_nl]

The latest Fusion should work on over 4 GB IIRC but its not guarantied. Never tried it.

do you mean fusionppc?

[zipper]

No, 68k (v3.2 IIRC)