Help me build an amithlon machine? Please?

[fishy_fiz]

The thing is though Amithlon is actually quite simple once you understand it. Takes about 10 minutes in total to get it installed, including installing AmigaOS.
 The "garbled screen" is just the normal "insert disc" kickstart3.1 screen. It often goes wonky. Only shows up when things arent setup right and it being garbled means nothing in regards to whether the gfx card is supported or not.

[haywirepc]

Allrighty then, I suppose I will give it a go at a full installtion tomorrow then and see what happens. I think the fx5200 would be best video card option since it is supposed to be supported by amithlon and it is also supported by AROS. I can always just reformat the hard drive for AROS only if it really dosn't work out after I give it a shot.

If amithlon DOES work after full installation,
For the simplest dual booting I can put a second harddrive in for AROS and just disable the first drive if I want to boot to AROS.
 
Steven

[fishy_fiz]

Despite the hours Ive spent typing these "guides" I must admit Amithlon may not even be a better option for you. I guess it comes down to what a person wants. If you want an AmigaOS sytem Id chose amithlon any day of the week, if I played classic games more than I used the OS then Winuae might be a simpler option.

Are you (rhetorical) willing/wanting to install a tcp/ip stack? Care to set up and learn e-uae, define def icons to auto launch adfs, install things like EUAE-Load to be able to play whdload games and use custom chip banging apps, install rtg patches, create custom p96 screenmodes, etc, etc.?

It's kinda dumbed down, but easier to use for some things vs. faster, more authentic (minus custom chipset) and soley relying on amigaOS.
It is a learning experience if youre used to Winuae though. Many Winuae users might be a bit lost when trying to rely soley on AmigaOS.

[haywirepc]

Fishy, I do appreciate the time you took to try and help me get it going thank you. Today I spent all day trying to install amithlon to the drive as you described but no go. I'm beginning to think there is some kind of hardware problem with this pc or its ram or something not set correctly in the BIOS perhaps? When I try and boot this pc aros (icaros desktop) live dvd, when I select native screen modes I get a very low res looking screen with a big mouse cursor and looks low color. When I move the mouse the machine freezes and then reboots itself. It did that with all 3 video cards.
 
Since I happen to see the ram test on the amithlon boot cd, I ran that and the memory passed. I'm not sure what else the problem could be. I didn't try to do much with the computer when I booted to puppy linux and I think thats just vesa graphics... So no way to tell if there is some disconnect between the computer and the graphics cards?
 
Ordinarily, I just just buy a couple of spare pcs from ebay but I'm laid off my job right now and broke so I can't afford more spare parts or ram.
I don't know why I keep thinking there may be a problem with the ram but I had a very strange problem like this with a pc before and it turned out to be bad ram. I don't have another memory test program, but I did run the amithlon memory test and the memory passed, both when I tried each 1gig by itself in the machine individually, and when I put them both in at the same time.
 
Right now, I just booted AROS to vesa 1024x768 and I am waiting while it installs to the hard drive. (I forgot how long that takes in AROS!) I'll let you know what happens. If AROS won't work in native modes, there is definitely something wrong, I am using the nvidia 6200, but can pull and replace with the other two video cards once aros is installed I think...

Otherwise I will try pulling and replacing the video cards and re-install aros with each of the other two video cards.
 
Steven

[XDelusion]

haywirepc: I've not had the opportunity to read this full thread, but you booting into Amithlon using Kernal 3 or 4 in your Kernal partition with boot script modified, correct?

If not then your NVIDIA card probably will display garbage on the screen.

I can say that the card I just bought is working perfectly with my Amithlon set up, and that I've had no hassles.

For what ever reason, both of my towers are not playing friendly with AROS, but it did boot using the Native NVIDIA drivers, but I've not gone as far as testing any 3D games or what have you.

Anyhow, I second what Fish says. Amithlon does reward you once you work out all the kinks. I spent about a week trouble shooting it on both my machines, and now I feel that I (for the most part) have all the vital stuff down.

[bbond007]

@bbond007

Yeah may as well remove the 2nd cpu I guess as it wont be used.

As for video card I guess it depends on what a person wants from it. A gf5950 is the fastest supported card with full 2d acceleration, but matrox card can have dual monitor display. Personally Ive taken a liking to my Matrox g550. Both outputs work and it seems a very flexible card for making custom p96 screenmodes.

I think I have an old MatroxG200 in my junk....

[fishy_fiz]

@bbond007

Cool, should work nicely. If/when you do get around to getting an amithlon machine up and running properly Id be interested to hear if you get any artifacts. I used a g200 briefly before finding the g550 card and while it was nicely supported I did get a bit of screen garbage from time to time. A "refresh" from drop down menus in Workbench fixed it, but it was always just a matter of time before it happened again.

I suspect though it was the card itself rather than amithlon/os3.9, but I never found out for sure.