Open letter to Elbox

[Cosmos Amiga]

Since it's extremely hard to get an answer from Elbox, here a public message :


I think a very big bug is present into the voodoo.card...

I wrote an article about that in 2013 : http://warpclassic68k.blogspot.fr/2013/07/fichy-eng.html

For example, the small demo StarShipW3D use only 170 triangles... It's NOTHING for the 3dfx GPU...

We should have minimum 2000 fps with 170 triangles... And we have actually only 350 fps : it's ridiculus...

Back in the days in the year 2000, I had a Mediator Pci 1200 rev 1.0 with a Blizzard 1260@66 : the small demo "Gear" ran a lot of faster than today with the updated 4.34 drivers from 2014, I remember well...


There are some good last 68k coders on the scene today, so I ask you to release the voodoo.card 4.34 source for together finding and fixing the bug(s) who slow down the 3dfx a LOT !

Users want fast 3D, so you will sell much more Mediator with a fixed .card driver !


Hope you will cooperate !

[Cosmos Amiga]

A french "friend" of mine wrote me this some months ago :

"Pour le Voodoo3, je me souviens juste que c'est une certaine combinaison de commandes alors que le GPU est dans un certain état... qui l'amène au deadlock/crash"


And :

"Non, ce bug est dans le pilote PPC (et à coup sûr dans le 68k aussi). Il ne cause pas un ralentissement permanent. Tu peux ressentir quand il se manifeste : l'affichage se bloque un instant... et se débloque après timeout logiciel + reset hard du Voodoo3. Genre 2-3 secondes de blocage, je ne sais plus..."


And :

"De la chance car il se produit partout. OneVision l'avait sur Mediator 1200 + BlizzardPPC je crois. Et je l'avais sur Grex 1200. Et quand Bigfoot l'a contourné dans son propre pilote MorphOS, il a bien compris que c'était un problème universel de ce GPU... Bug corrigé dans le VSA-100 des Voodoo4 et 5 d'ailleurs"

I sent email to Bigfoot, but no answer...



Here some translations using Google Translate :

"For Voodoo3, I just remember that it is some combination of commands while the GPU is in a certain state... which leads to deadlock/crash"

"No, this bug is in the PPC driver (and certainly also in the 68k). It does not cause a permanent slowdown. You can feel when it manifests itself : the display hangs a second... and unlocks software after hard reset the timeout + Voodoo3. About 2-3 seconds blocking, I don't know exactly..."

"Lucky because it happens everywhere. OneVision had on Mediator 1200 + BlizzardPPC I think. And I had on Grex 1200. And when Bigfoot was bypassed in his own MorphOS driver, he understood that it was a universal problem that GPU... Bug fixed in the VSA-100 and Voodoo4 & 5"


Hope this help...


Note : I have this visible "hang" on my Prometheus+3dfx...

[Acill]

I have a Voodoo 5, 5500 I can do some testing if you like? I would need to install it back into my system though. I currently am using a Radeon 9200.

[wawrzon]

elbox can do nothing about it. elbox didnt developed the warp3d drivers for the voodoo. they contracted hyperion or more precisely the frieden twins afaik, and the source has never been disclosed to them. the latter on their part have always refused to improve anything what concerns genuine amiga, in particular w3d. btw, ask matthey.

also when considering such particular pc hardware like voodoo3, you have to remember that on amiga it operates under the circumstances it has not been initially designed for. your expectations from pc world cannot apply to a card put behind a slow zorro3 bus with 7mb/s throughput, without dma to main memory and with comperatively slow cpu anyway.

[Cosmos Amiga]

elbox can do nothing about it. elbox didnt developed the warp3d drivers for the voodoo. they contracted hyperion or more precisely the frieden twins afaik, and the source has never been disclosed to them. the latter on their part have always refused to improve anything what concerns genuine amiga, in particular w3d. btw, ask matthey.

I'm talking about the voodoo.card : a part of the Elbox driver...

For Warp3D, it's another story...

also when considering such particular pc hardware like voodoo3, you have to remember that on amiga it operates under the circumstances it has not been initially designed for. your expectations from pc world cannot apply to a card put behind a slow zorro3 bus with 7mb/s throughput, without dma to main memory and with comperatively slow cpu anyway.

Disagree : something is wrong somewhere, and I wanna find where...

I'll make a video of the visible Prometheus "hang", maybe the Mediator have the same issue but not visible with eyes...

[wawrzon]

I'm talking about the voodoo.card : a part of the Elbox driver...

For Warp3D, it's another story...

sorry, but you are obviously talking about warp3d performance, as you yourself mention:

For example, the small demo StarShipW3D use only 170 triangles... It's NOTHING for the 3dfx GPU...

starship w3d is a benchmark by alain thellier, the autor of wazp3d, he developed as we were considering options to speed up 3d performance on the very mediator/voodoo hardware you are talking about, years ago. ask alain or matthey if you dont trust me. appropriate warp3d binaries are part of elbox driver software package, but they are only a bundled product and the code is not thier property. i have been talking to elbox about that as well as about w3d for radeon cards few years ago any i have been given this information first hand.

except the voodoo.card driver, which is renamed rtg driver of another card, an obvious hack, is busy looping somewhere, blocking performance among others from w3d driver that relies upon it. in that case i stand corrected.

[Rob]

Warp3D is now co-owned by the Friedens and A-EON so contacting A-EON/Amigakit might get you access to the source code under NDA.

[Cosmos Amiga]

Warp3D is now co-owned by the Friedens and A-EON so contacting A-EON/Amigakit might get you access to the source code under NDA.

For me the problem is on the Elbox side. I may be wrong of course...

[wawrzon]

For me the problem is on the Elbox side. I may be wrong of course...

thats a common misconception, see my post above. btw, i would stay away from any ndas, whomever these need to be signed to, espacially with your usual attitude in mind. you are not seriously going to honour these anyway;)

[Iggy]

Warp3D is now co-owned by the Friedens and A-EON so contacting A-EON/Amigakit might get you access to the source code under NDA.

How did that transfer occur?
I would have thought that thr owner would be the same as the owner of OS3.1.

[Kronos]

How did that transfer occur?
I would have thought that thr owner would be the same as the owner of OS3.1.

And why would that be ?

Warp3D was never part of any 68k AmigaOS release.

Wether it was fully owned by the Friedens or Hyperion played a part and how much that changed with all the bullcarp around OS4 .....

The real issue might be getting access to Elbox P96-drivers as having the source for these out in public might finally proove that they did use code owned by the P96 guys to create those (just to check if there are still some embers glowing in that ancinet flamefest *g*).

[Iggy]

And why would that be ?

Warp3D was never part of any 68k AmigaOS release.

Wether it was fully owned by the Friedens or Hyperion played a part and how much that changed with all the bullcarp around OS4 .....

The real issue might be getting access to Elbox P96-drivers as having the source for these out in public might finally proove that they did use code owned by the P96 guys to create those (just to check if there are still some embers glowing in that ancinet flamefest *g*).

Only with Amiga...yet another fight over old software that has not been updated.

It would be nice if someone had an alternative.
Backport GOA perhaps?

[Rob]

The real issue might be getting access to Elbox P96-drivers as having the source for these out in public might finally proove that they did use code owned by the P96 guys to create those (just to check if there are still some embers glowing in that ancinet flamefest *g*).

I remember that Elbox supplied Cybergraphics drivers to begin with.  What happened there?

[Kronos]

Probraly the same that later on happened with P96 and Poseidon (and was attempted with Warp3D).