Pistorm operation

[Boing-ball]

Hi all,

I am seeing buggy graphics in some games and software.  I have just run Amiga Test Kit on my A1200 and it has raised the following attached issues.  From this I am wondering if my Amiga has a memory chip problem.

It has a Pistorm 32 lite installed but I had the same issues before installing this with the graphics. 

Some software runs fine, ie. Word Processesors, X Copy.

Any guidance or advice welcome.



Regards
Steven

No issues there. What you have to remember that if running directly from a floppy disk, then the SD card on the Pistorm32 doesn’t run first. Hence no EMU68 emulation and setting up of Pi RAM as fastRAM. Therefore you will only see a stock A1200 config of 2MB Chip RAM. The PiStorm has to setup 68040 emulation first. It is not like other A1200 accelerators wher they will activate automatically and give you what you want on power up.

As for games glitching. Then yes, even with version 3.0 ROMs not all games from the past will run natively, especially those designed for the A500. Especially if booting from floppy disk.
The way forward is with WHDLoad and game images. As long as you own the KS ROM files that WHDload uses to emulate each machine type. Plenty of videos on YouTube about this.

[mschulz]

An attempt to run games and/or demos from floppy directly means, they see several things at once:
1. A 68040 CPU wich they eventually have no support for
2. A CPU with enabled caches (JIT cache) which will cause a lot of trouble if they are using self-modifying-code
3. An awfully fast CPU which they are eventually not ready for - e.g. the coder might have assumed that some CPU operations will be slow enough that a blitter which they use finishes operation before CPU - this may lead to catastrophic results (glitches) if coder does not wait for blitter ready before re-using it.
4. Eventually the game or demo is not even ready for more recent kickstart if they were jumping directly to ROM violating normal way of using the kickstart.

As someone else wrote - this is the reason why WHDLoad was created. It not only allows to use floppy-only games from HD, it also can adjust several critical things on the CPU before launching game/demo. Plus, as in case of Emu68, one can run EmuControl there in order to slow CPU down to a level which the game/demo is happy with.

One can adjust Emu68 parameters on boot already to solve at least some of this things but this is a tedious work, better use WHDLoad for that.

[mschulz]

No issues there. What you have to remember that if running directly from a floppy disk, then the SD card on the Pistorm32 doesn’t run first. Hence no EMU68 emulation and setting up of Pi RAM as fastRAM. Therefore you will only see a stock A1200 config of 2MB Chip RAM. The PiStorm has to setup 68040 emulation first. It is not like other A1200 accelerators wher they will activate automatically and give you what you want on power up.

This is absolute rubbish. Emu68 is starting on boot already giving you all features as soon as Amiga starts. Already first CPU instruction of kickstart is executed by properly set up Emu68 with all the memory available (but not yet configured by exec.library).

Emu68 with PiStorm is exactly like any other A1200 accelerator. It is activated automatically and gives you everything on power up.

[Boing-ball]

This is absolute rubbish. Emu68 is starting on boot already giving you all features as soon as Amiga starts. Already first CPU instruction of kickstart is executed by properly set up Emu68 with all the memory available (but not yet configured by exec.library).

Emu68 with PiStorm is exactly like any other A1200 accelerator. It is activated automatically and gives you everything on power up.

Have you tried this for yourself? I have with an Pistorm32 and Pi4B and I know when I boot straight from a floppy disk on a A1200 with ATK, it shows a stock A1200 setup. The only time EMU68 gets a chance to be setup is when no Floppy disk is in the drive. Remeber that the floppy drive has priority 5 which is higher.

[mschulz]

I have tried that myself and I am absolutely sure that I know how it is working. In case you don’t trust me feel free to ask Emu68 author. But I am more than sure he will give you the very same answer. Literally identical answer.

[Boing-ball]

I have tried that myself and I am absolutely sure that I know how it is working. In case you don’t trust me feel free to ask Emu68 author. But I am more than sure he will give you the very same answer. Literally identical answer.

You are making the assumption that the OP has the SD card inserted into the Pi on bootup and has the correct partitions in place. Therefore the PiStorm will not function on startup
Don’t forget that with above you still have a stock A1200 setup.Therefore bootable software from floppy will ONLY access the stock A1200 config.

[Boing-ball]

Hi all,

I am seeing buggy graphics in some games and software.  I have just run Amiga Test Kit on my A1200 and it has raised the following attached issues.  From this I am wondering if my Amiga has a memory chip problem.

It has a Pistorm 32 lite installed but I had the same issues before installing this with the graphics. 

Some software runs fine, ie. Word Processesors, X Copy.

Any guidance or advice welcome.



Regards
Steven

You have setup the SD card for EMU68?

https://michalsc.github.io/Emu68/tutorials/SD_Preparation.html

[mschulz]

I assume that OP has correctly configured his pistorm, yes. Ptherwise one could also say that pistorm does not operate without a raspberry pi installed. For it to operate one needs a SD card with a FAT partition and raspberry + Emu68 files on it. No other partitions are necessary for Emu68 to operate and yes, you can boot from floppy with all features of pistorm/emu68 enabled.

Here, state of the art demo launched from floppy, Emu68 (including rgb pass-through enabled) running: https://youtu.be/14bMg5kGVkk?si=moRhHjwZSDwMlKKd

[Boing-ball]

I assume that OP has correctly configured his pistorm, yes. Ptherwise one could also say that pistorm does not operate without a raspberry pi installed. For it to operate one needs a SD card with a FAT partition and raspberry + Emu68 files on it. No other partitions are necessary for Emu68 to operate and yes, you can boot from floppy with all features of pistorm/emu68 enabled.

Pretty much what one has eluded to… 👍🏻🙄

[kolla]

Pretty much what one has eluded to… 👍🏻🙄

No, what you’ve been claiming is that just booting off from floppy is enough to disable Emu68 - that’s just wrong.

[ZXDunny]

@boingball when you said "What you have to remember that if running directly from a floppy disk, then the SD card on the Pistorm32 doesn’t run first." is kinda ... wrong?

With a slow Pi (like the Pi4) installed, the system will indeed boot correctly from the floppy for a few seconds before the PiStorm gets its legs under it and takes over the system, causing the boot process to restart.

It will then restart the floppy boot process but this time Emu68 will be in the driving seat - as well as the replacement kickstart ROM, the extra Fast RAM etc etc. Booting a floppy won't cause a properly set up Emu68 partition to fail to boot - that part will still happen.

Edit: Ninja's by Kolla

[Boing-ball]

No, what you’ve been claiming is that just booting off from floppy is enough to disable Emu68 - that’s just wrong.

Waldorf or stadler? Do not misquote the situation. Read the post properly. 😆 Your answer provides no help to the OP.

[Boing-ball]

@boingball when you said "What you have to remember that if running directly from a floppy disk, then the SD card on the Pistorm32 doesn’t run first." is kinda ... wrong?

With a slow Pi (like the Pi4) installed, the system will indeed boot correctly from the floppy for a few seconds before the PiStorm gets its legs under it and takes over the system, causing the boot process to restart.

It will then restart the floppy boot process but this time Emu68 will be in the driving seat - as well as the replacement kickstart ROM, the extra Fast RAM etc etc. Booting a floppy won't cause a properly set up Emu68 partition to fail to boot - that part will still happen.

Edit: Ninja's by Kolla

🤦🏻‍♂️ Read the posts will you…. What did I make clear afterwards? Does the OP have the SD card installed onto the Pi? What happens if no SD card installed? Yes? That’s right… No EMU68 and no 68040 and FastRAM… 🤔👊🏻🤣🤣🤣🤣

[ZXDunny]

Did you, or did you not, say:

What you have to remember that if running directly from a floppy disk, then the SD card on the Pistorm32 doesn’t run first.

I mean, that's pretty much assuming that the SD card will be overridden by a floppy, and that this would then prevent Emu68 from booting. I don't think there's any other way to interpret what you said - even if you insist that the SD card must not be present after the fact.

[Boing-ball]

Did you, or did you not, say:

I mean, that's pretty much assuming that the SD card will be overridden by a floppy, and that this would then prevent Emu68 from booting. I don't think there's any other way to interpret what you said - even if you insist that the SD card must not be present after the fact.

And then in the rest of the post I quote:

You are making the assumption that the OP has the SD card inserted into the Pi on bootup and has the correct partitions in place. Therefore the PiStorm will not function on startup
Don’t forget that with above you still have a stock A1200 setup.Therefore bootable software from floppy will ONLY access the stock A1200 config.

So again, I will ask you. Did you read the posts?

Pettiness for the sake of the OPs original question seems to be what one does not want to know 😉🤣