Amiga OS4.1 update 3 issues
Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 3:59 pm
First, I have to tell you who have been working on OS4 that there are a lot to like about the OS4 update 3:
- My Razer Copperhead laser mouse now works (it didn't on earlier OS-versions)
- the USB is faster
- the USB seems stable (I wrote/read a full DVD record via external DVD ROM without errors)
- It is possible to write a DVD via an external USB DVD writer with no negative sideeffects (multitasking works ok). Actually, I was amazed by how easy the OS recognized my external USB writer. It was just plug&play. Impressive!
- HD reads/writes are much faster than on earlier OS versions (10-15% speed improvement (!!)).
- SATA DVD drive consumes less CPU
- some 2D operations are much faster than update 2 according to GFXBench2D
All good improvements.
I really appreciate the continous development done with Amiga OS.
However, there are a few issues that needs to be sorted out.
Issue 1-5 below didn't exist in earlier OS4.1 versions, issue 6 did, and for what issues 7+ are concerned, I actually don't know.
Here it goes:
1) My "AEon Amiga mouse" gets deactivated at startup, and is hard to get working at all.
At 1st power on, it's "dead".
After a soft reboot, it might work (but not always).
After subsequent soft reboots, it doesn't work at all.
2) My "Razer Copperhead laser gaming mouse" is more stable, but gets deactivated now and then, sometimes at startup (happened when an USB card reader was connected before startup, but this might just be a coincidence).
Deactivation happens often when using Directory Opus, regardless of whether an USB memory card reader is connected or not (especially when using the scroll wheel on the mouse).
3) DVPlayer is less efficient with update 3 (consumes more CPU) compared to update 2, even though the DVPlayer binary is the same as I run on update 2. Version of DVPlayer used is 0.76 (the old one is 0.65).
This means the performance of v0.76 on OS4.1 update 3 is about similar as v0.65 on OS4.1 update 2, even though DVPlayer v0.76 itself is much, much faster than version 0.65.
4) RageMem shows me that the VIDEO BUS transfer speed is reduced (READ: 41->39 MB/s, WRITE: 63->53 MB/sec). Maybe this is the reason of DVPlayer's lowered performance? I don't know.
5) USB2 read speeds seems to be limited to around 6 MB/sec, even with devices that supports transfer speeds as high as 20 MB/sec. Write speeds are lower. I have tested reading from an external USB DVD-writer and USB memory cards; The max speed are the same.
6) I am experiencing the same issues with my "internal SATA DVD-writer" as on OS4.1 update 2:
a) When writing a DVD (via AmiDVD), max speed is still only 4xDVD, no matter what speed I set in AmiDVD (my DVD writer supports up to 20x and DVD records up to 16x). This is strange.
b) ..and it's almost impossible to access files on my disk partitions while burning. The CPU usage is low (which is good), but even though, the whole system seems to be "locked" with given intervals (if playing a video in the background, video freezes with given intervals).
PS: This is not an issue when burning via an external USB writer, and I am using AmiDVD in both cases.
So the reason is probably SATA related.
c) Problems with multitasking when using DVD ROM (this issue is probably related to the one above).
Here is what I do and the results:
- I start copying a file from DVD (1GB file),
- The CPU usage is 10% according to CPUinfo
- I start OpenSFV to process files on my HD simultaneously,
- The CPU usage is now about 13-15% as long as both processes are running,
- When the copying is finished, CPU usage increases to 80%, and OpenSFV gets the resources it need.
This means the system prevents other tasks using resources while reading from a DVD-rom.
d) When copying files from a DVD to HD, the max transfer rate seems to be 2.5 MB/sec, even though the DVD rotates in full speed.
e) IDETool. The DVD's spins always up to MAX rotating speed, and even though I set the reading speed to 1x in IDETool, the rotating speed is still max (causes unnecessary noise, heat and wear).
7) I'm also experiencing "lockups" in some cases when writing to HD. Normally, writing to HD is fast, but in some cases, this happens:
- the copying process stops for a while,
- CPU usage runs at idle.
- While this happens, the filesystem is "locked", so multitasking is limited. Example: Video playback stops (possibly due to limited disk access), and I cannot get access to directories and files via either the WB or Directory Opus.
PS: I don't know exactly why the writing process stops (in my test case it was a large file, so maybe the file system had problems finding fragments large enough? Just speculations..), but it isn't this I think is the real issue.
The issue is the "locking" of the (file)system, which prevents me from doing other tasks while I wait for the file copy to finish.
8) "Waving effect" of the displayed image in f.ex. Multiview when scrolling a shown image horizontal or vertical.
Details of my system:
- Hardware:
o ACube SAM440EP 667MHz (mini-ITX) with 512 MB RAM and onboard Radeon M9 gfx chip.
o SATA controller is also onboard (Silicon Image SII3114, I think).
o As storage, I use a 30GB OCZ SSD ("Solid series") and a 120GB OCZ SSD ("Vertex 2").
o Internal SATA DVD writer is a Plextor PX-820SA.
o External USB DVD writer is a Samsung WriteMaster SE-S224.
o Mice: "Razer Copperhead" and "AEon Amiga" (with boing ball logo). I am using only one at once.
o Keyboard: Logitech.
o USB hub (4 ports).
- Patches for the hardware:
o Acubes setup tool for Sam440ep (increases VIDEO BUS read speed from 14 to 39 MB/sec).
- OS:
o Amiga OS4.1 update 3.
- Filesystem:
o SFS2 on the disks in my tests above.
Feel free to ask if you need more details to easier solve the issues.
I'll be more than happy to help.
Below are output from GFXBench2D-results run on my system with OS4.1 update 3 and 2 accordingly.
GFXBench2D on update 3 shows these numbers (What "copy from RAM to VIDEO RAM" is concerned, the copy*-commands are slower than on update 2, except "WritePixelArray" which is much faster):
-------------------------------------------
System Information:
OS: AmigaOS Release 4.1 - Update 3
Motherboard: Sam440EP
CPU: AMCC PPC440EP, 1.3 @ 666.667 MHz
L1 Cache Size: 32768, L2 Cache Size: 0, L3 Cache Size: 0
Total RAM: 512 MiB
External Bus (FSB) Speed: 133.333 MHz
Exec.library version: 53.22
Graphics.library version: 53.4
Intuition.library version: 53.32
Picasso96API.library version: 2.356
Rtg.library version: 41.4355
Opening screen: P96-0:Radeon M9:1280x1024
Board name: Radeon M9
Product ID: 0x4c66 Vendor ID: 0x1002 SubProduct ID: 0x4c66 SubVendor ID: 0x1002
Board driver: Unknown (0, 0)
Chip driver: Unknown (0, 0)
VRAM: 63.9844 MiB
Display mode: 1280x1024@60 (32 bpp)
Copy from RAM to VRAM:
Transfer size: 15452160 bytes
Src: 0x59325000, Dest: 0xa8da6d00
copy32: 52.407 MiB/s (took 0.281190 seconds)
copy64: 53.357 MiB/s (took 0.276186 seconds)
copy64f: 53.417 MiB/s (took 0.275871 seconds)
copy64x2: 52.402 MiB/s (took 0.281218 seconds)
copy64fx2: 53.448 MiB/s (took 0.275711 seconds)
copy64fx2PF: 53.447 MiB/s (took 0.275720 seconds)
copy64fx4PF: 53.445 MiB/s (took 0.275731 seconds)
useMemcpy: 26.487 MiB/s (took 0.556353 seconds)
useExecCopyMem: 53.333 MiB/s (took 0.276309 seconds)
copyToVRAM: 52.488 MiB/s (took 0.280756 seconds)
WritePixelArray: 90.989 MiB/s (took 0.161958 seconds).
Copy from VRAM to RAM:
Transfer size: 15452160 bytes
Src: 0xa8da6d00, Dest: 0x59325000
copy32: 26.601 MiB/s (took 0.553985 seconds)
copy64: 28.472 MiB/s (took 0.517564 seconds)
copy64f: 30.294 MiB/s (took 0.486438 seconds)
useMemcpy: 10.245 MiB/s (took 1.438438 seconds)
useExecCopyMem: 26.596 MiB/s (took 0.554079 seconds)
copyFromVRAM: 29.993 MiB/s (took 0.491327 seconds)
ReadPixelArray: 33.809 MiB/s (took 0.435872 seconds).
...and these on update 2:
----------------------------------------
System Information:
OS: AmigaOS Release 4.1 - Update 2
Motherboard: Sam440EP
CPU: AMCC PPC440EP, 1.3 @ 666.667 MHz
L1 Cache Size: 32768, L2 Cache Size: 0, L3 Cache Size: 0
Total RAM: 512 MiB
External Bus (FSB) Speed: 133.333 MHz
Exec.library version: 53.12
Graphics.library version: 53.4
Intuition.library version: 53.30
Picasso96API.library version: 2.356
Rtg.library version: 41.4340
Opening screen: P96-0:Radeon M9:1280x1024
Board name: Radeon M9
Product ID: 0x4c66 Vendor ID: 0x1002 SubProduct ID: 0x4c66 SubVendor ID: 0x1002
Board driver: Unknown (0, 0)
Chip driver: Unknown (0, 0)
VRAM: 63.9844 MiB
Display mode: 1280x1024@60 (32 bpp)
Copy from RAM to VRAM:
Transfer size: 15452160 bytes
Src: 0x484ee000, Dest: 0xa8d322e0
copy32: 63.009 MiB/s (took 0.233878 seconds)
copy64: 55.838 MiB/s (took 0.263911 seconds)
copy64f: 63.218 MiB/s (took 0.233103 seconds)
copy64x2: 62.984 MiB/s (took 0.233971 seconds)
copy64fx2: 63.219 MiB/s (took 0.233100 seconds)
copy64fx2PF: 56.008 MiB/s (took 0.263109 seconds)
copy64fx4PF: 63.206 MiB/s (took 0.233149 seconds)
useMemcpy: 31.548 MiB/s (took 0.467104 seconds)
useExecCopyMem: 55.851 MiB/s (took 0.263853 seconds)
copyToVRAM: 63.204 MiB/s (took 0.233155 seconds)
WritePixelArray: 62.760 MiB/s (took 0.234803 seconds).
Copy from VRAM to RAM:
Transfer size: 15452160 bytes
Src: 0xa8d322e0, Dest: 0x484ee000
copy32: 20.961 MiB/s (took 0.703020 seconds)
copy64: 22.791 MiB/s (took 0.646581 seconds)
copy64f: 22.857 MiB/s (took 0.644705 seconds)
useMemcpy: 11.023 MiB/s (took 1.336833 seconds)
useExecCopyMem: 20.958 MiB/s (took 0.703147 seconds)
copyFromVRAM: 22.860 MiB/s (took 0.644627 seconds)
ReadPixelArray: 21.882 MiB/s (took 0.673447 seconds).
- My Razer Copperhead laser mouse now works (it didn't on earlier OS-versions)
- the USB is faster
- the USB seems stable (I wrote/read a full DVD record via external DVD ROM without errors)
- It is possible to write a DVD via an external USB DVD writer with no negative sideeffects (multitasking works ok). Actually, I was amazed by how easy the OS recognized my external USB writer. It was just plug&play. Impressive!
- HD reads/writes are much faster than on earlier OS versions (10-15% speed improvement (!!)).
- SATA DVD drive consumes less CPU
- some 2D operations are much faster than update 2 according to GFXBench2D
All good improvements.
I really appreciate the continous development done with Amiga OS.
However, there are a few issues that needs to be sorted out.
Issue 1-5 below didn't exist in earlier OS4.1 versions, issue 6 did, and for what issues 7+ are concerned, I actually don't know.
Here it goes:
1) My "AEon Amiga mouse" gets deactivated at startup, and is hard to get working at all.
At 1st power on, it's "dead".
After a soft reboot, it might work (but not always).
After subsequent soft reboots, it doesn't work at all.
2) My "Razer Copperhead laser gaming mouse" is more stable, but gets deactivated now and then, sometimes at startup (happened when an USB card reader was connected before startup, but this might just be a coincidence).
Deactivation happens often when using Directory Opus, regardless of whether an USB memory card reader is connected or not (especially when using the scroll wheel on the mouse).
3) DVPlayer is less efficient with update 3 (consumes more CPU) compared to update 2, even though the DVPlayer binary is the same as I run on update 2. Version of DVPlayer used is 0.76 (the old one is 0.65).
This means the performance of v0.76 on OS4.1 update 3 is about similar as v0.65 on OS4.1 update 2, even though DVPlayer v0.76 itself is much, much faster than version 0.65.
4) RageMem shows me that the VIDEO BUS transfer speed is reduced (READ: 41->39 MB/s, WRITE: 63->53 MB/sec). Maybe this is the reason of DVPlayer's lowered performance? I don't know.
5) USB2 read speeds seems to be limited to around 6 MB/sec, even with devices that supports transfer speeds as high as 20 MB/sec. Write speeds are lower. I have tested reading from an external USB DVD-writer and USB memory cards; The max speed are the same.
6) I am experiencing the same issues with my "internal SATA DVD-writer" as on OS4.1 update 2:
a) When writing a DVD (via AmiDVD), max speed is still only 4xDVD, no matter what speed I set in AmiDVD (my DVD writer supports up to 20x and DVD records up to 16x). This is strange.
b) ..and it's almost impossible to access files on my disk partitions while burning. The CPU usage is low (which is good), but even though, the whole system seems to be "locked" with given intervals (if playing a video in the background, video freezes with given intervals).
PS: This is not an issue when burning via an external USB writer, and I am using AmiDVD in both cases.
So the reason is probably SATA related.
c) Problems with multitasking when using DVD ROM (this issue is probably related to the one above).
Here is what I do and the results:
- I start copying a file from DVD (1GB file),
- The CPU usage is 10% according to CPUinfo
- I start OpenSFV to process files on my HD simultaneously,
- The CPU usage is now about 13-15% as long as both processes are running,
- When the copying is finished, CPU usage increases to 80%, and OpenSFV gets the resources it need.
This means the system prevents other tasks using resources while reading from a DVD-rom.
d) When copying files from a DVD to HD, the max transfer rate seems to be 2.5 MB/sec, even though the DVD rotates in full speed.
e) IDETool. The DVD's spins always up to MAX rotating speed, and even though I set the reading speed to 1x in IDETool, the rotating speed is still max (causes unnecessary noise, heat and wear).
7) I'm also experiencing "lockups" in some cases when writing to HD. Normally, writing to HD is fast, but in some cases, this happens:
- the copying process stops for a while,
- CPU usage runs at idle.
- While this happens, the filesystem is "locked", so multitasking is limited. Example: Video playback stops (possibly due to limited disk access), and I cannot get access to directories and files via either the WB or Directory Opus.
PS: I don't know exactly why the writing process stops (in my test case it was a large file, so maybe the file system had problems finding fragments large enough? Just speculations..), but it isn't this I think is the real issue.
The issue is the "locking" of the (file)system, which prevents me from doing other tasks while I wait for the file copy to finish.
8) "Waving effect" of the displayed image in f.ex. Multiview when scrolling a shown image horizontal or vertical.
Details of my system:
- Hardware:
o ACube SAM440EP 667MHz (mini-ITX) with 512 MB RAM and onboard Radeon M9 gfx chip.
o SATA controller is also onboard (Silicon Image SII3114, I think).
o As storage, I use a 30GB OCZ SSD ("Solid series") and a 120GB OCZ SSD ("Vertex 2").
o Internal SATA DVD writer is a Plextor PX-820SA.
o External USB DVD writer is a Samsung WriteMaster SE-S224.
o Mice: "Razer Copperhead" and "AEon Amiga" (with boing ball logo). I am using only one at once.
o Keyboard: Logitech.
o USB hub (4 ports).
- Patches for the hardware:
o Acubes setup tool for Sam440ep (increases VIDEO BUS read speed from 14 to 39 MB/sec).
- OS:
o Amiga OS4.1 update 3.
- Filesystem:
o SFS2 on the disks in my tests above.
Feel free to ask if you need more details to easier solve the issues.
I'll be more than happy to help.
Below are output from GFXBench2D-results run on my system with OS4.1 update 3 and 2 accordingly.
GFXBench2D on update 3 shows these numbers (What "copy from RAM to VIDEO RAM" is concerned, the copy*-commands are slower than on update 2, except "WritePixelArray" which is much faster):
-------------------------------------------
System Information:
OS: AmigaOS Release 4.1 - Update 3
Motherboard: Sam440EP
CPU: AMCC PPC440EP, 1.3 @ 666.667 MHz
L1 Cache Size: 32768, L2 Cache Size: 0, L3 Cache Size: 0
Total RAM: 512 MiB
External Bus (FSB) Speed: 133.333 MHz
Exec.library version: 53.22
Graphics.library version: 53.4
Intuition.library version: 53.32
Picasso96API.library version: 2.356
Rtg.library version: 41.4355
Opening screen: P96-0:Radeon M9:1280x1024
Board name: Radeon M9
Product ID: 0x4c66 Vendor ID: 0x1002 SubProduct ID: 0x4c66 SubVendor ID: 0x1002
Board driver: Unknown (0, 0)
Chip driver: Unknown (0, 0)
VRAM: 63.9844 MiB
Display mode: 1280x1024@60 (32 bpp)
Copy from RAM to VRAM:
Transfer size: 15452160 bytes
Src: 0x59325000, Dest: 0xa8da6d00
copy32: 52.407 MiB/s (took 0.281190 seconds)
copy64: 53.357 MiB/s (took 0.276186 seconds)
copy64f: 53.417 MiB/s (took 0.275871 seconds)
copy64x2: 52.402 MiB/s (took 0.281218 seconds)
copy64fx2: 53.448 MiB/s (took 0.275711 seconds)
copy64fx2PF: 53.447 MiB/s (took 0.275720 seconds)
copy64fx4PF: 53.445 MiB/s (took 0.275731 seconds)
useMemcpy: 26.487 MiB/s (took 0.556353 seconds)
useExecCopyMem: 53.333 MiB/s (took 0.276309 seconds)
copyToVRAM: 52.488 MiB/s (took 0.280756 seconds)
WritePixelArray: 90.989 MiB/s (took 0.161958 seconds).
Copy from VRAM to RAM:
Transfer size: 15452160 bytes
Src: 0xa8da6d00, Dest: 0x59325000
copy32: 26.601 MiB/s (took 0.553985 seconds)
copy64: 28.472 MiB/s (took 0.517564 seconds)
copy64f: 30.294 MiB/s (took 0.486438 seconds)
useMemcpy: 10.245 MiB/s (took 1.438438 seconds)
useExecCopyMem: 26.596 MiB/s (took 0.554079 seconds)
copyFromVRAM: 29.993 MiB/s (took 0.491327 seconds)
ReadPixelArray: 33.809 MiB/s (took 0.435872 seconds).
...and these on update 2:
----------------------------------------
System Information:
OS: AmigaOS Release 4.1 - Update 2
Motherboard: Sam440EP
CPU: AMCC PPC440EP, 1.3 @ 666.667 MHz
L1 Cache Size: 32768, L2 Cache Size: 0, L3 Cache Size: 0
Total RAM: 512 MiB
External Bus (FSB) Speed: 133.333 MHz
Exec.library version: 53.12
Graphics.library version: 53.4
Intuition.library version: 53.30
Picasso96API.library version: 2.356
Rtg.library version: 41.4340
Opening screen: P96-0:Radeon M9:1280x1024
Board name: Radeon M9
Product ID: 0x4c66 Vendor ID: 0x1002 SubProduct ID: 0x4c66 SubVendor ID: 0x1002
Board driver: Unknown (0, 0)
Chip driver: Unknown (0, 0)
VRAM: 63.9844 MiB
Display mode: 1280x1024@60 (32 bpp)
Copy from RAM to VRAM:
Transfer size: 15452160 bytes
Src: 0x484ee000, Dest: 0xa8d322e0
copy32: 63.009 MiB/s (took 0.233878 seconds)
copy64: 55.838 MiB/s (took 0.263911 seconds)
copy64f: 63.218 MiB/s (took 0.233103 seconds)
copy64x2: 62.984 MiB/s (took 0.233971 seconds)
copy64fx2: 63.219 MiB/s (took 0.233100 seconds)
copy64fx2PF: 56.008 MiB/s (took 0.263109 seconds)
copy64fx4PF: 63.206 MiB/s (took 0.233149 seconds)
useMemcpy: 31.548 MiB/s (took 0.467104 seconds)
useExecCopyMem: 55.851 MiB/s (took 0.263853 seconds)
copyToVRAM: 63.204 MiB/s (took 0.233155 seconds)
WritePixelArray: 62.760 MiB/s (took 0.234803 seconds).
Copy from VRAM to RAM:
Transfer size: 15452160 bytes
Src: 0xa8d322e0, Dest: 0x484ee000
copy32: 20.961 MiB/s (took 0.703020 seconds)
copy64: 22.791 MiB/s (took 0.646581 seconds)
copy64f: 22.857 MiB/s (took 0.644705 seconds)
useMemcpy: 11.023 MiB/s (took 1.336833 seconds)
useExecCopyMem: 20.958 MiB/s (took 0.703147 seconds)
copyFromVRAM: 22.860 MiB/s (took 0.644627 seconds)
ReadPixelArray: 21.882 MiB/s (took 0.673447 seconds).