Hyperion Entertainment Message Boards

nbache wrote:

kgrach wrote:Now who's bright idea was it to only include drivers for PCI cards obsolete and almost impossible to find a decade ago.
Really 8029 come on. Could you not do a driver for a card made in the last five years and that somebody would have a chance of finding. somebody needs a flogging

The RTL drivers have been part of OS4 for around four years already, they weren't made for the Classic release only.

I just bought a Netgear GA311 which has the RTL8169 chip. It works fine in my latest Amiga using the rtl8169 driver. It wasn't hard to find in a Danish web shop. The hardest part is finding out which cards have the RTL chips, but Wikipedia can often help, and I found that they were in many more cards than it appeared from the cards' pages in most web shops.

Maybe the average Win user doesn't care what chip is on a card, so it isn't worth mentioning in the product description.

Best regards,

Niels

RTL 8169 isn't listed in the hardware compatibility list. Did you have to do anything special to get it to work? Does it also work under OS3.9?

Calgor wrote:RTL 8169 isn't listed in the hardware compatibility list. Did you have to do anything special to get it to work? Does it also work under OS3.9?

Sorry, I didn't notice the section was Classic; I'm using it in an NG Amiga.

Best regards,

Niels

DarrenHD wrote: If you want an update to the FAQ let me know.

First of all thank you very much for this FAQ. It really helped me a lot since I am new for OS 4.1 Classic. However there as some things I would want to have updated. These are just recommendations ofcourse.

1.2 A:

I was quite confused at this section as a newbie so beeing more spesific would not hurt:

Old: Enter the Cyberstorm PPC menu by holding down the “Esc” key when powering on your Amiga.
New: Enter the Cyberstorm PPC Phase 5 Control Menu by holding down the “Esc” key when powering on your Amiga.

Old: Go into "SCSI", then "Controller".
New: Go into "SCSI", then click Unit number where you have SCSI CDROM connected.

Old: Ensure your SCSI CDROM unit is "On"
New: Ensure your SCSI CDROM unit is set to "8 LUNs" and change "Auto Mount" to "Mount" and "No CDRom Mount".

Old: that is why you must set your SCSI CDROM unit to "No CDRom Mount"
New: that is why you must keep your SCSI CDROM unti defaulted to "No CDRom Mount"

Old: Go into “SCSI”, then “Controller”, and increase the SCSI Reset Delay value as much as possible as older SCSI CDROMS can take more than 20 seconds to become ready after powering on your Amiga.
New: Go into “SCSI”, then “Controller” (by default in Unit 7), and increase the SCSI Reset Delay value as much as possible as older SCSI CDROMS can take more than 20 seconds to become ready after powering on your Amiga. For newer SCSI CDROMS (for example year 2002 production) values as low as 7 seconds have been noticed tested to work well.


1.6 A:

Extra character in the end of the chapter:

|


1.7 Q:

Error:

PIO-O
PIO-0 or PIO Mode 0


2.3 Q:

Error:

For For

Add Thylacine USB and BigRamPlus (256MB board)

danbeaver wrote:Add Thylacine USB and BigRamPlus (256MB board)

I will release an updated FAQ soon.

Thanks for all the contributions - keep them coming!

If you want to email me any contributions to the FAQ directly (so I don't miss anything), please send them to darrenhd @ gmail.com

(no spaces)

Thanks

DarrenHD wrote:
Thanks for the info, I'll update the FAQ shortly. As for the network card support,

Most PCI cards require DMA, which OS4.1 Classic doesn't support, more specifically the Mediator is not a Zorro 3 DMA card. Elbox uses a DMA buffer hack using part of graphics memory for this buffer, but that will not be supported on AmigaOS 4.1 Classic, as it would require large changes to the graphics card driver subsystem and kernel. Quite frankly it's not worth it, since all of the functionality from these DMA cards is already present by using PIO compatible cards, zorro cards, or with the Deneb.

Darren

Darren, I am almost ashamed of you for saying that :-

"Quite frankly it's not worth it, since all of the functionality from these DMA cards is already present by using PIO compatible cards, zorro cards, or with the Deneb."

I have an A1200 Towered Blizzard PPC based Mediator system - this system was out looooooong before OS4 was ever realised, and as such the original Amiga Classic hardware was where the OS4 was going to be - supposed to be - realised, along with the A1, and other variants.

Hyperion, basically the Friedens, as I understand it, decided that they didn't like the Elbox 'hack' and so stripped any chance of getting the 'hack' implemented for Classic users with Mediator systems, which is where much of the OS4 user potential existed. They virtually put an end to that, and what with the appalling OS4.0 release virtually killed-off many ClassicPPC users interest in OS4.x.

I have to admit that betatesters like you have allowed some improvements for OS4.1.x ... BUT the lack of USB hardware, sound card, Parallel and SCSI card support, together with other useful USB cards, etc is making the Classic OS4.x virtually unworthy of spending the money on it.

I have a 6 slot Mediator, that I can use the GFX card, and RTL8029AS NIC in it - I then have 4 slots that are doing NOTHING - all because of the 'hack' that works under OS3.9 not being implemented by Hyperion - it's appalling, and as 'kgrach' stated only an RTL8029AS rather than an RTL8139 being possible to use is making it harder to acquire such hardware as many older systems have already been re-cycled so the hardware has 'gone to meet it's maker' reducing the hardware pool by even more.

Nevermind that the RTL8139 is supported using the Elbox 'hack' under OS3.9 - the premier Amiga OS, as that allows ALL hardware that was made for it to work as intended, without any limitations other than the CPU speed, or amount of RAM installable in an Amiga.

Even some of the Adaptec SCSI cards have been coded to work under OS3.9, using the Mediator, but disallowed by OS4.x not implementing the Elbox 'hack' - it's like we have taken some step backwards in technology, rather than pushing the envelope of the CyberStorm & Blizzard PPC cards.

You should also not forget that the Deneb and the Subway cards are no longer manufactured, and there aren't any others on the horizon or likely to replace them in the distant future, so how does USB get implemented on an A1200 or A4000 with OS4.x - even if you've got a PPC card?

Additionally, seeing as many A1200 owners have a Mediator they cannot use a Zorro based USB solution, it has to be a PCI based one, so Hyperion shot the Amiga community in the foot, as far as I see it.

The DMA hack used by Elbox requires memory on an installed graphic card; without a graphics card nothing else works. OS4.1 does support DMA on the CSPPC's UWSCSI only. That is the current paradigm; a shift would require a kernel rewrite. I fully expect there to be a paradigm shift in the future supporting DMA on other devices, but not while the rest of the OS is still in development.

The OS4.1 team wrote their own PCI drivers which is why there are drivers for cards Elbox does not support (sii3114ide for example). The PCI bus support includes the Prometheus so there are non-egocentric issues that you and I, as non-OS programming users must accept. OS4.1 covers a wide range of computers as does Linux; while the kernel is motherboard specific, the rest of the modules are for the most part, are the same. Linux is written for by likely every university in the world and OSX and Windows have a large number users paying around the same amount. I personally accept the limitations of an OS meant for a small audience; others may not.