PCI Card Position

[lozspd4]

Hi all after years of PC,ive come back to amiga I finally finished the build of my UPGRADED PPC from Stachu, Had a few problems installing OS4.1 Classic, But with the help of searching this Forum managed to iron out all the problems.

But i would like to ask a few questions, ive got my fastata MKii working at full speed using the elbox driver, but only for Hardrives, cdplayer starts with cd in but doesn,t reckonise when the cd is changed so (native scsi for install)then ata.driver.So disconnected the cd,using a sata one now.

I found out the best card order in the mediator by my modell. which is the mediator1200 first version with the upgraded machs is following
PCI slot 1 ethernet card
PCI slot 2 SB128
PCI slot 3 SATA 4 Port sii3114
PCI slot 4 Radeon 9250 in this position the Os4.1 upgrade 3 problem with the radeon.chip datei doesn,t have to be changed with the upgrade 2 version it works perfect, but in pci 1,2,3 have to use radeon.chip upgrade 2 version wierd .

On the sata 4 port i have a lg dvd burner and a seagate 160gb HD.working perfect, speed is about 3-3.5 MB/sec with is slightly slower then the fastata MKII which pulls about 4 mb/sec on hd and 5 mb/sec CF Card. using drivespeed.
Is there a special reason why the FAQ say the card order should be Radeon, ethernet , sound, sata, or was that the best they found on most mediators during development.

will there be a update to get rid of the glitches with the warp 3d.
The system is working perfect and even though its limited on speed when using certain programs. For my use its impressive Well DONE to the Developers .
Im Happy with OS4.1 classic and will be using it a lot, plus the old feeling of using a real amiga with os3.9 68k and 4.1classic PPC is cool.

regards Lozspd4

[danbeaver]

I'm sorry on two fronts: I have an A4000T (well 2 of them) with full Mediator setup and not an A1200; second, I don't fully understand you setup and what you are asking.

Could you please describe as simply as possible your setup and then the problem you are having?

Dan

[lozspd4]

Hi danbeaver
Thanks For your replay,

Basically i just wanted to know is

A: Do you have to have the PCI Fitted Cards in the same order As per the F.A.Q, Is there a reason for this is (i.e Stability) , as i mentioned in my 1st Post i found my system runs better in the order i mentioned . I found out with the Radeon 9250 in slot one i was having slight GFX pixels when other cards where fitted, Plus i had the same problem with the update 3 radeon.chip problem when fitted in pci slot 1 to 3. when it is fitted in pci 4 all problems are gone.

B: i am using the ata.driver 7.1 to get my fastata MK 2 working at full speed, just cd rom doesn,t work on cd wechsel, is there a Software fix for the Fastata MK 2.

C: is there a update for the warp3d glitches ie to solve shadow problem under the ship with wipeout2097.

D: Just out Question of intresst has any one try`d a ssd HD drive on the SATA sii3114, is there any speed diffrence.

MY setup
Power supply is a good one with 40a on the 5v bus
All jumpers are set correctly on the mediator
A1200 rev 4.1 d with all timing mods done.
Lyra 2 key board adapter
Fastata 1200 MK 2
Blizzard PPC UPgraded to 060/66Mhz 603/330Mhz no scsi
Mediator 1200 ist 1st version with updated Mach chips from Elbox
PCI Boards are: in the order from pci slot 1 to 4
8029 ethernet card.
SoundBlaster 128.
SATA 4 Port Silicon 3114 chip.
Radeon 9250 128 Mb.

Regards
Lozspd4

[danbeaver]

Thank you for excellent detail!
On the PCI slot issue, Elbox says it really does not matter what order they are in; however Elbox does not write the drivers for the Mediator running under OS 4.1, Hyperion does and their experience lists what they feel works best. I agree I have tried different slots with different cards with good results; in the end I did place them all in the Hyperion order list. But what works best for you, is what works best for you!

The FastATA 1200 should support the CD drive, to the best of my knowledge, the only way to improve the function is with IDEfix. You can download a trial version off the net or a better choice is to buy Amiga Forever which has the registration code with the full program. The only changes you can otherwise make is with the FastATA's ROM. IDEFix does a nice job correcting IDE issues especially on CD drives.

The warp3d libraries are several years old; the only new code you can try is Wazp library files where new ones appear every few month and are direct replacements. RTG_Master libraries and file help stabilize issues with RTG boards, just make sure you get the OS 4.1 RTG_Master fix off Aminet. I use a Radeon 9200 from Elbox and get extremely good results; there remain glitches that are intermittent and not easy to reproduce to define what is at fault. Contrary to some misguided folks threads, warp programs are supported in OS 4.1; how do I know? By the big flashing screen that comes up on starting some programs that says, "Warp Up Support Provided by GURU Meditation."

For your D question, I only know of one fool who tried to see if there was a difference using a SATA II one (1) TB drive with a 64MB cache and then later an SATA III SSD on the sii3114ide device -- yep, that's me. I posted some speed numbers in one my posts and the SATA card must be limited not by the drives, but by the interface and software as all of the numbers were the same (and quite poor). The PPC has to hop on the Zorro bus, jump through the Mediator "bridge card" then onto the PCI bus and then to the controller to get to the hard drive. It is a shame as NewEgg has 120GB SATA III drives on sale in the eighty US salad leaves range.

I hope some of this helps

Dan

[lozspd4]

Hi Dan
Thankyou very much for the excellent information ref warp 3d will give that a try with wazp libraries and rtg_master fix,see how it performs.

ref the fastata drivers i think ill stay with it, as idefix will proberly be the same speed as the native scsi solution,but just activating the other ports i imaging, i do have a licence key somewhere in my documents when i purchased it 13years ago.
I only have a 8 gig CF Card on the fast ata to load the bootloader everthing else is on the sata ports.just annoying if i have to do a reinstall as i will need a ide cd rom for that.

Again thanks for the info on the ssd thought it might be due to the bus restriction which slow the sata ports, so the drives give lower data transferrates,But its on par with my fastata so im happy still better then the native scsi which is about 1.9mb/s.

Would be intresting if someone else with a A1200 setup with the update 3 problem with the radeon.chip ,if they change the radeon to PCI slot 4, if the problem also goes away, if they could post the result if it works by them as well, would help the developers as well i imagine when they do the next update.

its a shame about the spider usb card is not working but its not drastic as i have a windows home server and the win net program from os4 depot logs and works with it with no glitches for my data transfers backups etc.

Again many thanks for your help, going to have some fun trying all this out.

regards
Lozspd4

[lozspd4]

Hi Dan
I,ve tryed warz3d but wipeout now runs really really slow,i did what the light readme said, rename warp3d.library to warp3d.library-save, then copyed warz3d.library-ppc to libs: renamed it to warp3d.libray,copied warz3d.prefs to Prefs, now it slow as hell can you list your settings,maybe im doing something wrong.

put the rtgmaster.libray and the other libs to libs: flame mentions i need other library,s.

could you tell me what im doing .

Manythanks
Lozspd4

[danbeaver]

Sorry for the delay getting back to you, but then I don't have wipeout so I can't tell you why it is slow. My Warp3D programs run fast but I have a CSPPC with a 604e running at 233Mhz.

I have a lot of experience with OS 4.1 and Amiga hardware after 26 years of Amiga use, a minor in computer science (yeah, from 1979), and programming in assembly language while in grad school on the side during summers, BUT I only play a few games (since my C64 years -- 1983 to 1986), so games are my weak side. I would ask that question on Amibay's AmiOracle > Amiga.org > Eab's web site. There is a dude who goes by "FitzSteve" who really knows a ton on both soft & hardware

Keep the faith!

[danbeaver]

I found this thread about Wazp3D, go down a few posts were it talks about compositing.


http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/vie ... orum=43&78

[Calgor]

Regarding the original question on PCI card position... a different position will mean that different memory addresses will be used per card in the amiga's (mediator's) memory address space. You should be able to verify this by using the Ranger program to look at each PCI card's memory and I/O information. As to other differences, I am not sure what they might be.

My understanding is those recommended slots are what has been experienced to be most compatible, with some cards not working in certain slot positions. Based on some other users' empirical evidence, this of course does not mean that the recommended solution is the only one that will work, but nor does it mean that it will always work.

As I have not encountered a non-working solution (in my A4000T mediator which uses the recommended positions), I am not sure why it does not work in certain card and slot combinations in the PCI slots. It could be a conflict of some kind; interesting that you have observed different behaviour with different Radeon.chip versions. You could of course see if OS3.9 has problems with certain combinations and compare the OS3.x PCIInfo command output with the OS4.1 Ranger output, but not sure it is worth your effort or if you will glean anything useful from that.

[lozspd4]

Regarding the original question on PCI card position... a different position will mean that different memory addresses will be used per card in the amiga's (mediator's) memory address space. You should be able to verify this by using the Ranger program to look at each PCI card's memory and I/O information. As to other differences, I am not sure what they might be.

My understanding is those recommended slots are what has been experienced to be most compatible, with some cards not working in certain slot positions. Based on some other users' empirical evidence, this of course does not mean that the recommended solution is the only one that will work, but nor does it mean that it will always work.

As I have not encountered a non-working solution (in my A4000T mediator which uses the recommended positions), I am not sure why it does not work in certain card and slot combinations in the PCI slots. It could be a conflict of some kind; interesting that you have observed different behaviour with different Radeon.chip versions. You could of course see if OS3.9 has problems with certain combinations and compare the OS3.x PCIInfo command output with the OS4.1 Ranger output, but not sure it is worth your effort or if you will glean anything useful from that.

Hi Guy,s Many Thanks for your Help in the above mentioned info, sorry for belated reply but ive been oversee,s and have just got back This Friday, Well ref the tip with Os3.9. Don,t really want to put that back on this sys as its a pure 4.1classic system, i,ve just put update 5 on haven,t really tested it that much.

But have noticed that format cdrw Program can,t find my Sata DVD to format or delete the DVD/RW but Ami DVD works perfect with it,making backups of my sys disk without a Problem, or do i have to give the device type and unit number in, as there are no configs for this program, so i have to use bill gates to wipe the dvd clean before i make a backup so os4.1classic is still not 100% independent.

Thanks Danbeaver ref SSD Info i tryed it with a c300 64gb ssd but you were right only getting a slow 3mb/s shame that it doesn,t transfer any quicker
and i very much doubt that ELBOX will Bring a driver for Sata PCI Cards on OS3.9 as it would effect their sales on the FASTA.

Hope the Guys at Hyperion can tweak some more speed out of the Driver for next Update.
Thanks Again
Lozspd4