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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

Wanted, V600 Core 2.11

David Suter

Posts 102
31 Mar 2022 11:20


Hi,

I want to try my original core 2.11 with coffin r54 to see if there is slowdown on the vampire 2 V600.
After updating to anything higher than 2.11 (the one with the nice picture at boot) I have slowdown on some games and demos.
If I remember right I didnt have the problem before upgrading to a higher core.
Everything worked fine on 2.11
Can I please have a link to V600 2.11 and I will post my results on there.

Thank you.



Danilo Drago

Posts 43
31 Mar 2022 11:47


try here: EXTERNAL LINK


David Suter

Posts 102
31 Mar 2022 11:51


Thanks. I'll try it out now.

A few minutes later....

Still slowdown :(



Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
31 Mar 2022 13:21


David Suter wrote:

Still slowdown :(

Maybe the slowdown it on purpose?
What game do you talk about here for example?
Is this a WHDLOAD game?


David Suter

Posts 102
31 Mar 2022 13:43


Yes, Whdload games and demos on my vampire 2 V600.
  Some have slowdown that does not occur on my V4 SA. 
  Is there something wrong with my V2 ?
  I have tried a few different cores and have been testing with coffin.
  I might try an Apollo OS setup and see if it happens then.
  I have another thread on here referring to the slowdown and the conversation went dead.
  I am really having a problem with the V2.
  I'll put together a list of some games and demos that have the slowdown.
  Also I have tried setting turtle mode and it didnt make any difference.
 
  Gunnar von Boeln, please try demo "Deja Vu" on V2 and see the slowdown during the vector part.
  The music will also slow down.
  ATM I am running core 2.15 and coffin r58 and I have also tried the coffin core.
 
 


Sean Sk

Posts 488
01 Apr 2022 00:25


For those games and demo's where you are experiencing slowdown, try putting "Cache" into the tooltypes of the game or demo.


David Suter

Posts 102
01 Apr 2022 01:55


Hi, Thanks for your suggestion.

Could you please give instructions.



Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
01 Apr 2022 09:01


David Suter wrote:

I'll put together a list of some games and demos that have the slowdown. 

 
WHDLOAD is a tool which helps to run make games and demos from harddrive which before only worked from Floppy disk.
 
For this floppy access is emulated in WHDLOAD.
As you will know the Amiga chipset uses DMA.
DMA means direct memory access.
And Amiga chipset DMA goes fully in parallel to running the CPU.
This means the Amiga chipset runs in parellel to code running on the CPU - and does not slow down the CPU.
 
This means on a AMIGA the floppy can load data in parallel to a game running - without slowing it down.
 
But WHDLOAD can not do this.
 
When WHDLOAD emulates a Floppy access it will "stop" the demo or game during this access. Sometimes the screen will even go black during this WHDLOAD floppy access.
 
This means when you run a demo or game in WHDLOAD and this does load the next level from disk - then the game and demo will freeze.
This is "normal" behavior of WHDLOAD.
 
You can partly influence this in your WHDLOAD config and can for example "preload" the whole at start.
 


David Suter

Posts 102
01 Apr 2022 10:11


OK thanks for the message.

Why isn't the slowdown there with the V4 ?
I thought it was the same apollo 68080 cpu.
Is it because the V2 V600 uses the original chipset for video and sound and is not in sync with the cpu on the FPGA ?

Please understand the demos work perfectly on the V4 but not on V2.

There is NO floppy emulation in that part of the demo, its loaded into memory. I have the floppy for the demo in my collection and tried it in my other A600.

I will also say if the 68080 can be forced to run in 030 mode the slowdown wont happen, I have an A1200 with an indivision 030 accelerator, runs perfectly with WHDload.
However when I put my blizzard 060 in and run the demo the slowdown is in the same spot.

I wish there was a Vcontrol syntax for making the 080 run as 030.
I an quite sure WHDload will run perfectly.
I might be wrong, but lets experiment with that.

Thanks guys.




Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
01 Apr 2022 12:25


David Suter wrote:

  OK thanks for the message.
 
  Why isn't the slowdown there with the V4 ?
 

Are you running the same version of WHDLOAD on both?
Are you running the same version of the demo/same slave version on both?
Are you running the same Operating system on both?
 
Do you have the Demo as real EXE without WHDLOAD?
How does this real EXE run?
 
 
> However when I put my blizzard 060 in and run the demo the slowdown is in the same spot.
 
This sounds like a bug in WHDLOAD or the in the DEMO slave that you use.
 



David Suter

Posts 102
01 Apr 2022 13:01


Hi,
   
    Both are running coffin r58 from original image. The demo is launched with iGame and WHDload has the same config.
    The demo is not in exe but several parts.
    However the part with slowdown is loaded into memory before the slowdown starts.
    Please take a moment and run demo "Deja Vu" on a V2.
    Ideally from a fresh card with coffin.
    I have tried Apollo OS and the same thing happens.
    I also played last ninja 2 from coffin on my V2 and the ninja sometimes runs slowly.
    That is another game I had trouble with on my A1200 Blizzard 060 setup.
    A 68030 CPU outperforms an 68060 with WHDload, thats what I experienced anyway.
    I am not saying 030 is faster.
    Try the demo and you will see the difference with V2 and V4.
   
    Thanks again for your time.
     
   
   
   
   


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
01 Apr 2022 13:18


David Suter wrote:

A 68030 CPU outperforms an 68060 with WHDload, thats what I experienced anyway.   

 
All faster 68K CPUs have CPU caches.
The CPU caches make them run fast.
 
You can turn on all 68K CPU these caches OFF.
If you turn the caches OFF the CPU will run much slower.
Turning OFF is often done by WHDLOAD to make badly coded games/demos run more stable on faster CPUs.

The instruction to disable the Cache is different on 030 and 060.

This means a program like WHDLOAD can turn the cache for 060 OFF - while this instruction will have no effect on the 030.
 
This could explain what you see.
 


David Suter

Posts 102
01 Apr 2022 14:15


I understand.

I just thought the Apollo 68080 was based on the 68040 and was the same on V2 and V4.

I dont understand why I dont get slowdown on my V4 but do on my V2.

I have both to compare.

Thanks.



David Suter

Posts 102
04 Apr 2022 07:16


Could you please tell me how to turn on cache with WHDload ?
I need the right command to put in whdload.prefs
 
Thanks
   


David Suter

Posts 102
04 Apr 2022 08:43


I have tried Cache and BranchCache in tooltypes and it did not fix the problem.

 

posts 15