Raven. A homemade Atari-like computer

[agranlund]

I really do like Gembench so please don't get me wrong, but I don't think it's a good tool for measuring real-life desktop responsiveness in a high resolution environment and where you have accelerants in play too.

It mostly measures drawing of GEM/VDI primitives, which is nice of course but in reality the thing you care most about is being able to very quickly move large blocks of pixels of already drawn stuff.
Even if all of Gembench "draw the primitive" scores were higher on a non-blitter card, I would still without hesitation pick the card with blitter.

It's the most costly operation when dealing with large number of pixels, the one used a lot, and the one you kind of "feel" since it's often effecting feedback from user interaction. Moving things around, scrolling contents and so on.
If the initial drawing of something is not crazy fast then no-one really seem to care even on modern computers, but if the interacting-with part is slow or sluggish then it's perceived as a bit rubbish really.

Gembench does measure blit speed individually but it's such a small amount of pixels that I'm doubtful how useful that score is as an indication of high resolution desktop performance.

You do see the benefit in the vdi-scroll test in your screenshots though, and perhaps that one is the most real-life like blitter-test Gembench has.
It's most likely the blitter moving the old content up, then blitting a rectangle for clearing the new area, then finally it's a non-blitter task of drawing some new primtives in that new area (which probably is about roughly the same speed on both cards).
It's again the blitter you want, no-one really cares about the speed of drawing those new primitives in that context - the largest amount of work in that operation was moving and clearing blocks of pixels.

[frank.lukas]

... my feeling was that there wasn't a big difference between ax and w32i when working with the Atari TOS Desktop, but there was a lot of difference when compared to a MACH32, especially when NVDI5 runs as GDOS with the Nova driver and speeds everything up a bit more.

[artik-wroc]

Lacking a Panther/2 I am unable to test, but if my hunch is correct then the latest version of the mod plugins may work without upsetting the mouse.
It no longer does unnecessary blocks with all interrupts disabled. If nothing else, it at least makes my machine responsive and without jerky mouse cursor during uploading of samples.

Now it's ok. The mouse is obedient

[agranlund]

Now it's ok. The mouse is obedient

catmouse.jpg (7.7 KiB) Viewed 748 times

[agranlund]

Haha I'm such a fool..
Spent way too much time chasing why the screen 'randomly' went blank, with the computer still running fine in the background.

. try different monitor
. try different vga cable
. try with different resolutions, and custom .BIB settings
. can it be IO access glitch? soo many firmware tests...
. bad connection on ISA slot or card? somehow effecting this card but not my AX?
. why is it sometimes happening immediately and sometimes after a while? heat related?

And then I realized..
I had forgotten to copy over my STA_VDI.INF when changing driver and it was the mouse-position based screensaver that was kicking in, a little bit random and whenever it wanted to, and it's impossible to get out of screensaver mode.

I don't know how that works but perhaps it has issues with mouse coordinates on my non-standard hardware, though I remember having the exact same issue on my accelerated ST until I found out how to disable everything screensaver related.
ST was probably using ST drivers with 030 cpu, clone is using the TT drivers on 060 cpu - cache related?
Doesn't really matter why, it works now with that disabled, and it was many years since screens needed saving anyway


Note to others, and future self:
The new Nova drivers don't come with a template STA_VDI.INF but you can get one from the old original Nova driver packages, or create one yourself. The line you are interested in having is:
SLEEP = OFF

In addition to that, NOVA_COL.ACC can used to disable the other, time-based, screensaver.
(Or hex-edit STA_VDI.PRG , I think Idek posted instructions for that in a screensaver-issue related thread on the other Atari forum, but it's just easier to use the accessory)

[artik-wroc]

ST was probably using ST drivers with 030 cpu, clone is using the TT drivers on 060 cpu

TT drivers with 030 CPU (PAK)

Many thanks for your great work.
It's nice that this can be used with other Ataris as well.

[DrZiplok]

I spent a frustrating evening after moving my Raven into the chassis and updating Nessi trying to debug serial corruption and non-booting problems.

The root of the problem seems to be that my SFX power supply (a very modest Be Quiet 650W unit) is unstable at low power levels, and while the CPU runs OK(!), the RS-232 line driver doesn't like it.

My solution - go back to the 150W PicoPSU that I was using on the bench. Raven does not have much bulk filtering on the board, so having the PSU right there on the power connector is like having a local VRM.

[Oldskool]

Hello Anders,

My W32I has also arrived already feels much quicker and indeed higher resolution are supported and it also stated 512kb.
There are some graphical glitches. I think you mentioned a tuned Nessi is needed for perfect performance.

[agranlund]

Hello Anders,

My W32I has also arrived already feels much quicker and indeed higher resolution are supported and it also stated 512kb.
There are some graphical glitches. I think you mentioned a tuned Nessi is needed for perfect performance.

Nice!
Yep, this one works on my Mach32, W32i, and ET4k:

NESSI_240826.jed.zip

(5.7 KiB) Downloaded 13 times

Here's my .BIB file for W32i too. It's identical to the one that came with the TT drivers and I only added 320x200x8bpp and 320x240x8bpp resolutions.
On my monitor, 320x200 is centered with a bit of top and bottom borders to maintain a sensible aspect ratio.
If one prefers it to fill the entire screen but look a bit stretched then it can be achieved by tweaking the parameter for total vertical size.

STA_VDI_BIB_W32I.zip

(616 Bytes) Downloaded 12 times

[Oldskool]

Hello Anders,

My W32I has also arrived already feels much quicker and indeed higher resolution are supported and it also stated 512kb.
There are some graphical glitches. I think you mentioned a tuned Nessi is needed for perfect performance.

Nice!
Yep, this one works on my Mach32, W32i, and ET4k:
NESSI_240826.jed.zip

Here's my .BIB file for W32i too. It's identical to the one that came with the TT drivers and I only added 320x200x8bpp and 320x240x8bpp resolutions.
On my monitor, 320x200 is centered with a bit of top and bottom borders to maintain a sensible aspect ratio.
If one prefers it to fill the entire screen but look a bit stretched then it can be achieved by tweaking the parameter for total vertical size.

STA_VDI_BIB_W32I.zip

Thanks!!
Although it looks a bit better (at boot it looks OK) I still have some glitches (in all resolutions).
When moving stuff around..

Edit
Emutos buildin is also not ok. Also not with the previous fw.
Different oscillators have no effect.
Normal et4k is OK.
W32I is the same model you have

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