FrontBench: using Frontier as a benchmark (Discussion thread)

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exxos
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Re: FrontBench: using Frontier as a benchmark (Discussion thread)

Post by exxos »

Darklord wrote: Wed Feb 16, 2022 12:10 am Atari STacy (Pak 68/3 030 @ 40mhz, no FASTRAM) - 3163 frames
Well I'm confused.. That score shouldnt be possible without fastram..
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Re: FrontBench: using Frontier as a benchmark (Discussion thread)

Post by Badwolf »

Darklord wrote: Wed Feb 16, 2022 12:10 am I finally got around to setting this up here and ran it on 2 machines:

Atari Mega STe (stock) - 1227 frames

Atari STacy (Pak 68/3 030 @ 40mhz, no FASTRAM) - 3163 frames

BTW, watching the difference in Frontier between the Mega STe
and the Pak 68/3 equipped STacy is like night and day... :)
Thanks, Darklord. The Pak figures are great both here and Frank’s over on Atari-forum. Not sure how it’s doing that!

You do need to let me know your screen refresh rate, though. 50 or 60Hz?

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Re: FrontBench: using Frontier as a benchmark (Discussion thread)

Post by Darklord »

exxos wrote: Wed Feb 16, 2022 12:18 am
Well I'm confused.. That score shouldnt be possible without fastram..
I think we decided it's the Pak 68/3 board's level 1 and 2 caches making
the difference?

Love to have my STacy pumped up to 50mhz and FASTRAM! :)
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Re: FrontBench: using Frontier as a benchmark (Discussion thread)

Post by Darklord »

Badwolf wrote: Wed Feb 16, 2022 12:22 am
You do need to let me know your screen refresh rate, though. 50 or 60Hz?

BW
Oh, sorry - should be 60Hz, in the US....
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Re: FrontBench: using Frontier as a benchmark (Discussion thread)

Post by exxos »

Darklord wrote: Wed Feb 16, 2022 1:18 am I think we decided it's the Pak 68/3 board's level 1 and 2 caches making
the difference?
Didn't even know the pak030 had L2 cache ?!

Do you have a image of it ?
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Re: FrontBench: using Frontier as a benchmark (Discussion thread)

Post by Darklord »

exxos wrote: Wed Feb 16, 2022 1:22 am
Didn't even know the pak030 had L2 cache ?!

Do you have a image of it ?
I don't. This is what Frank Lucas said over in the FrontBench message thread at Atari Forum:

"The PAK68/3 have L1 Cache into the CPU and 32kB L2 Cache to speed up the transfer with the ST Ram ..."

HTH's...

Oh...it is listed on the Pak 68/3's jumpers - J4 SLC secondary level cache:


PAK Jumpers.jpeg
PAK Jumpers.jpeg (230.51 KiB) Viewed 2279 times
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Re: FrontBench: using Frontier as a benchmark (Discussion thread)

Post by DoG »

At least the PAK68/030 has 4 cache RAM chips under the ROM chips and 2 TAG ram chips. The PAK68/020 looks to be the same board but I don't know much about it.
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Re: FrontBench: using Frontier as a benchmark (Discussion thread)

Post by exxos »

DoG wrote: Wed Feb 16, 2022 5:51 am At least the PAK68/030 has 4 cache RAM chips under the ROM chips and 2 TAG ram chips. The PAK68/020 looks to be the same board but I don't know much about it.
I have a pak 20 but it doesn't like me :( be glad when we get the new MMU running with faster RAM. I had the MMU running along with @Icky a while back. But the GLUE was being sulky :( even so , ditch the DRAM and get some SRAM on there.. No need for caches then ;) They kinda obsolete now. The SEC booster can run at 64MHz. We just need to fix the RAM bottleneck and it will leave everything else in the dust ;)

It reminds me, I need to design a SRAM board for the H5 :lol: :roll:
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Re: FrontBench: using Frontier as a benchmark (Discussion thread)

Post by rubber_jonnie »

If I can find a suitable test machine, I'll see if I can test with my PAK 68/20.
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Re: FrontBench: using Frontier as a benchmark (Discussion thread)

Post by exxos »

rubber_jonnie wrote: Wed Feb 16, 2022 10:38 am If I can find a suitable test machine, I'll see if I can test with my PAK 68/20.
Good idea :)
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