Raven. A homemade Atari-like computer

[agranlund]

I think I'm starting to hit the point of diminishing returns and will probably call it here.

For (much?) better performance on general filled primitives, the caller would have to help the driver out from a higher level so it can optimise by having knowledge about the full intent up front.
Ideally one would do a single call with "please polyfill these 100 scanlines, here are the coords" rather than 100 individual calls without a broader context, as I've made VDI do here. But that kind of update/patch to STA_VDI won't be now.

But all things considered, I've turned around from my initial disapointment with the lazy approach to thinking some of these scores look pretty good for what it is :)

IMG_5578.jpeg

[LarryL]

Hi,

shortly to two completely different topics:

1) I was trying to install NVDI for some time... always without success. During installation the installer reported many "CRC errors" and installation left corrupt files. Was downloading different versions, unpacked them with different tools on different systems - no luck. Today I switched of the "Cache" flag in the EmuTOS Options menu: then I was able to succesfully install NVDI. Is this normal?

2) my w32 card (1MB, no interleave) shows pixel artefacts. Not sooo many, but very noticeable when moving windows or trying to select multiple files. Sprayed pixels following the mouse cursor. This did not go away after disabling the cache. Other cards (e.g. a non-accelerated Cirrus GD5424, as well as a standard ET4000AX) work flawlessly. Maybe its my card, but maybe its the driver? I do not know exactly when this started, but I think some SW versions ago the card worked without these artefacts

And before I forget: the boot screen is only using the upper half of the screen and thus showing everything pretty condensed. Happens in different boot resolutions. I think this was also different some time ago

I am on the latest release from Feb 17th

cheers
Michael

[luciodra]

Hi,

shortly to two completely different topics:

1) I was trying to install NVDI for some time... always without success. During installation the installer reported many "CRC errors" and installation left corrupt files. Was downloading different versions, unpacked them with different tools on different systems - no luck. Today I switched of the "Cache" flag in the EmuTOS Options menu: then I was able to succesfully install NVDI. Is this normal?

2) my w32 card (1MB, no interleave) shows pixel artefacts. Not sooo many, but very noticeable when moving windows or trying to select multiple files. Sprayed pixels following the mouse cursor. This did not go away after disabling the cache. Other cards (e.g. a non-accelerated Cirrus GD5424, as well as a standard ET4000AX) work flawlessly. Maybe its my card, but maybe its the driver? I do not know exactly when this started, but I think some SW versions ago the card worked without these artefacts

And before I forget: the boot screen is only using the upper half of the screen and thus showing everything pretty condensed. Happens in different boot resolutions. I think this was also different some time ago

I am on the latest release from Feb 17th

cheers
Michael

Hi, you have a PM. :D

[LarryL]

Hi, you have a PM. :D

Thanks :D

But something’s going on with cache enabled.
The NVDI installer seems to decrypt the installation files and this somehow crashes with cache enabled
With cache disabled, all went OK!

[luciodra]

Chapter strange video cards with 5429 and rj45.
Two pieces of news, one negative and one positive: the negative is that after turning on Raven, bang, smoke and smell of burning. The isa slot it's broken.
The positive thing is that changing the ISA slot to the old ET4000 Raven works. So maybe I just broke the first isa slot...

[agranlund]

the boot screen is only using the upper half of the screen and thus showing everything pretty condensed.

Thank you for reporting that @LarryL !
I did changes a while ago to make it use the 8x8 font in the terminal regardless of screensize instead of going to the larger 8x16 font.
Now that I swapped in the w32i and official driver I noticed the same as you described.
I will revert those font-size related changes until I have something that is properly tested and working regardless of what driver is used :)

Today I switched of the "Cache" flag in the EmuTOS Options menu: then I was able to succesfully install NVDI. Is this normal?

To be honest I have no idea but that's really good to know.
I've only copied files directly from an old NVDI install of mine on the ST.

my w32 card (1MB, no interleave) shows pixel artefacts. Not sooo many, but very noticeable when moving windows or trying to select multiple files. Sprayed pixels following the mouse cursor. This did not go away after disabling the cache. Other cards (e.g. a non-accelerated Cirrus GD5424, as well as a standard ET4000AX) work flawlessly. Maybe its my card, but maybe its the driver? I do not know exactly when this started, but I think some SW versions ago the card worked without these artefacts

This one I don't think I have any good ideas for.
When you select ET4000.W32 in bios setup you should end up running completely unmodified Nova driver + VDI (albeit with those .PRG's loaded and started by rvnova.prg).
I don't think it's this but if you have c:\rvga.inf then double check that it says interleave = 0 under the et4000.w32 section.
Or not at all, as long as it doesn't say interleave = 1

Sometimes when my card(s) are not seated properly in a slot I can end up getting artifacts which usually follows the mouse or whatever is moving or changing (eg. some reads and/or writes ending up incorrect).
I usually ignore fastening the ISA card bracket with the screw when I'm in a session of swapping between different cards a lot for testing and have had that happen in those scenarios.
Not sure where I was going with this other than maybe bad contact could be worth investigating?

Don't know if it will say all that much but could be worth trying the same card with the SVGA driver just to see if you get the same issue regardless of driver.
Although the SVGA driver does not support hardware acceleration for W32i yet so they wont be taxing the card the same amount.
Still, if you end up seeing the same issue with both drivers then perhaps that would at least point more toward the hardware side of things?

[LarryL]

Made a quick check…
Have the same artefacts with the SVGA driver
And interleave is set to 0

So, most probably HW related
Will do some cleaning during next days and maybe switch to another ISA slot

Thanks and have a nice evening
Michael

[agranlund]

Updated release zip with fix for the boot font issue, thanks @LarryL .
Also the latest VDI acceleration stuff for the SVGA driver.
My benchmarks were done on a very fast GD5434 but I got a net improvement for my other Cirrus cards too, and the WD90C31.
WD90C33 blitter code is quite unoptimized so it's the slower of the lot because of the driver, not the hardwares fault.

Code: Select all

20260225:
rom: fixed boot font issue
rvnova: more VDI acceleration for Cirrus + WDC

[Mikerochip]

... the Playstation1 GPU ... Could make a pretty cool graphicscard :D

For which system?? Putting one on the ISA bus?? For a PC, or a Raven??? :D
It's a tad low resolution.. 640x480? 640x240?

So... 2D graphics... and ... openGL? ... Mesa?
Is there a Mesa driver for the PS1 ... that would be nuts.

The first 3D Atari ST...

Is there any kind of driver for the PS2?? It ran Linux... Was it just a binary blob? :(

Chapter strange video cards with 5429 and rj45.
Two pieces of news, one negative and one positive: the negative is that after turning on Raven, bang, smoke and smell of burning. The isa slot it's broken.
The positive thing is that changing the ISA slot to the old ET4000 Raven works. So maybe I just broke the first isa slot...

Oh dear :(

[luciodra]

Chapter strange video cards with 5429 and rj45.
Two pieces of news, one negative and one positive: the negative is that after turning on Raven, bang, smoke and smell of burning. The isa slot it's broken.
The positive thing is that changing the ISA slot to the old ET4000 Raven works. So maybe I just broke the first isa slot...

Oh dear :(

:roll: