You talked me into it - PiStorm32 Lite in A1200

[rubber_jonnie]

So after having a bit of a faff with my own PowerComputing 68030 accelerator of late, with a weird burst of unreliability (See also this thread: PCMCIA RTG card 'P-Vision' in advanced development) I made the decision to go for a PiStorm32 Lite.

Mine has a RPi 4 with 4GB RAM and runs fine as a 68040, but boy does it get warm!!! In fact it was too hot to touch when I pulled it out just now. Thermal pad is contacting properly though.

It boots up to OS 3.9 just fine though and gives me 2GB RAM

Looks pretty cool:

IMG20251107135459.jpg (186.67 KiB) Viewed 287 times

Next I really need to have a look at config option.

[Steve]

Oh man it really is sensational... I have one (but paired with a Pi3a) and it's SO good. I run the HDMI out the back and have a 3D printed door in the mouse port area. Using RTG is so amazing. I also have an indivision AGA MK3 for my game graphics, so I have a little hdmi switch. Since your pi4 runs hot, you can 3D print a trapdoor with ventilation grill. Or just downgrade to a Pi3a if the heat bothers you (it's lightning fast either way)

[Maximilian]

There will be an AGA framethrower module that you can use to grab the game video and output it through the Pi's HDMI.

At the moment only the A500 version is out (should probably also work with A2000 and maybe even the A1000)

It will be a nice upgrade for the Pistorm users.
https://x.com/Claude1079/status/1966454535641043295

[rubber_jonnie]

Oh man it really is sensational... I have one (but paired with a Pi3a) and it's SO good. I run the HDMI out the back and have a 3D printed door in the mouse port area. Using RTG is so amazing. I also have an indivision AGA MK3 for my game graphics, so I have a little hdmi switch. Since your pi4 runs hot, you can 3D print a trapdoor with ventilation grill. Or just downgrade to a Pi3a if the heat bothers you (it's lightning fast either way)

i have an Indivision fitted too and it's great. I do have a Pi3B+ (I found it after I'd ordered the Pi4!!!)

I do need to sort out the HDMI output though, but what I really need to do is get a handle on the config, I built my SD card using the Emu68 Imager, but I'm struggling to find any config that lets you specify what you want.

There is a config.txt, but it doesn't seem to have any config in it relating to the EMU68k, just the RPi, and having added a pistorm.cfg file to the root of the SD card I found it made no difference.

This may be due to the fact I'm using the Emu68 imager, not sure, it's all very new to me.

[rubber_jonnie]

There will be an AGA framethrower module that you can use to grab the game video and output it through the Pi's HDMI.

At the moment only the A500 version is out (should probably also work with A2000 and maybe even the A1000)

It will be a nice upgrade for the Pistorm users.
https://x.com/Claude1079/status/1966454535641043295

Sounds cool

[rubber_jonnie]

Hmm, I may need to migrate to the Musashi variant of PiStorm, it seems to have a lot more flexibility than the EMU68 variant that basically just gives me o control over CPU and RAM.

[Steve]

Hmm, I may need to migrate to the Musashi variant of PiStorm, it seems to have a lot more flexibility than the EMU68 variant that basically just gives me o control over CPU and RAM.

I highly recommend you don't! It's really slow and less compatible. The Emu68 is bare metal! Also Emu68 is actively maintained and improved, musashi isn't.

Ps - I haven't usedany Emu68 imager. I just copy Emu68 to my SD card and well, that's it. It's treated as a hardware device entirely, all the configuration is on the Amiga side. There's nothing to configure really... That's it. Install the RTG driver on the Amiga.

Just treat it as a classic CPU accelerator with RTG built in. You can put your Amiga hard drive images on the SD too but to be honest I didn't bother, my CF card is fine for me.

Edit: I just remember the only kind of configuration I needed to do was copy my AmigaOS ROM file to the SD card. Otherwise it uses onboard ROM which is super slow.

[rubber_jonnie]

Hmm, I may need to migrate to the Musashi variant of PiStorm, it seems to have a lot more flexibility than the EMU68 variant that basically just gives me o control over CPU and RAM.

I highly recommend you don't! It's really slow and less compatible. The Emu68 is bare metal!

Ps I don't use any Emu68 imager. I just copy Emu68 to my SD card and well, that's it. It's treated as a hardware device entirely, all the configuration is on the Amiga side. There's nothing to configure really... That's it. Install the RTG driver on the Amiga.

Just treat it as a classic CPU accelerator with RTG built in. You can put your Amiga hard drive images on the SD too but to be honest I didn't bother, my CF card is fine for me.

Edit: I just remember the only kind of configuration I needed to do was copy my AmigaOS ROM file to the SD card. Otherwise it uses onboard ROM which is super slow.

Hmm, well that's a quandary then.

I agree, bare metal will be way faster, but it seems to have gone straight for 68040 with the Pi 4, perhaps I'll try the Pi 3 to see if it plays differently. Some games I've tried just don't run properly, maybe due to timing I guess or RAM/CPU differences, and I was thinking I could try swapping to different CPU types to see if it made a difference.

The EMU68 Imager is good in that it builds the image from what you feed it, so I can easily build multiple images with different ROMs and different Workbench builds. Maybe what I should do is just play games on the A500 and use the A1200 for serious stuff.

I do see there are tweaks that can be made, and I haven't yet done the RTG drivers.

I'll play some more over the weekend see what transpires.

[Steve]

They always default to 040 emulation as it's the standard, there isn't an 060 option as far as I know. But it doesn't matter because it's only 040 in name, it'll outperform a real 060 in most cases. (Ps I read somewhere that the 040 has actually got more CPU features than the 060, the 060 was faster but less features)

[rubber_jonnie]

They always default to 040 emulation as it's the standard, there isn't an 060 option as far as I know. But it doesn't matter because it's only 040 in name, it'll outperform a real 060 in most cases. (Ps I read somewhere that the 040 has actually got more CPU features than the 060, the 060 was faster but less features)

OK thanks for letting me know. The Pi3 B+ is in there now and works fine too, also showing up as a 68040.

I guess I need to do more reading, I'm a total noob when it comes to the PiStorm.

Great product though for sure.