Solved: Odd behavior with a STorm-ST board?

[Darklord]

(I posted this at Atari-Forum, but thought I'd try here as well)

Is anyone else using a version of Mint/FreeMINT with a STorm-ST board? I've got one here in my STacy, giving the additional 8 megs of RAM.

Even under regular TOS, I've had some fun with it. My understanding is that it was never meant for use with an '030 but was meant for standard ST's to get extra RAM.

The team was nice enough to release an '030 version when I asked them about it but to get it running I still have to do the following:

AUTO folder, followed by having it installed as an AUTO-starting application from the desktop, plus put an icon on the desktop to manually start it after booting up.

Why? Because it will sometimes fail from the AUTO folder, then sometimes fail from the auto start and then, even fail sometimes from running it from the desktop. At that point, I just keep starting it until it runs.

So I'm seeing the same thing with FreeMINT. I've got it in the AUTO folder and it runs from there, but when it does run from there, it's doing something odd. The memory is strange. Also, it takes XaAES about twice as long to load up TeraDesk When it runs from the AUTO folder, TeraDesk and the SI CPX both report the following:

STacy-ALTRAM02.JPG (211.15 KiB) Viewed 1146 times

When I run it straight from the desktop (no AUTO folder, no AUTO start), it reports things that look correct to me:

STacy-ALTRAM01.JPG (216.16 KiB) Viewed 1146 times

I don't have a clue as to what is going on there.

PS Oh, in both pictures you can see the big, thick window borders and red colored widgets that I've not been able to adjust yet..

[frank.lukas]

The Mint program should be the last program in the auto folder, and the FastRAM/Alternate RAM driver should be one of the first programs in the auto folder. After the Mint program started, XAAES is launched last within Mint, and from XAAES, TeraDesk or another desktop environment is selected. Therefore, FastRAM/Alternate RAM must be registered with the system beforehand to be used, for example, by XAAES and the TeraDesk desktop environment.

Make sure the FastRAM driver starts exclusively from the Auto folder as the first program.

[Darklord]

Hey Frank. Thanks for the reply.

I don't remember right off hand the exact order in my AUTO folder but
I do know I had MINT last.

I'll check it and rearrange it then report back. Thanks again.

[Darklord]

I got another reply from Alan H. over at Atari-Forum and it seems to make sense.

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"That just looks like it's loading stuff into TT-RAM (really ALT-RAM on the Storm) when it's in the AUTO folder. Therefore your ST-RAM is more available and TT-RAM is less as it's loaded a bunch of stuff into it.

In the non-AUTO folder case you've stopped that because it's ran after everything has been loaded into STRAM.

It's also taking twice as long as I doubt the PAK68 is caching the ALT-RAM."
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When you take the total RAM from either screenshot and compare them, it's close to being the same, just
allocated differently.

[Darklord]

higashijun was kind enough to find additional info about the Pak/STorm-ST combo. Many thanks!

(Google translation from a German article)

"Interaction of the PAK with the Storm ST

The Storm ST offers 8 MB of Alternate RAM.

This RAM is subsequently inserted into the processor's address space after the ST-RAM.

Depending on the address location of an optional graphics card, memory area collisions may occur.

However, these are not an obstacle to the interaction of the PAK with the STORM-ST.

An Alternate RAM is a RAM that is not DMA-capable and is located in the address range of the normal ST with a 68000 address.

Consequently, an alternate RAM must be in the memory range of 0 to 16 MB for a 68000 to be able to access it.
In contrast, TT-RAM (or sometimes Fast-RAM) is a memory area positioned above 16 MB.

This RAM is also DMA-capable under certain conditions.
However, this requires the use of a processor that can address more than 16 MB of memory.
Conversely, an ST with a 68000 processor can never have TT-RAM!

The PAK/FRAK uses a modified TOS 3.06 by default. TOS 3.06 is generally able to detect Alternate RAM and TT RAM and make them available to the processor.

EmuTOS can do this as well. TOS 2.06 and TOS 1.04 cannot detect or provide TT-RAM.

TOS 2.06 can provide Alternate RAM with the help of a small additional program (usually located in the Auto folder).
Alternate RAM cannot be used under TOS 1.04 under any circumstances. This also applies to the older derivatives KAOS 1.4.2 and KAOS 1.4.3.

Depending on the choice of operating system , either the Alternate RAM is immediately available when operating a PAK together with the Storm ST , or it is not.

As mentioned, the Storm ST 's alternate RAM is immediately available when using both TOS 3.06 and EmuTOS . No drivers are required.
When using TOS 2.06, the Storm ST driver disk contains two different auto-folder programs for activating the alternate RAM.
This gives you the choice to activate either 4 MB or 8 MB of the Storm ST's available 8 MB of memory .

If the Alternate RAM of the Storm ST is activated in one way or another, most programs will "incorrectly" display this additional memory as TT-RAM.
For example, GENERAL.CPX or GENERAL.ACC.

If "real" TT-RAM is used simultaneously on the PAK, some calculations are now necessary to see if the Alternate-RAM is available.
Anyone operating a PAK with FRAK and 16 MB TT-RAM should see 16+8 MB = 24 MB of memory displayed under EmuTOS, for example, in addition to the usual ST RAM.

As written, under TOS 2.06 it is possible to activate 4 or 8 MB of the 8 MB STORM-ST memory.

The flags within the program being used are important for using Alternate RAM.

These must allow operation in the alternate RAM as well as the allocation of additional memory from the alternate RAM.

The setting can be adjusted using appropriate programs, ACCs or CPXs."

So back to experimenting...

[exxos]

With TOS306 i'd assume it finds TTram automatically, but i'd also assume its advanced enough to find alt-ram by itself anyway ? Its not a combination I ever tests and im not familiar with any of the hardware your using either..

I mean TOS just counts though STram until it hits a bus error, so if there's more RAM (alt-ram, it will find it automatically. BUT, then you can run into issues with DMA as it generally can't have DMA into alt-ram or TTram.

The normal method here, is TTram found by 306 automatically. Programs load into that and should be faster than ST/alt-ram (but maybe not always the case ?) alt-ram is normally not enabled by default to prevent such DMA related issues (and even screen allocation issues) . So the alt-ram installer is generally run from desktop, so TOS doesn't try to allocate anything into it.

Again, im not familiar with 306, but thats how its generally done. You also likely need to make sure you have blitter disabled (if you have one) as that will confuse stuff as well.

[Darklord]

Well, if it's accurate, both the TeraDesk "About" screen and the SI CPX do not show any
extra RAM if I don't run the STorm-ST AUTO folder program "ALTRAMON.PRG", or in my
case "ALTRA030.PRG", which was adjusted by the STorm team to try to get it to work
with the 030 correctly.

So, I don't know. <shrugs>

I wish there was enough room in the STacy to add the Frak/2 memory board, then I
would have TT-RAM, and lots of it. Just can't figure out a way to squeeze that into
my STacy's already super-packed case.

Oh, no Blitter, btw - the STacy doesn't come with one, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Thanks.

[frank.lukas]

TOS 3.06 looks for real TT RAM above the 68000 MHz limit of 16MB. Therefore, TT TOS 3.06 does not recognize any alternate RAM above 4MB of RAM. TOS 3.06 would only recognize true ST RAM above 4MB, for example, 8MB or 10MB of ST RAM in the Atari TT or 10MB of real ST RAM via a Wevelsief Mega STE RAM expansion.

[Badwolf]

I'm not familiar with either of your expansion, I'm afraid, but understand the general principle of software-declared AltRAM. I'm interested in what you're up to.

So far everything sounds like it's doing what it ought, other than the 'sometimes fails' bits.

When 'it fails', what does that mean, exactly? Bombs out? Simply doesn't declare RAM? How'd you mean?

My thoughts initially go to the 030 data cache.

BW

[Darklord]

I'm not familiar with either of your expansion, I'm afraid, but understand the general principle of software-declared AltRAM. I'm interested in what you're up to.

So far everything sounds like it's doing what it ought, other than the 'sometimes fails' bits.

When 'it fails', what does that mean, exactly? Bombs out? Simply doesn't declare RAM? How'd you mean?

My thoughts initially go to the 030 data cache.

BW

Instead of briefly flashing "Alt RAM installed" it just says something like Alt RAM failed to install.

It's a message that's given like any other AUTO folder program does when run from there.

From the desktop, it just flashes, barely long enough to read then disappears (not a regular
pop-up type window).

Thanks.