TF536 - Atari firmware - Rev2 TF536

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stephen_usher
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Re: TF536 - Atari firmware

Post by stephen_usher »

The GemBench 6.3 score comes in a little slower than previously with MAPROM.PRG:

Screenshot_2022-05-15_20-31-02.jpg
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The previous display and CPU were 349% and 606% respectively, with an overall score of 460%, with the GEM scores being the ones pulling it down.

With MAPROM_C.PRG the speed is marginally better than the October 2020 firmware:

Screenshot_2022-05-15_20-40-21.png
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Again, it's the display which changes, mostly the VDI text, though the VDI scroll is slower.
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agranlund
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Re: TF536 - Atari firmware

Post by agranlund »

stephen_usher wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 7:51 pm As you can see, there is a marginal speed increase (about 130 frames), which is about 4.5%.
P.S. MAPROM_C.PRG only gives about 10 extra frames but stops the floppy from working.
@stephen_usher
As you noticed L1 cache for ST-RAM won't make much of a difference for programs that you run from TT-RAM.
It may give a tiny performance increase if the thing is accessing TOS a lot, but mostly it's there to increase performance of things that you run from ST-RAM :)


I uploaded a new version that should, hopefully, fix the floppy issues.
https://github.com/agranlund/tftools

I'll admit to not having tested this version extensively, but floppy & ultrasatan appears to work in EmuTos with the new maprom_c.prg
I assume this version may give lower scores in some stuff since the st->tt ram remapping option was made less aggressive (2kb instead of 4kb)
It can possibly be made faster by making the remap more intelligent but I'm not sure it's worth the effort for such small differences - especially considering the numbers you'll get from installing NVDI completely dwarves any such optimisations for Tos-VDI.

@exxos, perhaps this fixes things when using with your custom TOS206 build?
I've been meaning to download and try it out but haven't gotten around to it yet.
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exxos
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Re: TF536 - Atari firmware - Rev2 TF536

Post by exxos »

My custom TOS fixes DMA issues in TOS but maprom kinda fixed them anyway. But maprom_c causes new DMA issues. Like discussed in my thread, I think it caching the 64k FRB ram.
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Re: TF536 - Atari firmware - Rev2 TF536

Post by agranlund »

exxos wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 4:41 pm My custom TOS fixes DMA issues in TOS but maprom kinda fixed them anyway. But maprom_c causes new DMA issues. Like discussed in my thread, I think it caching the 64k FRB ram.
Haha, yeah it looks like EmuTOS pulled a fast one on me :lol:

IMG_5581.jpg
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Looks like EmuTOS doesn't pick up on changes done by the control panel so the menu said ON while in reality it was OFF..
(This is an old EmuTOS.. 0.9.something. I have no idea if it's correct in more recent builds)

So yeah, apparently I wasn't testing with cache on even though it said so in the menu :)

Turning the cache on reveals that the latest maprom didn't fix anything and the floppy is sad.
I give up. Or well, I might try cache inhibiting the area where the FRB is located when I get motivation (hard to find it when it comes to stuff I'm not interested in using myself - unless it's somehow a super interesting thing in itself)
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Re: TF536 - Atari firmware - Rev2 TF536

Post by exxos »

agranlund wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:20 pm Looks like EmuTOS doesn't pick up on changes done by the control panel so the menu said ON while in reality it was OFF..
(This is an old EmuTOS.. 0.9.something. I have no idea if it's correct in more recent builds)

So yeah, apparently I wasn't testing with cache on even though it said so in the menu :)
EMUTOS I think I was using 1.1.1 and that has the same issues as well.

agranlund wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:20 pm I give up. Or well, I might try cache inhibiting the area where the FRB is located when I get motivation (hard to find it when it comes to stuff I'm not interested in using myself - unless it's somehow a super interesting thing in itself)
But we are all left in limbo forever wondering what this final mystery is... :chairsmack:
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viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1585 Have you done the Mandatory Fixes ?
Just because a lot of people agree on something, doesn't make it a fact. ~exxos ~
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Re: TF536 - Atari firmware - Rev2 TF536

Post by Steve »

Would it make a difference if I said my floppy seems ok with maprom_c on my H5 & tf536 (latest firmware) I'll double check tomorrow but the other day I was copying a lot from floppy.
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Re: TF536 - Atari firmware - Rev2 TF536

Post by exxos »

Steve wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 10:23 pm Would it make a difference if I said my floppy seems ok with maprom_c on my H5 & tf536 (latest firmware) I'll double check tomorrow but the other day I was copying a lot from floppy.
I would try FCOPYIII and format a floppy with and without MAPROM_C. It sometimes "works" but I think its chucking out millions of CRC errors which causes it to run very slow. Mostly I seem to get FAT corruption on reading from floppies.. If I press SEC like 50 times, files will appear and disappear at random.. But also did you verify the files you copied were not corrupted ? Is desktop cache on or off while doing the copying ? There are a lot of factors going on with all this.
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https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/ - All my hardware mods for sale - Please help support by making a purchase.
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1585 Have you done the Mandatory Fixes ?
Just because a lot of people agree on something, doesn't make it a fact. ~exxos ~
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Re: TF536 - Atari firmware - Rev2 TF536

Post by agranlund »

maprom version 2.2 here:
https://github.com/agranlund/tftools
This time the floppy is working on my machine (with EmuTOS 0.9 and caches on)

- It remaps the first 2k to fastram.
- Pages with _dskbuf or FRB are now cache-inhibited and prevented from being mapped to fastram.

The above makes Ultrasatan on ACSI happy here.

And as a somewhat temporary measure, it'll now also cache inhibiting everything between 2 and 32k.

This makes the floppy happy
(Or rather, the Gotek, which is the closest thing I have to a floppy drive)

There appears to be something between $6000 and $6800 that has to be cache inhibited for the floppy to work in my version of EmuTOS.
The problem is that I am not sure what it is. And even if I did, I would need to be able to ask where that thing is since it'll be different between versions.
I don't have the Exxos TOS206 burned to ROM yet but when I do I'll check if this works there too, and check if that extra cache-inhibit is needed there or not.

Frontbench when forced to run from ST-RAM:
cache disabled: 981
cache enabled: 1413
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Badwolf
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Re: TF536 - Atari firmware - Rev2 TF536

Post by Badwolf »

agranlund wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 5:19 pm Frontbench when forced to run from ST-RAM:
cache disabled: 981
cache enabled: 1413
Those figure are broadly similar to my 16MHz to 16MHz+FastRAM comparison. That's going to be a fantastic change to the 'feel' of a lot of things.

Great work Anders (or the MMU King as I may start calling you!) :D

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Re: TF536 - Atari firmware - Rev2 TF536

Post by exxos »

agranlund wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 5:19 pm maprom version 2.2 here:
:bravo: :excited: :excited: :excited: :excited:
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viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1585 Have you done the Mandatory Fixes ?
Just because a lot of people agree on something, doesn't make it a fact. ~exxos ~
People should find solutions to problems, not find problems with solutions.
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