Indivision AGA mk3 "restarts" with AmiBlaster on the Amiga 1200 CP

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    Hi!


    A little wonder happened. The AmiBlaster CP which was not working with the simple fast RAM expansion, works now with the ACA1240 connected.

    So the Amiga plays MP3 from disk or internet radio through the hardware decoder not the CPU. Nice 👍.


    However, on AmiBlaster activity, the Indivision "restarts" every 5s (small flickering, the OSD appears).


    Could it be some power supply issues ? The A1200 is connected to an CA-PSU.


    I know there are quite a lot of stuffs in this A1200... So another components

    may be guilty. However, I would appreciate any hint how to fix that.


    Thanks 🙏

    Quote from NicoPPC

    However, on AmiBlaster activity, the Indivision "restarts" every 5s (small flickering, the OSD appears).

    If software hits the HStrobe or VStrobe registers, Indivision will count that as "coming from Alice" - please ask the programmer if they hit these registers. We've had that with some mod player as well - it's really just bad programming, not defective hardware.


    Is this the computer that you're trying to get the ACA1240 in Debrick mode with? Note that Debrick mode uses RTC registers, which might be occupied by the clock port device. For an attempt, you could try to remove that. Same thing for that buffered CF card adapter: It may have an influence on clock port operation. There's also some board on the PCMCIA slot that might cause trouble.


    Last not least, Debrick modes means that your computer appears like "without accelerator", so you may need to unpack all data first, then start without startup-sequence and navigate to ACA1260tool manually, on the early shell.


    Jens

    Ok. Thanks for that. I will ask.


    Yes it is. Ok, thanks for the hints. I will try that later/probably tomorrow. Will a simple RTC Clock also disturb ?


    PS: Otherwise, the card is just great, even if the core/software are still "beta", I expected way more issues... I can't really ear the fan, performances in Doom are great, everything feels very fast (I had a plain 020+Fast before). Looking forward to get refined core+software in the next week. Thanks !

    Hello,


    The developer confirmed the driver is not using the HStrobe or VStrobe registers. There are also some people with AmiBlaster CP + Indivision mk3 without issues with:

    - Blizzard 1260

    - PiStorm32Lite

    - Vampire 1200 V2


    The RTC on the clock port don't show any issue. Even when repeating in loop SetClock commands in the shell.


    Tipps welcome )


    Cheers

    Quote from NicoPPC

    Will a simple RTC Clock also disturb ?

    No, the Debrick interface only uses a data line that is not used by the RTC, and it also only does read operations - it never actually writes to the RTC registers.


    I see that AmiBlaster is a community project. Maybe they can shed some light on what they're doing for timing. The flicker fixer must be getting *some* trigger. Note that Indivision makes use of unused (empty) Chip registers that will have unwanted effects if hit by any other software than our config tool.


    Jens

    Ok. I will ask on their forum.


    I have been using "SUPERPLUS: High Res Laced 800x600", here you can find a video on the OSD. Notice that two values are glitching:

    • V pixel between 635/318
    • Interlace / nothing.

    https://e.pcloud.link/publink/…ejyxeCB71cUl5vAmazyw74mIk

    Can you deduce some useful information about the issue from that ?


    After trying almost every possible screenmode, the followings are working without "glitches":

    • Pal: High Res laced
    • Pal: High Res
    • Pal: Low Res laced
    • Pal: Low Res
    • PAL Super High Res Laced
    • SUPERPLUS: High res

    While playing in IndivisionAGA tool, each time a "glicht" comes, the setings are wiped out.


    I could not get any screenmode in 800x600 (I prefer that one) without issue. So I am using 640x512 for now.


    Thanks for your support.

    Cheers

    Didn't watch the video, but interlace/no-interlace glitching sounds like the SuperPlus screenmode driver missing a VBlank IRQ. Indivision AGA MK3 is actually doing what it should: Switch between interlace and non-interlace handling.


    So there appears to be a software conflict between the Amiblaster software and the SuperPlus screenmode driver. They may be sharing timers and not playing nice with each other - or it's an MMU setup problem (we're currently investigating another issue where an additional NOP before reading a register fixes things, which should not be the case for properly-serialized IO space).


    Jens

    OK. Thanks for the reply.


    I can live without SuperPlus a few weeks for sure :).


    I will forward that to the AmiBlaster guy as well.


    Cheers