Posts by nuttie

Hiya,

Finally the ferrite beads have arrived, and I've had the time to try them... and they seem to have fixed the issues with both my 1D4 1200 boards.

Interestingly, one of the boards had a resistor at E127R, but the other had what looks like a ferrite there already. Both were exhibiting the same graphical glitches, so I thought it was worth a shot to swap out both... and both boards now seem to be 100% glitch free. So a dodgy ferrite bead maybe? The original solder still looked good and there were no visible cracks or anything, so I think it was factory fitted.

I don't know if it's possible to measure the old ferrite bead I took off in any way useful (it has 0 ohms resistance on my test meter as expected) but I still have it at the moment, so if anyone wants me to check anything about it please let me know. Something about the ferrite bead seems to have been equally guilty of causing the glitches, as the 27 ohm resistor which was on the other board.

I now don't seem to need to turn on any of the CCK pullup or capacitance options in the Indivison tool either.

Congrats on fixing it!

Your 2B board already having a ferrite bead on it where I am going to try one on my 1D4, gives me a bit hope that might help too (I'm still waiting for the ferrite beads to arrive in the post)!

Thanks very much, that's good to know.

I'll order some smd ferrite beads to give it a try, and let you know if it helps for my machine. I know it's unlikely but I think it's worth a shot.

Hi,

Apologies for inserting myself into your conversation but please may I ask a question? I have the same as you're seeing on my 1D4 machine, when trying to use dblpal/higfx etc. modes (I think I previously mentioned it in a different thread), and I've stumbled across this on Aminet...

http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/flickerfix

I thought it sounded unlikely but since it was easy to check by just changing the palette in Workbench, I tried it... and it does seem to fix the flickering issue for me completely (changing the palette, not shorting the resistor). I literally just change the white colour in the Workbench palette to be 254, 254, 254, and the flickering stops. I am not sure if the hardware change also mentioned in the link is a good solution, or even if shorting the resistor E127R would be safe to try, so I would appreciate knowing what you guys think, you know a lot more than me about it than I do.

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the information, I'm glad you had a good experience with them. It doesn't sound like too much of a hassle which is great news, I might give it a go myself later today. Did you have to pay both German, and UK VAT or just one?

I had the same problem, I don't think it's the disk format, I think it'll be the SD card adapters/cf cards. I tried 3 different SD->CF adapters, all of different design, and although they all worked okay in the primary slot, none did not in the Aux slot. I believe they draw just a little too much power or something, and the Aux port power cycles when it detects a card, so is different to the main one (Jens explained it in a post on somewhere on the forum), I believe other folks have had similar problems with some CF cards too. Have a look on the forum for other posts for more info, there are a few.

After I read the posts I mentioned, I bought 2 real CF cards (32GB Sandisk ones, straight from Amazon, not a third party seller), and have since had no issues in either port.

Hi Jens,

Thanks for continuing to try and solve the UK import issues, I do hope you can find a way through the red tape eventually. The products and customer support iComp provide are some of the best I have found in the entire Commodore community, and I appreciate your continued support for our existing purchases in the UK, despite things being difficult at present. I am sure a lot of other UK customers also feel the same.

I still have at a lot of items I would like to buy from iComp's available current product list, I think over 1,000 euros in value, last time I looked. That's not including the new announced ones like the ACA-1240/1260 you folks are currently working on. I was working my way through the list as quickly as my hobby money would allow, so fingers crossed!

Do you know if it might be possible to purchase digital items like P96 any time soon, in order to extend our ability to download them?

Also, and please forgive me if this is a bad idea, if I understood the UK import rules (I might not have, they are intentionally a little vague I think), it seemed like companies only have to collect VAT for puchases up to £135. If this is the case, might it be possible to ship higher value orders, and let us pay the VAT and a logistics company handle some of the paperwork, at least in the short term?

Lastly, and I am genuinely sorry if I offend anyone who voted for Brexit by saying this out loud, I hope folks all across the EU will continue to keep in mind that pretty much half of the UK did not vote for Brexit. I cannot properly convey how sad all of Brexit continues to make me personally. I did not vote for it, and I am particularly unhappy with how it has been implemented, especially the part where our government chose not to be part of the EU single market. I do agree to put up with the consequences of the decision because there was a democratic vote (two if you count the election)... I just don't personally think it was a good one.

I do not hold much hope of the UK government fixing things any time soon. They seem to be pretending the changes to VAT reporting and other paperwork are not really an issue, they do not appear to be sorting it out, and we're stuck with this government until at least the next general election which is 4 years away. At the moment with Covid still ravaging us, the news focus is not on UK<->EU as much as it would be otherwise, and a lot of other national level issues also aren't being addressed for the same reason, as I am sure is the case all around the world. UK businesses that deal with Europe are struggling badly, and the advice from our government has so far been "Move to the EU, if that's where you want to be." which is the answer I'd expect from a petulant child, not the government of a country in the G7.

Anyhow, I'll stop ranting because it isn't useful I suppose - again to anyone I have offended with my opinions on Brexit, I am sorry and I am genuinly happy to be proven wrong over time.

Cheers and have a good day.

Did anyone find a suitable export service yet? All of the ones I've looked at so far are a rip off. Paying VAT twice and charging silly fees on top.

I know it's not your fault but that's a shame to read. I hope you can manage to get it all sorted out, so that we can start ordering stuff to the UK again soon.

Hiya,

I don't have the ability to measure the levels accurately like iljitsch did but It's definitely louder now, so thanks very much for the improvement!

Thanks very much for the update, I'll go grab it now.

Yep that was it, I had Graffiti emulation switched on for low and hi-res PAL, good call!
Switching Graffiti emulation off, fixes the issues in Second Samurai, Ugh!, Wiz'n'Liz and Worms DC. I am now wondering if some of the other screen blinking I was seeing occasionally might have been due to me leaving the Graffiti emulation switched on. In the words of the great and forever wise Homer Simpson... doh!

The only remaining thing is the very minor screen blinking out during the intro to the game Universe, which doesn't seem to be affected by the Graffiti emulation state. It's only for a second or two during the initial title animation, and I haven't seen it anywhere else in the game so far, so I am really not too concerned about it unless I find a bunch of other places it happens. I am wondering if the game does something weird with the screen mode or copper list at the start, it's quite colourful for an ECS game but I think it's just using some well designed palettes and timely colour switching.

Cheers!

Will check that now, thanks for the reminder!

Hi all,

While I was testing out the newest firmware update for the Indivision AGA Mk3 last week, I noticed that a few games where making the Mk3's display output go blank or get corrupted, whilst Amiga's built-in RGB output was still fine. I tried resetting my config and reflashing my firmware but it didn't change the behaviour.

These are the only problems I found after checking at least 200-300 different games, and they might very well be just my Amiga, so it would be great if someone else could try and see if they get the same things. I tried both the floppy and WHDLoad versions of each as I know sometimes they can have code patches which change their behaviour...

Second Samurai (AGA version only) - The Mk3's digital video display goes black after user clicks mouse to start loading of game and "loading..." text appears. This happens on my machine with both the floppy and the WHDLoad versions.

Ugh! - Seems okay from floppy but WHDLoad version puts the Mk3 into Graffiti mode (the Mk3's onscreen info display pops up and then the 'Graffiti' text appears on it) during initial intro sequence, despite Graffiti mode being disabled in the Indivision config tool. Once the game's main title screen appears, this reverts back to normal.

Universe - Digital video display blinks out consistently during the game's initial title animation. Both the floppy and the WHDLoad versions seem to exhibit the same behaviour.

Wiz'n'Liz - Digital video display goes black during the intro when game engine is used to show story, and also during the single player demo, but works okay during boot sequence, on title screen, and in split screen two player demo mode. Again, both the floppy and the WHDLoad versions seem to exhibit the same behaviour.

Worms Director's Cut - With both the ECS and CD32 versions (these seem to be the same version to me), the Mk3's display goes black from the title screen onwards, regardless of whether launched from floppy or WHDLoad. As with Ugh, this is triggering Grafitti mode on the Indivision, despite Graffiti mode being disabled in the Indivision config tool. The AGA version has a couple of additional splash screens (the Ocean and Team 17 logos) and a different title screen when starting up, and the Mk3's output seems okay on this version. Occurs with both the floppy and WHDLoad versions.

I think there might be a couple of different causes for the above as with Worms and Ugh, the Mk3's on-screen display pops up and I can see it changing video modes from that, whereas with Second Samurai, Wiz'n'Liz and Universe, the screen just goes black and the on-screen display does not appear.

Cheers in advance for your help!

Hi again,

Here's the results from my checking HDM* audio using the newest firmware and Indivision tool (2020-12-18), which the good folks at iComp released just before Christmas. Thank you very much indeed for the lovely festive present this has turned out to be! I intended to post this a few days ago but it took longer than I anticipated to check through so many titles.

TLDR version:

The line in the change log that says... "Fixed error in handling of ADKCON writes. Solves audio playback issues in some whdload games. (Xenon2, ShadowOfTheBeast)" is quite a wonderful understatement, and digital audio is now pretty much working perfectly for everything!

Every game that had audio either partially or completely missing, now seems to have full working audio.

Every game that had working audio previously, still seems to have audio working great.

Long version:

I've been working through the games I thought I knew well enough to recognise if the audio was fixed/improved, and so I've checked...

Agony, Alien Breed, Alien Breed 2, Alien Breed 2 AGA, Alien Breed TA, Alien Breed 3D, Alien Breed 3D II, Another World, All Terrain Racing, Apydia, Arkanoid, Arkanoid Revenge of Doh, Awesome,

B.C. Kid, Banshee AGA, Battle Squadron, Beneath a Steel Sky, Beneath a Steel Sky CD32, Black Crtypt, Body Blows, Body Blows AGA, Body Blows Galactic, Body Blows Galactic AGA, Breathless AGA, Brian the Lion, Brian the Lion AGA, Bubble'n'Squeak, Bubble'n'Squeak AGA,

Cannon Fodder, Cannon Fodder 2, Castle Master, Castle Master 2, Chaos Engine, Chaos Engine AGA, Chaos Engine CD32, Chaos Engine 2, Chaos Engine 2 AGA, Chuck Rock, Chuck Rock 2,Crazy Sue, Cruise for a Corpse,

Dan Dare, Darkmere, Dawn Patrol, Defender, Defender 2, Defender of the Crown, Defender of the Crown 2, Deflektor, Deliverance, Deluxe Galaga, Deluxe Galaga AGA, Deluxe Pac-Man, Denaris, Desert Strike, DGeneration, DGeneration AGA, Disposable Hero, Donkey Kong, Double Dragon 2, Double Dragon 3, DragonBreed, Dragon Spirit, Dragon's Lair, Dune, Dune 2 (oops, got stuck playing that for 2 hours...),

Elfmania, Elf, Elite, Elite Advanced, Elvira, Elvira 2, Epic, Exile, Exile AGA, Eye of the Beholder, Eye of the Beholder AGA, Eye of the Beholder 2, Eye of the Beholder 2 AGA,

F15 Strike Eagle, F29 Retaliato, Fightin Spirit, Fightin Spirit AGA, Final FIght, FIre and Ice, The First Samurai, Flashback, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Flimbo's Quest, Flink, Floor 13, Fly Harder, Forgotten Worlds, Frontier, Future Wars,

Gem X, Ghosts 'n' Goblins, Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, Giana Sisters SE, Gods, Golden Axe, Guardian, Gunship 2000, Gunship 2000 AGA,

Hammerfist, Hard 'n' Heavy, Harlequin, Heart of China, Heimdall, Heimdall 2, Heimdall 2 AGA, HeroQuest. HeroQuest 2, Hired Guns, Hybris,

IK+, Immortal, Indy Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, It Came from the Desert,

Jaguar XJ220, James Pond, James Pond 2 - Robocod, James Pond 3 - Operation Starfish, Jim Power,

KGB, Killing Game Show, Knights of the Sky, Kwiksnax

Last Ninja 2, Last Ninja Remix, Leander, Legend of Kyrandia, Lemmings, Lemmings 2, Liberation, Lionheart, Lion King, Liquid Kids, Loom, Lost Patrol, Lost Vikings, Lotus ETC, Lotus ETC 2, Lotus ETC 3, Lure of the Temptress

Magic Pockets, Maniac Mansion, Marvin's Marvellous Adventure, Master Blaster, McDonald Land, Mean Arenas, Mean Streets, MegaBall, MegaBall AGA, Mega-lo-mania, MiG29 Fulcrum, Moonstone, Mortal Kombat, Mr. Heli, Mr. Nutz, Myth,

Naughty Ones, Naughty Ones AGA, Nebulus, New Zealand Story, Ninja Spirit, Nitro, North & South, No Second Prize,

Obitus, Oh No More Lemmings, Operation Stealth, Operation Thunderbolt, Operation Wolf, Overdive, Overkill AGA

Pac Land, Pacmania, Pang, Panza Kick Boxing, Paradroid 90, Parasol Stars, Pierre Le Chef - Out to Lunch, Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies, Pinball Fantasies AGA, Pinball Illusions AGA, Pirates!, Prince of Persia, Project X, Project X SE, Prophecy: The Viking Child, Puggsy, Push Over, Putty, Putty Squad AGA, Puzznic

Quartz, Quik the Thunder Rabbit, Quik the Thunder Rabbit AGA, Qwak,

Rainbow Islands, Rampage, Rampart, RBI Baseball 2, Realms, Realms of Arkania, Red Heat, Real Ghostbusters Real Popeye, Rebellion, Red Baron, Red Storm Rising, Red Zone, Renegade, Renegades, Return of the Jedi, Reunion, Reunion AGA, Revenge of the Mutant Camels, Rick Dangerous, Rick Dangerous 2, Rings of Medusa, Rise of the Dragon, Rise of the Robots, Rise of the Robots AGA, Risky Woods, Road Blasters, RoadKill, Road Rash, Robin Hood Legend Quest, Robinson's Requiem, Robinson's Requiem AGA, RoboCop, RoboCop 2, RoboCop 3, Rodland, Rocket Ranger, R-Type, R-Type 2, Ruff'n'Tumble, Rygar AGA,

Sabre Team, Sabre Team AGA, Saint Dragon, Savage, Scramble Spirits, S.D.I., Second Samurai, Secret of Monkey Island, Secret of Monkey Island 2, Seek and Destroy, Seek and Destroy AGA, Sensible Golf, Sensible Soccer (all versions incl 2020), Settlers, Shadow Fighter, Shadow Fighter AGA, Shadow Lands, Shadow of the Beast, Shadow of the Beast 2, Shadow of the Beast 3, Shadow Sorcerer, Shadow Worlds, Shaq Fu, Shaq Fu AGA, Sim City, Simon the Sorcerer, Simon the Sorcerer AGA, Simulcra, Sink or Swim, Skeleton Krew, Skidmarks, Skidmarks AGA, Slam Tilt AGA, Sleepwalker, Sleepwalker AGA, Sly Spy, Smash TV, Snow Bros, Soccer Kid, Soccer Kid AGA, Space Ace, Space Ace 2, Space Crusade, Space Gun, Space Harrier, Space Harrier 2, Space Hulk, Speedball, Speedball 2, Spellbound Dizzy, Speris Legacy AGA, Spy vs Spy, Spy vs Spy 2, Spy vs Spy 3, Starblade, Star Control, Star Crusader AGA, Stardust, Starglider, Starglider 2, StarRay, StarTrek 25th Anniversary, Stormlord, Street Fighter 2, Strider, Subwar 2050 AGA, Super Cars, Super Cars 2, Super Cauldron, SuperFrog, Super Gem Z, Super Methane Bros, Super Off Road, Super Skidmarks, Super Space Invaders, Super Stardust AGA, Super Street Fighter 2/DX/AGA, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo AGA, Switchblade, Switchblade 2, SWIV, Syndicate,

Terminator 2 Arcade, Terminator 2 Judgement Day, Theme Park, Theme Park AGA, Thexder, Thunder Blade, Thunder Hawk, Thunderstrike, Tiger Road, Tintin on the Moon, Tiny Bobble, Titus the Fox, Toki, Top Gear 2, Top Gear 2 AGA, Tornado, Tornado AGA, Torvak the Warrior, Total Carnage AGA, Total Eclipse, Total Recall, Tower of Souls, Toyota Celica GT Rally, Transarctica, Transarctica AGA, Traps 'n' Treasures, Treasure Island Dizzy, Troddlers, Trog, Trolls, Trolls AGA, Tube Warriors AGA, Tubular Worlds, Tubular Worlds AGA, Turbo Trax, Turn'n'Burn, Turrican, Turrican 2, Turrican 3, Tusker, Twinworld, T-Zer0

UFO Enemy Unknown, UFO Enemy Unknown AGA, Ugh!, UN Squadron, Universe, Unreal, Untouchables, Uridium 2, Utopia,

Vac Suit Jack, Valhalla - Before the War, Vahalla - Lord of Infinity, Vaxine, Venom Wing, Venus the Flytrap, Video Kid, Virocop, Virocop AGA, Virtual Karting AGA, Virtual Karting 2 AGA, Virus, Vital Light, Volfied, Voyager,

Walker, Warhead, War Zone, Wicked, Whizz AGA, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Wing Commander, Wing Commander CD32, Wings, Wings of Death, Wings of Fury, Wizball, Wizkid, Wolfchild, Wonderboy in Monsterland, Wonderdog, Wonderdog SE, Woody's World, Worms Directors Cut AGA, Wrath of the Demon,

Xenomorph, Xenon, Xenon 2, Xenophobe, X-It, X-Out, XP8, XP8 AGA, Xtreme Racing,

Yo Joe, Yolanda,

Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders, Zany Golf, Zeewolf, Zeewolf 2, Zombi, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombie Apocalypse 2 AGA, Zool, Zool AGA, Zool 2, Zool 2 AGA, Z-Out, Zyconix, Zynaps

...as far as I can tell, every game I've tried has fully functional audio on all channels, regardless of whether it is launched from disk or WHDLoad, which is where I was observing the difference in behaviour previously.

I've only tested each of these for a little while, just enough to check the audio on the title screen, in game, gameover etc. It seems with the latest firmware that everything audio just works, and it will be a rare exception if we find anything that does not function correctly.

I have noticed (probably because I have checked so many titles this week, that it seems like there is a larger variation in volume levels between games over HDM* versus the Amiga's analogue audio output. Some games are quieter than others via the normal analogue RCA connectors, by maybe 10-20% between different games but the same games over HDM* sound like the difference is more like 50-75%. It might just be my perception I guess because I was switching between a lot of titles, over and over, and I'm so used to all my devices normalising audio and music nowadays, that I think my ears have gotten a bit lazy!

Lastly, as I was testing the audio I did find a 4-5 games where the audio seemed okay but the video was either unreliable in places, or outright missing via the digital out but where it was fine via the normal Amiga RGB analogue output. I'll put the details of those into a separate post in case it helps with further improvements.

Thanks again for the update, have a great New Year!

Cheers!

I've been doing quite a bit of games testing, it's taking a bit longer than I'd hoped but I should get it finished today, so I'll post the results later on... the update to audio is super awesome so far!

Yep, that's definitely the cause - good find!

I didn't have VGA only enabled as I don't have a VGA monitor, so I didn't think it was needed. As with your Amiga, mine displays the pointer sprite fine with VGA only copied into the Devs:monitors/ directory, but without it, the sprite doubles in height within the right hand 16 pixels of the screen. I wonder what's causing it?

On my Amiga, there's also quite a shift in the screen's relative position within the overscan area, and an increase in the number of lines output with VGA only enabled too. I guess this is just a shift in the porch and sync etc.?

Yes, I think it must be my Amiga's Lisa too. I just can't check the Amiga's analog out at that resolution myself as I don't have a compatible monitor. I did have a picture of my Lisa chip from another thread... found it:

Hiya,

Firstly, thanks for helping!

I tried to mirror your settings to see if they changed any of the behavior but I still see the same effect on the mouse pointer. Your monitor timings are not compatible with my monitor/hdtvs, I have to run my 1080p mode at 148.5MHz and with a horizontal front porch of 528 for 50Hz but other than that they're identical - I don't think the 1080p timing differences are causing what I'm seeing as I've tried lots of different output modes and none t seem to change the behaviour at all.

How are you setting borderblank? it's not an option I can see anywhere in any of the preferences, so I assume it's a tool that modifies the copper list of the screen? I don't have anything like that installed or active on my operating system.

No worries at all, I can imagine how many hours you guys must work each week maintaining and developing all of the products. I'm just grateful for the genuinely excellent support you guys provide.

I noticed something today which might (or might not) be useful. It is related to the partial audio I get via the digital output of the Indivision AGA Mk3 in some WHDLoad games. Depending on how I launch the games with partial audio, I can change whether I get full or partial sound.

Tiny Bobble is a good example (but there are others)...

When launched by booting from floppy at reset/power on, Tiny Bobble has full sound on all channels.

When launched from Workbench from the same floppy, again Tiny Bobble has full sound on all channels.

When launched from Workbench via WHDLoad install via WHDLoad slave, Tiny Bobble has sound on only two channels of audio.

...but when launched from Workbench directly from the WHDLoad install folder but without WHDLoad, Tiny Bobble has full sound on all channels.

So the only combination when Tiny Bobble is missing audio is when launched via WHDLoad, and I've found this to be the same for quite a few WHDLoad games as listed previously in this thread. Now at least I am fairly sure it's something WHDLoad is doing which is directly causing this and not a patched/hacked game file, or some library loaded by Workbench itself.

Other games which exhibit the same improved behavior include Indy Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Dune, Frontier, Another World, Monkey Island 2... Basically anything that has partial audio but which you can launch directly from the WHDLoad data directory inside each install, rather than via its WHDLoad slave file, seems to have fully working audio when not launched using WHDLoad itself.

I haven't yet figured out exactly what WHDLoad is doing to confuse the Indi AGA Mk3 and make two of the audio channels go silent but I thought maybe if we users can figure that out, we might get a work around going at least for now, as there are a lot of WHDLoad games which use disk images instead of files and so can't be launched without WHDLoad. As a bonus we might also find something which makes it easier to figure out a future improvement for the Mk3 along the way.

Please may some other user/s check this when they have the time, and see if they get the same behavior? I've found a few things lately which only seem to happen on my Amiga, so I want to be sure it isn't another of those (or if it is, work out what's causing and fix my software!).

Cheers!