============================================================================= Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Concerning the Fusion-Forty Accelerator Card Author: Brian King Version: 1.9 Date: Novemeber 14, 1995 ============================================================================= Below you will find a list of frequently asked questions regarding the Fusion-Forty accelerator card. More information will be added as it is submitted. NOTE: Currently waiting for the following benchmarks from graphics card owners: PicassoII, GVP Spectrum, all with 256 colours at 640x480 (see section 3d for examples). CHANGED: Sections III, 1, 3a, 5b, 7, 10. ADDED: Picasso-II problems, hints, information. Please send all contributions and suggestions to: Snail: Brian King 1-420 Fenerty Court Kanata, ON, Canada K2L 3A9 Email: Brian_King@mitel.com FAQ OUTLINE ============================================================================= I. Disclaimer II. Introduction III. Contributors / Distribution List 1. What machines does it work with? 2. Specs and RAM types of the card? 3. What Zorro-II cards work with it? a) Which SCSI controllers b) Which RAM cards c) Networking cards d) Graphics cards e) Bridge-cards f) Others 4. What versions of the OS does it work with? a) KS 1.3 support b) KS 2.x support c) KS 3.x upgrade (Plug'N'Go ROMs) 5. Emulation support? a) ShapeShifter a.1 - Mac ROM type a.2 - Mac System Software version a.3 - ShapeShifter settings b) EMPLANT (Mac/E586) c) AMAX d) PC-TASK 3.1 6. Virtual Memory Support? 7. What is the latest software and ROM release? 8. Problems and solutions a) CopyBack problems (with 2.x of the OS or greater) b) Enforcer hits with ramlib. c) GVP Series II SCSI+RAM (HC+8) system with 16-bit fast mem won't work d) My Fusion Forty doesn't boot / is very slow with an OS 3.1 ROM e) My Fusion Forty crashes after I installed a new OS. f) Problems with 68040.library? g) Problems with the Picasso-II graphics card? 9. Future growth? a) SCSI on-board b) 68060 adapter c) CHIP-RAM accelerator 10. Why is access to my DMA-SCSI controller so slow? 11. Contact address, phone number, BBS number, FAX number, people. I. Disclaimer ============= This document is (C) Copyright 1995, Brian King. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim and modified copies of this document following the terms of the "GNU General Public License" provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies, and that I receive said copies. The author gives *absolutely no* warranty that the answers given here are correct or usable. Many of them were contributed by other users and I cannot verify all information. Please contribute if you see flaws or a lack of information. This is *not* an official document of RCS Management, and is not endorsed by them in any way. However, they are free to distribute it to any purchasers of their Fusion-40 products, and they do comment occasionally. II. Introduction ================ The Fusion-Forty accelerator is a Motorola 68040 based CPU card for Amiga 1500, 2000, and 2500 style machines. It provides a means for increased raw CPU power, as well as RAM expansion on the card. It is manufactured by RCS Management, and was designed by Suresh Sukhdeo in Montreal, PQ, Canada. (See contact information at end). III. Contributors / Distribution List ===================================== If you do NOT want your e-mail address and name mentioned in this document, please let me know. Suresh Sukhdeo rcs@connectmmic.net Mattias Lundblad MLHardSoft@pobox.com Niels Knoop niels@rbg.informatik.th-darmstadt.de Christopher L. Davis cld@prin.edu Victor Ng-Thow-Hing victorng@dgp.toronto.edu Ian Lancaster ilancast@juliet.stfx.ca Christian Bednarek eazy@ng-box.wwbnet.de Kai Kohlmorgen kai@sel.heide.de Bert Heise Bert@fuj.Physik.Uni-Dortmund.de Stefan Wedin stefan.wedin@senet.abb.se Geoffrey Wells geoff@ginsu.com Harald Prasser prasser@fmi.uni-passau.de Joe Angell jangell@risd.edu Bjorn Frostberg tde94frb@te.hik.se Jack Whitehead jack@lexicon.ab.ca Wavelin Fielder wfielder@nyx10.cs.du.edu Gregg Lukomski falchion@ispace.com Max Glick 76271.3707@compuserve.com Erik Petersen erikp@dannug.dk Mundt Marc Christian m-mundt@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu Blair Wickstrand Blair_Wickstrand@amuc.mtroyal.ab.ca Jerry Koniecki jkoniecki@mhv.net James Atwill james@ott.wonder.ca Joseph Ruettgers joeruet@infi.net Bryan Ewert bryan_ewert@amuc.mtroyal.ab.ca Darren K. Turner ar768@freenet.carleton.ca Teddy Wang teddy@shell.global1.net Ian Wellock Ian.Wellock@isltd.insignia.com Hans Frimmel frimmel@cb.uu.se Ron Funk rfunk@frontier.island.net Brian King Brian_King@mitel.com 1. What machines does it work with? =================================== Any Amiga with an A2000-style CPU-slot, such as the A1500, A2000, and A2500. It will NOT work in an A3000 or A4000 style machine. Motherboard revision seems to make a difference concerning the Fusion-Forty, and Zorro-II expansion cards. Reported successes include: - A2000"C" Rev 6.2, ECS Agnus and ECS Denise - A2000"C" Rev 6.2 2M Agnus and ECS Denise (Mattias Lundblad) - A2000"C" Rev 6.0 ECS Agnus and ECS Denise (Kai Kohlmorgen, Bjorn Frostberg) - A2000"B" Rev 4.0 ECS Agnus and ECS Denise (Niels Knoop) - A2000 Rev 4.5 ECS Agnus and ECS Denise (Blair Wickstrand) - A2000 Rev 4.4 ECS Agnus - A2000 Rev 4.3 ECS Agnus and OCS Denise (upgraded to 4.5) (Teddy Wang, Brian King) 2. Specs and RAM types of the card? =================================== There are two known models of the card: - Fusion-Forty 28MHz model, with 25MHz 68040 clocked at (25, 28 or 30MHz) Takes 30-pin SIMMs, 80ns or less, 8 SIMM sockets. (recommend 70ns SIMMs) - Fusion-Forty 35MHz model, with 33MHz 68040 overclocked to 35MHz. Takes 72-pin SIMMs, 70ns or less, 8 SIMM sockets. Either parity or non-parity SIMMs will work. Additionally, it can take either 1 or 4-Meg SIMMs in either of its four-slot banks. The first four SIMM sockets make up one bank, while the last four make up another bank. Each bank's sockets must be populated with the SAME TYPE of SIMM (ie. either 1 or 4-Meg), but each bank can have a different size of SIMM. Thus, possible RAM configurations include: 4 Meg, 8 Meg, 16 Meg, 20 Meg, and 32 Meg. 3. What Zorro-II cards work with it? ==================================== a) Which SCSI controllers? - Masoboshi Mastercard - MASOBOSHI.device > 2.03 (DMA, reported to be FAST) - Supra Wordsync - Oktagon 2008 - ROM 6.8 - 2 Meg on card (rawspeed is 1.6 Meg/sec) Reported to work in one machine (rev 6.0), but not in another (rev 4.0) - Oktagon 2008 - ROM 6.5 - Kronos (Niels Knoop) (PIO, rawspeed is 1.2 Meg/sec) - GVP Impact - GVPSCSI 3.15 (Mattias Lundblad) (PIO, 16k buffer) - GVP Series II - GVPSCSI 4.13 - No mem on card (DMA, rawspeed is 750K/sec, serial problems evident) - GVP Series II - GURU ROM - No mem on card (Bjorn Frostberg) (DMA, rawspeed is 980K/sec, serial problems reduced) - GVP Series II - GVPSCSI 4.05 - 2 Meg on card (Brian King) (DMA, rawspeed is 1.1 Meg/sec, no serial problems) Works fine with RAM in some machines, but not in others like: Blair Wickstrand, Niels Knoop, Dan Babcock ** NOTE: apparently version 3.01 and 3.02 of the GVP HC+8 card doesn't like 16-bit memory and the F40. - A2091 - ROM 7.0 - 2 Meg on card (DMA, rawspeed is 900K/sec with PD-tool vb2091) ** NOTE: problems with PicassoII in some situations. If it occurs, try re-arranging the cards in the Zorro slots. (Teddy Wang) - ICD Advantage 2000 - ROM 3.5r1 (PIO, rawspeed is about 1.2 Meg/sec) - ICD AdSCSI - ROM 3.5r1 (Teddy Wang) - IVS Trumpcard Pro (ROM version?) - Trifecta SCSI/IDE - ROM 4.31, trifecta.device 67.1 - No mem on card (Blair Wickstrand) * Microbotics Hardframe - DOES NOT WORK b) Which RAM cards? - GVP Series II (SCSI+RAM, 2 meg configuration tested) (Brian King) - Supra RAM 2000 (4 and 6 meg configuration tested) (Blair Wickstrand) - Oktagon 2008 (2 meg configuration tested) - Microbotics 8-UP! RAM card (Jerry Koniecki) - CBM 2 meg RAM card (Mattias Lundblad) c) Networking cards? - Hydra Ethernet card (hydra.device 1.33) (James Atwill) d) Graphics cards? - Commodore A2410 TIGA Graphics Adapter Works fine, good speed. EGS 7.2 and Juergen Schober's EGS-TIGA driver. (Brian King) - MacroSystems Retina Z2 (both 2 and 4 meg versions) - OpalVision in video slot - Merlin I, 4 megs, Probench 2.2, works "GREAT" (Kai Kohlmorgen) - Picasso II, works fine with some motherboards . Success with rev6.0 mother-board PicassoII with 2 Meg, V1.4 village.library 2.58 villintuisup.library 2.9 Picasso-Monitor 2.56 . Failure with rev6.0 mother-board (different person) PicassoII with 2 Meg, V1.2 and V1.4 "strange grafix-errors" . Failure with rev6.2 mother-board (Bryan Ewert) - Problem here was his actual Fusion-Forty . Success with rev6.2 mother-board (Bryan Ewert) - Used a different Fusion-Forty with no problems PicassoII with 2 Meg, unknown version village.library 2.58 villintuisup.library 2.9 Picasso Monitor 2.51 NOTE: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TWO Fusion-Forty CARDS NON-FUNCTIONAL WORKING PART# wire-jumper no jumper U33 wire-jumper no jumper U53 wire-jumper no jumper U20 wire-jumper no jumper U21 What are all those jumpers for? Are these the AS* "fix", now causing problems with the Picasso II? . Failure with A2091 SCSI controller (Teddy Wang) - By changing the order of the PicassoII and his AdSCSI cardsin the Zorro-II slots, and removing the A2091, he managed to fix his problems. - Piccolo/Spectrum, may need a PAL upgrade - Piccolo-SD64, may need a PAL upgrade, once working is quite nice (Niels Knoop) - GVP IV-24 Benchmarks using WSpeed (C) 1994 JAMI Soft Development (640x480) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Board ECS SD64 Picass2 Picass2 Spectrm A2410 Merlin 1 Software OS CGraphX CGraphX Picasso CGraphX EGS ProBench Version 3.1 2.08 7.2 2.2 Driver --- 1.24 2.06 --- Colors 8 256 256 256 256 256 256 CPU (MHz) 25 25 28 28 30 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Put Pixels 501856 1012220 541182 269235 971022 Draw Lines 2700 15147 14364 21706 15811 Draw Hor/Ver 4473 32915 34128 36323 134458 Draw Circles 2928 37607 34743 1300 38721 Draw Ellipse 2653 21623 3046 1171 7183 Draw Boxes 323 9561 2148 1463 5493 Scroll X 93 1206 442 93 1115 Scroll Y 78 1242 446 93 1293 Print Text 6371 14962 10027 6072 9621 CON: Output 281 901 436 146 497 Open Windows 131 214 171 88 278 Size Window 264 368 212 216 546 Move Windows 47 70 79 27 68 Swap Screens 505 24 24 9 25 Areafill 247 195 427 190 401 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: Please make sure that when using WSpeed, you actually SELECT the screen-mode you want to use, and THEN hit OK. Don't just accept the one it shows and hit OK, because a bug then occurs causing only a 640x256 section to be used. NOTE: * indicates that either the driver or subsystem doesn't support this operation properly. e) Bridge-cards? - A2088, 640K, 8MHz, works fine - A2386SX, 3 and 5 meg, 20MHz works (Mattias Lundblad) - GoldenGate 386SX works (Niels Knoop) - GoldenGate with 486SLC works fine (Mattias Lundblad) f) Others? - GVP I/O Extender card (Blair Wickstrand, Niels Knoop) - MultiFace II multi-I/O adapter (Bjorn Frostberg) - MultiFace III multi-I/O adapter (Jerry Koniecki) - ASDG Dual Serial (Mattias Lundblad) - DKB 2Meg CHIP RAM (Jerry Koniecki) * Tocatta card does NOT work (Jerry Koniecki) - DCTV and software on 23-pin RGB port (Victor Ng-Thow-Hing) - Easyl graphics tablet with ZorroII controller (Victor Ng-Thow-Hing) - ProSound 3.0 Sound Digitizer in parallel port (Victor Ng-Thow-Hing) 4. What version of the OS does it work with? ============================================ a) KS 1.3 support - While 1.3 is still supported, and can then be used as the launchpad for FASTKICKing a newer version of the OS via a Kickstart-file, it is not a recommended environment for use of a 68040 based accelerator. - As Niels Knoop so accurately stated: "This isn't 1986 anymore!" b) KS 2.x support - Yes c) KS 3.x upgrade (Plug'N'Go ROMs) - Yes, with upgrade to Version 3.4 of Plug'N'Go ROMs 5. Emulation Support? ===================== a) ShapeShifter (SS) a.1 - Mac ROM type Below is a table of Macintosh ROM versions which work with 3.1a: Macintosh Model Version.Subversion Size All Caches? --------------------------------------------------------------- Mac LC-III 124.34 1 Meg YES ??? 124.17 512K NO DATACACHE a.2 - MacOS version System 7.0.1 (freely available from ftp.apple.com) with SystemTuner 1.1.1 works fine. System 7.1 ???? System 7.5.x ???? Problems with the Sound-Control-Panel on many setups, fixed by getting the latest Sound-Manager package from ftp.support.apple.com somewhere. However, with System 7.0.1 and ShapeShifter 3.1a, the latest Sound- Manager package (3.1) did NOT work at all. a.3 - ShapeShifter settings (Solved!) ************************************************************************** These problems can be solved by using the "real" 68040.library and the AMAXIV patch for SetFF, as outlined in section 8f, part 4. You can all thank me by sending $5 to.... :^) Also, you won't need PrepareEmul at all with the instructions presented in section 8f, part 4. ************************************************************************** It seems that none of the MMU settings for ShapeShifter will work with the Fusion-Forty 32-bit memory. Thus, if you put the Mac ROM image there, you cannot turn on the "Write Protect ROM" option. Additionally, if you want your Mac video memory to be in 32-bit mem, you cannot use the "MMU Refresh" option at all, which sorta defeats the purpose. Finally, CopyBack cache cannot be used with the standard F40 setup and ShapeShifter. According to Christian Bauer, author of ShapeShifter: "I suspect that the F40 uses the Transparent Translation registers to enable Copyback and not the MMU table like the 68040.library does. This would break all of ShapeShifter's MMU related functions (and some of MacOS's cache handling)." b) EMPLANT (Mac/E586) - Works with 3.1 ROM upgrade, 3.4 Plug'n'Go ROMs for Fusion-Forty, and FASTKICK option disabled. (What about FASTKICK EMPLANT option?) - You can use the EMPLANT and the Fusion-Forty together, INCLUDING support for FASTKICK. - First line of startup-sequence is the standard EMPLANT specific line - Next line is: SetFF >NIL: EMPLANT CACHE CBK FPU (Max Glick) c) AMAX - AMAX II (floppy cartridge) works fine if started without FASTKICK and memory is added. (Mattias Lundblad) - AMAX IV (Zorro-II board) works fine, even with FASTKICKed 3.1, using the AMAXIV switch for SetFF. (Mattias Lundblad) d) PC-TASK 3.1 - reported as working 6. Virtual Memory Support? ========================== VMM versions 2.0, 3.0, and 3.1 are all reported as working. The key is to make sure you run MoveMH (version 1.2) early in your startup. (Christian Bednarek, Blair Wickstrand, Kai Kohlmorgen). I haven't been able to get it to work, however. Kai Kohlmorgen's information looks like: Memory: fixed size Type: any File "hd1:pagefile Size: 8MB Min 200KB WriteB: 100KB VM Pri: 40 Miscellaneous: Enabled: Cache ZII RAM Show VM in WB Title Memory Tracking other options: disabled Task: Default: N N 7. What is the latest software and ROM release? =============================================== Plug'N'Go ROMs 3.4 SetFF 1.79 MoveMH 1.3 2091ROMMover 1.4 CheckBoard 2.2 8. Problems and solutions ========================= a) CopyBack problems (with 2.x of the OS or greater) - This may be a problem with the Gate Array Logic (GAL) chip at location U37 on your Fusion-Forty card. If it is a GAL, not a Programmable Array Logic (PAL) chip, it should be replaced with a TIBPAL 22V10 or 22VP10 (20-25ns) (Suresh Sukhdeo) Testing: - if your machine runs reliably without the CopyBack cache of the 68040 CPU enabled, but crashes often when it is enabled, it MAY be this part. However, some older software (pre 2.x OS stuff) doesn't like the CopyBack cache of the 68040. Try booting with a clean system, and see how that goes. b) Enforcer hits with ramlib. - Try using MoveMH 1.2, *NOT* MoveMH 1.1 which had a bug. c) GVP Series II SCSI+RAM (HC+8) system with 16-bit fast mem won't work - NOTE: I've had no problem in my system with BOTH J11 and the SCSI speed at 14MHz... - NOTE: turns out that version 3.01 and 3.02 of the GVP HC+8 card is unreliable when used with the Fusion-Forty and 16-bit memory. d) My Fusion Forty doesn't boot / is very slow with an OS 3.1 ROM - This is caused by older versions of the Plug&Go-ROMs on the F40. Upgrading to the new Version 3.4 should fix this, but you can get older versions to work as well. If the F40 doesn't boot at all, hold the right mouse button during reset to bring up the F40 control menu and select NOFASTKICK from there. It will boot then, but won't do its job. To regain Fusion Forty speed adding the Fast-RAM, patching and installing the Kickstart image in it and enabling the FPU has to be done by the program SetFF which should be on the F40 software disk or can be ob- tained from RCS. (Niels Knoop) e) My Fusion Forty crashes after I installed a new OS. - The Fusion Forty Plug&Go-ROMs are not compatible with the original 68040.library from Commodore. Be sure to re-install the small special 68040.library which came with your F40. (Niels Knoop) f) Problems with 68040.library? - Some people attribute various system problems to the use of a custom 68040.library. Certain 040-specific applications don't seem to like it, while working fine with other cards which can use it. - Many problems may not be related to the 68040.library, but instead to the Fusion-40 using an 8K page-size for MMU operations, instead of the typical 4K page-size. - You CAN use the normal 68040.library, by disabling FASTKICKing, and not using any of the SetFF/MoveMH tools. This allows you to use the Commodore 68040.library (37.3), and test for compatability problems. However, without the FASTKICK support, your speed will drastically decrease. - you CAN use the normal 68040.library and ALLOW the use of FASTKICKing by doing the following: 1. If you have Plug'N'Go ROMs with the Auto Fastkick option, turn it OFF 2. Have the first two lines of your startup-sequence look like: SetFF FASTKICK AMAXIV SetPatch 3. *OR* if you want a different ROM version loaded, use: SetFF FASTKICK devs:kickstart_rom AMAXIV SetPatch This not only allows use of the "real" 68040.library, it ALSO allows ShapeShifter to work flawlessly with the Fusion-Forty, along with the CopyBack caches enabled. Make sure with this setup you don't use any of the MoveMH or SetFF tools after you've started up. g) Problems with the Picasso-II graphics card - See sections 3a and 3d. It could be anything from software versions, F40 versions, and Zorro-card configurations. 9. Future growth? ================= a) SCSI on-board - Coming since 1992... Somewhat pessimistic about this. b) 68060 adapter - Unknown. RCS may skip that particular upgrade path and go straight to an 060-specific accelerator, perhaps even with PCI graphics on the card (with my suggestions). c) CHIP-RAM accelerator - Was on the backburner due to static-RAM costs. May yet come to light. 10. Why is access to my DMA-SCSI controller so slow? ==================================================== DMA controllers can only transfer to memory within the 24-bit memory space (MEMF_24BITDMA), also known as AutoConfig memory space. Your Amiga can only have 8 Megs maximum of AutoConfig memory space. Since NONE of the Fusion-Forty's memory is within that space, your DMA SCSI controller doesn't know how to directly access it with a DMA transfer. Instead, it will usually either choke (some controllers with wrong ROM), or it will allocate a small buffer somewhere where it CAN do a DMA transfer. It then DMAs to the small buffer (either in 16-bit FAST memory, or in CHIP memory), and afterwards, copies the information byte-by-byte into the 32-bit RAM target area on the Fusion-Forty. If you have NO 16-bit FAST mem in your system, and have a DMA controller, GET SOME! Otherwise, with the small DMA buffer in CHIP memory, your system will crawl (since access to CHIP mem is shared with the custom-chips). With my GVP SCSI controller, I go from 780K/sec to around 1.1 Meg/sec just by adding two megs of 16-bit fast memory. Additionally, some of that memory comes in handy for drive caching, ShapeShifter (the Mac ROM can go there), or other purposes. Sure its slow, but its providing a dual purpose. Additionally, with non-GVP controllers, the PD DMAFix software may help. It is not necessary with gvpscsi.device, since it already sets up a buffer in DMA memory and uses it. However, with some other cards you could add some 16-bit memory and the DMAFix software (like the A2091?) and get better performance. (Mark Odell) 11. Contact address, phone number, BBS number, FAX number, people. ================================================================== RCS Management Suite 123, 5764 Monkland Ave Montreal, PQ, Canada H4A 1E9 Voice: 514-990-5551 Fax: 514-483-1869 BBS: E-Mail: RCS@connectmmic.net (Suresh Sukhdeo) E-Mail: MLHardSoft@pobox.com (Mattias Lundblad, author of the SetFF & MoveMH software) Suresh Sukhdeo is the common contact for Fusion-40 problems, since he designed the accelerator. He is very informative and friendly. Additionally, Mattias' e-mail address has stabilized, and he can now be reached consistently. +-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ | Brian D. King - Computer Engineer | Fourth Dimension Software, author | | PBX/ISDN Software Development Group | of LhA-GUI, and the Fusion-40 FAQ | | Mitel Corporation, Kanata, Ontario | ***** Brian_King@Mitel.com ***** | +-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+