Hello, been a while since I posted. At any rate I have been chugging along with my Efika board for a while now. Someone just asked me about RAM on Efika and I reviewed the various posts here to get refreshed on the subject. Attempts by some to increase Efika RAM didn't seem to go real well, etc...

I am looking at my 2 Efika RAM chips and I see the following part numbers:
SAMSUNG 643
K4H511638C-UCB3
H5116 CMI297CB(

So I go to Samsung and poke around their info and all I get is that these are 512MB chips.

I only have 128MB so what gives?

They are 512Mb and not 512MB. There are two of them. Which makes 1024Mb. 8 "b"its a "B"yte (1024 Mb/ 8 ) is 128 MB.

And no! Its still not possible to replace them. :)

Geit


[ Edited by geit on 2009/8/6 21:46 ]

I understand now. Thanks


So 256MB possible per CS. Efika using only 1 CS?

Efika?
2 x 512Mb
8M x 4bank x 16bit?
(2*64MB)?
using just CSO?







[ Edited by Rodomoc on 2009/8/6 17:12 ]

i still don't understand, what's the problem with usage of graphics memory of some graphics card... is it so difficult to use some part of gfx memory for normal accesses? it would help a lot, if say, 128 megs of gfx memory would be halved to 64 megs for gfx and 64 megs for normal memory...

bye, MarK.

ps: sorry for a bit OT

No, its not possible to get any additional memory working on the Efika board!

Using the GFX memory as system memory is very slow. It would only be useful as slow ram disk or as cache for gfx data. Second would only make sense when dealing with a 256MB card, as the second 128 MB are currently unused.

Reducing the GFX memory from 128 MB to 64 MB makes no sense, as those memory will reach its limit quite fast and then the system gets slow and more system memory is used.

Regarding more Ram on Efika...

I'm not thinking about Efika board itself. I'm just trying to learn how it could be done on a theoretical basis. I'm just thinking of the 5200B and ram here. (eliminate Efika from the thinking process for a bit)

There seems to be a 4chip limit with 5200B and that they have to be within 5cm of cpu. It also seems that 4 ram chips could be utilized on a single CS -or- 2 ram chips per CS for a total of 4. Is this right?

So (in theory), 4 of the current K4H511638C-UCB3 could run on CS0? And that would total 256MB.

My question still is, what is exact configuration within Efika? Yes 2 chips totalling 128MB. I am assuming using CS0 only.

I see only 512Mb chips in this Samsung ram chip series, so if this series still used, then 256MB = theoretical max possible with 4 chip maximum limit of 5200B. Obviously if 1024Mb chips of different chip series used then 512MB possible. Is this right?

>> is it so difficult to use some part of gfx memory for normal
>> accesses? it would help a lot, if say, 128 megs of gfx memory
>> would be halved to 64 megs for gfx and 64 megs for normal memory...

> Using the GFX memory as system memory is very slow. It would
> only be useful as slow ram disk or as cache for gfx data.

Seems this slowness didn't prevent the MorphOS Team from silently implementing exactly this feature (MEM_LIMIT and MEM_SPARE2SYS tooltypes) who knows how many years back, which apparently helps Efika users now it got revealed all of a sudden:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=13913&forum=3&start=37 (#38 ff.)

Someone tried to solder two chips (just like the original ones) on the backside of the board but It wasn't recognized.


Maybe removing the two original chips and using 2 chips of twice the size like K4H1G0838M instead works better... (please note I haven't double checked that these are 100% compatible) Here's the datasheet https://www.digchip.com/datasheets/parts/datasheet/409/K4H1G0838A-UC_LB3-pdf.php

If It wasn't recognized It may require patching the firmware as the size recognition may be hardcoded.

[ Edited by Crumb 17.01.2025 - 16:00 ]

Quote:

I tried this chips: AS4C64M16D1A-6TCN
It looks like compatible wit MPC5200b memory controller - as I could check, I am not big expert.
Swaped them instead original ones. Not works.
Debug:
Code:

> Maybe removing the two original chips and using 2 chips of twice the
> size [...] instead works better... [...] If It wasn't recognized It may
> require patching the firmware as the size recognition may be hardcoded.

Yes and yes, as was established many moons ago:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6112&forum=11&start=17 (#18)
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6112&forum=11&start=22 (#23)
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6112&forum=11&start=44 (#45)
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6428&forum=3&start=86 (#87)
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9655&forum=3&start=7 (#8)

I continue here with discussion about VRAM as SlowRAM from 2025 - your expectations:

I tested Efika + Radeon 9200 Pro/128MB with this Radeon tooltypes:
MEM_LIMIT=32
MEM_SPARE2SYS=YES

avail result> Code:

It works nice, as Amihaharry2 said, OWB works ( some flaws with requesters ). Just now I downloaded via OWB new Morphos.iso. Wayfarer also works.

Of course, it is slow. I tested my read and write speeds to VRAM:
( of course, I don´t know, if this Radeon feature uses the same routines like GfxBench ).
VRAMSpeed-R9200Pro.jpg

Write 71 MB/s is impressive. Read is slow, 18-21 MB/s, but it is normal graphics card behaviour.
And generally, it is near maximum between efika input/output possibilities:
TCP stack: 7.3 MB/s, ATA PIO real: 5.1 MB/s, linux ATA DMA assisted PIO ( theoretical, not tested ) <33 MB/s, linux SATA SiI 3114 87 MB/s ( not tested by me ).

I will test also other graphics cards, if there is difference with read speed. Maybe I have somewhere FireGL 8800.

Quick tests - Quake III now playable, but timedemo freezes. Tower57 works with 16 FPS!

[ Edited by sailor 18.01.2025 - 16:31 ]

Just now I uploaded stream memory bandwith test (stream-5.10-Efika.lha) to morphos-storage.net.
There are two versions, one for Efika onboard RAM and second for Radeon VRAM used as RAM. My Efika results are this:

Efika onboard RAM:
Code:
Efika Radeon VRAM:
Code:
In connection with VRAMSpeed picture above, results is expected.

Radeon VRAM->RAM has some flaws, it is not real virtual memory, so sometimes there are problems if application runs both in RAM and VRAM. But it is really very nice improvement for our Efikas. Many more applications now works. Thanks @morphosdevs.

[ Edited by sailor 19.01.2025 - 18:32 ]

> it is really very nice improvement for our Efikas.
> Many more applications now works.

I just had a look with which MorphOS version this feature implemented with Radeon drivers v52.5/v52.6 was publicly released. Kronos wrote "10+ years" and indeed, MorphOS 2.7 came with v51.17 and MorphOS 3.0 with v52.17, so MorphOS 3.0 from August 2012 is the one.
It's pretty unfortunate that this nice feature went unnoticed und unused for as long as 12½ years, especially considering that MorphOS 3.0 also introduced 256 MiB VRAM support (#6) enabling Efika configurations with 352 MiB RAM + 32 MiB VRAM, for instance.