Sorry, I know that I sound like the bad guy here and like an end user that wants to have it everything plug n play and complains about two silly games. But that is not the case. I really had ENOUGH with all this Amiga madness, including MorphOS. And I am getting really mad when simple things are simply not happening. I have ended up using BOTH MorphOS and AmigaOS for just some basic things that would expand my retro passion but even when those SIMPLE things are NOT happening, well I am seriously thinking that it is not worth to be on the ship anymore, no matter the flavor.

I got LOTS of hardware because I was and still I am a passionate MorphOS user. With each individual machine I can narrate a full adventure to you, full of blood, sweat and tears and LOTS LOTS of money wasted. But anyway I decided to stay. And not only this I am reading that MorphOS is going to the next level with this Apple PowerMac Gx hardware and I decided to follow. But look:

It is better NOT to release any kind of upgrade only to expand your supported hardware list of machines and / or cards if it is not 100% tested and working. Forget the PowerMac support, delete it and release it again when all the basic stuff is fixed. Forget the Radeon cards support, stick to the old good 9250 if this is the one that only works. And bring any kind of upgrade back when it is fully working.

I know that I am speaking without be an insider and that there is a lot of hard work needed for every single update I am getting with every release. OK I understand it. So? Expand your beta testing crew and do not let the user base to become beta testers releasing semi-working stuff!!!

So I am getting those G4 to go to the next level.. yeah OK. Well, example? I just want to SIMPLY listen to some music. The simpler task on earth and the bloody audio does not work. YEAH OK the volume slider of MacOSX is HIGH. But look folks, I want those machines for MorphOS, so I got to install an operating system THAT I WOULD NOT USE, to increase an audio volume bar with the hope that the audio would work. And of course it does not work.... And the official community solution is "go and get a sound blaster live it costs nothing". WHY? Why??? Why?????????? MORE money? Just to listen to some crappy mp3s? I got it ok. AND THE CARD DO NOT WORK in both machines. https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9589&forum=11
Yeeeeeeah the card is bad. OK OK............ No the card is working great on other machines.

The same with the gfx support. Yeah ok I am gonna take it one of those 9700 or 9800 cards but look man they got to be the Mac edition -lots of cost- or otherwise you got to tape them, flash em, cut pins, make voodoo and black magic................... yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah AND THEY ARE STILL NOT ABLE TO PLAY THE ONLY TWO GAMES THAT I LIKE TO PLAY.

Yeah yeah bug reports.................. OK OK.

Hurrican is booting but it stacks on the intro screen or manages to go on the loading screen just to stick in there. Quake III bring a black screen on boot. Same symptoms in both cases -9800 9700-.

I just mess with this kind of stuff to have some happy hours but this is a no go.

UNTIL you decide to expand your beta testers and not having the end users to go through all this, until you decide to release stuff that is really supported. I will stick with the trusty Pegasos and the Radeon 9250.

Sorry for sounding so negative....... But...........





[ Edited by CountRaven 08.10.2013 - 08:49 ]

@bigfoot

Hello, here's what I did yesterday evening:

Boot from the MorphOS 3.3 CD. format my System partition (DH1), perform a clean installation, reboot, place my MorphOS registration key in devs and choose the correct settings at Prefs/Monitor, reboot, mount latest Chrysalis iso, full install with default options, final reboot, played around with the backdrop and skin only, launched Grunch in order to check if my system was completely up-to-date (which it was) and then launched OWB from poly_net bar, it initialed the fonts, loaded its pub screen and I started moving around the window, suddenly my CPU reached 100%, the process gadget revealed that TaskLayerInfo was causing the problem, Ambient was lagging and after 5 seconds, here's what it looked like:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/17/yyjn.jpg/

I rebooted by ctrl+cmd+cmd, went to my work partition and launched Speed Dreams. As you can see from the below screenshot some parts of the screen are trashed (mirror and map area):

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/542/wgg2.jpg/

(Note that I got the exact same trashed parts of the game's screen in TORCS as well, last weekend. After making the format/clean installation yesterday TORCS was lagging even in its Menu screen, thus I was unable to launch any game session in order to check and report).

Furthermore I tested ScummVm 1.4.1 & 1.6 which was lagging in its Options/Menu screen (but not in the excess of TORCS I described above) and when I launched "FOTAQ talkie" I got a black screen though I could here game's sound normally.

The lagging in Ambient continued reboot after reboot and I 've given up when it started happening even when I was double clicking a simple TXT file.

I can test even more games and/or applications if you want me.

Please note that same system configuration with different GFX card (9000 64MB) works flawlessly. However all the problems described above have been described by fellow users in MorphZone (from trashed graphics to artifacts and from general Ambient lagging to individual games' lagging such as Giga-Lo-Mania) from time to time, so it can't be the card's problem each time.

CountRaven,

Quote:

Quote:

I have duly noted that you do not wish to file a bug report and that furthermore you're no longer using the affected hardware.

Cool_amigaN,

Quote:

This one looks like the Radeon chip is crashing (which could be due to anything from overheating to a driver bug). This is with a Radeon 9800, right? Can I ask you to please check and make sure that the Radeon fan is operating properly and not making any weird sounds? If it is operating properly, then please use the MorphOS bug report tool (if I remember right, it's located in the Ambient menus under 'About MorphOS') and send this bug report that way. Please include the link to the picture.

Quote:

This one is a known problem of the R300 TinyGL driver. It will hopefully be fixed for MorphOS 3.4.

Quote:

This one sounds more like an application problem of some sort. Does it use SDL by any chance?

Quote:

So it is something that after a while starts happening more and more frequently? It sounds like it is working fine at first, but then after running for a while it almost completely stops working?

@bigfoot

On the line bellow the one that you are ussing as a quote, I am describing the problem on both the games.

The last weeks I have opened at least two threads discribing very similar cases as the ones of Cool_Amigan only to take almost no replies at all.

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9535&forum=11#105024


https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9589&forum=11

In both cases this is not a bug, this is a total no go.

So what would you advice me to do in both cases? Report the "bugs" through your report system? Would this have ny problems solved in any case? Hope so....



[ Edited by CountRaven 08.10.2013 - 16:41 ]

Quote:

Quote:

Yes.

CountRaven,
Quote:

I can understand your frustration, but I really think you should keep things in perspective when it comes to MorphOS, specifically. For the most part I have found everything just works, period, until the G5 and R300 support. We the users pounded the table for G5 and R300 support. When it was under development we pounded the table for it to be released. It seems we finally got a MorphOS release with bugs directly related to the G5 and R300.

It happens. The MorphOS team is small and the task is enormous. Maybe you are letting your disappointment in other related OSes lower your tolerance for MorphOS? Unlike some other Amiga-like OSes the bugs will be squashed soon. The MorphOS team rarely disappoints and shortcomings are not long lasting.

You have a MDD? You have a Radeon 9250? Put the 9250 back in for now and you have a bulletproof system! My MDD with Radeon 8500 just works and simply DOES NOT CRASH. My G5 with R300 has a few bugs, so I will be taking out the R300 and putting a 9250 in for now. It is a small price to pay. But really dude, a MDD with R200 card works flawlessly SO USE IT. Be brutality honest with yourself and you will agree that a Classic Amiga was never as stable as MorphOS on a G4 with R200!

Quote:

No I do not have a spare 9250. I tried to find some newer cards just to go on the next level G4 trip but this was a fail. It is not fun when you pay fir hardware that at the end you can not use.

Quote:

The point of my post was not to blame anyone. I just pointed that before a new feature is released, they should test it again and again. The users may want lots of features to be released, but it is better for the users to wait, than getting half working results.

Quote:

There is no sound support on the G4, it is something simple and basic..... No one cares. In which way we can someone point that yes Powermac G4 is supported when it is lacking sound under MorphOS?

I want a stable system, That would be able to do basic things, when the extra features are coming they are welcome, but first focus on basics...

This 9700 is crashing my system... Ok yes I know the deal... Find another card... I am used to it.

[ Edited by CountRaven 09.10.2013 - 07:30 ]

@bigfoot

Hello,

My card is a genuine Radeon 9800 PRO 256MB Mac Edition featuring the R360 chipset (XT). It has also installed a brand new Zalman cooler plus full set of heatsinks. The card is running cool and I can verify that I have no issues of overheating. The card was running smooth under OSX in a Quicksilver previously, if that helps.

Some applications I tested and failed, may indeed rely on SDL. Who should I inform in that situation? Because, if I swap the card with my old Radeon 9000, the applications (and the system in general) run back on normal. How can I determine whether it's an individual application's fault or a more generic problem relying on the drivers issue?

I haven't found the time to investigate thoroughly the problem with Ambient lagging (that only gets fixed via reboot) but I can verify that it happens when I start moving OWB's window and when I open a txt file (I may need to open and close the txt file once or twice before the problem starts).

Quote:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=9535&forum=11#105024

I got an overclocked to 1.5 Ghz PowerMac G4 MDD.

It has 2Giga of RAM on 4 sticks / 512MB.

It has a Radeon 9700, I have tapped the two pins in order to make it work.

It also has a SoundBlaster Live and a USB 2.0 PCI card.

The CPU is cooled by two extra fans.

The machine works GREAT under MacOSX, it is tested with full Heavy Load, in ultra hot and many hours.

On MorphOS I have this very STRANGE issue.

On the first boot the mahcine works fine. It plays videos form usb sticks, it plays web radio, it plays mp3, everything I have tested goes on well.

If I let some time to pass lets say 30-40 minutes and make a Reboot -after the warning of unregistered version-. The mahcine would NOT work well under MorphOS:

Glitches are heard instead of sounds through the SB Live.
The mouse cursor would stuck if I move it. It would move for a while, then it would stuck again, the it would move again.

Anyway the system is NOT stable.

I tested with different memory sticks, letting only 1.5 Giga on board.
I changed the PCI slot of the cards.
I re installed MorphOS -and Chrysalis-.
The gfx card is getting a little hot, I left some backplates of the machine totally open to allow some more air to come.

Nothing changed.

Of MacOSX I have none of this problems.



[ Edited by CountRaven 09.10.2013 - 10:16 ]

CountRaven,
Quote:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Apple-PowerMac-G4-64Mb-Radeon-9000-AGP-Card-603-1989-Working-USA-/160958076711?_trksid=p2054897.l4275

Less than $20 shipped. If that is too much ask here on Morphzone and someone will probably sell you one for less. I dumped a dozen of these last year for about $12 shipped. Drop it in, no gfx issues. Any R200 based card will treat you good until the R300 bugs are squashed.

Quote:

What are you talking about? You have a MDD and sound works fine on an MDD. I have a MDD(FW800) and the built in sound works fine. I prefer use a SB Live and it works fine too.

Quote:

What happened to no sound support? Are you trolling? It sounds like you have failing hardware, possibly the SB Live. OSX doesn't have drivers for SB Live (AFAIK) so a failing sound card won't be obvious.

@CountRaven

I can vouch for the MDD Mac... FW400 MDD macs would have very low audio output, but to my understanding was fixed in 3.2 upon the release of G5 support. I would of sent you a free SB Live and a free Radeon 9000 Pro for your MDD to rid of your problems. Right now I only have stacks of SB Live! cards near me where I currently live but haven't got around to throwing them in the spare Quicksilver mac tower.

Recently I battled my MDD and it came down to my Video card why Ambient was SLOWWWWW as hell and audio shitting on me. This was a flashed Radeon 9200 SE I modified and im sure the card was well on its way to hell. Days later it was greeted with artifacts on the screen... Swap out your video card for the time being and it may fix your issue. :) :)

I had to fight my Amiga 1200 a few days ago to get the damn thing to connect to my LAN. Imagine the frustration having to start from scratch with no floppy disks. I used a CF card for my hard drive and had to read up on alot of partitioning with SFS and PSF. WinUAE was the savior of the project. Wasn't no walk through the park, but even after fighting the damn thing I ended up winning. :) :)

Have a few beers and kick some ass.

@redrumloa

Quote:

A friendly advice:

Keep your words for yourself.

Fortunately I have much better things to do in life than to waste my time on forums trolling. I am really laughing out loud every time I am taking notice about this red vs blue war and no I am not going to take it.

If you are unable to understand what I mean by pointing "No sound support" (I mean this very low playback of EVERYTHING sound related on TWO -2- PowerMac MDD Machines, -a fact that I quoted and described many times both in this thread and on other specific thread as well), then this is your problem and in fact that does not make ME a troll.

No I do not have a bad card because this SoundBlaster Live works perfectly in other machines. It also work on 3.2, on the first boot, I have described the problem again and again.

@duffo

Quote:

Thanks for the post. Yes I have been there -Amiga 1200-. Yes I know that the problems would eventually be solved if I pick up some of the supported hardware. I should have known better that the new card are not supported well and simply remain to the catalog of the supported ones.




[ Edited by CountRaven 10.10.2013 - 11:19 ]

Quote:

OK, then please use the bug report tool as I mentioned earlier. Doing so gives me valuable information about your hardware that will help me in figuring out what the problem might be.

Quote:

The one issue you described (black screen, but sound is playing) could maybe be something like SDL not handling a different pixel format correctly. Could of course also be something else, but that was the first possibility that sprang to mind.

If you don't mind swapping cards, try booting with each of them and launching the 'GraphicsBoards' tool and note down which pixel formats each card supports.

Quote:

That can be quite difficult to do. If you're in doubt, you can always file a bug report for it and then we can look into it.

Quote:

If you can reproduce it that easily, do this:
1) Reboot your computer.
2) Open a shell
3) Change the directory to one of your hard disk partitions by typing its name followed by a colon
4) Type 'getramdebuglog' (without the quotes) but don't press enter yet.
5) Do whatever it is it takes to reproduce the problem
6) Activate the shell window and press enter
7) Wait 5 seconds
8) Reboot, file a bug report, write a short description and paste the contents of the 'morphos.log' file that was created on the partition you chose.

@bigfoot

Ah, ok, because I was wondering how the heck I create a txt bug report that captures the problem with Ambient lagging.
The "TaskLayerInfo", that I am seeing toping my cpu cycles, what exactly does it do?
Hope to find time afternoon to send most bugs. I will revert with more news hopefully tomorrow morning.

Quote:

When running 'enhanced layers' (the stuff that gives transparent windows and window drop shadows, for example), 'LayerInfoTask' is the task that combines all of the 'layers' (ie, windows) into the final image you see on the screen.

What is happening in your case is that your Radeon GPU crashes. This causes the Radeon driver to revert to software blitter fallbacks instead of using the GPU to combine all these layers, which is really, really slow.

@bigfoot

Hello, yesterday evening I filed my first bug report, regarding Ambient lagging (which is the most important bug since it prohibits using my MorphOS box). More reports will follow (especially the ones with trashed graphics).

BTW FYI, the getramdebuglog repeats the following sentence around 15-20 times:

Radeon: Timeout while waiting for the CSQ queue to idle

Is there any chance that somebody is going to contact me by mail after the bug report and try to sort this out or do I have to wait for a new release? What the above error actually means? Are there beta drivers which I can test in my system?

Thanks.

Thanks for the bug report. It already gave me several pieces of information I can work with. However, you didn't leave an email address I can use to contact you for testing potential fixes, so if you could please supply one either by private message or a bug report, that'd be helpful.

@bigfoot

My name/surname was completed automatically at the bug report box, so I thought that you had a record to match them with my e-mail address :P
Anyway, not a big problem, I will do so through PM and all my following bug reports will have it include.
As I have written above, if you have a beta version of the drivers and/or a hot fix for my problem I WANT to test it immediately, cause frankly, after someone experiences MorphOS with a R300 card, there is no way he will ever go back for a R200 chipset GFX.