Laptop recommendations

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geennaam

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/1 8:18 #41

Quite a regular

@Hans

From entering command to WB fully loaded takes about 10 seconds.

And I'm running Linux/QEMU+bboot0.4 from an old mechanical HDD.

Version of sm502 driver is 53.9

Hans

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/1 8:52 #42

Home away from home

@geennaam

Quote:

From entering command to WB fully loaded takes about 10 seconds.

And I'm running Linux/QEMU+bboot0.4 from an old mechanical HDD.

Version of sm502 driver is 53.9

What are your machine's hardware specs?

Is that with a self-compiled version of qemu? Or an official build?

I'm still using v8.0.0 downloaded from the website (Windows, not in a position to try out Linux).

I should try out bboot. IIRC, kas1e said that's faster than amigaboot.of.

Hans

http://hdrlab.org.nz/ - Amiga OS 4 projects, programming articles and more.
https://keasigmadelta.com/ - more of my work

geennaam

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/1 8:59 #43

Quite a regular

@Hans

Version 8.1.0 rc0. You need 8.1 to be able to use bboot

Build it myself from the master repository. Just a straight forward build. Nothing fancy.

I have a Core i5 10400F with 8 GB ddr4.

Hans

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/1 9:14 #44

Home away from home

@geennaam

Quote:

I have a Core i5 10400F with 8 GB ddr4.

What's the max clock speed? I'm using a Core i7, but it's a laptop (max clock 2.6GHz).

http://hdrlab.org.nz/ - Amiga OS 4 projects, programming articles and more.
https://keasigmadelta.com/ - more of my work

geennaam

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/1 9:47 #45

Quite a regular

@Hans

It's more than just clock. Generation counts as well. But the max single core turbo frequency is 4.3 GHz

A laptop with a Core-i5 1135G7 should give similar performance to my system. The raw CPU emulation speed is good. It's the gfx part that is a bit slower.

Edited by geennaam on 2023/8/1 10:30:32

Maijestro

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/1 17:06 #46

Quite a regular

@geennaamQuote:

geennaam wrote:@Hans
A laptop with a Core-i5 1135G7 should give similar performance to my system. The raw CPU emulation speed is good. It's the gfx part that is a bit slower.

@Hans

This is exactly the problem, we use a graphics card sm502 that has a little over 60 MB, not accelerated and provides 16 bit windows, this can only be slow in motion. Qemu is optimized for 32 bit windows.

Nevertheless, I am satisfied that it runs pretty well for me.

MacStudio ARM M1 Max Qemu//Pegasos2 AmigaOs4.1 FE

joerg

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/1 18:01 #47

Just can't stay away

@Hans
Quote:

If balaton is right about the nvram.config files, then IDE DMA should be enabled on my machine. The kicklayout has nvram.config included, and peg2ide_xfer=FFFF.

You can use C:idetool to check (and change) transfer mode, IRQ usage, etc.

Maijestro

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/1 21:21 #48

Quite a regular

@joergQuote:

scsispeed DRIVE=peg2ide.device:0 LONG FAST MINTIME=1 BUF1=512 BUF2=16384 BUF3=1048576 BUF4=16777216
(assuming unit 0 of peg2ide.device is an emulated HD and not an emulated CD/DVD drive)
It's an ancient read-only benchmark tool from 1989, but should still be usable with the arguments above, and there should be no difference between reads and writes.

I tried to run a read and write benchmark with "scsispeed" according to your instructions, please see my screenshot for the result. If you can't read it, I can post it again. ide:0 corresponds to my virtual HD from which AmigaOs4.1 is also booted.

Since there is no readme for "scsispeed4" I don't know how to use it.

MacStudio ARM M1 Max Qemu//Pegasos2 AmigaOs4.1 FE

balaton

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/1 23:53 #49

Quite a regular

@joerg
It might be interesting to test these settings (with or without DMA and/or with ot without IRQ) on QEMU to see which setting could be the best. On real hardware it would be IRQ and DMA but on QEMU maybe DMA but no IRQ could be better even if it would cause the driver to busy wait. On QEMU it might not be a problem because there may be no delays as the vcpu does not run while the device completes the request and when it returns the data might be already DMA'd to the guest so it does not have to wait and can continue without interrupt but I'm not sure about that, so this should be tested to find out.

joerg

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/2 0:43 #50

Just can't stay away

@Maijestro
Looks like the "LONG" option is removed/disabled in this port (there are several AmigaOS 4.x versions, docs are included for example in http://os4depot.net/?function=showfil ... y/benchmark/diskspeed.lha), try
scsispeed DRIVE=peg2ide.device:0 FAST MINTIME=1 BUF1=512 BUF2=16384 BUF3=1048576 BUF4=16777216

Hans

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/2 2:41 #51

Home away from home

@geennaam

Quote:

A laptop with a Core-i5 1135G7 should give similar performance to my system. The raw CPU emulation speed is good. It's the gfx part that is a bit slower.

Okay. My line of questioning is trying to gauge whether the slowness is my specific hardware. The answers I'm getting tend to be generic emulation issues, whereas I'm looking into whether my system's slowness is simply the result of a slower machine, and how much of a boost upgrading would bring (money is tight, so I'm not going to upgrade on a whim).

I have upgraded to the latest release candidate. No performance change so far. I'll try bboot next. Right now, loading the kickstart modules takes about 12 seconds, which is longer than your total boot time...

Hans

http://hdrlab.org.nz/ - Amiga OS 4 projects, programming articles and more.
https://keasigmadelta.com/ - more of my work

geennaam

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/2 7:51 #52

Quite a regular

OK, my mistake. The topic of this thread seems to suggest that you already know that your 8 years old hardware isn't up for the task. The single core performance of my three years old mid range hardware is 50% faster then your hardware. And while processor emulation speed seems OK (judging from LHA unpacking speed) the overall performance is on sam440 level because the same core needs to emulate the sm501 as well.

With bboot, you have to provide a zip with kernel + kernel modules. This will bypass the slow amigaboot+hdd simulation+ffs filesystem. Hence the faster loading.

I do not know how to translate" tight budget" into a measureable value. But a 1135G7 based laptop starts at EUR 500. And in general, I would not recommend cheaper laptops due to lack of build quality.

Edited by geennaam on 2023/8/2 8:21:29

Hans

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/2 8:22 #53

Home away from home

@geennaam

Thanks. That's the information I was looking for.

Hans

http://hdrlab.org.nz/ - Amiga OS 4 projects, programming articles and more.
https://keasigmadelta.com/ - more of my work

geennaam

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/2 8:55 #54

Quite a regular

@Hans

FYI, my 10400F shows much better performance with a voodoo3. But then the restriction is the capabilities of the Voodoo3. So CPU emulation wise, a 10400 class system is sufficient. All we need is virtio or vfio.

The intel i5-1235u is lower power and has similar performance compared to the 1135G7. Those i5-1235u systems also start around the same price in my country.

Maijestro

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/2 9:37 #55

Quite a regular

@joergQuote:

joerg wrote:@Maijestro
Looks like the "LONG" option is removed/disabled in this port (there are several AmigaOS 4.x versions, docs are included for example in http://os4depot.net/?function=showfil ... y/benchmark/diskspeed.lha), try
scsispeed DRIVE=peg2ide.device:0 FAST MINTIME=1 BUF1=512 BUF2=16384 BUF3=1048576 BUF4=16777216

Ok thanks now it works. Performed with kickstart nvram.config peg2ide_xfer=FFFF and peg2ide_irq=1111 Here the result:

7.Download:Scsispeed4> scsispeed DRIVE=peg2ide.device:0 FAST MINTIME=1 BUF1=512 BUF2=16384 BUF3=1048576 BUF4=16777216
MKSoft ScsiSpeed 4.2 Copyright © 1989-92 MKSoft Development
AmigaOS4 port by StÈphane Guillard
------------------------------------------------------------
CPU: 68020 AmigaOS Version: 54.30
Device: peg2ide.device:0

Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI: 4193792 bytes/sec

Testing with a 16384 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI: 118767616 bytes/sec

Testing with a 1048576 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI: 442499072 bytes/sec

Testing with a 16777216 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Read from SCSI: 452984832 bytes/sec

MacStudio ARM M1 Max Qemu//Pegasos2 AmigaOs4.1 FE

Hans

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/2 10:25 #56

Home away from home

@geennaam

I just tested bboot, and booting on my system is now down to about 23 seconds. It has the added bonus that I can update the kernel modules without needing to start the emulator, upload the new files, and reboot the emulator again.

Good enough for now...

Hans

http://hdrlab.org.nz/ - Amiga OS 4 projects, programming articles and more.
https://keasigmadelta.com/ - more of my work

m3x

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/2 11:01 #57

Just popping in

@white

Quote:

but can it be made available to try it ?

The new driver is currently on OS4Depot uploads queue:

http://os4depot.net/download.php?file ... nmotion502_chip-53.12.lha

Max Tretene, ACube Systems Srl, Soft3

smarkusg

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/2 11:23 #58

Not too shy to talk

@m3x
Thanks !!! it works on my Qemu Pegasos 2

https://ibb.co/YcLcmTz

balaton

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/2 13:10 #59

Quite a regular

@Hans
Is there somebody with a faster machine near you that you can borrow or test it on that before updateding to see if that would help?

You could still try to measure emulated disk speed to know if the slowness comes from that or from compiling loaded code. If the emulated disk is the problem then you or somebody else with experience with that could look at implementing a virtio-blk or virtio-scsi driver that could help with that. There are also the IDE driver parameters to test to see if any of those might help.

Maybe these tests should be done by someone else and let Hans focus on display drivers instead.

balaton

Re: Laptop recommendations

Posted on: 2023/8/2 13:15 #60

Quite a regular

@m3x
Great, thanks a lot for updating the sm502 driver, this should help a few people. I've seen some info in the release notes:


SiliconMotion502.chip 53.9 - (20 Jan 2011) <mtretene>

- the driver reserve the first 512 KB of local RAM for the audio unit



SiliconMotion502.chip 53.8 - (14 Dec 2010) <mtretene>

- Videomodes with a resolution higher than 1440 pixels (horizontal) or 1024 pixels

  (vertical) are rejected

- 32 bits videomodes are disabled, until problems with little-endian screens mode

  are solved

1. Is there a way to disable audio part and the related memory usage? This may not be a problem but we don't emulate the audio part (and because it may also need emulating a complete 8051 MCU I probably won't do that) so this might just hold up resources unnecessarily. Or is that reservation freed when the audio part driver does not init?

2. What are the problems with little-endian screen mode to be solved for 32 bit modes?

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