SCRAMmer V37.2 - June,7th 1992 ------------------------------ Copyright (c) by Giuliano C. Peritore All Rights Reserved Written by: Giuliano C. Peritore Via Amaseno, 6 04100 Latina ITALY Phone: (+39)773 491692 E-Mail: mc6040@mclink.it ATTENTION! ---------- 1) Turning on Page Detect mode on non SCRAM chips will probably break down the system. You have to reboot. You are advised. 2) Turning off Write Allocate will cause trouble. You have to reboot. You are advised. 3) Causing a Timeout when Timeouts are disabled will hang the system. You have to reboot. You are advised. 4) Avoid playing with Refresh Rate gadgets. It will cause you a lot of trouble. You are advised. 5) BERR timeout will be set when SCRAMmer is invoked if DSACK is not requested. 6) Avoid disk activity while using SCRAMmer until you are pretty much experienced. 7) The modification of system parameters allowed by SCRAMmer is not well accepted from Commodore, because some A3000s have problems with the Ramsey chip. I made this program to have an utility which allows to read and modify this parameters in order to play with them and find if I can set on special modes and get a speed gain. Since I had no problems with my A3000 I think that this is a good idea. So if you want you can try to get a speed improvement, but you are on your own risk. And remember: if Commodore says "Don't do it" there is a valid reason. You are advised. DISCLAIMER ---------- The author has no responsibilities for incidents or damages that may result from the correct or incorrect use of this program. You are on your own risk. NOTES ----- Owing to the particular functions of this program an A3000, with its 68030 CPU and custom chips is strictly required. SCRAM chips are recommended but not needed. Remember that the manipu- lation of special system parameters should be done through the OS. I've done it when possible. This application should also have a very well behavior under 2.04 (required) since I had no problems with it and I coded it very carefully. The application opens on the Workbench screen or on a default Public Screen if it Hijacks Workbench. The default monospaced shell font will be used, falling on topaz 8 if it is too big. Owing to the high number of gadgets the application requires at least a 640x256 screen to work properly but don't be afraid to try it on a smaller screen or via the Shell. IMPORTANT --------- This program is in the Public Domain so it may be distributed freely as long as this archive remains intact, the program is not modified, and that no profit is gained from its distribution without written permission of the author. If the reports of the program are used anywhere please tell that they are SCRAMmer reports and state the version. Software and Hardware companies may include this program on their disks. Donations (software, hardware, money, ecc.) are very welcomed togheter with comments, suggestions, bugs, infos and so on. INTRODUCTION ------------ The idea of writing SCRAMmer prompted suddendly while I was following a debate on A3000 ram chips on MC-Link. I want to thank Paolo Baliano, Stefano Iacus, Massimiliano Marras, Bal- dassarre Profeta and Andrea Suatoni for allowing this debate. Since there are a lot of tricks to get more performance from an Amiga and that there are a lot of tools to do this (VBR, SetRamsey, Cpu, SetCPU, etc. ) I decided to write a unique testing and setting tool to allow users to set crucial system parameters and test their Ram to see improvements. SCRAMmer is also a powerful tool to know much more about your wonderful Amiga 3000. This program is completely fruit of my mind since I get only ideas from other programs, but I recoded EVERYTHING from scratch adding many and many new features togheter with 2.04 support and a consistent and font-sensitive user interface. USING SCRAMMER -------------- Note: ----- This program digs deeply into your system and it is easy to misunderstand its functions. There's a lot to talk about. Please read instructions carefully. Running SCRAMmer V37.2 from the Shell: -------------------------------------- SCRAMmer has a lot of arguments. Type SCRAMmer ? to see its syntax, reported here for completeness: SHOW/S,DATACACHE/S,NODATACACHE/S,DATABURST/S,NODATABURST/S, DATAFREEZE/S,NODATAFREEZE/S,INSTCACHE/S,NOINSTCACHE/S, INSTBURST/S,NOINSTBURST/S,INSTFREEZE/S,NOINSTFREEZE/S, WRITEALLOCATE/S,NOWRITEALLOCATE/S,COPYBACK/S,NOCOPYBACK/S, PAGEDETECT/S,NOPAGEDETECT/S,BURST/S,NOBURST/S,WRAP/S,NOWRAP/S, REFRESH/K/N,NOREFRESH/S,VBRFAST/S,VBRCHIP/S,TIMEOUT/S, NOTIMEOUT/S,BERRTIMEOUT/S,DSACKTIMEOUT/S,BANK/K/N,SCRAMTEST/S, FASTTEST/S,CHIPTEST/S,DOTIMEOUT/S,GUI/S,PRINT/S,ABOUT/S Here's a description: SHOW - Show a report of all system parameters DATACACHE - Enable Data Cache NODATACACHE - Disable Data Cache DATABURST - Enable Data Burst NODATABURST - Disable Data Burst DATAFREEZE - Freeze Data Cache NODATAFREEZE - Free Data Cache INSTCACHE - Enable Instruction Cache NOINSTCACHE - Disable Instruction Cache INSTBURST - Enable Instruction Burst NOINSTBURST - Disable Instruction Burst INSTFREEZE - Freeze Instruction Cache NOINSTFREEZE - Free Instruction Cache WRITEALLOCATE - Enable Write Allocate NOWRITEALLOCATE - Disable Write Allocate COPYBACK - Enable copyback NOCOPYBACK - Disable copyback PAGEDETECT - Enable Page Detect Mode NOPAGEDETECT - Disable Page Detect Mode BURST - Enable Burst Mode NOBURST - Disable Burst Mode WRAP - Enable Wrap Mode NOWRAP - Disable Wrap Mode REFRESH n - Enable refresh (0-154,1-238,2-380,3-Off) NOREFRESH - Disable RAM refresh VBRFAST - Move VBR to FAST memory VBRCHIP - Move VBR to CHIP memory TIMEOUT - Enable bus Timeout NOTIMEOUT - Disable bus Timeout BERRTIMEOUT - Set BERR timeout DSACKTIMEOUT - Set DSACK timeout BANK n - Select RAM bank for tests (0-1-2-3) SCRAMTEST - Test if bank is SCRAM FASTTEST - Test FAST memory (current bank) CHIPTEST - Test CHIP memory DOTIMEOUT - Cause a bus timeout GUI - Use Graphical User Interface PRINT - Print report on printer ABOUT - Show info about the program That's all. See below for function-by-function explanation. Running SCRAMmer V37.2 from the Workbench: ------------------------------------------ Just click on SCRAMmer icon. This will show up the GUI. Click on gadgets, press right mouse button or the Help key, or click on closewindow to exit. May be there are problems with 640x200 screens. Try a bigger screen ! Understanding SCRAMmer ---------------------- SCRAMmer allows you to show up a lot of system parameters and to modify them. It is very easy to play using the GUI or using the Shell interface. But it is very important that you under- stand what you are doing. SCRAMmer is logically divided in some regions, each regarding a specific class of parameters. Let's describe them all. CPU & FPU --------- The CPU (Central Processing Unit) and FPU (Floating Point Unit) are the core of your computer, so it is important to know that your system recognized what CPU and FPU are installed. SCRAMmer show this. There are a lot of adjustable parameters regarding the CPU. They are data and instruction caches, which speed up the software reducing memory accesses, the Write Allocation and the Copyback mode (provided also on the 68040). For more info about these parameters please consult Motorola manuals. For the maximum speed you should enable caches, bursts, copyback and (I suppose) disable Write Allocate. Remember anyway that Write Allocate causes a lot of problems on standard A3000 when disabled, that Copyback may cause trouble to bad written programs, togheter with caches. You are advised. RAMSEY ------ The Ramsey chip is the memory controller of the A3000. The program will show which type of Ramsey is installed in your computer and its settings. You can enable or disable the Page Detect Mode, which is a special mode that takes advantage from the presence of SCRAMS boosting system performance. You can enable or disable the Burst Mode, which allows the CPU to fill its cache very efficiently, or you can enable or disable the Wrap mode, which depending on the application will optimize burst transfers. SCRAMmer will show also which memory Chips are used in your Amiga. You could also change the refresh rate, but it is discouraged. GARY ---- The Gary chip is the bus controller of the A3000. SCRAMmer will show which Gary is installed in your system and its settings. It shows if there have been timeouts or if the computer has just cold-booted or it has been resetted. It is also possible to enable/disable the bus timeout feature which terminates accesses to non existent memory without hanging the system. You can decide to terminate via BERR or via DSACK. Note that the Timeout/Boot flags are reset every time they are read so you can miss something. Beware of disabling timeout. Accesses to non existent memory will hang the system. VBR --- The Vector Base Register is the interrupt table of the CPU. Putting it in FAST ram will improve system throughput speeding up interrupt driven operations such as serial downloads, vblank processing and so on. It will not improve tests results because interrupts are disabled during the test. DENISE & AGNUS -------------- These section show which Agnus and Denise chips are installed in your A3000. Useful for checking ECS and PAL/NTSC. TESTS & MEMORY INFO ------------------- The test section allows to perform some tests whose results are shown in the Memory Info section. The memory info section will show (in microseconds) the time that is needed to read and write in Chip and Fast memory about 12MB per test. These test are very perilous for time critical activities such as serial download, disk activity and so on. Beware ! The Bank button allows you to choose on which Fast Memory bank (of the four of your A3000) you want to perform the test. The SCRAM Test checks if your bank is populated with SCRAM memory. Note that if you haven't SCRAMs you may hang the system and have to reboot because the test will corrupt FAST memory if not SCRAM. If there is no memory in that bank it will be correctly reported. The Fast Speed and Chip Speed perform a test on the speed of read and write operations on Fast ( selected bank ) and Chip memory. See below for additional infos on the test. If the Fast Speed is performend on non existent memory then meaningless results are reported. Changing the Bank will zero previous results. The Timeout gadget will cause a timeout to check if it is correctly reported and processed. It causes two timeouts by reading two longs at $08000000 and $0c000000. Note that if timeout is disabled you'll hang the system. Don't disable timeout if you plan to call the Fast Speed test on an empty Fast Ram bank (which is meaningless). About ----- Pressing the right mouse button or the Help key will pop up a small window with credits and informations about SCRAMmer. Scrammer Uses ------------- You can use SCRAMmer in your startup-sequence to set system parameters at boot time, for example with "SCRAMmer DATACACHE DATABURST INSTCACHE INSTBURST PAGEDETECT WRAP BURST VBRFAST". You can put SCRAMmer in your hard disk to call it via the WB or via the Shell when you need it. You can use SCRAMmer to test memory and systems in many configuration to have clearer ideas. Good Luck ! FINAL NOTE ---------- You may ask why there are a lot of options very dangerous in this program. Many of them aren't correctly supported now but thay have been included because I always hope of future better Amigas supporting all this. For example I think that who has a 68040 with Copyback enabled may safely turn of Write Allocate. Other tools are useful for testing purposes. If you are designing a new board and you want investigate if it works correctly on the bus you can disable timeout and call your board. It system hangs then your board is wrong. Moreover the SCRAM test is important, because you can get benefits from SCRAMs, and during the SCRAM test is impossible to preserve eventual PAGE ram. That's why you have to reboot. THE SPEED TEST -------------- The speed test disables interrupts and DMAs and performs a cycle reading and writing about 12 megabytes of data in memory using the instruction cache if enabled. The read and write operations are grouped in groups of four longword aligned longword accesses. The test reports the microseconds elapsed during the operation (using the timer.device). Note that this kind of test won't show benefits derived from VBR, Wrap, and possibly Burst. Maybe this is a good test, maybe it's not. But you are sure that it's not addomesticated. Other ideas will be well accepted. PLANNED IMPROVEMENTS -------------------- The following features will be added if I receive enough return and support: - Iconification - Public Screen support improved - Improved Tests - On-Line Help - Chip routines will report chip numbers if unknown - Keyboard equivalents for gadgets REPORTS ------- I'd like very much to receive your reports. Please include full SCRAMmer output and the complete specification of your system. Please include your best performace reports or as many as you can. The report should be formed by: - Description of your system - Showconfig output - Multiple SCRAMmer output delimited by appropriate separators. See example below. REPORTS FOLLOW -------------- System: A3000 B2 Rev 9/01 ChipRAM: 2MB TC514258AP-80 SCRAM DIP FastRAM: 4MB TC514402Z -80 SCRAM ZIP /*------------------------------------------------------------------*/ CHIPS: CPU 68030/68882fpu/68030mmu, ECS PAL Agnus, ECS Denise VERS: Kickstart version 37.175, Exec version 37.132, Disk version 37.67 RAM: Node type $a, attribute $105 (FAST), from $7c00000 to $7f7ffff Node type $a, attribute $303 (CHIP), from $400 to $1fffff BOARDS: CBM Bridgeboard: Prod=513/1($201/$1) (@$200000 512K) /*------------------------------------------------------------------*/ SCRAMmer V37.2 - Copyright © 1992 Giuliano C. Peritore CPU & FPU CPU: 68030 FPU: 68882 Data Cache: On Data Burst: On Data Freeze: Off Inst Cache: On Inst Burst: On Inst Freeze: Off Write Allocate: On Copyback: Off VBR At: ($7c3f6f8) FAST RAMSEY Chip: Normal Page Detect: On Burst: On Wrap: On Refresh Rate: 238 clocks RAM Chips: 1 Meg by 4 Bit GARY Chip: Normal Boot: Warm Timeout: On Timeouts: No DENISE Chip: ECS AGNUS Chip: ECS PAL 8372 TESTS REPORT Bank: 0 Fast Read: 840000 Fast Write: 740001 Chip Read: 2880000 Chip Write: 1780000 /*------------------------------------------------------------------*/