In these days i test various games and apps under OS4.1 on my uA1, the most ugly thing is that we uA1 users did not much video memory and with the compositing ON may start problems, specially when a (MiniGL) game open its screen the video ram drops below a critical level and your game could not be playable (too slow) and you could see annoying flickering. The solution is turn OFF the compositing in GUI prefs, in this mode you will not have trasparent windows but perhaps not everyone know that so you turn off only the trasparent layers and not total compositing, in fact if you try the Hans Joerg compositing_goodies (lens and screentumbs) they work, in this mode you save precious video ram and your system could be faster. For precision you should also change in GUI prefs the bitmap style in Bitmaps/4.1b otherwise you will see the corners of the upper windows black.

Have fun with OS4.1

Regards

_________________
Sam 460EX, 2Gb Ram, Radeon R7 250, AmigaOS4.1 FE
A4000 PPC604@233, Mediator
A1200 PPC603@160, Mediator
uA1 G3@800, 512 Mb [sold]

@SOFISTISOFTWARE

Thanks for the tip. Still waiting for my copy of OS4.1 to arrive...

@SOFISTISOFTWARE

This problem with the small amount of GFX memory on the uA1 may be very problematic for people used to many screens like me. I always have at least two opened screens - one is Workbench and second Directory Opus. But with the new listviewer the need for DOpus may go, but still I open emulators, browsers, MP3 player and text editors, which take video memory. If it behaves very bad I may even reconsider going back to AOS 4.0.

Thanks for the tip.

_________________
Games, programs, reviews

@drHirudo

Just turn off the screen eye-ball candy as explained above and it'll act the same as 4.0, but with the new improved Kernal and other assorted gubbins. To use a technial term.

_________________
Rage quited 29th May 2011

@Stephen_Robinson

Alternatively switch to 16 bit depth screenmodes as opposed to 32 bit.

This will also help significanty.

_________________

@SOFISTISOFTWARE

Thanks! Very helpfull!

Right, as just a word of warning to all µA1 owners, I've just tried running OWB and IBrowse both in their own 16bit screens. OWB had 2 windows open, Ibrowse just the starting screen, and Yam running on the desktop, which again was 16bit, and it ran out of graphics Memory, mouse started jumping around a bit that sort of thing...

That's with Compositing mode on of course.



I dunno, maybe I don't really need USB?

Last edited by Stephen_Robinson on 07-Sep-2008 at 09:19 PM.

_________________
Rage quited 29th May 2011

@drHirudo

You can simply switch off compositing if you have issues with video ram. There is no need to switch to 4.0, with compositing off, the behavior is the same as under 4.0.

The lack of video ram on the Micro is unfortunate. I had lobbied heavily for an AGP slot instead of onboard graphics, but it didn't change anything.

_________________
Seriously, if you want to contact me do not bother sending me a PM here. Write me a mail

@Stephen_Robinson

Jumpy mouse pointer usually means software fallback. If you need that many screens, you should disable compositing. Note that this will only disable the USE of compositing for Layers, it will not disable compositing itself (i.e. the functionality is still there), but it will greatly reduce video memory usage.

I will do my best to try and address the PCI issue in the next U-Boot update, but I cannot promise when or even if that will happen, and I cannot say whether the issue can actually be cured in software.

_________________
Seriously, if you want to contact me do not bother sending me a PM here. Write me a mail

@Rogue

Well, that the thing isn't it? the World of fancy desktops has moved on since the µA1 was designed. This is a hardware, not software issue, and I think we all know the cause and solutions to this.

I'll just have to make do with the most stable and mature version of Amiga OS4 to date then!

_________________
Rage quited 29th May 2011

@drHirudo

one that consumes a lot of video ram is compositing for layer (transparent windows) if you disable it with the help of GUI prefs the consumption of memory is like in OS4.0 but the other functions of compositing will be active on my configuration i have disabled it and now i can use also 32bit screens without problems

Last edited by SOFISTISOFTWARE on 07-Sep-2008 at 10:55 PM.

_________________
Sam 460EX, 2Gb Ram, Radeon R7 250, AmigaOS4.1 FE
A4000 PPC604@233, Mediator
A1200 PPC603@160, Mediator
uA1 G3@800, 512 Mb [sold]

@SOFISTISOFTWARE

If you use a 1280x1024 or larger screen mode then switch to 16 bit and you should still be able to use compositing.

I use 1680x1050x16 and usually 4 screens at a time, it is usable with compositing turned on but is noticably slower. The number of screens you have open doesn't really make much difference as P96 buffers unused screens into system ram so you can open as many screens as you need as long as you have free ram :)

_________________
OS4 Rocks
X1000 beta tester, Sam440 Flex (733)

Visit the Official OS4 Support Site for more help.

It may be that your sole purpose is to serve as a warning to others.

@Severin

I also use 1680x1050 @ 16bit on my µ A1-C with Compositing ON. I'm quite pleased with the performance with this set-up.

However, I do tend to open all programs on WB and not their own screens. I find that with ny 22" WS monitor I have more than enough space on WB.

Just MHO.

TrevorD

_________________
No, I don't need no reason, I'm just breezin'

@Rogue

Question: Would this be a problem with 1680x1050x32 with 256MB gfx mem if I use 3 or 4 screens?

I often have many large windows open on WB too.

_________________
- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

@Deniil715

The compositing seems to give the video mem a real kicking. I currently have Workbench open in 1920x1200x32 and Photegenics is open in it own screen with two 3264x2448 images open and I'm down to 36Mb of free video ram on a 256MB card.

Last night I was fiddling about and switched off "compositng mode for layers" and switched Workbench to 640x480x8 and still only had 131MB free video Ram with no other screens open, no other programs were runnning.

I'm wondering wether there's some sort of memory leak.

Last edited by Rob on 08-Sep-2008 at 04:01 PM.

@Rob

That sounds bad, but that are some large images as well. 63MB only for them. Layer them and you got half your mem right there...?

But I also have another concern: I have crashes/lockups soon after I attempt anything 3D, and also when trying to deal with large images with either PicShow or MiniShowPicture, and one time with MultiView.

It seems that any large data transfer to/from the gfx card (Sapphire Radeon 9250 256MB) causes lockups. I do suspect the SB Audigy though...

_________________
- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

@Rob

Quote:

Last night I was fiddling about and switched off "compositng mode for layers" and switched Workbench to 640x480x8 and still only had 131MB free video Ram with no other screens open, no other programs were runnning.

This was a last-minute issue in the Radeon driver. There had been a problem with accessing video ram beyond around 160 MB or so, so I (literally on the last hour) limited the amount of video ram to 128 MB. I'll make sure that this gets addressed in the first update (there is most likely going to be an update in two or three months that addresses all the issues that pop up over the next weeks).

Sorry 'bout that.

_________________
Seriously, if you want to contact me do not bother sending me a PM here. Write me a mail

@Deniil715

Quote:

But I also have another concern: I have crashes/lockups soon after I attempt anything 3D, and also when trying to deal with large images with either PicShow or MiniShowPicture, and one time with MultiView.

I have the same graphics card here (SB Live though). If you can capture a serial log of a crash, I'd be interested to see that.

(This is under 4.1, right?)

_________________
Seriously, if you want to contact me do not bother sending me a PM here. Write me a mail

@Deniil715

Quote:

I have crashes/lockups soon after I attempt anything 3D, and also when trying to deal with large images with either PicShow or MiniShowPicture, and one time with MultiView.

Maybe I read this old thread wrong, but it seems Thomas already answered about Picshow.
PicShow can't handle large images post #16

Quote:

Temporary lockups can happen when the picture is scaled to another size in the background. If the picture needs more than 10 seconds to load, it will probably need a similar amount of time to be scaled to screen size. More if interpolation is used. So just wait a little, perhaps it unlocks again. These lockups are Picass96's fault. P96 locks the entire computer instead of just the bitmap which is accessed when using LockBitMapTags(). It does not happen with Cybergraphics. PicShow was never meant to display such huge images. However, a complete redesign of it is currently being planned. It can only be a matter of years until it's ready Quote: Layout failed This happens on low-memory conditions. If you don't manage to quit PicShow, there usually is no other way out but a reboot. This is a known problem (bad design).

I should add that in the thread linked to above, there is talk about "horizontal limit" and a mention that one might be able to exit Picshow, or it might freeze. Talking in irc minutes ago, another user indicated he did determine an absolute horizontal limit. So...if the answer isn't in Thomas' initial response, keep reading the thread.

#6

Last edited by number6 on 08-Sep-2008 at 08:47 PM.

_________________
This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@Rogue

Thanks for info.