Test PPC functionality

[midwan]

In order to use the PPC emulation feature that was recently added, we'll also need the QEMU_PPC plugin.
Investigate if the one FS-UAE provided (https://github.com/FrodeSolheim/qemu-uae) works without changes.
Check if bundling it makes sense.

Besides that, a PPC accelerator ROM is required (Cyberstorm or Blizzard PPC). The GUI doesn't yet allow you to select an individual filename, so until that happens, those have to be placed directly into the roms directory and named accordingly.

The Wiki needs a new page about what's needed to get the PPC emulation going.

[giantclambake]

M'kay... I've concluded the best test candidate for this, is an AmigaOS 4.1FE install from .iso image.

Currently this doesn't work.... you've got basically 2 scenarios, chipset graphics or RTG...(and IRL more than one type of RTG card may be supported). So at a minimum, you need to satisfy...

Flash file 'cyberstormppc.rom' loaded, RW.
CPUBoard 'CyberStorm PPC' ROM '/home/gcb/Amiberry/roms/cyberstormppc.rom' 131072 loaded
Card 01: 'CyberStorm PPC' no autoconfig 00f00000 - 00f7ffff.

...by providing the cyberstormppc.rom file. If you boot from the OS 4.1FE iso file, at the initial loader phase, things go wrong and you'll like see the green/pink flashing screen, that might spawn a h.pos! error popup dialog box. Moving on...

Wrt choosing an RTG card, your best bet is to select the BlizzardVision/CyberVision PPC entry, as this doesn't require a flashrom file, and emulate the card internally.... it doesn't work -- you no longer see the green/pink screens, but instead the installation process reboots continually, seemingly just after (re)initializing the screen....moving on...

...your next best bet, is the PicassoIV entry (z2 or z3), which means you need to satisfy...

Flash file '/home/gcb/Amiberry/roms/picasso_iv_flash.rom' loaded, RW.
PICASSOIV: flash rom loaded
Card 05: 'Picasso IV [Zorro III]'
  91.18.30.00.08.77.00.00.00.00.02.00.00.00.00.00
  MID 2167 (0877) PID 24 (18) SER 00000000
  Z3 0x40000000 0x40000000   32M ROM 0

...by providing the picasso_iv_flash.rom file. If you boot from the OS 4.1FE iso file without that rom file being present, you will see the green/pink flashing...which will end up solid pink as the CPU emulation crashes.

OTOH, if that rom file IS present, the installation process reboots continually as per above wrt BlizzardVision/CyberVision.

HTH

[midwan]

OK, it's safe to say that for now, OS4.x is not supported on Amiberry, until further notice.

[giantclambake]

Just noticed this wrt WinUAE v5.3.1 release notes ... "Fixed possible crash when AmigaOS 4 resets during boot and switches to PPC mode if directory filesystem emulation was in use. " ...it may be just coincidence, but it occurs to me this is exactly when installling OS4.1 flips a pancake and heads into a reboot....could it be related?

[giantclambake]

Decided to buy AmiKit 12 ...not so much to test PPC functionality, but because my interest was piqued by a couple of SysInfo screenshots, that {ahem} "didn't look right" -- turns out they're patching rom calls/libraries using the various startup-sequence scripts, and using other Amiga commands like C:CopyMemAIO ;accelerates CopyMem operations drastically etc etc, and this explains the odd looking SysInfo screenshots & test results.

Notwithstanding, I tried PPC functionality here, and for the most part it seemed to work, but caveat to a number of issues ; mouse pointer movement became a little erratic/jumpy ; in demos/games there could often be graphics artifacts, 'ghosted' blitter plane/segments...not a very nice experience....

...the way they had this working, a lot of the time you can think you're seeing it switching between 040/PPC parts, and getting the video horribly wrong in the attempt. Maybe I should find/install lightwave or some other renderer... test targets here are thin on the ground....

[midwan]

Just noticed this wrt WinUAE v5.3.1 release notes ... "Fixed possible crash when AmigaOS 4 resets during boot and switches to PPC mode if directory filesystem emulation was in use. " ...it may be just coincidence, but it occurs to me this is exactly when installling OS4.1 flips a pancake and heads into a reboot....could it be related?

All of the changes from the latest WinUAE are already merged in amiberry master, so unless I missed something, that wasn't it.