JOY - a new Falcon030 demo from New Beat

[jd]

If anyone else is having problems running JOY, please get in touch with me. Thanks.

For a few days on the main board, on which this demo does not work, I tests CT60e, unfortunately the same, it confirms so much that it is certainly not a problem with the power supply or capacitors. Unfortunately, even after 80 minutes, this demo does not work at random. Why it work so before replacing the power supply I do not know, maybe it was a random case that it came to an end.

This is just my suggestion and my idea, I tested this demo on three other mainboards, where the only change is a small patch installed from the website of R. Czuby. It's exactly about the soldering resistor, which is well shown in the picture below.

SDMA.jpg

On each such motherboard works perfectly.
This change on these three mainboard were made by my friend.
The only idea is to install such a patch also on this main board, I do not have another idea at the moment.

Did this resistor patch work on a non CT60e Falcon?

[jd]

Ah, that's interesting. That happens to a friend of mine as well. His problem was that his Blitter does not do well while the machine is fairly cool. Anything using the Blitter extensively will crash the machine when cool. If he starts the machine and lets it heat up for some 30 minutes, the demo works. The demo uses the Blitter pretty heavily. Dunno if you have the same problem though, but so far I haven't heard about anyone else having problems that have not been hardware related.

Exactly what happens to mine, can run all other demos from cold then about approx half hour 'warmup' and only then will Joy run flawlessly. My falcon is from new and has had the mandatory clock patch at the time (piggy backed buffer chip type). I haven't yet done the full motherboard recap and runs from ATX PSU, pretty much always has as original blew early in life (5.01V and 11.59V when running the demos) , no other additions apart from powerup2 (disabled for demos).

While its 'warming up' if i have NVDI running Joy can sometimes play through fine (as blitter hardware replaced by software?), have to wait a bit longer if i run with a bare bones nothing loaded, always running RGB for this. Also passes the DMA2DSP test (green pattern always)

Very odd but maybe it does need a full recap + newer super clock patch (phantom) ??

I don't think this is clock patch related, since it used to work fine and i never installed it. Now it does not anymore, idon't know why.
One thing i noticed, using the diag cart : If i do the quick blit test with the blitter disabled, it passes. If i turn the blitter on, i got a red screen with the following message :
EA Address error Access address : 01FFA0 Program Counter : FA3F08
EA Address error Access address : 01FF7A Program Counter : FA3F08

Must be the same on all Falcons as blitter off (default) passes blit test, blitter on exactly above whether its cold or 'warmed up'

Can anyone else confirm if their falcon passes test with blitter turned on in diag cart : D (diag menu) > E (modify sys) > C (sys controls) > E (enable blit). Then run Blit test again (G).

[mikro]

Must be the same on all Falcons as blitter off (default) passes blit test, blitter on exactly above whether its cold or 'warmed up'

Can anyone else confirm if their falcon passes test with blitter turned on in diag cart : D (diag menu) > E (modify sys) > C (sys controls) > E (enable blit). Then run Blit test again (G).

I wasn't exactly thrilled to reset the NVRAM but what one doesn't do for a fellow Atarian. ;-) On my Falcon with CT60e (booted in 030 mode, of course) I see the two messages although with a different addresses (01FFA8 & 01FF82, PC is the same as in your report).

It's quite possible that the test is disabled for this very reason, it doesn't work. ;-)

I am able to run Joy without issues and I have just some very basic clock patch installed.

[LaceySnr]

Seeing this in the recent posts made me have another go at running it on my machine. Pretty sure the last time was over a year ago, and it never got all the way through without crashing. Yesterday it got most of the way through then stopped. Today I powered on, left the machine for maybe 10-15 minutes, and I've just got all the way through no problem. Running it again now to see what happens.

I have moved in the meantime (hemispheres no less) but my home office is warmer than my old one (at least in Winter). My Falcon's not been recapped or had a clock patch (did do the NVRAM) so quite impressed it can get through ok. Recap for the PSU to come soon just for the sake of sanity.

Still, I've watched the demo a few times on YouTube before, but it's great to see it on hardware. As fresh as it was when you released it!

[jd]

Seeing this in the recent posts made me have another go at running it on my machine. Pretty sure the last time was over a year ago, and it never got all the way through without crashing. Yesterday it got most of the way through then stopped. Today I powered on, left the machine for maybe 10-15 minutes, and I've just got all the way through no problem. Running it again now to see what happens.

I have moved in the meantime (hemispheres no less) but my home office is warmer than my old one (at least in Winter). My Falcon's not been recapped or had a clock patch (did do the NVRAM) so quite impressed it can get through ok. Recap for the PSU to come soon just for the sake of sanity.

Still, I've watched the demo a few times on YouTube before, but it's great to see it on hardware. As fresh as it was when you released it!

I have exactly this problem with mine, if i run NVDI it speeds up the 'warmup' time and is more stable. I have the bird running off an old ATX PSU (to be replaced with a nice modern Amiga PSU this winter) need to recap motherboard also. It has the original clock patch on it (piggy backing chip) so might replace with a more modern clock patch too depending on how brave i feel.

Let us know how you get on with it and whether just the PSU recap fixes it bit i would suspect it defo needs a clock patch and maybe recap motherboard (the big 4700uf at the minimum).

Good luck.

[Sturm]

Mhhh i'm confused now, joy 1.1 works flawlessly in 060 mode, but both versions crash in 030 mode

[dhedberg]

When running version 1.1 in 060 mode the Blitter is not used at all, but in 030 mode it's used pretty extensively (both in version 1.0 and 1.1).
It seems like quite a few Falcons have issues when hammering the Blitter. It's also a chip that is not commonly used in Falcon software, which could explain why people never experienced issues with their machines until they found Joy!

[dlfrsilver]

Mhhh i'm confused now, joy 1.1 works flawlessly in 060 mode, but both versions crash in 030 mode

it works in 030 mode on mine.