GEMBENCH 6

[exxos]

A sneak preview of GB6 running on The Falcon.

20160112211955.jpg

And on a STE (ok Steem @64mhz

Steem__00031.png

I have sent the Alpha versions to some people to initial testing. I am still solving some minor bugs currently and still have a few silly things to tidy up. Though I should be able to post here the Alpha probably next week

GB6 is a 100% re-write of the gembench code. Much changes everywhere. Will do a readme file on it when I get chance. Most changes you can see on the image anyway

[Zogging Hell]

Well done, looks good!

So is this still a Hisoft Basic effort?

Edit: just read the other thread so guess it is

[CiH]

Cool stuffs indeed. Is your newly acquired Falcon helping with this one?

[exxos]

Well done, looks good!

So is this still a Hisoft Basic effort?

Yes, All coded in Hisoft Theres still a lot I've not figured out yet, but I've managed to get something working despite knowing next to nothing

Cool stuffs indeed. Is your newly acquired Falcon helping with this one?

Not yet It will be my second Falcon in fact. My current Falcon has been in bits since 2002 pending CT60 upgrade. Though I am mostly using my Falcon for testing all sorts out with and just want to put it back together as a proper usable machine!

The "new" Falcon will become my hardware "test bed" which leaves my original Falcon for just software. My CT60 will be in/out of my "new" Falcon during all sorts of testings.

I will give myself permission to topic drift a bit here

My current falcon is a nightmare as I don't have any where to put more than 1 machine at a time as everything is in a million bits.

DSCN2782.JPG

[Cyprian]

Great news!

[Atari030]

Fantastic work. I'm looking forward to the new Gembench.

No clock patch on that Falc, mate? Looks like my desk atm.

[exxos]

No clock patch on that Falc, mate? Looks like my desk atm.

My desk is even worse

No patches on my Falcon. It got a bit messed up with Nemesis, but later removed it. I need to remove a resistor from the DSP, I think the CT60 mod had it as a termination resistor, but when I tested the clock on my scope, it was killing the voltage by like 50%. so I lifted one end as did not want to kill whatever was generating that clock. Be nice to have the bird back together again

[wongck]

Great to have a new Gembench version.

My current falcon is a nightmare as I don't have any where to put more than 1 machine at a time as everything is in a million bits.

LOL.... I thougfh it was a problem over here in Asia where we have limited space and flats are small.
I can only have space for one Atari machine at a time as well, but it's the Firebee for me and still in one piece.

[exxos]

LOL.... I thougfh it was a problem over here in Asia where we have limited space and flats are small.
I can only have space for one Atari machine at a time as well, but it's the Firebee for me and still in one piece.

Well I have a workshop in another room, but its just full of "stuff" that I can never get in there to actually do anything. My floor is where most work happens now. I also built a huge shed at my girlfriends to store stuff, which is full, overspill for that is the loft Stuff for sale is slowly taking over my girlfriends house

[Atari030]

Going well off track.... I have a TT, Falc, towered CT2, MegaSTE, 130XE, A4000, A1200, PC and Opteron server on two desks. Works OK till you need to gut something then the wife doth protest about bits all over the kitchen table. :-/ Wish I had room for the STE and STFM.

I guess I can give Gembench a workout. That has long been the standard program that gets trotted out whenever a hardware change occurs. The joys of being techy.

[exxos]

Going well off track.... I have a TT, Falc, towered CT2, MegaSTE, 130XE, A4000, A1200, PC and Opteron server on two desks. Works OK till you need to gut something then the wife doth protest about bits all over the kitchen table. :-/ Wish I had room for the STE and STFM.

I guess I can give Gembench a workout. That has long been the standard program that gets trotted out whenever a hardware change occurs. The joys of being techy.

Well blame me for topic drifting anyway I wish I had a huge room with every Atari on its own little "work area" it would make my life so much easier. I keep having to disconnect one machine, put it on top of the cupboards, get the other one down, connect it up. Drives me nuts.

I've ironed out a few bugs in it tonight, It should be stable now so at least people can try it out on various machines soon. There are still things I need to add, but its usable how it is now. I'm just waiting back to hear from a few people who I've sent it to so far

[Atari74user]

Nice, great stuff!

[dlfrsilver]

Going well off track.... I have a TT, Falc, towered CT2, MegaSTE, 130XE, A4000, A1200, PC and Opteron server on two desks. Works OK till you need to gut something then the wife doth protest about bits all over the kitchen table. :-/ Wish I had room for the STE and STFM.

I guess I can give Gembench a workout. That has long been the standard program that gets trotted out whenever a hardware change occurs. The joys of being techy.

Well blame me for topic drifting anyway I wish I had a huge room with every Atari on its own little "work area" it would make my life so much easier. I keep having to disconnect one machine, put it on top of the cupboards, get the other one down, connect it up. Drives me nuts.

I've ironed out a few bugs in it tonight, It should be stable now so at least people can try it out on various machines soon. There are still things I need to add, but its usable how it is now. I'm just waiting back to hear from a few people who I've sent it to so far

I have the exactly same problem as you My desk is an utter mess, and i have also to disconnect and put back each computer i used to install another one ahahah

It's unfortunate, but we don't have alas all the room we would like to

and think about it, when it's the ST, the amiga, or the CPC, it's ok, there's only one pass of connexions to do, but when i connect the C64, oh my god !

[exxos]

I have the exactly same problem as you My desk is an utter mess, and i have also to disconnect and put back each computer i used to install another one ahahah

It's unfortunate, but we don't have alas all the room we would like to

My desk kinda goes - 12" LCD for Atari testing, HP office printer - hi-fi amp with canon print on top of it, 24" PC monitor and my PC. Thats pretty much the whole length of the room! So the only space I have is on the floor. Only room for 1 machine at a time. Which is a total nightmare. Imagine my STE I am trying 32mhz on, a ST with V2 booster on, a ST with V1.5 booster. A ST for testing 4MB kits, a ST for testing PSU's and floppy drives. Then my falcon and my poor MEGA which is just in several locations at the moment Then when I want to quickly test something I need to find a ST which actually works in the first place Because I am working on many things at once, I am constantly swapping Atari's around

Anyway, back to the plot..

GB6 is having issues with the FPU code which I copied over from GB4. It probably isn't fixable, so currently bugging someone to help write new code for it I've still got a lot of code tidying to do, but the core seems stable-ish but won't post the Alpha until I can sort something out with the FPU routines. I found AES works different on the Falcon than on the ST Probably my buggy code, but what works on the ST totally messes up on the Falcon. So busy fixing stuff there currently to make sure it behaves correctly on both machines.

[Ato]

Hi Exxos,

I like your set-up. Clean and tidy like a real hardware Jedi would want to have it. What about uploading the code to gitlab or github? Then we Atarians could join forces and work on it together?


Cheers
T.

[exxos]

Hi Exxos,

I like your set-up. Clean and tidy like a real hardware Jedi would want to have it. What about uploading the code to gitlab or github? Then we Atarians could join forces and work on it together?

The code will be released on my site on my GB6 page (when I do one). So if people want to improve it or add stuff, they can do. I think though it will be hard for anyone to make changes to such a program as it pretty complex overall, no where near as complex as GB4's code, but if anyone has any suggesting to add stuff in, then they should really mention it now while I am working on it. This is my first GEM app, I never coded in Hisoft basic before, so I can't do "everything" and some things I just had to leave out of GB6.

[exxos]

I could do with someone whos got a CT60'ed Falcon to try GB6 out..

I just need to know how long the tests are running for and don't have time to mess with my CT60 at the moment.

[exxos]

Here is the Aplha , version 606 Build 13

GB606B13.zip (removed)

Once GB6 loads, people should choose "save defaults" from the menu and it will benchmark your machine and save it as the reference file. So next time you benchmark by just pressing "A" it will show 100% speeds.

Currently is has been tested on

STE TOS206 (8 & 32mhz)
Falcon TOS404, 14MB ST RAM, TOS404, FPU OC 50mhz 68882. 4/16/256 colour modes.
STFM TOS104, TOS206, 8 & 16mhz
Hatari TOS404 (other TOS crash getting to desktop ?!) & steem TOS104 TOS206,

GB6 should be run in ST-med resolution 4 colours. While it will run in 16 colours, the benchmark speed will vary. So if you benchmark in 4 colours then switch to 256 colours you will get totally different results. GB6 will run in other resolutions, but they are not supported.

I have tested NVDI5.03 on the falcon and there seems to be no issues.


As nobody is likely to read the readme file..

Turning the blitter OFF on the falcon does not work, that is NOT a bug! You simply can't do it.
Screenshot option isn't working as its not been coded yet.
Sometimes you will get 99% or 101% results, that is NOT a bug. Its the cache's on the 030+ CPU which cause that. Turning them off will give more consistent results.


Currently there are no known bugs (from my testing). But Darklord and Atari030 has some screwy issues which I am unable to figure out. Mostly it seems to crash on FPU test. Sometimes it will continue running though all other tests, but crash at some random point later, which is understandable. So if the FPU code crashes, please post back your exact machine config. dml suggested there may be some faulty FPU's about, but so far its not been proven either way.

I need more testers!! I asked for a CT60 falcon person to help out some days ago, nobody replied It will be difficult to debug on other machines if people are not helping to test I've done all I can with the stuff I have here.

[DarkLord]

Chris, I did read that file.

I'll run GB6 on my CT60 Falcon this evening and let you know in PM how it goes.

Thanks for all the hard work - I know it's a headache.

[exxos]

Chris, I did read that file.

I'll run GB6 on my CT60 Falcon this evening and let you know in PM how it goes.

Thanks for all the hard work - I know it's a headache.

I know you read it Ron, most people don't like to read stuff though

I think you had a fair share of headaches with this as well so far aswell

[DarkLord]

Nah, it's fun!

[Atari030]

Agreed. I get to test all my machines.

[exxos]

I've been working on Build 15 for some days now and fixed a lot of bugs. Its probably about as good as its going to get now. Only the main problem is the FPU routines do not work on the CT60. The FPU code was done it "Turbo C" it seems, though Ofir Gal no longer has the source code to it, so not fixable So this means I cannot include the FPU test in GB6 unless someone is willing to do a total re-write of the whole thing.

Probably next week I will upload a new build, though most likely that will be the final version for now.

[DarkLord]

Thanks for all the hard work on this Chris - maybe the FPU thing will sort itself
out eventually.

[Atari030]

I've had man flu for a few days, no chance to get into it, but I'm looking forward to seeing how well its gone. Keep up the good work, Chris.