Aaron707 wrote on 2023-10-13, 18:23:

So cool! Would love to see more cards and games tested on the board! Did you try out CD-Rom drive (I see emulated one in video)?

At the moment, I only have the Radeon 9250 and a Geforce4 Ti4400 in hand. I can probably get some others though. Anyone in particular you were interested in?
Also - I'm happy to do some testing and/or benchmarking of certain games. Let me know which!

I think I tested a sata cd drive a while back, can probably double-check it again!

I am wondering how well it runs unreal tournament 99 and Re-Volt

You could also try 3dmark99 and 2000 !

Question 😉 i saw there is headers for mt32-pi display, is there any headers buttons for changing between mt32 or gm?

Deksor wrote on 2023-10-14, 12:20:

I am wondering how well it runs unreal tournament 99 and Re-Volt
You could also try 3dmark99 and 2000 !

I'll run some tests! 👍

tabm0de wrote on 2023-10-14, 17:31:

Question 😉 i saw there is headers for mt32-pi display, is there any headers buttons for changing between mt32 or gm?

Unfortunately not, but since this can be controlled by sending SysEx messages, you can easily do it in software. Try the mt32-pi-control utility for DOS, for instance!

Eivind wrote on 2023-10-14, 18:43:

tabm0de wrote on 2023-10-14, 17:31:

Question 😉 i saw there is headers for mt32-pi display, is there any headers buttons for changing between mt32 or gm?

Unfortunately not, but since this can be controlled by sending SysEx messages, you can easily do it in software. Try the mt32-pi-control utility for DOS, for instance!

Aha had no clue there was a dos cli for mt32-pi, or i have just missed it.

Re: PXE, I think iPXE might be the easiest bootrom code to integrate?

https://ipxe.org/appnote/hardware_drivers - the RDC R6040 (pci 17f3 6040) is listed as _expected_ to work, anyhow.

If this is a giant hassle it's easy enough to boot iPXE from other media. Matter of fact I should be able to try that on a board right out of the box in its present state.

doogie wrote on 2023-10-16, 00:27:

Re: PXE, I think iPXE might be the easiest bootrom code to integrate?

https://ipxe.org/appnote/hardware_drivers - the RDC R6040 (pci 17f3 6040) is listed as _expected_ to work, anyhow.

If this is a giant hassle it's easy enough to boot iPXE from other media. Matter of fact I should be able to try that on a board right out of the box in its present state.

Ooh, nice! I wasn't even aware of iPXE and other open source solutions. Coreboot/SeaBIOS supports running rom files directly as part of the boot process, should be fairly trivial to test!

How is the raspbarry input programmed? Is it done through dos? And is it a used code or a new code?

tabm0de wrote on 2023-10-16, 07:22:

How is the raspbarry input programmed? Is it done through dos? And is it a used code or a new code?

Not quite sure I understand what you're asking. You mean how to get the mt32-pi firmware onto the Pi? In that case, it's just copying mt32-pi onto a blank SD card and insert it into the Pi.
Everything's very well documented on the mt32-pi github page!

tabm0de wrote on 2023-10-16, 07:22:

How is the raspbarry input programmed? Is it done through dos? And is it a used code or a new code?

Not quite sure I understand what you're asking. You mean how to get the mt32-pi firmware onto the Pi? In that case, it's just copying mt32-pi onto a blank SD card and inserting it into the Pi.
Everything's very well documented on the mt32-pi github page!

Eivind wrote on 2023-10-16, 07:33:

tabm0de wrote on 2023-10-16, 07:22:

How is the raspbarry input programmed? Is it done through dos? And is it a used code or a new code?

Not quite sure I understand what you're asking. You mean how to get the mt32-pi firmware onto the Pi? In that case, it's just copying mt32-pi onto a blank SD card and insert it into the Pi.
Everything's very well documented on the mt32-pi github page!

Sorry i wasnt really awake when posting, i meant RP2040 HID part 😉

tabm0de wrote on 2023-10-16, 12:34:

Sorry i wasnt really awake when posting, i meant RP2040 HID part 😉

Aha, yeah that one is programmed from another computer through a USB cable. It's running firmware I put together using the pico-sdk and the TinyUSB, Pico-PIO-USB and ps2xpico libraries.

Would this ITX case work? Is the placement of the AGP slot standard? Or would it require an extension cable?
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805342616690.html

fluxrez wrote on 2023-10-16, 19:08:

Would this ITX case work? Is the placement of the AGP slot standard? Or would it require an extension cable?
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805342616690.html

Hmmm, yeah this looks alright. I'm a little confused about the power connector and the margins of the PSU though. It says "1U", I suppose a Flex ATX PSU should fit alright? Tempted to give it a shot...
And yes, the AGP slot is placed right where it should 😉 Same exact position as a PCIe, PCI or ISA card would be relative to the mounting holes.

Deksor wrote on 2023-10-14, 12:20:

I am wondering how well it runs unreal tournament 99 and Re-Volt

You could also try 3dmark99 and 2000 !

CPU: 500 MHz, DirectX 8.1, Radeon 9520:

3dmark99: 1206 3dmarks, 1015 cpu 3dmarks
3dmark2k: 1878 3dmarks, 117 cpu 3dmarks

GLQuake 640x480: 74.3 fps
GLQuake 800x600: 71.3 fps
GLQuake 1024x768: 65.7 fps

Quake3 640x480, demo001: 39.4 fps
Quake3 800x600, demo001: 39.1 fps
Quake3 1024x768 demo001: 38.4 fps

As is apparent, the system is very much held back by the CPU performance.

Unreal Tournament is....playable, I'd say. At 640x480, all settings turned down. But really pushing it.
Happy to run a benchmark here, but I'm super confused as to how. Was there ever any standard way of doing this besides turning on stats and timedemo and looping the intro sequence...?

Re-Volt was not very playable at 640x480. Sub-20 fps.

I tried one of my favorites from back in the day, Red Alert 2 - that ran beautifully.

Thank you !

I'm quite surprised to see UT score so low considering how well Q3 runs.

Actually I think if you want to benchmark the first version of the unreal engine you should test it with unreal gold. I know there's a timedemo here (I don't know how to run it though)

Deksor wrote on 2023-10-16, 19:57:

Thank you !

I'm quite surprised to see UT score so low considering how well Q3 runs.

Actually I think if you want to benchmark the first version of the unreal engine you should test it with unreal gold. I know there's a timedemo here (I don't know how to run it though)

I downloaded Unreal Gold, set the resolution to 640x480 at 16bits, ran "stat" and "timedemo 1" while the castle intro was playing and waited a couple of loops. Got an average of 28.5 fps with a low of 9 and a high of 66.
Tried playing a bit and it was alright I guess. I think the Unreal Engine might just be more CPU-hungry than Quake 3.
I noticed quite often when I got something new in view (new textures loading, presumably), everything would stutter/freeze for a fraction of a second.

@doogie: I compiled iPXE for the RDC 6040 and built a new BIOS with the romfile included, got this:

...so I guess that's promising? 😀
I'm a total noob when it comes to PXE though, haven't touched that stuff in like 20 years. If you've got a (simple) way to test some more using a raspberry pi as a pxe server, I'd be happy to give it a spin!

Haven't been here in quite a while, and this is a great project to return to! Consider me interested.