Fixing screen size and internet on a newly installed SAM

[kilaueabart]

I have at least temporarily replaced an X1000 that quit on me in December with the SAM460xe that the X1000 had replaced a few years ago and that I had luckily never got around to selling. As things stand, I have OS4.1 FE for Sam 460 installed on a flash drive, from which I boot, but I am able to address the old X1000 Amiga disk now residing on the SAM. This set up may tide me over until I get the X1000 repaired, or if that is impossible, move on to an X5000.

Meanwhile, I don't know how to set up the internet or the screen size on my new install, and I am here seeking advice.

I seem to remember setting up the internet by choosing "Automatic" or whatever was the alternative to "Manual" in the past, but that did not do the trick today. I would have googled for an answer (and probably will shortly, now that I'm back on my Raspberry-pi), but Odyssey refused to find anything on the internet.

Second problem: I remember seeing something about installing OS4.1 FE on the SAM that said it wouldn't have the Radeon stuff I would need, but I can't remember where I saw it or how it said I could get what I do need. I may already have it. "System > find" turned up a couple dozen files that answered to "radeon#?" in a copy of DH0: from my X1000. Quite a jumble, and I'm not smart enough to figure out if anything in the jumble is what I need. Here is what came up, edited a lot:
Devs/Monitors/Radeon HD 5450
Kickstart/ATIRadeon.chip
Kickstart/RadeonHD.chip
Libs/Warp3D/HWDrivers/W3D_Radeon.library
Prefs/Env-Archive/AppDir/RadeonHD.chip.debug
Prefs/Env-Archive/AppDir/Radeon HD 5450
System/RadeonHD-1.7.iso
System/RADEONHD2/xf86-video-radeonhd_license.txt
System/RADEONHD2/RadeonHD.chip
System/RADEONHD2/Install RadeonHD
/Utilities/AMIStore/Downloads/ (10 files)
/Utilities/DATA/ (8 files)

Meanwhile the new SAM system has
Devs/Monitors/Radeon RV730
Kickstart/RadeonHD.chip (I forgot to check whether this was different from the one in the X1000 Kickstart)
Kickstart/ATIRadeon.chip (ditto)

Can I fix things by copying one or more of the files from the X1000, or will I have to wait until the first problem is fixed and I can go on-line and re-order from AMIStore?

[nbache]

Can you post the versions of the three RadeonHD.chip files? I.e. the one in Kickstart and the one in System/RADEONHD2 on the X1000 installation, as well as the one in Kickstart in your new Sam installation.

I'm guessing your newly installed system has the cut-down free version which is limited to the lower resolution, and at least one of the ones you had on the X1000 is the full version you bought. If so - and the version numbers will help us find out - you can just copy the one from the X1000 installation to the new Kickstart.

As for the internet, try opening the Internet prefs and selecting the first choice, Interfaces. Does it specify the correct driver, the one named something like ppc460ex_eth.device? in the two lower sections of the window, you can either checkmark the first section, which lets you specify a (LAN) IP address for your Sam, or you can checkmark the last section, which makes it try connecting via DHCP - probably what you refer to as "automatic". Don't forget you also have to specify the default route or standard gateway address (don't remember the exact designation in English, I use the Danish localization). This is on the second page of the prefs program, Routes, at the bottom below the big pane and the four buttons. If your LAN uses addresses in the 192.168.1.x range (which is quite common), your gateway (router) probably has 192.168.1.1 as IP address. Finally, you also need some DNS server IP addresses in the fourth page, Name resolution. Your ISP may have some available, or you can use some public DNS servers; I'm not sure which ones exist out there and are recommendable, but you may already have this information yourself from earlier.

After setting all this and saving, do a warm reboot and see if it helps. If not, tell us what happens - do you get an error during startup, or do you just not get a response when trying to connect to something or what?

Best regards,

Niels

[kilaueabart]

Can you post the versions of the three RadeonHD.chip files? I.e. the one in Kickstart and the one in System/RADEONHD2 on the X1000 installation, as well as the one in Kickstart in your new Sam installation.

I only checked the old Kickstarts one. Version 0.61, but most significant perhaps, installed August 2016 and nothing newer. I haven't tried it yet, but had success with the internet stuff (I found the instructions for setting up my modem, and guessed at which IP addresses were right). I am doing this from the SAM right now!

New minor problem. Something wrong with Odyssey. Trying to get on my email results in a message that I am getting the HTML version because I am not using a supported browser. This didn't happen on the X1000.

I'm guessing your newly installed system has the cut-down free version which is limited to the lower resolution, and at least one of the ones you had on the X1000 is the full version you bought. If so - and the version numbers will help us find out - you can just copy the one from the X1000 installation to the new Kickstart.

Yes, somewhere along in the installation it warned me that it would be a limited Radeon, and what to do about it, but my current stage of dementia didn't retain the latter info. But after posting yesterday I remember answering a query from Christian of Linux fame about what Radeon I had, and I had answered with something very like "... 5450." I suspect that the RadeonHD.chip in the X1000 Kickstart must be it. I'll look for its version number, but probably try copying it over in any event.

And I have now done so, and am about to warm reboot and see what happens. By the way, when I booted the SAM today, I got full height Workbench, or at least it fills the monitor.

Thanks yet again,
Bart

[nbache]

Can you post the versions of the three RadeonHD.chip files? I.e. the one in Kickstart and the one in System/RADEONHD2 on the X1000 installation, as well as the one in Kickstart in your new Sam installation.

I only checked the old Kickstarts one. Version 0.61, but most significant perhaps, installed August 2016 and nothing newer.

0.61 is actually the cut-down free version from the FE install CD. You want to overwrite that with whatever you used on the X1000, to get the higher resolutions to work.

I haven't tried it yet, but had success with the internet stuff (I found the instructions for setting up my modem, and guessed at which IP addresses were right). I am doing this from the SAM right now!

Good to hear!

Best regards,

Niels

[kilaueabart]

Can you post the versions of the three RadeonHD.chip files? ...

I only checked the old Kickstarts one. Version 0.61, but most significant perhaps, installed August 2016 and nothing newer.

0.61 is actually the cut-down free version from the FE install CD. You want to overwrite that with whatever you used on the X1000, to get the higher resolutions to work.

Small puzzle: I got that figure running "version miscellany:sysBackup/Kickstart/RadeonHD.chip," or so I thought, but trying again today, I came up with 2.18, the same number I get clicking on the icon's "version string"!? Maybe I looked at the new SAM item instead of the one I meant to? I guess you have already said yes on that.

Redoing all today, I get these figures:
X1000 stored System/RadeonHD2/RadeonHD.chip version 2.10
X1000 stored Kickstart/RadeonHD.chip version 2.18

Having copied the last into the new Kickstart, it has the same version number of course. One result of that copy is that Prefs > Screenmode is now fully populated to Board 0: 1280x1024 ARGB32. I'm not sure what "Board 0" means, but in any event selecting that last mode made no change in the Workbench screen. Still almost 3" of black on both sides. It occurs to me that I didn't have a wide screen with my SAM before; I got a new monitor after the X1000, so perhaps the SAM doesn't have a card capable of 1280 pixels wide?

Remembering that I used to use Radeon 5450, I replaced the RV730 in Devs > Monitors with that, but it was a bad move that I have reversed, but not retested yet. My current Workbench hangs down about one inch from the top of the screen. Fortunately, everything I open on it, such as this Odyssey, fills the screen top-to-bottom anyway, if not side-to-side. Both Radeon HD 5450 and Radeon RV730 are version RTG 54.1 and 6560 bytes, but the former squeezes those bytes into 7 blocks while the latter uses 14.

I hope you will notice something in this data, even if it means I would have to buy a new video card.

Thanks,
Bart

[javierdlr]

...
Having copied the last into the new Kickstart, it has the same version number of course. One result of that copy is that Prefs > Screenmode is now fully populated to Board 0: 1280x1024 ARGB32. I'm not sure what "Board 0" means, but in any event selecting that last mode made no change in the Workbench screen. Still almost 3" of black on both sides. It occurs to me that I didn't have a wide screen with my SAM before; I got a new monitor after the X1000, so perhaps the SAM doesn't have a card capable of 1280 pixels wide?

Remembering that I used to use Radeon 5450, I replaced the RV730 in Devs > Monitors with that, but it was a bad move that I have reversed, but not retested yet. My current Workbench hangs down about one inch from the top of the screen. Fortunately, everything I open on it, such as this Odyssey, fills the screen top-to-bottom anyway, if not side-to-side. Both Radeon HD 5450 and Radeon RV730 are version RTG 54.1 and 6560 bytes, but the former squeezes those bytes into 7 blocks while the latter uses 14.

I hope you will notice something in this data, even if it means I would have to buy a new video card.

Thanks,
Bart

When you choose a new resolution check the Vertical Frequency value (shown on the right of the screenmodes's list) and if it's 60HZ there should be no problem. Maybe the resolution you tried was 70HZ and your monitor doesn't like it.
You can "force" to only show 60HZ mode in ScreenMode's Monitor tab 'Show only 60Hz modes' option.

If you can open a Shell/CLI or use a filemanager, just go to 'ENVARC:Sys/' and rename/backup 'screenmode.prefs' and soft reboot system.

About the block size files uses, it depends on blocksize of such partition if it uses 512bytes or 1024 or 2048 .... nothing to be worried about.

[nbache]

@kilaueabart:

When checking the version of a file, especially a kickstart module or a library, alawys use the FILE switch on the version command. E.g. "version FILE FULL miscellany:sysBackup/Kickstart/RadeonHD.chip" (the FULL switch gives you the compile date as well as the version, which is often a useful extra clue). Or you can do it from the icon as you also tried. Otherwise, if the module or library is already loaded from somewhere, it will give you the version of the module which is currently in memory, even though you specify the path to another version. That is probably the reason you saw 0.61 yesterday; you had booted from the partition with the 0.61 driver in Kickstart, so that was in memory.

Sounds good that you get new modes in Screenmode now. Don't worry about the "Board 0", that's just what the driver calls the first (or only) graphics card it finds.

I used a resolution of 2560×1600 with my RadeonHD 5450 card, so it is definitely not the card itself that limits your resolution. (A resolution above 1920×1200 does require you to use special DVI-DL cables, though.)

Do you have the checkbox selected for "Detect settings automatically" on the Monitors tab of ScreenMode prefs? If not, try turning it on, saving and rebooting.

In case that doesn't help, let us know which brand and model you new monitor is, and what the values are in the four Refresh Rates fields on the Monitors tab of ScreenMode prefs (switch off the "Detect settings automatically" checkbox again to unprotect them if necessary).

Best regards,

Niels

[kilaueabart]

Thanks to a suggestion from javierdrl that I try a different socket for the hard drive, I switched with the CD and now I boot directly from the hard drive. Just in time. The flash suddenly quit working yesterday. Whether the CD will be bootable from its new socket remains to be seen.

Is Radeon RV730 really the same as Radeon HD 5450? Devs > Monitors in DH0: says RV730 and even when I replaced it with the 5450, Prefs Screenmode > Monitor refused to change. Could that mean the SAM has a different card from what the X1000 has? In any event, I get full resolution vertically, as before, but not full width, even though 1280x1024 is selected in Screenmode.

The monitor in question is a Samsung S23C570. Minimum VSync 60, Maximum VSync 60 (but it was 70 when javierdl asked me yesterday!), Minumum Hsync 31000, Maximum HSync 85000.

Mahalo,
Bart

UPDATE: Since making changes to Screenmode > Monitors (use preferred mode, detect settings automatically), I have booted full screen twice. Well, the second time only got about two-thirds vertical, but I don't expect that to be a regular happening.

I was having trouble getting internet to survive a reboot, but replaced Devs:Internet with Miscellany:sysBackup/Devs/internet and that is fine now too! Next, I need to get a new nightly YAM.

[javierdlr]

...
Is Radeon RV730 really the same as Radeon HD 5450? Devs > Monitors in DH0: says RV730 and even when I replaced it with the 5450, Prefs Screenmode > Monitor refused to change. Could that mean the SAM has a different card from what the X1000 has? In any event, I get full resolution vertically, as before, but not full width, even though 1280x1024 is selected in Screenmode.
...

See pics attached, that's how I have on my SAM460ex and Radeon HD6570, my monitor as a SAMSUNG SyncMaster 741MP (4:3).

About the icon in DEVS:Monitors I have/use:
Radeon HD.info

and tooltypes:
CMPLENGTH=9
BOARDNAME=Radeon HD
DDCMODE=60HZ
(VSYNCMIN=56)
(VSYNCMAX=75)
(HSYNCMIN=30000)
(HSYNCMAX=81000)
(MODE=320x240@70D)
DISABLEFAKENATIVE=Yes
INTERRUPT=Yes

DDCMODE can have ALL, 60HZ or PREFERRED as arguments. (show ALL resolutions/refreshes, only res. with 60HZ and monitor native/PREFERRED resolution)

The IMPORTANT tooltpyes are:
CMPLENGTH=9
BOARDNAME=Radeon HD

BOARDNAME (IIRC) should match icon/.info name and CMPLENGTH it's the BOARDNAME's string length. Not sure, but if those 2 tootlypes don't match (name and string length) maybe you get a 640x480 basic resolution, but that's not your case.

[nbache]

The monitor in question is a Samsung S23C570. Minimum VSync 60, Maximum VSync 60 (but it was 70 when javierdl asked me yesterday!), Minumum Hsync 31000, Maximum HSync 85000.

I googled for a manual and found the technical specs for that monitor, and yes, those are the correct frequencies for it. Whether you had 70 or 60 as Max. VSync is probably less important, because you probably want to use the monitor's preferred mode which is 1920×1080@60Hz.

UPDATE: Since making changes to Screenmode > Monitors (use preferred mode, detect settings automatically), I have booted full screen twice.

Sounds great. I assume that by full screen you mean 1920×1080?

Well, the second time only got about two-thirds vertical, but I don't expect that to be a regular happening.

I have seen that very rarely on different machines here, I don't know for sure what causes it, but it might be an idea to make sure your DVI cable is of good quality and that the plugs are securely inserted at both ends.

Best regards,

Niels