Hi all,

I have this accelerator for the Amiga 2000, VXL 30 (http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=196), installed in
my Amiga 2000 with 8MB of extra RAM. It's great over all, but a few things have been troubling me a bit so I thought I'd ask around.

I also have a Golden Gate II+-card installed to be able to utilize ISA network cards in my Amiga 2000 The card itself is tested and works, but I cannot get the ISA NE-2000-card (with physical settings for IO and IRQ) to work.

My question is this: Is anyone aware of any (if at all) strange behaviour with the VXL 30? My old Amiga 2000 had a GVP G-Force 030 and a Golden Gate II+-card
and it worked perfect.

Thanks,

Joacim


--- NiKom v2.3.1
* Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (2:201/120.0)

Hello Joacim!

25 Dec 17 16:44, you wrote to all:

I have this accelerator for the Amiga 2000, VXL 30 (http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=196), installed in my Amiga 2000 with 8MB of extra RAM. It's great over
all, but a few things have been troubling me a bit so I thought I'd
ask around.

I also have a Golden Gate II+-card installed to be able to utilize ISA network cards in my Amiga 2000 The card itself is tested and works,
but I cannot get the ISA NE-2000-card (with physical settings for IO
and IRQ) to work.

You want to use the NE-2000 NIC from Amiga OS? Or just DOS/Windows side?

My question is this: Is anyone aware of any (if at all) strange
behaviour with the VXL 30? My old Amiga 2000 had a GVP G-Force 030
and a Golden Gate II+-card and it worked perfect.

How much memory did the G-Force 030 have? 4 MB?

AFAIR there is only a 8 MB window for AutoConfig address space. If the 8 MB of the VXL 30 binds into that memory space, this can be an issue.

Ingo


--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5--b20170303
* Origin: AmigaXess - back in FidoNet after 17 years (2:2452/413)

Hello Joacim!

25 Dec 17 16:44, you wrote to all:

I have this accelerator for the Amiga 2000, VXL 30
(http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=196),
installed in my Amiga 2000 with 8MB of extra RAM. It's great over
all, but a few things have been troubling me a bit so I thought I'd
ask around.

I also have a Golden Gate II+-card installed to be able to utilize ISA
network cards in my Amiga 2000 The card itself is tested and works,
but I cannot get the ISA NE-2000-card (with physical settings for IO
and IRQ) to work.

You want to use the NE-2000 NIC from Amiga OS? Or just DOS/Windows
side?

My question is this: Is anyone aware of any (if at all) strange
behaviour with the VXL 30? My old Amiga 2000 had a GVP G-Force 030
and a Golden Gate II+-card and it worked perfect.

How much memory did the G-Force 030 have? 4 MB?

AFAIR there is only a 8 MB window for AutoConfig address space. If
the 8 MB of the VXL 30 binds into that memory space, this can be an
issue.

Ingo

Thanks Ingo. I want to use it with AmigaOS. I wonder if there is a way to remap the VXL 30 RAM to not occupy this memory space? My old G-Force 030-card had 12 megs of RAM.


--- NiKom v2.3.1
* Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (2:201/120.0)

Hello Joacim!

25 Dec 17 16:44, you wrote to all:

I have this accelerator for the Amiga 2000, VXL 30
(http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=196),
installed in my Amiga 2000 with 8MB of extra RAM. It's great over
all, but a few things have been troubling me a bit so I thought I'd
ask around.

I also have a Golden Gate II+-card installed to be able to utilize ISA
network cards in my Amiga 2000 The card itself is tested and works,
but I cannot get the ISA NE-2000-card (with physical settings for IO
and IRQ) to work.

You want to use the NE-2000 NIC from Amiga OS? Or just DOS/Windows
side?

My question is this: Is anyone aware of any (if at all) strange
behaviour with the VXL 30? My old Amiga 2000 had a GVP G-Force 030
and a Golden Gate II+-card and it worked perfect.

How much memory did the G-Force 030 have? 4 MB?

AFAIR there is only a 8 MB window for AutoConfig address space. If
the 8 MB of the VXL 30 binds into that memory space, this can be an
issue.

After some tinkering, it turns out that the VXL-30 can be re-configured to map the RAM in a "high" mode which enables the GG2+-card to be configured properly.
This presents a whole slew of other problems though, since the VXL-30 refuses to boot properly without running the "setvxl" tool, which in itself is pretty straight forward. It still doesn't work properly though: I cannot run setvxl and the parameter for enableing all the extra RAM connected to the VXL-30 in either user-startup or startup because the Amiga will just throw a guru medition on me before workbench is even booted.

So to be able to use my Amiga 2000, at the moment, with my GG2+-card, I have to
boot the Amiga without startup-sequence, run the command I need to enable the RAM, reboot the Amiga with startup-sequence enabled and then it boots. I cannot use burst mode or cacheing in the 030 because then the amiga will crash.


I'm waiting for a TF530 board that I will place in my A2000 instead and this card will either go on sale or in the kids A500.

More testing to be done though so fingers crossed.


--- NiKom v2.3.1
* Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (2:201/120.0)

Hello Joacim!

26 Dec 17 11:56, you wrote to me:

How much memory did the G-Force 030 have? 4 MB?
AFAIR there is only a 8 MB window for AutoConfig address space.
If the 8 MB of the VXL 30 binds into that memory space, this can
be an issue.

Thanks Ingo. I want to use it with AmigaOS. I wonder if there is a
way to remap the VXL 30 RAM to not occupy this memory space? My old G-Force 030-card had 12 megs of RAM.

Well, when the G-Force 030 maps the memory to a different address space then it
might work. Maybe you can check the address spaces against this table: https://amigacoding.com/index.php/Amiga_memory_map or http://amigadev.elowar.com/read/ADCD_2.1/Hardware_Manual_guide/node00D4.html (or others)

Additionally, there might be some special functions the G-Force might use together with the GVP bridgeboard which the VXL cannot use.

Anyway, I doubt that you will have a real speed improvement with use the NE2000
NIC on the PC side from AmigaOS. It will be quite slow and maybe it's better to
buy a real Amiga NIC instead.

Ingo


--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5--b20170303
* Origin: AmigaXess - back in FidoNet after 17 years (2:2452/413)

Hello Joacim!

26 Dec 17 11:56, you wrote to me:

How much memory did the G-Force 030 have? 4 MB?
AFAIR there is only a 8 MB window for AutoConfig address space.
If the 8 MB of the VXL 30 binds into that memory space, this can
be an issue.

Thanks Ingo. I want to use it with AmigaOS. I wonder if there is a
way to remap the VXL 30 RAM to not occupy this memory space? My old
G-Force 030-card had 12 megs of RAM.

Well, when the G-Force 030 maps the memory to a different address
space then it might work. Maybe you can check the address spaces
against this table:
https://amigacoding.com/index.php/Amiga_memory_map or http://amigadev.elowar.com/read/ADCD_2.1/Hardware_Manual_guide/node00D 4.html (or others)

Additionally, there might be some special functions the G-Force might
use together with the GVP bridgeboard which the VXL cannot use.

Anyway, I doubt that you will have a real speed improvement with use
the NE2000 NIC on the PC side from AmigaOS. It will be quite slow and maybe it's better to buy a real Amiga NIC instead.

Yes. They are very costly though, and the Zorro II-bus in my A2000 doesn't give
me more than 10Mbit/s anyway so I think it will be fine.

Thanks Ingo!



--- NiKom v2.3.1
* Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (2:201/120.0)

Hello Joacim!

26 Dec 17 23:18, you wrote to me:

Anyway, I doubt that you will have a real speed improvement with
use the NE2000 NIC on the PC side from AmigaOS. It will be quite
slow and maybe it's better to buy a real Amiga NIC instead.

Yes. They are very costly though, and the Zorro II-bus in my A2000
doesn't give me more than 10Mbit/s anyway so I think it will be fine.

Well, I still have a spare Hydra NIC (AUI needed) that I want to put on Ebay in
the next weeks with some other cards (like A2088 bridge board). If you're interested in it, drop me a NM and we can talk about the pricing...

Ingo


--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5--b20170303
* Origin: AmigaXess - back in FidoNet after 17 years (2:2452/413)

Hello Joacim!

26 Dec 17 23:18, you wrote to me:

Anyway, I doubt that you will have a real speed improvement with
use the NE2000 NIC on the PC side from AmigaOS. It will be quite
slow and maybe it's better to buy a real Amiga NIC instead.

Yes. They are very costly though, and the Zorro II-bus in my A2000
doesn't give me more than 10Mbit/s anyway so I think it will be fine.

Well, I still have a spare Hydra NIC (AUI needed) that I want to put
on Ebay in the next weeks with some other cards (like A2088 bridge
board). If you're interested in it, drop me a NM and we can talk
about the pricing...

Thanks but I will go for the X-Surf-100 when I can find the funds for it. Turns
out the GG2+ is not very stable in my system, probably because of the VXL 30. I
tried re-mapping the memory and doing all sorts of stuff and I got it working but the entire system hangs after a couple of seconds of trying to do network transfers.



--- NiKom v2.3.1
* Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (2:201/120.0)

Hello Joacim!

01 Jan 18 19:24, you wrote to me:

Well, I still have a spare Hydra NIC (AUI needed) that I want to
put on Ebay in the next weeks with some other cards (like A2088
bridge board). If you're interested in it, drop me a NM and we
can talk about the pricing...

Thanks but I will go for the X-Surf-100 when I can find the funds for

Ah. good decision! :)
For that one reason that I can try to sell it on Ebay for a high(er) price than
I would have sold it to you, for the other reason that I believe you will get more performance out of the X-Surf running in ZII mode than from the NE2000 via
the ISA bus.

it. Turns out the GG2+ is not very stable in my system, probably
because of the VXL 30. I tried re-mapping the memory and doing all
sorts of stuff and I got it working but the entire system hangs after
a couple of seconds of trying to do network transfers.

I would have surprised anyway if that setup would have worked in a good way. :)

PS: I think I will order the USB module for the X-Surf in February... ;)

Ingo


--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5--b20170303
* Origin: AmigaXess - back in FidoNet after 17 years (2:2452/413)

Hello Joacim!

01 Jan 18 19:24, you wrote to me:

Well, I still have a spare Hydra NIC (AUI needed) that I want to
put on Ebay in the next weeks with some other cards (like A2088
bridge board). If you're interested in it, drop me a NM and we
can talk about the pricing...

Thanks but I will go for the X-Surf-100 when I can find the funds for

Ah. good decision! :)
For that one reason that I can try to sell it on Ebay for a high(er)
price than I would have sold it to you, for the other reason that I believe you will get more performance out of the X-Surf running in
ZII mode than from the NE2000 via the ISA bus.

it. Turns out the GG2+ is not very stable in my system, probably
because of the VXL 30. I tried re-mapping the memory and doing all
sorts of stuff and I got it working but the entire system hangs after
a couple of seconds of trying to do network transfers.

I would have surprised anyway if that setup would have worked in a
good way. :)

PS: I think I will order the USB module for the X-Surf in February...
;)

Ingo

Actually, with my old A2000 and the GVP G-Force 030-card and the 12MB RAM I had
on that one (the card broke, of course), GG2+ and a NE2000 card worked flawlessly.


--- NiKom v2.3.1
* Origin: Delta City (deltacity.se, Vallentuna, Sweden) (2:201/120.0)