The collected works of gijoe77 - Page 3

Octane MXE had an issue (I'm wondering if this is a shared issue with mplayer as posted in that thread).

But here are the results, the few games I tried all had the same "need texture, too big" output, failed then gave up.



I gave the sdlmame .149 a try, it worked, but slowly when set to soft, setting it to opengl gave strange artifacts in the menu and also resulted in a white screen when actually playing a game

Absolutely no question this is the best we have seen, just doing my part in testing the boundaries :)

Now that the multi-platform part of my tests are done I will start digging through mame drivers, trying didn't ones, also gonna look for a cps3 driver close to that era that works good enuff ^_^

Just wondering, if I find drivers/games not working in
.94 but working in .106 (or previous to .94) do you want me to compile a list or do you just want to know about major things?
dexter1 wrote:
gijoe77 wrote: Octane MXE had an issue (I'm wondering if this is a shared issue with mplayer as posted in that thread).

Does the MXE by any chance have Texture Ram? I cannot tell from the hinv on the screenshots. It would explain the inability of using texture with MAME and MPlayer


yes, the MXE has TRAMS

Wow! I dunno if I should be sad, I was like "fuck ya, Das rite!" With my 90's hat on...
I spent some time digging through the MAME docs - It seems there is a lot that does not get documented with that project!

but anyway, here is what I found regarding mame and cps3:
.116 initial encryption cracked, but it seems it was not big-endian friendly
.117 fixed the CPS3 code to be big-endian friendly
.123 Improved linear zoom effect resolution to address gaps in CPS3 rendering.
.128 Removed per-game hacks from CPS3 (moved to DMA callback in SH2 core). Removed Speedups from CPS3 / PsikyoSH, while they do still give a decent speed boost they're not really needed with the DRC and just clutter the code.

so It would appear to me any mame between .117 and .127 would be a good candidate to get the cps3 driver, I really don't like hearing how they removed speedups from cps3 at .128!! I read in some mac/mame forum that cps3 emulation was good in .124, but I dunno how that was decided.

also, regarding the other drivers/games I tested and were having issues in .94: zn.c (street fighter EX, etc), stv.c (die hard, etc), model1.c/model2.c (virtual fighter), vector games (star wars, etc); they all work fine in the .106 release of mame, so it appears to have gotten fixed somewhere between .94 and .106 but I really couldn't find anything mentioned in the docs

edit: I've been doing some more tests in dos mame, it seems .117 runs a good bit faster than .124, not sure if its specifically related to the cps3.c driver or a general mame-slowing-down-as-the-versions-increment sort of issue, but here are the numbers

MAME .117

Code: Select all

C:\Users\user\Desktop\tmp\mames\mame0117b>mame sfiii3n
testhacks 00011c44 0613a9fc
cram_gfxflash_bank_LSB_w LSB32 00000000
Sound [84] 230000
Sound [84] 230000
Sound [84] 230000
Average speed: 720.72% (323 seconds)


MAME .124

Code: Select all

C:\Users\user\Desktop\tmp\mames\mame0124b>mame sfiii3n
testhacks 00011c44 0613a9fc
cram_gfxflash_bank_LSB_w LSB32 00000000
Sound [84] 230000
Sound [84] 230000
Sound [84] 230000
Average speed: 607.83% (249 seconds)
I would like to chime in - you can't go wrong with a maxed octane2, fuel or Tezro - maxed octane2 might be the easiest and cheapest to get (as opposed to maxed tezro or fuel). I would recommend a Tezro (V12, quad cpu), followed by maxed octane2(2x600mhz, V12) and last a fuel. I wouldn't consider anything less (indy, indigo2, o2). I suppose if you stumble across an Onyx system (it happens) that might be something else, but I don't have any insight into the big iron setups and how they rank compared to the workstations.

I wont repeat what others have said, but one point to keep in mind is that entire movies have been made on SGI's with the software mentioned so really great work is possible with some patience. I completely suck at 3d and video editing/compositing, but I putz around on SGI's just for fun, I Can't speak for using these things for a living.
I don't really know the history of the 6.5.8 but it looked pretty darn vanilla to me - no customization, no nekoware/freeware, etc. I might just go down the path of fresh 6.5 install if I have free time just to see what happens
Yeah you need a license to run it, both irix and windows
neat! Y2K did impact us after all...

I'll dig up Mirai again and give it a shot!
well i'll be darned! that worked! How did you come to the idea to set the date to 99?

lets pretend someone bought this thing - what can one currently run/do with this thing? Any software that already exists or would someone have to code their own stuff to use this? I'm still confused...
spiroyster wrote:
gijoe77 wrote: lets pretend someone bought this thing - what can one currently run/do with this thing? Any software that already exists or would someone have to code their own stuff to use this? I'm still confused...

Both, manual says there is a utility that allows you to customise the output of all the graphics pipes (user configurable tiling) as the user desires, or this could be done on an application basis since there appear to be some specific extensions for this hardware, so the developer could choose how they wish to output (which gfx device), multi-contexts all with complex geometry in a system operating in a non-distributed way (in terms of CPU and mem, I'm unsure if the vram can be shared between the different graphics pipes, or it must be replicated for each pipe?). Certainly, it is a novelty item, and you need something in the big-iron class (iirc the ATi's in the Onyx4 support this thing as well) pushing the pixels, but in terms of 'graphics related hardware', its pretty cool imo, while specialised. I don't I know of another breakout box which can perform this as a seperate part of the pipeline other than provided by the gfx, other systems rely on multi GPUs on the same board (or same discrete graphics subsystem) and then perform the mixing as part of its pipeline before outputting through the primary display. e.g Quantum3D AAlchemy.

The AA capability is neat, and the 'tiling' interesting. I don't think the AA would require a special code path for the GL program, since it can interleave all the inputs (which would duplicate all the geometry/texture memory, and jitter each output) for multiple pipes and mix at a hardware-level. Normally this would have to be done by rendering 4 frames (using the same gfx pipe) and then compositing via the accumulation buffer, or (if the pipes' texture buffer can handle it) rendering an image 4x the size and relying on the bilinear filtering when drawing to a downsized quad (not so easy on sgi's tbh).

@vishnu
This item is certainly applicable outside of broadcasting too since it can be used for higher-bandwidth visualisations and perhaps simulations which would make use of multi-context rendering. I think (I have seen) there are dedicated boxes with stuff like BNC ports and wotnot for the dedicated broadcast equivalent.... DMedia Pro breakout box which has a pretty similar livery. ??? :?


ok, pump the breaks. One needs a Onyx4 with ATI's graphics to use this? Not VPro or earlier Onyxs (I don't see any DVI output on the IR4 pics listed in the other thread)? I'm not aware of any Autodesk software working on the Onyx4/ATI platform... I was under the impression nothing really works on the Onyx4...

I looked into the DMediaPro for a while and it looks like the typical Discreet setup (with DM5 daughtercard) basically takes a part of the VPRO display and pushes it out either the SD-SDI or HD-SDI BNC port. I once found the command line commands to do that with anything on the display (you would have the specify what region of the screen you want to send to the SDI out port - I didn't really mess with it though) but I guess thats about as good as it gets. I suppose the TMDS version for IR3/IR4 graphics serves the same purpose.
topic says it all - Looking for an Indigo2 EXtreme Graphics Badge.
wow nice system!

were these GIGAchannels the ones where there was a way to put in an Octane Impact graphics card?
This is a topic I always found interesting - I can't imagine many people get their hands on a SGI and don't have an interest in running the software that made SGI's what they were (Alias, Discreet, etc), but yet we have to not discuss this. Bottom line is this site is too valuable a resource for everyone involved so it is what it is.

One good thing about the policy is I still have a fully licensed PowerAnimator 8.1 Indigo2 Extreme that I would have sold a few years ago (when I sort of fell off the SGI kick), but I didn't like the idea of posting the system to ebay so I held off - and now I'm glad I did - that Extreme box is now my 5.3 COFF system ^_^
really fantastic job! An inspiration to us all!

BTW what do you find works better in smoke than in flame?
uunix wrote: most people start with FLAME, but I'd felt a bit put of by the interface.


I had it the other way around - flame seemed like just a subset of the smoke interface to me (the effects module) - I still struggle around smoke.

Do you have a TBC in your setup or does the Panasonic AG 7750 have a built in TBC?

Also do you have a external sync generator for the setup? I'm just wondering what was the crucial key to solving the timing issues going from VHS to digital (Last time I tried this with a VCR and my O2 it was an epic failure)
GIJoe wrote: so you never tried my tip from page 1 - written in may of 2014 - to set the system date back a number of years? i thought i had sufficiently hinted that that made mirai work again. ;)
as i recall the culprit was the built-in lisp interpreter's license that expired at some point.


ah my man, you were right! I think I did set my date back once or twice for grins and giggles, but it was not before 99 - who knew y2k was in effect here lol