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Finally got my CFFA3000, but....

N

njroadfan

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Joined
Jan 21, 2011
Messages
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...I already ran across a bug. One of my favorite Apple IIgs games, Zany Golf, won't run off my CFFA3000 card. After showing the copyright message, it dumps to the monitor. I tried two different images, the one off "What is the Apple IIgs?" site, and an old image I had from 10 years ago (complete with crack screen). Both worked fine running off a floppy disk, but both crash when run off the CFFA3000 via a USB drive. I'm hoping some other CFFA3000 users can check and see if Zany Golf works for them. Below is my current configuration.

Apple IIgs ROM 01

Slot 1: Grappler+
Slot 2: AE Audio Animator soundcard
Slot 3: TWGS 32k cache 1.8S ROM (80 Col Firmware)
Slot 4: Empty (Mouse firmware)
Slot 5: Empty (SmartPort firmware)
Slot 6: RamFAST SCSI Rev D 3.01e ROM with Apple CD-SC+ and 40SC harddrive
Slot 7: CFFA3000 with USB stick
Memory: Fully populated 6MB GS-RAM+
 
Just tried launching Zany Golf from GS/OS as well as a virtual disk image on my ROM03 machine. I get the same result as you, it just shows the copyright and crashes. I tried it from my ROM00 and it works though! Ok, ok, I kid :) But seriously, that sucks. I was also unable to successful launch the Apple II game Rad Warrior, another one of my favorites :(
 
Weird, because it works fine with KEGS/GSport when booting off of the generic SmartPort interface (S7D1). I believe the same is true with Bernie as well. I don't recall it requiring IWM emulation to run.

Anyway, here are some benchmarks of my CFFA3000 booting GS/OS vs. my RamFAST Rev D SCSI card. The RamFAST is equipped with the stock 256k cache and I have the RamFAST GS/OS driver installed. I copied my main GS/OS partition directly to an image on my USB drive so I have an identical boot drive. The drive I'm using is an ancient Apple 40SC (Quantum drive), so its not all that fast compared to modern USB sticks.

CFFA3000: 44 seconds
RamFAST (DMA Off): 41 seconds
RamFAST (DMA On): 38 seconds

Looks like the CFFA3000 can close the gap if DMA transfer becomes available. Not having a native GS/OS driver doesn't seem to impact its performance any.
 
njroadfan said:
Weird, because it works fine with KEGS/GSport when booting off of the generic SmartPort interface (S7D1). I believe the same is true with Bernie as well. I don't recall it requiring IWM emulation to run.
Click to expand...
But the emulators do have IWM emulation behind them. Does Zany Golf run when you copy it to the RamFAST?
 
I'll test it out today. From what I'm reading of the comp.sys.apple2 archives, Zany Golf was hard drive installable after being cracked. The image from "What is the Apple IIgs?" appears to be a self booting copy that was created with Olivier Zardini's HD INSTALL program. My older copy was a straight crack and image of the original floppy from the defunct "Inwards" XGS image site run by Matt Conte.
 
I can now confirm that Zany Golf launches and runs without any problems when run from the hard drive connected to my RamFAST SCSI card. Looks like the problem lies somewhere with the CFFA3000.
 
david__schmidt said:
Crazy. Or maybe Zany. When it beeps and crashes to the monitor, type 2000G and see if it runs for you.
Click to expand...
David, you rock! That fixed it!! At least it did for me using my ROM03. Once it crashes, I typed in 2000G as you said... it attempted to restart and failed, but I tried typing in 2000G a second time just for kicks and voila, Zany Golf! So what exactly is 2000G doing?
 
Worked for me too. I am noticing a problem with other Will Harvey creations though, Music Construction Set seems to bomb out, at least when launched from GS/OS. Gotta try direct from ProDOS 8.
 
TanruNomad said:
So what exactly is 2000G doing?
Click to expand...
it's the default start address for a ProDOS program. Since the keyboard seemed active behind the graphics screen, and it crashed to the monitor, I just figured I'd give it a try.

So that makes it doubly strange why the CFFA3000 is having trouble with it - I seems to be using the OS in a fairly straightforward way. We'll need to feed the debug log to Rich and see what can be made of it.
 
Ok, so there's 1 more IIGS title that doesn't work with the CFFA3000. Rastan! It starts ok, but just before the title screen is crashes and the screen says to "restart system" with no way of entering text.
 
Hey njroadfan,

Can you test something from your end? I've noticed when I open text files from a USB-mounted smartport image with Teach, about 30-40% of time, when I try to close the application, it just freezes. This only happens while using the CFFA3000 and while in GS/OS opening a file from a disk image. Before I report it as a bug, can you try it?
 
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I'm having instability problems in general with GS/OS and the CFFA3000. Just random dumps to monitor from time to time. I also can't seem to run the Ninjaforce HD installable demos at all, particularly the Megademo. I don't know if thats a problem with the CFFA3000 though, copying it to my SCSI HD still results in it crashing. The weird thing is when I tried copying it to a RAM Drive, it kicks back that there is a problem with the RAM Disk and can't continue. I'm running a memory test now just to rule out bad memory.

Seems like memory is OK, passed the MegaMemory test.
 
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