Voxelspace-Problems 18.8.97 by Sam Jordan --------------------------------------------- The voxelspace demo is a highly optimized demonstration of the PowerPC processor and of the fast graphics display, too. There were a lot of new techniques tested which could become established in the future. Therefore, at this time, problems can occur dependant of the hardware and software configuration. The voxelspace demo now offers some options which can be used to bypass such problems. The most important parameters which can cause problems: 'm' : This parameter enables a 'MMU-hack' for the 68K processor (68040/68060 only). This option allows the access to the 68K-MMU in a completely non-system-compliant way and can therefore cause many problems. Until now there were reported complete hang-ups of the systems and problems with the CSPPC- SCSI controller. This parameter has absolutely no influence on the performance of the PowerPC, so it can be omitted, if only the PPC performance plays a role. 'g' : This option enables the direct graphics board access. In this mode the frame is created directly in the frame buffer (TURBOGFX mode). By default, the demo tries to access the bitmap as system- compliant as possible, so the bitmap is locked and unlocked using the functions of the 'cybergraphics.library'. Nevertheless problems can occur in this mode, especially on different graphics boards. 'nl' : This parameter only plays a role when 'g' is enabled and 'mo' is disabled. It disables the lockint/unlocking of the bitmap in TURBOGFX-mode. If the option 'g' causes problems, the combination 'g nl' should be tried out. 'mo' : This parameter only plays a role when 'g' is enable. The address of the bitmap is then evaluated using an alternative method. The standard method was broken on some older versions of CyberGFX, so if problems occur, the combination 'g mo' should be tried out. 'c' : This parameter only plays a role, when 'g' is disabled. This enables the standard method of graphics board access, but additionally, 'Multibuffering' ist used. This can cause problems if certain commodities run in the background, i.e blanker. 'w' : This parameter enables the options 'm', 't' and 'g'. In the case that one of these options doesn't work, the parameter 'w' should not be used. NEW: Since V1.6, the voxelspace demo supports the OS3.0 multibuffering with P96 (only if P96 is installed). Therefore an appropriate new version of P96 has to be installed so that the demo still works with the modes WARP/TURBOGFX and CGFXPLUS. Finally I want to mention a known problem when using multibuffering with CyberGFX. Crashs can occur, if the mousebuttons are pressed. Usually some commodities are responsible for these problems. In this case these commodities should be disabled or the voxelspace demo should be startet without the parameters 'w', 'c' and 'g'.