Getting hardware acceleration to work on on the Amiga is tricky due to the disparate information available and the varying degrees of stability of drivers. This guide summarizes the procedure, offers download links and provides some notes on how to get hardware acceleration.

The procedure varies greatly depending on the available hardware and this tutorial makes a few assumptions based on the current layout of a given machine.

• A1200
• Blizzard (040/060) PPC
• Mediator (TX)
• Voodoo 3 (8MiB / 16MiB)
• OS3.9

The Mediator should be configured via jumpers to match the following setup:

• Memory Window→8MiB,
• Config→Left Open / Unset

The 8MiB configuration is vital to getting 3D acceleration working; albeit disabling PCMCIA.

Perform a full installation of Thor's (Thomas Richter's) MMULib package from AmiNET including starting all programs on boot whilst accepting defaults. The critical part is getting the BPPCFix, mmu.library, MMU-Configuration, the 680x0.library and corresponding 68040.library or 68060.library. Additionally, installing all the other programs is safe and the patches will only apply if they are needed or hardware is available.

You can disable BlizKick if you have it installed since the MMU libraries replace most of its functionality. If you are kicking devices and libraries, you can fallback to the OS3.9 standard LoadModule and LoadResident lines. A safe s:startup-sequence configuration looks like the following:

Workbench:System/MuTools/MuMove4K A1200 NoReboot
SYS:C/BPPCFix >NIL: Install Reboot

FailAt 21
SYS:C/LoadResident >NIL: DEVS:card.resource DEVS:trackdisk.device L:KingCON-Handler LIBS:mathffp.library LIBS:mathieeesingbas.library

FailAt 20
SYS:C/LoadModule >NIL: DEVS:battmem.resource DEVS:console.device DEVS:FileSystem.resource DEVS:misc.resource DEVS:potgo.resource DEVS:scsi.device L:FastFileSystem L:Ram-Handler L:Shell-Seg LIBS:dos.library LIBS:layers.library REVERSE NOREBOOT

SYS:C/SetPatch SKIPROMUPDATES console.device,dos,filesystem,FileSystem.resource,ram-handler,scsi.device,shell,icon.library,mathffp.library,mathieeesingbas.library QUIET

The most important line here is perhaps the BPPCFix command that will turn off the internal blizzard PowerUP ppc.library and allow the WarpUP kernel to run. Since ppc.library will be turned off, download ppclibemu and install it following the prompts. ppclibemu will emulte PowerUP ppc.library on WarpUP making it available to programs expecting ppc.library to be available.

You can now reboot.

• If you get a prompt stating that WarpUP found ppc.library and offers to terminate it then you should check that BPPCFix has ran successfully during the startup sequence. One way to do that is to edit s:startup-sequence and remove the null redirection >NUL: and watch the screen as the computer reboots.

Install WarpUP, versions 4, then 4 Update 1, then 5. The Mediator CD contains version 5 whilst the archives from haage-partner.de contain version 5.1.

WarpUP allows the PPC to live alongside the m68k processor and is required / supported by most 3D packages.

You can now reboot again.

Install the mediator files from the MM CD (provided as an archive). The files contained in the MM CD are outdated, so update each driver from the same link. Of particular interest is pci.library which, at the time of writing, is at version 12.0 and should overwrite the file from the MM CD at LIBS:pci.library.

Execute MedConfig and follow the on-screen prompts to configure your Mediator board. Now, open a shell and issue:

cd ENVARC:Mediator/

followed by:

dir

to get a list of global environment variables that have been set by MedConfig.

You can issue the command: type MMU, for instance to show the current contents of the file. The relevant files in ENVARC:Mediator/ should have the following contents:

• MMU → No,
• NoCache → No,
• Emulation → No,
• VoodooMem → either 8 or 16 depending on how much RAM is available on the Voodoo board,
• VoodooMemOS → No (this can also be set to Yes to supply the operating system with RAM but given that a Blizzard PPC is available, it is doubtful more RAM is needed),
• VoodooInt → Yes

The Picasso 96 install follows:

• Install Picasso version 2.1b and pick the Cybervision3D (CV64/3D) as the graphics card (this will be modified manually),
• Rename DEVS:Monitors/CVision3D (and the info file) to Voodoo, respectively Voodoo.info and edit the tool-types on Voodoo.info to set BOARDTYPE=Voodoo in place of the CyberVision line.
• Copy voodoo.card from the MM CD 2.5 into LIBS:Picasso96.

Next, double click the Voodoo monitor icon to load the monitor driver and open P96Mode from SYS:Prefs/. Attach the settings to the Voodoo card and adjust the modes. Note that the Voodoo cannot do interlaced modes such that you should go through the entire list of modes and untick Interlace whenever you see it. Finally, save the configuration - if you are prompted answer to enable all modes.

You can now reboot and then use ScreenMode from SYS:Prefs/ to set the mode to a Voodoo 16 bit PC mode - otherwise, most of the Warp3D demos will crash or end in a white screen.

• Ensure that 320x240, 640x480, etc. modes are available in ScreenMode and that they all have an optional 16 bit PC variant available since the Voodoo is very picky about screen depth.

• Install Warp3D from the MM CD and make sure to select the PPC driver as well. Also, make sure to install the demos somewhere since they are vital to ensure that everything is running properly.

The drivers installed by Warp3D from the MM CD unfortunately copy over drivers that are meant for the A4000 whilst also leaving out the Avenger (Voodoo driver). You will have to check the directory LIBS: directory such that it has the following filesystem layout:

LIBS
  +
  |
  +--+ Warp.library
  |
  +--+ Warp3DPPC.library
  .
  .
  .
  +--- Warp3D
         +
         |
         +-----+ GFXdrivers
         |           +
         |           |
         |           +--- W3D_Picasso96M.library
         |           |
         |           +--- W3D_Picasso96MU.library
         |           |
         |           +--- W3D_Picasso96M_PPC.library
         |
         +-----+ HWDrivers
                    +
                    |
                    +--- W3D_AvengerBEM.library
                    |
                    +--- W3D_AvengerBEMU.library
                    |
                    +--- W3D_AvengerBEM_PPC.library
                    |
                    +--- W3D_AvengerLEM.library
                    |
                    +--- W3D_AvengerLEMU.library
                    |
                    +--- W3D_AvengerLEM_PPC.library
                          

Any other file present under LIBS:Warp3D/GFXDrivers and LIBS:Warp3D/HWDrivers should be deleted - tersely, any file without a capital M in its name should be trashed.

Change directory to ENVARC:Mediator and create the following settings:

• Warp3D → No

Followed by the PowerPC environment variable in ENVARC:PowerPC:

• gfxaddr → $200000,
• Force → 1,
• nopatch → 0,
• Terminator → 0 (0 since ppclibemu was installed in the first step)

Create a new setting at ENVARC:Warp3D/Mediator/memsize and set it to 7.

Finally, reboot for the last time.

The general rule runs along the lines of: if any of the Warp3D demos do not work then you have a problem!

All the demonstration files installed with Warp3D in the directory W3DDemo should work, this includes WarpTest and all the gears for the PPC version AND all the gears demos for m68k. The first one to try is WarpTest followed by the m68k gears test, followed by the PPC gears test.

If you get a white screen when the gear demos load:

• check that the environment variable set at ENVARC:Mediator/MMU reads No.
• check that your Workbench is running with a resolution at 16bit PC!

In case WHDLoad games seem to misbehave then you will need to set VoodooInt to No. Edit ENVARC:Mediator/VoodooInt and set the contents to No.