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DARKSOFT CHIHIRO TYPE 3: New Firmware !

@terminator2k2 you are loading from CF, right?

Well, looks like SSD takes about 1:54 to load, CF about 2:13 and GDROM about 5:10.

Draw your own conclussions :)
 
Thank you for these video and times ! I will stay with my CF :) .
 
Terminator 2k2 said:
Transcend 4 GB 133x (TS4GCF133) which i think is around 50mb/sec transfer
Click to expand...
Transcend claims that their cards that are 400x have a transfer speed of 90MB/s

This would mean that your 133x card has a transfer speed of 30MB/s

Strange thing is that all other brands use a base transfer speed of 150KB/s
In such case the Transcent would be 150KB * 133 = 19.95MB/s

My point is not to blame your setup.
I am simply trying to proof that faster speeds should be possible with faster CF cards as well.

The extra cost you pay for an SSD is likely a waste of money.
 
http://foersom.com/org/HowTo/DriveSpeed.html

On this side, they tested the Transcent 32GB 400x and had a read speed of 73,3 MB/s
Most sides only test write speeds as the cards are used by photagraphers. Write speed is the most important for them as it allows to take and save shots faster.

As I had focussed my search on ebay, the UDMA7 cards that claim a 1000x speed hadn't come to my attention yet.

The price difference between such a card and a ssd decreases fast.
They are probably overkill for booting a chihiro or triforce game as the netdimm itself will be the limiting factor.

Assume the card Terminator 2K2 is using has a read transfer speed of 30 MB/s and can load the game in 135 seconds.

The SSD which might be the fastest possible can do the loading in 120 seconds. This would mean that it's transfer speed is 30 * 135 / 120 = 33,75 MB/s

If those calculations are correct, a 266x card should be able to obtain SSD speed as well.

All we need is someone that can prove this theory.
 
The game is quite small. OR2 is about 500Mo only (481).
500Mo read in 120s is only about 4Mo/s (4.01).
So speed limit is Chihiro itself and perhaps the reactivity of storage.
 
The netdimm is not just reading the data from the disk. It has to store it in the sdram as well.
It will probably decrypt the data as well. Even with a zero key, it will decrypt using all zero's.
As ssd works a little faster, the netdimm clearly can handle a little faster transfer speeds from the disk.

It's not like you will be able to load your game in one minute.
I assume with the SSD, we hit indeed the netdimm speed limits, unless those sate 2 ide converters are crap and causing a transfer bottleneck.

Basically, the chihiro sees the netdimm sdram as a fatx partition on a disk. In theory, it should be possible to redirect all data transfer to and from that partition to a file on another storage medium. This would allow a game to boot without the need to load it into the dimm first. It would also fix the outrun2 sp high score that disappears when the dimm battery runs flat. Finally, it would allow to multiboot several games from the same SSD or compact flash without the need to change the media, but that will introduce high score issues again, since most games use the baseboard for that and will likely overwrite the settings from other games.
It might be a matter of months before someone comes up with such a solution.
 
I've performed some tests.
I have some SSD, but can't make them work. I need instructions to do it. I have a SSD kit with a game (MarioKart 2 TriForce) bought used to another member of this forum, but it doesn't want to boot.
So I tried with some CompactFlash cards.
My results are very surpising.

I use some SanDisk Industrial 1Go standard CF, tested at 11Mo/s reading in USB2 adaptator with HDSpeed 1.4. I bought a faster Transcend 300x 512Mo CF (rated at 57Mo/s by manufacturer), reading at 19Mo/s with same adaptator.
First, my HDSpeed results are quite bad. I'll try directly in IDE with adaptator in an old PC when I have time.
So since I have a MK2 SSD, I performed my tests in a TriForce with this game with same cabinet, same motherboard, same PIC (Darksoft one, I've had with TriForce motherboard). SanDisk CF load it in 1.19min, Transcend CF in 1.47min ! (checked with second load)
So some CF must be better than other, even if theorically slower. Or it can be perhaps the size, sinze 512Mo CF is close to be full with MK2.

But now I'm stuck there.
My SSD doesn't work (error message at boot: error 25 "Cannot access disk drive."). I have to check that.
I ordered a SanDisk Ultra 8Go 50Mo/s CF to test, but to make other tests, I wanted to try with a Chihiro, and broke a leg of my PIC taking it off my TriForce. So I can't test CF anymore ! I tried a modified version of werejag netboot file to CF boot but error 26, it doesn't work (I flashed it in a 16F628A as usual).

So if someone can send me a working file of CF-boot PIC which work with TriForce and Chihiro T3, I'll be very happy to perform more tests to see which CF is the best.

We can compare results with some fixed games: make a bunch of tests with Virtua Tennis, Sports Jam, Melty Blood Actress Again (v6 file I have on my Mega) on Naomi, OutRun2SP on Chihiro, MarioKart2 on TriForce, to have different game sizes. But I need a CF PIC first.
 
Is that ssd a sata with a sata 2 ide converter, or is it having a factory ide connection?

In case 1, you could remove that converter and test the ssd in a pc to see if it works.
You could test it with the converter in an old pc with ide interface as well.

It's interesting to check in the pc what interface the devices are using.
Under IDE ATA/ATAPI-controllers, you can find the IDE channels.
If you go to advanced settings, it will show you the connection method.

The chihiro 3 dimm ramdisk uses UDMA5. This means that the maximum transfer speed is 100MB/s
I have no idea what the ssd / cf interface is using.

My 16Gb lexar 800x came in today. It supports up to UDMA7 and is rated at 120MB/s
The price of such card is more than 30 euro. The price difference with a small capacity SSD is not that big anymore. The cf 2 ide adapters are cheaper for a compact flash card.
I had an older adapter and had to modify it as it wasn't supporting dma transfers. It's speed is terrible without dma.
 
I'm waiting new PICs to test. Thanks to werejag helping me.

For obcd: after tests in PC, I think the SSD itself is dead. It's a SATA drive.
Could you test your new CF to tell us loading time?
 
I can't test it. On my setup, the compact flash isn't connected to the dimm board ide connector. It's connected as master directly to the xbox mobo ide connector. My dimm board isn't having 4.0 either, and I don't know if upgrading it would work on my current setup. It's pretty much a "work in progress"
I opted for such a high speed compact flash as I want to obtain the same 100MB/s speed they get from the dimm ramdisk drive.
For a moment I thought that the dimm board ide connector was simply the main board ide master, but it doesn't seem to be the case.
 
For me on Chihiro type 3 you can plus the CF with an adaptator into the IDE connector on media board. Is there another way to use it?
Anyway, just put here if you've different loading times with your new CF.

How to see if adaptator support DMA ?
Perhpas it's my problem.
 
http://support.fccps.cz/download/adv/frr/cf.html

At the moment, there is no other way to use a compact flash card. In the near future, I hope there will be one.

compact flash (and ssd) loading is fast, but it's limited to one game. For every game, you need a compact flash card or you need to re image your compact flash card.

netbooting is flexible, but it's slow to load a game like that.

I am trying to combine the best of the 2. A compact flash card with multiple games and short loading times.

It's a spinoff of my attempt to use a retail xbox board (upgraded to 128MB ram) as a chihiro main board.

The xbox was having it's harddisk as master ide device and the dvdrom as slave.
The chihiro was having no master and the dimm board as ide slave.

I added a master device (the old xbox harddisk first and a compact flash card now)

The first idea was to load the game image from the compact flash into the dimm sd ram module and launch it.
The second is to launch it directly from the compact flash card. If it als supports UDMA5 and 100Mbit/sec, it shouldn't be any slower than launching it directly from the dimm.
It would even fix the outrun2sp high score issues, as it's save files on the compact flash would survive reboots, even with a flat dimm board battery.
Other games use the base board memory, so they might still overwrite each others high scores.
 
It's just 2 of the pins you need to check.
One of them is connected to VCC or to one of the pins of the ide connector.
It's easy to measure that one with an ohm meter.
As it has written DMA on it, you would expect it supports DMA, but as the article explains, older non dma compact flash cards might not work in those newer adapters.
 
I finally managed to do some loading time checks on my setup.
I tried a Kingston 16Gig 266x and a Lexar 16Gig 800x

First, I benchmarked the cards with my ide 2 compact flash adapter on a pc with an ide port.

The Kingston had a troughput of 60MB/sec while in theory it should be 40MB/sec
The Lexar had a troughput of 90MB/sec while in theory it should be 120MB/sec

The chihiro uses UDMA5 which limits the transfer speed to 100MB/sec

My current setup loads the game directly from the compact flash card instead of using the Dimm memory.
Outrun 2 ST loads in 23 - 25 seconds with the Kingston.
That load time is identical with the Lexar card. Loading the game from the Dimm is maybe 1 or 2 seconds faster.

So, basically, it looks like the Kingston 266x is fast enough, and everything faster is a waste of money.

Maybe my Lexar isn't original. Only way to figure out is trying another 800x card and checking if it gives any faster transfer speeds. Maybe the pc mobo I used for testing limits the transfer speed to 90MB/sec. It's still faster than the KIngston, except when used in the chihiro.
 
@obcd, do you have a thread where you're documenting your progress? I'd love to follow and volunteer to be a beta tester if you end up with something you want to release. The idea of eliminating the DIMM on the Chihiro and having a multiboot solution would be awesome. Retaining OR2SP saves? That sounds great, too.
 
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