PIO-6834-2/4M-1 dip switches?

[SuperDeadite]

Anyone know what the dip switches do on the PIO-6834-2/4M-1?   I just saw the updated wiki article for the orignal PIO-6834-2/4M,
but they appear to be different on the PIO-6834-2/4M-1.   With all dips set to "off", Nemi'90Kai loads up PCM4 every time.  But with dip one set to "on",
Nemi'90 Kai tells me not enough memory and loads PCM1 only.   

[eidis]

 Hi !

Do you have the 2MB or 4MB version ? Actually if you look closely at the pictures in the wiki, the board is a PIO-6834-2/4M-1. I omitted the "-1" but I guess I will add it to avoid further confusion. If your board physically has 2MB then there is no point in setting the dipswitches to higher capacity. Please note that you need to run switch.x afterwards and tell the system manually how much ram is installed. In worst case scenario it could be that one or more ram chips on the board are faulty.

Keep the scene alive !
Eidis

P.S. Can you please take clear quality pictures of your board from both sides and contribute them to the wiki ?

[SuperDeadite]

It's a 4MB card I assume as all the RAM chip areas are full, I'll take pics later.  I have switch set to 6MBs. 
A few of the chips on my card are labeled differently then on the wiki page's pics.

I am using this card in an XVI though.  I'd heard that these cards weren't supposed to work at 16mhz...
But as stated, Nemi'90 kai loads pcm4, which requires the extra RAM and 16mhz mode.  If either one is missing
it complains and loads pcm1.

[eidis]

This brings up a very good question. Is there a memtest for X68000 ? What happens when you set memory to 6MB, speed to 10MHz and try to run 2HDBOOT games which require more than 4MB memory ?

Eidis

[eidis]

 Hi !

Now we have a scientific way to diagnose this problem. Download Mtest from this thread:
http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=4810.0

You will need to test main memory. Type "memfree" when the system has booted to confirm how much memory is set up and use "mtest" to test it. If the test passes, and there are still strange errors, try replacing capacitors on the ram expansion board or using the X68000 in 10 Mhz mode.

Hope it helps
Eidis

[SuperDeadite]

Would love to test this, but I have no way of putting software from PC on X68k currently I'm afraid. 
But I do have some news, I got a copy of Tokimeki Taisen which has both a 2mb and 4mb mode.  With all
switches off, the game runs in 4mb mode at 16mhz just fine.  So at least half the card is working for sure.

Curious, where did you get those dipswitch settings from exactly?  I've searched japanese sites and not seen them
anywhere, do you have the board's manual?

[lydux]

Never see this thread...

I don't know this board, but I'm pretty sure that like all other ram addons, dip switchs are here for telling the embedded memory decoder when it should start using its rams banks, not how many it have !
So, you must configure it as the actual available memory installed you have. (By default, 2MB on an XVI).

RAM configuration have to be in continous way. Setting it to 4MB, your memory space will look like this :

Code Select Expand


X68000 12MB memory address space :

0x000000 +------------------------------+
        | 2MB = Internal RAM           |
0x200000 +------------------------------+
        | 2MB = Nothing                |
0x400000 +------------------------------+
        |                              |
0x600000 | 4MB = Your addon             |
        |                              |
0x800000 +------------------------------+
        | 4MB = Nothing                |
0xC00000 +------------------------------+


Whenever the cpu reach the first byte in a "Nothing" area, it will assume this the end of available RAM.

The is why Nemi'90 Kai is telling you you don't have enough RAM.

[SuperDeadite]

Thanks that explains everything. 

[eidis]

 Just tested this theory on my newly arrived SH-6BE-2/4M-1 2MB. Lydux is right. By default we must configure the board to start addressing memory from 2MB (all switches off) so the memory will be one continuous block. If I set jumpers to 4MB, the systems detects only 2MB even if I have set 4MB with switch.x. Both wiki articles have been updated to avoid further confusion.

P.S. The dipswitch settings were taken from various Japanese forums. The trick is to use translate.google.com to translate keywords into Japanese and then google.jp to do the actual search.

Keept the scene alive !
Eidis

[cometclean]

I realize this is an 8ish year old thread, but I also have a 2/4mb ram expansion, however my ram expansion is a sharp model. My system is a Expert HD with 2mb ram, so to get all 4mbs from the ram expansion I want all my dips set to off? I checked out the information on gamesx but I don't see my particular memory expansion there (CZ-6BE2C/6BE4C)

Cheers

[mez]

hi cometclean
how does your card is populated ?
2Mo or 4Mo ?

[cometclean]

My board has 4mb, I'm 99% sure the switches should be set to off. I have them like this now and I set my ram to 6mb in switch. Mahou daisakusen seems to recognize my system as having 6mbs.