+DarkLord Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 Under TOS v1.04 on my Mega ST4 and STacy, I can get up to 512 mb per partition, although I always go just slighty under 512. On my Falcon, and TOS 4.04, its 1024 mb's, and again I always go slightly less. (NOTE: this is with HDDriver). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 I think one of the big questions I see all the time is how to use a Ultrasatan device with something like ICD's the LInk2, and a CDRW, for example. Lotharek, do you have any advice for this? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie_ Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 I had the ACSI cable supplied with my UltraSatan go bad today. Had been working fine but on a reboot it just kept going to the floppy. Swapped the US with the Zaxon model, same thing. Then I swapped the ACSI cable with the old one I have and everything works good. Tried the Lotharek cable again and no good, so it is for sure that cable. Sucks! I emailed Lotharek I'm sure he will help me out with this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 (edited) I had the ACSI cable supplied with my UltraSatan go bad today. Had been working fine but on a reboot it just kept going to the floppy. Swapped the US with the Zaxon model, same thing. Then I swapped the ACSI cable with the old one I have and everything works good. Tried the Lotharek cable again and no good, so it is for sure that cable. Sucks! I emailed Lotharek I'm sure he will help me out with this. The cables look good quality, although I am not sure if a design change is in order for future models etc as they aren't particularly flexible. If a traditional wire cable comes out I will be sure to order one! Hope you get yours sorted! Edited April 7, 2013 by GadgetUK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie_ Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 The cables look good quality, although I am not sure if a design change is in order for future models etc as they aren't particularly flexible. If a traditional wire cable comes out I will be sure to order one! Hope you get yours sorted! Yes, they do look of excellent quality. When I was using mine I had no really tight bends that would harm the cable. It is a bit stiff the cable. The cable used for my Satandisk is much more like typicial floppy drive cable. More flexible. Luckily I can use this cable until I get it sorted with Lotharek. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 Under TOS v1.04 on my Mega ST4 and STacy, I can get up to 512 mb per partition, although I always go just slighty under 512. On my Falcon, and TOS 4.04, its 1024 mb's, and again I always go slightly less. (NOTE: this is with HDDriver). Thx btw, I repartitioned my 2nd disk to something like 314Mb per each of the 6 chunks and managed to use that fine with PP driver. All in all its working great, just a couple of games that are being awkward, like Spy vs Spy only working with FBHOLE booting from floppy first. Everything else (200 ish) games all working. I would be interested to know what benchmarks people get. I used a tester from PP's site and its coming out between 608Kb / s and 630Kb / s depending on which SD I test. I expected more than that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlettkitten Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 (edited) I too have just installed PPs driver with my ultrasatan, I'd be interested to see more speed benchmarks. I'm away from my ST at the moment so can't test mine. Edited April 7, 2013 by Scarlettkitten Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lotharek Posted April 8, 2013 Author Share Posted April 8, 2013 (edited) when one uses few devices in chain with st, every device must have uniqhe scsi number ( remember - SD CARD SLOT is diffrent device, so each ustana supplies to ATARI two unique scsi numbers). please, use that software to change ustana dev number. http://joo.kie.sk/ul...load/config.zip i have just tried that with 2 usatans in chain with 3 sd cards OfficlaNninja - please send cable for replacent/repair or...much quciker will be if You check insight of connector - problem is 100% there PS. cable i supply - the idea was to have this cable stiffer, but i think the producer overdid with stiffness. Edited April 8, 2013 by lotharek Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunar7 Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 Is anyone else using the tracking number to track their shipment? I got one and it seem like my package is stuck in Europe?? The destination country changed from Canada to Germany (DE is Germany right?) and looks like package went Warsaw for awhile then sent back to departure city or something?? Also if it ever does arrive, what would people recommend for someone like me for a driver? I will be a pretty heavy user, using the Atari for C and Assembler programming, and demos (both audio and graphics demos). I am thinking maybe HDDriver is right for me just because I will be going back and forth a lot with my Windows XP machine with SD card reader. I am running STE 4Mb RAM 2.06 TOS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lotharek Posted April 8, 2013 Author Share Posted April 8, 2013 Lunar7 - i do not think the atari forum is the right place to ask about tracking/contact me besides -- 28.03 postages - it means ONLY 5 business days have passed...delivery to canada takes from 7 till 15 from experience. ( BUSINEES it means frommonday till friday) You have 3 options considering driver : - hddriver - Pera putnik - icd ( but second card fat16 limited to 32mb ) - free one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunar7 Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 Hi Lotharek, you are right! I didn't know I can't edit my post after some time, or I would remove the info. I will try using report feature of this forum. Can anyone explain the main difference between hddriver and pp driver? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 (edited) Pp driver is great for games but doesnt support as many types of devices as hddriver. Pp driver is also very inexpensive 10eur, whereas hddriver is 44eur I think. Ive gone with PP for my ultrasatan and its great with older games due small footprint and lack of buffers. ICD used more memory - dont know if buffers can be altered but mine was using something like 100Kb just for buffers, which breaks some games. Edited April 8, 2013 by GadgetUK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 And with Pp driver and hddriver you can easily stick the SD card in your PC to exchange files with the C partition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunar7 Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 Hmm sounds like PP Driver might be enough for me. I only plan to use UltraSatan and will want to go back and forth frequently passing data from PC to USatan. Is the idea to have 2 SD cards for different purposes? One is a larger card with 4x512mB partitions (and one smaller boot partition?) that is the Atari's host drive that usually stays plugged in, and another smaller SD card formatted DOS/TOS used for file transfers between PC and Atari? If anyone has posted a guide let me know, thanks! I am very new to all this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnakiMana Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 Lunar, that's the way I'm planning to use mine. Yeah, the ICD drivers were big enough to prevent me from playing a game on my 1mb 1040STF a few days ago. The same game played fine off the floppy when my hard drive was disconnected. I wonder what kind of memory footprint the PP driver and HDDRIVER have? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 Lunar, that's the way I'm planning to use mine. Yeah, the ICD drivers were big enough to prevent me from playing a game on my 1mb 1040STF a few days ago. The same game played fine off the floppy when my hard drive was disconnected. I wonder what kind of memory footprint the PP driver and HDDRIVER have? What takes most of RAM is not driver self usually, but buffers . Minimal buffer size is 32KB for partitions up to 512MB . PP drivers take usually about 40KB . Hddriver has variable buffer size + possible additional buffers. It sets their size by install according to detected RAM size, so by 4MB machines it takes about 100KB (at Falcon may more). And it may be too much for some games - mostly mine older adapts. or not HD fixed games. With some effort, you can pull down Hddriver RAM usage to aprox. 40KB, or even less if there are only smaller partititons. Similar is with ICD Pro . 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie_ Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 Hddriver does have a minimal memory setting. With two 512mb partitions I think it says 67k used when booting. I'll look closer tonight when I am home. Sent from my Windows Phone 8X by HTC using Board Express Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunar7 Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 I'm wondering if ease-of-use and memory overhead are the main differences, if any driver would do just as well for me having the 4Mb memory upgrade. I'd like to get whichever driver I end up deciding on around the same time the USatan arrives, so I guess there's no rush as the two paid drivers will allow you to download after you pay right? Does anyone know of guides on how to prepare the memory cards? At the moment I have just one 2Gb card empty and dedicated to this, should I get another smaller one to use as the DOS/TOS swap card? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8guy Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 When I bought HD Driver it was emailed to me within a couple of hours. No immediate download, but still pretty quick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TommyIII Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 (edited) Ah yes my STe is in the clear! @Lunar7 I plan on using a 128mb card to transfer files from PC. Here's a good link: http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=15764 Edited April 9, 2013 by TommyIII Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 I'm wondering if ease-of-use and memory overhead are the main differences, if any driver would do just as well for me having the 4Mb memory upgrade. I'd like to get whichever driver I end up deciding on around the same time the USatan arrives, so I guess there's no rush as the two paid drivers will allow you to download after you pay right? Does anyone know of guides on how to prepare the memory cards? At the moment I have just one 2Gb card empty and dedicated to this, should I get another smaller one to use as the DOS/TOS swap card? There are multiple differences, but listing them would mean using technical terms not familiar for most people. Memory overhead is actually related with ease of usage - it can be adjusted, but sometimes is hard to navigate through numerous settings and understand what is (for) what . Considering RAM overhead : Hddriver and ICD Pro tend to set bigger buffers, cache if detect more RAM in machine. For simple user, gamer they are not useful, actually mostly make just problems. More buffer, cache was good in past, when drives were slow. Today speed benefit is really small. May be useful for some serious usage like compiling C, graphic, music ... But all depends from concrete SW. I just thinking to add option for more buffer, folder 100 while booting - similar to selecting active C partition. With 0-2 can select buffer config - 0 would be default, low RAM usage, 1 medium, and 2 large with Folder 100. I have all code for it, what is actually very simple - for instance Folder 100 code is only some 60 bytes. Maybe best is to tie it with actice C partiton selection - so with C would go low, with D medium, with E large - simplest usage ... As I know Uwe posts driver in e-mail after payment. Same is by me. For me it is best - then I put user in database, and can post updates later. You can have whole 2GB card partitioned with TOS/DOS partitions. Preparation is actually very simple - partitioning and installing driver. Can do in 2 minutes. I will add by time some guide(s), more info on page: http://atari.8bitchip.info/pphdr.php . New storage doesn't need format, bad sector marking - cards self take care about such things. Smaller card can be good for some experimenting, but you will find only second hand cards below 2 GB now . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 Nice Lotharek! PP, i've noticed a couple of minor issues with your partioning program - if you have no card in slot 1, but a card in slot 2 it doesnt show the capacity of the card when altering partition sizes. Also, if I put back in my PP card in slot 1, which has 8 partitions at 255Mb each, and blank card ready to partition in slot 2, then power up, it boots normally from slot 1, shows 8 partitions on info screen at boot, and correctly shows 0 partitions on slot 2. Then when you run the partition exe it just freezes on the screen, you cannot select or do anything. The solution was to boot to desktop with blank card in slot 1 and nothing in slot 2, then partition the blank card. Finally put original card back in slot 1 and new partitioned card in slot 2. I already had 8 partitions on my original card so I just created 6 on the blank card as it wont support more without extra drivers etc and that works fine. Is 255Mb the limit? Ive read about big dos but not sure if that needs another driver? Don't know if you've seen this bug ParanoidLittleMan? ^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 (edited) Don't know if you've seen this bug ParanoidLittleMan? ^ I just tried cases you described. No problems happened - with empty slot A capacity of B was shown correct, and calculation of free and used space was also shown correct during setting part. sizes. No freezing of partitioner program happened with blank card in slot B. Capacity of media was shown, and no partitions shown. So, by me everything in this situations works well. As you mailed, you have STFM and STE. STE supports partitions up to 512MB. STFM depends from TOS version - 1.02 can only up to 256MB, 1.04 same as 1.06/1.62 (STE). so 512MB. You better use not BigDOS - most of games will not work with, it takes RAM, and is not compatible with TOS/DOS partitioning. It is for pure DOS partitions. Of course, may try it - partition card on PC with BigDOS FAT16 partitions, then need to install Atari driver and program BigDOS - there is description and DL of freeware driver + BigDOS self for it - but it is old, and one thing certainly will not work with it : 2 cards at once . P.S. with what TOS version you had problems described ? Edited April 10, 2013 by ParanoidLittleMan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 1.04! Very strange, the card was FAT32 formatted originally, dont know if that caused it or what but it seemed to be related to slot 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 (edited) Theres something wrong somewhere. My drives run fine, but if I run your partioning program it freezes when both drives are in. If I remove one it works. First drive has 8 x 255Mb partitions. 2nd drive has 6 x 314Mb partitions. Could be a glitch on the UltraSatan I guess if its not the program. Its not a big problem as I know how to get around it, just thought I would mention it. Edited April 10, 2013 by GadgetUK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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