Source of Jaguar Lock-Ups |
January, 19, 2003 6:58 PM |
krevnik |
For those who have been, or still are, experiencing random lock-ups with certain software apps under Jaguar using an upgrade card... I have stumbled across the source of the lock-ups. This appears to apply most to those using Cache Control X's default settings for the upgrade card, and more for G4s than G3s as well. The problem is that OS X is designed to utilize the extra abilities of the G3/G4, including speculative accessing and also potentially takes the L2/L3 cache into account. This is a blessing to users of new machines, and a curse to us. I recently had to re-install Jaguar and accidentally left Cache Control X in the default settings. Well, XMMS which was working fine before, would lock up the machine. Photoshop 7 would also manage to lock the machine up. Photoshop under OS 9 would not lock up at all, no matter what I did. After enabling Speculative accessing, as well as disabling write-thru, all the lock-ups have disappeared. Jaguar is now stable as it could ever be. This also brings up another interesting question. Could Apple have done some major arch-oriented optimization for Jaguar which doesn't work for 603/604 chips because of speculative access and the like? This would explain why the pre-G3 chips lost the ability to boot, and the lock-ups at the same time. |
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RE: Source of Jaguar Lock-Ups |
January, 20, 2003 12:42 PM |
matti.lampila |
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Hello! How can i enable speculative access and everything else, in my G4/800 Sonnet i can´t adjust L2 or L3 cache with cache control X, there is not options to choose . After difficult assembly of Jag i had several crashes. This is my first G4/800 Jag assembly what should i take care of. My previous G3 systems works fine with 10.2.3. |
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RE: Source of Jaguar Lock-Ups |
January, 20, 2003 12:05 PM |
krevnik |
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Well, the thing is, getting this G4 (only a 400Mhz 1st gen chip though) hasn't made my system unstable unless I leave the speculative accessing off, or leave the write-thru on. (I enable spec addressing and disable write-thru at the same time) I have hope that the 604 CAN be made to work, but I seriously doubt the hack programmers will have the resources needed to make it work in a reasonable amount of time. I tried making Voodoo drivers for X until I hit the nasty 'extra layer of completely undocumented, unknown APIs' present in OpenGL and 2D acceleration under OS X. Trying to figure out what optimizations Apple made that crippled the 604 in the kernel will be about as annoying, except all the code is already there. |
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RE: Source of Jaguar Lock-Ups |
January, 19, 2003 10:18 PM |
powderhaus |
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There was a thered a while back that solved this. To bad we can't search this fourm, it would have saved you some trouble. Any time your computer crashes you should post it here. Having jag run on a 604 would be cool but after that feeling goes away (and fast with a 604) you (or at least i) would go out and buy a G4. That would make Jag seem blazing fast! Untill you had to boot into 9 again! |