Radius Rocket Compatibility

[jmacz]

I've been playing with a Rocket 25i (in the process of upgrading it to a 33 based on a writeup @Phipli did -- but have not done this upgrade yet) in a IIfx and had some observations, as well as some questions.

RocketWare vs RocketShare on a IIfx

I had asked a few questions on some threads here regarding IIfx support and I found myself confused over what actually works on a IIfx. RocketWare software is for using the Rocket as an accelerator (does not work with the Rocket Stage II cards) and RocketShare software is for using the Rocket as another computer within a host computer.

The box for the Radius Rocket seems to suggest IIfx support was added later (there's a "now supports IIfx" sticker on my box) and the release notes for RocketWare v1.5 seems to state IIfx compatibility. But I (like @Byrd) have been unable to get RocketWare working on a IIfx as an accelerator with any version of RocketWare including v1.5 under 32bit addressing. With 24bit addressing it boots but with 32bit addressing, the machine hangs as soon as the rocket splash screen shows up during the boot process. This is also with all other extensions removed. And this was under System 7.1.

RocketShare seems to work fine on a IIfx even under 32bit addressing. And I think this mode (as an embedded computer) is what most people are using with their IIfx.

RocketShare on a IIfx with Apple's 8 * 24 GC Video Card

I'm not sure if the Rocket is compatible with the 8 * 24 GC video card. What I have seen is that if you have both installed in your IIfx, you have to disable the acceleration on the 8 * 24. If you have acceleration enabled on the 8 * 24 GC, then once you use Mission Control to start the embedded Rocket, during the launch process of the embedded OS, the host system crashes with an instruction error.

Does anyone know if this is supposed to work? or are these two cards incompatible?

RocketWare / RocketShare and Sound Manager 3.0

I've been running RocketShare on System 7.1.1 on my IIfx (System Update 3.0 applied) and I haven't seen any crashes. But I think I saw some threads stating that the Rocket will crash if Sound Manager 3.0 is installed. I have not experienced this though. I'm curious whether this incompatibility is only with RocketWare or is there also an incompatibility with RocketShare that I just haven't hit yet?

RocketWare / RocketShare and Radius Video Cards

I saw some threads talking about how the Radius software (QuickColor ?) when installed with a Rocket and some Radius video cards will further accelerate the video of these cards. Obviously with my 8 * 24 GC not working (mentioned earlier), I've been wondering if I should be looking for a Radius video card instead. Does anyone know which Radius video cards (higher resolution cards) get this benefit? I saw mentions of the PrecisionColor series but it wasn't clear to me whether it's the base PrecisionColors that get this benefit or if it's the PrecisionColor Pro video cards?

Anything Else?

Any other compatibility issues people have found? I did hear some sound gets trashed in games.

Hoping this thread might be useful given the uptick in Rocket interest based on @max1zzz 's cloning efforts

https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/fs-radius-rocket-clone-prototypes.49205/

 

[jmacz]

Another observation.

RocketShare and ZigZagJoe's NuCF Card

Not a thorough test by any means but preliminary use suggests no issues using @zigzagjoe 's NuCF storage solution (in a IIfx) with RocketShare.

 

[MJ313]

But I (like @Byrd) have been unable to get RocketWare working on a IIfx as an accelerator with any version of RocketWare including v1.5 under 32bit addressing.

FWIW, regarding RocketWare (accelerator)-- I have a Rocket 33 in my IIfx running System 7.1 (Update 3.0 not installed) and 32 bit addressing works fine. I only have 20MB of RAM though. Was the 32 bit addressing issue with RAM amounts greater than 20MB?

 

[jmacz]

FWIW, regarding RocketWare (accelerator)-- I have a Rocket 33 in my IIfx running System 7.1 (Update 3.0 not installed) and 32 bit addressing works fine. I only have 20MB of RAM though. Was the 32 bit addressing issue with RAM amounts greater than 20MB?

You might be right. I only tried with 128MB installed. I didn't try pulling memory sticks. But now that I think about it, I think @Byrd may have mentioned that it does work if you pull memory out.

 

[Byrd]

You might be right. I only tried with 128MB installed. I didn't try pulling memory sticks. But now that I think about it, I think @Byrd may have mentioned that it does work if you pull memory out.

Yes, confirming the Rocket in a IIfx gets all bothered in a IIfx with 24/32 bit addressing if configured with 32MB and above RAM; the next step down is 20MB which it is happy with. This is also confirmed in Radius' own documentation for the IIfx. No idea why.

 

[eharmon]

RocketWare / RocketShare and Sound Manager 3.0

I've been running RocketShare on System 7.1.1 on my IIfx (System Update 3.0 applied) and I haven't seen any crashes. But I think I saw some threads stating that the Rocket will crash if Sound Manager 3.0 is installed. I have not experienced this though. I'm curious whether this incompatibility is only with RocketWare or is there also an incompatibility with RocketShare that I just haven't hit yet?

RocketWare / RocketShare and Radius Video Cards

I saw some threads talking about how the Radius software (QuickColor ?) when installed with a Rocket and some Radius video cards will further accelerate the video of these cards. Obviously with my 8 * 24 GC not working (mentioned earlier), I've been wondering if I should be looking for a Radius video card instead. Does anyone know which Radius video cards (higher resolution cards) get this benefit? I saw mentions of the PrecisionColor series but it wasn't clear to me whether it's the base PrecisionColors that get this benefit or if it's the PrecisionColor Pro video cards?

I've got Sound Manager 3.0 with RocketShare on both OS and it seems to work fine. I've been repeatedly confused by that claim, in fact sound seems to work better, so I'm wondering if it got "fixed" somewhere along the way.

As for video cards, I've been scratching my head on that one. RadiusWare on the host doesn't seem to see the Rocket in its card list at all...and the graphics in the Rocket don't seem faster either. So either it doesn't work with a PrecisionColor Pro, or something just isn't set up right for me.

 

[jmacz]

As for video cards, I've been scratching my head on that one. RadiusWare on the host doesn't seem to see the Rocket in its card list at all...and the graphics in the Rocket don't seem faster either. So either it doesn't work with a PrecisionColor Pro, or something just isn't set up right for me.

Ok thanks. Hopefully others who have tried this can chime in, perhaps folks with a PrecisionColor.

Definitely crashes though with the 8*24 GC (with acceleration enabled).

 

[cheesestraws]

I don't have much in the way of hard evidence for you, but there's a huge amount of random beliefs and occasional conspiracy theories about Rocket compatibility on the Internet, and it's best not to believe anything you read or are told unless you or the person telling you has recent definitive evidence.

 

[jmacz]

I don't have much in the way of hard evidence for you, but there's a huge amount of random beliefs and occasional conspiracy theories about Rocket compatibility on the Internet, and it's best not to believe anything you read or are told unless you or the person telling you has recent definitive evidence.

Agreed. Hoping people can weigh in with actual recent experience and better yet, why stuff doesn't work (if known). My guess is the population of folks with cards, using them, and checking this forum is going to be small, but I'm hoping with the new clones, that population is going to see an uptick.

 

[Joopmac]

I have a precisioncolor pro 24xp; any more info or source about the acceleration in combination with rocket?
I was planning to use modded miro chroma 12” card in IIfx with rocket but might use the 24XP.. currently installed in duo Dock next to a asantefast 10/100

 

[jmacz]

I had seen references in various threads on this board. Some I could quickly dig up:

From this post:

However, I think the most interesting part was the speed up of my Radius video card just by virtue of having the Radius Rocket. Just to make sure it wasn't placebo, I tested it with and without the Rocket, and there was a measurable increase in performance when tested by Norton Utilities. They pair together really well. The manual says that the Rocket accelerates the video card, even if your card is unaccelerated.

From this post:

NuBus Block Transfer ROCKS! Never had a good VidCard for the IIx/Rocket, but B&W TPD was all I needed, object oriented graphics production wouldn't have benefited from it and my brain did the color!

From this post:

The RadiusWare control panel for the PrecisionColour 24X is also detecting the Rocket combined together as "accelerated", it'll be interesting to see any performance boots with it on or off in benchmarks.

From this post:

In your defense though, finding a decent video card these days is not easy. One, they're obscenely expensive, and two, most of them are not accelerated. The Rocket however, can accelerate Radius video cards.

From lowendmac's review of the rocket:

In addition to sporting the fastest Mac-compatible processor, the Radius Rocket contains a built-in QuickDraw accelerator that permits high-performance NuBus block-mode transfer with the Radius DirectColor/24 video-display card

Seems like the PrecisionColor Pro series will get additional acceleration but I'm trying to understand if I would also get with the non-Pro PrecisionColor series. I don't have any of these video cards so I can't try, even the DirectColor mentioned above. My 8 * 24 GC definitely has issues though. But again, thought it would be useful to have actual tested cards reported in this thread for future readers' benefit.

 

[MJ313]

Seems like the PrecisionColor Pro series will get additional acceleration but I'm trying to understand if I would also get with the non-Pro PrecisionColor series.

With RocketWare, it certainly seems so. I've played around with Rockets and a bunch of Radius cards from the non-Pro 24xk up through the Thunder 24/GT. Each Radius video card would show up in the QuickColor Control Panel, along with the Rocket.

With RocketShare, I can't say. I've messed around with it there too, along with different versions of QuickColor and can't say I've seen what I would consider accelerated graphics in the virtual environment. Certainly nothing like RocketWare accelerated graphics. One difference I've noticed though is that in the virtual Mac, the graphics are called Radius Virtual Graphics or something like that. It doesn't seem to recognize the PC or PC Pro.

I'm happy to test if you have anything specific, but mostly I'm curious if anyone has experienced accelerated graphics in RocketShare.

 

[eharmon]

With RocketWare, it certainly seems so. I've played around with Rockets and a bunch of Radius cards from the non-Pro 24xk up through the Thunder 24/GT. Each Radius video card would show up in the QuickColor Control Panel, along with the Rocket.

With RocketShare, I can't say. I've messed around with it there too, along with different versions of QuickColor and can't say I've seen what I would consider accelerated graphics in the virtual environment. Certainly nothing like RocketWare accelerated graphics. One difference I've noticed though is that in the virtual Mac, the graphics are called Radius Virtual Graphics or something like that. It doesn't seem to recognize the PC or PC Pro.

I'm happy to test if you have anything specific, but mostly I'm curious if anyone has experienced accelerated graphics in RocketShare.

Yeah, I was hoping maybe it would blit the graphics commands directly from the Rocket to the card with RocketShare running, but it doesn't seem like that's the case either. Still the same slow Radius Virtual Graphics, at least for me.

 

[jmacz]

I did finally get my hands on a Radius PrecisionColor Pro 24 XK. It came with ROM version 2.0.

Took me a while to get a driver that worked. RadiusWare 2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.3.2 all didn't recognize the card. Finally got something that worked by downloading RadiusWare 3.4.1 from Macintosh Garden. Inside that archive is a QuickColor version 3.3. That worked and provided acceleration. The interface was super snappy with QuickColor. Then I tried RocketShare (v1.3.1) and that worked too. The graphics were pretty snappy.

Was unable to get Apple's 8*24GC working with RocketShare. Mission Control keeps crashing while loading a guest system if the acceleration is enabled on the 8*24GC. With acceleration off, it works.

 

[Mk.558]

Can you measure the acceleration performance difference?

 

[jmacz]

When I get some time, I will.