svermeulen@Janus.MRC.AdhocNet.CA (Steve Vermeulen) (04/21/89)
| From: "Ned W. Schultz" <nschultz@polyslo.calpoly.edu> | | I've run into a puzzling situation with memory, and I'm wondering if | anyone might have some insight for me. I've got a 2000 with a GVP | Impact board (2 meg capacity, 1 meg installed), and I end up with about | 1.7 megs after booting up. In using Express Paint 3.0, as I understand | the manual(s), I should be able to open very large virtual pages. But | I can't get beyond a size of 2000x3000 pixels. I get an out of memory | note even though I surely am not out of memory at that point. A 2000x3000 bitmap requires 750K bytes of ram. I assume you are only asking for 2 colours? Currently Express Paint requires that each bitplane in the virtual page must be contiguous. This restriction stemms from an early design decision by CLtd about their virtual page library. CLtd eventually recoded some of their routines to remove the contiguous restriction but then it was too late for me to change the virtual page code in Express Paint and still make the shipping deadlines, so for now... [ side note: don't you just love the Bandito, first he says Express Paint will be adding HAM by Christmas, and now in March '89 he writes: "Express Paint 3.0 will also be entering the fray,..." Really! It's only been shipping since September 1988 (the CLtd version) and was officially introduced in November 1988 at the World of Commodore in Philly where I personally gave Amazing a copy for review... end side note ] | The manual states clearly that there is no chip ram limit, so I'm wondering | why all of my fast ram is not being used? You are probably including FastMemFirst (like you should) in your startup-sequence. If this is the case then the operating system and any programs you run (including Express Paint) will get loaded into your 1 Meg chunk of Fast ram (the GVP board). By the time all the bits have settled you will find that you only have 700-900K in your largest memory chunk (use Avail to test this). Since an Express Paint virtual page must currently be contiguous (at least each bitplane of it) this restricts the size of the bitmap. If you take FastMemFirst out of your startup sequence you will find that the memory the operating system and any programs you need will be allocated from the SlowFastRam pool. This is the extra 512K beyond the 512K of CHIP ram the 2000 comes standard with. This will usually leave your 1 Meg ram board completely free to take a virtual page. Alternatively you could buy another 512K of ram (at these prices you say?) and that would do the trick to. | When I run MergeMem I get three separate memory addresses and the message | that no merge is possible. Is this a clue? The reason MergeMem does not do anything is that your Amiga has three seperate chunks of ram which have gaps (without memory) between them. Because of this MergeMem cannot merge. And hence your largest potential chunk is 1Meg (which is big enough for a letter size laser page but not a legal size page). | Any thoughts or help would be appreciated... | Ned Schultz nschultz@polyslo.calpoly.edu Well that should help, if you have any other questions drop me a line... Stephen Vermeulen Author: Express Paint and Spritz Newsletter Editor of AMUC (the AMiga Users of Calgary) SVermeulen % Janus.MtRoyal.AB.CA @ UncaNet.BITnet ...or... SVermeulen % Janus.MRC.AdhocNet.CA @ UncaEdu.BITnet