ZZ9000 Compendium

More than a modern Amiga graphics card
Compiled by a ZZ9000 owner and enthusiast

Updated: March 25, 2023 | ZZ9000 is © 2019-2023 MNT Research GmbH

Preface | Specifications | Requirements / Compatibility | Production / Shipping | Installation | Screen Modes
Add-Ons | Apps 'n ARMs | Benchmarks | Features | Support / Troubleshooting | F.A.Q. | Links | Contact

Apps 'n ARMs

ZZTop | Adding ZZ9000 RAM to your Amiga's Fast RAM | ARM Apps

ZZTop

ZZTop (v1.11) is a simple, helpful tool for ZZ9000 diagnostics. Note that text gadgets are used to display data (instead of display gadgets) allowing their text to be copied to the Amiga clipboard via LAmiga-C.
  • Zorro Version: 3 - Amiga 3000(T), Amiga 4000(T); 2 - Amiga 500/500+, Amiga 2000
  • Firmware Version: ZZ9000 [firmware version number]
  • Core °C: ZYNQ core temperature in degrees Celsius (requires firmware v1.7.0+). Max. temp should not exceed 85°C (185°F).
  • Aux Voltage V: ZYNQ Core voltage (VCCAUX; requires Firmware 1.7.0 Beta 2+). Should be ~1.8V; if it's higher, you need ~the fix~!
  • Core Voltage V: ZYNQ Core voltage (VCCINT; requires Firmware 1.7.0 Beta 2+).
  • ZZ9000AX: Indicates whether a ZZ9000AX card has been detected with "Present" text.
  • AX Lowpass: Lets you adjust the lowpass filter from 0 to 23900 Hz.
  • Bus Test (action gadget): "The pixel waste is normal, the bus test simply writes directly to the graphics memory of the ZZ9000 and checks whether there were any errors. This is currently very ugly and made for quick ones and will surely be improved. A reset is not necessary, nothing breaks..." [source] You can use the Workbench "Redraw All" menu item to clear the test scribble. Note that if your ZZTop 1.11 "zz_perform_memtest_delaywrites..." output reports: "Done. Result: 0x0 (should be: 0xffff)" It's apparently a bug in Bus Test, and not your system: "I think that's a bug in bustest, sorry." [source]
  • Refresh (action gadget): Updates temperature and voltage data.

Adding ZZ9000 RAM to your Amiga's Fast RAM

Disclaimer: As illustrated in the screenshot below, firmware/driver v1.8+ automatically adds 256 MB of AutoConfigTM Fast RAM to Zorro III Amigas only, as Zorro II doesn't have the required addressing space available. However, this section remains for those who want to manually add Fast RAM to the AmigaOS. Technically, each Zorro III board only has 256 MB of addressing space tied to it. The Fast RAM on the ZZ9000 is never used unless all the other RAM in the system is slower (or full).


Displaying ZZ9000-specific info in SysInfo requires SysInfoBoards v3.6 or later

With Aminet's AddMem command in your Amiga's C: directory, adding one of the following lines to your S:Startup-sequence will add RAM from your ZZ9000's 1 GB of RAM to your Amiga's Fast RAM (assuming it's mapped at address 0x40000000):

To add 128 MB of RAM to your Amiga, use the following:

AddMem START 47000000 TO 4EFFFFFF

To add 192 MB of RAM to your Amiga, use the following:

AddMem START 44000000 TO 4FFFFFFF

Code contributor _Bnu notes that:

"You technically can add more than 192 MB, but the scratch area is somewhere around 52 MB in ZZ9k memory, and was designed to hold an amount of arbitrary data that would never be limiting for any reasonable data it might hold (like memory buffered files, frame buffers, etc.). So the first 64 MB are kind of soft-partitioned off to be used internally by the card."

Note that (according to AddMem's docs) "...if your Amiga uses a 68040 CPU, AddMem must be placed before SetPatch because the 68040 support library locks all non-allocated addresses."

Robert Miranda (GVP tech support) explains:

"MuLibs uses the active memory list at time of activation to determine the R/W areas of memory, and in particular to the 68040/68060, where and if it is allowed to burst-access, and use Write-Thru or CopyBack mode. If an AddMem is attempted after MuLibs has started, the address space is already considered non-accessible, and the additional memory space is unavailable because the MMU thinks it is not accessible memory space.

One solution is to use MuSetCacheMode tool to mark the memory space as R/W memory prior to calling the AddMem command. The syntax of the commands needed will depend on the location the memory on the card is at, and how much you are adding. The desired mode of access will also need to be set with the MuLibs tool.

Another solution is to use the configuration options in the MuLibs configuration file (in ENVARC:) to perform the AddMem. This technique also works for accelerator cards which require an AddMem command or run a tool to map their additional 32-bit memory. It will also need to have the address and size of the memory range to add."

ARM Apps

AXMP3 (v1.11, part of firmware/drivers v1.11 and higher) — An open source MP3 decompression command-line tool powered by minimp3, is the first ARM-based app to be released. It provides direct MP3 playback at 48 kHz, with very low Amiga CPU usage (not using AHI).

Other apps are reportedly in development, but unfortunately no further details are available at this time.