Club Amiga de Montreal - CAM/CAM_CD_1.iso/files/637b.lha/AIBB_v4.3/documentation/Version_Changes

Text File | 1992-05-04 | 5.6 KB | 123 lines

                                A.I.B.B.
                    Amiga Intuition Based Benchmarks
                      Program Release Version 4.3
                    Copyright 1991,1992 LaMonte Koop

                       Version Change Information


    Version series 4.x of AIBB is a complete re-write from the original
code used for the previous versions 1-3.  Being that this is the case, it
is quite important that the documentation be read thoroughly in order
to completely understand all aspects of the program performance.  The
changes to this version series are detailed below.


Changes to version 4.3

     -- AIBB can now be made to incorporate load files upon startup
        as the default comparison systems.  A new entry under the
        General menu, "Load Module Prefs" allows load modules to be
        selected by path/filename for loading into AIBB upon startup.
        This allows alternate comparison systems to be more easily
        used as manual loading of them is no longer necessary if they
        are frequently used instead of the defaults.

     -- Corrected a minor problem with AIBB's data display.  Under
        Review Mode, AIBB would not change the system base immediately
        when a new base was selected and there was no test data for
        the host system in reference to any particular test.  This
        has been changed so that AIBB handles this condition correctly.

     -- Improvement of AIBB's memory bus port width determining code has
        been added.  Some 68040 boards with 32-bit memory were being
        incorrectly noted as having 16-bit ports.  In addition, a few
        68030 accelerators without memory were having 16-bit resources
        on the system erroneously reported as 32-bit ported devices.
        This has hopefully been corrected in this release.

Changes to version 4.2

     -- The ability to display data in Review Mode, without having to
        perform a given test on the host system itself has been added.
        This allows the viewing of comparison system data without having
        to perform a given test on the host itself.  The host system
        will display "N/A" in appropriate locations if no data is
        available for a given test.

     -- 68040 systems would display Write Allocation and BURST mode
        operations for cache status incorrectly.  Write Allocation is
        not a seperate entity as with the 68030 for the data cache,
        and thus this mode is not displayed for the 68040 now.  BURST
        mode operations for both instruction and data caches are hardware
        controlled on the 68040, and always implied.  The caches do not
        have a software-controllable setting for this mode as with the
        68030, therefore this mode is always indicated as ON with a
        68040 system now.

     -- Corrected a bug with AIBB's MMU table parsing code.  AIBB would not
        have correctly handled 8-byte descriptor entries in 68851 or 68030
        MMU tables as it was.  This has been fixed so that AIBB will
        properly parse these entries as well.

     -- Bug pertaining to error output strings for the initialization abort
        routine was fixed.  A string was improperly terminated resulting in
        an output error and possible crash for certain startup abort
        conditions.

     -- Utility ModInfo was not displaying proper MMU status information for
        68040 system modules.  This has been corrected.  ModInfo now stands
        at version 1.2.

     -- Documentation improvements and update information added.

     -- General code clean up performed and further optimization of
        various routines.

Changes to version 4.1

     -- Fixed a bug with certain 68040 system configurations which caused
        AIBB to hang on startup.

Changes to version 4.01:

     -- Fixed a bug pertaining to early versions of the kd_freq.library.
        Apparently early versions of this library would crash AIBB during
        startup due to a problem with the library itself.  Later library
        versions work fine.  AIBB will therefore not open kd_freq.library
        unless the version number is 3 or greater.

     -- A bug with the the included AIBB utility ModInfo was discovered.
        Incorrect information was given pertaining to load modules under
        certain circumstances.  This has been corrected.

Primary new features to version 4.0 include:

     -- Improved CPU/FPU clock speed evaluation code.  Earlier versions
        had a great many problems in this area, primarily due to a
        misplaced NOP instruction wreaking havoc with the timings.

     -- Enhanced/additional tests.  Some tests in earlier versions were
        proven to be non-useful in any real form and were removed.
        The remaining tests were enhanced and refined, and new tests
        were added to further complete the package.

     -- Improved system information.  More pertinent information is
        given towards evaluation of AIBB's benchmark performance.

     -- Module save/load capability.  AIBB now incorporates the ability
        to create "load modules" consisting of saved test/machine
        evaluations.  These modules may be loaded into AIBB at convienience
        and used within comparisons.  This is an effort to allow
        comparisons across many machine types, rather than restricting
        them to in-built figures.  A set of internal defaults is included.

     -- AIBB has been made more "aware" of the system it is operating
        on and will attempt to keep users informed of situations which
        may prove detrimental to performance analysis.

Further description of these and other features is found in the main
documentation.