NootedRed not working with Atari VCS

[Middleman]

So I'd been doing some testing earlier today with Monterey on my Atari VCS which has a Ryzen 1606G chip with onboard Vega 3 graphics. It seems that NootedRed refuses to work with it.
No matter what settings I've set it with, it refuses to boot to the login screen. I've already disabled CSM in the BIOS so it should load the VBIOS correctly without issue. I have a suspicion it
may be to do with the fact that it uses a shared video memory format. Unfortunately I can't seem to find any setting in BIOS that allows me to increase the VRAM value. If I use
Whatevergreen, the system boots up but only has 31MB for VRAM.

 

[craighazan]

Hmm, I think that not being able to allocate VRAM to the iGPU might be the issue here. NRed requires a minimum of 512 MB VRAM to work, preferably 1 GB and more if you have it. Even so, you have 32GB of RAM installed, so NRed has enough to pick for VRAM. Is there a BIOS update available for the VCS?.

 

[Middleman]

@craighazan,

Good news! It looks like I finally cracked it. I found out where to set the VRAM on the VCS! It turns it was under a menu called NBI0 in the BIOS. Under that is a graphics setting for the card and you have to select Force before it brings up a set of menus that allows you to change the VRAM and UMA values. I changed mine initially to 4GB to do a test, then to 8GB.
And it worked!

 

[craighazan]

@Middleman

Excellent work sir. Just a quick question, when you applied 4GB VRAM, did you find that apps would quit?. It was a thing on my build, it hated 4GB VRAM, all apps would quit. 2 GB VRAM no problem, 8 GB no problem, 4 GB big problem.

 

[Edhawk]

@craighazan

How much RAM does your system contain?
How is it set, i.e. 2 x 8GB/16GB modules?

It could be that 2GB VRAM can be contained on a single module along with the OS memory requirements.
4GB VRAM maybe spanned across two modules.
8GB takes one whole module with no other processes allowed.

Spanning the VRAM across 2 x modules/DIMMS may be the cause of the Apps shutting down/crashing. Possibly?

 

[craighazan]

@craighazan

How much RAM does your system contain?
How is it set, i.e. 2 x 8GB/16GB modules?

It could be that 2GB VRAM can be contained on a single module along with the OS memory requirements.
4GB VRAM maybe spanned across two modules.
8GB takes one whole module with no other processes allowed.

Spanning the VRAM across 2 x modules/DIMMS may be the cause of the Apps shutting down/crashing. Possibly?

Correct, 2 x 8 GB modules, that would make sense. It didn’t happen when I just had 1 x 8GB installed and set it to 4GB.

 

[Edhawk]

Maybe then the system doesn't have sufficient RAM to provide 4GB VRAM? Not with the RAM used by and allocated to the OS taking priority.

 

[craighazan]

@Edhawk we're going to experiment with 8GB and 16GB and see where the App quitting starts, I think you'll be interested in 'Activity Monitors' take on the matter. @Middleman I'm so pleased for you that you finally have full acceleration on the VCS, it's been such a journey for you and to finally see it happen must of been a real moment of joy. Just like when I saw No Mans Sky at 45fps, it's quite a buzz.

 

[Middleman]

@Edhawk we're going to experiment with 8GB and 16GB and see where the App quitting starts, I think you'll be interested in 'Activity Monitors' take on the matter. @Middleman I'm so pleased for you that you finally have full acceleration on the VCS, it's been such a journey for you and to finally see it happen must of been a real moment of joy. Just like when I saw No Mans Sky at 45fps, it's quite a buzz.

Thanks @craighazan, yes it was a real moment of joy indeed (when I finally got it working). TBH it was more kind of a shock really, because up until that point I hadn't expected it to work at all. I'd spent a good part of a day testing and tweaking and applied all the relevant changes from what your 4600G config had done and it just refused to boot (would KP right before where the login screen should appear). That's when I figured it probably needed more VRAM. A chance view of a Youtube video on setting the VRAM for Ryzen APUs was what it took to get me there, so yes I'm very pleased. I'll probably test some apps on it later this evening. Will let you know of their outcome.

@Edhawk yes it came preinstalled with 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and I'd upgraded it to 32GB. But because I didn't know how to set the VRAM settings manually (because the VCS BIOS menu is incredibly complex - it has over 80+ settings or more) I never managed to get that far.