uLaunchElf and UDMA?

[altimit]

I don't know if this has been answered before, I searched the forum and all it returned was the 293 page main thread, and wouldn't jump to the page the term was on. Sorry, but I don't have time to scan over 293 pages.

Anyway my question is does uLaunchElf use UDMA for HDD access? When I try to FTP something to my HDD i get a pitiful 70-100kB/s.

I don't know the limit of the PS2 hardware but the fastest I seen network/disk I/O has been about 1.90mB/s via hdl_server.

Is the speed because uLaunchElf does not use UDMA? Or is there something unoptimized in the FTP server?

Not complaining, just wondering. Thanks.

[dlanor]

I don't know if this has been answered before, I searched the forum and all it returned was the 293 page main thread, and wouldn't jump to the page the term was on. Sorry, but I don't have time to scan over 293 pages.

Anyway my question is does uLaunchElf use UDMA for HDD access? When I try to FTP something to my HDD i get a pitiful 70-100kB/s.

uLE does not change HDD DMA modes at all, as that would make no sense. Negotiating proper speed and transfer modes is a task for the HDD drivers, as part of their initialization, and uLE has no reason to interfere with that. As I understand it this should normally lead to using the DMA mode that is default for the drive, although it is very doubtful that any other PS2 interface can 'pump' data at a comparable rate. So normally those interfaces as well as general processing demands form 'bottlenecks' that limit the speed.

I have mostly had pretty bad results with FTP too, although the latest uLE beta (using network code by EEUG) did raise the FTP speed a lot. I still only got a bit over 200KB/sec, but compared to what I'd had before that's not bad.

But the best uLE method for fast network transfers is still to use the host: device to copy/paste stuff directly from a PC folder to the PS2 HDD. This gives me much higher speeds, of appx> 590KB/sec for the latest stable release, and appx> 830 KB/sec for the latest uLE beta.

I don't know the limit of the PS2 hardware but the fastest I seen network/disk I/O has been about 1.90mB/s via hdl_server.

Is the speed because uLaunchElf does not use UDMA?

No, it is mainly due to distributed time losses for transferring data from one interface to another. Note that I'm not just talking about the obvious interfaces of network and HDD, but also of the interactions between the PS2 processors, as well as of various processes running on these processors. There is no time, ever, when the entire console is dedicated completely just to moving the data that's being copied. It simply can't work that way.

Or is there something unoptimized in the FTP server?

I believe there is, but that is not the only cause.


Best regards: dlanor

[barf]

Hmm I find these speeds interesting, my uLaunchELF ftp speed has always been 850K/sec almost static,
however after realizing the speed of MyPS2 w/Samba, it's amazing fast, I stopped using ftp;
and I assume MyPS2's speed is the same as hdldump has 1.83MB/s almost static too.

[altimit]

But the best uLE method for fast network transfers is still to use the host: device to copy/paste stuff directly from a PC folder to the PS2 HDD. This gives me much higher speeds, of appx> 590KB/sec for the latest stable release, and appx> 830 KB/sec for the latest uLE beta.

I haven't looked into this much, because from what I know, I need my PS2 and PC connected directly via a patch cable. My PS2 is on my LAN via a router.

Hmm I find these speeds interesting, my uLaunchELF ftp speed has always been 850K/sec almost static,
however after realizing the speed of MyPS2 w/Samba, it's amazing fast, I stopped using ftp;
and I assume MyPS2's speed is the same as hdldump has 1.83MB/s almost static too.

Out of curiosity, is your uLaunchElf unpacked? I wonder if packing the uLE ELF file causes the slowdown... I packed it save space on my memcard.

[altimit]

Okay, I figured out host, but I'm getting 325kb/s using RadHostClient v1.7. Still better than 75kb/s I guess

[dlanor]

I haven't looked into this much, because from what I know, I need my PS2 and PC connected directly via a patch cable. My PS2 is on my LAN via a router.

So is mine, so that should pose no problem. Just make sure that you specify the router address as 'Gateway' in the PS2 network config, and all should work fine. The address of the PC doesn't need to be known on the PS2 for the Host protocol, since that address is provided in a package header when PS2Client connects to the server in uLE (or SMS or whatever).

Out of curiosity, is your uLaunchElf unpacked? I wonder if packing the uLE ELF file causes the slowdown... I packed it save space on my memcard.

That should not matter, as the ELF is unpacked completely during the launch process anyway. So it will be unpacked before its code starts running in any case. But just for the record, I do use the packed version at all times, except for occasional consistency tests.

Okay, I figured out host, but I'm getting 325kb/s using RadHostClient v1.7. Still better than 75kb/s I guess

Of course it's better, by a factor of roughly 4.33, but I still find it a bit low. I've always had between 500-600 kb/s with older versions, and like I said I now get over 800 with the new beta using EEUG's networking modules.

Btw:
Not that I think it affects the speed any, but I use PS2ClientLoader together with ps2client, instead of the stand-alone RadHostClient, just so you know what I was using when measuring my speeds.

Best regards: dlanor

[E P]

Of course it's better, by a factor of roughly 4.33, but I still find it a bit low. I've always had between 500-600 kb/s with older versions, and like I said I now get over 800 with the new beta using EEUG's networking modules.

The most interesting thing about that now is that EEUG supposedly has made it even faster beyond 1MB/s. I haven't tested it yet but it's definitely something worth taking a look at.

[dlanor]

The most interesting thing about that now is that EEUG supposedly has made it even faster beyond 1MB/s. I haven't tested it yet but it's definitely something worth taking a look at.

I'll certainly have a look at it ASAP, but the question is if he has uploaded those modules separately anywhere yet, because those are what we need to gain similar benefits for the Host interface of uLE. His source uploads usually lag a bit behind his binary releases, so we'll have to check that SVN repository for recent updates.

Best regards: dlanor

[E P]

I'll certainly have a look at it ASAP, but the question is if he has uploaded those modules separately anywhere yet, because those are what we need to gain similar benefits for the Host interface of uLE. His source uploads usually lag a bit behind his binary releases, so we'll have to check that SVN repository for recent updates.

I just tried it out the newer SMS ps2smap and ps2ip IRX modules in uLaunchELF. I took them out of the SMS binary and I got speeds up to 1200 Kbytes according to host in uLE. It transferred my small files to the PS2 hard drive so fast I couldn't really get an accurate measurement. I'm not making any test versions pubic with those modules as I'll wait for EEUG to update to SVN.

I'll see how FTP does but I'm sure it'll have the same issues as before though. I need to see how ps2netfs does since I still haven't gotten around to looking at it yet. It will most likely have the same issues as ps2ftpd currently does since ps2ftpd is loosely based off the ps2netFS driver.

Edit:
Tried out ps2netfs and it seems perfectly fine. I ran a batch test with the memory card doing about 10 passes using the same file. The test I did was changing my current boot ELF by overwriting it and then copying the new one back to the PC for checking. Note: these tests were done with EEUG's new high-speed network modules.

Anyway, it doesn't look good for ps2ftpd as I still get random errors with it unfortunately. It looked promising at first because it wasn't until the third try before it began to corrupt the data on write. Since ps2netFS works, then there is still a chance to resolve whatever the problem is with FTP.

Perhaps at some point it might be worth our time to do some data integrity tests.

[altimit]

I don't know if it'd be helpful, but if you are interested, Sony left some "SCE CONFIDENTIAL" README.txt files on the Startup Disc v4.0. I won't attach them since it probably isn't legal for *me* to distribute them, but since Sony screwed up on the v4.0 startup disc, just obtain one and check it out.

Again, I don't know how helpful they are but they all start with "SCE CONFIDENTIAL DOCUMENT" as the first line, so someone screwed up.