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ZZ9000 drivers v2.8.0-rc3

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@github-actions github-actions released this 04 Sep 04:41
v2.8.0-rc3
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midwan Dimitris Panokostas
GPG key ID: 330156A68E9E0929
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Learn about vigilant mode.
6feb607
This commit was signed with the committer’s verified signature.
midwan Dimitris Panokostas
GPG key ID: 330156A68E9E0929
Verified
Learn about vigilant mode.

ZZ9000 drivers 2.8 RC3 is the audio companion package for firmware 2.8 RC3. It adds the ZZTop Audio window for the new firmware-managed sound engine, moves AHI playback onto the card's audio fabric, improves USB audio stability with Poseidon, and fixes picture handling in the SDK datatype. The installer, drivers, utilities, SDK runtime, and accelerated AmiSSL libraries ship together as one matched release.

This is a release candidate. For the best—and on Zorro II, safest—experience, install it together with ZZ9000 firmware v2.8.0-rc3.

What will you notice?

A new Audio window in ZZTop

ZZTop 2.9 adds an Audio window for the firmware-authoritative sound engine introduced in firmware RC3:

  • Adjust the master mix and per-device level trims while listening.
  • Watch live level metering for each audio path.
  • Save the scene; the settings persist in ZZ9000.CFG and survive reboots.

The old environment-variable mix levels are gone — the firmware scene is now the single source of truth, and every audio client (AHI, MHI, ZZPlay, tools) follows it. The window is only enabled when the matching firmware advertises the audio control plane.

AHI playback on the audio fabric

zz9000ax.audio 4.27 runs on the card's new single-writer audio engine together with the matching firmware:

  • Music keeps playing while another program uses the card's audio (the two-client dropout is fixed).
  • Pause and resume behave correctly, allocation failures are reported honestly, and MP3 decoding shares the card fairly with playback.
  • All audio passes through one qualified 48 kHz conversion path, so recordings and playback agree on levels and quality.

USB groundwork — known issue: USB audio does not work yet

The Poseidon USB stack gained exact-once request lifecycle handling and isochronous transport support, built on the matching firmware's USB host changes. Unplugging a hub or device no longer leaves the stack in a bad state, and the realtime engine is ready for streaming devices.

USB audio is not functional in RC3. Playing sound through USB audio devices (for example with Poseidon) does not work yet — playback either fails or is corrupted, and the underlying sensitivity is still under investigation. Use the card's own audio outputs (AHI/MHI) instead. The transport work in this release is preparation for a future fix, not a working feature.

Faster and cleaner pictures

  • The picture datatype publishes indexed PNGs as palette (LUT8) pictures with hardened transparency handling, and fixes a slowdown in MUI on low-depth screens.
  • Picasso96 blitting on Zorro III caches more of the card's descriptor, speeding up 32-bit screen operations.
  • MHI batches its feeds using the proven AHI geometry, keeping video playback smooth while audio runs.

Better diagnostics

ZZDiag 1.12 reports the USB engine's realtime state (isochronous queueing, periodic scheduling, recovery and timeout counters) and checks whether the installed firmware, drivers, and SDK payloads are a matched set.

Installation

  1. Download zz9000-drivers-v2.8.0-rc3.zip below and unpack it on the Amiga.
  2. Open the ZZ9000Installer drawer.
  3. Double-click Install ZZ9000 and follow the prompts.
  4. Reboot after installing the drivers. If you also updated firmware or changed audio or startup video settings, perform a full power cycle.

The installer offers the appropriate Picasso96 profile and preserves a backup of an existing settings file before replacing it.

Component versions

Component Version
ZZ9000.card 2.10
zz9000ax.audio 4.27
mhizz9000.library 2.3
ZZ9000Net.device 2.2
zz9k.library 2.29
zz9k-picture.datatype 42.150
mpega.library 2.124
ZZTop 2.9
ZZNetStats 2.4
ZZFwUpdate 2.3
ZZDiag 1.12
ZZPlay 0.4
ZZAXDuplexTest 1.4

Tested for this release

  • The complete installer and every shipped AmigaOS component were built and checked in CI against the pinned SDK (8339e26, tagged SDK v2.8.0-rc3).
  • The audio fabric and AHI migration passed the approved hardware qualification matrix: six sample rates, pause and resume, warm reset, Zorro II single-slot behaviour, both client join orderings, concurrent playback, rejected secondary allocations, and teardown in both orders.
  • The release archive was checked for the installer, both Picasso96 settings files, SDK runtime, ZZPlay, and CPU-specific AmiSSL libraries.

If something does not look right

When reporting a problem, please include the Amiga model, Zorro II or Zorro III, installed firmware and driver versions, and the audio mode in use. Running ZZDiag and attaching its output is especially helpful.

Changes since RC2

See the full comparison from RC2 to RC3.

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