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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: jiffydos on May 04, 2006, 05:33:11 PM

Title: A4000 IDE Shortcomings?
Post by: jiffydos on May 04, 2006, 05:33:11 PM

Hi All,

I recently aquired an A4000.  I was wondering what, if any, shortcomings the onboard IDE has, other than only allowing 2 devices.

I have a Buddha IDE card, but I planned on keeping that in my A3000 and getting a mediator 4000Di for video, network and sound.

I just want to make sure I am not going to loose a lot on performance because of the old IDE bus.

Title: Re: A4000 IDE Shortcomings?
Post by: adolescent on May 04, 2006, 05:36:51 PM

The onboard IDE, like the Buddha, is non-DMA.  You won't see good performance out of either.

Title: Re: A4000 IDE Shortcomings?
Post by: Piru on May 04, 2006, 06:00:30 PM

The onboard ide is PIO-0 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_input/output), read: slow. The whole thing is CPU driven, all the data read/written goes thru single 16-bit register.

Title: Re: A4000 IDE Shortcomings?
Post by: PaSha on May 04, 2006, 06:50:12 PM

Yup, as already mentioned, A4000 IDE is slow.

PowerFlyer/FastATA4000 is faster, but still uses a lot of CPU power.

The best option is SCSI, but this may be somewhat expensive and hard to find.

Options:

FastlaneZ3 (Zorro3 board)
C=A4091/DKB A4091 (Zorro3 board, needs buster rev 11)

Accellerator cards like the Cyberstorm and GVP boards.
(Note: The Apollo boards have a SCSI controller, but this is absolutely useless)

Or simply keep the A3000, it already has SCSI.

-Paul

EDIT:
btw AFAIK your Buddha board is just as slow as the A4000 IDE.

Title: Re: A4000 IDE Shortcomings?
Post by: jiffydos on May 04, 2006, 07:22:16 PM

Are there any PCI SCSI or DMA IDE cards out there that work with Mediator?  

Title: Re: A4000 IDE Shortcomings?
Post by: jiffydos on May 04, 2006, 07:24:38 PM

So the fastATA for the A4000 doesn't do DMA either?

But it's still faster?

Title: Re: A4000 IDE Shortcomings?
Post by: Lemmink on May 04, 2006, 07:51:24 PM

Quote

Are there any PCI SCSI or DMA IDE cards out there that work with Mediator?

No there aren`t and there probably will never be any, as the Mediator can only do DMA to GFX-Ram on a PCI graphicscard but not into Fast-RAM. Even if there were a driver, the CPU will have to copy over the data from PCI GFX-Ram to Fast-RAM. That would totally eliminate the benefit of a DMA card if not worse.

Quote

So the fastATA for the A4000 doesn't do DMA either?

But it's still faster?

Yep, it supports higher PIO modes, so he wastes CPU-cycles more efficiently :lol:

Title: Re: A4000 IDE Shortcomings?
Post by: jiffydos on May 04, 2006, 08:14:04 PM

OK... so... last question.

Is it possible to use a pci slot, and then a half size zorro card (like the buddha) directly behind it on mediator?  Or, does the PCI bus map directly to the zorro slot behind it, know what I mean?

Title: Re: A4000 IDE Shortcomings?
Post by: Lemmink on May 04, 2006, 08:21:44 PM

The amiga sees the whole Mediator as one zorrocard that happens to sit in one zorroslot.
Or short: Yes, you can.