Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Brian on March 04, 2007, 11:45:23 AM
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I currently have a Voodoo3000 installed in a mediator setup and have a Voodoo5500 that I'm thinking of adding to the machine, unfortunatly the latter card is Big and might interfear with even a smaller lowprofile halflenght zorro card behind it. As the Voodoo4500 have the same size as the Voodoo3000 it made me start to think.
The Voodoo4500, which came on the market after the Voodoo5500, have the same type of GPU/Memory (and speed of these) as the Voodoo5500 at 166mhz. And since the Amiga driver only allow for one for the GPUs and half the memory of the Voodoo5500 card to be used I wonder if the Voodoo4500 have the same performance as the Voodoo5500 when used in a Mediator equipped classic Amiga?
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most likely, yes
99.9% sure ;-)
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I'm with you on the likely and 99.9% sure bit, but I wish for an answerr that can confirm this.
While on the subject... what issues is there when using a Voodoo4/5 compared to using a Voodoo3. Hardware wise the newer GPU (VSA-100) on the Voodoo4/5 is backwards compatible with Voodoo3 GPU hence the Voodoo3 drivers work with these cards also but I've heard things like some screenmodes are missing with the Voodoo4/5 and other stories and wonder if someone can confirm these compability issues and perhaps come with a few workarounds for any that might exist?
The Voodoo4500 can be overclocked from 166Mhz to 220Mhz (though it start to bugg out at 190Mhz) using software on the PC. Anyone know if this overclocking is stored in the card and can be used on the Amiga, or if it's just driver based if theres something else that can be done to overclock the card?
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I had a Voodoo5500 in my A1200 for a week then went back to using my old Voodoo3000. The Voodoo5500 benched slower in P96speed for some reason.
You can overclock the Voodoo in Amigas via the voodoo monitor tooltypes. Add OVERCLOCK=YES and MEMORYCLOCK=xxx (where xxx is the Mhz you want)
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The driver was written for Voodoo 3. The only way to get it working properly with later voodoos would be to have an update for the driver. I'm afraid that is not going to happen.
I doubt the overclocking helps much, really. Other components of the system are slowing the thing down, and the braindead Warp3D is not helping.
Proper voodoo4/5 driver is available for classic amigas thru MorphOS (http://powerup.morphos-team.net) (but this requires GRex).
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I have all three cards, Voodoo3, 4, and 5. The one I prefer is the Voodoo4. I get best performance using this card with some weird tweaks. For one thing, I do not have any of the "envarc:mediator/" environment variables set at all. I have the directory there, just no files inside. With the Voodoo3, I can't get it to work unless certain of these variables are set. The Voodoo4 doesn't seem to care one way or another as long as I have "Devs:Monitors/Voodoo" pointing to "Libs:Picasso96/Voodoo.card". Also, I have been able to overclock the Voodoo4 successfully, whereas the other two cards do not like this tooltype. The Voodoo5 also gets very hot and the display is unstable after several hours. The Voodoo4 can run forever and not overheat, even with "overclock=yes" tooltype set. P96speed gave best results with the Voodoo4 as it is currently configured. i.e. with no Mediator environment variables.
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interesting stuff stopthegop....
is 3d faster too?
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Keropi: Yep, by enough of a margin to matter to a true geek such as myself. :)
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Brian (sorry for the semi OT)
do you have that Mediator on an A4000? whats the story about the A1200 8MB videoram window? it means that A1200 owner have a maximum of 8MB of videoram, whatever is the amount on the GFX card?
Beeing an owner of a PowerTower 4000 (PCI backplane without Mediator bridge installed), does a 100Mb NIC card will works without any PCI GFX card installed?
I've just got a 20Mb internet connection (ADSL2+) but i have a XSurf2 installed.
Thanks
PS- i'm open to other 100Mb NIC solution/s that have to work even under MOS for PowerUP.
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@Framiga
The stary about A1200 and 8 MB of video ram is a limitation of Warp3D (or rather the CPU bus of the A1200 motherboard IIRC). You can use a Voodoo 3 with 16 MB of graphics ram on Mediator 1200 without problems.
As for the Mediator working with a 100 MBit ethernet card without a graphics card...unfortunately not possible as the ethernet card needs the graphics card as a buffer. A 10 MBit ethernet card will work though, but then you could just as well stick with the XSurf.
You can plug in a Virge graphics card working as a buffer card. The PCI graphics card doesn't need to be used for display, just installed in the busboard for the 100 MBit ethernet card to work.
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Hi doctorq
ok thank you very much :-)
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Piru
Which is the best card to run on morphos on a1200 grex
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Have anyone tried a AGP2PCI converter with Voodoo3500? and if so does it work (and how well does it compare to the Voodoo4500)?
This might be the approach to take to get the most out of the system both compatibility wise and speed wise. A true Voodoo3 card so driver work propperly and faster memory and core speed of the Voodoo3 GPU (Perhaps taking it all the way and scout for a Falcon Northwest Voodoo3500 Special Edition card running at 200Mhz instead of 183Mhz).
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:bump:
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@LawlessPPC
Which is the best card to run on morphos on a1200 grex
I have no experience with GRex or Voodoo cards myself, but according to someone with a clue, Voodoo 4xxx is the best price / performance ratio (aswell as heat / performance, and system real estate / performance). 5500 is quite a monster card.
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Does the Voodoo 4/5 series have drivers for 3D under AmigaOS3.x as well as MorphOS?
This for the G-Rex rather than Mediator.
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the answer is HERE (http://grex.amigaworld.de/index.php?lang=en&page=37)
on the G-Rex support site by DJBase!
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stopthegop wrote:
I have all three cards, Voodoo3, 4, and 5. The one I prefer is the Voodoo4. I get best performance using this card with some weird tweaks. For one thing, I do not have any of the "envarc:mediator/" environment variables set at all. I have the directory there, just no files inside. With the Voodoo3, I can't get it to work unless certain of these variables are set. The Voodoo4 doesn't seem to care one way or another as long as I have "Devs:Monitors/Voodoo" pointing to "Libs:Picasso96/Voodoo.card". Also, I have been able to overclock the Voodoo4 successfully, whereas the other two cards do not like this tooltype. The Voodoo5 also gets very hot and the display is unstable after several hours. The Voodoo4 can run forever and not overheat, even with "overclock=yes" tooltype set. P96speed gave best results with the Voodoo4 as it is currently configured. i.e. with no Mediator environment variables.
The Mediator has a Window Size Jumper, depending on which Voodoo card u use. Voodoo 5500 setup on the Mediator driver Install demanded the bigger 512Mb Setting on the Mediator. Is this due to the amount of RAM on the Voodoo card being used?
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I used a voodoo5500 for a little while, since the voodoo3000 was horribly slow when switching between screens because of the low videomem. With the higher amount on the 5500, the screenswapping became lightning-fast again. But any increase of speed, in other areas, I surely didn't notice. And to take benefit of the higher amount of videomem I had to let Warp3D go.
And the most anoying thing was when I rebooted my amiga, the mediator suddenly did not detect my voodoo5500, and I got no video output. The only way to get it to function was to turn the Amiga off and on. Then it was detected again until the next reboot. This seems to be a common problem, and Elbox claims it to be either bad contact of the mediator and the CPU-slot or a Mach-chip. I finally got really annoyed and took my whole A1200 apart and cleaned every contact with alcohol, but to no vail. The voodoo5500 behaved as before. I tried to switch back to my old voodoo3000 again, and right away my amiga worked like a dream again, except the switching of screens offcourse :boohoo: