Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: J-Golden on March 04, 2012, 02:49:42 AM
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Just finished my tax returns and the wife said I could! :banana:
I had a mediator in my first A4000T (the one I sold to pay for my wedding) and really wanted to get one for my current fixer-upper project but they were too *@#% expensive!
Well, with the deal of getting the 256MB video card, Mediator 3000/4000T AND a free Spider II combined with the $$$ from my tax return, I went for it.
I realize the deal is most likely in direct connection to THIS THREAD (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59726) but since it is free, meh. I'm more excited about using the video card for super fast RAM.
Anywho, it looks like my miggy is getting back up to snuff! SO EXCITED!
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That is awesome ! Congrads! that's gonna be sweeet!
This is could open up a whole new other thread on wife's saying yes to amiga hardware! My wife said yes also to dip into our tax returns .. Although not as much of a big chunk lol but still enough last year to get zorram and this year a enough to get a indivision ecs and something else.. Anyhow WOOT for you!
Whipped and loving it!
lost
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I'm more excited about using the video card for super fast RAM.
I'm afraid it is rather super slow. Graphics card memory was never designed to be read, and thus it will struggle at that. It's likely to be only slightly faster than chip memory.
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I'm afraid it is rather super slow. Graphics card memory was never designed to be read, and thus it will struggle at that. It's likely to be only slightly faster than chip memory.
@Piru,
Party Pooper,
You were supposed to say "Wow that is great"
You have been on a MAC to long, you are beginning to sound like a MAC fanboy
smerf
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Excellent. :)
I've got the 256MB Radeon card in my A4000 and a PCI USB card. I don't think you're going to notice your "RAM struggling to be read" in the real world outside of benchmarking.
Get a nice LCD widescreen monitor to go with it. I bought a ViewSonic with DVI and VGA inputs. I connected my Indivision to the VGA and the Radeon to the DVI. All I do it press a button on the monitor to toggle between the inputs. If the RTG screen is closed then the "no signal" causes it to flip back to the native VGA input without pressing the button.
Here's my 1920 x 1080 Workbench:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/grab2.jpg
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Hi,
@Piru,
See the above post,
If you examine Darrin's post, you will see that it just bubbles with enthusiasm. Darrin gives pointers, gets rid of any negitive waves by previous posts and then gives some thoughts on what get and do. Very nice post Darrin, I hope that Piru has learned something on how to give a positive post.
smerf
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@J-Golden
Congrats :)
Just curious, but are there preferences for assigning the vram as fast ram? Would be nice if you could assign some vram as a swap partition to use with a virtual memory program like gigamem. That way actual fast ram could be given priority until it drops below a defined size.
Or would that be counter productive vs. harddrive swap space 'cos of the read speed of vram?
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Hi,
@Piru,
See the above post,
If you examine Darrin's post, you will see that it just bubbles with enthusiasm. Darrin gives pointers, gets rid of any negitive waves by previous posts and then gives some thoughts on what get and do. Very nice post Darrin, I hope that Piru has learned something on how to give a positive post.
smerf
Cheers Smerf, but I doubt it. :D
Don't be too hard on Piru though, when he does decide to help people he can be invaluable. Unfortunately when it comes to certain subjects it is like waving a red sheet in front of a bull. ;)
PS. Have I mentioned how much I love my Mediator, Radeon and USB card? :p
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@J-Golden
Congrats :)
Just curious, but are there preferences for assigning the vram as fast ram? Would be nice if you could assign some vram as a swap partition to use with a virtual memory program like gigamem. That way actual fast ram could be given priority until it drops below a defined size.
Or would that be counter productive vs. harddrive swap space 'cos of the read speed of vram?
As far as I'm aware the Radeon memory is the lowest priority anyway.
In my case I currently have 1MB Chip, 16MB Fast (on mobo), 64MB Fast on my Warp Engine and then 192 Fast on my Radeon (I have 64MB reserved at the moment - you can adjust it by entering a value into a text file).
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Here's my 1920 x 1080 Workbench:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/grab2.jpg
That's a nice WB, except the damn taskbar :p that reminds me of Windows.
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I am confused about the critical responses to Piru`s completely reasonable post which simply supplied accurate information - what have MACs got to do with it and what would have been an appropriate response then? Just to humour the original poster and say `yes, vram reads are very fast`?
Strange...
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im puzzled too. piru is completely correct.
vram on videocard or zorram extension for that matter are perhaps slightly faster that a4000 onboard 16mb fast ram. except of the nature of vram the main bottleneck is zorro with its 7mb/s average throughtput (at least as mesured with voodoo3, there are z3 gfx cards that hijack that to beyond 10mb/s, but not mediator).
note that if real world usage doesnt make you notice the slownes of zorro ram its just because it barely gets used at all. as long as everything fits into accelerators own memory you will be fine. i can tell the difference, after i once forgot to fit memory bank on my csmk1 while testing some sdl ports. believe me.
im not trying to rain on the original posters parade. mediator is a cool extension as such, he will sure have fun with it, as well as with his video card allthough i would recommend voodoo3 as the only one that has 3d accelleration on 68k. there is no warp3d for radeons, and time will pass before aros wiill eventually support these.
i am though concerned about, that a fellow amiga user should be able inform himself adequately on a forum especially prior to acquiring anything rather than being told encouraging fairy tales.
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That's a nice WB, except the damn taskbar :p that reminds me of Windows.
The taskbar is now gone. ;)
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I am confused about the critical responses to Piru`s completely reasonable post which simply supplied accurate information - what have MACs got to do with it and what would have been an appropriate response then? Just to humour the original poster and say `yes, vram reads are very fast`?
Strange...
I think it is the fact that he had only negative things to say... as usual when it comes to anything other than MorphOS.
It is like when a friend buys a Fiat car. It is always polite to say something like "Nice colour!" before ripping it to shreds.
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I think it is the fact that he had only negative things to say... as usual when it comes to anything other than MorphOS.
It is like when a friend buys a Fiat car. It is always polite to say something like "Nice colour!" before ripping it to shreds.
Hey guys, although piru can be negative in this case he was not. He is absolutely right about the radeon ram being really slow fast ram-Its a known fact and not a negativity.. Having said that it doesn't not mean that the ram is not useable. He was simply stating fact. There is far too much misinformation/voodoo/guesswork spread on these forums constantly about amiga stuff.
Enjoy the mediator setup in any case, it does work well :)
-Mech-
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I think it is the fact that he had only negative things to say... as usual when it comes to anything other than MorphOS.
although i may not agree with just everything piru says, though usually he is right. likely even on subjects i do not agree with him, given he has much more knowledge than me. and whats considered his negativity is just rational sane thinking and facts. whatever it concerns os4, mos or original amiga. i dont understand why we should be positive just for the sake of it instead to be honest.
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@J-Golden
Does Elbox tack on the free Spider II during the check out process on your order? Or is this a separate transaction that they send you the Spider.
Thanks,
Mike
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although i may not agree with just everything piru says, though usually he is right. likely even on subjects i do not agree with him, given he has much more knowledge than me. and whats considered his negativity is just rational sane thinking and facts. whatever it concerns os4, mos or original amiga. i dont understand why we should be positive just for the sake of it instead to be honest.
I didn't say we should be "just positive", just fair and polite. I'm certainly not going to argue with Piru about the speed of the RAM on the Radeon card, but I will say that I very much doubt that the average user is going to notice.
It is a bit like the SCSI v IDE argument. SCSI fans leap on any suggestion to use an IDE adapter and quickly point out the superior speed of SCSI, etc, etc. However, in real-life usage on typical Amiga-sized files, do we actually see any difference? Do we need to fart around with expensive, hard-to-find drives and bloody terminators just to load a data file half a second faster? ;)
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I didn't say we should be "just positive", just fair and polite.
And by that you're arguing that I was unfair and/or impolite?
Stating the uncomfortable facts is never popular and the messenger is an easy target.
As to why I ever bothered: I wouldn't care a single bit, except in this case where it was specifically said to be "super fast", which it clearly is not. If fact, quite the opposite.
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And by that you're arguing that I was unfair and/or impolite?
Stating the uncomfortable facts is never popular and the messenger is an easy target.
As to why I ever bothered: I wouldn't care a single bit, except in this case where it was specifically said to be "super fast", which it clearly is not. If fact, quite the opposite.
Just remember that I didn't fire the first shot and you do have an abrasive personality. I've even seen a post where you admit it and that you don't give a toss.
Like I said, I'm not arguing that it is slower than other Fast RAM, but we're talking about the Amiga here and I think that RAM is going to be fast enough when required. I'm pretty sure mine only get's used when I suf the net and have multiple windows open.
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Just remember that I didn't fire the first shot
I'm puzzled. Did someone say something impolite or unfair? If so, who?
If not, what do you mean by "fire a shot"?
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I'm puzzled. Did someone say something impolite or unfair? If so, who?
If not, what do you mean by "fire a shot"?
by "fire the first shot", I'm pointing out that I wasn't the person who complained about the tone of your post. Yet you feel the need to address it with me.
My comments about being polite are fairly obvious. If someone buys something and it excited about it then it isn't "polite" to just jump in and say "well I think it is crap", even if that wasn't your intention. Somehow I don't think you'll ever be a diplomat. ;)
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I didn't say we should be "just positive", just fair and polite. I'm certainly not going to argue with Piru about the speed of the RAM on the Radeon card, but I will say that I very much doubt that the average user is going to notice.
and im pretty sure the user *will* notice as soon his turbocard ram will fill up and zorro-ram will start to get accessed. he though will likely be puzled why the system slows down all the sudden. of course its better than to run out of memory and crash. but zorro ram, be it gfx card or a dedicated board is by no means equivalent for turbocard ram and should be only considered an option if a user frequently needs more than 128mb ram, which is currently hardly a frequent necessity on 68k.
btw:
"well I think it is crap"
im certain, its not what he said nor meant.
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by "fire the first shot", I'm pointing out that I wasn't the person who complained about the tone of your post.
smerf was joking you know. Even me, with my "abrasive personality" was able to tell that right way.
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smerf was joking you know.
I thought it was pointing out the bleeding obvious.
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I thought it was pointing out the bleeding obvious.
Maybe my twisted personality sees humor where there is none.
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Got my stuff in last week and it is a beauty! It took a bit longer to get to me as there is a current fix they are doing on the Vid card to make it more compatible with OS4.
Now I just need to find time to install it all... Maybe I'll wait for my AGA Indivision MkII :juggler:
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According to a personal response Jens sent me the Indivision AGA MK II won't fit inside the A4000 even if it's in a Tower Case. There will need to be a special build to suit the A4000.
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By all means, lay off Harry.
He was just making an observation about a technical point.
And it had nothing to do with MorphOS.
Besides, we shouldn't forget the he hasn't just developed MorphOS.
H
He has worked on other Amiga projects.
I don't see any mean spirit in the comment.
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According to a personal response Jens sent me the Indivision AGA MK II won't fit inside the A4000 even if it's in a Tower Case. There will need to be a special build to suit the A4000.
The CD32 version will fit in the A4000T. I double checked that detail before pre-ordering ;)
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WOW.
I just read this thread from start to finish. One guy makes a completely interesting point about the relative merits of using video ram as 'fast ram', and someone else jumps in to teach him how to post?
And that person who has the gall to teach another person how to post, then further informs 'remember you have an abrasive personality'
I mean, that's just amazing, one thing that is ashame is that so many technical people have left this community. Technical people value knowledge.
It's clear who values knowledge and who doesn't.
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That's a nice WB, except the damn taskbar :p that reminds me of Windows.
yeah... windows95
I was thinking that maybe there is a way to set the priority of your ram disk so that it uses the video card memory first. I guess that might slow down ENV: a little. So far i have not seen settings other than "BufMemType"
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Even me, with my "abrasive personality" was able to tell that right way.
Sir, I bet you I could give you a run for your money on the abrasive personality. ;)
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I visit Amiga.org in part to catch Piru's comments. He knows what he's talking about and doesn't sugarcoat it. There are only a handful of keepers of arcane classic knowledge left. Piru is one if them.
Re: Mediator, enjoy. It's a fun toy. The last OpenPCI SDK (years ago now) made programming simple and NDA free as well.