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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Attic on January 14, 2004, 10:37:52 PM
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Hi Peps, I have a bit of a dilemma, should I get a scan doubler of go for a mediator card for my towered 1200 060? I have a spare voodoo 3 card. anyone used a mediator with a voodoo card. Any advice greatly received and appreciated.
Attic
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u can get both , but then u need some more money.
anywaymy mediator is the best buy i have ever done after getting an 060...
also you could always get a tv card for the mediator and use the tvcard as a scandoubler, sure its not as good but it works fine (output aga/ecs games to window on wb or full screen..)
cheers
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Mediator no doubt about that! And find a cheap SD on ebay, they go for around 15-40UKP.
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can you not pump out native 15khz throught the voodoo card? If not whats the point of setting up a voodoo card over a scan doubler? Sorry if I'm sounding thick :-)
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No, you can't pump out native 15khz from Voodoo...would be great if you could though!
Reasons for Mediator...
1) Expansion possibilities into USB, Network, Soundcard, TVCard and more!
2) Perhaps beef it up with a BPPC and a copy of OS4BPPC when that comes
3) AGA is not meant for big monitors!
4) Powericons (ok lame one)
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To answer your earlier question. A voodoo 3 card will work fine with the Mediator for retargettable graphics.
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@GadgetMaster
re your sig. I like the quote.
Is any of his work available in translation?
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@Attic - Well if you use the Voodoo 3 card, kiss all classic gaming goodbye, since PCI (a.k.a Non-Amiga native) cards don't support; OCS, ECS, or AGA (or native Amiga 15kHz sync).
Personally i'd get the Scan Magic Scan Doubler with Flicker Fixer. It's what I use for my Amiga 4000 and is well worth the money (compatible with towered Amiga 1200 also!) Best investment i've put into my Amiga yet. :-D (http://www.amiga.org/images/subject/icon14.gif)
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@Cyberus
Sorry to dissapoint, but I am not really aware of his written work.:-(
I just chose the quote from QuoteWorld (http://www.quoteworld.org/) because I liked it. There are many wise words to be found on that site. :-)
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Depends on what you do. If you only play classic games and do nothing else get a scandoubler. But if you do Graphics,Word processing or like to surf the net. get yourself a graphics card. A graphics card will speed up your machine more than if you went from an 040 to 060.
Years ago when I brought the pixel 64 for my Amiga A1200 all I had was an 030. People would be blown away at how blindingly fast my A1200 was.
I later brought a B-Vision then a GREX and now I have a Mediator SX with a Voodoo 5500. I would never even dream of going back to AGA and yes I do have a scan doubler. I have used that maybe for an 2 hours total in the last two years.
If you have the cash get a mediator you won't be sorry.
If I had a choice of a PPC Amiga with a scan doubler or an 030 with a graphics card I would go with the 030 every time becuase life is so much sweeter with a graphics card.
Three things I tell everybody with an Amiga to get. SFS,Turboprint,a graphics card. Because using your Amiga without them is just plain silly.
rant over time to get back to work
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You need both a Mediator AND a scandoubler... And a monitor that accepts dual inputs. That way you can have your AGA and XGA too.
Well, that's what *I* would do. :-D
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Well guys it looks like I need a scan doubler, mediator and a dual input monitor, phew!!! I'll tell the wife later and take her reaction like a wimp :-)
Talking about the wife, any ideas how to approach the subject safely.......
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:lol:
Take her on a romantic weekend away, and quietly mention it then!
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Hi attic
like the others I can only recommend the mediator. I have used the original 1200 version and the 4000Di version and they are very good products imo.
I havent tried it out, but I think I have read somewehre that if you have a tv card in your mediator, you can connect the aga output to the tv cards input port and display it in a wb window. I doubt this will work with non system friendly games/applications though.
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rayt wrote:
I havent tried it out, but I think I have read somewehre that if you have a tv card in your mediator, you can connect the aga output to the tv cards input port and display it in a wb window. I doubt this will work with non system friendly games/applications though.
This does work, but only to a point. Yes, if you run a non-system-friendly game, the workbench freezes, but the TV card accesses the video ram of the Voodoo without the system, and so keeps updating even when the OS has shut down and the AGA chipset takes over. But this does require that:
a) The game can be run from workbench with all the add-ons and patches enabled (Quite a few won't and only work with a bare install)
b) The game doesn't try to switch screenmodes in a system-legal way when it starts up. This will cause the TV window to try to close and it won't update then.
I personally have both, bought the scandoubler when I encountered the problems above. I use both of them with a monitor switchbox (and my PC and Mac :) ). But yeah, definitely get the Mediator and MMCD, and have a telly nearby for the times you need AGA until you can sneak a scandoupler in past the wife ;)
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This does work, but only to a point. Yes, if you run a non-system-friendly game, the workbench freezes, but the TV card accesses the video ram of the Voodoo without the system, and so keeps updating even when the OS has shut down and the AGA chipset takes over. But this does require that: a) The game can be run from workbench with all the add-ons and patches enabled (Quite a few won't and only work with a bare install) b) The game doesn't try to switch screenmodes in a system-legal way when it starts up. This will cause the TV window to try to close and it won't update then.
Thats more than I expected. It should run great with all the whdload games. Maybe I´ll buy a cheap tvcard for my mediator now that I know this :-D
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A GFX card is a must! I personally have a CV3D with its scandoubler module and it`s wonderful :-) Other cards that support the same config are PicassoIV and CV64 (both offer a scandoubled amiga video).
The only reason that I don`t get a mediator is that I don`t want to lose the scandoubled video (common VGA/RGB-out, you need just one cable to the monitor, no switchers etc.)
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Vapor Genie (http://vaporizer.org/)
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Hi All-
For a long time I solved my flicker problems with a C20284 slow phosphore monitor. Gave good high res flicker free NTSC and mild flicker in PAL. When that burned out I bought a scan doubler/FF and pluged it into an old VGA monitor. This gives a very solid NTSC, but distorted PAL. Sounds from the above like a Picasso would give me faster better service. However, how much do I gain from a graphic card plugged into a zorro 2 slot in my A4000 (040@50mhz)? And would I need a new Buster to run the graphics card in zorro3? I'm pretty happy with the graphic speed (GUI feels faster than my windows 1.3 mhz machine at work), except that I can't play the movie clips on my amidos 3.9 disk at full speed. Bumping the CPU up from 25 mhz to 50 mhz didn't help frame rate much at all, so I'm thinking the bottleneck is in AGA. Could I get where I want to be with an older cheaper card like the spectrum? Any thoughts based on experience will be wecome.
Yours-
CRL
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There is a dramatic speed increase with a GFX card. I remember when I had to switch back to RGB out when I had to send my monitor for service... It was a traumatic experience! I couldn't stand the slow window refresh, or text update. Imagine that I was on an AGA 060&PPC Amiga, maximum speed and even used some old hacks (of my pre-gfx card era) to accelerate the OS's gfx routines.
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Voyeur Sports (http://www.fucktube.com/categories/1163/sports/videos/1)