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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: darksun9210 on October 01, 2012, 09:02:56 AM

Title: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: darksun9210 on October 01, 2012, 09:02:56 AM
Hi all, a bit of advice is what i'm after i guess, or hints and anecdotes of your general expiriences with the above.

i'm toying with the idea of buying a Mediator Board. is this a better solution than hunting ebay or amibay for zorro ethernet and graphics gards? (i would prefer zorro, but that's just me ;)

what's peoples thoughts on this? i always wanted to expand the ol' A4k, and it seems that PCI cards are the way to go these days. plus once i have the mediator, i can probably get hold of the cards themselves pretty cheap (or free).

i'm just a little bit dubious about their spec claims.
do you need to have a GFX card on the PCI bus to be able to run a network card?
264MB/s they claim is the max bandwidth between cards and/or host at 66Mhz *on the same bus*. and even this is unlikely. also the host in this case is the PCI/Zorro bridge chippery.
what are the real world speeds i can expect? will i even approach 10MB/s host to zorro to pci bridge to pci card?
i remember bustest would get 14MB/s max from a CV64/3D - so should i be pretty suspect of any claims above, say 20MB/s?

if i fully load the mediator with GFX card, NIC card, sound card, and USB card, will it choke?

whats the driver situation like? crashy? stable?
anybody know what the deal is with "version 2" advertised on elbox's website?

sorry for all the questions, but being the price they are, and the fact i know nothing whatsoever about them, thought this would be the place to ask :)
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: smf on October 01, 2012, 09:14:38 AM
I have the mediator 1200pci and i think it's great =)
I have been running it for about 12 years now.

You don't need a gfx card if you use an old 10Mbits network card but the rtl8139 driver need to use the gfx memory to function.

I have expanded my amiga with: Voodoo3, nic card, sound card & usb card and everything functions just fine
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: darksun9210 on October 01, 2012, 10:39:26 AM
ok cool, so a general thumbs up then :)
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: esc on October 01, 2012, 02:05:56 PM
Yeah, I used to have an a4k that I towered and got a Mediator for.  My setup was:

CV64/3D+Scandoubler (for games, etc)
Voodoo 3 3000 (for workbench and extra ram)
Spider II USB
SB128 (never got it to work)
TV Card (never got it to work)
Fast ethernet, worked awesomely

For me, the only issue with doing this is the lack of decent tower solutions.  I'd gladly tower all my a1200, a3000, and a4000's in the future and put mediators in them if only more towers were around!  I don't like fitting this in a desktop case (the Mediator 4000Di, for example) because the graphics cards generate so much heat.  Plus I like to be able to put zorram and deneb cards in there if possible as well.  :)
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: cv643d on October 01, 2012, 09:50:09 PM
I had the A1200 version with 4 PCI slots and found out lots of Workbench apps where running jerky in Mediator screenmodes, jerkier than in AGA. Someone told me it was because of the way Mediator worked with the Amiga, still to this day I am amused more people do not notice it or complain. People just setup a nice WB and look at it?!

I am curious if A4000 version has the same problem, but not willing to pay 300 euro to find out, oh and I sold my 4 slot PCI Mediator and went back to Zorro cards instead.
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: stevee617 on October 01, 2012, 09:55:43 PM
I've had a Meditor 4000Di Mk.II in my A4000 for almost a year now. I haven't experienced any jerky video using a Sapphire Radeon9250 128MB. My is loaded up with the Radeon, SB128, Ethernet and USB 2.0 and it all works good together. The higher rez screen modes are really nice. Just remember, the Radeon doesn't mode promote, so you will have to find a solution to use native mode for games and such. I use a Dell2420 monitor. The DVI is connected to the Radeon and the VGA is connected to the AMIGA video out with a C= adapter.

If you decide to get one PM me and I will send you a setup guide that will greatly help you as the one elbox provides is pretty bad.
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: darksun9210 on October 02, 2012, 07:33:20 AM
hmmm, so a good user expirience seems to take a bit of tweeking. well it's not as though that's something we're not used to! :D

Stevee617, thanks for the offer. i'll definately give you a nod if i do plonk down the cash for one of these :)

was doing my banking last night and saw my outgoings on "toys" for last year. woops!
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Darrin on October 02, 2012, 04:05:34 PM
Quote from: stevee617;710017
I've had a Meditor 4000Di Mk.II in my A4000 for almost a year now. I haven't experienced any jerky video using a Sapphire Radeon9250 128MB. My is loaded up with the Radeon, SB128, Ethernet and USB 2.0 and it all works good together. The higher rez screen modes are really nice. Just remember, the Radeon doesn't mode promote, so you will have to find a solution to use native mode for games and such. I use a Dell2420 monitor. The DVI is connected to the Radeon and the VGA is connected to the AMIGA video out with a C= adapter.

If you decide to get one PM me and I will send you a setup guide that will greatly help you as the one elbox provides is pretty bad.


I've got the 256MB Radeon in my A4000/Mediator setup, along with a FastATA4000, Deneb, Spider II and SB128.  No graphics issues here either.

For native modes I use an Indivision.  I have a Viewsonic LCD monitor and, like you, I've connected the Radeon to the DVI port and the Indivision to the VGA port.  Switching displays just means pressing a button on the monitor.

I agree the installation sucks as the Multimedia CD now has updates and it isn't clear whether you should use the updates instead of what is on teh Multimedia CD or update the CD installation afterwards.  Not to mention what order it should be done in.  I wish they would just market a new CD with just the latest drivers and an updated installation guide.

Setting up the P96 modes is pretty straight forward once you get to grips with the P96 software.  Just remember to test the modes before you save them.
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: danbeaver on October 02, 2012, 05:06:00 PM
I have an A4000T with Mediator, Radeon 9200, Sb128, SpiderII, RTL8029 & Sii3114 for SATA drives. My setup dual boots OS 3.x and 4.1. Video is great: fast, high res (1920x1080), and sharp -- in OS 3.x I get the extra RAM as system memory. Sound is great (OS 4.1 AHI on SB128 is good).  RTL8029 is supported by both OS, but a USB NIC dongle is much faster. Spider works fine in 3.x (4.1 does not support it due to DMA so I also have a Deneb).  The Sii3114 is only supported in OS 4.1.

Please note that OS 4.1 wrote their own drivers for the Mediator, so the support list is different. OS 4.1 doesn't use much of the Radeon RAM and even then only for graphics.

Overall: it makes your system a more modern machine for the current cost of a Picasso IV. Elbox offers only "squeaky wheel" support and you have to be patient, "squeak" constantly, and be prepared to have them ignore you.  Either get your Radeon card from them or Amigakit. You can use a hacked NEC USB card if you want; you will find a ton of user help ( because there is so little from Elbox), and with OS 4.1 it makes you feel like you are using a modern machine with the ease of an an Amiga
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: ciVic on October 02, 2012, 05:13:20 PM
I own that card for a half year now and was able to get it running last weekend. Elbox support is good, they normally answere within two days, but sometimes their spam filter deletes your mail, so simply send it again if they do not answere. The reason why it took so long to get it working is that it was broken in the beginning and it took some weeks till I got a new one. After the repair it still didn't work and I had no time to work on it. This time my A4000 board and the PSU were the problem. After exchanging these parts it works now, but only under OS 3.1. I bought the Radeon 9250 bundle and at the moment OS 4.1 classic does not boot if the Radeon is plugged in. I think I will find out that problem within the next half year ;-D

Anyway, the Radeon is FAST. I love it. Hopefully I will get it working under OS 4.1.
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: slaapliedje on October 03, 2012, 12:50:10 AM
I have pretty much the same setup as Darrin, without the FastATA4000, Deneb, Spider and SB128....Okay, not really the same... but I use the monitor/indivision  the same way.

The problems I have run into were with lockups in Radeon resolutions.  Higher resolution, the quicker it locks up.  I think my problem is one of the programs I am running.  Once I disabled AmiDock and the memory info program, it locks up less..  Still haven't figured that one out, but it may be a bug in ClassicWB.

Otherwise the video modes are really fast, and if it weren't for the stock 040 and the slow IDE drive, it would feel snappier than Windows 7 does on my system with 8 cores and 8 GB of memory!

slaapliedje
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Darrin on October 03, 2012, 01:18:04 AM
Quote from: slaapliedje;710096
I have pretty much the same setup as Darrin, without the FastATA4000, Deneb, Spider and SB128....Okay, not really the same... but I use the monitor/indivision  the same way.

The problems I have run into were with lockups in Radeon resolutions.  Higher resolution, the quicker it locks up.  I think my problem is one of the programs I am running.  Once I disabled AmiDock and the memory info program, it locks up less..  Still haven't figured that one out, but it may be a bug in ClassicWB.

Otherwise the video modes are really fast, and if it weren't for the stock 040 and the slow IDE drive, it would feel snappier than Windows 7 does on my system with 8 cores and 8 GB of memory!

slaapliedje


Strange.  I'm using ClassicWB too with Workbench set at 1920x1080.  I created mine using the OS3.9 CD.  Perhaps I should upload my SYS: drive and you could download it to another drive and test it on your system.

What file system are you using?  I use FFS3-DS on 2 x 80GB HDs (each with 2 x 40GB partitions).  I had issues before with stability using SFS.
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: slaapliedje on October 03, 2012, 03:21:21 PM
I'm using FFS for the SYS: partition, and SFS for a 16G and 20G partition of a 40GB drive.

I'm going to also see if I can get an old Adaptec 2940UW from work and put that in my Amiga (I have a 10,000RPM fatty Seagate Cheetah 73GB drive just sitting around collecting dust, but the controller I have for it is a 19160, which would be extra sweet if support for it was added to the aic78xx driver.)

I think I have an 80GB laying around I could set up with the FFS3.  I think I went with SFS because everyone was saying it was great, and it supported larger than 2GB partitions, or something.  That was a while ago though..

slaapliedje
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: darksun9210 on October 04, 2012, 08:34:18 AM
I've just managed to land an A3000D that i'll be going to pick up on Saturday. god knows what state she'll be in...
i've been dreaming about one of these machines for years .... anyway, off topic.

wondering if a Mediator can be modified to fit an A3kD. the expansion headers on the mainboard look differently spaced on the A3k, but all the mediator needs is the Zorro header... right? going to mod the mediator if i do, rather than the sacred machine herself.  :D

the mediator looks quite tall too. and compairing the daughter boards for the A4k and A3k looks like the 4k is highter by about 10 mil. but will get a chance to compare on the weekend.
heh. supposed to be decorating the lounge on Saturday, but looks like that's not gonna happen ;)
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: darksun9210 on November 27, 2012, 08:21:25 PM
ok, so I've grown a pair and Amigakit seem to have some in stock, so I've ordered one.

what's the best GFX card, or rather, what cards have people experience with?
I notice that you guys have Radeon's installed. it's not on the supported list? confused...
how are you finding it with heat, power, noise etc.
i'm looking for something not too noisy, and given the A4000's pathetic cooling, something not too hot.
my experience with AGP voodoo3's from way back when was that they got really hot!

is warp3d stuff supported on the radeons? i'm not looking at a voodoo4 or 5 as that's just a little bit far out regarding availability or even driver support.
I won't be using the GFX card as fast ram as I also have a couple of zorro ram cards on their way.
I've got a soundblaster128 somewhere, and ordered a 100Mb NIC - as all I have laying around these days are intel gigabit jobs. ;)
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Lozspd4 on November 27, 2012, 09:15:11 PM
Hi I bought A4000DI MKII a few weeks ago from Elbox direct with the Special offer including a Radeon 9200 Pro with 256mb. Works Fantastic.
 
There Is very Little Heat Produced with the Radeon,it doesn,t Support warp 3d at the momment but works well with Earth, Naplam,Myst, etc.:uzi:
 
Ive got A4000/040 original os3.9 with update 4  just leave the Card resoarce entry out in Startup-seuence tends to interfer with Radeon.
 
fitted to mediator i have Radeon 256mb, Spider, fastethernet sb128,and am very pleased with the result so far.:elvis:
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: darksun9210 on November 27, 2012, 09:27:20 PM
fantastic, great to hear it's working well :)

ok, now on the hunt for a radeon card.

am I limited to the 9200 series?

loooong shot this, I know, but I have access to literally stacks of low profile ATI FireMV 2260's... that's based on an RV600 core, with a startech PCI to PCIexpress adapter... thoughts?

(should be cheaper than the CV64/3D I just got for the A3k :laughs: )
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Lozspd4 on November 27, 2012, 10:10:09 PM
Hi Again yes you can only use the 9200 series Cards but they have to be Modded to 5v for the Mediator. the one i got from Elbox was allready modded had 256mb on board but only 128mb could be used as it had 2x 128mb Banks so i modded a new one i got from Hongkong and that uses the full 256mb on mediator.
 
becare of cheap imatation radeons as some dont work.
 
If you Need help in that department i could give you some help on the modding, if your Handy with a soldering iron.
 
Nobby
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Lozspd4 on November 27, 2012, 10:30:09 PM
Hi here is the Radeon Card i brought i can from the UK the seller still has some of These but they have to be modded costs about 50pence for the chip here in Germany.
 
the ebay link is http://www.ebay.de/itm/Neu-256MB-ATI-Radeon-9250-PCI-Grafikkarte-256-MB-/281026884984?_trksid=p2047675.m1850&_trkparms=aid%3D222002%26algo%3DSIC.FIT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D11%26meid%3D3764905824906425400%26pid%3D100011%26prg%3D1005%26rk%3D2%26sd%3D280491635769%26
 
Nobby
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: darksun9210 on November 28, 2012, 08:02:05 AM
ah, so i can't just get one off of ebay and plug it in. heh, there had to be a catch somewhere.

when you say modded for 5volts, i thought that PCI was keyed for power anyway?
5 volt cards have a gap at one end, 3.3 volt cards have the gap at the other, and universal cards had a gap at both.

i take it something else needs to be done? voltage regulator added? removed?

and how do you mean you were only able to use half of the ram? is it not directly attached to the GPU anyway?

sorry for all the questions :)
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Lozspd4 on November 28, 2012, 10:54:28 AM
Hi
this is quiet difficult to explain some Cards are fitted with 2 seperat ram Banks ie 2x 128mb with two seperate addresses and the mediator and 0s4.1 only pick up one of These Banks giving 128mb.its more to do with the gfx Card bios i think.This was done for stability reasons.
 
Some really old Saphire Cards are 5v 3v compatible and work straight out the box no Problem but it like playing russian roulette if it works or not.
 
And the notches on some of the modern Cards doesn,t really apply to the 3v or 5v rule. confusing really.
 
I bought the Card which i linked to and used this link to do the mode http://mfilos.blogspot.de/2012/03/a4000-modding-and-testing-ati-radeon-on.html Please note the Card has to be exactly the same in the Pictures hence the first link i sent you from ebay to garentee it works on the A4000DI,i bought from this guy in ebay modded it and it works perfect in the 4000
showing full 256mb.Ps(my Card had a venlitator fitted but physically the board is the same).Your Basically Making the 3.3v link with the regulator
 
But to confuse things even more it Show graphic trash in my A1200 ppc wich has one of the first A1200 Mediator pci boards fitted wierd.
 
But this Card does work in the A4000 DI MK and 1200TX.
 
Hoped i Helped you out a bit. if you still have your doubts ive still got the original Card from elbox only used a hour to test. or a Voodoo 3000. i could send over to the Homeland. as i live here in Germany since 30 years and my English is a bit Rusty lol.
 
Nobby
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Lozspd4 on November 28, 2012, 11:05:09 AM
Hi
    this is quiet difficult to explain some Cards are fitted with 2 seperat ram Banks ie 2x 128mb with two seperate addresses and the mediator and 0s4.1 only pick up one of These Banks giving 128mb.its more to do with the gfx Card bios i think.
 
Some really old Saphire Cards are 5v 3v compatible and work straight out the box no Problem but it like olaying russian roulette if it works or not.
 
And the notches on some of the modern Cards doesn,t really apply to the 3v or 5v rule. confusing really.
 
I bought the Card which i linked to and used this link to do the mode http://mfilos.blogspot.de/2012/03/a4000-modding-and-testing-ati-radeon-on.html Please not the Card has to be exactly  the same in the Pictures hence the first link i sent you from ebay to garentee it works on the A4000DI,i bought from this guy in ebay modded it and it works perfect in the 4000
showing full 256mb.Ps(my Card had a venlitator fitted but physically the board is the same).
 
But to confuse things even more it Show graphic trash in my A1200ppc with one of the first Mediator pci boards wierd.
 
But this Card does work in the A4000 DI MK and 1200TX.
 
Hoped i Helped you out a bit. if you still have your doubts ive still got the original Card from elbox only used a hour to test. or a Voodoo 3000. i could send over to the Homeland. as i live here in Germany since 30 years and my English is a bit Rusty lol.
 
Nobby
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: ChaosLord on November 28, 2012, 12:06:58 PM
Quote from: cv643d;710015
I had the A1200 version with 4 PCI slots and found out lots of Workbench apps where running jerky in Mediator screenmodes, jerkier than in AGA. Someone told me it was because of the way Mediator worked with the Amiga, still to this day I am amused more people do not notice it or complain. People just setup a nice WB and look at it?!

I am curious if A4000 version has the same problem, but not willing to pay 300 euro to find out, oh and I sold my 4 slot PCI Mediator and went back to Zorro cards instead.


If you have jerkieness then something is set wrong in your p96 or cgx or mediator settings.  I had the same thing happen to me.  Once I found the secret setting I changed it and never looked back.
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: ChaosLord on November 28, 2012, 12:17:53 PM
Quote from: slaapliedje;710096
I have pretty much the same setup as Darrin, without the FastATA4000, Deneb, Spider and SB128....Okay, not really the same... but I use the monitor/indivision  the same way.

The problems I have run into were with lockups in Radeon resolutions.  Higher resolution, the quicker it locks up.  I think my problem is one of the programs I am running.  Once I disabled AmiDock and the memory info program, it locks up less..  Still haven't figured that one out, but it may be a bug in ClassicWB.

Otherwise the video modes are really fast, and if it weren't for the stock 040 and the slow IDE drive, it would feel snappier than Windows 7 does on my system with 8 cores and 8 GB of memory!

slaapliedje


When I first bought my Amiga+Mediator setup (used) I had the same lockups as u.

It all turned out that there was a jumper on the mediator for safe or dangerous.  Well dangerous always crashes.  Safe never crashes.  STUPID JUMPER!

Once I changed the jumper over to safe.  Everything was fine.  And my transfer speeds dropped from 11MB/sec to 9MB/sec  No prob since it made my Amiga rock solid for many years.
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: darksun9210 on November 28, 2012, 01:30:26 PM
Thanks lozspd4,
a lot of very good information there, many thanks :) my mind is expanded (and your english is excellent)

and ChaosLord's secret setting. Safe/Dangerous jumper. cool. i'll keep a look out for it
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Dandy on November 29, 2012, 08:57:05 AM
Quote from: darksun9210;709968


Hi all, a bit of advice is what i'm after i guess, or hints and anecdotes of your general expiriences with the above.

i'm toying with the idea of buying a Mediator Board. is this a better solution than hunting ebay or amibay for zorro ethernet and graphics gards? (i would prefer zorro, but that's just me ;)



Back in 2004 I was in a similar situation and had similar questions. Luckily I decided to walk the Mediator route and up to today I don't regret it.
My A4kPPC is towered in the Micronik BigBox Tower and that came with the Zorro III Busboard. My main OS is OS 3.9 with BBs I&II/WarpOS 16.1 - and that's what the following is referring to.

Quote from: darksun9210;709968


what's peoples thoughts on this? i always wanted to expand the ol' A4k, and it seems that PCI cards are the way to go these days. plus once i have the mediator, i can probably get hold of the cards themselves pretty cheap (or free).



Well, once I had mine I was lucky that a colleague had an old Voodoo4 lying around and gave it to me for 10€. IIRC, I did buy the Terratec 512i digital in a shop at a small price, as well as the 10/100 mBit NIC (with Mediator supported RTL chip). Initially I had the Spider II with that Version of Poseiden that supported the Mediator/Spider-combination, but exchanged it later with the Deneb in a Zorro III slot for USB 2.0 speed reasons (the Spider isn't really highspeed). Aside from the Spider, I didn't pay more than 40€ for the cards.

Quote from: darksun9210;709968


i'm just a little bit dubious about their spec claims.
do you need to have a GFX card on the PCI bus to be able to run a network card?



Yes.
A part of the graphic mem is used for buffering, afaik.
Furthermore the graphics card acts as PCI busmaster, IIRC.
And a gfx card is much more eye-friendly than the native Amiga graphic modes.

Quote from: darksun9210;709968


264MB/s they claim is the max bandwidth between cards and/or host at 66Mhz *on the same bus*. and even this is unlikely. also the host in this case is the PCI/Zorro bridge chippery.
what are the real world speeds i can expect? will i even approach 10MB/s host to zorro to pci bridge to pci card?
i remember bustest would get 14MB/s max from a CV64/3D - so should i be pretty suspect of any claims above, say 20MB/s?



I have never done any bus speed tests and so cannot come up with numerical figures.
Possibly the NIC dosn't work with the full 100 mBit - perhaps it achieves just 80 mBit.
But in any case the speed is significantly faster compared to a 10 mBit net access on an x86.
Spider II USB 2.0 "highspeed" wasn't really highspeed. O.K. - it was a bit faster that USB 1.1 on an x86, but copying large files took ages and sometimes was unreliable (several unpluggings and repluggings of the USB device were necessary to get the job done). Therefor I bought a Deneb when it appeared and now USB 2.0 is much faster on the A4kPPC.

Quote from: darksun9210;709968


if i fully load the mediator with GFX card, NIC card, sound card, and USB card, will it choke?



I have never noticed such behaviour.

But I cannot recommend a PCI-USB card. The newer versions of Poseidon do no longer provide support for Mediator based USB cards.

Take my advice and go the Deneb route (if you have a Z III or higher daughterboard) - this way USB on classic Amiga is fun. Deneb also is said to work in Z II, but just in PIO mode and not in DMA mode as it does with Z III. PIO is slower than DMA.

And be aware that a Buster Rev.9 is said to be faulty. I had been told it can possibly cause problem with Z III boards - and so I exchanged it with a Rev.11 Buster before I fitted it all in the tower.

Quote from: darksun9210;709968


whats the driver situation like? crashy? stable?




My Mediatior came with the MM CD (Multi Media CD). It provides all the drivers. Make sure to have the latest versions - if necessary, download the latest versions. My setup works stable since day one (back in 2004) and I'm really fully satisfied.

Some talk bad about the Mediator board (e.g. the OS4 devs) - but here it has always done what it is supposed to and so I'm completely happy with the mediator.

Quote from: darksun9210;709968


anybody know what the deal is with "version 2" advertised on elbox's website?



Hmmm - I could not spot a "version 2" anywhere. Can it be you misread "Mediator Multimedia CD UP 2.0" as "Mediator 2.0"?

Quote from: darksun9210;709968


sorry for all the questions, but being the price they are, and the fact i know nothing whatsoever about them, thought this would be the place to ask :)



It is always a good idea to be informed before buying...
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: darksun9210 on November 29, 2012, 09:14:45 AM
wow! someone buy Dandy a drink! awesome info, thanks so much! :) :) :)
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Dandy on November 29, 2012, 09:43:16 AM
Quote from: darksun9210;716840


wow! someone buy Dandy a drink! awesome info, thanks so much! :) :) :)



No problem - you're welcome!
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: smf on November 29, 2012, 11:00:28 AM
Dandys information regarding the Spider is outdated.
The latest poseidon & spider.device works together but it was true for a while that they didn't.
It even seems to work quite fast & reliable but i don't have any numbers to show because i'm a new user. But the deneb is better and will always be.

I'm intrested to know what kind of transfers speeds dandy gets with a 100Mbit/s nic.  Miami/Amitcp is way to slow to get anything near 80Mbit/s even on a fast computer like a pegasos running morphos.
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Darrin on November 29, 2012, 01:29:44 PM
Quote from: smf;716847
Dandys information regarding the Spider is outdated.
The latest poseidon & spider.device works together but it was true for a while that they didn't.
It even seems to work quite fast & reliable but i don't have any numbers to show because i'm a new user. But the deneb is better and will always be.

I'm intrested to know what kind of transfers speeds dandy gets with a 100Mbit/s nic.  Miami/Amitcp is way to slow to get anything near 80Mbit/s even on a fast computer like a pegasos running morphos.


I can confirm this too.  I had a Deneb in my A4000 and updated Poseidon to the latest version.  When I put in a Spider and loaded the drivers the USB stack detected it and once activated it worked like a charm.  I had the Deneb and Spider working at the same time.
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: cv643d on November 29, 2012, 01:53:12 PM
If it was a config error then I would be interested in the Mediator again!

Can someone try Hippoplayer, Delitracker or Eagleplayer, play a module and open up a visual scope such as stereoscope or similar, does the scope run (react to music) as fast as in Mediator screenmode as in an AGA mode?

Thanks!
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: TheBilgeRat on November 29, 2012, 04:30:34 PM
Quote from: smf;716847
Dandys information regarding the Spider is outdated.
The latest poseidon & spider.device works together but it was true for a while that they didn't.
It even seems to work quite fast & reliable but i don't have any numbers to show because i'm a new user. But the deneb is better and will always be.

I'm intrested to know what kind of transfers speeds dandy gets with a 100Mbit/s nic.  Miami/Amitcp is way to slow to get anything near 80Mbit/s even on a fast computer like a pegasos running morphos.


Deneb is no longer in production, and the spider is.
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Ratte on November 29, 2012, 08:01:22 PM
A4000  + Mediator4000Di works great!
Radeon9250 256MB
SB128
8139D 10/100MBit

http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?t=32293

btw. the A4000 Mediator is much faster compared to A1200 Mediator.
Blitting on bigbox is arround 20-40 times faster ...  ;)
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: cv643d on November 29, 2012, 10:59:58 PM
I see, I remember I asked Amigaz to try out some applications on his Mediator A1200 5 years ago and he had the same problems as I had on my setup.

So the A4000 setup is faster. Interesting.
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: slaapliedje on November 30, 2012, 12:01:42 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716720
When I first bought my Amiga+Mediator setup (used) I had the same lockups as u.

It all turned out that there was a jumper on the mediator for safe or dangerous.  Well dangerous always crashes.  Safe never crashes.  STUPID JUMPER!

Once I changed the jumper over to safe.  Everything was fine.  And my transfer speeds dropped from 11MB/sec to 9MB/sec  No prob since it made my Amiga rock solid for many years.


Pretty sure I've checked every jumper on there, and there wasn't a 'Safe' one.  There are three jumpers on it.  One says "SWAP CONFIG" (currently Open) and "MASTER" (Closed) and WINSIZE (Closed)

Just opened my Amiga again.  I don't know which is sadder, the fact that I've probably opened it up more than I've had sex, or that I'm admitting that on an Internet forum!

Now that I've bled on it a little... maybe it'll not lock up for me!
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: slaapliedje on November 30, 2012, 12:13:10 AM
Quote from: Lozspd4;716639
Hi Again yes you can only use the 9200 series Cards but they have to be Modded to 5v for the Mediator. the one i got from Elbox was allready modded had 256mb on board but only 128mb could be used as it had 2x 128mb Banks so i modded a new one i got from Hongkong and that uses the full 256mb on mediator.
 
becare of cheap imatation radeons as some dont work.
 
If you Need help in that department i could give you some help on the modding, if your Handy with a soldering iron.
 
Nobby

My Radeon also has two banks of 128MB, how do you mod it to get the full 256mb to be seen?  Always wondered if this were possible.  

For those that want to know, a Sapphire branded Radeon 9250 works at the 5v (but as stated, only shows 128mb instead of 256mb.)

The exact SKU# is 11046-18, and it is a PCI VGA/TVO/DVI-I card.  I currently use the DVI out on it, and it works great.  I managed to find a script on these forums that will allow you to convert modelines (resolutions) from xorg to Picasso96 settings, so I have all the resolutions to look AMAZING on my Asus VG23AH through it...

Now if only I could get it to not lock up!

slaapliedje
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: slaapliedje on November 30, 2012, 01:57:24 AM
I'm very much leaning toward the possibility that I simply have a bad radeon card.

I killed Amidock (which for some weird reason, this time around Amidock didn't like that I was changing resolutions, normally it doesn't prevent it).  This seems to have made it run for longer.  But check this out!  This time around I managed to extract AmIRC, while having IBrowse loaded, and started up EaglePlayer, loaded up the Xenon2 music mod, and had that playing.  Then I went to check Aminet for some more mods and that's when I had the crash.

But listen to the awesomeness of Xenon2 during a crash!

I also am attaching the reason why I think my Radeon is bad... the heatsink appeared to be glued to the GPU... I had one that I had gotten from Elbox (64MB one) and took the heatsink off of it to see if it would fit better (the PCI1 on the Mediator wouldn't even fit with the original heat sink, the one I replaced it with barely fit in the slot, but I'm afraid it was still touching the busboard, so didn't dare turn on the system).

Well the 64mb had the usual two pegs holding the heatsink in, the 256mb one that I had in the system did not!  Pried off the heat sink, and check out the nastiness!  

My next thing is to swap it with one of the ones I have that has an active fan on it...

http://thefnords.org/amiga-crash.mp3.zip

slaapliedje
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Lozspd4 on November 30, 2012, 07:10:28 AM
Hi Guys
          That with the lockups with the Radeon is i think got to do with which pci Slot the Ethernet and Radeon are in together i tryed a lot of variations and found that the best combination for my System is.
 
starting at the top working to wards the Mainboard is,
 
10/100 fast Ethernet
Radeon 9200 256mb
Spider Usb
Sb 128
 
this is with all jumpers closed on the mediator 4000di mkII
 
The only program that causes Problems is Genesis. when i press offline the System locksup.but Miami dx works perfect.
 
The other way to get the other bank of 128mb to sort of work is use the program addmem from aminet but youll have Play around with the start and end ram addresses till you get a working set, but i only managed to get 64mb working stable.
 
can you give your Card positions through so that other users can give
it a try and maybe saving hair pulling Frustration. as when some Cards are not fitted they may Need  another Position for the Cards to work stable.
Nobby
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Bamiga2002 on November 30, 2012, 07:22:49 AM
Quote from: Ratte;716895
A4000  + Mediator4000Di works great!
Radeon9250 256MB
SB128
8139D 10/100MBit

http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?t=32293

btw. the A4000 Mediator is much faster compared to A1200 Mediator.
Blitting on bigbox is arround 20-40 times faster ...  ;)

A4000 Mediator is faster because it has Zorro III vs A1200 that has Zorro II. But you can compensate in some Warp3D games with a speedup, read more here on EAB (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=64019) :)
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: cv643d on November 30, 2012, 09:53:45 AM
As was told to me, the problem was not only Z2 and Z3, I had Picasso2 and it was faster than Mediator on a 6860 MikroniC Z2 busboard for A1200.

Someone mentioned the way the Mediator works is the problem on the A1200.

For example, I felt scrolling in Ibrowse was slugish with Mediator in a different way than Z2 slugish. Best example is trying out scopes in module players on the WB.

There is a thread about this on the Mediator mailing-list, but I cant find it. It was 6 years ago I bought a four slot Mediator for the A1200. Sold it in under 1 month lol.

Lol.. whats the point of having a mediator if some ****ty Warp 3D game runs smother and WB runs slower :)
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: Bamiga2002 on November 30, 2012, 10:02:53 AM
Quote from: cv643d;716947
There is a thread about this on the Mediator mailing-list, but I cant find it. It was 6 years ago I bought a four slot Mediator for the A1200. Sold it in under 1 month lol.

Lol.. whats the point of having a mediator if some ****ty Warp 3D game runs smother and WB runs slower :)
If you could find that thread it would make an interesting reading. Hey, this is a hobby for me and the W3D games are a part of it :). And my WB runs very smooth, I can make a video of it. But I don't claim the Mediator design hasn't got flaws, but that's something we have to live with since there's no real alternative... :/
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: slaapliedje on November 30, 2012, 04:09:42 PM
Quote from: Lozspd4;716933
Hi Guys
          That with the lockups with the Radeon is i think got to do with which pci Slot the Ethernet and Radeon are in together i tryed a lot of variations and found that the best combination for my System is.
 
starting at the top working to wards the Mainboard is,
 
10/100 fast Ethernet
Radeon 9200 256mb
Spider Usb
Sb 128
 
this is with all jumpers closed on the mediator 4000di mkII
 
The only program that causes Problems is Genesis. when i press offline the System locksup.but Miami dx works perfect.
 
The other way to get the other bank of 128mb to sort of work is use the program addmem from aminet but youll have Play around with the start and end ram addresses till you get a working set, but i only managed to get 64mb working stable.
 
can you give your Card positions through so that other users can give
it a try and maybe saving hair pulling Frustration. as when some Cards are not fitted they may Need  another Position for the Cards to work stable.
Nobby

Pretty sure I've tried every possible configuration.

Currently I have the Video card in the top (Radeon 9250 256mb) and Fast Ethernet 10/100 in the bottom (above the bus board).  I couldn't even get the video card to fit in that slot, because it touches the bus board.

slaapliedje
Title: Re: Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Post by: mechy on November 30, 2012, 09:38:11 PM
Quote from: darksun9210;716623
ok, so I've grown a pair and Amigakit seem to have some in stock, so I've ordered one.

what's the best GFX card, or rather, what cards have people experience with?
I notice that you guys have Radeon's installed. it's not on the supported list? confused...
how are you finding it with heat, power, noise etc.
i'm looking for something not too noisy, and given the A4000's pathetic cooling, something not too hot.
my experience with AGP voodoo3's from way back when was that they got really hot!

is warp3d stuff supported on the radeons? i'm not looking at a voodoo4 or 5 as that's just a little bit far out regarding availability or even driver support.
I won't be using the GFX card as fast ram as I also have a couple of zorro ram cards on their way.
I've got a soundblaster128 somewhere, and ordered a 100Mb NIC - as all I have laying around these days are intel gigabit jobs. ;)

The mediator for the 3000 is intended for their mirage tower.
you want the radeon or a voodoo3 3000 ideally. make sure the A3000 has a buster 11 chip,since you will need it for zorro3 operation on the mediator. many machines came with buster7 which does not support zorro3 operation.Not sure if mediator works on buster9,but 11 is required i seem to think. note the mediator for the 3000 is not intended to fit a desktop,only a tower(their tower no longer sold?)..check into this carefully.
from elbox website:

'The recommended configuration is: Amiga 3000D in Mirage                      3000 (http://www.elbox.com/products/mirage_3000.html) tower case, any 68060 (or PPC with 68060) turbo card                      with 128MB RAM, a SharkPPC G3/G4 card with 256MB SDRAM, a                      Voodoo3 graphic card.'

Honestly,i'd recommend a A4000 to do this in.the 4000DI version works well.The 4000di version will not fit the 3000
For those of you using 1200 mediators,since the A1200 has no zorro3(buster chip)the difference is the 1200 version has a tiny 8MB window and the A3000-4000 mediator has a 256/512MB window. That is one reason why the 3000/4000 board seem to handle anything with no glitches and problems even at res like 1920x12xx.

I've been running a 4000 mirage tower with mediator for many years nearly 24/7 and its been rock solid other than some crap ATX power supplies going bad.Good psu is worth the $$.

Mech