@Doobrey:
Dont take for granted that the ZorroII network-card will be much less cpu intensive and faster than the PCMCIA one. Both types often work in kind of the same way - not using DMA-transfers when moving data between the buffers of the network-card and Amiga-memory and instead utilizing the CPU for that task. The card which has the lowest access-time will though waste the least amount of CPU-cycles as waitstates and thus hog the CPU for the least amount of time. That will though vary from card to card and bus to bus.
I do think there were a card made by GVP which utilized DMA-transfers between buffer and Amiga-memory but I am not sure.
Keep in mind that shuffling data over a network using TCP/IP is quite CPU intensive in its nature because of the quite large amount of datashuffling and calculations required to get the data through all layers from the hardware to the application.
Using a network-card which transfers its buffers using DMA to/from Amiga-memory would reduce the CPU-usage in one link between two layers to a minimum, but as the data still has to go through the layers of the TCP/IP-stack it wont have an earthshattering effect on CPU-usage... still I wouldnt mind having a network card with this ability
. Then consider the difference when using network applications between two network-cards not using DMA... It will most likely be neglectible (assuming the device-drivers for both cards are written in a sensible matter).
My point anyhow is that as ZorroII network cards usually are quite expensive, this card switch you are planning might cost you alot more than it tastes... it is not even for sure it tastes any better, could taste worse
.
Take care!
/Patrik
