@Legerdemain:
Must just first say that 60kiloBytes/sec(?) sounds awfully little. What applications did you measure that with? You should get quite a bit more, especially if you have a fast cpu.
Using a network card on the Mediator shouldnt be particulary slower/faster than other solutions not being able to DMA the contents of the network cards buffers to/from normal fastmem.
The Mediator solutions designed for the Amiga 1200 has some limitations. One of those limitations is that a PCI cards doesnt "see" the Amiga address space and hence it cannot transfer anything directly to lets say the fastmem. A PCI card can on the other hand "see" other PCI cards connected to the Mediator and thus a bus mastering network card can transfer its buffers to the memory of a graphics card on the Mediator. Still the buffers has to be copied from the graphics cards memory to the fastmem by the cpu so this solution is placed in the non DMA category. One thing to note though is that it should be a bit more efficient for the cpu to copy network data to/from graphic memory than copying it from the buffers of a PCMCIA network card in an A1200 or from the buffers of a ZorroII network card in an A3000/A4000.
The mediator for A3000/A4000 is according to the Elbox own information able to do DMA transfers to/from normal amiga-memory, so theoretically a network card fitted in such a Mediator system wouldnt need any buffers in graphic memory. Though I dont know if the drivers implement this feature. If this feature is implemented in the drivers this solution would be optimal as the cpu wouldnt have to be involved with the buffer transfers.. on the A3000/A4000 that is ofcourse.
Transferspeeds on the Amiga is though mostly hindered by the raw cpu work needed to be done inside the currently not so effective TCP/IP stacks.
The mediator solution might be slightly faster, but my recommendation is to go with the cheapest available solution as the performance difference will be minimal.
/Patrik
