Mediator vs Prometheus

[NightShade737]

I am torn as to which of these two to buy for the main reason, which one is faster? For instance, the Promo states it has an interface speed of 12MB/s to the Amiga, where as the Mediator states that it is 50MB/s.

Now the reason I am torn is the fast that I would like to keep my ISA slots as well though, and buying a Mediator would kick out all my ISA slots.

Now the perfect soloution to this would be the ZIII Mediator which still states 50MB/s and only uses a single slot like the  Promo, and even better, it's actually smaller than a promo too!..... problem is that it is discontinued and no-where sells them, which sort of makes that useless.

But anyway, I think my question is - Has anyone actually benched various devices in the same machine on both a Prometheus and a Mediator? Preferably in an A4000 as that has native Zorro slots as opposed to using a mad array on an A1200.

I'm not looking for "well it should be" answers, just actual tests and results on the topic.

Cheers,
Ex

[NightShade737]

Yes, but the Mediator 4000D plugs into the actual motherboard itself on the daughterboard connectors, so I assume that is faster than the speed of a single Zorro III interface.

[NightShade737]

Bridgeboard and stuff. I just like "things" in my Amiga.

[NightShade737]

Cool, thanks for clearing that up.
Just a few final questions then:

Has Bus-Mastering been sorted out on the boards yet?
and are there drivers available for the following:
Voodoo 3 and Voodoo 5
3com 950C Cards
Realtek 8139 NICs
SiS909 NICs
and SB128 cards (Ensonique 1371 chipset)

I mention the 3com cards as it would be a good idea, because the cards are very cheap to get, and are managed with checksum offloading, which would be very useful for the slower processors in Amigas.

[NightShade737]

Regarding the 3Com Nic. Sure, they are cheap, but you can get a RealTech 8139 for $.99 on eBay. Can't get cheaper than that.

Thats not the point, read my reason.

Hmmm, I don't think buying a promo would be the best thing to do then as it doesn't have drivers for anything I own, and still doesn't support BM  :-(

[NightShade737]

Apparently the 8139 drivers are "highly unstable", but still...

So, are there ever likely to be any drivers for any of the things I have, and is there ever likely to be Bus Mastering support? I am really not interested in "TBA" statements as that means nothing. I want to know if it will have it or not, and roughly when, end of. I need to make a decision on one or the other, and I would not be impressed to buy something, only to find that what I need is never going to happen, as that would be an expensive mistake, and one that I will not make.

The main thing that has me worried is the constant conflicting information, and the slow, if even barely existant progress on OpenPCI/Promo drivers.

Though aside from all that, it would still be interesting to see Promo/Mediator 4000D side by side comparisons in the same machine, though I doubt anyone has ever or would ever do it.

[NightShade737]

Ok, I agree with his driver statement, but it doesn't get me any further. He doesn't benchmark either of them, nevermind against each other, so its pretty useless. Infact he doesn't say much other than his oppinions.

[NightShade737]

Yeah, but as I said, that comparison is still useless as they are completely different machines, to quote:

>> Prometheus with 68040/25 MHz (A3640) + Voodoo3 800x600x32,
>> Mediator with 1240/25 + Voodoo3 800x600x32.

that accounts for some of the difference.
The Blizzard 1240/25 has _much_ faster memory access than the crippled 040/25 on
an A3640.

Some functions in our Voodoo3 driver have no hardware acceleration yet.
Draw() and RectFillPattern() mainly. Also you should take into account,
Apollo 1240/25 is much (about 50%) faster than A3460. A3640 hasn't its
own memory, it uses memory placed on A4000 motherboard, which is very
slow compared to memory on Apollo. Also Mediator is connected to
Expansion Slot, which is faster than Zorro III, especially with Apollo
cards.

ETC. Any useful references?

[NightShade737]

I had seen that one before, but couldn't quite work out where the hell it was supposed to fit in. Does the Zorro slot on the board go through and plug in to a Zorro slot below? If so this may be the solution I need... though I would need to find out how far up it would go and if it would actually fit...

But on the other hand, would one of the other mediators be faster as they connect in to the entire Daughterboard connector, or does it still only use the bandwidth of one Zorro III slot? That is what has been confusing me.

[NightShade737]

Ah, so basically, 1 board uses the entire bus anyway? So if  you were running 2 cards at once then they would have to share that bandwidth? That makes sense, I just assumed that the slots would be limited and the daughterboard could handle more, but apparently not.

Cheers.

downix: What type of Mediator and what machine? But, yes, if you could. Also bench the same NIC in both if you can.

[NightShade737]

So, is it completely established now that a PCI interface on a Zorro III slot is exactly the same speed as one plugged in to the entire Daughterboard slot (theoretically)?

[NightShade737]

Morley: Yeah, I worked out the inactive and bridge thing, but thanks for clarifying it. Also thanks for clearing up the other info though.

Hmm, wouldn't it be useful if someone made new G-Rex boards...  *cough*Schoenfield*cough*Power Computing*cough*.

Still waiting for the comparison of the Promethus and the Mediator though...

[NightShade737]

Does the G-Rex use the same drivers as the Promethus? (OpenPCI) As the drivers are the only thing I am worried about...

[NightShade737]

At least the advantage of OpenPCI is that G-Rex and Promethus both benefit from it, so if drivers are made for the one, they will work on the other. At the moment the G-Rex seems like a better option for me... but on the other hand, it would be nice to see comparisons of all 3 in the same machine...

[NightShade737]

So, how are those benchmarks coming along? Would be even better if you could find a G-Rex to try too as that seems to be the most appealing option right now.