brilliant PCI graphics cards with DVI for Amiga

[mantisspider]

Why are the only Voodoo card drivers for the amiga?
Voodoo card suck! they have done from Voodoo3 onwards. There are lots of good PCI graphics cards out there...

Why were TNT2 or GeForce drivers never made, come on guys are there any brave and willing programmers out there?

OS4 is using a Raedon 7000 right? Why not release the drivers that are writen and run a ATI Radeon 7000 64 MB DDR PCI Video Card on ur Classic Amiga?

I always felt that it wasnt the lack of processing power it was the lack of decent graphics cards that kept the amiga from keeping up with the latest games. Quake II running on the amiga proves that point. The Classic Amiga has the processing power to handle; Soldier of Fortune, Half Life, Unreal Tournament. What it doesnt have is the graphics card to allow these games to run at a decent speed.

Is the mediator good enough to give these cards justice?

Decent PCI graphics cards:
ATI All-In-Wonder 64Mb (TV tuner graphics -the lot)
GeForce4 MX440 64Mb
Radeon 7500 64 MB
TNT2 32Mb (if mediator cant handle faster)

Want DVI?
Appian Graphics HURRICANE PCI 32MB DVI

Click here to see a  Collection of ATI PCI Graphics Cards : nice eh

If there was a PCI busboard good enough for the Amiga I would have loved to see the 3Dlabs Oxygen GVX1 be used on a A4000 for more up-to-date professional graphics platform (im more a Matrox man myself but Matrox on the Amiga may forever be a dream)

Matrox Graphics Cards : Beautiful 2D & 3D performance with Dual Monitor support

So guys, just how bad is the amiga PCI-busboards for these beautiful cards? 100mhz to 133Mhz is whats needed right? With the Mediator running at 33Mhz to 66Mhz, the cards could at least perform better than a voodoo?

Taken from Elbox.com
66/33MHz PCI clock
With the PCI clock running at 33MHz, data transfers are executed with the bandwidth of up to 132MB/s and up to 264MB/s for 66MHz clocking.

[mantisspider]

Well no need for the GeForce cards if the ATI drivers can be ported.

If the best that can be hoped for is the 15Mb/ from the mediator then maybe the only decent solution would be the cold fire project with its own PCI Bus.

Maybe ELbox would be able to improve on the Mediator.
What speeds do the GRexx/Predator boards give?

cheers

[mantisspider]

@lempkee,

I did read some specs about the amiga, "132MB/s and up to 264MB/s for 66MHz", thats why I posted asking if it really was at these speeds. 15Mb/s is a big difference.

[mantisspider]

as far as this thread goes about Elbox stopping people from making drivers for other cards, NOW thats wrong

?who said that elbox stops people making drivers in this thread? my eyes are still a bit blury as I just woke up, but i cant see that.

Cool, so the shark will allow for the fast transfers so then all this would be academic as people would either upgrade to a shark+mediator, A1 or Pegasos. Either way would seem that the ATI cards would be an option for all three, making ATI the new standard for Amiga. Although the 7000 is outdated now its still good enough to play GTA vice city on, well not outstandingly high resolution.

[mantisspider]

Current expansion options:

Zorro equiped amigas
Prometheus £180
Mediator £140 to £200
SharkPPC G3/G4 £200 to £315

non-Zorro Amigas
Mediator £100 to £170
Grexx/Predator £140
SharkPPC G3/G4 £200 to £315

Unless you already have a PCI busboard for your amiga, it doesnt make much sense upgrading your machine even if you have a suped up a4000 or a1200.

Without even including the cost of USB and network addons, its cheaper to get an AmigaOne (and the AmigaOne is still too highly priced).

AmigaOneG3-SE G3 750CXe@600MHz £360.00
AmigaOne-XE G3 750FX@700MHz 450.00
AmigaOne-XE G4 7451@800MHz 500.00
SharkPPC: 750CXe, 750FX or MPC7450 (allow for up to 700Mhz but 667Mhz is max listed on website)

Ive got 5 classic Amigas at home and a fair bit of cash already spent getting them enhanced when I had the chance. I would love to upgrade my Amigas to have G4 running on them, but not when a cheaper more powerful solution is available.

Current classic Amiga PCI and CPU solutions have to fall in price to be able to compete with a total replacment option. But unless high numbers are sold then the prices wont come down, but without prices coming down it doesnt make sense to buy in high quanities (see where this is going).

The ColdFire guys and Elbox seem to be the only companies designing a processor upgrade for the Classic Amiga, and Elbox are only releasing theirs when OS4 is released.

The only market for the SharkPPC are people who already have a PCI bus-board upgraded classic Amiga. So the sharkPPC wouldnt really be used to generate more sales for the Mediator boards (unless they are able to bundle the sharkPPC and Mediator for quite less than an AmigaOne).
For the SharkPPC not to work on all PCI busboards as some people are worried wouldnt make sense for Elbox as it would bring down their potentional sales revenue, as they wont be making any (or many) new mediator customers.

So unless you already have splashed out on a PCI upgrade for your Amiga, then dont bother getting any new accelerators for your Classic Amiga, save your money and buy and AmigaOne.

Sticking to upgrading classic Amigas and not going for the new total replacements will do more damage to the future of Amiga software and hardware development.

The PC had its big revolution when software developers stood up and said "we will only make games and apps for machines that are running the latest hardware" without caring for supporting the older machine users HAD to upgrade drastically to keep up and spend loads of cash. That started the snowball effect all those years ago.

The posts of how great the Amiga is because the PC cannot run modern software on systems that are 10 years old, are not a good thing. I love my austin allegro but just cos she can still drive on the same roads as a BMW and even Ford Fiesta, it doesnt mean that she can keep up with them.

The amiga is starved for developers, but any developer that comes to the Amiga should forget about supporting anything less than OS4 G3/G4 powered machines. OS4 can handle playing 68k and old PPC games and thats as far as support for the 'classic' Amiga should go in the push for Amiga's survival.

My a1240 will have to sit in the shadows of her younger cousin when she arrives.

On a note for Prometheus owners:
Prometheus FAQ says that with PPC CPUs emulating 68k they can get 120Mb/s.  So a SharkPPC on a Prometheus should be good too.

damn just noticed how agressive this post is :-S sorry, the realisation of the problems facing any future software developed for the Amiga to modern standards makes you see that its one of those brief opportunities where its cheaper to replace your machine than it is to upgrade it.

[mantisspider]

@lempkee

mate, I was about to get a Mediator and a SubWay USB port, so not to suffer from the problems that are populating the forums about Spider USB stacks. I wanted to have a Voodoo3, USB and 060 on my Amiga. But even without the SharkPPC its still more cost effective just to get an A1.

I was thinking about buying someones second hand classic Amiga already PCI'd up. But people are still wanting big money for these systems.

Ive finally decided on what im gonna do:
Sell my amigas apart from my original A500+, My first A1200, and my CD32's.
Keep using Mavis (thats my A1200). Buy an AmigaOne in Bath if they are going cheap and then buy the Pegasos2 when it comes out and then in Easter buy the mini-ITX AmigaOne.

To paraphrase Bart Simpson
"You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't"