X-Surf II, what a scam...

[Ilwrath]

I think the biggest problem is that the card isn't exactly accurately represented.  Very rarely, if ever, will you find it publicized that it's a two piece card.  People might be more accepting of the fact, if they knew it up front.  I know I was kinda ticked when I first found it out when opening the box of one brand new I had bought mail-order....

Of course, also, it would have helped if the X-Surf wasn't such a shoddy card.  (This is from my personal experience with the X-Surf 1 -- I haven't bought an X-Surf 2 -- wonder why?)  First off, is the ambush of a 2 piece card.  Next, comes the surprise when it's dimensions are about 5mm off, so it doesn't fit properly into a stock case.  Then, when examining the card, you realize just how many poor solder joints are on this card...  Then, you finally modify your stock case (which already has three normal sized cards in it that fit perfectly) and try to run the software.  Then you realize the card is slower than any other Zorro ethernet solution for Amiga, including cards made over 10 years earlier.  Then, of course, the card arcs at one of the bad solder joints and fries itself, and hopefully not your computer with it.  This is the story I lived.

I will say that Jens did stand by the card, and offered to take a look at it, if I wanted to pack it up, and pay postage both ways to Germany.  After my last experience with shipping items to Germany (Phase5), I chose not to take him up on that offer, though.

[Ilwrath]

@voxel-

Ah yes.... But where does it actually say it's a standard ISA card grafted onto a Zorro interface?  (Hint: It doesn't)  Also, the small picture on Jens site isn't enough to really realize exactly what is going on, if you haven't seen the actual card, or a larger picture before.  It just looks like an odd-shaped card.

Amiga-hardware.com is an excellent resource.  Unfortunatly, I didn't know about it 3 years ago when I bought the X-Surf.

It all fit perfectly in my Amigas (A4000 Desktop, A3000 Desktop, A3000 Tower, A4000 Tower) all in their original cases and without ANY modifications to it.

This was in an A4000 desktop.  The card was approx 5mm too long. This was partially due to a very thick metal used on the backplane of the card, and not bent properly to fit.  Though the backplane was rivitted on, so I couldn't remove it, and had to clip a small bit of the comparatively thin metal on the back of my case.

As for the "slow speed" of it, it is known that the Sana II drivers are slower than their NMI counterpart, if you use Miami it's explained in it's docs speed is a question of cables quality and lenght too

This was using MNI!  The card is dog slow in any mode.  Compare it with any drivers/stack you like to any other Zorro-based card, and post numbers.  It's about half the speed of the next slowest that I've seen.  And a cable length of 10ft to a dedicated 10/100 switch shouldn't be a problem.  It sure isn't for any other system I have....   (Including my 4000D with a different card.)

[Ilwrath]

@Patrik-
I can no longer benchmark this card, as it fried itself.  It was in a 4000D with SuperBuster 11 and a CyberStorm 060 Mk2.

I never got the card properly working with my old AmiTCP 2.x, and didn't have Genesis at the time (before OS3.9 was released).  Miami was the only modern TCP stack I had.  I will say the MNI driver integration was very slick and easy to configure with MiamiDX.  

Thanks for the link to ttcp.  I currently have a C=2065 in the same machine, which I can post marks from to back up my assertation that cards from 10 years earlier produce better speeds, if someone would be kind enough to post some MNI figures from an X-Surf on a similiar machine.

[Ilwrath]

This was the only test I ran, since it's really not a fair fight.  My Amiga rig outspecs yours by quite some distance.  

Amiga 4000/CyberStorm Mk2 060 @50mhz / Amiga 2065 network card / OS3.9 Genesis IP stack

PC SlotA Athlon @650 / Windows 2000 Server / RealTek PCI

Switch Junk EtherEngine 800S [10/100 / 8port] (budget special)

Your Score:

TCP: Amiga->PC
ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp -> 10.95.1.73
ttcp-t: 16777216 bytes in 44.04 real seconds = 372.03 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2048 I/O calls, msec/call = 22.02, calls/sec = 46.50
ttcp-t: 0:44real

My Score:
6.Ram Disk:> ttcp -t 192.168.0.1 ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001  tcp  -> 192.168.0.1
ttcp-t: socket
ttcp-t: connect
ttcp-t: 19983000 bytes in 27.42 real seconds = 711.79 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2440 I/O calls, msec/call = 11.51, calls/sec = 89.00
ttcp-t: 0:27real

Like I said... It's not a fair fight.  My Amiga is a higher spec.  But when I was running the XSurf, it turned in a performance a lot closer to yours than it does to my 2065.

[Ilwrath]

Actually, curiousity got the best of me, so I ran all relevant tests.  Here's the results:

Amiga -> PC (TCP)
6.Ram Disk:> ttcp -t 192.168.0.1 ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001  tcp  -> 192.168.0.1
ttcp-t: socket
ttcp-t: connect
ttcp-t: 19983000 bytes in 27.42 real seconds = 711.79 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2440 I/O calls, msec/call = 11.51, calls/sec = 89.00
ttcp-t: 0:27real

Amiga -> PC (UDP)
6.Ram Disk:> ttcp -t -u 192.168.0.1 ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001  udp  -> 192.168.0.1
ttcp-t: socket
ttcp-t: 19983000 bytes in 23.45 real seconds = 832.21 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2444 I/O calls, msec/call = 9.82, calls/sec = 104.22
ttcp-t: 0:23real

PC -> Amiga (TCP)
D:\WORK> ttcp -t 192.168.0.43 ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001  tcp  -> 192.168.0.43
ttcp-t: socket
ttcp-t: connect
ttcp-t: 19583920 bytes in 28.05 real seconds = 681.89 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2446 I/O calls, msec/call = 11.74, calls/sec = 87.21

PC -> Amiga (UDP)
* Clearly invalid results [>11000KB/sec -- not sure why?]

[Ilwrath]

@Patrik-

Thanks for the UDP info.  I knew UDP wouldn't try to resend lost data, but I was assuming it had some throttling mechanism.  (Hey, it was late at night.  haha!)

Just as a sidenote, the results you got with your A4000 + CSPPC + A2065 look very similar to the results I got with my A4000 + CSPPC + A2065 ;=).

Actually, mine is only a CyberStorm Mk2 060, not a PPC.  But, yes, it's not very surprising that it would turn in similiar marks to a Mk3 060/PPC, considering the stack and app are 68k.  ;-)

In retrospect, those XSurf numbers don't look horrible, and would actually result in better performance than my XSurf ever got.  Maybe I just had a lemon, all the way around.  I still wouldn't recommend the card... even to an enemy.

I hadn't run ttcp before.... But for a large file transfer (FTP) between my Amiga and my server, my XSurf would average around 200kB/sec, while my 2065 goes to just a hair under 700kB/sec.

[Ilwrath]

@carls -

With that in mind, you have to consider the options: Mediator + Voodoo + PCI NIC, PCMCIA NIC (if you have an A1200), The X-Surf or a second hand Zorro NIC or no NIC at all.

It doesn't leave much choice, does it?

No, that it sure doesn't.... And that was the boat I was in back when I bought the XSurf 1 I've been complaining about.  (Although with an A4000, I didn't have the option of PCMCIA NIC, or else I would have jumped at it!)  

Anyhow, I probably shouldn't have aired my own beefs with the XSurf in this thread.  I really didn't think it was a SCAM.  I was just very frustrated with the poor quality.  After forking over about $140USD for a NIC that was marketted as "premium" I honestly felt ripped off to find an $1 ISA NIC grafted in there.  I do believe that the backplane metal cost more than the NIC.  I wish I could have had the option to delete the metal, and use a better NIC, though!!!  It was the insanely thick metal backplane that caused the card not to fit in my A4000.

Anyhow, I would have gotten over the price, the $1 ISA NIC, and the out-of-spec size, had the thing worked.  But it consistantly ran slow (which I blamed on the A4000) and within a little over a year of fairly light use, it fried itself.  

That was basically the time I shelved my A4000 and went with a PC as my primary machine.  Heck, I built the whole PC for about the same amount as a new XSurf would have cost!  And four years later, the junk-ass PC is still running.  (24x7 as my gateway/firewall, now... But it still hasn't fried.)

It was later in nostalgia that I won the 2065 auction, and discovered that it performed much better than my XSurf ever did that really rubbed salt in the wound.

If you think it's so expensive, don't buy it.

I think that is what I'm trying to convey.  Don't repeat my mistake.