AMIGA Graphics card question:

[Hans_]

only for os4 as far as i get it.

Correct, the RadeonHD drivers are OS4 only. It's being developed using cards with built in PCI-to-PCIe bridges. I still hope that someone can make OS4 hardware with a proper PCIe bus though.

Hans

[Hans_]

Are there any ISA graphics cards that will work on the legacy Amiga?  I remember sombody telling me that you could use an ISA graphics card if using a PC emulator board.  Can one be used if you don't have a PC emulator board.  Thanks.

Barney

I doubt it. From memory, the ISA bus was on the bridge-board, so you won't even be able to plug the ISA cards in. Besides, ISA graphics cards are not available any more.

Hans

[Hans_]

No, there are ISA slots on all big box amiga models, usually in line with Zorro slots. But they're passive, Amiga cannot access them. Only a bridgeboard can access these cards.

In a short answer, no you can't use any PC graphic boards on Amiga without buying extra hardware (a mediator or bridge board - even with bridge board you'ld need drivers and I doubt performance will be better than original Amiga chipset)

Thanks for correcting me. I had a sneaking suspicion that I had gotten something wrong after I posted, but I was 100% sure that you couldn't use ISA cards in an Amiga without the bridge-board. I never owned a big box Amiga, so I've never seen the internals. That's a bit of an odd setup, having parts of the motherboard that require a plug in board to work.

Anyway, the bottom line is that you need the bridgeboard for the ISA slots. To be honest, I was glad when the ISA bus was ditched in favour of PCI and I can't imagine anyone still wanting to use it.

Hans

[Hans_]

wouldnt it be possible to compile your drivers for 68k for use with mediator under 3.x? well, i suppose not. or if yes it would be probably too much work. afaik there is primarly already an electrical problem to this solution and also closed source elbox driver solution for the bridge. but just wanted to ask.
probably even 4.0 drivers wouldnt work even if one could fit such a card into mediator.

If you're talking about the RadeonHD driver then no, it can't be recompiled for 68k. It uses Amiga OS 4.x's PCI interfacing API, not OpenPCI, and OS 4.x's library interfaces. I don't have classic PowerPC hardware, and didn't see much point in supporting the classic anyway, TBH. Classic Amigas don't have the speed required to get much out of these cards. Heck, a few people even think that it's pointless supporting this card on next-gen Amigas because the CPU is too slow, and so is PCI.

I have no idea whether these cards will work with a Mediator board under OS4.

Hans