Video Toaster minimum hardware requirements?

[orb85750]

What are the minimum hardware requirements for using a Video Toaster?  (not the Toaster 4000).  Does an A2000 need an accelerator?

[Ami_GFX]

For the Toaster 2000, it isn't much. An A2000 without an accelerator and at least 6mb of ram will work for for basic video processing and switching. Lightwave will be extremely slow. A much better configuration would be a an A2000 with 68030 accellerator and at least 8mb of ram. A A2091 Scsi card or one of the much better GVP cards with a scsi drive will be neccessary as well. An old scsi drive from a 90s Mac will work great.

You don't even need an Amiga monitor. Any tv with a composite in can be connected to the A2000's black and white composite out for the Toaster switcher screen. That's the way a lot of proffesional Toaster users did it back in the day. The Toaster was set to bypass Workbench and go straight to the video switcher. There were 3 composite monitors connected to the Amiga composite and Toaster Preview and Main outs.

[orb85750]

@Ami_GFX
Wow, thanks for the detailed reply.  I wasn't sure what an A2000 would need, but you've made it crystal clear.

[amiman99]

Just got VT4000 in my A2000, so this is from my experience. I have 1Mb chip RAM and 6MB Fast RAM with 030 25MHz accelerator with 3.1 ROMs. The VT4000 works with these specs, BUT there are limitations.
1. Free as much as possible from chip RAM, like lower the WB resolution with 4 colors, remove 2nd floppy drive etc. Megachip is probably needed to get better performance.
2. Some effects will not work, not enough memory error.

During my install I found the hard way these limitations, one of them was the Chip RAM. The system would reboot during toaster start, I could not figure it out. Then I played with resolutions and found out that it works with 4 colors, not 16 which I had.

Also, I think you do need RGB monitor, w/o it you will get "  toaster Can not sync" error.

[Ami_GFX]

Just got VT4000 in my A2000, so this is from my experience. I have 1Mb chip RAM and 6MB Fast RAM with 030 25MHz accelerator with 3.1 ROMs. The VT4000 works with these specs, BUT there are limitations.
1. Free as much as possible from chip RAM, like lower the WB resolution with 4 colors, remove 2nd floppy drive etc. Megachip is probably needed to get better performance.
2. Some effects will not work, not enough memory error.

During my install I found the hard way these limitations, one of them was the Chip RAM. The system would reboot during toaster start, I could not figure it out. Then I played with resolutions and found out that it works with 4 colors, not 16 which I had.

Also, I think you do need RGB monitor, w/o it you will get "  toaster Can not sync" error.

What Toaster software are you using. 3.X and 4.X might be more demanding with a Toaster 4000. Early Toasters using 1.0 and 2.0 and a Toaster 2000 used pretty much the configuration I describe.

The Toaster was designed for analog NTSC composite video as broadcast in the 80s and 90s. Newer Digital HD video signals don't always do so well with the Toaster when scaled to NTSC composite and either won't sync properly or have artifacts and distortion. An old color video camera--one of the big awkward ones--works best to sync the Toaster. Older analog camcorders that use VHS and Video8 tapes work well too. VHS VCRs will work but due to the wow and flutter in the tapes, you will need a Time Base Corrector(TBC) card in your Toaster to clean up your video signal before the Toaster can sync to it. In general, I've found the Toaster has trouble syncing to all my newer video devices that have DVI or HDMI outputs but it does fine even with more recent DVD players and Satellite boxes that have just analog outputs. My old DBS satellite receiver from 4 years ago syncs fine but my new HD DBS2 receiver doesn't sync well at all.

[DeluxePainter]

For VT 2.0 you should have the following:
 

• 2 megs of chip memory
• 8 megs of fast memory
• Bigfoot power supply
• processor board
• hard drive
• 1 RGB monitor
• 2 color composite monitors

[Ami_GFX]

For VT 2.0 you should have the following:
 

• 2 megs of chip memory
• 8 megs of fast memory
• Bigfoot power supply
• processor board
• hard drive
• 1 RGB monitor
• 2 color composite monitors

Doesn't need the Bigfoot power supply unless you've loaded the Amiga with a lot of other cards like TBCs, an S-Video card, Vectorscope and a Flyer which takes a lot of power. Even so, the A2000 power suppy can handle a lot and I never had any problems when I had a lot of cards along with the Toaster. The A4000 Toasters had problems due to the weaker power supply when loaded with cards and expansion systems like the Highflyer came with bigger power supplies. It likes more memory but can get by on 6mb. That is what Newtek originally recommended. Does fine on 1mb chip ram but 2mb is better and 500K is not enough. The processor is mostly for lightwave and even with an 68040, rendering is not fast. The video switching, overlay and fading are done mostly in hardware and don't need a faster processor.

I sold my Toaster 2000 in the minimalistic configuration it came in which was: 1 A2000 with a Toaster 2000 card, a supra ram card with 6mb and an A4091 with a hard drive along with the Toaster 2.0 software and manual. When I bought it, I turned down the monitors which were analog composite. The original owners didn't use an RGB monitor It was an early 90s Toaster with the original Toaster label that went straight to the toaster software when you turned it on.  

That is the bare minimum for a Toaster 2000. I really rocking A2000 Toaster system will have an accelerator with fast ram--the Zorro II ram is slow ram and limited to 8mb, a 2mb chip memory adapter and a couple of TBC cards and maybe a Vectorscope and S-Video card as well. A TBC card or 2 will really enhance the basic video processing and without them, you are very limited as to the video signals you can put into the Toaster. Without 2 or more, you will not be able to sync 2 different video sources and you will only be able to switch between the frame buffers and 1 video source and not switch live video.

[RobertB]

For the Toaster 2000, it isn't much.

From the Video Toaster System 2.0 Manual, Video Toaster Appendices, Appendix 2, p.7, "Installing the Video Toaster Card" --

Installing the Video Toaster Card

Basic System Requirements
The following list describes the basic computer configuration required to run the Video Toaster. This is considered the absolute minimum. If you have purchased a Video Toaster Workstation, you need not concern yourself with this chapter.

* An Amiga with the "Fat Agnus" chip installed. This is the 1 megabyte Agnus chip. The newer 2 megabyte Agnus chip also will work with the Video Toaster.

...

* Four megabytes of fast RAM, sometimes called expansion RAM.

* Hard drive with 40 megabytes of free space (The Toaster software requires 40 megabytes for the installation procedure, but only 30 once the installation is completed.)

* Hard drive controller card that is auto-mounting and auto-booting. Systems sold today all follow these conventions. If you have purchased an older, used computer, you may need to have a dealer check this for you.

* One RGB or RGB/Composite monitor.

Note: if there is no RGB monitor attached to the Amiga's RGB port, then the Video Toaster's encoder will not function properly. If you choose not to use an RGB monitor, you will need to install an RGB terminator plug on the RGB output.

* One additional composite video monitor.

The above system meets the Toaster's basic requirements. NewTek highly recommend using one RGB monitor and 2 TV monitors, or 3 TV monitors, for ease of use. The "best" configuration for the Video Toaster is the one that will suit your particular needs.

---------------------------------------

From the Video Toaster System 2.0 Manual, Video Toaster Appendices, Appendix 8, p.35, "Expanding the Toaster" --

Expanding the Video Toaster

The Video Toaster system can be expanded in many ways. These are listed below. If you have questions, would like information, or want to order expansion products for your Video Toaster, contact NewTek Sales at 1-800-368-5441, or 1-612-881-2862.

Memory (RAM)

* Install additional standard speed (16-bit) RAM. With this memory, the maximum available RAM is 9 megabytes.

Benefits: Additional memory allows the CG, ToasterPaint, and Lightwave more overhead for basic operations (i.e., more fonts, or more objects, etc.) You will notice a difference in the "responsiveness" of the Toaster programs.

Speed (Performance)

* Install an accelerator card that holds faster (32-bit) RAM. With this memory, the maximum available RAM can be well above 9 MB, depending on the manufacturer of the accelerator. Note that if you intend to surpass the 9 MB total, all memory on the system should be of the 32-bit variety.

Benefits: An accelerator allows for a significant speed increase in the CG, ToasterPaint, and Lightwave. Minor speed enhancements will also be apparent in Switcher and ChromaF/X.

Memory (Storage)

* Install addition SCSI hard drives inside (or outside) the system case. The SCSI format allows for up to seven drives to be daisy-chained one after another. Drives may be hard drives, removable media (cartridge) drives, or magneto-optical drives.

Benefits: Greater amounts of memory for storage allow you to save a large number of framestore images, rgb files, projects, etc. without "filling up" your main drive.

...

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org

[Ami_GFX]

It's been a few years since I sold my Toaster 2000 and Manuals. I'd forgotten about the RGB plug. 4mb only, I thought it was 6. Amazing that so much could be done with so little.

I've been playing around with my recently revived Toaster 4000 a bit lately. I've had a few software conflicts getting the Toaster Software to work with my Picasso II card. I thought it might be something to do with the Flickermagic I recently installed but the original hard drive I had crashed and there was some conflict between the Cybergraphics configuration I reinstalled and the Toaster 3.1 and 4.2 software and I ended up reinstalling everything with Picasso96 and now it's running smoothly. The Toaster is a really demanding beast. I've had to put Cybergraphics on a separate bootable partition.