Anyone used ELBOX's ZIV + Mediator VIV? opinions?

[keropi]

Anyone used Elbox's combination of ZIV busboard + the Mediator ZIV??? any opinions? is it good? problems? should I grab one?
Thanx!

[doctorq]

he Mediator ZIV works like any other Mediator (more like the Mediator SX than 1200 though) so the supported list of cards on ELBOX's homepage should be valid.

The busboard also works as expected, but don't count on being able to use every Zorro board available in the Zorro slots. However the "popular" cards works; I used a CyberVision 64/3D, a X-Surf ethernet card and a Algor USB Pro card in the Zorro slots.

[pVC]

I have ZIV and MediatorZIV with b1260 etc. It has worked fine and I've used many cards in it. At the moment I have Voodoo3 2000, Realtek 10/100 network card, Terratec tv-card and Spider II USB -card in PCI bus and Delfina Lite in Zorro slot. I also have used CV64/3D, MultiFaceCard3 and Hydra Amiganet 1.1 (compatibility fixed) in Zorro bus. Two gfx cards worked also fine together for dual monitor setup (CV3D&V3)... or actually triple as I had TV in RGB port

Only problem was with my MicroniK (Classic, metal) tower as it didn't have backplanes low enough. There wasn't holes for two lowest PCI slot. I used one of them anyway by using network card there and bringing the cable from other hole But after getting the USB card I used little bit metal saw and made room for everything. There's a pics of whole mess: http://jpv.wmhost.com/jpv_computers/2006_a1200_cablescards.jpg http://jpv.wmhost.com/jpv_computers/2006_a1200_insidecloseup.jpg

[keropi]

thanx for the info guys, and now the final and most crucial q: are there any strange whdload problems with the mediator + it's drivers?

[pVC]

Why would there be? I haven't used much whdload games, but those couple I've tried have worked. Of course you need AGA output for those, but I guess that's not the question BTW. TV-card can be used like "poor man's" scandoubler. You can put cable between Amiga's composite out and TV-card's video in and then watch PAL-modes through TV-software. It even works with non-multitasking stuff like whdload games.

[doctorq]

Only one problem; there is a envarc setting that needs to be VoodooInt = Yes, and WHDLoad needs to have VoodooInt = No. You can set this in the WHDLoad.prefs file though, so it's no big deal.

[keropi]

oh, nice :-D
the video switch prob has been solved with a sd/ff + multimedia&design monitor switch ! :-D

[x56h34]

The only thing that will suck, as with any other Mediator but moreso with Mediator ZIV is the 8MB ZII memory window.

I'd assume that there would be even less GFX memory available for W3D after installing one or more ZII cards, as those need to be configured in / take a chunk of the ZII memory space.

[keropi]

yeah, I know about that issue, but frankly, when it was the last time u enjoyed a w3d game? EVERYTHING I tried sucked big time in terms of framerate... could be the bppc that has a 603 cpu, maybe on csppc things are better... but on my system playing ppc-Q with 15-20 fps it just suck for me... I really don't intend to do any 3d in my amiga...