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Author Topic: Now..help getting X-Surf 100 & Rapid Road to work  (Read 7849 times)

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Offline matt3k

Re: Now..help getting X-Surf 100 & Rapid Road to work
« Reply #59 from previous page: March 26, 2016, 01:10:58 PM »
Quote from: WeiXing3D;806364
Guys, thank you for all the advice about a gfx card for my A3000. I think I will just keep my eyes open for a PII + GVP Spectrum. No rush, since I need to recup.

I will move on to my next project in a new thread coming a forum near you...:)


IMHO and being and Amiga 3000 owner since 1991 and having tried about every possible combinations of graphics cards and setups.  I would stay away from the picasso II and the spectrum cards, they are both fine cards but the Cybervision 64 is the best plug and play zorro 3 card for the 3000D.  In normal use it is much faster than lower end cards and is has a path through.  The Retina BLT Z3 fills the space between the picasso II and the cybervision 64.  It is a real fast card, not as fast as the cybervision and it lacks a paththrough.  If your going to spend real money get the CV64, it makes a much better improvement in useability and speed than an 040  card does.

The only reason I would install a Mediator Board is to get DVI out and higher resolutions, other than that I haven't found any other real advantage to owning one.  The speed difference between a radeon and the cv64 is not that great really, running my 3000D on the CV64 in 1024x768 and the radeon in HD (granted it is a much higher screen) is pretty close in performance.

Again this is my experience with the 3000D.  Good luck.
 

Offline WeiXing3DTopic starter

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Re: Now..help getting X-Surf 100 & Rapid Road to work
« Reply #60 on: March 26, 2016, 03:21:32 PM »
Quote from: matt3k;806380
IMHO and being and Amiga 3000 owner since 1991 and having tried about every possible combinations of graphics cards and setups.  I would stay away from the picasso II and the spectrum cards, they are both fine cards but the Cybervision 64 is the best plug and play zorro 3 card for the 3000D.  In normal use it is much faster than lower end cards and is has a path through.  The Retina BLT Z3 fills the space between the picasso II and the cybervision 64.  It is a real fast card, not as fast as the cybervision and it lacks a paththrough.  If your going to spend real money get the CV64, it makes a much better improvement in useability and speed than an 040  card does.

The only reason I would install a Mediator Board is to get DVI out and higher resolutions, other than that I haven't found any other real advantage to owning one.  The speed difference between a radeon and the cv64 is not that great really, running my 3000D on the CV64 in 1024x768 and the radeon in HD (granted it is a much higher screen) is pretty close in performance.

Again this is my experience with the 3000D.  Good luck.


Thank you for sharing your experience; your comments are appreciated.

Right now, I need to recup from my recent spending spree.

Honestly, I feel more attracted to the Mediator PCI solution,but I'm still open to the Picasso II alternative. I'm not building a high performance machine, but rather something functional and practical to use.

Unfortunately, either solution is a long shot due to the scarcity of those cards in the market, and when they pop up, the asking price is higher than the price of your machine :furious:
Amiga 1200 fully loaded by Aclii.
AmigaONE X5000 with OS4.1 FE
FPGA Arcade board in miniITX case with AmigaOS3.9 and WB 3.1.
MorphOS 3.9 in Mac Mini G4 1.5GHz, PowerBook & Power Mac G5
Acer Aspire One with AROS Icaros Desktop 2.1.1 &
MiST FPGA Minimig Amiga AGA Workbench 3.9 PFS3 configuration.
 

Offline mechy

Re: Now..help getting X-Surf 100 & Rapid Road to work
« Reply #61 on: March 26, 2016, 04:53:08 PM »
Quote from: Oldsmobile_Mike;806360
Personally I'd ditch that '040 card like a hot potato and get a model that's compatible with Zorro 3 - either a different '040, or an '060.  But that's just me, I don't know OP's budget.  ;)

I had two Picasso 2's and didn't like them much, but that was only because I couldn't get their pass-through to work with an Indivision.  AFAIK it should work fine with the A3K's build-in HD15 output.

Never could find a PII+, GVP Spectrum is the bee's knees, however.  Does Z 2 and Z 3, so if he could find one of those he could run it in 2 now, and flip it to 3 when he gets a real accelerator.  Sorry OP, that's another jumper you're going to have to flip, though!  :lol:

Mike,
   the 3640 is completely compatible with zorro3, its not that, its Jens cards!
all old video cards etc were compatible just fine and some even supported buster 9.

The cv64 is one of the best a3000 gfx cards with the passthru.

using the x-surf 100 on zorro2 wont likely be that much difference in speed since zorro2 is still capable of 3.5MB/s max and i dont think x-surf hits that zII or in zIII mode(i could be wrong here?)
 

Offline mechy

Re: Now..help getting X-Surf 100 & Rapid Road to work
« Reply #62 on: March 26, 2016, 04:59:03 PM »
Quote from: matt3k;806380
IMHO and being and Amiga 3000 owner since 1991 and having tried about every possible combinations of graphics cards and setups.  I would stay away from the picasso II and the spectrum cards, they are both fine cards but the Cybervision 64 is the best plug and play zorro 3 card for the 3000D.  In normal use it is much faster than lower end cards and is has a path through.  The Retina BLT Z3 fills the space between the picasso II and the cybervision 64.  It is a real fast card, not as fast as the cybervision and it lacks a paththrough.  If your going to spend real money get the CV64, it makes a much better improvement in useability and speed than an 040  card does.

The only reason I would install a Mediator Board is to get DVI out and higher resolutions, other than that I haven't found any other real advantage to owning one.  The speed difference between a radeon and the cv64 is not that great really, running my 3000D on the CV64 in 1024x768 and the radeon in HD (granted it is a much higher screen) is pretty close in performance.


Again this is my experience with the 3000D.  Good luck.

Really? I run the radeon in the 4000 @ 1900x1200x32 and i find its sits around waiting for stuff to do, way faster than the piv and cv64 which cant even do close to the same res. as a matter of fact those cards have noticeable slowdown at 1024x768x24 in my experience.
mediator is expensive but when you pay $1 for a 100Mbit card,nec usb card(modded) and such,$5 terratec 512i sound card... etc..it might make sense.It is more of a hassle to install and configure though.  don't get me wrong i love z3 cards :)

CV64 all the way for the 3000 otherwise!
 

Offline dannyp1

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Re: Now..help getting X-Surf 100 & Rapid Road to work
« Reply #63 on: March 26, 2016, 05:39:29 PM »
I use CV64's in all of my 3000's except for my UX which I have an a2410 in.  I agree that the CV64 is the best option for the 3000.  I used to pick them up pretty cheap on EBay when everyone was hot for the PIV but recently the CV64's have been going for close to the PIV prices.
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: Now..help getting X-Surf 100 & Rapid Road to work
« Reply #64 on: March 26, 2016, 06:36:57 PM »
Quote from: mechy;806384
Mike,
   the 3640 is completely compatible with zorro3, its not that, its Jens cards!

using the x-surf 100 on zorro2 wont likely be that much difference in speed since zorro2 is still capable of 3.5MB/s max and i dont think x-surf hits that zII or in zIII mode(i could be wrong here?)


Haha, I know, I'm just not a fan of the 3640, especially in desktop 3000's. ;)

RapidRoad gets 6+ MB/sec in ZIII, 2-3MB/sec in ZIII, and around 700k/sec on clockport. That's based on reading various reviews, my experiences, etc. Your mileage may vary! ;)
Amiga 500: 2MB Chip|16MB Fast|30MHz 68030+68882|3.9|Indivision ECS|GVP A500HD+|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|Cocolino|SCSI DVD-RAM
Amiga 2000: 2MB Chip|136MB Fast|50MHz 68060|3.9|Indivision ECS + GVP Spectrum|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|AD516|X-Surf 100|RapidRoad|Cocolino|SCSI CD-RW
 Amiga videos and other misc. stuff at https://www.youtube.com/CompTechMike/videos
 

Offline WeiXing3DTopic starter

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Re: Now..help getting X-Surf 100 & Rapid Road to work
« Reply #65 on: March 26, 2016, 06:47:08 PM »
@Oldsmobile_Mike
I'm trying to install these WB enhancing tools, but I found that these 2 links are not longer working:

FullPalette.prefs:  http://home.exetel.com.au/amiga/FullPalette.prefs
Rebel’s optimized 16 colors palette for FullPalette.

SilverSkin:  http://home.exetel.com.au/amiga/Skins.lha
2 beautiful Skins made by Rebel (Green-Blue) for Windows, Titlebar etc (for use with VisualPrefs).

Do you happen to know if they can be found somewhere else? Google is not helping me.


Quote from: Oldsmobile_Mike;806267
No graphics card?  You're going to be stuck with a maximum of 16 colors if you want to run your Workbench at 640x400 / 640x512.  No greens left in your palette?  Now is the time you want to research the FullPalette program and the Rebel palette.

I'll just leave this excellent blog entry here for you to read and study at your leisure:

http://www.mfilos.com/2012/01/guide-making-workbench-prettier-using.html

Also you're going to want the Peter K. icon library:  http://aminet.net/package/util/libs/IconLib_46.4

(more info on that, as well as later test versions, here:  http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=64079)


...now be prepared to spend the next 904857945687 hours customizing your Workbench.  I've been doing mine for over 25 years and it still ain't perfect, yet.  ;)
Amiga 1200 fully loaded by Aclii.
AmigaONE X5000 with OS4.1 FE
FPGA Arcade board in miniITX case with AmigaOS3.9 and WB 3.1.
MorphOS 3.9 in Mac Mini G4 1.5GHz, PowerBook & Power Mac G5
Acer Aspire One with AROS Icaros Desktop 2.1.1 &
MiST FPGA Minimig Amiga AGA Workbench 3.9 PFS3 configuration.