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: