AmiVD Zorro II/III graphics card... ?

[HammerD]

Does anyone know about the availability of the new Graphics card for Classic amigas?

I saw this on computer city NL's website:

AmiVD 149.00EUR
 
 
- 3dfx graphics processor
- 128-bit 2D/3D Video Accelerator
- 16MB SDRAM
- 166MHz graphics core/memory clock speed
- 350 MHz RAMDAC
- 166 Megapixels/second
- 333 Megatexels/second fill rate
- 7 million polygons per second processing
- 2D Resolution up to 2046x1536 @ 75Hz
- Amiga ZorroII/III interface bus


The web link points to AHT Europe, but there is no information about this product on that website.

[Karlos]

Vapourware?

Unfortunate name, anyway :lol:

A Z3 gfx card with a half modern GPU would be a welcome addition for classic systems though. The improvement in bus speed alone (existing PCI expansions seem pretty weak in this regard) would be a healthy boost for 3D especially. The majority of classic systems are held up simply transferring the geometry data to the card long before you get to the physical rasterisation limits of the hardware.

[platon42]

> Vapourware?

Nope.

[Karlos]

platon42 wrote:
> Vapourware?

Nope.

That's good to hear. Are they available?

[x56h34]

I just hope it's not a Voodoo 3 installed onto a ZIII dongle (e.g. X-Surf style design). ;-)

I'd probably be interested in buying it in any case though, as long as it would be faster than current PCI busboard video card solutions. :-)

[platon42]

> That's good to hear. Are they available?

Not yet (obviously and "sigh").

[Lemmink]

> I just hope it's not a Voodoo 3 installed onto a ZIII dongle (e.g. X-Surf style design).

Knbowing that AHT aquired the Prometheus technology I assume it will be some kind of singleslot Prometheus with a bog standard VooDoo3 attached. But who knows maybe they`ll put the (Prometheus) PCI bridge directly on a new board with a small batch of Avenger Chips they found somewhere, though I strongly doubt that the cost per card would then be below 500 EUR, let alone the mentioned 150 EUR.

> I'd probably be interested in buying it in any case though, as long as it would be faster than current PCI busboard video card solutions.

How should that be possible. It is the same technik used in Mediator and Prometheus (PCI->Zorro adaption) and it is the Zorrobus that limits the transferrate.
In theory only the G-Rex approach should be able to deliver better transferrates, but hey bottched the job somewhere along the way.

[Argus]

It would be nice to see a ZIII version of the Prometheus/Voodoo3 setup that could then fit in the standard A3000/4000 cases. The problem with the Prometheus right now is you need right angle pci adaptors and even then the Voodoo3 board sits right on the other pci connectors with the gpu facing down (it gets really hot and is hard to cool).  A better design would be to put all the chips on a single board facing up (like other Amiga graphics cards), so you could add a proper heatsink and fan to the gpu.  It'd be even better if it had a monitor passthru like a CV64 or GVP Spectrum.  I, for one, hope this new card sees the light of day.  I'd buy one.

[Palpatine]

Hi,

We will publish more information on this product once it is ready for production.

All Amiga resellers have already been notified that this product is coming late last year, so they will be able to provide information about it, as well as the card itself soon.

Best regards,
Ron van Herk
AHT Europe, ltd.

[patrik]

@Argus:

Yeah, I think everyone who has ever owned a graphics card equipped with a monitor passthrough will agree that it is required. It is _very_ convenient to automatically get both outputs directed to one monitor.


/Patrik

[cv643d]

Any news about the card?

[A1200Power]

Hi,

Iam living in the netherlands and i can clearly tell you this that this card has been on the website for quite some time for now about 2 years. He closed his shop and only does postoders now. The shop he owned always was a big mess with fungus on the walls.

I once ordered a Cybergfx cd from him wich took about 2.5 months to get here. Eventually i canceled my order and a money refund was processed.

Also his shop lies next to his home on where the adress from AHT refers to, so COMPCITY and AHT are the same.

DON'T EXPECT ANYTHING SOON, BETTER EXPECT IT NEVER  :lol:

[Lemmink]

I don`t know about AHT, but Michael Böhmer is still working on the card. He is currently doing his exams, so it runs at a low priority for the time being.

[MozzerFan]

@a1200Power

I don't think Ron deserves that. :-?
I did purchase a few things from computer city myself,
and yes sometimes I had to wait a long time for the products to arrive, but it was well worth the wait.
They always delivered the goods. Not to forget that Ron also  helped out a number of people to get their PPC cards back from DCE as I understand it. Anyway I think Ron is a very reliable person. Oh and BTW I visited his shop
a couple of times and I thought it was great.

with kind regards,
Lloyd

[ManRaven]

This sounds great! I have an old A2000 with a 68040 in it that really needs a decent graphics card. If this thing will work on the A2000, I certainly would buy one.