IDE - usb through a Spider - a good alternative to powerflyer?

[Boot_WB]

Hmmm... there doesn't seem to be a smiley for ducking out of the crossfire.   :-D

[jkirk]

Lordy, I wish Elbox would state that in their description - something along the lines of "USB 2.0- compatibility at USB 1.1 speeds

they need to just use the approved logos.

usb.org

wait i read this on their site

• Five USB 2.0 Hi-Speed ports: four external and one internal  
• Compatible with both USB 2.0 (480 Mbps) and USB 1.1 (12 Mbps) devices
• Compliant with EHCI, OHCI and PCI 2.2 standards
• All ports can handle high-speed, full-speed and low-speed transaction  

does that mean they are outright lying.

[Lemmink]

As far as I understand the Spider / Mediator combo is actually running USB 2 but only  as fast as it is able to get it going, resultin in not really that much more then USB 1.1 speed.
The same as with the 100 MBit drivers, where a 100 MBit card is faster then 10 MBit but by far not 10 time but only about 1.5 - 2 times.

Let's settle for "intentionally misleading information"

[Lemmink]

• All ports can handle high-speed, full-speed and low-speed transaction  

By sticking to the letter say only say that the ports (-> the card itself) is able to handle those speeds. They don't say a word about the performance in the Mediator unter AmigaOS  :rtfm:

[Piru]

@Lemmink

Indeed.

Elbox is also advertising Mediator 1200#? "transfer rate up to 264MB/s", but failing to mention it's only for PCI<->PCI transfers in optimum cases.

Sure it's a nice speed, but quite useless since most of the time you actually need the data to be moved to/from the system memory (or cpu). For that the actual speed is about 1/20th (or less) of the advertised speed.

[Robert17]

I have a Prometheus PCI bridge, they advertised the transfer speed to be 12 mb/s from System to video card, I'm guessing it'd be similar for the Mediator too?

Robert

[tjaoz]

@Boot_WB

Powerflyer transfers are higher as the data does not need to be processed through the stack eating the CPU power.


@Piru

> Well, I'd recommend you don't trust Elbox marketing talk anymore you trust anyone elses.

You really do not know that Mediator/Amithlon drivers for the Spider card are USB 2.0 (EHCI) and USB 1.1 (OHCI)?

At least you, a person who is involved in the promotion of pirating the Spider drivers, should know if Spider drivers are 2.0 or 1.1? :lol:


@jkirk

> usb 1.1 IS usb2 compatible. you an even say it is usb2.0. the hi
> speed portion of the usb2 standard is not supported afaik.

So you know wrong.

Spider is High-Speed USB 2.0 card. Spider card includes the USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 controllers. With the Spider card Elbox supplies drivers for both controllers: EHCI (USB 2.0) and OHCI (USB 1.1).

The speed of the USB 2.0 devices connected to the Spider card is limited by the turbo card connected to the Amiga. Amiga turbo cards have not enough power to process USB data faster. The speed of the USB 2.0 devices connected to the Spider on the system running Poseidon with Spider drivers under Amithlon is exactly the same like with the Windows USB 2.0 drivers.


@Piru

> Elbox is also advertising Mediator 1200#? "transfer rate up to 264MB/s", but failing
> to mention it's only for PCI<->PCI transfers in optimum cases.

The same applies e.g. for Bugatti (www.bugatti-cars.de). They are advertising Bugatti Veyron 16.4 running at velocity 400km/h, but failing to mention it's only in optimum cases. :crazy:

Do you think Bugatti should mention in their site that you will not be able to drive their Bugatti Veyron at 400km/h due to the road quality or speed limitation in your country? :lol:  

[Piru]

@tjaoz

a person who is involved in the promotion of pirating the Spider drivers

I am doing no such thing.

You must be seriously confused somehow.

The same applies e.g. for Bugatti (www.bugatti-cars.de). They are advertising Bugatti Veyron 16.4 running at velocity 400km/h, but failing to mention it's only in optimum cases.

Do you think Bugatti should mention in their site that you will not be able to drive their Bugatti Veyron at 400km/h due to the road quality or speed limitation in your country?

But is the Bugatti Veyron limited to 20km/h?

[ChaosLord]

Piru wrote:

Elbox is also advertising Mediator 1200#? "transfer rate up to 264MB/s", but failing to mention it's only for PCI<->PCI transfers in optimum cases.

Sure it's a nice speed, but quite useless since most of the time you actually need the data to be moved to/from the system memory (or cpu). For that the actual speed is about 1/20th (or less) of the advertised speed.

It is less than that.  I have a Mediator in my A1200T/060.  I have run busspeedtest on it many times.  I consistently get 9 MB/s which is only 2 MB/s faster than I can transfer data from slow old chipram.

There is a jumper on the Mediator that I can change which lets me then get 11-12 MB/s transfers but then the computer randomly crashes.  I think due to the elbox gfx card driver is not compatible with 12 MB/s transfers.


Elbox annoyingly and intentionally does not mention these facts on their website.

[tjaoz]

@Piru

>> a person who is involved in the promotion of pirating the Spider drivers
> I am doing no such thing.

Yes, you do.

Even in this thread you link to your website which encourages pirating Spider drivers, where there are notes how to crack Spider drivers. Moreover, you also offer software tools needed for pirating these drivers.

> But is the Bugatti Veyron limited to 20km/h?

Sure, it is. In residential areas. :lol:

[tjaoz]

@ChaosLord

Busspeedtest to the graphic card in Mediator measures the maximum speed at which the turbo card can read the $200000 -> $9FFFFF area. Some A1200 turbo cards do at 6MB/s, others at 8-9MB/s, still others at 12-14MB/s, and some at 18MB/s. It all depends on the hardware design of the turbo card.

If busspeedtest in your A1200/060 reads 9MB/s, it means that your turbo card cannot access this area faster. It is the hardware limitation of your turbo card -- not limitation of Mediator.

Maybe you should submit complaints with the designer/producer of your turbo card, if they "annoyingly and intentionally do not mention these facts on their website"? :lol:

[Piru]

@tjaoz

Even in this thread you link to your website which encourages pirating Spider drivers

No, it does not.

where there are notes how to crack Spider drivers.

No there isn't.

Moreover, you also offer software tools needed for pirating these drivers.

No, I don't.

Again, I don't know how you manage to see the things you claim to see, but clearly you're confused somehow. Maybe you haven't actually checked out what the code in question does, or have problems understanding the technical issues handled there?

Clearly if there is something illegal on my web page, you should contact my ISP and Elbox right away. My ISP's abuse email address is abuse@kymp.net.

Remember to provide the evidence.

Busspeedtest to the graphic card in Mediator measures the maximum speed at which the turbo card can read the $200000 -> $9FFFFF area. Some A1200 turbo cards do at 6MB/s, others at 8-9MB/s, still others at 12-14MB/s, and some at 18MB/s. It all depends on the hardware design of the turbo card.

If busspeedtest in your A1200/060 reads 9MB/s, it means that your turbo card cannot access this area faster. It is the hardware limitation of your turbo card -- not limitation of Mediator.

So basically you're suggesting the A1200 CPU Slot interface could do upto 264MB/s with proper accelerator...

You must be kidding.

[Crumb]

With the mediator 4000 it seems it has DMA access to the motherboard space (presumably limited to the 16mb on board, not the extended fastram on a turbocard). Does the mediator 4000 then allow USB2 speeds?

Mediator4000 can't do DMA transfers to the motherboard.

[jkirk]

Spider is High-Speed USB 2.0 card. Spider card includes the USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 controllers. With the Spider card Elbox supplies drivers for both controllers: EHCI (USB 2.0) and OHCI (USB 1.1).

but if the intended application cannot benefit from that speed why claim it? you can't tell me it was designed for use between two pci slots. this is just a misleading statement nothing more.

Do you think Bugatti should mention in their site that you will not be able to drive their Bugatti Veyron at 400km/h due to the road quality or speed limitation in your country?

no i don't since it is obviously not designed for street driving at 400 km/h. but if on a closed circuit track you could not reach the 400 km/h then i would have major problems with the claim.

to put this into perspective. the government advertises you are not allowed to go faster than the limit. however you have nobody telling you that this card is limited in speed on an amiga w/pci slots. therefore i do believe they have a responsibility to tell us that speed is limited.

[Boot_WB]

:whack: :flame: :destroy: :argue:

Yikes, (ducks under table to avoid chairs being thrown across bar)

I'm almost afraid to ask, for fear of inciting further aggression in the community  :-)

From: http://www.elbox.com/products/mediator_pci_4000d.html
"
• DMA to A4000 motherboard space
Mediator PCI 4000D includes a busmastering controller supporting transfers between PCI cards and the A4000 motherboard space.
"

Is this, then, inaccurate?
If the 4000 supports dma to the mediator from fast & chip memory (and a noticable speed difference in memory-pci transfers) I'd consider making the switch from my 1200 - otherwise I probably won't bother.

[Karlos]

tjaoz wrote:

If busspeedtest in your A1200/060 reads 9MB/s, it means that your turbo card cannot access this area faster. It is the hardware limitation of your turbo card -- not limitation of Mediator.

More than once I got the kind folks here to run all kinds of custom benchmarking tools I'd written to assess the real speed at which the CPU can access VRAM on their RTG cards (many mediators there) etc.

8-10MB/s is quite normal for VRAM write speeds just about every mediator system tested, regardless of CPU / mediator system.