Classic Amiga - As Good As It Going To Get?

[amigadave]

With the Pegasos and A1 boards out now and the likelyhood of all future development (if any) being done for new MoBo's for MorphOS or AOS4.x, it appears to me that the Classic Amigas have gone as far as any one is going to take them with the Phase 5/DCE 060/PPC 604e cards and PCI add-on board adapters.
(I will believe in the Shark when I see one installed and working)

I have the 060-50mHz/PPC 604e-233mHz in my A4000 w/CyberVision 8mb video card.

Should I buy a PCI add-on board for my A4000 and get a VooDoo 3, 4, or 5 and expect that to be "As Good As It Gets"?  Is the VooDoo going to be much better than what I already have?

Is it likely that any faster/better graphic card drivers will ever be written for current or future PCI, AGP or PCIexpress adapter boards for Classic Amigas?   :-?

[Dr_Righteous]

From what I can tell, adding a GREX to that CyberStorm would be the most efficient PCI solution (being direct to the CS local bus)... I don't know if the Voodoo3 would be much better than the CyberVision or not (I would assume so given the faster GPU and more memory, but what good it does I can't say). Of course there's always the advantage of USB via that speedy PCI bus.

Yes, there are improvements that can be made, but the likelyhood of them ever comming to light is very low.

If I won the Mega Millions... Believe me... There'd be one final upgrade to the ol' A4000D's out there.

[AmiBoy]

If I were you and had the money I would buy a Mediator and Voodoo. Even a "lowly" Voodoo 3 3000 is more powerfull than the cybervision as it includes more option of Hardware acceleration than the Cybervision.

Also the Mediator has drivers for variuos great PCI soundcards, 10 and 100mbit ethernet cards and Even TV cards (which you can plug your 4000's composite output into and play classic games in a window on Workbench!!)

[PaSha]

@AmiBoy:

AmiBoy wrote:
If I were you and had the money I would buy a Mediator and Voodoo. Even a "lowly" Voodoo 3 3000 is more powerfull than the cybervision as it includes more option of Hardware acceleration than the Cybervision.

Also the Mediator has drivers for variuos great PCI soundcards, 10 and 100mbit ethernet cards and Even TV cards (which you can plug your 4000's composite output into and play classic games in a window on Workbench!!)

FYI: The A4000 has no Composite output, never did.
It can be added, ofcourse, by installing a board in the video slot (like the Electronic Design Video Converter board, that provides S-video and Composite out), but the Mediator4000Di doesn't have any video slot.....

[Argus]

If you just want to add a Voodoo 3 card in a desktop a4000, you could opt for the  Prometheus PCI card instead of the Mediator 4000Di.  You'd still have two Z3 slots and your video slot and you needn't get rid of the Cybervision card on the local processor slot.  I believe you'll need to use Picasso96 for rtg on the voodoo however, as you're probably using CybergraphXv4.x on the Cybervision right now.

[xaccrocheur]

Argus wrote:
If you just want to add a Voodoo 3 card in a desktop a4000, you could opt for the  Prometheus PCI card instead of the Mediator 4000Di.  You'd still have two Z3 slots and your video slot and you needn't get rid of the Cybervision card on the local processor slot.  I believe you'll need to use Picasso96 for rtg on the voodoo however, as you're probably using CybergraphXv4.x on the Cybervision right now.

Yes, BUT

Where in HEAVEN can one get his hands on Voodoos (3, 4, 5?) now ? I'm looking everywhere, and all I get are stupid PC gamers auctions "this is THE board, blah blah" at ridiculous prices !? I mean, the POINT of the PCI addons was to made cheap HWare available ! I understand that this stupid Moore trend is not Elbox's or Lucifer's fault, I'm just frustrated.

[PaSha]

xaccrocheur wrote:

Yes, BUT

Where in HEAVEN can one get his hands on Voodoos (3, 4, 5?) now ? I'm looking everywhere, and all I get are stupid PC gamers auctions "this is THE board, blah blah" at ridiculous prices !? I mean, the POINT of the PCI addons was to made cheap HWare available ! I understand that this stupid Moore trend is not Elbox's or Lucifer's fault, I'm just frustrated.

Uhm, 30 EUR from vesalia or kdh, perhaps?
or usually pretty cheap on ebay.de

-Paul

[amigakit]

And here it's in stock:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=voodoo

[Dr_Righteous]

@Amigakit

Shameless plug  :-P

[x56h34]

Classics are still a blast, as far as hobby enjoyment use goes. They can pretty much do everything that Pegasos II or AmigaOne can do, however slower, but as far as actual "useability" goes, they are pretty much on par (e.g. lack of up to date software).

Upgrading your system to a PCI busboard would surely bring you some performance improvement, however since you already have a CVPPC video card, it probably wouldn't be worth the upgrade, unless you are looking for an ethernet and sound card solution. In that case, I would go for it.