Best PCI Bus extension for A1200 Tower

[TorajaBoy]

Hello Folks!

I just want to put my A1200 Desktop into A Mickronick old metal tower (not the plastic one!)

I'm looking for the Best solution between DCE G-Rex one a Elbox Mediator LT4 or SX one.

I have a Blizzard PPC card, it must be a REV 2.0

I know that the G-Rex isn't sold anymore and apparently OS4 will not support G-rex Bus board....  but I didn't see nothing about the Mediator support too!

G-Rex support only 10 mb network card, only one type of sound card and no USB controler...

But what is the speed difference between GREX and Mediator or software installation really easy on one system and totaly crap on the other one??

If you allready  experienced one of these PCI bus extension or both I'm really need your feedback!

What is for you the Best Voodoo PCI video card model for use it in these bus...

Thanks For your Help

Regards

TorajaBoy

[amigakit]

The Mediator LT4 and Mediator SX are both good solutions.  They have a wide range of drivers (TV, USB, Voodoo 2D/3D, SB128, ForteMedia FM801), good support from a still active Amiga Company - a rarity these days and the drivers are still updated periodically.

[Lando]

The G-Rex is faster but limited in drivers and no longer made or supported by DCE, and if your PPC card dies then you can't use the G-Rex any more.

Mediator is still made and supported and will work on pretty much any Amiga with a turbocard from an 030 upwards.

Drivers installation is a bit of a chore on either.  G-Rex gfx drivers use CGX (like MorphOS) and Mediator uses Picasso96 (like OS4), although there are CGX v3 drivers for Mediator + S3 Virge and a Beta CGX v3 driver for Mediator + Voodoo3 floating around.

The best Voodoo PCI card for the Mediator is the Voodoo 3 3000.  I have used a Voodoo5 in an A1200 + Mediator and it didn't run any faster (actually according to P96speed, certain benchmarks were slower), and the Voodoo drivers don't take advantage of the 2nd GPU on the Voodoo5.  

[TorajaBoy]

Thanks to Amigakit and Lando

About GREX bad new!! My BPPC is a REV. 0 and not two... I get confused because I ve got also a BPPC REV 2 with the last GREX Firmware but she was dead I sent it to AmigaCenter in France but Jean-Jacques couldn't fix it ... So R.I.P. But Amiga Center does really good job even if they couldn't able to do a miracle ...

I have a Bvision card for my Blizzard but it doesn't seems to work too

Hava someboday allready success to install Bvision card on a BPPC REV 0??

I have Cybergraphix V4.3 Driver and jerky color

Some advice are welcome...

I will take a look at Elbox website

See ya

TorajaBoy

[x56h34]

Hava someboday allready success to install Bvision card on a BPPC REV 0??

AFAIK, only some old BPPC rev 0 cards (amongst the first batch released by Phase 5) had trouble with BVision, however in general rev 0 BPPC should work fine with BVision.

Rev 0 cards actually may work with Grex 1200 too, but it also may not. It's not supposed to work, but some members of this board including myself have actually had success. Officially, only Rev 2 cards should work, but...try and see. :-)

[TorajaBoy]

Hi X56h34...

Humm...  I see, I know LordSpider and I allready met him.

And he told me also that some REV 0 boards working with GREX

Sadly I couldn't make the Test I doesn't have a GREX board

I will try again to install the Bvision Video Driver

You have a nice BPPC too mine is 060 @ 64 Mhz and 603e @ 270 Mhz... of course will extra cool Fan!  :-D

Thanks mate

TorajaBoy

[djbase]

You could use MorphOS with G-REX...