Graphics Card- Zorro II

[Miked]

I've look on the Amiga Hardware reference website, but figured I'd ask for the wisdom of the community.

Which Zorro II style graphics card was/is the most powerful and useful?  

Which Zorro III style graphics card was/is the most powerful and useful?

Which Card do you have in your computer? And which card would you like to have in your computer?

-Miked

[x56h34]

I guess it's a toss up between Picasso IV and CV643D, as both can work in either ZII or III mode.

I have an A2000 system with Blizzard 2060 and Picasso IV, and I can't complain. :-) The built-in scandoubler of the Picasso was the reason why I went for it.

CV643D is the only way of having accelerated 3D graphics with A2000 though, but I hear that the 3D capabilities of CV643D are very poor compared to Bvision or Voodoo 3.

[Piru]

Well, this depends a bit on your definition of "power", but here is the winner by most measures:

Picasso IV

My A1200 had BVisionPPC, my pegasos II has ATI Radeon 8500LE 64MB and my Pegasos I has ATI Radeon 9200 128MB. The excuse for a PC has ATI Radeon 9600PRO.

[Crumb]

A Picasso4 is a great Z2/Z3 card. It has modules for TV output, TV input and Sound. It includes a programmable flicker fixer that allows you to watch OCS/ECS/AGA modes at 100Hz for example. Super-HiRes is not displayed correctly (but it's useable).

If you can't get a Picasso4 another common and very nice card is a Cybervision64/3D. It's a Virge with 4MB and Z2/Z3. Its bus is slower and doesn't have integrated scandoubler, it's optional and it's not 24bit (so colours won't look as good as with a real one)

Another very nice Z3 card is the Cybervision64 (without the "3D" suffix). It's zorro3 only and its bus is very fast. Its blitter (a Trio64) is slower than a Virge, but it's quite good.

With ZorroIII you can also plug in a PCI busboard like Prometheus (it's a Zorro3<->PCI bridge). In that case you can put a Voodoo3 to your miggy, but you'll lose autoswitch and scandoubler/flickerfixer

With PPC cards you can also use BlizzardVisionPPC/CyberVisionPPC, Permedia2 based cards with 8MB, these are very fast and nice but you need a ppc card (the connector is a custom one).

A RetinaZ3 is OK. A RetinaZ2 is rubbish because it doesn't support Cybergraphics/Picasso96 so DO NOT BUY ONE.

The rest of the cards (PicassoII, GVP Spectrum) are slow for my taste. Most of Z2-only cards have slow blitters and you will have to use 60Hz screenmodes at 800x600 when you want to use 16 or 24 bits, but anyway these are "slow" cards (but miles better than plain AGA if you plan to use WB)

[Tahoe]

I have 4 Picasso IV's... That explains how much I like them, as a whole. Specially, as mentioned before, the flicker fixer and built in switcher.

[CLS2086]

@Crumb : have you look about the possibility of the "standard" VESA  connector on the voodoo 3 ?
http://www.hardwarebook.net/connector/av/vesafeature.html
I never try...

Take care about the A2000 (Z2 only), rev. under 6.2 may not work well with an RTG card...

[Jose]

IIRC, weren't the Z3 transfers in the CV64 (non  3D, the 3D model is slow) faster than anything else ?

[patrik]

@Jose:

Yes, in terms of bus-speed, the CV64 is the fastest ZorroIII card, whilst the CV64/3d is the slowest. Quite ironic.


/Patrik

[motrucker]

It all hinges on which Amiga the card is going in. The PIV is an excellent card (I use one in a 4000T) but in my old A2000, I use an old GVP Spectrum that works quite well indeed.

[Motormouth]

Everyone has already answered the best cards for zorro III

if you have a zorro II computer and are not going to upgrade to a zorro III, I suggest looking at a picasso II or picasso II+.  The picasso II was one of the first rtg card to be mass produced for the amiga.  They only have 2 meg (a few old picasso II have one meg) but are cheaper an are fully compatible with almost every rtg software package on earth.  The Picasso II has a lot of software written specifically for it.

I have had a picasso II+ and had it work in an A2000, an A500 with a slingshot pro, and my A3000 (before I got a prometheus and a 3dfx Voodoo 3 3000)

[Miked]

The Picasso II has a lot of software written specifically for it.

I have had a picasso II+ and had it work in an A2000, an A500 with a slingshot pro, and my A3000 (before I got a prometheus and a 3dfx Voodoo 3 3000)

So, if you had the choice for an Amiga 500 fitted with a Zorro expansion, between the Cybervision 64/3D and the Picasso II (not the II+)..the winner would go to the Picasso II?



-Miked

[zipper]

CV64/3D is so much faster on 8+bit modes that there is no idea to consider PII (have had both on my A500T).

[keropi]

don't forget the piccoloSD64! it is great and runs in both zII, zIII... tested it only in zII mode on my 1200, way better than my previous picassoII...

[motrucker]

I almost forgot about the GVP IV24. This is a bit different than your "average" video card, since it includes PIP and all sorts of TV options. It needs both Zorro and video slots which makes it near impossible to use with an A500 using an zorro expaion setup. It does work well with the A2000 however.

[Motormouth]

@Miked

Of course the Cybervision is a better card.  If money were no object, I would definately pick the Cybervision 64/3D.  

But Why bother using a Zorro III compable card on a 16-bit Zorro II bus at all?  The Picasso II is fine for most tasks.  You should be able to find a Picasso II for less money.
 
If you have a zorro II amiga and plan on upgrading to a zorro III system, the Picasso IV or Cybervision makes sense, but if you are staying with a zorro II system why bother.  Yes the video performance is faster but you loose much of that advantage on the zorro II bus.

As for the 3D features of the Cybervision 64/3D, They are mostly useless unless you have a 68040 and even then you really need a 68060 or PPC.

Two problems do exist with the Picasso II,  It is based on a Cirrus Logic GD5426 or GD5428 video chip that limits its horizontal scan frequency, this limits its non-interlace resolution.  If my memory serves at 1024x768 and above you must use interlaced resolutions.  And the 2-meg of video ram is also a limitation as you are limited to 16 bit color depth at 1024x768 and 8 bit at 1280x1024.