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Author Topic: PCI graphics cards with PassThru  (Read 7896 times)

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Offline motorollin

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #29 from previous page: July 08, 2006, 09:31:55 AM »
I have a Voodoo 3 3000 on my Mediator. I have minimal electronics experience but let me know if there's anythingI can check/test for you. This is exciting :-)

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Offline rare_j

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #30 on: July 08, 2006, 10:05:07 AM »
I have an ATI PCI card in my current PC that has a connector on it. The connector was for an ATI ISA TV tuner card. The TV tuner card drew power from the ISA slot but was connected by a cable (like a floppydisk cable) to the PCI graphics card.

It was a pretty cool combo; your TV ariel went in the TV card and you could have TV in a window, or as the windows backdrop even.  

The PCI card is branded xpert@play, and was basically a rage pro chip, (or was it rage IIc ?)which has the mach64 core.
I later had an ATI Rage 128, which did better 3D but had a similar clockport-like connector on it; ATI had to send me a new cable with some pins crossed over in order to use it with their TV tuner. I dont have that card anymore. I may still have the ISA TV tuner and cables somewhere though.

ATI ages ago phased out the separate TV card in favour of the "all in wonder" which was everything on one card.

Might be worth looking into.
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Offline motorollin

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #31 on: July 24, 2006, 07:45:05 PM »
Is anything happening with this? I for one would love to loop the Amiga's RGB/Composite output back in to my Voodoo. From the looks of it we're not even sure it's possible.

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moto
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Offline alewis

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #32 on: July 24, 2006, 11:20:20 PM »
@alexh

Try here, wealth of programming/developer information on the Voodoo series and architecture

3dfx technical reference

specifically, scroll down about half way and look for the file  3dfx Voodoo3 Reference  its about 1200kb in size.

Hope it helps.
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Offline motorollin

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #33 on: July 24, 2006, 11:31:42 PM »
That programming manual makes reference to a video input. Hmmm..... :-)

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moto
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Offline alexhTopic starter

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #34 on: July 25, 2006, 08:30:56 PM »
Unfortunately the video input has to be in REC601 format (Y'CbCr) sometimes known as YUV.

Normal Amiga output is of course RGB.

There is a SLIM chance that the VP101 video encoder, used to generate composite, has it's REC 601 outputs enabled.

If it does, it should be possible to create a clip which clips over the VP101 and connects to the Voodoo feature connector and allows you to display Amiga native screens both in a window and full screen.

Some more research required, and as I dont have either an A1200 or a PCI board, or a Voodoo 3 I dont think I will do anymore.

It is VERY possible that with only a small investment of time you could make a DIRT cheap, medium quality (some data loss through 2x colour space conversions), scandoubler which may have the extra cool ability to be displayed in an RTG window.
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Offline motorollin

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #35 on: July 25, 2006, 08:37:32 PM »
I have an A1200 with a Voodoo. If you ever fancy experimenting on it then it's only 278 miles from Plymouth to Milton Keynes  :-P

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moto
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Offline alewis

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #36 on: July 25, 2006, 10:05:57 PM »
@Alexh

I have a lot of spares, including a mint stock A1200, expansion boards, and possibly some Voodoo cards. If you'd like to play with this idea, then I can extended loan them down to you for postage.
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Offline alexhTopic starter

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #37 on: July 26, 2006, 12:44:41 PM »
The VP101 is not the chip I remember.

It was designed by our team but long before I got there. It is not a true video encoder and doesnt have REC601 outputs, just analog RGB and Composite. The signals are probably there internally but not pinned out.

This means you'd have to have a small CPLD/FPGA to do the RGB to Y'CbCr colorspace conversion. Easy to do and I could provide VHDL for anyone interested :-)
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Offline motorollin

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #38 on: July 26, 2006, 01:03:22 PM »
I think this could be an excellent product. I don't think there are any Voodoo owners who wouldn't want this upgrade. Alex, if you really want to develop this then I am more than happy to arrange to make my Amiga available to you for testing.

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moto
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Offline darksun9210

Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #39 on: July 26, 2006, 02:02:16 PM »
what an awesome idea!
i know the Virge used the Phillips "Scenic Highway" bus, which as i understand it, was/is fairly open for development.
Just the normal driver issues for the miggy to use Mpeg cards etc. (there wern't any).

The virge/scenic highway combo allowed the external video (whatever it was) to be mapped as a texture for 3D rendering amongst other things. so maybe the voodoo3 has something a little more advanced?

eitherway, wicked idea!   :-)
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A500, A600, A1200x3, A2000, A3000, A4000 & a CD32.
and probably just like the rest of you, crates full of related "treasure" for the above XD
 

Offline PaSha

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #40 on: July 26, 2006, 03:08:06 PM »
For those of us with video slots, I assume it should be possible to shove the required chips & pins on a card to stick in the video slot?

-Paul
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Offline MASACREWILL

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #41 on: July 26, 2006, 03:44:57 PM »
..maybe Alex can find some information here (but I doubt..) http://www.3dfx.cz/3dfx.htm
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Offline alexhTopic starter

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Re: PCI graphics cards with PassThru
« Reply #42 on: July 26, 2006, 06:09:13 PM »
@MASACREWILL

Thanks but all the information (about the electrical and timing) of the interface was provided on the previous link.

Programming the 3dfx chip for this mode and whether or not the interface automatically scandoubles is not known at this time.

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@Motorolin

I am not 100% interested in this area. I have possibly the four best Zorro cards: XSURF, Picasso IV, Fastlane and DKB3128 I am not really interested in PCI.

I noticed that these boards had this interface.

I noticed that lack of Automons / Scandoublers is always a sore point.

I had hoped it would be a simple "wire up n go" but as we have discovered it is not.

The only interest now is to trying to stimulate the likes of Individual Computing or perhaps someone who has a PCI setup into developing the idea further.

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