Upgrading to Mediator + RTG Card, but is it worth it?

[carvedeye]

Hi all i am wanting to upgrade my amiga1200 tower with a mediator and RTG Card but is it worth it ?

Here is my current spec:

Amiga 1200 board
3.1 roms
030 accelerator with 4mb (max 8mb)
Keyboard adaptor
ide 4 way buffered interface with hdd + cd rom
pcmcia right angle adaptor +Pcmcia ethernet adaptor
running wb 3.1 (i have an original copy of 3.9 on cd also)

Would i see any benefits with my current setup ?

[mechy]

If you like having a large 32bit workbench and a card that takes all the load off the system as well as the ability to map graphics card ram as extra fast ram, i would say yes.

There is also tv cards,16bit sound and 100Mbit ethernet cards.

USB can be quite handy also.

hard to say if it would benefit you, it all depends on what you want to do with your amiga.Its a great upgrade if you can't take staring at AGA any longer

Just realize you will have 2 video outs to deal with then,it does not promote aga to the vga screens.I use a dell st2410L on my amiga and it handles both 15khz and vga.

Mech

[560SL]

In general, I'd say its worth it because the Amiga becomes so much more useful for other purposes than gaming and demos.

[NovaCoder]

Hi all i am wanting to upgrade my amiga1200 tower with a mediator and RTG Card but is it worth it ?

Here is my current spec:

Amiga 1200 board
3.1 roms
030 accelerator with 4mb (max 8mb)
Keyboard adaptor
ide 4 way buffered interface with hdd + cd rom
pcmcia right angle adaptor +Pcmcia ethernet adaptor
running wb 3.1 (i have an original copy of 3.9 on cd also)

Would i see any benefits with my current setup ?

I'd say it's not worth the hassle IMHO.  It will cost you a lot of $$ and there isn't that much more you can do.  Really the only thing I can think of is to make your WB look better.

Your 030 will not be fast enough to run any RTG specific software.

[slaapliedje]

If I could figure out why I get weird ram errors whenever I'm using the Radeon, then I could use my Amiga for more than Games.  Seems at one point I had it fairly stable, but anytime I run things like AWeb in higher resolutions, I get the ramlib 800000004 error.  

I have an Amiga 4000D with the Mediator 4000Di though, along with a network card, so something else may be causing the issue.

But I'd say it's worth it, especially throwing a NIC in there.  Getting your Amiga online is nice, since there are tons of software on Aminet.

slaapliedje

[save2600]

I'd say it's not worth the hassle IMHO.  It will cost you a lot of $$ and there isn't that much more you can do.  Really the only thing I can think of is to make your WB look better.

Your 030 will not be fast enough to run any RTG specific software.

What he said.

IF your A1200 is already towered, I could see how you'd be tempted to take it to the next level, but I'd only monkey around with that prospect *if* you had a line on a real cheap Mediator and you really enjoy tinkering around with this stuff.

[klapdeur]

youll need the MCPRamlibPatch installed then its gone i had the same error when i installed the mediator. its on aminet.

regards
klapdeur

[Karlos]

Hi all i am wanting to upgrade my amiga1200 tower with a mediator and RTG Card but is it worth it ?

Here is my current spec:

Amiga 1200 board
3.1 roms
030 accelerator with 4mb (max 8mb)
Keyboard adaptor
ide 4 way buffered interface with hdd + cd rom
pcmcia right angle adaptor +Pcmcia ethernet adaptor
running wb 3.1 (i have an original copy of 3.9 on cd also)

Would i see any benefits with my current setup ?

If all you want are higher, flickerless resolutions I'd suggest you'd probably be better off with something like the Indivision AGA on that setup.

Just to play devil's advocate, contrary to the claim that an 030 is too slow for RTG software, most OS friendly applications don't actually hit the display hardware and will happily run on bigger, more colourful resolutions. I've used an 030 system with a Picasso IV in the past and it was certainly more comfortable than the native chipset for many older productivity applications.

However, the general observation that your machine will be too slow for more recent RTG software (ie, those that have been developed from the start with RTG in mind) is true.

[utri007]

I belive that he is from Europe, so he woun't need indivision aga, because he has probably nice big LCD-TV with scart connetor and he would be very happy with it flicker free picture.

Mediator would be nice, but yes would would need at least 040 cpu to get most of it. Blizzard 030 might do also trick because there is no 8mb limit.

[tone007]

8MB of RAM max on your accelerator?  I'd look for a new accelerator first.  RTG is nice, but you can't do a ton with it with that little RAM.

[Rodomoc]

Just to play devil's advocate, contrary to the claim that an 030 is too slow for RTG software, most OS friendly applications don't actually hit the display hardware and will happily run on bigger, more colourful resolutions. I've used an 030 system with a Picasso IV in the past and it was certainly more comfortable than the native chipset for many older productivity applications.
 
However, the general observation that your machine will be too slow for more recent RTG software (ie, those that have been developed from the start with RTG in mind) is true.

I run A3000 w/ Zorro based EGS-28/24 Spectrum video card + CyberGraphx 4 software. This runs quite well on the original 030, 2/16MB configuration. Not sure what RTG software being referenced here but the stuff I use runs with little to no performance issues. I can only imagine that a PCI based video card would run as well or better + being able to claim some RAM expansion. Of course the 030 CPU will ultimately have a performance ceiling no matter what is happening on the video end.
 
The other comment about going Indivision route for this machine is good advice in my opinion. And less expensive than full blown Mediator setup.

[carvedeye]

All i want to do is have a crispier resolution running in 16 bit, and be able to play classic games that will play and look better, games like gloom, breathless etc...and also gain some extra fast ram from my voodoo 3 pci card.

[Ancalimon]

All i want to do is have a crispier resolution running in 16 bit, and be able to play classic games that will play and look better, games like gloom, breathless etc...and also gain some extra fast ram from my voodoo 3 pci card.

You won't be able to play Native Amiga games on the RTG. Only a few later classic games support RTG. (Like Napalm)

[Darrin]

All i want to do is have a crispier resolution running in 16 bit, and be able to play classic games that will play and look better, games like gloom, breathless etc...and also gain some extra fast ram from my voodoo 3 pci card.

Check to make sure the extra RAM from the graphics card is available to the A1200.  I've got it working on my A4000, but before you spend all of that money I'd get some firm confirmation about the A1200 first.

As for advantages, you'll be able to use 1920x1080 screens for things like Workbench, web browsers, word processors, etc.  I have the Indivision AGA fitted too, but you cannot compare AGA screens with RTG screens.  The difference is night and day.

[carvedeye]

so should i be looking at getting a better accelerator before i comtemplate getting the mediator?