Went for the Elbox deal!!!!

[J-Golden]

Just finished my tax returns and the wife said I could!  :banana:

I had a mediator in my first A4000T (the one I sold to pay for my wedding) and really wanted to get one for my current fixer-upper project but they were too *@#% expensive!

Well, with the deal of getting the 256MB video card, Mediator 3000/4000T AND a free Spider II combined with the $$$ from my tax return, I went for it.

I realize the deal is most likely in direct connection to THIS THREAD but since it is free, meh.  I'm more excited about using the video card for super fast RAM.

Anywho, it looks like my miggy is getting back up to snuff!  SO EXCITED!

[lost_loven]

That is awesome ! Congrads! that's gonna be sweeet!
This is could open up a whole new other thread on wife's saying yes to amiga hardware! My wife said yes also to dip into our tax returns .. Although not as much of a big chunk lol but still enough last year to get zorram and this year a enough to get a indivision ecs and something else.. Anyhow WOOT for you!
Whipped and loving it!

lost

[Piru]

I'm more excited about using the video card for super fast RAM.

I'm afraid it is rather super slow. Graphics card memory was never designed to be read, and thus it will struggle at that. It's likely to be only slightly faster than chip memory.

[smerf]

I'm afraid it is rather super slow. Graphics card memory was never designed to be read, and thus it will struggle at that. It's likely to be only slightly faster than chip memory.

@Piru,

Party Pooper,

You were supposed to say "Wow that is great"

You have been on a MAC to long, you are beginning to sound like a MAC fanboy

smerf

[Darrin]

Excellent.  

I've got the 256MB Radeon card in my A4000 and a PCI USB card.  I don't think you're going to notice your "RAM struggling to be read" in the real world outside of benchmarking.

Get a nice LCD widescreen monitor to go with it.  I bought a ViewSonic with DVI and VGA inputs.  I connected my Indivision to the VGA and the Radeon to the DVI.  All I do it press a button on the monitor to toggle between the inputs.  If the RTG screen is closed then the "no signal" causes it to flip back to the native VGA input without pressing the button.

Here's my 1920 x 1080 Workbench:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/grab2.jpg

[smerf]

Hi,

@Piru,

See the above post,

If you examine Darrin's post, you will see that it just bubbles with enthusiasm. Darrin gives pointers, gets rid of any negitive waves by previous posts and then gives some thoughts on what get and do. Very nice post Darrin, I hope that Piru has learned something on how to give a positive post.

smerf

[fishy_fiz]

@J-Golden
Congrats

Just curious, but are there preferences for assigning the vram as fast ram? Would be nice if you could assign some vram as a swap partition to use with a virtual memory program like gigamem.  That way actual fast ram could be given priority until it drops below a defined size.
Or would that be counter productive vs. harddrive swap space 'cos of the read speed of vram?

[Darrin]

Hi,

@Piru,

See the above post,

If you examine Darrin's post, you will see that it just bubbles with enthusiasm. Darrin gives pointers, gets rid of any negitive waves by previous posts and then gives some thoughts on what get and do. Very nice post Darrin, I hope that Piru has learned something on how to give a positive post.

smerf

Cheers Smerf, but I doubt it.  

Don't be too hard on Piru though, when he does decide to help people he can be invaluable.  Unfortunately when it comes to certain subjects it is like waving a red sheet in front of a bull.  

PS.  Have I mentioned how much I love my Mediator, Radeon and USB card?  :p

[Darrin]

@J-Golden
Congrats

Just curious, but are there preferences for assigning the vram as fast ram? Would be nice if you could assign some vram as a swap partition to use with a virtual memory program like gigamem.  That way actual fast ram could be given priority until it drops below a defined size.
Or would that be counter productive vs. harddrive swap space 'cos of the read speed of vram?

As far as I'm aware the Radeon memory is the lowest priority anyway.

In my case I currently have 1MB Chip, 16MB Fast (on mobo), 64MB Fast on my Warp Engine and then 192 Fast on my Radeon (I have 64MB reserved at the moment - you can adjust it by entering a value into a text file).

[Bamiga2002]

Here's my 1920 x 1080 Workbench:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b134/darrin01311/grab2.jpg

That's a nice WB, except the damn taskbar :p that reminds me of Windows.

[Frags]

I am confused about the critical responses to Piru`s completely reasonable post which simply supplied accurate information - what have MACs got to do with it and what would have been an appropriate response then?  Just to humour the original poster and say `yes, vram reads are very fast`?

Strange...

[wawrzon]

im puzzled too. piru is completely correct.
vram on videocard or zorram extension for that matter are perhaps slightly faster that a4000 onboard 16mb fast ram. except of the nature of vram the main bottleneck is zorro with its 7mb/s average throughtput (at least as mesured with voodoo3, there are z3 gfx cards that hijack that to beyond 10mb/s, but not mediator).

note that if real world usage doesnt make you notice the slownes of zorro ram its just because it barely gets used at all. as long as everything fits into accelerators own memory you will be fine. i can tell the difference, after i once forgot to fit memory bank on my csmk1 while testing some sdl ports. believe me.

im not trying to rain on the original posters parade. mediator is a cool extension as such, he will sure have fun with it, as well as with his video card allthough i would recommend voodoo3 as the only one that has 3d accelleration on 68k. there is no warp3d for radeons, and time will pass before aros wiill eventually support these.

i am though concerned about, that a fellow amiga user should be able inform himself adequately on a forum especially prior to acquiring anything rather than being told encouraging fairy tales.

[Darrin]

That's a nice WB, except the damn taskbar :p that reminds me of Windows.

The taskbar is now gone.  

[Darrin]

I am confused about the critical responses to Piru`s completely reasonable post which simply supplied accurate information - what have MACs got to do with it and what would have been an appropriate response then?  Just to humour the original poster and say `yes, vram reads are very fast`?

Strange...

I think it is the fact that he had only negative things to say... as usual when it comes to anything other than MorphOS.

It is like when a friend buys a Fiat car.  It is always polite to say something like "Nice colour!" before ripping it to shreds.

[mechy]

I think it is the fact that he had only negative things to say... as usual when it comes to anything other than MorphOS.

It is like when a friend buys a Fiat car.  It is always polite to say something like "Nice colour!" before ripping it to shreds.

Hey guys, although piru can be negative in this case he was not. He is absolutely right about the radeon ram being really slow fast ram-Its a known fact and not a negativity.. Having said that it doesn't not mean that the ram is not useable. He was simply stating fact. There is far too much misinformation/voodoo/guesswork spread on these forums constantly about amiga stuff.

Enjoy the mediator setup in any case, it does work well

-Mech-