mediator or scan doubler?

[Attic]

Hi Peps, I have a bit of a dilemma, should I get a scan doubler of go for a mediator card for my towered 1200 060? I have a spare voodoo 3 card. anyone used a mediator with a voodoo card. Any advice greatly received and appreciated.

Attic

[lempkee]

u can get both , but then u need some more money.

anywaymy mediator is the best buy i have ever done after getting an 060...

also you could always get a tv card for the mediator and use the tvcard as a scandoubler, sure its not as good but it works fine (output aga/ecs games to window on wb or full screen..)


cheers

[haymiggan]

Mediator no doubt about that!  And find a cheap SD on ebay, they go for around 15-40UKP.

[Attic]

can you not pump out native 15khz throught the voodoo card? If not whats the point of setting up a voodoo card over a scan doubler? Sorry if I'm sounding thick :-)

[haymiggan]

No, you can't pump out native 15khz from Voodoo...would be great if you could though!

Reasons for Mediator...

1) Expansion possibilities into USB, Network, Soundcard, TVCard and more!

2) Perhaps beef it up with a BPPC and a copy of OS4BPPC when that comes

3) AGA is not meant for big monitors!

4) Powericons (ok lame one)

[GadgetMaster]

To answer your earlier question. A voodoo 3 card will work fine with the Mediator for retargettable graphics.

[Cyberus]

@GadgetMaster

re your sig. I like the quote.
Is any of his work available in translation?

[Invisix]

@Attic - Well if you use the Voodoo 3 card, kiss all classic gaming goodbye, since PCI  (a.k.a Non-Amiga native) cards  don't support; OCS, ECS, or AGA (or native Amiga 15kHz sync).

Personally i'd get the Scan Magic Scan Doubler with Flicker Fixer. It's what I use for my  Amiga 4000 and is well worth the money (compatible with towered Amiga 1200 also!) Best investment i've put into my Amiga yet. :-D

[GadgetMaster]

@Cyberus

Sorry to dissapoint, but I am not really aware of his written work.:-(  

I just chose the quote from QuoteWorld because I liked it. There are many wise words to be found on that site. :-)  

[kgrach]

Depends on what you do. If you only play classic games and do nothing else get a scandoubler. But if you do Graphics,Word processing or like to surf the net. get yourself a graphics card. A graphics card will speed up your machine more than if you went from an 040 to 060.

Years ago when I brought the pixel 64 for my Amiga A1200 all I had was an 030. People would be blown away at how blindingly fast my A1200 was.
I later brought a B-Vision then a GREX and now I have a Mediator SX with a Voodoo 5500. I would never even dream of going back to AGA and yes I do have a scan doubler. I have used that maybe for an 2 hours total in the last two years.

If you have the cash get a mediator you won't be sorry.

If I had a choice of a PPC Amiga with a scan doubler or an 030 with a graphics card I would go with the 030 every time becuase life is so much sweeter with a graphics card.

Three things I tell everybody with an Amiga to get. SFS,Turboprint,a graphics card. Because using your Amiga without them is just plain silly.
rant over time to get back to work

[Dr_Righteous]

You need both a Mediator AND a scandoubler... And a monitor that accepts dual inputs. That way you can have your AGA and XGA too.

Well, that's what *I* would do.  :-D

[Attic]

Well guys it looks like I need a scan doubler, mediator and a dual input monitor, phew!!! I'll tell the wife later and take her reaction like a wimp :-)
Talking about the wife, any ideas how to approach the subject safely.......

[Cyberus]

:lol:

Take her on a romantic weekend away, and quietly mention it then!

[rayt]

Hi attic

like the others I can only recommend the mediator. I have used the original 1200 version and the 4000Di version and they are very good products imo.

I havent tried it out, but I think I have read somewehre that if you have a tv card in your mediator, you can connect the aga output  to the tv cards input port and display it in a wb window. I doubt this will work with non system friendly games/applications though.

[Daedalus]

rayt wrote:
I havent tried it out, but I think I have read somewehre that if you have a tv card in your mediator, you can connect the aga output  to the tv cards input port and display it in a wb window. I doubt this will work with non system friendly games/applications though.

This does work, but only to a point. Yes, if you run a non-system-friendly game, the workbench freezes, but the TV card accesses the video ram of the Voodoo without the system, and so keeps updating even when the OS has shut down and the AGA chipset takes over. But this does require that:

a) The game can be run from workbench with all the add-ons and patches enabled (Quite a few won't and only work with a bare install)

b) The game doesn't try to switch screenmodes in a system-legal way when it starts up. This will cause the TV window to try to close and it won't update then.

I personally have both, bought the scandoubler when I encountered the problems above. I use both of them with a monitor switchbox (and my PC and Mac ). But yeah, definitely get the Mediator and MMCD, and have a telly nearby for the times you need AGA until you can sneak a scandoupler in past the wife