SupraDrive 500XP slow?

[k4lmp]

I will run that software and check cpu usage.  Will probably be tomorrow evening, but I will let you know.

I had originally posted that I had never had any issues with GVP compatibilty, but I actually remembered, I have.  On my 030 combo card, there is an issue with using Zorro ram expansions while using the built in SCSI controller on the combo card.  If I use an external ram card, I get gurus sometimes.  But I have 13 mb on the combo so it really isn't an issue.

I also bought a HC+8 on ebay one time, cheap, that the seller said was bad, so I took a chance that it was just a bad autoboot or something, but I lost, the card itself was bad.

I have a SupraRAM card, and from the ones I've had, it is my favorite RAM expansion.  But, I do like the GVP cards.  I've never had any experience with the Supra SCSI cards.  I will run the CPU test, and get back with you.

[Ral-Clan]

I have a SupraRAM card, and from the ones I've had, it is my favorite RAM expansion.  But, I do like the GVP cards.  I've never had any experience with the Supra SCSI cards.  I will run the CPU test, and get back with you.

Okay, thanks.  I am interested to see the results.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

On my A500, similar spec to yours, I also get just over 1 meg a second according to SysInfo.  68010/WB 3.1 and one of the GVP A500 HD+ units with 4 megs onboard and the latest 4.15 ROM.  It's an old 85 meg drive though, wonder how much drive cache and actual drive performance affect this?  I.e., if you stuck in a screaming 15K RPM drive with a ton of cache memory, think the A500 would benefit any?

[ChaosLord]

I used to have one years ago.  It has no RAM expansion (without finding the special add-on card).  It's also PIO.

All the Trumpcard 500 Professionals that I used had the 4MB RAM expansion installed.  I never measured the drive speed back in those days.  It seemed fast enough so I never worried about it.

If I had cared about drive speed back then (which I did) then I would have bought an A3000 (which I did)   A3000 has a fast and beautiful and smoooth SCSI controller which was massively superior to the Trumpcard Professional in my A2000/9MB/68000 machine and much faster than the IDE controller in my A4000/18MB/040.

[k4lmp]

OK, so I ran the test on my A500+.  Here are the results:

read speed:  2.178 MegaBytes/Sec.
Busy/Idle Percentage:  70%

I tried with several combinations of settings, and using 16K netted a little slower read speed of around 1.5 MegaBytes/Sec. and Busy/Idle % of 58%.  But the 128K and 512K were both the 2.178 MegaBytes/Sec. and Busy/Idle % of 70%.

I hope this helps you out.  It looks like SysInfo 4 was pretty close, as it showed just shy of 2.1 MegaBytes/Sec. on the read speed.

One more thing, I am not sure what file system you are using.  I am using PFS3.  I think FFS or SFS might be a little slower, but someone else on here can answer that question for sure.

Good luck, and if I can help anymore, let me know.

[Ral-Clan]

OK, so I ran the test on my A500+.  Here are the results:

read speed:  2.178 MegaBytes/Sec.
Busy/Idle Percentage:  70%

Wow!  You are getting really, really good transfer rates (quadruple my Supra 500XP).

I guess the A590 is just better than the Supra500XP.  That's strange, because I thought both used PIO (Programmmed I/O) transfer modes, which are known to be fairly slow.

You are also getting pretty good CPU performance (low load on CPU).

By the way, how is that Chinese RGB->VGA converter you are using?  Is it as good as a flicker fixer (i.e. Indvision?) or is there some blurriness added?

[k4lmp]

It works great for me.  I don't do a lot of gaming, though, but have played some games using it.  I liked it so much I bought 4 more of them.  I am in the process of building cables for my Apple II collection to use them with the GBS.  I've got one cable made, and the Apples look fine as well.  There is a little artifact around the mouse when moved, but barely noticeable.  Like I said, I'm not a big gamer, so not much experience with them playing games.  I have an Indy ECS in my A2000HD.  

On the SCSI thing, yeah, it does really well.  By the way, it isn't an A590, it is one of  these http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl?product=Impact+A500+HD8%2B+Series+II&company=gvp

Like I said before, I have 2 of these, and one only has 4mb of ram, and I only get around 1 MegaByte/Sec. on it.  I'm not sure if it is the extra fast ram that makes the difference or not.  I also have 1.5 mb of chip ram, as this is a 500+, and uses the trapdoor as chip memory.

[Ral-Clan]

I wonder if my mask / maxtransfer settings could be wrong?

Mine are set to MASK 0xfffffe, Maxtransfer 0xffffff

Do you know what yours are set to?

If it's not these settings then I'll just accept this is a slower piece of equipment by design.

As for the scan-doubler thing - I'm glad you're happy with it.  I'd mostly be using it for non-games, too: i.e. DPaint - where sharpness is pretty important.

I read on another thread that you like it, even though you consider yourself pretty picky.  But on other threads people have been saying it's terrible.  What contradictory information I'm finding.  I guess the only way for me to tell for sure would be to find a high-res screen capture or video of it in use on an amiga somewhere online.

I found this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBvJcQj44tw

and it looks rather GOOD!  (i.e. text is sharp enough) ---- but the guy won't hold the damn camera still enough.  None of the videos of Amigas using this device on YouTube are good enough quality to judge (either shakey cam or low resolution cameraphone).

[k4lmp]

what file system are you using?  Is it FFS, SFS, or PFS?

[Ral-Clan]

what file system are you using?  Is it FFS, SFS, or PFS?

It's just the standard FFS.

But reading the specs of your sidecar vs. mine --- I'm guessing yours can do DMA accesses which the Supra cannot.  I'm guessing that's why yours is so much faster and less draining on the CPU.

Also, the design of the GVP is so nice in that it matches the A500. Why Commodore could not do as nice a job I often wonder.

[Kitch]

Just as another reference. I just tested my SupaDrive 500XP with SysInfo V4.0 in two different A500's and I was getting 570,705 Bytes/sec.
The SupaDrive was fitted with a 49MB Quantum LP52S hard drive, using Fast File System, it had 1MB fitted onboard and 512KB in the trap door.

[k4lmp]

One thing you might try, is to use PFS.  I don't know if that will up the speed or not, but it is what I use.  I used SFS before that.