Mediator vs Prometheus

[adolescent]

downix wrote:

    Realtek 8139 NICs

Mediator only.

Don't be too sure there.  The promethius I have happens to have a 8139 on it.

I took all of the driver info from the "official" driver pages.  Beta/test drivers weren't listed for download, so I didn't include them.

[adolescent]

NightShade737 wrote:

Regarding the 3Com Nic. Sure, they are cheap, but you can get a RealTech 8139 for $.99 on eBay. Can't get cheaper than that.

Thats not the point, read my reason.

Ok, I see what you wrote about the checksum offloading. I'm not sure how CPU intensive this is though.  Also, some of the RealTek 8139 line support checksum offloading, but the driver would need to be modified to accomidate this.  Perhaps Elbox would do this if there was enough demand.

Hmmm, I don't think buying a promo would be the best thing to do then as it doesn't have drivers for anything I own, and still doesn't support BM  :-(

I think that is the key.  If the Prometheus doesn't have support for the hardware you want to run, then you have other choices.

[patrik]

@adolescent:

The TCP/IP stack has to be aware of the tcp-package checksum offloading or else it will still calculate it the good old fashion way using the cpu.


/Patrik

[tjaoz]

@NightShade737

I just reread your first post:

Now the reason I am torn is the fast that I would like to keep my ISA slots as well though, and buying a Mediator would kick out all my ISA slots.

You can keep your ISA slots using Mediator 3/4000T.

This Mediator is installed in one of the Zorro III slots. It doesn't have to be installed in the lowest Zorro III slot. When you install it in higher Zorro III slot you will save the space for your ISA cards. More info about this Mediator you can find here: http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=45311

[NightShade737]

I had seen that one before, but couldn't quite work out where the hell it was supposed to fit in. Does the Zorro slot on the board go through and plug in to a Zorro slot below? If so this may be the solution I need... though I would need to find out how far up it would go and if it would actually fit...

But on the other hand, would one of the other mediators be faster as they connect in to the entire Daughterboard connector, or does it still only use the bandwidth of one Zorro III slot? That is what has been confusing me.

[tjaoz]

@NightShade737

I had seen that one before, but couldn't quite work out where the hell it was supposed to fit in. Does the Zorro slot on the board go through and plug in to a Zorro slot below? If so this may be the solution I need... though I would need to find out how far up it would go and if it would actually fit...

Ask Elbox. They are very friendly and quickly reply to all technical inquiries.

[downix]

@Nightshade

Even if they occupy the daughterboard slot, one cannot get more bandwidth out of Z3 than you could with 1 slot.  Zorro is not like PCI, where you can "double-up" slots to get more performance.  

[downix]

@NightShade737

If you'd like, I can do a benchmark for my Prommy against my Mediator.

[NightShade737]

Ah, so basically, 1 board uses the entire bus anyway? So if  you were running 2 cards at once then they would have to share that bandwidth? That makes sense, I just assumed that the slots would be limited and the daughterboard could handle more, but apparently not.

Cheers.

downix: What type of Mediator and what machine? But, yes, if you could. Also bench the same NIC in both if you can.

[mboehmer_e3b]

Zorro is not like PCI, where you can "double-up" slots to get more performance.

That's {bleep}. Sorry.
PCI is like Zorro in the bus philosophy, with the main difference that Zorro is asynchonous by nature, but PCI is synchronous with a master clock distributed over all PCI connectors.
You have one bus segment, which can be used by one card at a time. Period.

Bandwidth can be increased for both bus systems by either increasing the bus clock (PCI) / shortening the strobes (Zorro3); by adding more data lines (PCI32 -> PCI64, Zorro II -> Zorro III) or by switching to block transfer modes (Zorro III -> MultiCycleTransfer, PCI -> BurstMode).

In both cases: one device using the bus will lock the others out.

This only changes if you go for switched serial busses, like ATM networks or new PCI-X systems.

Michael

[NightShade737]

So, is it completely established now that a PCI interface on a Zorro III slot is exactly the same speed as one plugged in to the entire Daughterboard slot (theoretically)?

[Ilwrath]

If you'd like, I can do a benchmark for my Prommy against my Mediator.

Yeah... That'd be really cool.  I think everyone would be interested in the results.  Put an end to the FUD.  Run a P96 speed, an AmiMark, and a ttcp on each, and post the results.  

I'm very interested to see what the differences show up as.  And how much difference a PCI NIC vs a Zorro NIC makes, etc...  (Personally, I'd suspect Prommy and Mediator show similiar performance, but who knows?  I don't think it's ever been done before.)

Real information is always good!

[Karlos]

downix wrote:
@NightShade737

If you'd like, I can do a benchmark for my Prommy against my Mediator.

That might put an end to the debate. I have a small tool you can try (but due to laziness in the build it needs FPU), which basically sees how fast it can do aligned transfers to/from VRAM (and also RAM to RAM). It doesn't test anything using graphics.library, so should be driver independent...

here...

[downix]

A4k, and the A4kD mediator.

(I haven't gotten it yet, mind you.  Terminills offered me the use of his old one so I could do such a head-to-head, so I figured I'd offer it publically.  Come on Terminills, send the mediator)

[downix]

@mboehmer_e3b

Half-true.  You forgot, you can "stack up" PCI providing you have multiple PCI busses.  (example being a northbridge with two PCI busses, I've seen some very odd embedded machines using both for the same peripheral for added performance)  It is this ability that was extended for PCI-Express (not PCI-X, don't mix the two) for their multiple-bus model.

[downix]

@Karlos

Thanks.

Now reminder, even if the Promethius is found slower than the Mediator, the Promethius is a lot cheaper than the other solution.