Zorro III speed (asynchronous vs synchrous etc..) 50mb/s ?!

[Jose]

Before you think I'm mad HEREis a review of the Cybervision54 card, wich has some busspeed tests at the end. It was the values of these tests that puzzled me. Wasn't ZIII limited to 10mb/s or something?

I seem to remember in the past, on aminet, a review of another ZIII card (don't remember wich, and couldn't find it) wich stated similar values in asynchrous mode and slower ones on synchronous (or was that the other way?..)

Anyway, can someone that knows clarify after all what are the speed etc. diferences on Sync. vs. async. modes and what more limitations are there for each mode?

I pretty remember that ZIII could do about 50mb/s on one of these modes  8-)

[Karlos]

I have a little proggie you can test your gfx card's VRAM access speeds with, if you want to test it. Runs on 68040 or above only (unless I take the move16 tests out)...

[JKD]

Maybe you mis-read the results. The 50MB/s quoted looks like the read speed from FAST ram to me...the video card is doing:

$40000000 readw   690.1ns    2.9MByte/s
$40000000 readl   690.1ns    5.8MByte/s
$40000000 readm   693.7ns    5.8MByte/s
$40000000 writew  538.2ns    3.7MByte/s
$40000000 writel  538.7ns    7.4MByte/s
$40000000 writem  538.2ns    7.4MByte/s

Assuming $40000000 is zorro video card RAM....this would be about right for ZIII I think.

Steve

[patrik]

@JDK:

Yes, 0x40000000 is the normal base-address of the CyberVision64 card. Though if you do a test at 0x40000000 you will test the access speed for the register space of the CyberVision64, the VRAM on the other hand starts at 0x41400000 if the base address is 0x40000000.

Here are register and memory space tests for my CyberVision64 with a A3640 040 cpu-card (these test were done while the CyberVision64 was displaying the workbench):

Register space:
BusSpeedTest 0.19 (mlelstv)   Buffer:     262144 Bytes, Alignment: 32768
========================================================================
memtype   addr       op         cycle     calib         bandwidth
user      $40000000  readw     858.1 ns   normal       2.3 * 10^6 byte/s
user      $40000000  readl     859.8 ns   normal       4.7 * 10^6 byte/s
user      $40000000  readm     853.6 ns   normal       4.7 * 10^6 byte/s
user      $40000000  writew    710.9 ns   normal       2.8 * 10^6 byte/s
user      $40000000  writel    711.2 ns   normal       5.6 * 10^6 byte/s
user      $40000000  writem    706.0 ns   normal       5.7 * 10^6 byte/s

Memory space:
BusSpeedTest 0.19 (mlelstv)   Buffer:     262144 Bytes, Alignment: 32768
========================================================================
memtype   addr       op         cycle     calib         bandwidth
user      $41400000  readw     961.5 ns   normal       2.1 * 10^6 byte/s
user      $41400000  readl     963.7 ns   normal       4.2 * 10^6 byte/s
user      $41400000  readm     962.1 ns   normal       4.2 * 10^6 byte/s
user      $41400000  writew    404.3 ns   normal       4.9 * 10^6 byte/s
user      $41400000  writel    404.3 ns   normal       9.9 * 10^6 byte/s
user      $41400000  writem    402.0 ns   normal      10.0 * 10^6 byte/s

The ZorroIII bus can do a bit better with an accelerator interfacing the CPU-FastSlot better. With my CSPPC it can to do up to 15MB/Sec with the CV64 and with the original A3400 030 cpu-card I think I got close to 16MB/Sec. Needless to say the A3640 040 cpu-card does a terrible job at interfacing with just about everything .


/Patrik

[Karlos]

@Patrik

I beginning to see the term "Busmaster" applies to people as well as hardware ;-)

Hmmm, that makes me think. I wonder where Shawn is these days? I bet he has some interesting Zorro bus benchmarks :lol:

[JKD]

Thanks for the refresher...long time since I had my CV64 :-)

Needless to say Jose was indeed looking at the wrong results for a bus speed indication.

Cheers,

Steve

[zipper]

I think the original CV64 was about the fastest GFX-card in writing to ZorroIII getting near 20 MB/s with a fast processor and following wind.

[darksun9210]

i seem to remember my old CV64/3D pushing between 12-25Mb sec with various tests from "bus test" on an A4000T CyberstormPPC/060...

[Cass]

I have a little proggie you can test your gfx card's VRAM access speeds with, if you want to test it.

I'm still waiting for this nice little proggie :-). Check your old PMs.
________
Gay Asian

[Karlos]

@Cass

Sorry about that - this whole framework update made me forget ;-)

Anyway, you can download it here.

-edit-

I forgot to say - the program was compiled using 040+FPU options and linked with the 040+FPU version of the framework libs.

As such, it *needs* an FPU to run!

[Cass]

Thanks Karlos! :-D
________
Zoloft settlements

[Jose]

Yes, I was looking at the wrong results..
But it's great to know that ZIII can do much more than 10mB/s.
So does anyone know the diference between sync and async modes in performance and maye how they work and restrictions that exist in each when working with cards?

By the way, this seems to indicate poor implementation in the existing PCI to Amiga bust boards available, cause from the tests around they seem to peak at 10mb/s.

@Karlos
I don't have an A4000 to test it... but I recently got an A4000 motherboard on eBay for a very decent price;)

Cool avatar:-)Is that Beavis on the right side?  

[Wol]

The theoretical limit for the Zorro III bus is
100 Mb/sec.

25Mhz * 32bit(4 Bytes) = 100Mb/sec

That is with the "HYPOTHETICAL NON EXIST BUSTER"

I remember the bla bla bla from the big C saying
they were going to fix it..

[Jose]

@Wol

What about Buster rev.11 ?

So all we need is a new rev. Buster ?!!! I can't believe nonone has done it yet... there must be something more than that that comes into play.

Who want's an A4000 with Buster rev.20 with 90mB/s ZorroIII transfer?  :-D

[Karlos]

Jose wrote:

Cool avatar:-)Is that Beavis on the right side?  

Yes, its beavis and butthead rocking away. The original image was: