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[carvedeye]

Hi all i am wanting to upgrade my amiga1200 tower with a mediator and RTG Card but is it worth it ?

Here is my current spec:

Amiga 1200 board
3.1 roms
030 accelerator with 4mb (max 8mb)
Keyboard adaptor
ide 4 way buffered interface with hdd + cd rom
pcmcia right angle adaptor +Pcmcia ethernet adaptor
running wb 3.1 (i have an original copy of 3.9 on cd also)

Would i see any benefits with my current setup ?

[mechy]

If you like having a large 32bit workbench and a card that takes all the load off the system as well as the ability to map graphics card ram as extra fast ram, i would say yes.

There is also tv cards,16bit sound and 100Mbit ethernet cards.

USB can be quite handy also.

hard to say if it would benefit you, it all depends on what you want to do with your amiga.Its a great upgrade if you can't take staring at AGA any longer

Just realize you will have 2 video outs to deal with then,it does not promote aga to the vga screens.I use a dell st2410L on my amiga and it handles both 15khz and vga.

Mech

[560SL]

In general, I'd say its worth it because the Amiga becomes so much more useful for other purposes than gaming and demos.

[slaapliedje]

If I could figure out why I get weird ram errors whenever I'm using the Radeon, then I could use my Amiga for more than Games. Seems at one point I had it fairly stable, but anytime I run things like AWeb in higher resolutions, I get the ramlib 800000004 error.

I have an Amiga 4000D with the Mediator 4000Di though, along with a network card, so something else may be causing the issue.

But I'd say it's worth it, especially throwing a NIC in there. Getting your Amiga online is nice, since there are tons of software on Aminet.

slaapliedje

[klapdeur]

youll need the MCPRamlibPatch installed then its gone i had the same error when i installed the mediator. its on aminet.

regards
klapdeur

[nyteschayde]

Originally Posted by klapdeur

youll need the MCPRamlibPatch installed then its gone i had the same error when i installed the mediator. its on aminet.

regards
klapdeur

I searched all over aminet (http://aminet.net) and could not find any archive called MCPRamlibPatch, nor could I find any thing with ramlib or ramlibpatch. I found several seemingly non-related items under mcp.

Could you point me to the file?

[Ratte]

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

If I could figure out why I get weird ram errors whenever I'm using the Radeon,.... I get the ramlib 800000004 error.

The Mediator driver has a bug ( up to radeon.card v2.15 ?! ).
Playing with P96/CheckBoards will show you a negativ ramsize .. thats it.

[Aminicle]

An S3-Virge PCI, will that not be enough for 030 ?

[JimmySage]

It's great if you've got the spare cash and workbench does look lovely in 1080p. Back in the day I used to use Pagestream an aweful lot - wish I had these resolutions and colour depths then.

But I've never actually managed to get any of the 3D games to go any faster (quake is still unplayable on an Apollo 060/66 + radeon 9250). Download speeds arent that much quicker through a 100mb pci card than they are through PCMCIA. You can get extra memory with some Gfx cards (I get about 224mb extra from my Radeon), but it's not as quick as having real "fast" mem. PCI networks cards also need this Gfx memory to use as buffers.

I think it's already been mentioned on the thread, but I'd definately start with an Indivision AGA and Subway first (I use old 1280x1024 lcd monitor on the Indivision). This should allow you to download and play whdload games and I find using a USB memory stick a thousand times easier than using any kind of Amiga networking to transfer files from PC or even the internet. If you've got a PC next to the Amiga like I have, then you can forget about networking and obsolete browsers forever.

And then perhaps invest in a better accelerator with more RAM. One that allows you to load custom roms into fast memory makes a massive difference to performance as well.

And a PS2 mouse adapter - maybe this should be the number one upgrade.

I think what I'm saying is that the mediator is the luxury item. It's nice, but all it gives me is a nice workbench on a nice monitor.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by carvedeye

Hi all i am wanting to upgrade my amiga1200 tower with a mediator and RTG Card but is it worth it ?

Here is my current spec:

Amiga 1200 board
3.1 roms
030 accelerator with 4mb (max 8mb)
Keyboard adaptor
ide 4 way buffered interface with hdd + cd rom
pcmcia right angle adaptor +Pcmcia ethernet adaptor
running wb 3.1 (i have an original copy of 3.9 on cd also)

Would i see any benefits with my current setup ?

I'd say it's not worth the hassle IMHO. It will cost you a lot of $$ and there isn't that much more you can do. Really the only thing I can think of is to make your WB look better.

Your 030 will not be fast enough to run any RTG specific software.

[save2600]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

I'd say it's not worth the hassle IMHO. It will cost you a lot of $$ and there isn't that much more you can do. Really the only thing I can think of is to make your WB look better.

Your 030 will not be fast enough to run any RTG specific software.

What he said.

IF your A1200 is already towered, I could see how you'd be tempted to take it to the next level, but I'd only monkey around with that prospect *if* you had a line on a real cheap Mediator and you really enjoy tinkering around with this stuff.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by carvedeye

Hi all i am wanting to upgrade my amiga1200 tower with a mediator and RTG Card but is it worth it ?

Here is my current spec:

Amiga 1200 board
3.1 roms
030 accelerator with 4mb (max 8mb)
Keyboard adaptor
ide 4 way buffered interface with hdd + cd rom
pcmcia right angle adaptor +Pcmcia ethernet adaptor
running wb 3.1 (i have an original copy of 3.9 on cd also)

Would i see any benefits with my current setup ?

If all you want are higher, flickerless resolutions I'd suggest you'd probably be better off with something like the Indivision AGA on that setup.

Just to play devil's advocate, contrary to the claim that an 030 is too slow for RTG software, most OS friendly applications don't actually hit the display hardware and will happily run on bigger, more colourful resolutions. I've used an 030 system with a Picasso IV in the past and it was certainly more comfortable than the native chipset for many older productivity applications.

However, the general observation that your machine will be too slow for more recent RTG software (ie, those that have been developed from the start with RTG in mind) is true.

[utri007]

I belive that he is from Europe, so he woun't need indivision aga, because he has probably nice big LCD-TV with scart connetor and he would be very happy with it flicker free picture.

Mediator would be nice, but yes would would need at least 040 cpu to get most of it. Blizzard 030 might do also trick because there is no 8mb limit.

[tone007]

8MB of RAM max on your accelerator? I'd look for a new accelerator first. RTG is nice, but you can't do a ton with it with that little RAM.

[Rodomoc]

Originally Posted by Karlos

Just to play devil's advocate, contrary to the claim that an 030 is too slow for RTG software, most OS friendly applications don't actually hit the display hardware and will happily run on bigger, more colourful resolutions. I've used an 030 system with a Picasso IV in the past and it was certainly more comfortable than the native chipset for many older productivity applications.

However, the general observation that your machine will be too slow for more recent RTG software (ie, those that have been developed from the start with RTG in mind) is true.

I run A3000 w/ Zorro based EGS-28/24 Spectrum video card + CyberGraphx 4 software. This runs quite well on the original 030, 2/16MB configuration. Not sure what RTG software being referenced here but the stuff I use runs with little to no performance issues. I can only imagine that a PCI based video card would run as well or better + being able to claim some RAM expansion. Of course the 030 CPU will ultimately have a performance ceiling no matter what is happening on the video end.

The other comment about going Indivision route for this machine is good advice in my opinion. And less expensive than full blown Mediator setup.