With this post I'm trying to collect information on current (and to some degree past) Amiga Classic PCI solutions. I'll collect links and info on solutions for the Amiga1200 and Amiga4000 as they are the most common amigas to upgrade with PCI cards.
This post will be a work in progress. And I encourage people to post knowledge and questions to this thres. I cannot answer any I expect, but others might, and then we learn. When this post has reached a certain quality - I will know it when it does, I will remove the "Q" in the title, and replace it with an "A".
Amiga4000D:
DCE GRex4000D
Elbox Mediator 4000
Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Matay Prometheus
Amiga1200:
Elbox Mediator 1200SX
DCE GRex1200
---
IMAGES:
Matay Prometheus:
DCE G-Rex 4000D:
This post will be a work in progress. And I encourage people to post knowledge and questions to this thres. I cannot answer any I expect, but others might, and then we learn. When this post has reached a certain quality - I will know it when it does, I will remove the "Q" in the title, and replace it with an "A".
Amiga4000D:
DCE GRex4000D
Elbox Mediator 4000
Elbox Mediator 4000Di
Matay Prometheus
Amiga1200:
Elbox Mediator 1200SX
DCE GRex1200
---
Genral on the Mediator cards:- Still available from Elbox and Amigakit and other resellers as of april 2009.[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Only the Mediator version for towered Amiga4000 machinces have the video slot found on the usual amiga Zorro daughterboard[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Product specs from Elbox states that this card is DMA capable. This is a truth with serious modifications. The cards uses a DMA window which is available if you have a gfx card available. A network card can then use this memory as a buffer enabling for instance 100Mbit. Otherwise NICs are only 10MBit capable on the Mediator.[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Drivers and software are form time to time still updated by Elbox.[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Only the new 1200TX supports ATI Radeon cards due to a voltage problem in previous Mediator models.[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- The Mediator PCI busboard is a "two board" solution, one board holds the PCI slots, another logic card enables these PCI slots for the Amiga.[/*:m:24bwq40o]
General on the GRex cards:- No longer available - unless second hand, and DCE out of business[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Few were made[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Truely DMA capable PCI solution.[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Requires a PPC amiga or an amiga with CS mkIII (uses the BVision or CVision expansion port on these cards).[/*:m:24bwq40o]
General on Prometheus cards:- Matay is out of business[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Cards available from AmigaKit[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- ?[/*:m:24bwq40o]
Support for Mediator:- Available directly from elbox, go to their site[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Or from this old mirror of The unoffical support site[/*:m:24bwq40o]
Support for GRex:- Internet (is that still around?).Mirror of the offical now defunct) support site for G-Rex at VGR.com[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Also the unoffical site: (unofficial) G-REX PCI Support Homepage[/*:m:24bwq40o]
Support for Prometeus- Archive.org page of Matay.pl[/*:m:24bwq40o]
Mediator 4000 specs said:
- PCI busboard five PCI 2.1 compliant slots[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- 33 MHz PCI clock (66 MHz with SharkPPC G3/G4)[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- up to 132 MB/s transfer speed between PCI cards (264 MB/s with SharkPPC G3/G4)[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- 4 GB continuous PCI memory space accessed through the 512 MB window in the Zorro III address space [/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Zorro III busboard six Zorro III slots[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- supports Zorro III autoconfig[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- one extended video slot [/*:m:24bwq40o]
- busmastering controller supports the busmastering mechanism in all PCI slots[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- supports DMA transfers between PCI cards and the A4000 motherboard[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- address and data parity control support in all PCI slots[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- four PCI interrupt lines[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- can use the SDRAM/SGRAM of PCI display cards as system memory - faster than memory on Amiga processor cards[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- works with all existing A4000 processor cards[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- the board is part of the Mirage 4000Pro tower system, it cannot be fitted into the original A4000 case [/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Mediator Multimedia CD Picasso96 2D drivers for: Voodoo5, Voodoo4, Voodoo3, Voodoo Banshee, S3 Virge and S3 Virge DX PCI graphic cards[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Warp 3D drivers for: Voodoo3, Voodoo4 and Voodoo5 PCI graphic cards[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Sana II network drivers for 10 and 100 Mbps PCI Ethernet cards[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- AHI sound drivers for: Sound Blaster 128 and ForteMedia FM801 based PCI cards[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- TV tuner drivers for most available PCI TV tuner cards (98 TV card models, several tuners supported) - requires a PCI graphics card[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- USB drivers for the Elbox Spider PCI card - EHCI (Hi-Speed USB 2.0) and OHCI (Full-Speed and Low-Speed USB 1.1) drivers for the Poseidon stack[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- MPEG-2 Audio and Video hardware decoder PCI card drivers are in development [/*:m:24bwq40o]
GRex 4000 spec said:
- replaces the original A4000 daughterboard, fits into the standard A4000 desktop case[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- four Zorro III slots and one extended video slot (exactly at the same location as on the original daughterboard)[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- four PCI 2.1 compliant slots[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- 33 MHz PCI clock[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- all slots are DMA capable[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- up to 50 MB/s transfer speed between PCI cards and the CyberStorm[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- 1.76 GB address space without bank switching[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- the CyberStorm firmware has to be updated [/*:m:24bwq40o]
- drivers CyberGFX 4 and Warp3D drivers for Voodoo3, Voodoo4, Voodoo5, Permedia2, ViRGE, ViRGE/DX and SiS6326 graphics cards[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- driver for Brooktree and Conexant Fusion based TV/Video cards with Microtune or Philips tuners[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- driver for certain Realtek based network cards[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- driver for certain ESS and ForteMedia sound cards[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- despite many announcements, USB drivers were not released[/*:m:24bwq40o]
Prometheus specs said:
- four PCI slots clocked with 33 MHz[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- up to 120 MB/s transfer speed between PCI cards[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- up to 12 MB/s transfer speed between PCI cards and the Amiga (higher rates are improbable because of the Buster chip)[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- supports Zorro autoconfig[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- power supply connector[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- metal holders allow stable mounting[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- supplied with extension cord for a graphics card[/*:m:24bwq40o]
- Picasso96 and Warp3D driver for the Voodoo3 graphics card[/*:m:24bwq40o]
IMAGES:
Matay Prometheus:
DCE G-Rex 4000D: