060 & CV64/3D & Floppy Emulator questions

[-Acid-]

I'll start with the floppy emulator, I just got one of these but without instructions. What I want to know is, is there a way to connect this as DF0 but eject the disk image when not in use so the Amiga will boot from the hard drive (as if there is a bootable disk image in there it will just keep booting from that unless i change it every time using the early startup menu).

And on to the CV64/3D. I haven't installed this yet but it's going in my A4000D. It has the scan doubler with it so it has two VGA out ports. Do I need a monitor switch and a cable running from each port or is there a way to just connect one of them and then will the card auto switch as needed? if so which port do i connect it to the CV or the SD port?

Which RTG system should I use with this card P96 or CGFX? i'm sure i read both work with it but which should i be trying first? I notice there is a P96 Classic WB available, will that be ready to use with the card out of the archive?

Also i just got my self a Buddha Flash (can't remember if it's the Pheonix Edition don't think so though) but anyway would it be best to use this for my drives or is it the same speed as the on board IDE controller of the A4000?

Cyberstorm Mark 1 060 time, if I bought the daughter board and cpu part without the ram module, are the ram modules easy to come by separately?

Any tips on any of the above would be gratefully received, the CV especially as i have never owned a graphics card before.

 

[-Acid-]

Surely someone has some insights on these subjects?

 

[FastRobPlus]

I've never used a cybervison, but I'd think that the VGA port attached to the flicker fixer module would carry both the scan-doubled Amiga screens and the main cybervision screens, making the VGA port on the main card unnecessary.

As for Buddha, I think in real world use you might see 2-3MB/Sec as it's a ZII card. I don't think it's different enough from the built-in IDE to make it worth using unless you need it for the clockports.

I only use P96 for my RTG. I have no complaints with it and have not run across anything I wanted to use that required CyberGraphx but didn't support P96.

Edit: Check out this video. He's clearly running his entire system though the scan-doubler module's VGA port.

 

[-Acid-]

Ah thanks for the link, might've known Steve would have had one and made a video about it

As for the Buddha i'm not that fussed about a big speed up as it's not like I will be writing video files to a drive on the Amiga. But on the other hand it does offer a lot more IDE ports for additional drives, think I will hang on to it for now.

Thanks for your response!

 

[Zetr0]

@-Acid-

Lets see if I can help.


Q1: Connecting the Emulated FDD as DF0 but still able to boot from HDD when there is an virtual floppy disk installed.

A1: Yes, a very simple one actually.

You can change the Hard Disk Drive Priority to be Higher than the Floppy Drive. Floppy Drives are set in the hardware to have a boot priority of 7, so just pop on into your HDD tool in work bench and put your boot priority to 8


Q2: C643D Graphics Driver Picasso 96 or CyberGraphX v4
A2: You can have both, but it does require a bit of work to get them to work together.

CGX4 offers a slightly faster performance than Picasso 96, however there are a lot more features and support in using Picasso 96


Q3: Budda IDE controller (where to get the best use / performance)
A3: Where ever you need a PIO IDE Controller

The Budda IDE controller is about the same pormance as PIO mode 2 (ish) in terms of data throughput - obviously a faster CPU will be able to pull more data, but that is also true of the internal IDE port of the A4000. I believe I have a recorded speed of about 2.7MB a second from a non-GAL upgraded A4000 with a CSMk2 060@50MHz +128MB RAM. It ate about 40% of the CPU Load - which in comparative terms is like an 040@33Mhz doing nothing but fetch data from a device!

Truth is you will only get about 4MB a second on a Budda in terms of real throughput on a Z3 bus.


Q4: Is it easy to get hold of the CSMk1 Ram Module
A4: No, these are quite difficult and as a result sought after adaptors - however -

Looking at the images they are very passive connectors some I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising, clever, young, good looking wizard makes a few of them

I hope that helps.

 

[-Acid-]

Thanks for your input Zetr0, I still haven't had a play with all this hardware yet as the desktop is a bit cramped as it is and the current PSU is making a horrible noise. I am in the process of acquiring a Power Tower for a nice tower conversion then I will really get into playing with this kit.

I asked about the ram module as last week a guy on ebay was selling a CS1, the SCSI module and the ram module but all in separate auctions (he wouldn't respond to messages either). He had them set in the wrong order and the ram module ended before the cpu board. I wanted to bid on both but not the ram module unless I had won the cpu, so he lost a bidder there. In the end two different people won the cpu and ram... so I hope the guy who got the cpu has a a ram module already