For Sale AGP to PCI adapters in ENIG finish

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bfgmatik

bfgmatik

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I have for sell some of AGP to PCI passive adapters. These adapters were designed and are soldered by me. AGP to PCI adapter allows you to use some AGP graphic cards in PCI slot, therefore making them suitable for use with Amiga PCI bridgeboards like Firebird.

The design was tested with Firebird 1.1 PCI bridge for Amiga A4000D and following cards:
- Radeon 9250 AGP (2D in Workbench),
- Radeon 9200 AGP (2D in Workbench),
- Voodoo3 2000 AGP (2D in Workbench and 3D in BlitzQuake).

Radeon 9250 AGP also tested with PC mainboard MSI MS-6714 845GEM.

I was testing them for last several weeks and they worked great. As you may know, 3dfx Voodoo cards are only cards with 3D acceleration driver for AmigaOS so only they can be used for 3D. And PCI versions are quite expensive nowadays...

NOW ABOUT LIMITATIONS:

1) You cannot use any AGP card in AGP to PCI adapter. The card must be backward-compatible with AGP slot version 1.0 driven by 3.3V logic levels. Radeon 9200, Radeon 9250, Voodoo 3 cards all are known to work with these voltage levels. Probably also some of older NVIDIA cards but there is no driver for them so they are out of discussion.
I you put a card that doesn't support 3.3V, then you may FRY the card or whole computer, you have been warned!

2) AGP devices do not have an IDSEL input pin which is used to select the card on PCI bus. They answer to configuration commands when AD16 pin is high. Because of that they must be placed in one specific PCI SLOT to make sure that they do not make conflict with other cards on PCI bridgeboard.
Therefore for Firebird there are two possible scenarios:
a) AGP card must be located in the LOWEST slot (the slot closest to the mainboard, as it is selected by AD16 connected to IDSEL)
OR
b) AGP card can be located in any slot but lowest slot must be empty to avoid conflict.

It is confirmed that this is NOT WORKING with elbox mediator because of IDSEL issue. :(

IMG_4553.JPG


Now the pricing:
1) Soldered and tested adapter - 30 EUR (33 USD),
2) PCB only - 10 EUR (11 USD)
Shipping (Polish post registered priority mail): 8 EUR (9 USD)

Edit: Prometheus/Ressurector is 3.3V as I have a schematic here. Mediator may be a problem because they initally used 5V. I'm not sure because there were a few different versions, but 3.3V mod probably only adds 3.3V on power lines, while IO still stays at 5V.

I'm not sure what happens in this situation but Radeon worked in a PC mainboard which slots were marked as 5V...

Edit:
bfgmatik said:
Hmmm, OK, but you are probably talking about VIO pins of PCI connector. In my opinion this may be some kind of mistake on Firebird PCB. If logic is 3.3V (and it must be because CPLDs doesn't have any contact with 5V, fully powered from 3.3V at least on v1.1), then VIO should be 3.3V.

BUT:
My adapter doesn't use VIO pins on PCI side. They are left unconnected. 3.3V is routed from 3.3V PCI pins and logic on Firebird v1.1 is 3.3V. So as a result, everything is 3.3V on my adapter. I believe... :)

p.s. Possible reason of 5V on VIO pins on Firebird is PCI specs. As you can see, these slots are 5V-type (they have a 5V-type notch), but still CPLDs are 3.3V.
Click to expand...

I just got back to home and I'm able to check my Firebird. I confirm that VIO pins of PCI connector are 5V on Firebird v1.1. But these pins are not used by adapter and this doesn't have any influence on adapter operation. 3.3V is taken from 3.3V dedicated pins and whole logic for Firebird, routed to AGP by my adapter is 3.3V.
 
Last edited:
Declaring interest.
2x PCB only
(Marked as sold/completed by bfgmatik)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Very nice work.
I have two questions:
- how can the card align with mounting screw of the case?
- does it work in a regular PCI slot in a PC, or only with Amiga and PCI bus?
 
Declaring interest.
Interested in one soldered adapter
(Marked as sold/completed by bfgmatik)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Xanxi said:
Very nice work.
I have two questions:
- how can the card align with mounting screw of the case?
- does it work in a regular PCI slot in a PC, or only with Amiga and PCI bus?
Click to expand...
Good question about card align, forgot about that. The adapter adds around 23-24mm to overal card height, this is inevitable. A lot of Radeon 9200/9250 cards are low-profile so they fit without problem. Regarding the front bracket - you need to cut it and bent to be able to screw it or make/find a suitable 3d-print. With Voodoo 3 there is more problem. VGA connector is located high and it fits into rear window but you will not be able to connect monitor VGA cable without cuting part of it (I mean the monitor plug, I saw such modifications on the internet, a little drastic ;) or making an additional adapter.

As I mentioned, I tested Radeon 9250 AGP with PC mainboard MSI MS-6714 845GEM. Worked great. I wasn't brave enough to test Voodoo because it is more expensive and I don't know whether this PC mainboard supplies 3.3V or 5V on PCI logic.
 
Declaring interest.
6 pcs
(Marked as sold/completed by bfgmatik)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Declaring interest.
2x 1) Soldered and tested adapter
(Marked as sold/completed by bfgmatik)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Declaring interest.
2 Full Adapters
(Marked as sold/completed by bfgmatik)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Declaring interest.
Declaring interest in 2 soldered adapters.
(Marked as sold/completed by bfgmatik)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Rontti said:
Question: does this also work with the Mediator, or is it for Firebird only?
Click to expand...
This needs to be tested and I don't have Mediator here :(. There is a matter of this IDSEL line like I wrote above. Would be nice to check on the Mediator, which slot has IDSEL driven by AD16 (for most designs these pins are simply connected together with a track, but they can be controlled with different IO pins of CPLD).

For Firebird bridge, slots IDSEL pins are driven by AD16, AD17, AD18, and AD19 pin appropriately. The same probably for original Prometheus, Prometheus/Ressurector, etc. (for Resurrector the IDSEL-AD16 pin is the TOP one as I quickly checked on gerber file).
 
Declaring interest.
Interested in one soldered adapter
(Marked as sold/completed by bfgmatik)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
bfgmatik said:
This needs to be tested and I don't have Mediator here :(. There is a matter of this IDSEL line like I wrote above. Would be nice to check on the Mediator, which slot has IDSEL driven by AD16 (for most designs these pins are simply connected together with a track, but they can be controlled with different IO pins of CPLD).
Click to expand...
What about the signal voltage? Isn't this generally fixed at 5V for (most if not all of) the Amiga PCI bridges? Or do you trust the high levels to stay <= 3.3V because there's usually a CPLD in between?
 
torsti76 said:
What about the signal voltage? Isn't this generally fixed at 5V for (most if not all of) the Amiga PCI bridges? Or do you trust the high levels to stay <= 3.3V because there's usually a CPLD in between?
Click to expand...
Firebird IO is definitely 3.3V, as CPLD IO voltage is connected 3.3V linear voltage regulator output.
 
Prometheus/Ressurector is 3.3V as I have a schematic here. Mediator may be a problem because they initally used 5V. I'm not sure because there were a few different versions, but 3.3V mod probably only adds 3.3V on power lines, while IO still stays at 5V.

I'm not sure what happens in this situation but Radeon worked in a PC mainboard which slots were marked as 5V...
 
bfgmatik said:
Prometheus/Ressurector is 3.3V as I have a schematic here. Mediator may be a problem because they initally used 5V. I'm not sure because there were a few different versions, but 3.3V mod probably only adds 3.3V on power lines, while IO still stays at 5V.

I'm not sure what happens in this situation but Radeon worked in a PC mainboard which slots were marked as 5V...
Click to expand...
Someone has to measure the voltages, I guess. One major difference between the PCI and AGP variants of the Radeon and Voodoo is that the PCI cards usually have buffers/level shifters, while the AGP cards don't (why should they, anyway - AGP was never specified for 5V.)
 
torsti76 said:
Someone has to measure the voltages, I guess. One major difference between the PCI and AGP variants of the Radeon and Voodoo is that the PCI cards usually have buffers/level shifters, while the AGP cards don't (why should they, anyway - AGP was never specified for 5V.)
Click to expand...
Didn't know about that. I was sure that Voodoo was basically PCI and AGP was added because the market demanded it when AGP was introduced. So I thought that they simply connected AGP lines to PCI-based chipset to make AGP (Voodoo doesn't support some AGP-specific features as far as I know so it seemed to be a AGP-connected PCI).

But you may be right. It may be dangerous to connect this to 5V IO of Mediator. I only tested Firebird. And Firebird is 3.3V. 5V is not even connected to any CPLD pins, just confirmed this on my PCB.
 
Declaring interest.
(Marked as sold/completed by bfgmatik)
 
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