@MacSociety

This week I heard.

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@MacSociety
Yup, PCI sound card it was

This model:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829121122

GFX I don't know, there is a built in GFX chip (working) and several cards can be used, Acube for example is selling these:

http://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=hardware&pid=6

Check the bottom of the page...

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SamFlex Complete 800Mhz System + AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4
Amiga 2000 DKB 2MB ChipRam GVP G-Force040 Picasso 2 OS3.9 BB2
AmigaCD 32

As for sound... I'd imagine that will be fixed fairly soon.

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strange, can't arrive to post ragemem benchmark (result broken).

Last edited by Mrodfr on 14-Mar-2011 at 07:02 AM.
Last edited by Mrodfr on 14-Mar-2011 at 07:01 AM.

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BTW, what you have done for the amiga today ????

-A1200+Mediator+VooDoo3+060/50+96mo+SCSI-KIT
-SAM440EP-667mhz-on MapowerKC3000+AOS4.1

Amiga Docs Disks Preservation Project

@MacSociety

Quote:

I would think it dumb to ship a system with no sound so they must be using a sound card???

It's more dumb to not buy now and then, when the sound driver will be released and there is no more stock, you'll really feel to be dumb

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Philippe 'Elwood' Ferrucci
Sam460 1.10 Ghz
AmigaOS 4 betatester
Amiga Translator Organisation

@elwood
What MacSociety meant was that he thought they would be including the sound card.

@MacSociety
I don't know if they do, but Amiga dealers are always happy to configure systems for you, so if you ask them to ship your system with a sound card already installed and configured, I don't think they will have a problem.

Also...

@Tonyw (and MacSociety)
I think the PCI-E 1x slot can be used to host a sata controller (for mutliple ports) something like this maybe:



Or use a riser in combination with a standard PCI controller.

That way you can place the sound card in the (now free) standard PCI slot, the sata controller in the PCI-E 1x slot and an eventual GFX card in the faster PCI-E slot.
Again it would be better to contact the dealers and inquire for custom add-ons/installations.

_________________
SamFlex Complete 800Mhz System + AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4
Amiga 2000 DKB 2MB ChipRam GVP G-Force040 Picasso 2 OS3.9 BB2
AmigaCD 32

@ChrisH

Quote:

Also, the Sam440 is not really suited to being a 3D games machine (although when Gallium is ported it might become half-decent for playing Quake 3), but I imagine the Sam460 should be pretty good (as far as Amigas go for 3D games!).

The new Q3 executable I recompiled run on a Sam440ep 667 Mhz at 21.7 FPS with high quality settings on, while for comparison the old executable, with the same settings run at 14.2 FPS.
If you're interested to test the current executable, download it from here:

www.soft3dev.net/games/openarena-ns.lha

Just rename the baseq3 directory to baseoa to use Q3 data files.

Beware: the executable currently tend to freeze in the menus (that's why it isn't released yet)

Sorry for the OT

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Massimiliano Tretene, ACube Systems, Soft3

@MacSociety

Quote:

what advantages does the SAM 460 give over the last models

The SAM440ep makes a nice coder's machine. It's neither lightning-fast nor has it plenty of memory so it is ideal for developing and optimizing software. But as a multimedia or gaming machine it falls short. If I were you I'd go for the 460ex.

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The Rear Window blog

AmigaOne X5000/020 @ 2GHz / 4GB RAM / Radeon RX 560 / ESI Juli@ / AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition
SAM440ep-flex @ 667MHz / 1GB RAM / Radeon 9250 / AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition

@DAX

When Uboot and Amiga OS 4.x support booting from a controller like this in the PCI-E 1x slot or a PCI-E 1x sound card in this slot then you will have a killer machine.

Quote:

@Tonyw (and MacSociety) I think the PCI-E 1x slot can be used to host a sata controller (for mutliple ports) something like this maybe:

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Sam460ex : Radeon Rx550 Single slot Video Card : SIL3112 SATA card

I have been told someone is working on a PCI-e 1x sata controller but no indication of when. Nor have enquiries revealed anyone working on a sound card driver for that slot, yet.

I assembled over a week ago a SAM460ex with 2 GB ram, 2 sata drives, and Radeo HD 4650 1 GB graphics card. With the graphics card the machine is very pleasing to use despite a few things yet to come. Once I departed from the onboard vga, I experienced vastly better graphics, booting and stability - having yet to experience a lockup but no doubt with more old software installed that would change.

Noel

@Mrodfr

Quote:

strange, can't arrive to post ragemem benchmark (result broken).

If you're having trouble posting ragemem results as is:
Remove the arrow character that points left.

#6

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This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@Mrodfr

You drew my attention to ragemem so I ran a comparison with my A1 G3. I do not have
access to a SAM440.

Except for the small L2 cache the SAM460 appears to have a considerable edge on the A1 all the way. I'm not quite certain what the video bus is measuring. Neither the graphics card nor the SATA devices feature here. I gather that PCI-e 1x can have a throughput of 3 GB/sec but we have no drivers there yet. I gathered wrong, should have checked: See correction by Olegil below, #34 ,and further qualification concerning ragemem values by Dax, #37

Noel

A1 benchmark test                        SAM460ex test

RAGEMEM v0.37 - compiled 11/06/2010

CPU: IBM PowerPC 750 FX 2.2 @ 800 Mhz    AMCC PPC460EX 1.2 @ 1150 Mhz
Caches Sizes: L1: 32 KB - L2: 512 KB     L1: 32 KB - L2: 256 KB 
Cache Line: 32                            128

---CPU ---
MAX MIPS:  1588                          2298

--- L1 ---
READ32:  3026 MB/Sec                     4313 MB/Sec
READ64:  6026 MB/Sec                     8593 MB/Sec
WRITE32: 2681 MB/Sec                     4204 MB/Sec
WRITE64: 4033 MB/Sec                     8357 MB/Sec

--- L2 ---
READ32:  1536 MB/Sec                     1035 MB/Sec
READ64:  2077 MB/Sec                     1035 MB/Sec
WRITE32: 1370 MB/Sec                      461 MB/Sec
WRITE64: 1939 MB/Sec                      462 MB/Sec

--- RAM ---
READ32:  177 MB/Sec                       283 MB/Sec
READ64:  186 MB/Sec                       283 MB/Sec
WRITE32: 113 MB/Sec                       461 MB/Sec
WRITE64: 113 MB/Sec                       461 MB/Sec
WRITE: 588 MB/Sec (Tricky)                864 MB/Sec (Tricky)

--- VIDEO BUS ---
READ:  27 MB/Sec                           66 MB/Sec

Last edited by NoelFuller on 15-Mar-2011 at 07:04 PM.
Last edited by NoelFuller on 15-Mar-2011 at 05:22 AM.

@NoelFuller

Please post your results in THIS thread. It is all about ragemem results.

OldFart

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More then three levels of indigestion and you're scroomed!

@NoelFuller

Nice.

But good luck getting 3GB/sec over PCIe x1 (it's not 1x, it's x1!!!!! NxAGP, PCIe x N. It's number of lanes, not bits per clock! Read it as "by" instead of "eks")

base speed of PCIe is 2500Mbps, bidirectional, per lane. 4/5 bit encoded, so effective bit rate becomes 2GigaBIT per seconds. That's 250MegaByte per seconds, minus packet overhead (much like ethernet, really).

Good news is this can flow continously in both directions at once, unlike PCI or AGP that would need to halt traffic to wait for data coming back.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@OldFart

Well, I never got round to noticing that thread. I'm always a bit suspicious of what speed tests measure so will look through the discussion.

Noel

Last edited by NoelFuller on 15-Mar-2011 at 11:32 AM.

@olegil

Thanks for the explanation. Not the first time bits and bytes have got mixed about. Will pass this back to my informant.

Noel

@NoelFuller @All
Rage mem values for the 460 at this point are only preliminary. Both Max Tretene (m3x) form Acube and Hans De Ruiter (which is working on the RadeonHD driver) have stated that currently these values are lower due to the WIP status.
m3x already has a faster set up "in-house".

_________________
SamFlex Complete 800Mhz System + AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4
Amiga 2000 DKB 2MB ChipRam GVP G-Force040 Picasso 2 OS3.9 BB2
AmigaCD 32

@DAX

Quote:

m3x already has a faster set up "in-house".

I'm very, very curious about what figures can be reached when all aspects have been sorted out and dealt with.

OldFart

_________________
More then three levels of indigestion and you're scroomed!

@Cool_amigaN Quote:

really bad 3d drivers (like all AOS4.x compatible computer line)

Sorry, but that's rubbish. OS4 has PRETTY GOOD hardware-accelerated 3D drivers, unlike many niche OSes. It's certainly true they could be even faster, but not so much that they are useless (CPU can be just as much of a problem for 3D games, thus Sam440 is not so good for them - please don't assume all OS4 machines are the same as your Sam440).

Last edited by ChrisH on 16-Mar-2011 at 09:00 AM.

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Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

@OldFart
Sky is the limit!

Jokes aside, in current internal wip form he mentioned (just to make an example) the following for Ram:

Read: 365+ MB/s – Write: 560+ MB/s

Which is already quite more than what's reported above (even more impressive if compared to the A1 beside it). Moreover the VideoBus is in "snore mode" at the moment, so pleasant surprises ahead...

@Cool_amigaN
The good'ol 440EP has a lot of bottlenecks which prevent good 3D performance. No L2 cache, slow FSB, the impossibility of using faster video cards and/or providing to those (if available) sufficient bandwidth and CPU support.
Improvements can come of course, the latest optimized version of Quake3 (by m3x) looks promising, and in the case of the Flex, new drivers might allow the usage of better GFX cards (Radeon HD 4350 possibly?) but to truly test how good AmigaOS 4 is at 3D, we need HW like the 460EX or X1000, which won't oppose the software side with HW bottlenecks.

Last edited by DAX on 16-Mar-2011 at 10:47 AM.

_________________
SamFlex Complete 800Mhz System + AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4
Amiga 2000 DKB 2MB ChipRam GVP G-Force040 Picasso 2 OS3.9 BB2
AmigaCD 32