Quote:

You won't have driver problems with Radeon cards (the driver is kinda generic, p96 team simply have to add the card ID to make it work).

It's not exactly that easy. We added an ID for Olegil to try a card in his PCI-Express dev board adaptor and it apparently did not "just work". Hopefully we'll have time at some point to look more into what else is goign on there.

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@sg2

Quote:

Putting anything on board and reducing the number of slots is just making choices in place of the user, and there will always be some complaining that this is not in line with their wishes, while favoring expansion slots allows for 100% matching (but then, 3 PCI ain't enough).

What about performance? I mean putting harddrive interfaces on PCI slots.
Is that really wise? All PCI slots hasn't got 133MB/s each no?

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Quote:

if somebody stuck a southbridge chip on a pci card with all the required ports it would solve the lack of slots maybe. I have no idea how viable that would be but . This one would do the job.

Problem is, how do you connect this soutnbridge? It's connection to the system is over Via's proprietary Vlink bus, not over PCI.

Through its support for the 8X V-Link interface, delivering data throughput speeds of up to 533MB/sec, the VT8237A is also fully compatible with existing VIA North Bridge solutions, giving OEMs and motherboard manufacturers additional flexibility in integrating new levels of advanced I/O functionality into their current platform designs.

You've got the right idea, jsut the wrong chip. Unfortunetaly the only chips we might be able to choose from are 686B or whatever is on Pegasos2, both of which are showing their age, might not be made ROHS compliant, and lack some of the more recent features.

P.S. It would be cool if someone could manage to get a Uli M1575 chip paired with a PLX 8111 PCI bridge for this purpose...

Last edited by billt on 19-May-2006 at 05:30 PM.

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This is all speculation so take it as that please...

It seems pretty obvious (at least to me) from Adam's posts that his high-end board will be using Tundra's Tsi109. It has dual Gig-E, DDR-400 RAM, etc... It even supports dual processors when that requirement comes along.

It has a single PCI bus controller running as either 64bit 133MHz PCI-X or 66MHz PCI.

To support PCI-Express there would need to be a bridge chip of some sort. PLX has a 4-lane PCI-X to PCI-E bridge (PLX 8114) or 1-lane PCI-66 to PCI-E bridge (PLX 8111).

If it was me as a buyer I would prefer to have 4-lane PCI-E support since this would be assumed to be used for a graphics card. 4-lane support also transitions nicely with Tundra's next generation Tsi110 which will support dual 4-lane PCI Express.

However, if the choice is made to go PCI-X to PCI-E then there aren't regular PCI slots. I presume that would mean another bridge chip to go from PCI-X to plain-jane PCI. However, if the plan was to go with 66MHz PCI and make a 'fake' AGP slot out of that then wouldn't a bridge be necessary anyway to support 33Mhz PCI?

The problem, as usual, is getting a decent price on the PLX8114. I only see a quote from back in 2004 quoting $30 "in volume". There is also the challenge of getting the OS4 drivers to support a few cards in this mode.

In summary, implementing PCI-Express:

PROS:
- It's PCI-Express! More competitive product
- Better graphic card selection

CONS:
- More costs (chip, real estate)
- Driver issues

Last edited by gregthecanuck on 19-May-2006 at 07:58 PM.
Last edited by gregthecanuck on 19-May-2006 at 07:56 PM.

Will the PowerVixxen (for the 1200) have access to the Amiga chipset on the 1200 mobo and be able to use them for running WHDLoad games?

and....

Will it be using the PowerVixxen's CPU for this or the 1200's 68020?

Quote:

Alan's posts

You mean Adam's posts...

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Quote:

What about performance? I mean putting harddrive interfaces on PCI slots. Is that really wise? All PCI slots hasn't got 133MB/s each no?.

I've dedicated a 66MHz PCI slot for USB 2.0 + SATA. Which should leave more than enough bandwidth for most users.

ACK

Good to heard about new hardware, but, I only will believe when i will see it , however I will wait it "desperately"

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Mesa don't get this:
Quote:

It's not hard at all to put a PCI Express slot on a board, it's just we (we being Video driver developers) don't have docs on the newer PCI Express cards.

And yet, I'm running PCI Express in my SE. Ok, so no 3D acceleration just yet, but both UBoot and OS4 supports my X300 for 2D.

Oh well, go figure

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@DaveAE

Quote:

You mean Adam's posts...

Yes, sorry Adam. Brain fart.

Nobody noticed that:

Quote:

02:05:16] What about licensing? How do you have obtained licensing? [02:18:57] I really don't expect any issues with the licensing. [02:19:37] Going to get the h/w working first and worry about that after.

What, if later AmigaInc not give him a licence?

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Quote:

What, if later AmigaInc not give him a licence?

Then Adam needs to kindly ask the Morphos-Team for a port.

@hatschi

Quote:

Then Adam needs to kindly ask the Morphos-Team for a port.

Or we just buy a new Mac and forget about AmigaOS completely. Seriously. For me, this is the last chance. I've wasted too much of my life sitting here waiting for "the next coming".

Those of you going on about how a USB card + SATA card will eat up two PCI slots...

http://www.ciao.co.uk/SIIG_USB_2_0_FireWire_SATA_PATA_Combo__6276707

There you go. Pretty much all you'd need. That is, short of a sound card. So, sound, one of those above, and video, and this board should it ever come to fruition.

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Quote:

Who is in need of GbE with OS4... Can be added afterwards in a slot :)

Not if the slot is a 32bit/33MHz PCI slot, it can't. Especially if your hard drives are hanging off the same PCI bus. 133MB/s theoretical peak, remember? In the case of, say, an RTL8169 based gigabit ethernet card, going at full throttle and NOT trying to use the same PCI bus for anything else, that translates to about 33MB/s real send throughput, OR (not and!) a nudge more for receive. Intel PCI gigabit network cards do better, but are still a far cry from "gigabit" performance when used in PCI 32/33 slots.

There is a reason for putting ethernet controllers and disk controllers into the northbridge --- classic PCI simply doesn't have the bandwidth to deal with today's networks and disks.

@umisef

That was my concern aswell. But Adam said he's put the USB and disk controller on a
dedicated 66MHz bus. But if this means a PCI slot or on the motherboard I don't know.

EDIT: After rereading I saw that he wrote a "PCI slot".

Although as long as this board will be "alive" there's really no need for gigabit network.

I for one would very much hope for harddrive support directly from the motherboard
on its own dedicated bus for best performance. Preferably both PATA and SATA.

Last edited by Samwel on 20-May-2006 at 04:53 AM.

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@ackcontrls

Thanks for the clarification.

What would the additional cost be if you put PATA or PATA+SATA on the motherboard?
And how much time/work would that take? I would really prefer that even if the price
was higher. Harddrive and optical drive performance is one of the main features, just
as important as a network port and USB is IMHO.

Is there also a special combo card that you recommend we buy?
I know of SiL0680, SiL3112/4, VIA USB2.0 combo cards that are quite cheap.

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Quote:

Those of you going on about how a USB card + SATA card will eat up two PCI slots... http://www.ciao.co.uk/SIIG_USB_2_0_FireWire_SATA_PATA_Combo__6276707 There you go. Pretty much all you'd need. That is, short of a sound card. So, sound, one of those above, and video, and this board should it ever come to fruition.

But are there drivers for the chipsets on that card? If not, how long would it take to write some? If they need to be written, is there someone with time to even undertake it? And if thats all fine, will the performance be okay on that 66MHz PCI slot?

@jahc

This card should already be working.

Drivers for its PATA, SATA and USB already exists. Although with USB not in USB2.0 mode.
Firewire is not available for OS4 at all yet.

EDIT: The harddrive chip is Sil3112 and the USB supports OHCI in 1.1 mode..

Link to the card

Last edited by Samwel on 20-May-2006 at 05:41 AM.
Last edited by Samwel on 20-May-2006 at 05:28 AM.

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I'd rather buy this card though as it supports four harddrive or optical units.
I already own a PATA harddrive and my DVD-burner also needs a PATA connector.
The SATA+PATA combo card only supports one SATA and one PATA unit.

USB+Firewire+UltraATA133 RAID combo

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