The ultimate Graphics accelerator for your CyberstormPPC or MkIII
The ultimate Graphics accelerator for your CyberstormPPC or MkIII
Most PC users know about the Permedia 2 chip - it's one of the most up-to-date 3D graphics processors. The Permedia 2 is also the heart of the CybervisionPPC card, and its 2D performance is quite impressive. It can display 1280 by 1024 pixels in true color with an 85 Hz refresh rate; 1600 by 1200 pixels in true color at a refresh rate of 60 Hz (85 Hz in high color) and is equppied with 8 MB of display memory. Its 3D features include z-buffering, fogging, blending, anti-aliasing, gouraud shading and 80 million 3D pixels per second. At the moment, there is no Amiga software around that makes full use of the Permedia2. This will change with the release of Warp3D.
After all the talk about what the board could do in theory, let us have a look at the pure benchmarks. phase5 claimed the direct-cpu bus on the PPC boards were very fast. Here are some Bus speed results made with BusSpeedTest 0.19.
| Operation -> |
readw |
readl |
readm |
writew |
writel |
writem |
| Picasso IV ZorroII->PCIBus ??MHz |
1.5 |
1.6 |
1.6 |
2.4 |
2.4 |
2.4 |
| CyberVision64/3D ZorroIII->PCIBus 25MHz |
1.7 |
3.4 |
3.4 |
3.8 |
7.5 |
7.6 |
| Picasso IV ZorroIII->PCIBus ??MHz |
1.8 |
3.5 |
3.5 |
5 |
9.9 |
9.9 |
| CyberVision64 ZorroIII->VLBus 50MHz |
2.1 |
4.3 |
4.3 |
7 |
13.9 |
13.9 |
| CyberVisionPPC CStorm local bus->PCIBus 25MHz |
2.4 |
4.8 |
4.8 |
8.6 |
17.3 |
17.2 |
|
BusSpeedTest 0.19 was used and the numbers are all number(bandwidth) * 10^6 byte/s. Source: http://www.vgr.com |
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It should be noted that the CybervisionPPC's bus-speed results are by far not as fast as expected! Why no draw speed results? It can be said that the CyberVision PPC is faster than the former CyberVision graphic boards in everyday use especially in 800x600 modes.
One negative point is that you don't have the option for a scan doubler or flickerfixer if you don't want to use an external monitor switcher. Future versions of the firmware will allow you to display the bootmenu. If you already own a Zorro-III graphics accelerator, it is debatable whether or not the CybervsionPPC with today's drivers and at this price is worth the upgrade.
Prices for the CybervisionPPC start from around DM: 500 UK£: 200 US$: 300.
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