BvisionPPC
The Graphics board for the Blizzard 603e
(+).
About the BVision
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
BlizzardVisionPPC 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
has changed with the release of Warp3D V2.
Benchmarks
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
|
BlizzardVision
B603e local bus
|
4.7
|
9.4
|
9.4
|
7.9
|
15.8
|
15.8
|
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.
|
It should be noted that although the bus speed
results are nowhere near the high speeds some
people expected this is still a very fast card,
even in high and true colour modes. It is certainly
the fastest card on the A1200.
Overall
Even if you own a Zorro-II busboard and graphics
accelerator, it might be worth considering
upgrading to this card because of the large
performance advantages of the faster memory bus,
more memory and the more advanced chipset.
Prices for the BlizzardVisionPPC start from
around DM: 400 UKĀ£: 150 US$: ???.
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