Will this card compatible with my sam440ep?

Will this card compatible with my sam440ep? If it is will it give a performance increase when playing games?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicatio ... p?EdpNo=2563229&CatId=697

BUMP

I can't say if it would work, but I can't really recommend it. Current drivers won't be able to use it fully (true for just about any Radeon at least), and support in upcoming Gallium is uncertain at best. Is there a problem with the onboard device?

@carvedeye

it should work, yes, but you'll need additional files from acube to use it. the original SAM boards weren't really designed to use an additional graphics card, but it is possible. download this archive before installation of a 9250.

however it won't be any more performant than the on-board radeon M9. on the contrary it will probably be slower, but not by much. if your main interest is increasing the amount of available video memory (against the built-in 64MB), it might make sense. but otherwise you'd probably be happier with your on-board video.

let us know what you decide and how it goes!

-- eliyahu

As eliyahu says.

That is what I have learnt just this week.
I have a 9200 (which is better than the clocked down 9250) and I am finding it difficult to use.

Apart from the memory increase (from the onboard 64MB of the M9 to the 128MB of the Radeon) you might slow down the system since the PCI slot is 33MHz and not 66MHz.

I might give mine another shot but all in all I don't think it's worth the time spent.

@eliyahu Quote:
I believe you are wrong for many ported 3D games, where they run EXTREMELY slow on the Sam440, which I *think* is due to the lack of video ram. Since the above card has twice the available video RAM (128MB), it *should* give a big increase in speed... BUT I HAVE NOT PROVEN THIS. (Hopefully some else can test the idea.... Maybe TheDaddy can?)

@Thematic Quote:
What are you talking about? The Radeon92x0 is fully supported by Warp3D & MiniGL.

@carvedeye
That card should work fine, because it meets all these critera:
* It is a Radeon 9250 or 9200.
* It is a PCI card (and NOT a PCI-E or PCI-Express!).
* The PCI slot is shown to have TWO notches in it (and so should work with the Sam440's 3.3v PCI).
* It has 128MB (or more) of RAM, which is what we want.

Two mild warnings:
* It's video output connector is not DVI or VGA, but "DMS-59" (I don't have a clue what this is!). However, it says it comes with "DMS-59 to (2) Two DVI Cable" & "(2) Two DVI to VGA Adapters", so this should not be a problem.

* It is a "Low Profile" card, which do not fit in normal sized cases... but looking at the picture, it shows that it also comes with a full-hight metal bracket. You should be able to unscrew the "low profile" bracket, and screw the "full hight" bracket on.

I wrote Quote:
I did some limited tests:
http://www.amigans.net/modules/xforum ... t_id=67345#forumpost67345

These only partially support my thinking that a 128MB PCI graphics card would improve performance of slow 3D games on the Sam440. More testing is needed!

@carvedeye
Please list which 3D games ran slowly for you. Then maybe me & others can test this idea more.

@ChrisH

Quote:
those results make sense. thanks for the tests! the main benefit of using an external card would be the increased video memory, the lack of which on the SAM440EP can cause things to slow to a crawl when you run out just as on a microA1.

my earlier point was that, independent of video memory, the chipset on the 9250 is not especially more performant than the M9, and it has to go through a relatively slow PCI interface to boot. so if you weren't hitting up against the 64MB VRAM limitation, you would probably better off using on-board video. if you do hit against the VRAM limit, then you'd probably be interesting in at least trying a 9x00 card with more to see if it helps.

those cards are so inexpensive, it's worth the experiment.

-- eliyahu

Quote:
If you really want to try a PCI gfx card on your Sam440ep, I suggest you to find a (rather rare) Radeon 9000, with 128-bit RAM bus.

This is the fastest gfx card you may currently use on a Sam440ep (mini-itx or flex model) and it's as fast as the onboard M9 in 3D speed, while Radeon 9200 or 9250 are way slower.

Is 3D supported for the M9, I believe it is.

Quote:

That is simply not true. The cards are far more capable than that. Although admittedly, the timetable for public release of first Gallium drivers is unknown.

@Thematic
I think we are talking at cross-purposes. When I say it is fully supported, I mean it is supported as well as any other 3D graphics card on AmigaOS4.

Your earlier post could have been misunderstood to mean that the Radeon92x0 is a worse choice than other graphics cards (which is not true... until we get Gallium3D+Mesa).