#GVP 030 card
12 messages in this thread
Has any heard any reports on the GVP Impact A2000-030/16 25 cards,as far as
performance,reliability,bangs-per-buck??
What i'm interested in is the how the HD controller works with the 030 as well
as the 68000,for speed and reliability.
If I hear good reports,it'd be probabaly the best way to go,as you'd free up a
slot in your A2000,as well as getting a real grunt machine.
Does anyone know if GVP would sell one of those cards without the 030,virtually
selling it as a pretty trick SCSI HD controller,which you could later on buy
the 030,32bit ram daughterboard etc.??
C u laitr
Brendan Pratt – Queensland,Australia.
Beautiful one day,
Perfect the next!
Brendan, don't count your chickens… (grin)
GVP, as far as I know, have not even finished the software that drives the port
on their 030 card. I've got it, and it's a brilliant card except that the hd
interface is weird, (i.e. not SCSI) and it's supposed to be a special case for
use with Quantums. (I think) Anyway, the board comes with no software or info
on how to use the hd interface.
However, just as a speedup board, this thing is really worth it.. I've
qDATpogot the 030/882 25Mhz 4 meg mem version and this thing flies! It is
about 10 times faster than a normal Ami, and 2.6 times faster than the A2500.
Khalid. (living in the fast lane)
Khalid's evaluation of the GVP 030 as a speedup is accurate — it is
definitely worth it. As for the hard disk controller on the 030, the
software is now ready. In fact, have one installed on my machine. It is
fast and seems reliable, although I have only been using it for a few
weeks so I will have to wait and see. A couple of problems, though. First,
GVP seems to have significant quality control problems with the 030
boards. The 2 dealers that carry them in New York have both reported that
they have had to return boards that were either DOA or failed early on. My
first 030 died after a week and had to be replaced. Second, the drive
controller on the 030 board and the GVP Impact SCSI controller can have
incompatibilities if you don't have the most recent ROMS on the Impact. The
Amiga can hang, looking between the controllers and wondering where to boot
from. I had this problem, but the new ROMs seem to have solved it. (I say
'seems' because they were only installed yesterday.) I highly recommend the
GVP 030, but I would suggest that you buy it through a dealer, NOT mail
order, so you have some leverage if you get bitten by the QC problem.
I find it rather interesting that you say the software is ready on the GVP
board; I know the fellow who is writing it, and it's most definitely NOT
ready unless GVP has been running two parallel development actions – and I
seriously doubt _That_ because they just (two weeks ago) shipped him his
"payment" – an 030 board with the 882 and 2 mb of ram. Do you have some
other HD software, or has GVP been playing a more complex game than it
appears????
My software was installed from a GVP-label installation disk. Perhaps they
did have parallel development going on. They certainly didn't say anything
to my dealer about this being beta software or any kind of interim
solution. On the other hand, that could explain some of the problems
getting the Impact and the 32-bit controllers to work together. If you find
out what is going on, please let me know. For obvious reasons, I am very
interested.
Brian, I'll be talking to him (the developer) tomorrow; I'll post accordingly.
What do you know about the GVP '030 onboard HD controller. I have an
Impact HC/80Q and I'm wondering about performance differences–is the new
controller DMA? Is it a non-SCSI, proprietary controller that will work only
with Quantum drives as has been rumored/reported? Do you know whether I would
be able to leave my Quantum mounted on the Impact, but connect it to the '030
controller? Just curious.
Well, speaking as a user with both the Impact 80q and an 80 meg connected
to the 030 controller, I can give you some impressions and comments.
First, I have not yet gotten around to running any benchmarks. I have,
however, tried both drives on similar tasks – like loading IFF images and
Sculpt files. The 030 controller certainly feels like it has significantly
faster throughput. That is to say, loading a large scene into Sculpt from
the 030 board controlled drive goes noticably faster. I don't see any
reason why you couldn't have the Quantum mounted on the Impact board and
controlled by the 030. However, beware if you try to go the route I went –
running drives off both controllers in one system. To do that reliably,
you will need the latest (version 2.2) ROMs from GVP on your Impact. My
dealer says that those ROMs are normally only available with the SyQuest
removable media, so your dealer will have to call GVP and ask for them. By
the way, if anyone wants me to benchmark the controllers, just tell me
which benchmarks you want me to run and give me a couple of days to get to
it.
Just out of curiousity, did you have the Impact driver in 32-bit RAM? That
by itself should make a significant difference.
My system is configured with 4 meg of 32 bit and 3 meg of 16. The memory
mapping uses the 32 bit RAM first when it is looking for fast RAM and only
goes to the 16 bit when the 32 is full. That means that the drivers for
both the Impact hard card and the 030 card controller should be working out
of 32 bit RAM. By the way, the DH0: partition of the Impact hard card is
my workbench disk, so both drivers reside there. Brian
Thanks Brian,does that mean that the HD controller on the 030 card has
problem only if you have another HD controller on the system??…if that's
so,that'd mean the card would be ideal for someone planning to go 030 at a
later date (that's of course if you can buy it without the 030, or at least
take a little longer to save for one).
Yes, the only problems I have encountered with the controller on the 030
board relate to cohabitating peacefully with the Impact hardcard. I would
find it very surprising if GVP sold the controller without the 030. They
are badly backordered on the 030s, so I can't see how they would have any
extra boards to sell as just HD controllers. In addition, their corporate
policy seems to be to sell configured boards only. They won't sell the 32
bit RAM add on board without at least 4 meg on it, for example.