#What flavor toaster?
12 messages in this thread
I'm almost over the edge considering purchasing a 'toaster 4000 and A4000
bundle. Since I've been out of Amiga's for a few years now, I'd appreciate
some suggestions on configuration and some price guestimates for the suggested
packages. I'm strictly involved with 3-D rendering, (perhaps the dongle will
change that), so performance generating anim's is a priority. I'd like an 040,
and to stay with less than a gig HD. (I expect HD prices to drop drastically
in the next 6 months.) To give you an idea of my experience level, I last
worked with Amiga's using Sculpt 4D. (Sherman, set the wayback.)
Any and all advice heartily welcomed.
-Ralph-
If you are in the U.S. and are looking for prices, I'd suggest talking
to your local dealer or looking at some mail order ads in
Amigaworld. In the mail order market, I see some T4000 and A4000
bundles going for around $5000 or so. Besides the A4000 and T4000
you may have to take into consideration other software and hardware
that you may need.
On the software front, you will likely need an image processing
program, such as Art Department Professional, Imagemaster or Image
F/X. Other possibilities are Pixel 3D for conversion of 2D graphics
to 3D and some conversion capabilities from other 3D packages. Also,
you may choose Interchange for conversion.
On the hardware front, I highly recommend DPS's Personal Animation
Recorder (PAR). This is a card with a seperate hard disk that enables
you to play back 3-5 minutes of animation full-screen full-color at
30 frames per second. A T4000 on an A4000 has the ability to only
play back a few seconds of animation – if you have any animations
longer than that, the PAR works really well.
You will also have to consider a video tape recorder if you want to
dump your animations to tape.
>I'm almost over the edge considering purchasing a 'toaster 4000 and A4000
>bundle. I'd appreciate some configurations and some price guestimates.
Go for it! I have a A3000 and VT 3.0 and would LOVE to have a A4000/VT4000
set up.
I have seen A4000s 040s for about $2200-2500, you would then need LOTS of
ram (18 megs recomemded) haven't checked ram prices lately. You could then
get a 1 gig HD, I have seen them for less than $1,000. VT4000 go for about
$2,000.
ALOT has changed since the `Days of Sculpt'. What have you been doing
since then? Have you done any 3D on other platforms?
<<< Tony D. Tracer >>>
Tony D. T., (A.K.A. Tony D., A.K.A. Tony the T.??)
Gee, since then… Mostly toying. Running some of my own applications on
VAXen, POV… (For a while it was more important to have source and
flexibility than a snazzy interface – now it's back to trying to get things
accomplished!)
So lets see:
A4000 $2500
VT4000 $2000
1G HD $1000
24M RAM $1050
————-
Total $6550
Not bad at all!
Going to go see a dealer today.
-Ralph-
What! A thousand dollars for 24 megs of RAM? Is this stuff gold
plated?
I based it on about $200 per 4MB simm, isn't that about the going
rate? Wait, the Amiga uses non-parity RAM, right?
I don't know what you're used to paying for memory, but I'd be happy
if I could find 24 megs of ram for $1000. Last time a bought a 4 meg
simm for my GVP 3050 it cost me about $320 CDN plus tax.
>Going to go see a dealer today.
You can also get a A2000 with a 040 accelerator that will be faster
than a A4000 then get a PAR board.
Btw, I can always SEE a dealer but I have a problem comming up with
the money for things I want. :^) Isn't this always the case???
Take your ram down to 18 meg – thats all the 4000 can handle without
the DKB board. Talk to Manta, KJ, TSComputers, Anti-Gravity for
Toaster 4000 workstation packages. You may come in a grand or so
less than you show for those items.
A word of warning about PAR and T4000 anim playback – the PAR is
compressed with "lossy" compression (I'm reasonabley certain its
JPEG). This may not be an issue with you, but you should know it
before laying out bucks. Also the T4000 playbacks are, as I
understand it 256K color anims, not 24 bit color. Again, dpending on
what you are using it for, it may not be an issue, but you should
look into it closeley before deciding, PAR, T4000, or single frame to
tape.
Note also that after you put the Toaster in a 4000 you only have 2
slots left. You may want to look at some type of slot box solution
like the Toaster Oven or Toaster Toolbox.
>> Note also that after you put the Toaster in a 4000 you only have 2 slots
>> left. You may want to look at some type of slot box solution like the
>> Toaster Oven or Toaster Toolbox.
My local dealer (Desktop Video) is the one selling the "Toaster
ToolBox". Infact, I got one. A word of advice… Just go buy the
cheapest clone PC without any video, memory, cache, drives… Just a
motherboard (Any ISA motherboard will do) in a case with a power
supply. Poof… An Amiga expansion box.
Note: This box is only good for TBC's and other cards that do not
require direct bus connection with the Amiga. All this box does is
supply power to the ISA cards you install in it. I also use it to
hold my SCSI drive. (2Gb Maxtor connected thru 4091 in Amiga… Works
GREAT!)
If I had known this before I bought my Toaster Toolbox, I would have
saved a few $$$ and built it myself.
What you say is true. However, for most users going with a product
that is supposedly supported for that use would be less "risky", in a
sense. And at the price I seen to recall (was it $329?) I'm not sure
a "gutless clone" for that or less can be had over the counter – or
am I that out of date?
Ralph, I believe, (and someone can correct me – will correct me – if
I'm wrong) but the fastest rendering to date is an '040 accelerator
in an A2000.
As for the dropping HD prices, they have already dropped a bunch,
and, unless you are focussing on hi density IDE, I don't think there
will be much more of a drop, rather a steady decline. And, in the
SCSI world, the dif between .5 gig and 1 gig is almost miniscule
(like 20%, in some cases).