Soph's mac finds

[Overlord]

Wow total mind link. I was just engrossing myself in these amazing cards. LEM has a great review of one from '91. The concept of a Mac within a Mac totally excites me! https://lowendmac.com/1991/radius-rocket-review/

I don't have/never-had any nubus macs. I wish there was a way to get a Nubus card into a SE/30. 

 

[SophieRose]

@olePigeon

I do have another video card, a Radius PrecisionColor Series 24X  so that's good to know it offer some acceleration too.

 

[olePigeon]

@SophieRose I have the exact same setup, but in a IIci.  Radius PrecisionColor and a Radius Rocket.  Even though I very rarely use the Rocket, it's nice to just have it in there.

 

[SophieRose]

@SophieRose I have the exact same setup, but in a IIci.  Radius PrecisionColor and a Radius Rocket.  Even though I very rarely use the Rocket, it's nice to just have it in there.

Oh I'd love a IIci but they seem to have rocketed in price over here.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The VX is basically my nubus test machine, it's stock.  The apple kit I have includes.

That's exactly the type of machine the Rocket was designed to upgrade. Try it under RocketWare as an accelerator as a single proc without the overhead of RocketShare and then compare it to running under RocketShare. I always liked RocketWare, but the 16MHz 030 in my IIx wasn't really worth sharing. Apple broke AppleTalk so as to preclude RocketShare's AppleTalk over NuBus before I had the occasion to go for a second Rocket as planned back then. 7.1Pro is as far as a Rocket can go on its own, though it can run under RocketShare under later OS releases. What's the max there, gang, I forget?

That's one way to get out of a licensing agreement. Apple refined that, doing much the same thing later to the Clone Makers. After having licensed only OS7. they releasedd OS8 which put just about the last nail in the Clone maker's coffins.

edit: welcome aboard. More and better pics of your Rockets would be appreciated. There's quite a bit of difference between them component-wise.

 

[nglevin]

7.1Pro is as far as a Rocket can go on its own, though it can run under RocketShare under later OS releases. What's the max there, gang, I forget?

I've definitely had a Rocket under RocketShare running 7.1(.3? .2? Similar timeframe as 7.1Pro) under Mac OS 8.1 on the Quadra.

I don't recall if I went as far as RocketShare under Mac OS 9.1 on a Nubus PM 7100, but I might have.   I know I had a Rocket running on that hardware.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Interesting, too bad I don't have a spare slot in the Radius 81/110 for a Rocket. The three NuBus slots are slated for VideoVision Studio, Thunder IV GX 1600 and JackHammer. There's enough cubic in that big metal can that the 2/4MB HPV card can hang off the passthru cable of one of my G3 Accelerators for a total of four expansion cards on board where the Apple NuBus PPC Boxes only allow for three out of those four.

But I can pull the VideoVision Studio for some playtime, OS( is definitely going to be on that puppy. I wonder if there's any legacy 68K code in some old app or game that might run faster on the Rocket's 68040 at 33MHz under 7.1 than on the G3 at 250-350MHz under OS9, if at all?

 

[Compgeke]

I do have another video card, a Radius PrecisionColor Series 24X  so that's good to know it offer some acceleration too.

So I spent today benchmarking a bunch of video cards in my IIfx and a PowerComputing Power 100. Unfortunately that Radius card would be much better suited to a PowerPC mac than a 68k mac, but it's a fair bit worse than HPV in the 8100. Under Macbench 4, my PrecisionColor Pro 24xk gets a score of 157 in Publishing Graphics in the PowerComputing but only 48 in the IIfx. An 8100 with HPV will net you a score of 169. I need to get a Quadra to test some stuff in some day to see how much that improves over the 40 MHz '030.

If it were me, I'd save it in case I run across a 7100 as an upgrade over the onboard graphics, or something like the Radius 81/110 or PowerComputing Power 100 I've got. 

 

[Compgeke]

So I spent today benchmarking a bunch of video cards in my IIfx and a PowerComputing Power 100.

 

[nglevin]

Calling out one thing that the Radius cards can do, specifically, looking at those benchmarks.

Are any of these numbers with the QuickColor control panel and a Radius NuBus card? I don't think I see any Radius cards listed there.

My current setup on my Quadra has QuickColor accelerating the QuickDraw calls with a Radius Thunder IV, but all the video output is running directly off the motherboard graphics. It does give a noticeable speed boost. I believe QuickColor also has some benefits when you're using a Rocket accelerated with a Radius graphics card in another NuBus slot, via RocketShare or RocketWare.

Specifically for using QuickColor with motherboard video, I don't have any reason to believe that a Thunder is any better at it than a much cheaper PrecisionColor. It's just what I happen to have in there right now, since I think my PrecisionColor was given away with that PM 7100.

 

[Compgeke]

PCP24xk is the PrecisionColor Pro 24xk with QuickColor. I didn't get a full run of it on the IIfx though, for some reason it'd get part way through and Type 1 error on me. Doesn't do it with any of the other video cards. It's the one card that showed the greatest improvement in PowerPC vs 68k. The one surprising outlier was a dear old Mac Toby that benchmarks almost identical to the Radius PrecisionColor Pro 24xk. I need to make a thread for this some day. 

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

So I spent today benchmarking a bunch of video cards in my IIfx and a PowerComputing Power 100. Unfortunately that Radius card would be much better suited to a PowerPC mac than a 68k mac, but it's a fair bit worse than HPV in the 8100. Under Macbench 4, my PrecisionColor Pro 24xk gets a score of 157 in Publishing Graphics in the PowerComputing but only 48 in the IIfx. An 8100 with HPV will net you a score of 169.

10/20MHz limitations of Bandwidth limitations of NuBus and NuBus90 will never net you a top score when compared to onboard video or an HPV Card, which is PDS at CPU clock as well within their more restricted performance envelopes. NuBus is about throwing more pixels at higher color depths than either. The 24XK can do 1152x870 @24bit, which is beyond the capability of the HPV 1/2MB card. You'd need the 2/4MB version to match that resolution in 24bit. The comparisons on LEM are between the same apples and oranges. NuBus (and PCI) Vidcards are for big screens/24bit in the graphic arts, CAD etc. while onboard/HPV are for low to medium resolutions at up to 24bit for general use and gaming.

edit: what's the production date on that 24XK, that will tell you what machines it were its target. Basically, all cards do better the more recent and the faster the processor even within the limitations of NuBus.

 

[SophieRose]

Yay I've been sent the disks for my rockets

 

[LaPorta]

Oh sweet! You will need to show us how this all works out.

 

[olePigeon]

I'd been keen to see the benchmarks for the 24XK with the Rockets installed.  When I did it with my IIci, the score was a few points higher.

 

[beachycove]

My current setup on my Quadra has QuickColor accelerating the QuickDraw calls with a Radius Thunder IV, but all the video output is running directly off the motherboard graphics. It does give a noticeable speed boost. 

You mean the Radius card plus software improves logic board video? Can you quantify the speed boost?

 

[nglevin]

 You mean the Radius card plus software improves logic board video? Can you quantify the speed boost?

I'll try digging into it next weekend! I know I have at least one benchmark that tests QuickDraw to try on it. It has been awhile since I've done much benchmarking with the Quadra. I'd also like to try it with and without the DiiMO QuadraCache PDS card I have for it, to see if that also makes some difference.

There's should also be some boost for Photoshop by having the optional GWorld Memory plugin enabled, just by having a Radius Thunder card plugged in. It should work for a standard PrecisionColor, too.

 

[SophieRose]

I shall let you know how I get on with the rockets, My IIfx has arrived and has been dismantled and is now awaiting caps and battery sockets, It all looks salvageable so I'll cross my soldering fingers,

 

[nglevin]

This was a fun benchmark to run. All on Quadra motherboard video, with a Thunder/24 acting as the QuickColor accelerator and what I now realize is an incredibly underrated L2 cache card from DiiMO, called the "Quadra Cache" in the silk screen on the PDS card.

@beachycove I have to apologize for my claims. It looks like while I can turn QuickDraw acceleration on when the Thunder isn't driving any video, the performance boost is instead a net loss.

Which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't also reflected in the numbers every time the Quadra L2 cache card was active.

I guess I now have a free Nubus slot. 

View attachment MacBench3ResultsQ800L2QC.sit

 

[SophieRose]

Well I've removed a few ICs and cleaned it up a bit, next I'll beep out the tracks to see what's what cos I can see a few damaged tracks and through holes that will need surgery.  Hey ho I do love a challenge.