The CTPCI brings you at last the PCI connectors to your Falcon CT60/63 to use the graphical cards RADEON 7000/7500/9200, and some other cards like Ethernet, USB, S-ATA, Audio, etc...
With CTPCI + Radeon couple, you can use all LCD monitors with a great working area in some screen resolutions like 1920*1200 (wide / HDTV is 1920*1080), 1600*1200 or 1280*1024 in 16 Millions, 65K or 256 colors by example...
The CTPCI gives you a second IDE faster port to connect up to 4 IDE devices on your Falcon (2*HDD + CDROM + CompatFlash reader by example).
Many GEM software are running with these screen resolutions, even Cubase Audio 2.06.
The PCI software layer, the new VDI system and the Radeon driver was designed by Didier Méquignon, author of the TOS for CT60/63. Some developers will propose their work for other PCI cards. The new VDI layer of the TOS is up to 10 time faster than the original VDI on Falcon + CT60/63.
CTPCI is a small
card that plugs on the CT60/63 expand slot and uses a
LOCAL-PCI bridge, the PLX 9054.
This last generation PCI bridge is the successor of the well known PLX9080 that
is used on the Milan motherboard.
It is register backward compatible...
FEATURES
-
4 PCI 3.3V slots at 33 Mhz.
- 1 port P-ATA (IDE) running in mode 4 (cycle of 120ns) compatible with the
IDE of the Falcon.
-
Bridge Local-PCI 2.2 PLX9054 clocked on CT60/63 divided by 2 (CT at 66
gives bridge at 33).
- Bridge Clock up to 55 Mhz (CT at 110 Mhz).
- BURST transfers on PCI bus (133MB/s).
- 060 BURST transfers from/to PCI bus (write at 66/100Mhz = 68/103 MB/s).
- PLX BURST transfers from SDRAM (read = 66MB/s at 66 Mhz) & PLX SINGLE to SDRAM (write = 44MB/s at 66Mhz).
-
Hardware programmable interrupts manager from PCI slots & PLX.
- PCI bus arbiter using 'round robin' with 'bus parking' for PLX.
- PLL clocks for a perfect sync between CT and CTPCI.
- Easy fitting without solders on CT60/63 (1 solder for the IDE feature).
- PCI slot board can be fitted in an ATX tower (holes to be drilled on the
backplane).
- Use of 2 standard IDE UDMA 100/133 flat cable (80 wires) to connect PCI board with CTPCI.
- PCI BIOS & ATI RADEON driver incorporated in the CT60/63 Flash : the boot screen is directed on the Radeon graphical card !
- EtherNAT board compatible (to be tested and confirmed for highest frequencies).
PCI slots PCB is cuttable between each PCI connectors (to obtain a 1, 2 or 3 PCI slot card) to help to integrate into the falcon case the graphical board by example.
TOWER
Because some of you have ATX tower case, they want to use the rear brackets of the tower or at least use a rear place.
So the other part of the CTPCI is a board connected with two 80 wires ribbon cables with 4 PCI slots (one for graphical card and 3 others for what people will be able to do & develop). The 80 wires ribbon cables are simply some IDE cables. You can see a photo of the (big - 62 cms high) tower of Didier Mequignon with the Sapphire baord and an USB board, both waiting for the CTCPI... 3 PCI brackets are availables here... You can imagine the PCI slots card will be fixed with screws on some holes that have to be drilled...
Several developers will design some PCI drivers for PCI cards (IDE, USB2, Ethernet, TV, ...).
The Graphical cards :
The
Radeon 7000/7500 cards seem the better choice :
- Open source with Linux.
- Good speed with 2D and 3D.
- Video decoding.
- Price.
- Easy to find.
There are 2 models of RADEON 7xxx chips (7000 & 7500) and several manufacturers with several models, some with nice features like DVI output, Dual Monitor Display Output, TV Tuner with Audio & S/P DIF outputs, Audio/Video inputs... Some models can be PCI or AGP (be carefull when ordering !).
First of all, according to the author of the driver, all 7000/7500 cards should run but only their common standard features (do not expect now to use your TV Tuner in a GEM window...). Some features may be later supported by the driver... I'd like to see the support of the Audio/Video inputs into a good video software...
If you are a developer and want to add some supported feature in the actual driver, please contact Didier Mequignon.
Let's try to clear your selection... A table with some ATI models...
| Product Name | RADEON 7500 | ALL-IN-WONDER VE | RADEON 7000 (RADEON VE) | SAPPHIRE RADEON 9250 |
| ASIC | RADEON 7500 | RADEON 7500 | RADEON 7000 | RADEON 9250 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Specifications
|
Bus Type |
PCI |
PCI |
PCI |
PCI |
|
Memoire (Mo) |
64 |
64 |
64 ou 32 |
128 |
|
Interface Mémoire |
128-bit |
64-bit |
64-bit |
64-bit |
|
Horloge Mémoire (MHz) |
332 |
366 |
366 |
400 |
|
Horloge GPU (MHz) |
250 |
183 |
183 |
240 |
|
Pixel Fillrate |
500 Mpixel/sec |
500 Mpixel/sec |
366 Mpixel/sec |
366 Mpixel/sec |
|
Geometry Rate* |
62.5 Mtriangles/sec |
62.5 MTriangles |
21 MTriangles |
21 MTriangles |
Type de sortie Video
|
VGA |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
DVI |
Yes |
No |
No |
Yes |
|
Double affichage |
Yes |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
|
S-Video Out |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
|
Composite Out |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
Support Multimedia
|
Entrée S-Video |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Entrée Composite |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Tuner TV (Analogique) |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Sortie Audio Stéréo |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Sortie Audio Num. (S/PDIF) |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
Resolutions Moniteur (TV = 1024*768 max)
|
640x480 (VGA) |
200 Hz |
200 Hz |
200 Hz |
200 Hz |
|
800x600 (SVGA) |
200 Hz |
200 Hz |
200 Hz |
200 Hz |
|
1024x768 (XGA) |
200 Hz |
200 Hz |
200 Hz |
200 Hz |
|
1280x1024 (SXGA) |
160 Hz |
160 Hz |
120 Hz |
120 Hz |
|
1600x1200 (UXGA) |
120 Hz |
120 Hz |
100 Hz |
100 Hz |
|
1920x1080 (TVHD : 16/9) |
100 Hz |
100 Hz |
90 Hz |
90 Hz |
|
1920x1440 (UXGA+) |
85 Hz |
85 Hz |
75 Hz |
75 Hz |
|
2048x1536 (QXGA) |
75 Hz |
75 Hz |
60 Hz |
60 Hz |
|
Maxi 3D (16.7 Mcouleurs) |
2048x1536 |
2048x1536 |
1920x1200 |
1920x1200 |
Several models are proposed by companies. Sometimes exactly same as ATI (OEM), sometimes with better IO.
Attention : Some boards are designed in a 5V PCI version only and it will not run because CTPCI is using PCI connectors with 3.3V I/O pins.
This means only the 3.3V version and UNIVERSAL version are compatible with CTPCI. Normaly, since several years, the PCI boards are designed as Universal PCI boards and run well in 5V PCI or in 3.3V PCI slots.
How to recognize an universal PCI board or a 5V PCI version ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PCI_Keying.png
RADEON
CHIP
========================
Mobility M6
RV100
VE/7000
RV100
VE/7000
RV100
IGP320M
RS100
IGP320
RS100
IGP330M/340M/350M RS200
IGP330/340/350
RS200
Mobility 7000 IGP
RS200
7000 IGP
RS200
8500 AIW
R200
8700/8800
R200
8500
R200
9100
R200
Mobility M7
RV200
7500
RV200
Mobility M9
RV250
9000/Pro
RV250
Mobility 9100 IGP
RS300
9100 IGP
RS300
Mobility 9200
RV280
9200/9250
RV280
9500
R300
9600TX / FireGL
R300
9700/9500/Pro/FireGL R300
Mobility M10/M11
RV350
9600/FireGL
RV350
9800/Pro/FileGL
R350
?
RV380
?
R420
Original Radeon/7200
Boards for MAC or boards re-flashed with MAC BIOS are not running.
