Atari MSTE - NVDI 4 or 5?

[piotrk]

Hi!

What is your recommendation? NVDI 4 or 5 for Atari Mega STE (4Mb ram) ?


Best,
Peter

[joska]

Do you need the GDOS (fonts) part? If yes, then NVDI 4. If no, go for 2.51.

[piotrk]

Well... lets assume that I have pure Atari MSTE. I bought it month ago for Cubase.

I have also VME card and ATI Mach32 card.

Still working on the default proper system setup.

[arf]

Well... lets assume that I have pure Atari MSTE. I bought it month ago for Cubase.

I have also VME card and ATI Mach32 card.

Still working on the default proper system setup.

For Cubase you won’t need Vector Fonts, so NVDI 2.51 will save you some RAM. Otherwise I’d opt for NVDI 5, latest version. Less bugs, more VDI functions. But Cubase doesn‘t make use of it, it’d be only useful in Papyrus, Artworx, Kandinsky, Stella, Papillon, Texel, X-Act and so on.

[calimero]

So Cubase wont work faster with NVDI like other applications?!

[joska]

If you have a Mach32 you don't need NVDI at all. In that case all screen output is handled by NovaVDI, if you run NVDI on top of that you will only use the GDOS (fonts and printerdrivers) of it.

[piotrk]

I'm not sure... Look at those tests:

http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.ph ... va#p335777

This is frank.lukas's Atari:

1.png

This is my MSTE with ISA Mach 32 (no VDI, no GDOS):

2.png

So why he has 242% display and I have only 171% ?

I think that is reason of NVDI...

[joska]

NVDI doesn't output anything to screen on a Mach32 or 64 graphics card. All output is handled by NovaVDI.

Do you have 2Mb VRAM-card or a 1Mb DRAM-card? There's a big difference in speed between those. Frank's Mach32 is a 2Mb VRAM-card which is the fastest one. These used to be sold as "SuperNova", while the DRAM-version was just called "Nova".

[piotrk]

Zrzut ekranu 2018-01-08 o 00.57.30.png

It can display 1024x768 in HiColor (64k). This mode consumes 1572864 bytes so it is more then 1Mb. I assume that this card has 2Mb RAM.
Hard to say what kind of RAM.

[joska]

Maybe a stupid question, but are yoy sure that your MSTE is running in 16MHz/cache mode?

[piotrk]

I've checked again. Yes. 16Mhz with cache. Still 170%.

If you compare test results the main difference is on VDI elements. So that's why I'm asking about VDI.

Best,
Piotr

[Bikerbob]

I am running an ET4000 1mb I can run 1024 x 756 256col - but if I run that mode many programs bomb out .. sysinfo says I am using too much screen memory to run with a little (poo) box to click.. lol.

I will post my results. as well.

[edingacic]

i would love to try this card on TT030 with Cubase do you know if it will work?