Prisma Megamix. New soundcard for classics!

[starship]

Yes daedalus .I know it is not a sound card it is music card but it can do more thing on amiga side.I think vs1063a will not look where data comes from only file must known by chip.it will decode again.file must be mp3,mp2,flac or pcm vs. Think about it we can use it on ahi unit 3 or 4 for sending to card only undecoded data for using on video sound, ported games or cd based games. only chips known formats. But it will free up the cpu from sound on known formats. I think prisma megamix is very good card it is very fast on zorro2 and known format scale is very long. I am using it on amiga 4000 and it can do much more thing for this computer and it will do.We need only one drive file.

[lantus360]

Originally Posted by amigakit.com

An interesting review and it is great to see game support for Prisma. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

You purchased the Zorro Big Box edition of Prisma - a separate A1200 desktop version will be coming soon which is fully insulated for use within an A1200 case and includes a clockport cable. This was announced when we made the big box version available for sale.

thanks for responding. Now for this 'Big Box' edition. where is that mentioned exactly? clearly not on your website. If it was announced somewhere i obviously missed it.

In any-case - i hope you take this advice on board - otherwise i am very happy with the card. It works great for what it is and im looking to add functionality to more of my ports. I hope others will follow suit.

[amigakit.com]

Hi

Press Release posted on various websites (including here) stated that A1200 desktop edition was to follow.

We intended this release to be for A1200 Towers with Zorro busboards and big box Amiga's. If you have an A1200 T with PCI backplane and no Zorro slots then we mentioned that buying a clockport cable is preferable. We did not unnecessarily want to charge Zorro customers for a clockport cable they did not need or require.

From our website:

Compatible with Amiga A1200 T, A2000, A3000, A4000, A4000T.

Package Contents
1x Prisma Megamix card (Zorro II / Clockport)
1x PCI/Zorro audio backplate adapter with cable
1x driver floppy disk

Note: Clockport cables are optional extra and can be purchased separately here.

[Daedalus]

@starship

Indeed, I'm aware of the board's capabilities and potential capabilities. An AHI driver might be doable but currently doesn't exist and as far as I can tell isn't being worked on or even planned. So it's best to just consider it as it is now: a decoder for compressed audio formats, much like an advanced MAS player.

And even if AHI was available, to what benefit? Audio quality would be better, yes, but if the audio is uncompressed (as is the case with most games) it won't save much or any CPU time, and may even increase the time required over directly using Paula's audio. And if the sound is compressed then you don't want to use AHI anyway - it's better to use the hardware decoder directly and mix its output with the standard audio output, which is how it is currently set up.

At the end of the day, it would be very nice to have a fully AHI-compatible sound card (the chip used on the Prisma also supports audio input so it could in theory do recording and encoding as well), but writing drivers for that is probably a lot of work and not guaranteed to ever happen.

[Retrofan]

Daedadus and what about ScummMV: Full Throttle for example if it could use the AHI through the Prisma?

[Daedalus]

What about it? If it's one of the very few games that uses compressed audio, then it would benefit greatly from the game using MHI and not AHI. If it's not, then all it has to gain is a little extra quality.

[bubbob42]

We have a beta AHI driver whose performance is not sufficient, even on a 060. The card unfortunately not only lacks a hardware mixer, but also has virtually no internal buffer and thus depends on a constant data stream from the Amiga. Current state of affairs: You won't see AHI support for this card.

Iantus360's great video shows what the card can do. Buy it because of that and not for things it might never be up to.

[lantus360]

side note : Chocolate Heretic with Prisma Megamix support is available now - http://aminet.net/package/game/shoot...-Heretic-1.0.0

source code is also included

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by lantus360

side note : Chocolate Heretic with Prisma Megamix support is available now - http://aminet.net/package/game/shoot...-Heretic-1.0.0

source code is also included

Very nice video lantus

[ Show youtube player ]

[Scrat]

Originally Posted by bubbob42

We have a beta AHI driver

I'd rather call it "experimental AHI driver". It's lightyears away from being "beta"

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by bubbob42

We have a beta AHI driver whose performance is not sufficient, even on a 060. The card unfortunately not only lacks a hardware mixer, but also has virtually no internal buffer and thus depends on a constant data stream from the Amiga. Current state of affairs: You won't see AHI support for this card.

I don't know nothing about Prisma hardware but Toccata has really tiny 1 kilobyte (!) FIFO and no mixer and it can do 44100Hz/stereo using AHI.

[Prosonic]

looking to buy one of these if I can ever get my hands on a clock port expander

[Scrat]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I don't know nothing about Prisma hardware but Toccata has really tiny 1 kilobyte (!) FIFO and no mixer and it can do 44100Hz/stereo using AHI.

I'll have a look at it. Do you know if Toccata uses a hardware interrupt to signal the driver if the FIFO is empty?

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Scrat

I'll have a look at it. Do you know if Toccata uses a hardware interrupt to signal the driver if the FIFO is empty?

It uses level 6 (EXTER) interrupt which triggers when FIFO becomes half-empty (or more).

[starship]

can I look to this very beta AHI driver?

[Overflow]

Any news regarding the insulated Desktop A1200 version?

[spudje]

That one is already available on Amigakit if I'm not mistaken, but you have to inform Amigakit you want that version.

I'm holding off buying this until both CDDA and pass through audio from game floppy boot works.

[Daedalus]

That could be a little while. The chip only has one mixer input, so unless they've implemented an additional mixer elsewhere on the board, the CDDA header isn't going to work. I expect the add-on module that was planned might include the additional hardware necessary to mix two analogue signals to pass on to the chip.

[FastRobPlus]

I assume there's no clockport on the card right? Using this would force users with only a single clockpport to disconnect their UBS Subway/RapidRoad?

[spudje]

Euh, reading my own text again, I see it's not that clear. I'm hoping it will offer the following functionality:
- CCDA, confirmed to be there soonish in software (working with the jumpers) and an addon SPDIF module is following
- Paula pass through that works directly when (re)booting (legacy software) without the need for additional configs