Kahenraz wrote on 2021-12-15, 22:48:

I think a better question would be what would they be useful for? Broadcast TV is all digital and there are lots of better capture cards for cheap.

While I would tend to agree, generally speaking. There are still people using ATI video card with analogue input for things like digitizing (S)VHS tapes, LaserDisc (LD), Hi8, Betamax, etc

AFAICR, the filtering capabilities of certain ATI Rage Theater variant based cards and accompanying software were (are?) still sought after in some scenarios. Some specific standalone DVD recorders are also sought after for similar reasons (including the ability to deal with damaged, multi-generation or out-of-spec analogue video tape recordings) .

Pro-grade analogue capture gear is great for "clean" analogue source, but using such gear with consumer grade sources can be problematic without a time-base corrector, for example (try finding an affordable one of those these days).

A lot of info is available on the subject here http://www.digitalfaq.com/

Yeah, that's exactly why I was asking. AGP era hardware isn't going to last forever and the vast majority of AIW cards out there are AGP. The PCIe AIW cards aren't very common.

NJRoadfan wrote on 2021-12-16, 00:03:

Yeah, that's exactly why I was asking. AGP era hardware isn't going to last forever and the vast majority of AIW cards out there are AGP. The PCIe AIW cards aren't very common.

There was a Radeon 7500 based All-in-Wonder VE PCI card released at some point . https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/all-in- … n-7500-ve.c3651

I actually bought one new, but decided to return it in the end . I don' recall the exact reason with certainty, but it may have been that capture functionality only worked when the card was set as primary (my memory could be wrong about that).

EDIT: I use one of these https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/612957 … Bit_HD_and.html along with one of these https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/400818 … x_Breakout.html .

Also available in PCI Express (Kona LHE) of which I also have one unit . Both versions also work under Windows (including Windows 10 x64, even if official support ended with Windows 7, AFAICR).

They are were (and hopefully still are) inexpensive on the usual auction site and work very well .

For a headless build I'm currently working on, I did not want to leave the bandwidth of the AGP port unused. But when looking for information online about using the AGP port for anything else than a graphics card you won't find much, except between the lines of this thread maybe. In most other forums when people have been asking about it, they'd be misdirected by some troll with an answer somewhat like "That's not possible because - you know - AGP stands for Accelerated GRAPHICS Port" So I had to search for information elsewhere. And I found some in the AGP Wikipedia article:

An AGP bus is a superset of a 66 MHz conventional PCI bus and, immediately after reset, follows the same protocol.

Now that’s some information I was looking for. Further investigations also lead me to this thread. But as nobody seems to have built the adapter I'm after, I began to tackle it myself. I usually prefer to build prototypes before designing and ordering PCBs so I also chose to try the manual way first in this case. PCI and AGP riser cards were quickly sourced and as soon as I got them the port of the AGP riser was ripped off and wired straight to the PCI riser according to the AGP and PCI specs. After finishing the adapter I noticed that I didn’t have a PCI graphics card at hand and I therefore had to test it blindfolded. So I plugged in an HP NC370T PCI-X Gigabit Ethernet card into the AGP port of my testbed, fired it up and tried to SSH into it. And it worked. Just like that. I still can’t really excite myself about it, as it was just too easy. Usually stuff like that never works on the first try.

After the handbuilt prototype proved that an adapter of this kind is working I started to design a PCB according the AGP spec for impedance and length matching. The PCBs are now finally in and work really well. So far any network card I’ve tried worked flawlessly. Compatibility with SATA RAID cards seems to be more problematic. Of all the RAID controllers I’ve tried, only the Adaptec 2820/2420SA works well enough on the AGP to be usable. If the connected card and the underlying system have the capabilities the full 32bit 66 MHz PCI bandwidth of ~250 MB/s can be achieved.

I naturally got a few of the PCBs made, so if anyone is interested, please get in touch. As I still can't send private messages, please include an e-mail address in your pm.

Hahahahaha, this is awesome ~

I kind of need this.

Sent you a PM.

A lot of PCI video cards support running at 66Mhz but most consumer boards only have 33Mhz PCI.

I wonder what the performance difference on say the GeForce 610 PCI would be when run on one of these adapters.

This is the kind of necro posting that I fully enjoy.

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-05-30, 14:33:

Sent you a PM.

A lot of PCI video cards support running at 66Mhz but most consumer boards only have 33Mhz PCI.

I wonder what the performance difference on say the GeForce 610 PCI would be when run on one of these adapters.

It'd make PixelPipes video on PCI videocards obsolete, among others.

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-05-30, 14:33:

A lot of PCI video cards support running at 66Mhz but most consumer boards only have 33Mhz PCI.

I wonder what the performance difference on say the GeForce 610 PCI would be when run on one of these adapters.

I've run said 610 and an amd5450 PCI on various P3TD boards set to 66MHz and the performance basically doubles. They run HD desktops just fine. On a P3TDe6 I ran for a decade, either do better than a Z2 AGPpro.

luckybob wrote on 2022-05-30, 15:23:

This is the kind of necro posting that I fully enjoy. […]
Show full quote

This is the kind of necro posting that I fully enjoy.

Ah yes, ah yes, indeed🧐

Do you think some of the raid controller issues can be solved with further development?

scheiss_freak wrote on 2022-05-30, 13:59:

For a headless build I'm currently working on, I did not want to leave the bandwidth of the AGP port unused. But when looking for information online about using the AGP port for anything else than a graphics card you won't find much, except between the lines of this thread maybe. In most other forums when people have been asking about it, they'd be misdirected by some troll with an answer somewhat like "That's not possible because - you know - AGP stands for Accelerated GRAPHICS Port"

There's also a USB port build into the AGP connector.
So for the sake of not leaving the AGP port unused (and assuming this USB port is connected to anything on the board) you could also create some AGP-to-USB adapter for adding some internal storage or whatever comes to mind 😉

ChrisK wrote on 2022-05-31, 10:21:

There's also a USB port build into the AGP connector.
So for the sake of not leaving the AGP port unused (and assuming this USB port is connected to anything on the board) you could also create some AGP-to-USB adapter for adding some internal storage or whatever comes to mind 😉

wtf. Was it always there and I never knew, did I forget this ?
How many mainboards with AGP actually have this implemented?
Sounds like something sphere478 would jump on 😁

I can see his eyes glow already 😂

weedeewee wrote on 2022-05-31, 16:09:

wtf. Was it always there and I never knew, did I forget this ? How many mainboards with AGP actually have this implemented? So […]
Show full quote

ChrisK wrote on 2022-05-31, 10:21:

There's also a USB port build into the AGP connector.
So for the sake of not leaving the AGP port unused (and assuming this USB port is connected to anything on the board) you could also create some AGP-to-USB adapter for adding some internal storage or whatever comes to mind 😉

wtf. Was it always there and I never knew, did I forget this ?
How many mainboards with AGP actually have this implemented?
Sounds like something sphere478 would jump on 😁

You bet he would.

Really? They put a usb connection in agp?

Did most mainboards hook it up? Or leave them blank?

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-31, 21:22:

Really? They put a usb connection in agp?

Did most mainboards hook it up? Or leave them blank?

That is something you must find out and share with the world !

My feeling is that it was hardly ever connected.

weedeewee wrote on 2022-05-31, 21:36:

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-31, 21:22:

Really? They put a usb connection in agp?

Did most mainboards hook it up? Or leave them blank?

That is something you must find out and share with the world !

My feeling is that it was hardly ever connected.

https://old.pinouts.ru/Slots/agp_pinout.shtml

Looks like it’s true

Of course 5v and gnd can be taken from any pin with that signal, the only thing left is data plus and minus

This thing also exists, unclear if it is using the port signal or not though.

HP Powered USB AGP Card for RP5000, PN: 325201-001

Wiki suggests it was meant to supply video cards with USB signal to be send to the monitors integrated USB HUB. The problem is AFAIK there was never a video connector with integrated USB in the PC land 😀. Apple Display Connector (ADC) from 1998 combines TDMS (same as in DVI), USB and power. DVI came out a year later from Digital Display Working Group. AGP predates ADC by a year. Nothing lines up 😀

edit: Turns out there was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_Enhanced_Video_Connector from 1995 already had VGA with USB integrated, plus firewire and audio 😮

When you want to add PCI-e and AGP to something that only does PCI.
Just small things one works on, as I do...