Hey, I was running out of expansion slots, so I just dug up a card with an NEC USB 2.0 controller, an Sil 3112 SATA controller, and an NEC firewire controller all in one.
I am sure others have seen these, but it was new to me.
Anyone else found similar items to lower the number of slots occupied?

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I have tried Audigy Soundblaster 2 (SB0240 I think) which has Firewire and obviously audio (emu10k2.5) - audio worked fine, and Helios detected the firewire controller, however FW disks weren't detected.

The disks were using Oxford FW>Sata bridges (iirc), for which there are some notes in Helios documents anyway regarding weirdness (I don't have any other FW devices, unless booting a mac in target disk mode I suppose).
Combo cards by definition have an onboard PCI bridge behind which the multiple pci devices connect, there could be some variation between different bridge chips.
The combo card was plugged into an Efika, and the Efika is a bit of a strange beast anyway.
Emu10k2.5 may not be 100% stable using emu10k driver iirc.
Helios hadn't been tested with this card/setup (FW behind bridge) before afaik.

^^ Pick one of the above

Haven't yet had a Powermac to try it in since, but I'd be more hopeful of it working than in the Efika.

@Jim

is it a PCI or PCIe card ?
I guess the bandwidth will be shared between the 3 controllers (FW, USB, SATA) so i doubt you'd get full potential of any of these controllers. PCIe cards can handle multiple lanes so it should be fine.

@SoundSquare

PCI bandwidth:

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Somehow doubt you'll find anything USB2 or FW that would go near those...

O.k. a SATA-SSD might do that, but than I doubt that the bandwidth is divided in such a primitive way.

So yeah, if these cards can be seen as 3 separate cards from MorphOS-drivers they should be perfect for those low on slots.

Heck one might even turn an Efika into headless server with one of these.

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Yes Father, that is what worries me as well.
My card definitely has a PCI bridge on it, which could be problematic.
And I have not tested the card yet, as my last MDD is disassembled and I have not picked up the last G5 I bought from a seller in the Bronx.

I will try to remember to post my success or failure once I try it out.

I wish Ati and Creative had teamed up, a Video Card/Sound Blaster would be the Efika's wet dream!

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I thought that would be a Mac Mini by now?

Nope, but it is going on sell soon. Worst MorphOS experience of my life. :)

I did have MorphOS running on a mini once before though... ran well, but in the end I began to realize... I need slots! :)