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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: petercli on April 19, 2014, 03:45:17 PM
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I opened the trapdoor under my A1200 - no card has been installed.
Any recommendations for what card I should get?
I mostly will be playing games . Is there a card that provides ram and acceleration both?
Thanks a ton, Peter
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How much money you got?
A simple ram expansion will double the speed of the A1200.
An 030 accelerator is the best you can get in the short term, 040 and 060 accelerators are as rare as hens teeth and very pricey.
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does the 030 accelerator have ram as well ?
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Most games will be fine with an 020 and RAM.
A lot of people like an 030 at 50mhz. That will speed up hard drive access and you are about 5x faster than stock A1200.
A small number of apps and games will take advantage of an 040 and 060. But they are pretty rare nowadays.
I assume you want to keep it retro and not want to run modern apps on it?
Check this link, under A1200 accelerators:
http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/ (http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/)
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I suggest the end all upgrade...
An 80Mhz Apollo 68060. You can get these with 32Mb of RAM or 64. No need to go PPC, nothing really supports it anyhow without a gfx card.
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For some basic gaming, one of the recent ACA accelerators will do nicely. Here's one (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=43&products_id=1184). There are "better" (with MMU, FPU, and clock built in), older accelerators out there, but they're much more expensive and much harder to find. The ACA boards have the distinct advantage of being reasonably priced and very available.
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I agree with Matt, ACA card would be the way to go. They're brand new and available.
http://www.vesalia.de/e_aca1232%5B8364%5D.htm
or
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=43
However if you want to go further than WHDLoad and play demos and several new games that have been released of late, Nova's ported games, Scumm/dosbox/browsing....then look for an Apollo 060@80MHz :-)
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Thanks guys-I followed your advice , and got the ACA 1232/25 128MB Accelerator. I paid $2. extra for the ACA tune utility , which I hope I can use. Probably take a week to ship to USA.
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I built my CF card assuming that I'd use kickstart 3.1 ,
but the ebay roms don't work.
I couldn't find 3.1 kickstart rom for A1200 on amigakit, which was surprising.
so I will have to rebuild the cf card in winuae to use 3.0 kickstart to match my hardware .
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Thanks guys-I followed your advice , and got the ACA 1232/25 128MB Accelerator. I paid $2. extra for the ACA tune utility , which I hope I can use. Probably take a week to ship to USA.
Good call. It's a good card. I am assuming the ACATUNE software for $2 is because they are putting it on a disk for you? The software is free.
Yes, you can use it, and will want to use it with your ACA..
so I will have to rebuild the cf card in winuae to use 3.0 kickstart to match my hardware .
Amigakit would love to sell them, but it's a rights issue (as in who owns them).
However, you are getting an ACA!!
You can softkick the kickstart 3.1 rom using ACATUNE and your ACA card.
Don't rebuild your OS.. ;-)
desiv
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DO NOT get an ACA board. Chances are high it will not work properly in your a1200. Get ANY 030 by GVP, Ematrix, Apollo, Mtec, DKB, etc. Most recommended would be any Blizzard Cards.
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KS 3.1 ROM's for every classic Amiga are available at Amigakit except the A1200, so it can't be a copyright issue, and since they are for sale at Vesalia.de for €17.90 I'm pretty sure Amigakit just hasn't burned any new ones -- ask Chris Follet about it.
The current ACA 1232 is an excellent card and 98% of all programs will run very well on it. There are less than a half dozen games and 3D modeling programs that benefit from more CPU power. It will let you game, surf (Cerf) the web, word process, and desktop publish quite well.
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KS 3.1 ROM's for every classic Amiga are available at Amigakit except the A1200, so it can't be a copyright issue,
Not sure that's a valid "if" "therefor" statement you made..
What if they had licensed ones before, sold out and can't get new ones without someone to sell them the licenses..
And, it's possible, they still have every classic Amiga one except the 1200 because they sold out of only the 1200 ones..
Of course, it's possible they will burn kickstart ROMs without a license, but I'd be surprised.. I know Jens went to a lot of digging to get the licensing for the ACA500 for the kickstarts it comes with..
(or so he said)
desiv
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You don't say.
http://www.vesalia.de/e_kickstart%5B151%5D.htm
To quote AmigaKit, "Every Kickstart ROM set is supplied with license serial number and has a warranty with after sales support."
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=62
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"Every Kickstart ROM set is supplied with license serial number and has a warranty with after sales support."
Just what I was saying..
There is a license involved..
That's why they are out..
Thanx for finding that..
desiv
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Christopher Follet at Amigakit says that they get their "licenses" from Hyperion (after being accused of just burning EPROMs with a shiny label), so a company so desperate as Hyperion to make money from such a small group of users should be able to grant more licenses to Amigakit so that they can put more shiny labels on more EPROM s.
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Interesting..
Wonder what the issue is...
Maybe Hyperion makes Amigakit buy them in batches or something?
Too bad..
Even tho I'm softkicking, I'd buy one to be official..
desiv
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Christopher Follet at Amigakit says that they get their "licenses" from Hyperion (after being accused of just burning EPROMs with a shiny label), so a company so desperate as Hyperion to make money from such a small group of users should be able to grant more licenses to Amigakit so that they can put more shiny labels on more EPROM s.
Forgive me if I have interpreted your statement the wrong way - but are you saying it's wrong of Hyperion to be charging for these licences?
@the OP...when weighing up all the possible upgrades/uses/costs and so on, an 030 card is one the best overall upgrades you can get for your A1200. :)
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is it really worth while to upgrade the A1200 to kickstart 3.1 (from kickstart 3.0) ?
I plan on playing games with whdload.
I followed this excellent video by Dave Webster (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3mSawy6How) and got katakis to run. Now I am going to configure my CF with more legal lha/adf - this link looks good : : http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=6400
Thanks, Peter
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is it really worth while to upgrade the A1200 to kickstart 3.1 (from kickstart 3.0) ?
I plan on playing games with whdload.
No, it's not. In fact, apart from AOS3.5/3.9 (and software that requires 3.5/3.9) there's hardly anything at all that requires Kickstart 3.1.
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No, it's not. In fact, apart from AOS3.5/3.9 (and software that requires 3.5/3.9) there's hardly anything at all that requires Kickstart 3.1.
Good point..
For me, it's just because I've been running WB 3.1 for a while (I know you don't need KS 3.1 for WB 3.1, but they were sold together), so I'd like to own the kickstart. And I've considered 3.5 and 3.9... (But haven't decided yet, as 3.1 with "stuff" is pretty good)
So true, you don't need 3.1 unless you are planning on running 3.5/3.9 stuff really..
desi