Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: colinstu on February 22, 2006, 05:10:12 AM
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What is faster (more prefered, etc) a 68060 or a PPC processor? (for the 1200).
Also what is the recommened amount of RAM for a 1200? (Good amount, not a useless amount but neither not enough).
Can I get Amiga 1200's from other places besides eBay? (cheapily too. $0.00-$100 [I would acctually want 0-50$]).
If all goes to plan I would want to put it in a DBOX 1200. The case looks very nice, lots of expansion (vs. keeping it in the amiga 1200 case) and it is already modded. And also are there any places that I can get this cheaper? (vs. $100 somthing)
And also would the Linksys WUSB54G USB device work with this? Or a Linksys wi-fi card? Wi-fi card at all?
-Colin Stuart
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In all honesty, a PPC card is just an expensive toy. Not that the hardware is a toy - they're very good, well-made boards - just that the amount of really good software available to use them probably barely reaches double figures. If you have money to burn then get one, other wise stick with the 060 - in normal daily usage an A1200/060 will feel a lot faster than an A1200 040/PPC.
I've owned several PPC cards and only used them for playing games like quake and shogo (which I could have ran at 10x the speed on the PC sitting 3 feet away), PPC picture datatypes, and emulators - considering the cost of the boards it isn't worth it.
A decent amount of RAM for an A1200 would be 64MB - enough to comfortably run OS3.9 and several applications. If you're going to be working with art packages and lots of high resolution images then you could get more - 72pin simms can be picked up for a few cents these days on eBay. The maximum you can put into an A1200 is 256MB.
I don't think there's anywhere cheaper than eBay to get an A1200. There's Amibench, there's a 'for sale' section here and at amigaworld.net, and there are various online resellers, but eBay is the cheapest.
Nor can I think of a cheaper way to get a pre-modded tower case. You could buy a cheap PC case amd mod it yourself, but you'd have to be pretty handy with a Dremel and it would take a lot of time and work, and still wouldn't look as good as the Elbox one.
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agreed, ppc boards are to be consider a luxury , lol , but perhaps you can get a 060 ppc board (like me) so you have both...
I only use ppc for datatypes and mp3's ATM... as I have said before, it is better to consider the ppc as a companion-helper cpu... there is soft for ppc, but the good ones are few... :crazy:
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or if you want to run MorphOS on your PowerUp card.
Everyone with a PowerUP should give a try. After all, its the only PPC OS available for Amiga Classic. Very stable, fast with the JIT 68K emulation and free.
Waiting the AOS4 for PowerUP :-)
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It's fair enough to don't want to spent a lot of cash on an A1200, but forget about getting an A1200 with a high end CPU for the amount you have put up. Most times even a Blizzard 1230 board ends up in around 70-80 USD...
Cheap and Amiga doesn't quite match I'm afraid. Unless you want to go A500 and floppies :-)
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You can try Vesalia for an A1200 but it'll cost more than 50 USD. They can customize it too.
www.vesalia.de
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tell me how fast is morphos on a classic with regard to en ulating games and playing thme throguh bvision for instance
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I'd say get 060 in any case. If you can afford and find, then get 060 with PPC. 040 just isn't quite enough for most of programs you will run, as most of them are 68k anyway. I'd recommend to get SCSI too, as it makes things much fluent on 68k systems.
64M will be fine for most of the things, but get 128M if you want to be sure :) 256M is viagra replacement ;)
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@JJ
a little bit faster than the real 60060@60Mhz BUT on CSPPC200Mhz and CVPPC (remember that CGX5 is PPC native).
On BlizzPPC-BVision, don't know (i may only suppose slower, obviously).
About games, i've tested only WOS/W3D stuff with W3D for Classic and they run as fast as on AmigaOS.
In few words, it works very well.
Even apps/cards that i thought impossible to see it working, works.
PAR with its CaptureCard (its GUI requires NewMode)
XSurf2 with Genesis or MiamiDX
2 GFX cards up&running (CVPPC and CV64)
TBCPlus (TBC card)
RepulseGold (audio card)
UWSCSI and IDE (no 4 way adapters)
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Where could I buy a 060 upgrade card?(besides ebay?).
Also, I know that people've got Optical drives and Hard drives to work, but are they SCSI or IDE? I know the 1200 has a pin connector to the left of the board the people plug-in a spliter thing, and then connect there drives with it. Could somebody tell me more about that?
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Cards are no longer manufactured so you will only find them second hand (and generally in the places already mentioned, but have a look at Amigakit.com as well).
If by optical drives you mean the LS-120 types, don`t bother. I had one for a while, it was a bit dodgy and I swapped it for a CD-RW and never looked back. A hard drive on the other hand is almost essential.
SCSI sounds like it`s faster and more stable than IDE, but it`s more expensive, more rare and more difficult to set up.
The port in the A1200 is indeed an IDE port. You can attatch a 2.5" hard drive to it without any other modification and configure it from workbench. I believe you can use 2 devices with a 2-way cable with no other modification req`d.
IDE-splitters, (or "Buffered Interfaces") allow you to attatch up to 4 IDE devices, and require additional software (e.g. IDE-Fix 97 or EIDE 99 which normally come with the interface) They come in various shapes, forms and prices, and allow you to attatch hard drives, CD-Roms and Writers, Compact Flash readers, etc.
Cheers
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And here are maybe the last questions...
How do you install AmigaOS 3.9? (easy, hard, etc) Do you use the 3.1 ROM for that to work?
Any recommened CPU upgrade cards? Recommened CD-ROM drives/CD-RW/DVD/HDs.
Can you play MP3s or streaming video on 060s?
Also what up w/ those fast IDE things (snap on through ROM chips)?
And about Harddrives, does there have to be some special amiga drive? Or could I just use some old Maxtor 2GB drive I have?
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OS 3.9 requires a CD-Rom and 3.1 ROMs and is moderately difficult to install (it`s a whole chicken/egg thing, you need an OS with CD-Rom and driver already installed in order to read the CD in order to install it, you can`t just buy 3.9 and install it on an empty hard drive despite that very option in it`s installer!)
Frankly, OS3.1 can be made to do almost everything 3.9 does, and my 3.1 system is more stable than my 3.9 one.
Blizzard cards are generally regarded as the best, although I`ve also owned a couple of Magnum cards which were very good. Beware of "overclocked" cards of any kind, life expectancy is generally reduced.
CD-Roms and hard drives are pretty much generic, I`ve never had one of either that didn`t work. DVD drives require a certain filesystem (Allegro), and even then you will not be able to play movies whatever CPU you have.
I`ve played MP3s in high quality on an 040 40, but my 040 25 failed (don`t expect to do much multitasking though) 060s obviously handle them even better, with some minimal multitasking. I`ve never had an 030, but they can come in 50MHz versions and someone else can tell you if that works. There are hardware devices that allow you to play MP3s on even an A500!
Fast IDE? No idea.
As long as your old Maxtor is working, it will work in an Amiga (I use a Maxtor right now). With OS3.1 and less hard drives should be kept to a size below 4GB (but bigger ones will work as long as you only format them with 4GB).
Good luck!
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In all honesty, a PPC card is just an expensive toy. Not that the hardware is a toy - they're very good, well-made boards - just that the amount of really good software available to use them probably barely reaches double figures. If you have money to burn then get one, other wise stick with the 060 - in normal daily usage an A1200/060 will feel a lot faster than an A1200 040/PPC.
ExecSG + Petunia JIT from OS4 beta, emulates OS3.9 faster than a 25MHz 040 runs it natively on a BPPC 200MHz.
I really would recommend waiting for OS4 BPPC rather than buying an 060.
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I just looked on ebay, and found 1 blizzard card and it was ~$250! Is there cheaper way to buy this?
Who owns Amiga? Why doesn't anyone make these cards anymore? There lots of Amiga users, it looks like, and if compaines only made so many of something, thats it. Now ownly people who have them can sell them. These parts are slowly breaking, and soon there wont be anything left. Then we're going to be stuck w/ amigaOne. Why doesn't some company start reproducing amigas (maybe with mods builtin?)? That would be cool, get a brand new amiga (dont have to worry about battery, old/dieing parts, etc).
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Maybe I paid too much at the time, but I paid $250 USD for a Blizzard '060 card w/128 meg on it 3 years ago. I concider it money well spent by the way. As soon as I can afford it, I'm going to buy an '060 card for my A3000 from AmigaKit. :-D
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Classic Amigas are basically antiques, hence the price tag. If the Blizzard you see is an 060 or a low-end PPC that sounds about right. In the words of the Metallibashers, Sad But True!
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CPU usage will be something like 40% with 060 when playing MP3. You can do other stuff while listening music, but audio can cut sometimes if you do heavier stuff. You can affect to it by setting program priorities though... I'd still prefer some hw-decoder with 060. They won't use CPU for playing and 16bit is better than 14bit. Some sound cards have hw-decoding possibility and then there's some external hw-players.
Those fast IDE things have same problem than onboard IDE. They choke the CPU when transferring data. With SCSI the transfers are done with dma and there won't be any cpu load.
060 isn't quite enough for video streaming. You can watch low quality mpegs/avis, but on decent quality videos it's quite slideshow :)
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i'd be happy enough with an 060, but i'd like a GFX card as it makes web browsing a much nicer expirience, and the only real way to do this with a desktop case is a PPC card with Bvision... what a shame ;-)
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well... i boughta blizzard 030 three monts ago,in a store that used to sell amigas and amiga parts,for 15 euros :roll:
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ExecSG + Petunia JIT from OS4 beta, emulates OS3.9 faster than a 25MHz 040 runs it natively on a BPPC 200MHz.
I really would recommend waiting for OS4 BPPC rather than buying an 060.
Or don't wait, but use free PowerUP MorphOS (http://powerup.morphos-team.net/).
It has Trance JIT engine which is even faster (moderate 603 runs faster than 060).
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I found that on my a4000/060 with mpega, mp3 playing at highest quality only took about 25% CPU.
Using aminetradio or similar on 060 isnt really practical.
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Hi,
if you have BPPC card and a compatible graphic card, and that you use mainly CGX & WB system friendly apps, then take the try with MOS, You'll get a huge big boost over a 060/100Mhz, and you'll still be able to listen radio.
But don't expect any gain of speed for the PPC if you use the original Warp "build", use their MOS release instead :rtfm: .
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Piru wrote:
Or don't wait, but use free PowerUP MorphOS (http://powerup.morphos-team.net/).
Problems - not free (it only works for 2 hours until you pay), and no AGA support.
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JLF65 wrote:
Piru wrote:
Or don't wait, but use free PowerUP MorphOS (http://powerup.morphos-team.net/).
Problems - not free (it only works for 2 hours until you pay), and no AGA support.
That's not true at all - registration is completely free. There is nothing to pay. That's why it is called 'MorphOS Free Edition'
If you use it, and like it, then there is a button on the web page to make a Paypal donation to the developers but it's up to you whether you do that.
AGA support? If you've got a PPC card but you're still using AGA then you've got your priorities mixed up. AGA is getting on for 15 years old and slows down terribly in anything over 32 colours even in low resolutions.
MorphOS uses features such as alpha blending and transparency, hardware acceleration, gradients, blurring, font antialiasing, fully skinnable interface with 32-bit PNG icons and buttons - how could these be made to work on AGA? And even if they could work, how fast do you think they would run?
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Lando wrote:
That's not true at all - registration is completely free. There is nothing to pay. That's why it is called 'MorphOS Free Edition'
If you use it, and like it, then there is a button on the web page to make a Paypal donation to the developers but it's up to you whether you do that.
Ah, I was under the impression registering MorphOS wasn't free. Thanks for clearing that up.
AGA support? If you've got a PPC card but you're still using AGA then you've got your priorities mixed up. AGA is getting on for 15 years old and slows down terribly in anything over 32 colours even in low resolutions.
I'd rather not spend $500 trying to get a $50 PC video card working on my A1200. I either have to spend almost $300 for a BVisionPPC (when you can find one at all) and another $150 or so on a tower case, or about $400 for a tower case and a PCI expansion to use a cheap PCI video card. Neither is appealing at all.
The page does say it works with the CV64/3D. I have one in my A4000. The problem there is the A4000 has a developer PPC in it, not the CyberStormPPC. I think I'll go ahead of get the new MorphOS release and check if it works with the developer PPC card.
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Usually free does mean free.
But naturally this 'free' only means MorphOS itself is free. We can't give away free hardware, nor can we support all imaginable hardware configurations.
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I've said it time and time again - Phase 5 should have made a graphics card for A1200 desktop owners and not bothered with the PowerPC boards with 603e.
A nice '060 + 3D GPU would have been much more prefferable to a PPC + BVision combo (and more physically possible for desktop!).
I think this is now being attempted with the PowerVixxen accelerator/GFX card.
MorphOS does indeed sound a very tempting prospect, especially since it has TurboPrint built in and PPC optimised operation.
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Piru wrote:
ExecSG + Petunia JIT from OS4 beta, emulates OS3.9 faster than a 25MHz 040 runs it natively on a BPPC 200MHz.
I really would recommend waiting for OS4 BPPC rather than buying an 060.
Or don't wait, but use free PowerUP MorphOS (http://powerup.morphos-team.net/).
It has Trance JIT engine which is even faster (moderate 603 runs faster than 060).
Give me Mediator support please! :-(
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kefallinos wrote:
well... i boughta blizzard 030 three monts ago,in a store that used to sell amigas and amiga parts,for 15 euros :roll:
Nice. I just paid £70 for mine. Although it did have 128mb fast ram and that's alot cheaper than the current retail prices.
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mdma wrote:
Piru wrote:
ExecSG + Petunia JIT from OS4 beta, emulates OS3.9 faster than a 25MHz 040 runs it natively on a BPPC 200MHz.
I really would recommend waiting for OS4 BPPC rather than buying an 060.
Or don't wait, but use free PowerUP MorphOS (http://powerup.morphos-team.net/).
It has Trance JIT engine which is even faster (moderate 603 runs faster than 060).
Give me Mediator support please! :-(
And Prometheus support. :-D
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from morphos web site:
If you find the free edition of MorphOS 1.4.5 to be useful and have successfully registered your copy, you might consider donating to the MorphOS PayPal account in order to encourage future support of [color=ff0000]OLD[/color][/i][/u] Commodore legacy hardware.
:pissed:
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I did a brief bench of MOS and AOS3.9 on the A1200.
You can read the result here:
http://via.i-networx.de/bench_en.html
The A1200 with the Blizzard running MOS is quite useable. The ppc is not the fastest you may dream of, but it does the job quite well.
And a Powerup with 68040 is not that much more expensive than a 68060 card. So I'g go the ppc route. MOS will evolve, also OS4 will be available for that boards. The 68k OS is a dead end (well a quite nice dead end at least).
Cheers