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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: mradam83 on December 07, 2012, 03:52:49 PM
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Hi all,
Please excuse any ignorance, I've never really modded an Amiga or PC before so I'm really a newbie but I'm trying to get a feel of everything and get my start of Miggy modding. :-)
I'm in the process of trying to win an A1200 and I'm collecting as much info on what can actually be done as improvements.
One area that really interests me is the installation of processors/accelerators. I read that a PPC Blizzard can be fitted that allows about 330mhz and 256mb of RAM - however it was an older site that I read the info from so I don't know if there's been any improvements since then.
What is the basis for being limited for the one sort of card? Or is it possible for higher mhz processors (PPC) such as a Broadway PPC based IBM card that's used in the Nintendo Wii ? (I'm not specifically saying this piece of tech but it's one I've just read about).
Is it do do with Workbench or the AmigaOS compatibility? Cheers all.
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No new PPC card has been made for Amiga since a century ago. The ones that were made are few in number and many of them broke down.
They were quite tremendously expensive.
In any event they never really integrated into a classic Amiga very well.
They only run certain special software.
But its your money. If you wanna buy one then go ahead :)
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If you want a PPC Amiga and want to spend a lot of money you could get an X1000 ppc Amiga.
If you want a PPC Amiga and want to spend little money then you can get 2 or 3 MorphOS machines for the price of a PPC accelerator.
If you want the A1200 experience as many of us do then you should get the ultimate classic Amiga accelerator: 68060
There are 2 varieties of 68060 accelerator: Blizzard and Apollo.
They both came out as 50Mhz and 32MB to start with.
Apollos are limited to an absolute maximum of 64MB of RAM. But they can be easily modded to be 80Mhz or even 90 or 100Mhz
Blizzards can easily take 128MB of RAM and if u add on the SCSI expander you can get another 128MB. But I never met anyone with an 80Mhz Blizzard that I can remember. They are all 50Mhz.
50Mhz on an 060 is awesome and not to be taken lightly. But since you seem to be into hardcore modding and spending money, I am just letting u know the options.
An 060 card runs the way an Amiga expects a card to run so it integrates beautifully.
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I had a PPC/040 powered A1200 and found it a waste of money, tbh.
If I had to do it again I'd go with an '060 accelerator and skip the PPC, there's just not enough that really makes use of it.
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If you want a PPC Amiga and want to spend a lot of money you could get an X1000 ppc Amiga.
If you want a PPC Amiga and want to spend little money then you can get 2 or 3 MorphOS machines for the price of a PPC accelerator.
If you want the A1200 experience as many of us do then you should get the ultimate classic Amiga accelerator: 68060
There are 2 varieties of 68060 accelerator: Blizzard and Apollo.
They both came out as 50Mhz and 32MB to start with.
Apollos are limited to an absolute maximum of 64MB of RAM. But they can be easily modded to be 80Mhz or even 90 or 100Mhz
Blizzards can easily take 128MB of RAM and if u add on the SCSI expander you can get another 128MB. But I never met anyone with an 80Mhz Blizzard that I can remember. They are all 50Mhz.
50Mhz on an 060 is awesome and not to be taken lightly. But since you seem to be into hardcore modding and spending money, I am just letting u know the options.
An 060 card runs the way an Amiga expects a card to run so it integrates beautifully.
Well I'm not specifically saying I'm going to go hardcore - I am interested in it for sure but I'm purely gathering info on the whole thing at this stage as I'm conscious of my inexperience.
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I agree, ppc accelerator was a nice idea, but since software for them never caught on... its nearly useless on a 1200. You'd be much better off with a 68060 accelerator, which almost all amiga software will benefit from.
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I agree, ppc accelerator was a nice idea, but since software for them never caught on... its nearly useless on a 1200. You'd be much better off with a 68060 accelerator, which almost all amiga software will benefit from.
Cheers for that - so is it general incompatibility with the 1200 or a lack of drivers that makes the PPC accelerator not work on par with the 68060?
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I had a blizzard ppc years ago, ppc is useless most of the time and very expensive, you can install os4.1 with a ppc but is like kill the amiga.
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I had a blizzard ppc years ago, ppc is useless most of the time and very expensive, you can install os4.1 with a ppc but is like kill the amiga.
Thanks for the reply.
Is there major differences between say the 3.0 and 4.1? I've never found a comparison guide and as such, I would probably ignorantly assume that the 4.1 is better because it's newer. Does the 1200 benefit from a modern OS in any way or does the 3.0/3.1 suit better but with more software installed?
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Cheers for that - so is it general incompatibility with the 1200 or a lack of drivers that makes the PPC accelerator not work on par with the 68060?
The operating system is running on 68k and when rendering graphics or trying to do some simple disk I/O you have to call 68k OS call which is very expensive from PPC side. You haev to carefully design your application to utilize PPC efficiently.
Needless to say many PPC ports were extremely buggy and crashed often.
I had BlizzardPPC and it made good yet expensive MP3 player.
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@mradam83
I never use os4.1 so i cant compare, but if you use specific software designed for os4.1 on "wanna be amigas" like sam or x1000 on a 603 are slow... i would like to see how run 68k software on os4.1 on real amigas.
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Legacy programs run very well on 4.1 these days.
Would I recommend someone buys an X1000 to play Lemmings? Absolutely not, there's cheaper and better ways to do that, but all in all the old stuff works quite well.
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From an outsider looking in there is some confusion about amiga os...
Amiga OS 1.x to 3.9 - is for 68000 based processors. 68010, 68020,68030,68040,68060. Most amiga software is written for these.
The original amiga line of computers.
Amiga OS4.0+ is for Power pc processors only.
Power pc was supposed to be the successor to the 68000 series of machines, or planned to be... After Amiga INC imploded, others stepped in to do this.
AROS is a freeware open source implementation of amiga os, originally designed for x86 processors but now available on many platforms...
MorphOS is another amiga os next gen system designed for power pc processors. It runs on custom older hardware created for it (pegasos) and
also some Mac g4 or less models...
You may also check out AROS vision for your amiga 1200.
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Legacy programs run very well on 4.1 these days.
Would I recommend someone buys an X1000 to play Lemmings? Absolutely not, there's cheaper and better ways to do that, but all in all the old stuff works quite well.
You can not run many very demanding aga games on Amiga os4.1 with the low spec sam boards without MAJOR lag. At least I don't think so. If you can, post a video, I'd like to see that.
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My SAM runs legacy games every bit as well as my MOS rig does, so take that for what it is worth. Admittedly, I don't play many Amiga games, and when/if I do, I'm more inclined to do so on my Amithlon PC.
Note I said "programs" in my previous post. If I was more of an Amiga gamer I'd likely just own a Minimig or FPGA Arcade.
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@duce
windows run amiga games too, under emulation like mos or sam.
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rip the guts out, install a Keyrah and and Mac Mini PPC logic board. Install MOS.
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I'm in the process of trying to win an A1200 and I'm collecting as much info on what can actually be done as improvements.
What I recommend for improvements are:
A mouse adapter to use a brand new PS/2 laser mouse.
A keyboard adapter to use a brand new PS/2 keyboard if you get an A1200T or if you are going to put your A1200 into a tower.
Deck that baby out with a 2TB hard drive. Or get a smaller SSD or something. 2TB is the absolute limit you can use in a single drive with AmigaOS. Your limit may be less depending on which hard drive controller is in your A1200. If you don't like whatever limit you have then you can buy a new HD controller, if you wanted.
A FlickerFixer. This is awesome for me. I donno if you would care or not.
Mediator PCI board: All the kewl Amigans have this :razz: This adds PCI slots to your A1200. The board costs something like 300$ but once you have it then you get to plug in cheap PCI cards. In mine I have a FREE Ethernet card + voodoo 1280x1024 gfx card + I am about to buy a PCI 256MB gfx card. I use the Ethernet to network my A1200 over to its slave core i5 box.
CD Drive: Not much point but u can add one.
Four Player Adapter: This adds 2 additional joystick ports. Cheap and works great. Only useful if you are having Amiga parties.
I personally use my Mediator PCI slots, keyboard adapter, Lasermouse adapter, FlickerFixer and 68060 constantly and could not live without them.
My A1200 is in an Elbox Power Tower.
I also have a PS/2 KVM switch so I can share 1 19" CRT monitor + 1 mouse + 1 keyboard between my windoze box and my Amiga A1200T. It just saves space and clutter.
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rip the guts out, install a Keyrah and and Mac Mini PPC logic board. Install MOS.
What a wast of a perfectly good A1200 :mad:
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rip the guts out, install a Keyrah and and Mac Mini PPC logic board. Install MOS.
I hate you -________________-
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@duce
windows run amiga games too, under emulation like mos or sam.
Little bit different ballgame there. Entirely different ballgame in some cases. OS4 or MOS I can run some entirely "legacy" software sans emulator. I have no emulator on my SAM 440ep. *NONE*. No 3.x ROM's even, no UAE variants. I can fire up LW or ADPro just fine with no need for any emulator on the SAM.
Zeus BBS is the example I'll use, simply because I run it each and every single day 24/7 without the need for *ANY* emulation software. A completely 68k application from the 1990's. No emulation at all. Starts in user-startup and runs just like it did on my old A1200. No emulation layer at all. None. Nada. The machine has no emulator on it like UAE other than Petunia, which I assure you doesn't do much.
I can fire up my MOS machine or my OS4 machines right now and run legacy code without an emulator layer. Period. No argument about it.
I cannot do that on Windows, Linux or Mac - and while I am picking nits, your allusion to the fact all legacy software must be run via emulator on a NG machine is a false statement.
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@duce
I talk about non system friendly games/demos sorry.
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Little bit different ballgame there. Entirely different ballgame in some cases. OS4 or MOS I can run some entirely "legacy" software sans emulator. I have no emulator on my SAM 440ep. *NONE*. No 3.x ROM's even, no UAE variants. I can fire up LW or ADPro just fine with no need for any emulator on the SAM.
Zeus BBS is the example I'll use, simply because I run it each and every single day 24/7 without the need for *ANY* emulation software. A completely 68k application from the 1990's. No emulation at all. Starts in user-startup and runs just like it did on my old A1200. No emulation layer at all. None. Nada. The machine has no emulator on it like UAE other than Petunia, which I assure you doesn't do much.
I can fire up my MOS machine or my OS4 machines right now and run legacy code without an emulator layer. Period. No argument about it.
I cannot do that on Windows, Linux or Mac - and while I am picking nits, your allusion to the fact all legacy software must be run via emulator on a NG machine is a false statement.
No emulation layer... except... 680x0 EMULATION LAYER! PPC doesn't run 680x0 code without emulation. Ever. Period.
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I have no add on emulator on my OS 4.1 powered SAM 440ep other than what came with the operating system (Petunia). I don't play games on the machine and have no need for UAE really, so it's simply not installed, nor are 3.x or earlier ROM's. I do not have UAE installed, nor any WB/KS 3.x ROM's on the machine at all. An absolutely vanilla install of 4.1, void of RunInUAE and similar entirely. Other than what the OS provides for backwards compatibility, no tacked on emulators was my point. A far different situation than comparing it to a bone stock XP install sand emulator running Amiga software, which was the vague comparison made.
Runs the programs I mentioned just fine, feel free to holler if you'd like a video or the telnet address to logon to the BBS running on said system that indeed has no add on emulator outside of what provisions the barebones OS offers :)
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To Duce:
Ah, that's what you meant :) My reply referred to your use of emulation layer. Also, I was feeling grumpy :D
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To Duce:
Ah, that's what you meant :) My reply referred to your use of emulation layer. Also, I was feeling grumpy :D
Hehe, no worries man, we were on the same page, just picking different nits.
Cheers!
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What I recommend for improvements are:
A mouse adapter to use a brand new PS/2 laser mouse.
A keyboard adapter to use a brand new PS/2 keyboard if you get an A1200T or if you are going to put your A1200 into a tower.
Deck that baby out with a 2TB hard drive. Or get a smaller SSD or something. 2TB is the absolute limit you can use in a single drive with AmigaOS. Your limit may be less depending on which hard drive controller is in your A1200. If you don't like whatever limit you have then you can buy a new HD controller, if you wanted.
A FlickerFixer. This is awesome for me. I donno if you would care or not.
Mediator PCI board: All the kewl Amigans have this :razz: This adds PCI slots to your A1200. The board costs something like 300$ but once you have it then you get to plug in cheap PCI cards. In mine I have a FREE Ethernet card + voodoo 1280x1024 gfx card + I am about to buy a PCI 256MB gfx card. I use the Ethernet to network my A1200 over to its slave core i5 box.
CD Drive: Not much point but u can add one.
Four Player Adapter: This adds 2 additional joystick ports. Cheap and works great. Only useful if you are having Amiga parties.
I personally use my Mediator PCI slots, keyboard adapter, Lasermouse adapter, FlickerFixer and 68060 constantly and could not live without them.
My A1200 is in an Elbox Power Tower.
I also have a PS/2 KVM switch so I can share 1 19" CRT monitor + 1 mouse + 1 keyboard between my windoze box and my Amiga A1200T. It just saves space and clutter.
Ah excellent, these were questions I was likely going to ask at some point - a 2tb hard drive in an Amiga 1200?! Wow that must be some sight to see...
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Of course this whole thread is now null and void because some t*** outbid me at the last minute.
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A far different situation than comparing it to a bone stock XP install sand emulator running Amiga software, which was the vague comparison made.
Whether it's installed by default is not the difference, the integration with the OS so the Apps appear to be native is the difference.
Janus-UAE on AROS is different, but looks similar. Nobody seems to care about it on Windows.
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Myself, I never saw the point of maxing out an A1200, i.e., Mediator, PPC, 256 MB RAM, 2 TB HDD, USB, Towers to put all that stuff in, and the list goes on. One (not you, necessarily) could get an A4000(T) with same chipset and end up spending around the same amount of money. They were made for upgrading.
OS 4.1 is not meant for everyone, certainly not for gamers or Retro enthusiasts. It is a modern OS with strong underpinnings of Unix/Linux. It has elements (Python for example) that modern OS's use. It does behave like the original Amiga OS's but is predicated on a PPC. It hogs RAM (common to current OS's), but has a beautiful display, very nice modern enhancements, and has become my main OS on my Classic Amiga. I know it runs better on the NG Amiga's, and if I ever get together enough cash (or sell one of my "maxed" A4000T's) I would get an x1000. In fact having a PPC accelerator you picked up years ago and really never used, IS a good reason to run OS 4.1 but only if you really, really want to.
How many Psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb, only one but the light bulb has to WANT to change.:laugh1:
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wow, some of you really have no clue. I cant believe what Im reading here. If you have decided to stick with a classic Amiga and you want to stick with your a1200, the ppc+68k route is definitely worth it. If you can afford it, ofcourse, and have plenty of time to set the machine up right. When you succeed you'll find it is the ultimate expansion for your a1200, bringing you the best of both worlds: full 68k compatibility, down to standard aga 020 by the press of a key on boot, aswell as easy RTG graphics by means of the bvision and with that, a fairly modern OS running natively on your ppc cpu. If you set it up as a dual/triple boot system, it gets even better! Fastest ppc card for a1200 was the 240mhz + 060 version. But these days its quite common to find 330mhz versions, too. Keep an eye out on Amibay, read up on my old threads, be prepared for quite some work/frustrations, but if you feel this is the way to go for you, by all means, DO IT.
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if you decide to buy bppc, be sure to 'towerize' A1200.
it will give you stable PSU and required cooling.
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The most powerful PPC that you can fit to an A1200 would be a 604e 233MHz* courtesy of a CyberstormPPC. However, that also requires a busboard with an A4000 compatible CPU slot, such as the one that came with the Micronik infinitiv tower. All of which would cost an absolute arm and leg nowadays.
*or faster, if you can find a modded one.
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The most powerful PPC that you can fit to an A1200 would be a 604e 233MHz* courtesy of a CyberstormPPC. However, that also requires a busboard with an A4000 compatible CPU slot, such as the one that came with the Micronik infinitiv tower. All of which would cost an absolute arm and leg nowadays.
*or faster, if you can find a modded one.
I think I'm gonna kill myself now. :\
Could've gotten a fully functional Micronik Z3i for less than 200 bucks a year ago.
I passed, because I was unemployed and didn't have an Amiga back then.
I probably wouldn't have used a G4 (604) on it (that's probably more expensive than simply buying a SAM with very little benefit over a nice 68060 setup) but a Cyberstorm MKIII is probably still more powerful than a Apollo 060, right?
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The most powerful PPC that you can fit to an A1200 would be a 604e 233MHz* courtesy of a CyberstormPPC. However, that also requires a busboard with an A4000 compatible CPU slot, such as the one that came with the Micronik infinitiv tower. All of which would cost an absolute arm and leg nowadays.
*or faster, if you can find a modded one.
Now why haven't I heard or seen anyone doing that to an A1200? I never even KNEW that a CSPPC could fit onto an A1200!! :shocked:
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Now why haven't I heard or seen anyone doing that to an A1200? I never even KNEW that a CSPPC could fit onto an A1200!! :shocked:
Weren't those Z3-busboards too unstable with compatibility problems, that everyone who tried to use bigbox accelerators went pretty fast back to some other solution?
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Now why haven't I heard or seen anyone doing that to an A1200? I never even KNEW that a CSPPC could fit onto an A1200!! :shocked:
same here.. this opens up some new possibilities :)
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Weren't those Z3-busboards too unstable with compatibility problems, that everyone who tried to use bigbox accelerators went pretty fast back to some other solution?
I had a friend that owned a Micronik tower/Z3 board back in the day and fitted a CyberStorm MK III to it. I seem to recall it working fine. However, he later sourced an A4000 and using the card in that was a no brainer.
As the CyberStorm MK III is basically the same board as the CyberStormPPC, sans a few component parts, I expect it ought to be possible.
As I said though, very expensive.
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I had a friend that owned a Micronik tower/Z3 board back in the day and fitted a CyberStorm MK III to it. I seem to recall it working fine. However, he later sourced an A4000 and using the card in that was a no brainer.
As the CyberStorm MK III is basically the same board as the CyberStormPPC, sans a few component parts, I expect it ought to be possible.
As I said though, very expensive.
I wonder how hard it would be to produce fully working replicas of those.
I could totally see myself buying one and installing it with either a CyberStorm MK III or a CyberStorm PPC (do those clock to a 68060@80MHz as well?)
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I think the issue is that when these cards were released and you shelled out the 800 and some dollars, the emerging WarpUP vs PowerUP thing only served to further fracture what was a small market for PPC ports. This was disappointing to those of us who had shelled out for the new cards. Having one of those cards (I had a BlizzPPC 060/603 in a micronik-based tower) certainly was a blast, don't let anyone fool you, but I agree that today - other than to say "my amiga is 100% classic") - it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
It also depends on whether you are in the camp who likes the tight classic OS vs "let's make a modern amiga OS," which IMHO that ship has sailed.
If you ran a properly configured 3.1 with all the flashupdates, memory speed tweaks, rom imaging, etc, and you had decent patches for software to use the PPC, it was a nice system in 1999. If I still had mine I wouldn't use it to run 3.5 and onward.
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Those of you contemplating PPC+060 card for perfect heaven should be aware that the way they implemented the 060 part of the card sux and it has very slow access to memory. I can't remember ottomh if it was only slow at chipram or both chipram and fastram but there was something really NOT optimzed about their bus interface.
Everyone's plain 040 and plain 060 beat them in timing tests because the PPC+060card memory bandwidth was only half what it should have been.
Just giving u full disclosure. :)
I only write 040/060 gamez so I never timed the PPC memory bandwidth. I just assume it was fast.
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If you ran a properly configured 3.1 with all the flashupdates, memory speed tweaks, rom imaging, etc, and you had decent patches for software to use the PPC, it was a nice system in 1999. If I still had mine I wouldn't use it to run 3.5 and onward.
Bah humbug! :)
I cruised the internet burning up the IRC chats and the www on my 50Mhz 060 Amiga until sometime in 2003. My Amiga was only about half the speed of my Brother's 650Mhz Athlon Unreal Tournament Gaming Rig at rendering webpages and about 1/4 speed at rendering large .jpg images. It was hilarious.
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again, you are missing the point. for a plain a1200, what other option do you have to get RTG graphics and access to OS4?
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os4 on a1200 or a4000 is a stepbackwards
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again, you are missing the point. for a plain a1200, what other option do you have to get RTG graphics and access to OS4?
PPC is pretty pointless in a 1200, RTG is nice to have of course but you can still get a pretty decent WB display happening with just an Indivision AGA and for games and most of the legacy applications AGA (68k) is all you need.
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PPC is pretty pointless in a 1200, RTG is nice to have of course but you can still get a pretty decent WB display happening with just an Indivision AGA and for games and most of the legacy applications AGA (68k) is all you need.
Actually, I'd say the BVision board was probably one of the most significant updates my A1200 ever had. You might have your IndivisionAGA today, but remember that back when the BVision was released, most of the scandoublers/flickerfixers for A1200 were less than stellar.
Going from an auto-scrolling 16 colour 1280x1024 PAL interlace (helped out by MagicTV) display to a rock solid 16-bit colour 1280x1024 80Hz display that was basically faster in every way, was quite the eye opener (if you pardon the pun).
I guess if you don't run much productivity software, you can live without it, but seriously, RTG added another few years of sole machine usability to my system and that's no joke.
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... RTG is nice to have of course but you can still get a pretty decent WB display happening with just an Indivision AGA and for games and most of the legacy applications AGA (68k) is all you need.
True.
I have RTG in my A1200/060. I don't have PPC but I have Mediator PCI slots + a 32-bit gfx card. 99% of the time my RTG is disabled and I just run my AGA with my flickerfixer (I have the super awesome 24-bit flickerfixer from the 1990s way before Indivision).
RTG is indespensable for Web browsing, DTP, etc. But for oldskool gaming it causes incompatibilities.
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Bah humbug! :)
I cruised the internet burning up the IRC chats and the www on my 50Mhz 060 Amiga until sometime in 2003. My Amiga was only about half the speed of my Brother's 650Mhz Athlon Unreal Tournament Gaming Rig at rendering webpages and about 1/4 speed at rendering large .jpg images. It was hilarious.
Heh, Yeah I seem to recall that around 2001/02 or so, I thought that my 060/50+PPC/240 was about as fast as a ~400mhz celeron/athlon/win98. That's how it felt at least. When it became cumbersome to work with after XP came out, that's when I sold the card,backplane, and 1200 mobo.
There's nothing wrong with AmigaOS, is and always was lean and mean - it's just that today, with the prices that some of those PPC cards are fetching, I mean, if you stick to 060 sans PPC, you aren't really missing anything. I don't really regret buying one when they came out, but other than playing mp3s or an earlyish version of MAME, or imagedecoders, there wasn't much to make use of...
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True.
I have RTG in my A1200/060. I don't have PPC but I have Mediator PCI slots + a 32-bit gfx card. 99% of the time my RTG is disabled and I just run my AGA with my flickerfixer (I have the super awesome 24-bit flickerfixer from the 1990s way before Indivision).
RTG is indespensable for Web browsing, DTP, etc. But for oldskool gaming it causes incompatibilities.
WRT RTG: Without PicIV in at least my system, I couldn't make comparisons to 400+mhz PC type machines. It is indispensible, but, that said - without AGA on my second monitor at the time, I would have sold my equipment earlier,. The fact that you had both options, was what kept me on AmigaOS for so long. With _only_ RTG, I'm not sure there's enough to keep me. I'm sure there are many who will disagree with me on that.
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same here.. this opens up some new possibilities :)
Yeah...and the danger of making a BIG hole in your wallet too :D
Seriously, I dont' trust the CSPPC cards. They are deemed fragile, BPPC is slower but more robust.
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..well, at least Karlos understands the importance of adding RTG to an a1200 system. I guess if you just want to play games the ppc+bvision is overkill. And yes, OS4 is personal preference.
@Bamiga2002, I dont think Im going to get a csppc, I already have a bppc thankfully :) But you never know.
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This thread reminded me of a classic PPC thread by keropi on EAB (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=18309)
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..well, at least Karlos understands the importance of adding RTG to an a1200 system. I guess if you just want to play games the ppc+bvision is overkill. And yes, OS4 is personal preference.
RTG was absolutely the biggest and the most significant upgrade to classic Amiga's usability when you're using it as main computer or mostly for the apps instead of games. I went the CV64/3D route with my A1200 (and later Mediator) and it was definitely bigger improvement than any CPU expansion etc (I went up to 060, not that it wouldn't been a big leap, but still nothing to compare what RTG gave).
But nowadays my RTG usage has moved to next generation Amigas, which are way faster than any expanded classic Amiga.. so.. today I think 060 is more important for classics than RTG :)
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RTG was absolutely the biggest and the most significant upgrade to classic Amiga's usability when you're using it as main computer or mostly for the apps instead of games. I went the CV64/3D route with my A1200 (and later Mediator) and it was definitely bigger improvement than any CPU expansion etc (I went up to 060, not that it wouldn't been a big leap, but still nothing to compare what RTG gave).
But nowadays my RTG usage has moved to next generation Amigas, which are way faster than any expanded classic Amiga.. so.. today I think 060 is more important for classics than RTG :)
I disagree with everyone about dishing rtg for Amiga classic. It is lack of software developers who take full advantage of it to develop modern games, mmorpg games, applications, heck even full blown 3D games and apps for classic Amiga. It is not the concept of having rtg is bad, the lack of developers to exploit it is.
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I disagree with everyone about dishing rtg for Amiga classic. It is lack of software developers who take full advantage of it to develop modern games, mmorpg games, applications, heck even full blown 3D games and apps for classic Amiga. It is not the concept of having rtg is bad, the lack of developers to exploit it is.
I'd humbly agree.
There really is no way of shortselling the benefit of having a discrete GPU.
However, I'm pretty sure 3D (or 3D MMORPG games even) would not run well on a classic Amiga with RTG only. It would definitely need an accompanying PPC, since the 68k CPUs are too much of a bottleneck for full 3D. Heck, even a PPC G3/G4 is still a tremendous bottleneck for any 3DFX Voodoo 3/4/5.
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I'd humbly agree.
There really is no way of shortselling the benefit of having a discrete GPU.
However, I'm pretty sure 3D (or 3D MMORPG games even) would not run well on a classic Amiga with RTG only. It would definitely need an accompanying PPC, since the 68k CPUs are too much of a bottleneck for full 3D. Heck, even a PPC G3/G4 is still a tremendous bottleneck for any 3DFX Voodoo 3/4/5.
But then the true question to ask.....is it worth it? I mean even the current PPC for classic Amiga are weak: 233 Mhz or even 260 Mhz would do nothing. Requesting to manufacture new PPC card for classic Amiga with 700 Mhz comes to other complications:
- Is it feasible?
- Can the motherboard of classic Amiga handle such speed boost and would it run at such close speed with RTG?
- Manufacturing cost?
- Benefit of financial return from developing such product?
- Cost of selling it and the amount of people willing to buy it?
- Amount of software available to take advantage of it and compatibility issue?
- It comes to the final question: Is it worth it?
So we end up again back to the same bottleneck of No, No, NO! But then you look at the casing of Amiga 4000D and Amiga 4000T and you use the classic Amiga and you start wishing: Oh I wish I can watch blue ray movies or HD movies on it. Oh I wish there was LOTS OF cool MMORPG games on it. Oh I WISH THERE ARE LOTS OF COOL new App and games on it...oooh I wish...and it is a NEVER ending cycle.
I am surprised you guys don't drink too much!
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But then the true question to ask.....is it worth it? I mean even the current PPC for classic Amiga are weak: 233 Mhz or even 260 Mhz would do nothing. Requesting to manufacture new PPC card for classic Amiga with 700 Mhz comes to other complications:
- Is it feasible?
- Can the motherboard of classic Amiga handle such speed boost and would it run at such close speed with RTG?
- Manufacturing cost?
- Benefit of financial return from developing such product?
- Cost of selling it and the amount of people willing to buy it?
- Amount of software available to take advantage of it and compatibility issue?
- It comes to the final question: Is it worth it?
So we end up again back to the same bottle knock of No, No, NO! But then you look at the casing of Amiga 4000D and Amiga 4000T and you use the classic Amiga and you start wishing: Oh I wish I can watch blue ray movies or HD movies on it. Oh I wish there was LOTS OF cool MMORPG games on it. Oh I WISH THERE ARE LOTS OF COOL new App and games on it...oooh I wish...and it is a NEVER ending cycle.
I am surprised you guys don't drink too much!
No need to. Once one has realized that good games don't need high-end 3D graphics, the world looks brighter once again ;)
BTW: I'm pretty positive that render adventures are quite feasible on a classic 68k Amiga with RTG.
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No need to. Once one has realized that good games don't need high-end 3D graphics, the world looks brighter once again ;)
BTW: I'm pretty positive that render adventures are quite feasible on a classic 68k Amiga with RTG.
But I really want a single MMORPG game for classic Amiga...just one!
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But I really want a single MMORPG game for classic Amiga...just one!
Not too sound overly pessimistic, but an MMORPG (as in Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) would be an utter joke on any non-mainstream platform. In the case of an Amiga MMO, it would probably be less than a hundred people playing at the same time.
Perhaps something like The Realm running on some sort of old and outdated low-end server would be feasible, but that's that.
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Not too sound overly pessimistic, but an MMORPG (as in Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) would be an utter joke on any non-mainstream platform. In the case of an Amiga MMO, it would probably be less than a hundred people playing at the same time.
Perhaps something like The Realm running on some sort of old and outdated low-end server would be feasible, but that's that.
Will, the MMORPG I am thinking of and I may be dreaming here but it is used in mainstream platform such as Windows, Mac and heck even Linux but also for OS 4 and OS 3.x with RTG card. It does not need TO BE HEAVY 3D rendering MMORPG, in fact a good looking 2D MMORPG would suffice. Perhaps if it WAS feasible and people can see MMORPG is possible on an classic RTG Amiga (giving RTG Amiga another new life into it) then perhaps more MMORPG would come up. Hence, JUST FOR THAT ALONE perhaps, getting an A4000 to upgrade it to RTG would make RTG at least worth that, than to say it is not worth it.
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something like http://aminet.net/package/comm/net/AmiMUD ? :)
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Quick question:
Is there any benefit to an Apollo over a Blizzard?
I've been offered an Apollo 1240 with one SIMM slot. Would it be hard to upgrade it to a 060 CPU and a second RAM slot?
How much do Blizzard 1260s usually go for these days?
I'd very much like to upgrade my Amiga 1200 to an 80 MHz 68060 (AFAIK, something that works with both brands, Apollo and Blizzard) but am a bit concerned that an Apollo might not be as good as a Blizzard due to having much less RAM.
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Quick question:
Is there any benefit to an Apollo over a Blizzard?
I've been offered an Apollo 1240 with one SIMM slot. Would it be hard to upgrade it to a 060 CPU and a second RAM slot?
How much do Blizzard 1260s usually go for these days?
I'd very much like to upgrade my Amiga 1200 to an 80 MHz 68060 (AFAIK, something that works with both brands, Apollo and Blizzard) but am a bit concerned that an Apollo might not be as good as a Blizzard due to having much less RAM.
64 MB of RAM is EVERYTHING you ever need for all your Amiga classic usage. UNless you want 128 MB specific use.
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Quick question:
Is there any benefit to an Apollo over a Blizzard?
There are some small benefits to having either one.
Maximum RAM goes to Blizzard and is big benefit.
Maximum chipram access speed goes to Apollo.
Blizzard has some special utils for it written by Piru the Megacoder.
But that probably won't matter to u.
Maximum Mhz goes to Apollo. They can do 100Mhz or 105Mhz.
Either one can load your kickstart ROM into highspeed 32-bit FASTram.
I think, not sure, that u can soft disable the Blizzard 060 but still use the RAM for your 020. Hafta ask someone who has one or has read the docs. I haven't read about it for over 10 years.
I think, not sure, that when u soft disable Apollo 060 the cpu and RAM disappear from the system.
The thing is I have had my 060 card and I never once disabled it or wanted to. I luvz my 060 card. :knuddel:
I've been offered an Apollo 1240 with one SIMM slot. Would it be hard to upgrade it to a 060 CPU and a second RAM slot?
Do u mean hard for u?
Or hard for Cosmos?
I donno what level of Hardware Wizard u r.
Personally I would just pay Cosmos to do it since he has done it a zillion times and knows what's what.
How much do Blizzard 1260s usually go for these days?
I donno but $500.00 last I checked. But that was a long long time ago.
They are worth every penny.
I'd very much like to upgrade my Amiga 1200 to an 80 MHz 68060 (AFAIK, something that works with both brands, Apollo and Blizzard) but am a bit concerned that an Apollo might not be as good as a Blizzard due to having much less RAM.
You don't actually get to choose what accelarator you get when it comes to 060. u grab it and run before someone else buys it.
They have not made new ones since 1990s. So u only can get one when someone dies or goes insane and sells theirs. Or when u manufacture one out of an old 040 card with the help of Cosmos Industrial Enterprises International Inc.
If u chant "Cosmos" 3 times in a row, then cross ur arms and blink your eyes (like I Dream of Jeannie) then click your heels 3 times and offer him a virgin houri then Cosmos the Mighty will magically appear and tell u how much he charges to upgrade an Apollo040 to an Apollo060 and add the 2nd SIMM slot with memory that actually works. (both SIMMS must match).
Then u can have an 80Mhz or more 060 card with 64MB and be kewl :cool:
like the rest of us :)
If the Apollo 040 is cheap then I will buy it and hire cosmos to upgrade the hell out of it and give it to a friend of mine who can make use of it.
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There are some small benefits to having either one.
Maximum RAM goes to Blizzard and is big benefit.
Maximum chipram access speed goes to Apollo.
Blizzard has some special utils for it written by Piru the Megacoder.
But that probably won't matter to u.
Maximum Mhz goes to Apollo. They can do 100Mhz or 105Mhz.
Either one can load your kickstart ROM into highspeed 32-bit FASTram.
I think, not sure, that u can soft disable the Blizzard 060 but still use the RAM for your 020. Hafta ask someone who has one or has read the docs. I haven't read about it for over 10 years.
I think, not sure, that when u soft disable Apollo 060 the cpu and RAM disappear from the system.
The thing is I have had my 060 card and I never once disabled it or wanted to. I luvz my 060 card. :knuddel:
Do u mean hard for u?
Or hard for Cosmos?
I donno what level of Hardware Wizard u r.
Personally I would just pay Cosmos to do it since he has done it a zillion times and knows what's what.
I donno but $500.00 last I checked. But that was a long long time ago.
They are worth every penny.
You don't actually get to choose what accelarator you get when it comes to 060. u grab it and run before someone else buys it.
They have not made new ones since 1990s. So u only can get one when someone dies or goes insane and sells theirs. Or when u manufacture one out of an old 040 card with the help of Cosmos Industrial Enterprises International Inc.
If u chant "Cosmos" 3 times in a row, then cross ur arms and blink your eyes (like I Dream of Jeannie) then click your heels 3 times and offer him a virgin houri then Cosmos the Mighty will magically appear and tell u how much he charges to upgrade an Apollo040 to an Apollo060 and add the 2nd SIMM slot with memory that actually works. (both SIMMS must match).
Then u can have an 80Mhz or more 060 card with 64MB and be kewl :cool:
like the rest of us :)
If the Apollo 040 is cheap then I will buy it and hire cosmos to upgrade the hell out of it and give it to a friend of mine who can make use of it.
Ok.
I guess I'm going with that Apollo then.
The RAM would probably be hindering anyways. Nothing worse than coding and testing apps on a machine that has more RAM than the average person's machine.
When I said hard, I meant hard for my former boss (whose an electronics geek). If I tried to modify it myself, I'd probably destroy it in less than 5 minutes.
Cosmos is probably located in the US, right? Don't think I'd want to send a piece of hardware over the pond.
Edit: As for disabling the CPU and still retaining the fast RAM: That's pretty non-sensical, isn't it? I don't think any 68020 programm requires that much RAM.
Furthermore, I could always add one (multiple, even?) Radeon 9xxx series cards for an additional 256+MB, right?
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Quick question:
Is there any benefit to an Apollo over a Blizzard?
I've been offered an Apollo 1240 with one SIMM slot. Would it be hard to upgrade it to a 060 CPU and a second RAM slot?
How much do Blizzard 1260s usually go for these days?
I'd very much like to upgrade my Amiga 1200 to an 80 MHz 68060 (AFAIK, something that works with both brands, Apollo and Blizzard) but am a bit concerned that an Apollo might not be as good as a Blizzard due to having much less RAM.
Apollo's are cheaper which is the main benefit....you can also clock them higher (usually, not always true). This appears to be because an Apollo only accesses it's FASTRAM at 50% of the CPU speed whereas a Blizzard does it 1:1. That means an Apollo can (sometimes) be clocked right up to 100Mhz with a decent CPU and RAM (depends on the MACH chips) whereas a Blizzard can normally only go to about 80Mhz (even with fast memory). This means that a Blizzard should produce more MIPS at the same clock speed as an Apollo (in theory).
Another thing to consider is that (I believe) Blizzards are 'buffered' across the Zorro bus when (in theory) means that they do not access CHIPRAM as fast as Apollo cards. This may have been changed/improved with the latest official 060 libraries but I'm not sure.
The main downside with the Apollos is the lack of memory, only 32mb can be used if you still want to use your desktop case. While 32mb is fine for most things, things like web browsing are obviously going to need more.
Some people say Apollos are less reliable or less compatible than Blizzards but so far I've been 100% happy with my overclocked Apollo (which has it's MACH chip soldered on to improve stability).
Apollo @ 80Mhz (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh32EW1l9UM) :)
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Apollo's are cheaper which is the main benefit....you can also clock them higher (usually, not always true). This appears to be because an Apollo only accesses it's FASTRAM at 50% of the CPU speed whereas a Blizzard does it 1:1. That means an Apollo can (sometimes) be clocked right up to 100Mhz with a decent CPU and RAM (depends on the MACH chips) whereas a Blizzard can normally only go to about 80Mhz (even with fast memory). This means that a Blizzard should produce more MIPS at the same clock speed as an Apollo (in theory).
Another thing to consider is that (I believe) Blizzards are 'buffered' across the Zorro bus when (in theory) means that they do not access CHIPRAM as fast as Apollo cards. This may have been changed/improved with the latest official 060 libraries but I'm not sure.
The main downside with the Apollos is the lack of memory, only 32mb can be used if you still want to use your desktop case. While 32mb is fine for most things, things like web browsing are obviously going to need more.
Some people say Apollos are less reliable or less compatible than Blizzards but so far I've been 100% happy with my overclocked Apollo (which has it's MACH chip soldered on to improve stability).
Apollo @ 80Mhz (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh32EW1l9UM) :)
BBBEEEAUTIFULL!! Makes me want to get Apollo big time hehe!!!
By the way I have seeing your ScummVM AGA v1.4.1 - The Curse of Monkey Island on youtube and you showed a climpse of your A1200D HD LED flashing as it is reading...that was beautiful * sigh * Made my eyes tears :biglaugh:... Isn't A1200D just SEXY OR WHAT? :biglaugh::biglaugh:
That is why I want to work SO HARD into squeezing as MUCH AS juice from it as possible to make it the most entertaining media centre. NovaCoder, even if you couldn't manage to get DOSBoxAGA a reality I want to thank YOU SO MUCH for trying and working hard on attempting it. Also I want to thank you for ScummVMAga!!
By any chance in the future are you considering C64AGA?
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BBBEEEAUTIFULL!! Makes me want to get Apollo big time hehe!!!
By the way I have seeing your ScummVM AGA v1.4.1 - The Curse of Monkey Island on youtube and you showed a climpse of your A1200D HD LED flashing as it is reading...that was beautiful * sigh * Made my eyes tears :biglaugh:... Isn't A1200D just SEXY OR WHAT? :biglaugh::biglaugh:
That is why I want to work SO HARD into squeezing as MUCH AS juice from it as possible to make it the most entertaining media centre. NovaCoder, even if you couldn't manage to get DOSBoxAGA a reality I want to thank YOU SO MUCH for trying and working hard on attempting it. Also I want to thank you for ScummVMAga!!
By any chance in the future are you considering C64AGA?
What would be the point of an C64AGA? C64 games (C64DTV and Super CPU exclusive stuff excluded) offer less colours than were possible on even a plain Amiga 1000.
BTW: I just found about another 060 board. A so called Falcon.
Specs seem pretty much on par with the Blizzard, except for the SCSI.
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What would be the point of an C64AGA? C64 games (C64DTV and Super CPU exclusive stuff excluded) offer less colours than were possible on even a plain Amiga 1000.
BTW: I just found about another 060 board. A so called Falcon.
Specs seem pretty much on par with the Blizzard, except for the SCSI.
There is no point, but since we already emulated MSX and it is worse specs than C64, and we emulated lots of consoles, including NES, and we are trying to bring x86 into the Amiga through software and we have ScummVM why not have a real working C64AGA that works on AGA and not RTG and use real 1541 disk drive to load/save stuff?
IT WOULD BE SUPER COOL.
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Apollo's are cheaper which is the main benefit....
+1
you can also clock them higher (usually, not always true).
+1
Another thing to consider is that (I believe) Blizzards are 'buffered' across the Zorro bus when (in theory) means that they do not access CHIPRAM as fast as Apollo cards. This may have been changed/improved with the latest official 060 libraries but I'm not sure.
All I know is Team Chaos used to conduct a lot of timing tests on a lot of different hardware and the Apollo 040 always had the fastest chipram access. It was always with 3% of the theoretical maximum. The Apollo 040 was even faster than the Apollo 060 at writing to chipmem which doesn't even make sense. But that's how it is.
Basically every accelerator made always has different weird inefficienies when accessing memory.
The main downside with the Apollos is the lack of memory, only 32mb can be used if you still want to use your desktop case. While 32mb is fine for most things, things like web browsing are obviously going to need more.
Yeah it does suck that its absolute maximum is 64MB. But oh well... most ppl are happy with 64MB. You can always sell it later if/when u can get something better.
Some people say Apollos are less reliable or less compatible than Blizzards
Bah humbug!
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BTW: I just found about another 060 board. A so called Falcon.
Specs seem pretty much on par with the Blizzard, except for the SCSI.
Sounds like an Atari.
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Sounds like an Atari.
That's what I thought.
But they appear to be real (produced in Germany and the US by MacroSystem)
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=137
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That's what I thought.
But they appear to be real (produced in Germany and the US by MacroSystem)
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=137
Wow, crazy! Is someone offering to sell u one? U should get it and write a review because I never heard of it.
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Wow, crazy! Is someone offering to sell u one? U should get it and write a review because I never heard of it.
No.
Unfortunately not.
Never heard of it before either.
Was a random find in another forum.
The guy already sold it, unfortunately (back in September, I think). Went for 197 quid + shipping.
What bugs me about this card is the plain misuse of the MMU, however.
EDIT: I've now been offered a Blizzard 1240 for just slightly more than the Apollo (like 50 euros more).
To bite or not to bite, that's the question.
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Just got myself a Blizzard 1260 and wanted to do a speed comparison with an Apollo 1260 as there is so much conflicting bullsh*t written about this subject.
Ok, I spent the day yesterday setting up my new Blizzard and can now do some speed comparisons between the two.
My Blizz is currently running at 75 MHz vs my Apollo that runs at 80 Mhz so keep that in mind.
I'll be uploading both SysSpeed modules to AmiNet soon for people to compare (I might whack the Blizzard up to 80 Mhz first though if my other 128Mb SIM fits in it ok).
With a standard BB2 3.9 system the fast-ram access speed it is roughly 30% quicker than the Apollo, it surprising matches the chip-ram speed of the Apollo in most cases but for a couple of the test the Apollo beats the Blizz by about 20% (you'll need to download the modules to get the exact ratings).
The HD transfer rate was terrible with just BB2 (about 1 MB/s) but the excellent BlizKick got that up to a more respectable 3 MB/s (this is with an IdeFixExpress). My Apollo managed about 3.5 MB/s with the same setup so that's where it's faster chip-ram access is helping. I've got a brand-new FAST-ATA sitting in a box next to my 1200 which should help boost that speed a little
The MIPS are also interesting, the Blizz is running at 99.5 MIPS vs the 104.5 of the Apollo (remember that the Apollo is running 5 MHz faster).
As for real world game testing:
BOOM 060 runs 'Return to Saturn' much better than on the Apollo, it's now as smooth as butter and can even run full-screen without any slow-down. AmiQuake AGA is a bit strange, the FPS in the time-demo has gone up from 12.9 to 13.4 but it doesn't actually feel quite as fast to play (maybe this is just in my head).
I'm not sure if it's the hardware that is really making the difference, I think a large part of it may be down to the superior 060 library and the excellent BlizKick utility.
New Blizzard 1260 in action (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVuJjDIcBVI)
I'll try and remember to update this thread with the names of the SysSpeed modules.
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With a standard BB2 3.9 system the fast-ram speed it is roughly 30% quicker than the Apollo, it surprising matches the chip-ram speed of the Apollo in most cases but for a couple of the test the Apollo beats the Blizz by about 20% (you need to download the modules to get the exact ratings).
Maybe by boosting the Mhz you have altered things such that Blizzard partly catches up to Apollo Chipram speeds?
In fact, by boosting the Apollo from 50Mhz to 80Mhz it might have even slowed down its chipram access times. One can never know unless one tests. The way accelerator cards access memory is a field of darque blaque majix.
Or maybe you are averaging out all the chipram timing tests which is not something I care about.
The speed of reading from chipram using bytes, words or longwords is interesting from a scientific perspective but not really useful to the consumer in determing which card is best.
The speed of writing to chipram using 8-bit writes or 16-bit writes is interesting from a scientific perspective but not really useful to the consumer in determing which card is best.
The only chipram test that matters is how fast chipram can be written to 32-bits at a time. If a game is writing 16-bits at a time then it is unoptimized slow as molasses anyway and doesn't bear consideration.
When an Apollo has "20% faster chipram access" this says to me, as a game coder, that Apollo cards have a 20% faster framerate, which is fantastically important to gamers and animators. Anyone who uses the Amiga for video purposes, such as SCALA or CLARISSA or Total Chaos AGA or etc. etc.
As a gamecoder, all my games are bottlenecked by the speed at which my code can write to chipram 32-bits at a time. (because chipram is 32-bit memory). All I care about is the speed of move.l Rn,ChipRam
Having faster fastmem is kewl and I love it, but that is not where my bottlenecks are at.
So when I did my timing tests on Apollo vs. Blizzards over the years I was mostly testing stock 50Mhz models (because that is what most ppl have). And I was only paying attention to 32-bit chipram writes and all my tests were performed in 640x512x256 colors mode because that is what my games use.
Would you be willing to post your Busspeed test results from both cards in 640x512x256 colors mode? (fastram and chipram, the whole thing)
Thanx!
Now if you want a surprise, get yourself an Apollo 1240 40Mhz and check out the amazing chipram access speeds! I never had such a card but various playtesters sent in timing test results many years ago and it was really amazing how the 1240 could magically always access chipram at the maximum theoretical value. Even faster than theoretically possible sometimes :)
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There is a video of a 366Mhz Blizzard card with benchmarks on youtube,but is it the fastest? No
Speed of PCI slot plays a important role on how Bvision performs on Blizzard card,expect benchmarks figure(s) you never seen before.
Min: 37.5Mhz
Max: 41.5Mhz*
*can operate higher,but is limited by main memory/PPC processor bus speed.
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@delshay
Please, post a video of your setup running a timedemo or actual gameplay of Quake or Quake 2 etc. for us to see. I'm interested to see how much you have been able to squeeze out of the BPPC. I'm currently testing a 366Mhz PPC setup (5.5*66) how it performs and is it stable. Currently things are looking good :)
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I have owned them all. Apollo 060 at 80mhz a blizzard 1260 @ 50mhz . BPPC 240+060@50.
To be honest i liked the blizzard 1260 and the BPPC the best.
The apollo would crash every once in a while when the Phase 5 cards would be rock solid always without any weird sudden freezy that happend every 2-3 days with the apollo.
The apollo was upgraded by PG and had the latest mac chips and cpu revision.
My apollo only fitted in a tower due to a angeled sim slot that would interfere with the keyboard in the wedge case. The 1260 was the best card due to the scsi controller. However the bppc is the only card that allow you to use a gfx card in the wedge amiga.
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By any chance in the future are you considering C64AGA?
Firstly, you do realise Novacoder has ported software, not written it from scratch dont you? This isnt to discredit him, I also appreciate and enjoy his work, but do you have any idea how complex a machine the c64 is to emulate? Which emulator would you propose he ports? The only way to get good performance in a c64 emulator on a 680x0 cpu is to code completely in asm. There's no 680x0 asm open source emulators out there.
Secondly, there's no real advantage in using AGA vs even ocs for c64 emuation. CPU speed is the important thing here.
If you want a good c64 emulator for your classic, use MagiC64. Its easily the fastest c64 emu around for "classic" 68k amigas and even runs full speed for some games on my 40mhz '040 when using sound. Worst case scenario and I have to skip a few frames. Even on my 50mhz blizzmk4 '030 I had some years (decades) ago I could play quite a few games at close to full speed when using 1 frame in 3.
Anyone who knows much about how hard the c64 is to emulate will understand just how impressive that is for such low spec hardware.
You seem to be a bit misguided as to what RTG is and how it works too. Basically if software is system friendly it works under RTG. No special effort is required to use RTG, and most software that doesnt hit hardware directly will work on RTG.
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Overclocking your Blizzard card to 366Mhz is a high risks if something goes wrong can it be repaired.
603e processor has a top end overclock of 380Mhz as far as i am aware,at this speed applications loading is insane for a classic amiga OS4.1.
NOTE: very high speed memory access is needed to get the best out of the processor at the above speed,but is not available to users of classic amiga.
WARNING! do not try the above speed on your hardware my card is modified for this.
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Memory Bus Speed
High = 70Mhz+
Very High = 75Mhz+ ( awaiting standard for 300Mhz processor users ) no overclocking.
Master = 80Mhz+
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UPDATE CORRECTION:
603e Processor has a top end speed of 385Mhz overclocked
WARNING! do not overclock your card to such high speed possible permanent damage beyond repair.
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Fastest is 380Mhz with very high speed memory access,but I have a strange feeling 400Mhz+ will soon be reached.
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Fastest is 380Mhz with very high speed memory access,but I have a strange feeling 400Mhz+ will soon be reached.
That is a 603e, isn't it?
Didn't know you could push one that fast.
The fastest I remember Freescale making was a 300 MHz unit.
Not exactly a power house regardless of speed.
Might make OS4 more tolerable on legacy machines.
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If it is a 603e processor at that speed I can assure you it can go faster. Its not about the CPU,its about memory access speed.
The Blizzard mini PCI slot is also dragged into this.
The next jump if any will take the Blizzard pass 400Mhz and beyond,but im almost certain 400Mhz+ is not far away.
If the Blizzard card hits 500Mhz+ it will certainly raise eyebrows for a classic computer.
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If it is a 603e processor at that speed I can assure you it can go faster. Its not about the CPU,its about memory access speed.
The Blizzard mini PCI slot is also dragged into this.
The next jump if any will take the Blizzard pass 400Mhz and beyond,but im almost certain 400Mhz+ is not far away.
If the Blizzard card hits 500Mhz+ it will certainly raise eyebrows for a classic computer.
I'm not 100% sure about the CPU (that was just from memory - and I've never owned one).
Yes, getting a computer that old up to 500MHz would be an accomplishment.
Pity no more of these cards are likely to be made. Freescale list the entire family as EOL with no replacement.
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Secondly, there's no real advantage in using AGA vs even ocs for c64 emuation. CPU speed is the important thing here.
Although I mostly agree with you I guess Amiga Frodo could be updated to add support for c64 128 colour screenmodes and that's where AGA could come handy but even 060 is too slow to emulate c64 accurately. And on top of that I guess NovaCoder has better things to do :-)
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I remember many years ago some mentions that some version of the G3 would be feasible as a replacement in Blizzard cards, but given the value of the Blizzards I guess it's not worth the risk and apparently noone has seriously tried.
I've lost interest in the Classic PPC stuff after getting a Pegasos G3, an A1200 for old games and programs is great but for more recent apps / productivity it's a waste.
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Actually it's kinda weird we're still talking about this after all these years isn't it ? :) Cool though...
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The advantage of the G3 would of course be the extra cache, given that the same memory access limitations apply.
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Found one old mention of it in this site in 2008, but I remember an older one. Have no idea about the compatibility between the processors though, which is what matters.
Check it here:http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=36219&page=2
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Found one old mention of it in this site in 2008, but I remember an older one. Have no idea about the compatibility between the processors though, which is what matters.
Check it here:http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=36219&page=2
Arr that old thread. There are a few mistakes in that thread one by me,its a typo error. Somethings I have said in that thread even at the time i had no idea it would work at that time has come true.
Another processor was tested a few months later and I can confirm at that time OS4.0 almost booted into workbench. Just to make it clear it was not a 603e Processor. I think something in the flashrom may need to be change. If it is something in flashrom,it must be a very small line that need to changed.
The performance of blizzard card is there,but as I said in a few threads you need very high speed memory access. This plays a very important role as I notice it did not do a lot to graphics performance even with big changes in processor speed if memory access is not fast enough.
How the tide is turning as the PCI bus has now moved and is clocked with the PPC processor.
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I remember many years ago some mentions that some version of the G3 would be feasible as a replacement in Blizzard cards, but given the value of the Blizzards I guess it's not worth the risk and apparently noone has seriously tried.
I've lost interest in the Classic PPC stuff after getting a Pegasos G3, an A1200 for old games and programs is great but for more recent apps / productivity it's a waste.
I feel for you there.
G4 Apples and an A2000 satisfy most of my needs.
You guys do realize we're talking about working hard to get G3 performance.
Man, we DO discuss some odd ideas.
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It has never being about the processor when I started this project,it has always being about bus speed. The basic standard has been set as many of you may or may not have being aware for modified cards only.
I have only being working on the the PCI slot for the past 6 months or so and is was working upto 41.5Mhz
I said the the tide is turning and the PCI slot is threatening AGP speed but its the test Blizzard/Bvision card thats able to boot into OS4.1 only. Its showing benchmarks I have never seen before. I can confirm whatever benchmark classic users are getting at 800x600 or 640x480 its showing benchmarks that exceeds both screemode with 1024x768 32bit. Theres a lot of work needed to retain this speed so I see what I can do.
NOTE: quality of sgram seems to be playing a important role in this but not certain at this stage. Also PCI slot at AGP speed works only on test card,if all goes well,will be transferred to standard card with screenshot being updated to reflect changes.
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rip the guts out, install a Keyrah and and Mac Mini PPC logic board. Install MOS.
@Persia,
Why would anyone want to rip the guts out of an A1200 for an old obsolete chip like a ppc, you all sure like to waste a lot of money. PPC means old and obsolete, just like most of the original Amiga users on Amiga.org.
I too am an old codger, heck I was old when the original Amiga 1000 came out, but back then I was into NEW TECHNOLOGY and the Amiga fit the bill at that time, now I am into the same bracket NEW TECHNOLOGY not going back in time and downgrading myself to old obsolete PPC tech just seems silly and a waste of time, and right now time is precious to me, at my age don't you know.
If I was going to destroy an Amiga 1200 I would put a micro ATX board in it, and boot it up with Cloanto's Amiga Forever 2012, runs a heck of a lot faster then a PPC chip, and works quite well on my 8 core 3.4 ghz AMD chip, and my 6 core AMD chip. Maybe some of you old obsolete codgers should give the PPC a rest and try NEW TECH, and then just sit back and enjoy.
Right now I am trying to figure out how to make Cloanto's Amiga Forever boot up on a hard drive of my old obsolete 3.2 ghz dual core intel chip Gateway. I use this for playing around and ironing out bugs before I invest in another NEW TECH AMD chip and board. Got to know if I can make it work or not. I heard it can be done, but I am sort of stupid, I can get the CD to boot up Amiga Forever, but I want to turn it on and get KX light to boot up on my hard drive so I can boot right into Amiga Forever. I am running into trouble with getting the boot code on the hard drive, well back to work, just wanted to see what you loonies are up to. By the way MorphOS works great on my MAAAAAC mini. Gosh that is hard to say and even harder to use.
smerf
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@smerf:
If you're so much into new things, then why don't you give Amiga a rest and move on?
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@smerf:
Rants about NEW TECHNOLOGY
Posts on a Retro Board
I didn't realize Doomy was logging in as smerf...
-P
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@smerf:
If you're so much into new things, then why don't you give Amiga a rest and move on?
Hi,
I already have, if you have noticed I haven't been around that much anymore, I have given up on the new Amiga, and have come down to the conclusion that no new Amiga will be if made supported by anyone.
I mean look at Linux, it has been around for years, and is a very good operating system, with lots of support from programmers around the world, but still the game developers ignore it.
Microsoft has the computer industry sort of tied up, whether you like it or not they have the power and the money to see that the industry works for them.
Been thinking about selling my equipment, may be coming soon.
My words Amiga Forever and I have it, but still support the old Amiga. It is sort of taking a Model A, and hot rodding it.
By the way if you get a chance look at the block diagram of how the old Amiga works, and then look at the block diagram of a new PC, pretty much the same except the new PC has modern equipment.
smerf
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@smerf:
Rants about NEW TECHNOLOGY
Posts on a Retro Board
I didn't realize Doomy was logging in as smerf...
-P
Have you all noticed that most of the old timers who have been with the Amiga are moving on to other boards?
You want to know the reason?
Read your retro board and see what you all are talking about.
Ohhh the minimig is so great I can play my 20 year old games on it. SORRY I DON'T WANT TO PLAY 20 YEAR OLD GAMES when Farcry 3, Crysis 3, Fallout are so much better both graphically and sound wise. The game play is awesome, and the machine if you know anything about computers can be put together for $700 for a rip roaring computer that will blow your socks off.
Now for your $183.71 you can buy a minimig board and play old games on it, after you invest about another $100 into external parts to make it run, then another $40 for a sandisk for storage, then another $100 for a case to put it all in. So now you have close to $500 for a new Amiga computer, that plays old Amiga games, that has no support from programming companies, but has some support from hobby computer programmers.
Am I loonie or do I see something wrong with this picture.
Now lets see when Commodore first made the C64, and the Amiga, the first thing they did was bring out a magazine telling you about it and giving you little programs that you could type in until they got their programming section going to give you more professional programs.
Does AROS, MorphOS, minimig or your new powerful Amiga X1000 have this support?
If you said NO and bought one, well I am sorry for you.
Now if we could all support something that is out there and works, like Amiga Forever, and we all started programming for it, but used and encouraged Amiga Forever to program newer features into it, then we would have a system that runs on new hardware, but still supports the old hardware, but this will make to much sense, and therefore not acceptable by the people here on Amiga.org web site, because you would all rather fight on which archaic system would be a better substitute for the Amiga, forgetting that the Amiga was about stepping ahead with new hardware.
Jay once said that he wish he would have know about how powerful the 286 was when he was designing the original Amiga, but it wasn't out until about 2 years after, why because Jay was into modern advances.
So, yes I will move on, and advance forward while you all figure out what archaic piece of crap you all want to use and spend the big bucks for.
bye
smerf
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Now for your $183.71 you can buy a minimig board and play old games on it, after you invest about another $100 into external parts to make it run, then another $40 for a sandisk for storage, then another $100 for a case to put it all in. So now you have close to $500 for a new Amiga computer, that plays old Amiga games, that has no support from programming companies, but has some support from hobby computer programmers.
Am I loonie or do I see something wrong with this picture.
Both? If you're only just realising that the Amiga is never going to be as popular as it was in the late 80's/early 90's then maybe you are a bit loony.
There are probably others that haven't realised this yet, but most retro enthusiasts are well aware of how ridiculous their hobby is & we just don't care.
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This thread is about "the most powerful PPC card" that works with a A1200. Blizzard cards do have 83Mhz logic and has shown to work at 83.3Mhz.
All overclocking will be removed but performance will continue to rise as per this card http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=3692 which is the basic standard for a modified card.
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There are probably others that haven't realised this yet, but most retro enthusiasts are well aware of how ridiculous their hobby is & we just don't care.
+1
Proud to be geek!
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Their are a few users that are interested in how fast a A1200 can go,this is how this thread was started. If users were not interested or don't care then why are their so many users posting here. There are so many threads I'm not interested in but I don't go around saying I don't care,its not nice.
This thread will apply mostly to classic users that are interested. If you are not interested then its probably best to post in other threads thats in your interest,as to not push away new users to amiga OS.
Let's not let new users see such comments as we do want to draw in new users to amiga. Thx in advance.
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Blizzard PPC PCI slot @AGP speed screenshot
http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=3760
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@Persia,
Why would anyone want to rip the guts out of an A1200 for an old obsolete chip like a ppc, you all sure like to waste a lot of money. PPC means old and obsolete, just like most of the original Amiga users on Amiga.org.
smerf
Because the question was; What's the most powerful PPC that can be put in an A1200?
That's the first thing that sprang into my mind. Whether you'd do that or not is another thing.
"old and obsolete, just like most of the original Amiga users on Amiga.org" I can't argue with that. :)
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I have a towerized A1200 with an 060/603e modded blizzard ppc. It has indivision aga, a mediator, a radeon card, a sata controller, a USB controller, a catweasal card and it runs OS 4.1 classic. It runs just fast enough to make me want to really buy a NG Amiga to play with. I keep looking online for old AmigaOne mobo or something of that nature to play with but I just can't justify the overall price. If anybody wanted a complete Classic PPC Amiga in exchange for an NG Amiga I'd be willig to discuss.
Anyhow, the machine is fast and the 060 as mentioned is equally speedy. It's a fun machine to play with. I paid quite a bit for it but it was never more that $4-500 at a time in the years it's taken me to piece it together.
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That's interesting never thought about that,a mobile graphics card.