apollo vs blizzard vs gvp

[3246251196]

so essentially you just need a board which will hold more memory and increase proc' speed to at least 30Mhz

those are the two main things to run 3.5 (3.9) and play retro amiga games...?

[Dwyloc]

I would go with an 030 with about 8MB of fast ram for playing games as that’s what I had connected to my Apollo 030 card and I could play all my classic games without problems.  That includes playing WHDLoad versions with the preload into ram option turned on.

[Dwyloc]

3246251196 wrote:
what type of Amiga user needs an FPU then?

thanks for reply, Patrik

If you want to run Vista, Lightwave or something like that then you need an FPU.  But Today you would be beter of using a PC and winUAE with JIT as it is alot faster than any classic Amiga will ever be.

[patrik]

@3246251196:

The main reason for increasing the processor-speed is not the speed itself, but the ability to get more than 8MB of fastram, which will need a cpu with 32-bit external addressing and as far as I know, no card has been made with a cpu capable of that which isnt faster than the A1200's stock cpu.

The A1200's stock cpu which has 24-bit external addressing limits the amount of fastmem you can add to 8MB disregarding what you do (4MB if you also want to be able to use the PCMCIA-port for stuff like networking).

A card like the Blizzard1230 contains a cpu which can address more memory plus the accelerator itself supports more than 8MB without interfering with the PCMCIA-port.

There are actually a bunch of bad 020/030-accelerators which can only handle 8MB of memory even if the cpu on them are capable. If you see one of those you can be sure that it also interferes with the PCMCIA-port if more than 4MB is used - just like the stock A1200.

Nevertheless, you can get by with just a fastmem-expansion for your A1200, which also will increase the speed with about the double, but it is just handier to have more memory if say you want to play large games with WHDLoad and still use your network card.

Actually, you can play just about all games with say just 4MB fastmem, but if there is not enough memory to preload a game in WHDLoad (games over 3 disks generally), all disk-access will get very slow and make the computer flash the screen every time it needs to switch back to the OS to load more data which is _VERY_ annoying.


/Patrik

[3246251196]

great reply patrik. clears a lot up for me

i am thinking - these 030 acc's are going for so much now. i might just get a memory expansion card. i have 2*4Mb modules for my amiga.

keep with the std 020 + 10Mb (2Mb Chip) memory

what you think?

would it do the job ?

[Hyperspeed]

If your aim is purely gaming then it's a valid point - is an '030 necessary...

Certainly 1MB+ but none of the classics required an '030 although Theme Park AGA did have an '040 mode or something if I remember correctly.

The reason I mentioned the games below is because they all use 3D engines and as far as I can work out, the FPU helps with the floating point calculations associated with 3D.

I'm not aware of specific commands to call the FPU into operation (the MMU yes but I don't know about the FPU). Alien Breed 3D2: The Killing Grounds must use the FPU if Quake does (Quake on '030 would be pretty ridiculous though!) and so may Genetic Species.

:-D

I suppose the software package 'WHDLoad' would be an essential as would a large hard disk and maybe an extra floppy drive... oh and a CD32 pad!

[SamuraiCrow]

I think the Apollo 1220 had a full '020 instead of an EC '020 so it might speed thing up a little bit.  Really the main reason for buying an accelerator card for an A1200 is not the speed so much as the memory addressing.  8 Megs of fast doesn't go very far but 32-64 megs does.

At one time I had 32 megs in my Blizzard 1230 (50MHz w/ FPU) with SCSI kit and was able to run ADoom without accessing the stinkin' hard drive all of the time by renaming the WAD file and creating a soft link to the RAM disk and copying the WAD file to the RAM disk every time I wanted to play.  That speeded things up just enough to make them playable.

Memory is the issue more than speed.

[3246251196]

i really want a 030 accelerator card. i am just searching like mad to find one. found a few on eBay. i just hope i dont have to pay like 90£+. i dont really have the money!

thanks

[Piru]

The reason I mentioned the games below is because they all use 3D engines and as far as I can work out, the FPU helps with the floating point calculations associated with 3D.

I'm not aware of specific commands to call the FPU into operation (the MMU yes but I don't know about the FPU). Alien Breed 3D2: The Killing Grounds must use the FPU if Quake does (Quake on '030 would be pretty ridiculous though!) and so may Genetic Species.

Actually older texture mapped 3d engines don't use FPU. The actual  3d calculations themselves are fixed point integer arithmetics, aswell as the texture mapping. The reason quake uses it is the perspective correction.

Out of these 3, only Quake uses FPU.

[Hyperspeed]

I was hoping you were reading this thread Piru!

When I used to read Amiga Format there was always a full page advert by a company called Gordon Harwood and it tried to sell the Blizzard 1230-IV, 1260 and later the 1240T-ERC.

They were giving away AB3D2:The Killing Grounds with captions like "This flies on a Blizzard" which made one assume that by buying the FPU you'd be getting that much more out of the game.

Since AB3D2:TKG is dead slow on '030 (like Quake), uses polygon weapons, light sourcing and a 3D editor how come it doesn't use the FPU at all when it was programmed with these boards in mind?

Likewise - Breathless and TFX?

... and what was that game that used a voxel engine...

[CLS2086]

Delux Paint IV and V use well the FPU  ;-)

[Piru]

@Hyperspeed

Since AB3D2:TKG is dead slow on '030 (like Quake), uses polygon weapons, light sourcing and a 3D editor how come it doesn't use the FPU at all when it was programmed with these boards in mind?

Because FPU is even slower than using fixedpoint math.

AB3D2:TKG is rather poorly coded aswell. It could have been much faster.
TKGTurboPatch.lha
AB3DII source code

...and what was that game that used a voxel engine...

Voxel engines don't use FPU.

[Hyperspeed]

by Piru:
AB3D2:TKG is rather poorly coded aswell. It could have been much faster.

No offence to the coders of AB3D2:TKG but I first tried this game on Blizzard 1230-IV, FPU & 16MB of FastMem and it wasn't very playable. I then tried it on Blizzard 1260 and I still wasn't impressed.

If you ask me, the king of Amiga first-person-shooters is Genetic Species as it works with the Amiga and not against it. I remember seeing this at WOA '97/'98 on an A4000/060/PIV and it blew Quake out of the water for gameplay and impressive weapons. GS was basically Doom crossed with Paradroid.

One thing in favour of the Blizzards that has already been mentioned is the ability to switch off the accelerator with key '2'. Who would want to pull out their trapdoor card when a game/app didn't run properly?