Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: keropi on April 25, 2007, 04:39:46 PM
-
I succesfully upgraded the 25mhz 486slc cpu of my Goldengate to a 486slc2 cpu that is 50mhz! without any soldering ofcourse!
first you need the Cyrix 386to486 piggy-bag upgrade cpu, that was intented for 386SX cpu's...
(http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p55/restqp/Image2.jpg)
I bought this brand-new old stock still sealed from eBay for 25$ :lol:
then you just install it on-top of the existing slc cpu...
(http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p55/restqp/Image3.jpg)
... and you boot the GoldenGate486slc as normal.... but you notice something different on the cpu clock reading.... :-D
(http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p55/restqp/Image1.jpg)
and it actually works! the gg486 is faster and u only have to run a small prog on autoexec.bat to enable internal cache and pipelining! yeah!! :lol: :lol: :lol:
-
Teh Win!!1! :lol: :-o :lol: :-o :lol: :-o :lol:
-
@keropi
Glad to hear it worked for you!!
My dad had a GG 486slc 25mhz at one time and sold it we were always going to upgrade it to the 50mhz but never did get around to it. The GG was installed in a 2000 with a hardcard and 50meg hard drive. We also had an 8 bit sound card and an IDE controllor installed with 400meg drive attached to it. The GG ran Doom II and Duke Nukem pretty good too. There was also a Speedstar Pro video card installed in the system ( I think).
I don't know what OS you plan on running on the GG we were able to run Windows 98se on his just fine of course not the fastest around but it ran fine.
-
COOL :-o wonder if those 486 to pentium overdrives can work :-o :idea:
-
@adonay
A 486slc has nothing to do with a 486DX (nor SX), so no cigar on that one.
-
and here is the benchmark results of Norton SysInfo !
:lol: :lol: :lol:
(http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p55/restqp/25042007004.jpg)
I am not sure it can run DOOM ok... I will try it...
-
tested DOOM, it is unplayable... great improvement from 25mhz, but it must run at ~12fps...
-
cyrix line of microprosessors was never known for their great speed either .. remember i had a friend he bought a 200 mhz cyrix while i had a 200mhz pentium computer. the cyrix always 90% of all programs would display it as 166mhz ,, and still a third friend who had a 166mmx pentium had a slightly faster computer .. Although i am sure the slc chip has nothing to do with this "only i never liked cyrix after that " may have been good prosessors before though..
-
yeah, the 486slc are really some kind of super 386sx, it has nothing to do with 486 really... it is pin-compatible with the SX and has the same size too. an i486 is 4-5 times bigger too...
-
@keropi
Do you have a video card installed to play Doom or is it the on board graphics?
-
ofcourse I have, a CirusLogic 5420/1MB and an ESS soundcard with wavetable upgrade...
-
@adonay
Cyrix used a rating system, so a 200+ CPU actually ran with 166 MHz. Very specific benchmarks really showed a performance near a Pentium 200, but since esp. the FPU really sucked, more realistic benchmarks showed more P133-like performance.
-
What is cool is that you can now get a whole 486 computer (everything) on a single chip...
http://www.zflinux.com/zfx86.html
(http://www.zflinux.com/images/machz_block200.jpg)
-
I always wondered if that could be done. I even saved a couple of those to try myself, but I never got a board to try it in.
So did you get cache driver loaded to increase the speed even more?
Plaz
-
bloodline wrote:
What is cool is that you can now get a whole 486 computer (everything) on a single chip...
http://www.zflinux.com/zfx86.html
(http://www.zflinux.com/images/machz_block200.jpg)
Not as fancy, but worth an honorable mention... (http://www.mesanet.com/cpucardinfo.html)
-
Plaz wrote:
I always wondered if that could be done. I even saved a couple of those to try myself, but I never got a board to try it in.
So did you get cache driver loaded to increase the speed even more?
Plaz
yeah, it just works by plugging it, but there is a small prog that you run to enable the cache to get more speed... also on the gg486 I needed to edit the 486slc2 reisters to enable also pipelining... all done easy with the program included on the driver-disk ...
-
small prog that you run to enable the cache to get more speed...
I recall the cache driver gave a very good boost. Once you have that loaded I'd try doom again and let us know the results.
BTW, whats the part number for the cyrix you have? I'd like to check it against the one I have.
Plaz
-
@keropi
I know it isn't the point, but surely DooM is a bit more fun running on the CSPPC in the same box? ;-)
-
when DOOM first came out I only had a 386SX-25 to play it on and I would have loved 12fps (which is also much better than ADOOM on my 50MHz 030)
The disadvantage of those Cyrix chips compared to a real 486 is only 1KB of cache instead of 8KB
yay look what I scanned: http://www.hyakushiki.net/junk/cyrix.gif
-
@Keropi
Report you results back old bean! (http://aros.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/nightly-download?20070426/Binaries/AROS-20070426-i386-pc-boot-floppy.zip) :-D
-
I also remember some advertising for a Pentium card for Amiga
slots.
Maybe it was this one?
http://www.mrhardwarecomputers.com/pages/pccard.htm
Together with SiameseRTG or VNC or similar you could have the screen output on your workbench.
I also found an earlier post regarding this card, wondering if these card ever was sold:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26361
-
CannonFodder wrote:
@Keropi
Report you results back old bean! (http://aros.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/nightly-download?20070426/Binaries/AROS-20070426-i386-pc-boot-floppy.zip) :-D
Oh aye!!! Get the AROS x86 floppy booting on it :-D
-
@Keropi
Did you get a chance to try the AROS boot floppy on your bridgeboard yet?
-
no sorry, I just saw this thread again, the link is dead... I will try it back home, this evening, provided I have a working download link again :)
plaz: I will also give you the part number this evening...
-
That's weird....I used to play Doom all teh time on my GG 486/25...I had the fastest ISA VGA available ever though..has a Cirrus Logic GD 5446 maybe...I forget the name of it now. Also had a genuine soundblaster of course.
I still have the cards somewhere if anyone wants them for a reasonable price...although they haven't been fired up in 5 years.
-
back in the time, u could play a game like DOOM even if it was choppy... there was no comparison then, now we are all spoiled from 60+ fps...
-
The key to getting maximum speed out of a GG is not just the CPU but the RAM. Make sure:
a) You're set to 60nS (0wS)
b) You're running in Fast mode if you can (this speeds the ISA bus up to 10MHz instead of 8, I think - very good for VGA access).
c) You're running a good _contemporary_ memory manager. QEMM version 7 I think was fastest, may have been version 6. MUCH faster than Microsoft's EMM386 and HIMEM.SYS.
Also using sound slows it down a fair amount.
Doom can be playable on it, but you might also need to shrink the graphic window on it a bit. :)
-
QEMM ? I don't think I will ever use it, ems can cause probs sometimes, not to mention some games don't like it... I will test it though to see if it really does something...
I already use the FAST option and 0ws...
I had bad luck with faster vga cards, like tseng ones or cirruls logic 5422 on my A4000, there seems to be some timing/incompatibillity error that crash some games... disabling FAST option does not help either...
-
I will have to see if I can find a booster 486 chip like that for myself on eBay. I have a 486slc GG around here somewhere, with a nice VGA card combined with IDE controller and floppy controller I think, plus I have an old Soundblaster. Can't remember my exact setup that I used to have in my first A2000 with my Vector 030 accellerator. That A2000 was maxed out in every way I could think of at the time. Now it has a recent new lease on life with an 060 installed.
Forget DOOM, I would rather play Unlimited Adventures, Forgotten Realms. It was the last in the line of SSI AD&D games, actually it was a game creator in that style and it never got ported to the Amiga, which was a shame with all the talented Amiga users and programmers that could have done great game designs with that construction kit.
I have it for MSDOS and there is actually still an active group that creates games with it, very fun.
It will be fun to have it running on the Amiga's Bridgeboard, if not an actual port of the program for the Amiga (a dream of mine that will probably never happen).
-
As luck would have it this morning I got a 486SLC2/50 upgrade in the post this morning. :)
Now, where can I find a good benchmarking program.... time for some comparisons!
Oh, I have used a Tseng ET3000 card, but I use a CL GD5428-based Thunderbolt ISA graphics card which is pretty nippy.
-
grab sysinfo, the one I used for my setup too!
http://rapidshare.com/files/32515676/sysinfo.zip.html
what kind of cpu upgrade u got? post pics!!!!
-
No need for pics - I got it from the same seller you did after you told me where to find him. :)
It does mean we can do exact comparisons of the other bits in our systems, though, as we know we're using identical GoldenGates. :)
-
yep! lol
now all you need is a monitor-master (if u don't have one already) they are VERY handy!
I cannot seem to find a 5428 isa card :(
-
Sure I posted my system at some point, but this is my GG system:
Amiga 1500 Apollo 2030@50MHz 16MB fast RAM (want to stick 32 in it), Picasso II graphics card, Catweasel ZII w/5GB IDE hard disk, OS 3.9, Ariadne ethernet.
GoldenGate 486SLC25 (shortly to have the SLC50 upgrade!), Thunderbolt ISA graphics card (GD5428), 3Com Etherlink II 8-bit network card, Soundblaster II (8-bit).
The RAM seems unreliable at 60nS so I may have a look at that when put the upgrade in, but for the most part it's 16MB of 60nS (0WS).
I do however have to run without it being in Fast mode otherwise it gets a bit confused. I think it's the network card.
The Goldengate has a 80387 FPU which sometimes it doesn't notice (think I'll try and clean the contacts on that one), the FDC and the Monitor Master. It still however uses the Amiga drives DF2: and DF3: which are a Power XL High Density drive and a Cumana 5.25" 1.2MB drive respectively.
In other words, it's a pretty loaded Amiga/GG combo. :)
-
a nice amiga/pc combo, like mine but on a 4000 with csppc... :lol:
-
The only reason it's not in the CSPPC 4000 is because
a) it doesn't like my Zorro/ISA 7-slot backplane
b) There's no room anyway 'cos of the Prometheus with the Voodoo III and network card. :P
I also have an A2286 destined for one A1500, an A2386 in another A1500, and an A500 with a KCS PowerPC board. If I ever fix my A2386 with the 486 on it that's going into one of the 1500's too. :)
-
I currenlty have mine on the RBM 7xZorro busboard... it works fine... BUT the GG must be in one of the upper 4 slots... the bottom 3 oned, don't have dma..
A2386 with 486? what upgrade? 486slc too?
-
My 486 A2386 is just an A2386SX which was modified by Elite Computer Systems to have a 486SLC@25 on it instead (though it can run at 33MHz apparently).
Problem is the dual port RAM on it doesn't work properly, and I think it's the controller that's dodgy, not the ZIP RAM!
-
A thought....
Has anyone tried a Goldengate with 16MB SIMMS? They used to be stupidly expensive but are a lot cheaper now of course. A 64MB GG486/50 would be nice. :)
-
since the gg486 is built upon the 386sx design, the max ram it can use is 16MB... that is a cpu limit, not the gg...
either way why would u need more? the stuff u can run OK with it, work fine with only 4MB too! lol
-
Ah, yes... good point. I'd forgotten the SX had that limitation.
And you've obviously never run a web browser on your Goldengate. :)
-
a browser? what browser? lol
I prefer to use my regged copy of iBrowse in the goldengate amiga...
-
Opera 3.61 I think it is....
It works, and is useful for downloading stuff directly onto the GG side. And just for the heck of it. :)
-
DOS opera? where? or u mean win3x opera?
-
The latter... WFW 3.11 I run with Win32s and Opera.
-
keropi wrote:
no sorry, I just saw this thread again, the link is dead... I will try it back home, this evening, provided I have a working download link again :)
Go to www.aros.org (http://www.aros.org) and click on the link named "AROS--i386-pc-boot-floppy.zip" on the right hand side at the top of the page.
Todays floppy image is here (http://aros.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/nightly-download?20070530/Binaries/AROS-20070530-i386-pc-boot-floppy.zip) and todays boot cd image is here (http://aros.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/nightly-download?20070530/Binaries/AROS-20070530-i386-pc-boot-iso.zip).
Hope it works. :-)