Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: pubzombie on January 13, 2009, 12:38:48 AM
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Hi guys,
I have been trying to get hold of a blizzard IV but so far have only knocked up an apollo 030. will the later card be just as good for gaming, is there a visible difference in performance? and is an FPU a requirement for retro gaming?
cheers
pz
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Dear Friend:
I am not the most qualified person to speak, but here it goes. No, you do not need an fpu for games. Fpu is for serious applications like 3d rendering/raytracing. An 030 will be good enough for most amiga games if not all. I have an 030 gvp Jaws, and is super. For retro games, the apollo should be good enough to play any game.
Cheers !!!
rednova
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"Ultimately" the Blizzard IV is a better card (SCSI option, handles more RAM), but the Apollo will be just as good for WHDLoad gaming, no performance difference in that regard at all. FPU is not required.
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An 030 accelerator should be fine for 99.9% of Amiga games.
Dan
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You don't even need an accelerator for whdload games. All you need is some extra RAM.
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Total Chaos AGA does not require an FPU.
A 68030 is perfectly ok for the AI, gameplay, sound fx, speech and music of Total Chaos.
But the graphics are much faster and smoother on a 68040. And for ultimate smoothness and speed you need a 68060.
L1 Caches:
68030: 256 bytes data cache, 256 bytes instruction cache
68040: 4096 bytes data cache, 4096 bytes instruction cache
68060: 8192 bytes data cache, 8192 bytes instruction cache
The cache of a 68030 is so puny that it can't even hold 1 frame of 1 animation. 1 frame = 1024 bytes. So it is almost like not having any cache at all :(
Cache is very important for cpu speed.
Instruction speed:
68030:
add.l 2 cycles
68040
add.l 1 cycle
68060
add.l 0.5 cycle
So as you can see a 50 Mhz 68060 is always going to be quadruple the speed of a 50 Mhz 68030.
But wait, there's more!
A 68060 can execute up to 3 instructions simultaneously.
68030 and 68040 can only execute 1 instruction at a time.
So in practice a 50 Mhz 68060 is around 6x the speed of a 50 Mhz 68030.
Instruction speed Multiply:
68030:
muls.l 44 cycles
68040
muls.l 20 cycles
68060
muls.l 2 cycles
So as you can see a 68060 is just plain 22x faster than a 68030 at multiplication.
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Gennerally apollo boards are slightly faster as they are not buffered, but this can cause problems with a1200 mobos which need timing fixes.
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Hi guys,
so if I want to play Total chaos as it should be played i need an 040 or 060 ? thats a big outlay of cash! I wouldn't mind but i read somewhere that 060's and 040's may have issues with retro games and not work? is this right or did i dream it? i dont mind spending on an 040 as i have given up smoking and drinking (health reasons and girlfriend reasons - that amount to one and the same) but dont want to buy something that will stop other games running.
thanx for your time guys
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some WHDLoad installs require an 020 as a minimum
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Pubzombie... have you tried getting your Total Chaos fix on a PC/WinUAE? Might be worth a shot, and loads cheaper than an 060 card!
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I would go the UAE route... Cheaper, more reliable, and will last longer... Personally I feel real hardware should be mothballed and preserved for future generations... I want to be able to how my kids/grandchildren a real A500...
But even that is going to be a struggle... Modern TV is becoming less compatible with the Amiga's output....
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Hi guys,
no i havent tried the uae route yet, to be honest I havent got much experience with emulation on pc. I do emulate on my GP2x. I think i will give it a go on my pc, I have been toying with getting Amiga forever. Has anybody emulated Total Chaos yet? If its anything like getting emus running on my little korean friend get ready for some questions :)
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I've run Total Chaos on my Windoze-based laptop before I switched over to Linux. There were a few things about it that don't always work right even though the Total Chaos team has been trying to get them working even on emulation.
#1 on the list was that sometimes the UAEsound driver for AHI doesn't work right with the AHI-patched version of Audio.device (sounds repeat that should have just played once).
ChaosLord has worked hard to make it work with JIT compilation so you'll want that turned on for best playback speed.
#2 on the list is that Picasso96 screws up the way that raster synchronization works on the Amiga. Don't install that yet. (Note that most ready-made distributions software for AmigaOS install this automatically because it makes graphics card emulation possible from the Amiga side.)
Lastly, make sure you've configured the graphics chipset to AGA since Total Chaos requires it.