Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: waltermixxx on December 20, 2009, 02:29:27 AM
-
I have an Amiga 500 with the OCS and was wondering what chips consist of the ecs upgrade... I know there is a super Denise and that is one of them,
but what are other chips I would need to be replaced to upgrade my Amiga 500 to an ECS Amiga 500...(also kickstart Rom 3.1 but what else?)
Are Kits available?
I'm already getting the ROM 3.1 and workbench 3.1...
what other chips would I need and does anyone know where I can get them?
:) cheers and thanks...
-
1 Meg Agnus like the 8372A
You would also have to have 1 meg chip activated via hardware mods on the MB.
http://theweeks.org/toms-stuff/files/TDTTS_a500_r5_ag-hack_fix.txt
-
There is a little "hack" to get the 1MB Agnus installed (cut a trace near Agnus socket,) and a wire jumper to get the larger ROMs working. As well, a Super Denise is compatible. I did all of these. As I recall, the information for doing each (with the exception of the Super Denise, which some will argue is unecessary) is on AmiNet.
Happy Hacking.
-
Okay here are the chips you need :
Replace Denise w/ super denise
Replace Agnus w/ Fat/Fatter Agnus
You don't need a "gary" or "buster" as there is no Zorro 2 bus on 500s. Paula was never upgraded so no need to replace.
On Ebay they have the chips needed.
-
I see an auction for a bunch of chips including the fatter agnus,
but no mention of super denise... I did email him to find out... :)
:) thanks for the info... :)
-
A super Denise make 1 instruction go faster and gives you some new screen modes. Nothing really useful.
-
Or get a rev6A mainboard and the appropriate chips and no hacks necessary...
-
Or get a rev6A mainboard and the appropriate chips and no hacks necessary...
Same hacks but physically different - instead of cutting a trace (rev5) you need to alter a 3pin jumper pad making a cut and connect job there (rev6); a little less opportinity of doing damage. The other jumper job is similar in rev5 and 6.
-
A super Denise make 1 instruction go faster
Really? Which one?
-
Really? Which one?
Also doubting that one - Denise actually has nothing to do with either CPU or Copper instructions, it's more of a rather simple 'bitplanes-to-palette-index-to-digital-color' converter, mixing in the odd sprite here and there. Pretty much like a RAMDAC without the DAC. ;)
Plus:
ECS only upgraded Agnus & Denise. Gary & Buster didn't change (apart from being scaled up for A3k) and Paula never changed at all.
Even AGA upgraded only Agnus/Alice and Denise/Lisa (without pin compatibility).
-
A super Denise make 1 instruction go faster and gives you some new screen modes. Nothing really useful.
Sure, new screen modes aren't useful at all.
Either way, Super Denise is required if you want ECS.
-
Either way, Super Denise is required if you want ECS.
Nope. ECS Agnus alone (2 MB chip) runs fine w/o problems.
For flexible scan rate modes and/or SuperHires you'd need Hires Denise, of course.
-
As far as new screen modes, doesn't Super Denise also provide EHB? I think that's why I upgraded, EHB for some game (Death Mask? Don't really remember now; it's been about 14 years.)
-
Nope. ECS Agnus alone (2 MB chip) runs fine w/o problems.
For flexible scan rate modes and/or SuperHires you'd need Hires Denise, of course.
ECS stands for Enhanced Chipset or something yes? And "ECS" machines from Commodore came with a Super Denise, correct? Now, if you don't want compatibility with the couple of ECS games that use the new graphics chip out there, sure, stick your 2MB Agnus in. That's not ECS, though. You need a Super Denise or you've got a hybrid.
-
As far as new screen modes, doesn't Super Denise also provide EHB? I think that's why I upgraded, EHB for some game (Death Mask? Don't really remember now; it's been about 14 years.)
Only the oldest of the oldest of the oldest Denises in the first A1000s don't have EHB. Every other Amiga should have it.
-
ECS stands for Enhanced Chipset or something yes? And "ECS" machines from Commodore came with a Super Denise, correct? Now, if you don't want compatibility with the couple of ECS games that use the new graphics chip out there, sure, stick your 2MB Agnus in. That's not ECS, though. You need a Super Denise or you've got a hybrid.
I think that's pretty much right.
I think later A500s came from the factory as hybrids - a 1MB ECS Agnus and an OCS Denise. Only the 500+, 600, and 3000(T) shipped with Super Denise, but you could drop one into a 500 with the 1MB Agnus and have full access to ECS screenmodes (albeit with only 1MB of chip RAM).
-
ECS stands for Enhanced Chipset or something yes? And "ECS" machines from Commodore came with a Super Denise, correct? Now, if you don't want compatibility with the couple of ECS games that use the new graphics chip out there, sure, stick your 2MB Agnus in. That's not ECS, though. You need a Super Denise or you've got a hybrid.
"ECS" compatibility in games is usually all about having 2 MB chip RAM. Show me a game requiring non-PAL/-NTSC screen modes and/or SuperHires and you've got a point.
-
How about those Maxis games such as Sim Ant, Sim Life, etc.? Then there's Civilization and maybe even Super Street Fighter. But I'm pretty sure those Sim/strategy games used the ECS Denise and her higher res screen modes. Been too long since I've played any of 'em though...
-
Here you go:
ECS is the name used for the enhanced version of the Amiga computer's original chipset ( OCS). ECS was introduced in 1990 debuting in the Amiga 3000. Amigas produced from 1990 onwards featured a mix of OCS and ECS chips, or even a full Enhanced Chipset. In 1991 ECS was offically introduced to the low end Amigas with the introduction the A500 Plus. The last Amiga to use ECS was the Amiga 600.
ECS included the improved Super Agnus (with support for 2 MB of CHIP RAM) and Super Denise chips. Other additional features include:
* Support for Productivity (640x480 noninterlaced) and SuperHires (1280x200 or 1280x256) display modes, which were however limited to only 4 colors.
* Ability of the blitter to copy regions larger than 1024x1024 pixels in one operation.
* Ability to display sprites in border regions (outside of any display window where bitplanes are shown).
-
"ECS" compatibility in games is usually all about having 2 MB chip RAM. Show me a game requiring non-PAL/-NTSC screen modes and/or SuperHires and you've got a point.
My point was "real" ECS machines have a Super Denise.
If you say your A500 with old Denise and 2mb Agnus is an ECS machine, you're wrong, if only for the simple fact it won't do what are commonly known as ECS screenmodes. AmigaOS will tell you "requires ECS" in the Screenmode prefs, and if you don't have that Super Denise you don't have ECS as it was intended.
I'd be pretty pissed off if someone sold me an "ECS A500" that didn't have the full ECS chipset.
-
I have a REV 5 Amiga 500
ok thanks for the info, i have done some looking around, and it looks like I will be purchasing the following:
Fatter Angus 8372A and a Super Denise. I am in ntsc land so I don't have to mess with pin 41 on the Angus, I just have to do the JP2 thing from middle to bottom, to top to middle jumper, and then cut a trace that goes to the Bottom trap door ram....
that is supposed to give me 1 meg of continuous ram, assuming I have a memory expansion in my bottom trap door ram... I do the supra 512K memory upgrade with real time clock... :)
I will also be installing a ROM 3.1 and I know what to do with pins...
I do have a question,
I will be replacing my supra 512 card with an "expansion systems" Baseboard ram upgrade, that is a two part memory upgrade:
one part sits on the Gary IC socket, and the Gary plugs into it, piggy pack.
and there is a small ribbon cable to goes to the memory board that can hold
up to 4 megs of RAM giving a total of 4.5 megs....
will that memory expansion still work with the line cut going to the trap door ram?
is anyone familiar with upgrading the Agnus, and using the Baseboard ram upgrade? :)
-
One other quick question,
will the 8372B (2meg fatter Agnus) work on my REV 5 Amiga 500?
I have the opertunity to get that instead of an 8372A (1 meg version)
:)
-
yeah Afaik it should be good, was the same case with my 2500
-
I do have a question,
I will be replacing my supra 512 card with an "expansion systems" Baseboard ram upgrade, that is a two part memory upgrade:
one part sits on the Gary IC socket, and the Gary plugs into it, piggy pack.
and there is a small ribbon cable to goes to the memory board that can hold
up to 4 megs of RAM giving a total of 4.5 megs....
will that memory expansion still work with the line cut going to the trap door ram?
is anyone familiar with upgrading the Agnus, and using the Baseboard ram upgrade? :)
I just did this.
The ICD Baseboard will not autoconfig more than 1MB chip of ram on machine with ECS agnus (512 motherboard and 512 baseboard). The extra RAM must be configured with the adram program on the floppy disk.
With baseboard you need to add the ECS Agnus, Add a wire from the P4B gary daughter board to JP2-2 (second pad on the JP2) and make sure no other connections are present on JP2. Then you have to cut the JP7A (on rev 6a A500) jumper or the equivalent line on the rev 5 machines. Now you will have 1 meg chip with ICD Baseboard. ICD had a GAL upgrade that allowed autoconfig of fast ram but I dont know where to get it. I use to have it on my A500 that got tossed when I went to school by my parents... darn it..
I have still yet to find the DOCS for the ICD baseboards but I just did this mod with a 6A mb and remember some of the details from the docs over 15 years ago!
Another thing.. you want super denise but dont have or can't find one... Indivision ECS will support ECS screenmodes with normal denise over the VGA port AND the cool Graffiti modes!!! Best mod evar!!
I am in the middle of finishing up a REV 6a A500 with all these mods...
Tim
-
One other quick question,
will the 8372B (2meg fatter Agnus) work on my REV 5 Amiga 500?
I have the opertunity to get that instead of an 8372A (1 meg version)
:)
Cramming a 2MB Agnus into a 500 without a MiniMega Chip or similar requires a lot more work. I don't think the process is very well documented, it may not work with all board revisions, and there might be some side effects. Even then it's a whole lot more work to install the full 2MB of RAM.
Bottom line: I recommend either the 1MB Agnus or a full 2MB chip RAM expansion board (MiniMega/MiniMegi/whatever).
-
Here is a good link I found regarding A500 rev 5 and 6 mb upgrades.
http://eabmobile.abime.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=13726&d=1177615199
It was an article from Amiga Shopper 1993, Issue 27 Called "Transform Your Machine"
Tim
-
wow thanks for all the additional information and links, I think I will stick to the 1 meg angus and keep it as simple as possible... the Baseboard memory expansion board that I have is made by Expansion Systems, not ICD and being new to Amiga, I don't know if they are infact the same? But I just thought I would point that out, if they are indeed the same, than very cool I will definately give it a shot... :)
thanks again for the info... :)
-
ICD and the Baseboard are different but function the same way. The daughterboard on the baseboard is larger and has the clock on the board. They have the same flaws and design issues. You will still need to run the wire from the daughterboard to JP2-2 as well as run a program to get all your memory once the system is booted if the 1 meg agnus unless you have the GAL update that does on the daughterboard.
Here is a link to a thread on getting the ICD AdRam Docs.
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=626989
-
Very Cool, I will have to give that a shot, it looks like it would not be a problem to reverse... I understand I will need to run something on start up for the amiga to see the additional ram on the card... :)
I do have one other question:
with the new ecs chipset, that gives me 640 X 400 flicker free, I read, but would need a multisync monitor to see it properly... will a standard, LCD SVGA monitor work ?
with one of those 23 to 9 pin rgb to vga connection adapters? :) So in general, are today's LCD computer monitors multisync? I would think so but just wondering if anyone has tried these connectors... :)
In the mean time I will search for an answer...
Cheers and thanks again, the link about two messages up was crazy helpful... :) excellant artical :) cheers.!!!
-
I got the docs for the Expansions Systems Baseboard if you need them.
A chap on EAB was kind enough to send them to me.
I will try to find a place to host them online.
I put them on the ZONE at EAB so if anyone needs to get it they can for a while.
-
Don't forget the following mods are 100% needed if you're going to upgrade a version 5 A500 motherboard Kickstart ROM:
1) Bend pin #31 up 180 degrees & solder an insulated wire connecting it to pin #21
2) Solder an insulated wire onto pin #1 that terminates into the socket where pin #31 would've gone.
I didn't do this originally. I plugged the ROM in without this modification & must've damaged a chip or something because there's a column of spurious lines in the column whereever the cursor is. Also in the 3.1 boot-up screen, there's a flashing solid thin blue line at the bottom of the screen when the animation of the disk being inserted plays. Can someone tell me what I damaged? Agnus?? I had another Ver 5 A500 & plugged that 3.1 ROM after I removed it from the "damaged" rev 5 A500, modified that 3.1 ROM kernal chip, & inserted it into a different A500 rev 5 one & it seems fine, the ROM kernal being undamaged.
It looks like I bought the last of the Super Denise from what Vesalia had in stock. You can use a VGA monitor on the A500 once you get it to boot up in Euro 72 Productivity mode, but 4 colors is a bit lacking.
EDIT: BTW, the pin #1 starts on the top left side by the notch, proceeding counterclockwise around the chip.
-
I plugged the ROM in without this modification & must've damaged a chip or something because there's a column of spurious lines in the column whereever the cursor is.
That has nothing to do with anything ROM connected. Sounds like something on the chip bus. Have you checked power levels?
Original C= ROMs came with a simple resistor installed between pins 1 & 31 to rearrange A17. I'm pretty sure nothing breaks if no modifications have been done, the system simply won't boot up.
-
That has nothing to do with anything ROM connected. Sounds like something on the chip bus. Have you checked power levels?
Original C= ROMs came with a simple resistor installed between pins 1 & 31 to rearrange A17. I'm pretty sure nothing breaks if no modifications have been done, the system simply won't boot up.
The strange thing is if I put back the 1.3 ROMs, no such problem occurs with that. The old 1.3 arrow cursor display correctly w/out a column of vertical lines in the cursor "column".
Could it possibly be that I also changed out the Denise chip to the ECS Super Denise? It still has the OCS Agnus, 8370; whereas the other A500 that I got working w/out the vertical column lines that follow the cursor in 3.1 ROMs has an NTSC ECS Agnus, 8372A.
I also swapped out the MC68000 & put in an MC68010P8 into both. It's darned hard to find anyone selling 68010s, too.
I'm eventually going to try swapping suspected chips between the one A500 that works & the other A500 that gets vertical lines in the cursor column, both 3.1 upgrades & both rev. 5 m/b's to see if I can determine the problem that way.
How & where would I check the power levels? I've got a VOM.
-
An '010 won't cause anything of the sort either. The Hires Denise might be a good lead - ECS modes won't work w/o a newer Agnus anyway. Possibly the 3.1 ROM tries to activate some trickery.
-
I did get my ROM 3.1 up and running, i did do the mod, so thank you all for the kind reminder... :)
Just waiting for my Super Denise and Fatter Angus to arrive from Softhut.com
I'm getting spooked becuase I have not heard back since he accepted my paypal payment... I'm hoping he is enjoying the holidays and is too drunk with the festive spirit to send the parts... :)
Hoping I get them soon...
:)
-
1) Bend pin #31 up 180 degrees & solder an insulated wire connecting it to pin #21
2) Solder an insulated wire onto pin #1 that terminates into the socket where pin #31 would've gone.
Dear, God, PLEASE don't do this with the ROM. Go pick up a 40-pin DIP socket to modify. I never understood why people would recommend doing mods with the actual chips, like the stereo SID upgrades. If you're in the 'States, you can still pick up the socket at most Radio Shanty stores, or you can order from Jameco, Mouser, etc.
-
Hi there, I appreciate the concern,
I bent the pin out just a bit, enough to clear the socket...
and soldering the chip, I was very gentle....
Cheers...
(biting my nails, nervously waiting for my ecs chips to arrive...)
-
Dear, God, PLEASE don't do this with the ROM. Go pick up a 40-pin DIP socket to modify. I never understood why people would recommend doing mods with the actual chips, like the stereo SID upgrades. If you're in the 'States, you can still pick up the socket at most Radio Shanty stores, or you can order from Jameco, Mouser, etc.
If you know what you're doing and are not holding a 30+watt iron to any pins for any good length of time, there's no reason for the fuss. I normally recommend what you suggested though and did just that (with the socket), but had to reverse what I had done recently in order to fit an 68kIDE device into the 68000 socket! lol With a socketed Kickstart chip in place, it wouldn't fit :(
-
I did get my ROM 3.1 up and running, i did do the mod, so thank you all for the kind reminder... :)
Just waiting for my Super Denise and Fatter Angus to arrive from Softhut.com
I'm getting spooked becuase I have not heard back since he accepted my paypal payment... I'm hoping he is enjoying the holidays and is too drunk with the festive spirit to send the parts... :)
Hoping I get them soon...
:)
Joe at Softhut is notorious for not communicating well, but he is a good guy and a long time Amiga supporter. Hang tight!
-
Totally hanging tight... :)
just excited about getting up and running... :)
cheers and thanks for the note, he seems like a good guy,
gave me tons of information regarding the various Angus chips available,
and what would work best for me... :)
Say I'm dying to get a hold of one of those 68K socket IDE cards,
where can I get one? :) would love to get some storage on my Amiga 500...
Cheers and thanks for the note...
:)
-
I got my Expansion Systems Baseboard today... :) have not gotten my Fatter angus yet, so I just installed the Baseboard as is... it came with rows 2,3,6,7 populated, which is suppose to give 2 megs of additional ram... but for some reason, I only see 1,621, 248 in other memory, and not the 2,207,704 the documentation says I should see...
Keep in mind the jumpers are set to: WB:1.3 (even though I have 3.1)
and the FAT jumpers are set correctly as well... :(... (page 5 on document)
Jumper B on 2-3 and Jumper A on 4-5
No modifications have been made on the Amiga 500 (no fatter angus yet so no reason to change the J2 jumper)
Page 9 indicates with fat angus and ks 1.3 i should not have to use the software to see all the ram... ... strange... not sure what to do at this point...
-
No you do have to run the adram program. You see SOME ram with KS1.3+ but not all of it. With KS1.2 you would not even see that. Page 9 states that you will see upto 2 MB with KS 1.3+ but not all the RAM. If you only have 2 Megs then you check the avail command to see what ram is actually available.
-
Thanks for your quick reply !!!
I downloaded and booted up with the baseboard install/boot disk ( WB1.3) and it saw all the ram...not all, but more than before... :)
oddly enough: when running sys info I get the following three pages for RAM info:
First Page: 255 Kilo Bytes Slow RAM Public
Second Page:1.7 Megabytes Local Public Kick 24BitDMA
Third Page:512 Kilo Bytes Chip RAM Local Public Kick 24BitDMA
so there's the 2 megs plus the 512 chip ram, but wondering what the 255K slow Ram Public is all about... the terminology is new to me... :)
cheers... :)
-
how do I iliminate the 255K slow ram public,
so I have a full 2 megs slow ram local local public...
:) what's the difference ? :)
-
An '010 won't cause anything of the sort either. The Hires Denise might be a good lead - ECS modes won't work w/o a newer Agnus anyway. Possibly the 3.1 ROM tries to activate some trickery.
Problem solved! If you upgrade the Kickstart ROM chip to 3.1, replacing an OCS Denise with an ECS Denise - yet retaining an OCS Agnus - yields the result of a column of vertical lines in the cursor's "column". I found this out by replacing the ECS Denise with the OCS Denise that I swapped out. Once I put back the OCS Denise w/the OCS Agnus, the problem disappeared.
-
I should have (once they arrive) an ecs denise, and an ecs (fatter agnus)... I already have the 3.1 kickstart in there... :)
:)
-
Well my ECS chips have arrived, I Installed my Super Denise,
and my fatter Agnus....
I had a devil of a time getting my Fat Agnus out, but she finally did,
the socket looked fine, and the chip I got looks great as well...
I modded my REV 5 motherboard so Jumper 2 is shorted between pin 1 & 2 and not 2 & 3.
I Have a baseboard Memory card, with the Gary chip adapter...
the jumpers on the Gary chip are set to Fatter, and KS 1.3 ( I have 3.1)
the jumpers on the Memory card (populated with 2 megs of ram) are both set for
1 & 2 and 4 & 5 (fatter agnus) ... now my A500 does not see 1 meg of chip ram like I was hoping, but only 250kbytes or so...
not sure what to do... it's only seening about half of the original chip memory...
anyone know why this might be?
-
P 6 Of the Baseboard docs for Rev 5 says to short JP2 2-3 not 1-2. Are you looking at it backwards?
Make sure Row 0 is populated with chips on the baseboard. That is the other 512k chip.
Make sure you did not cut pin 32 like the commodore 1 meg upgrade state.
Also I would imagine you have the ribbon cable from the gary daughterboard to the trapdoor slot board.
-
latest update... I read the manual some more, and realized that in order for the A500 to see the additional chip ram, the chip ram has to sit in row 0. Then it says I can populate the rest in any order...
sure enough the amiga does see the full 1 meg of chip ram ( actually about 820 K) as some of it is being used as a ram disk, then 0 other memory...
so the question is, I have 2 megs of ram in total .5 will be used for chip ram, leaving me with 3 addtional rows of memory, in which rows should they go in?
I tried 2, 6, 3 .... if I boot of the Baseboard boot disk 1_7 the system crashes after booting, if I boot from a regular 3.1 boot disk, the computer sees the 1 meg of ram,
but it does not see the rest... so it looks like I have to do the install again...
Just wondering why the a500 would crash with a guru thingy of 8000 000B then some hex number 0007ffbc or something like that...either way... hope I can sort it out... it's too late now, 2:22 am and I have to go first downstairs to unplug the soldering iron, and second to bed... :)
:) cheers. ( it is nice to have an ecs system with 1 meg chip ram, but it would also be nice to have 1.5 megs of other ram as well...
:)
-
P 6 Of the Baseboard docs for Rev 5 says to short JP2 2-3 not 1-2. Are you looking at it backwards?
Make sure Row 0 is populated with chips on the baseboard. That is the other 512k chip.
Make sure you did not cut pin 32 like the commodore 1 meg upgrade state.
Also I would imagine you have the ribbon cable from the gary daughterboard to the trapdoor slot board.
Ribbon cable is on
pin 32 is not cut currently,
( I had cut it to test out the Fatter Agnus and my original supra 512K upgrade board ( it worked so I know my fatter angus is ok)
on page 6 Diagram D in the table it says:
Angus Connected Disconnected
Fat 2 & 3 1 & 2 Shown <--- not my setup
Fatter 1 & 2 2 & 3 Fatter** 2 & Gary Bd 1 & 3
how does one tell which pal?
Currently i have my 16 Ram Chips setup like this:
Row 0 4 chips
Row 2 4 chips
Row 3 4 chips
Row 6 4 chips
so I get the 1 meg of chip ram, but system crashes if I boot of my Baseboard Install/boot disk...
so made a little bit of head way
As always your support is appreciated!!!!!
Cheers.
-
The disk might not work with KS 3.1 but to see the additional ram without the PAL upgrade on the Gary daughterboard requires that you run the cram command. Just make a WB disk that has cram in c: and put that in the startup-sequence. I would add it as early as possible in the startup so things will load to fast ram as much as possible. I believe cram works with 3.1 since I had a A500 with baseboard and 3.1 a long time ago....
-
okie doke, I'll create a new boot up disk
fresh copy of wb 3.1 and edit the startup-sequence file
to include the cRam app... :)
cheers!
:)
-
worked like a charm,
created new 3.1 boot disk with cRam at the top of the Startup-Sequence file,
and got all my RAM 1 meg chip ram and 1.5 megs of other ram...
thank you MR. Omnicron10 :)
-
one interesting note:
when i go into sysinfo, it shows the ram in 4 windows.
3 x 512 k segments
1 x 1 meg chip ram...
is this use ful? why would it not show up and 2 screens, 1 meg chip and 1.5 fast?
-
Okay here are the chips you need :
Replace Denise w/ super denise
Replace Agnus w/ Fat/Fatter Agnus
You don't need a "gary" or "buster" as there is no Zorro 2 bus on 500s. Paula was never upgraded so no need to replace.
On Ebay they have the chips needed.
could you tell me if could replace my dead angus 8371 / 4488 / 22 with a
Commodore Amiga 8372A 8372 / 8370 Agnus Chip
-
You can. Most 1MB agnus should work. Can you get complete part numbers to make sure? What machine and what revision motherboard?
-
one interesting note:
when i go into sysinfo, it shows the ram in 4 windows.
3 x 512 k segments
1 x 1 meg chip ram...
is this use ful? why would it not show up and 2 screens, 1 meg chip and 1.5 fast?
The way the ram allocate memory but still have versatility to add memory they made the expansion this way.
The ICD Adram 540 tends to allocate ram in larger blocks.
The ram being cut up like that can cause problems with some graphics programs that want contiguous space for large graphics or programs.
Any "Ranger" memory expansion will have those issues as they have to find areas to allocate ram.
Actual zorro II memory should not have that problem.
-
"ECS" compatibility in games is usually all about having 2 MB chip RAM. Show me a game requiring non-PAL/-NTSC screen modes and/or SuperHires and you've got a point.
I've never seen a non AGA game that requires 2mb chip ram or obese Agnus specifically. The only distinction I ever saw was either 1mb chip required specifically, otherwise 512kb chip/512kb fast was OK as well. 'ECS games' were pretty much only 1mb chip ram requiring games, so essentially only an A1000 wouldn't run some non AGA games, other than that any fatter Agnus equipped 1mb chip ram A500/2000 could run all games, obese Agnus was never a requirement.
Ditto with super Denise being completely useless as far as gaming goes. There was no specific screen mode from ECS required, mind you it's not like they were anything useful like 128 colour mode in lo-res as far as games programmers were concerned so there is no 'ECS games' that will fail to run if you have a regular Denise chip.
Let's face it, most games coders couldn't even get 100% out of the original OCS of the prototype A1000 sans EHB mode.
-
Well, I think AlienF1 (Virtual GP demo) needed 2 MB. But it was an AGA game; just happened to run on my 2 MB Chip ECS A500 with 060 steroids - wrong colours of course...