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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: runequester on March 03, 2010, 08:34:28 PM
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This might be a dumb question but I am relatively uneducated about computer hardware in general, and the amiga in particular (mine was never expanded).
Which will affect an amiga's speed and performance more? Adding fast ram or adding a faster processor ?
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Processor! The processor has caches that are extremely fast memory. Most Amiga programs are small and a good portion of the programs can stay in the cache on later 68k processors. The memory speed is still important though. Some programs will slow down a lot with slow memory.
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Both
A processor first and foremost.
Most decent accelerator cards like the Blizzard have 32bit fast memory slots and the difference in speed is very noticiable with the 32bit memory .
Example: My (now sold) A4000D had a 68030 at 50Mhz but the standard ram installed on the motherboard. My A1200 had a 68030 at 50Mhz too but the Blizzard 1230 had 32bit ram installed and it was noticibly faster then the A4000.
This might be a dumb question but I am relatively uneducated about computer hardware in general, and the amiga in particular (mine was never expanded).
Which will affect an amiga's speed and performance more? Adding fast ram or adding a faster processor ?
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That's certainly true in Amiga terms, but in the world of Windows and Linux, anything to stop the need for a swap/page file will make the speed of the machine, not faster, but no slower (if that makes sense). Pound for pound I would ramp up a machine with more than enough RAM then look at the CPU.
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If you have an A1200 i highly recomend the Phase5 Blizzard 1230IV. You can pick one up for around 125 - 160 Euros.
I regret selling mine, although it was for a greater cause (See my Sig) :P
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In my experience on an Amiga, your processor is going to be the largest impact in speed. RAM would be second, depending on how you expand it, since there's no virtual memory on Amigas. Hard drive access time would be next in line (ergo the popularity of using compact flash drives).
On a modern PC, RAM is more critical to performance since the more you have, the less swapping to virtual memory occurs. CPU would be next in line followed by hard drive speed (for when swapping does occur).
[edit]Holy cow you guys are fast! There were no responses when I started writing...[/edit]
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A little OT, but I don't really like this fashion statement of sorts that RAM speeds up a computer. That's just not true. If you do anything that actually requires speedy system RAM is not gonna help you - that's why they call these tasks CPU intensive. As for the user experience as the whole, sure, it gets better, because you don't have to wait for the computer that much, but it doesn't give you more FPS in a game.
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A little OT, but I don't really like this fashion statement of sorts that RAM speeds up a computer. That's just not true. If you do anything that actually requires speedy system RAM is not gonna help you - that's why they call these tasks CPU intensive. As for the user experience as the whole, sure, it gets better, because you don't have to wait for the computer that much, but it doesn't give you more FPS in a game.
Actually, that's completely untrue for modern games. I noticed a significant improvement just by increasing the amount of RAM in my main gaming system from 2GB to 4GB. The reason is that a lot of modern games (particularly "open" environment ones like Fallout 3, Crysis etc) use very large datasets that generally can't all be loaded at once and so stuff has to be paged in and out as needed. More RAM, less reloading of data from disk, better performance.
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What exactly do you mean in practice? Is it the dynamic loading of new areas while traversing the capital wasteland? I would still say that this is rather the overall experience than higher speed as such. E.g. when I'm playing a game and it stops for 5 seconds every 2 minutes to load a new area it's a little annoying, but I can tolerate that and I know that when the area loads the speed will be (should be) the same on my 2GB system as on my neighbour's 4GB system. It's the same as loading at a start of a new game only it takes place in the course it.
EDIT: I completely agree that the game can be more enjoyable with more RAM, but it doesn't technically run faster - if the screen refresh during combat is low, buying more RAM doesn't solve that.
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Thanks guys. I should have specified that I was meaning the amiga specifically, but it never hurts to be educated about these things :)
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A great deal depends upon which Amiga you're talking about!
68000 (16-bit data bus) Amigas (1000, 500, 600) perform noticeably better with TRUE (still 16-bit) fast ram. Adding a 32-bit processor (68020, 68030, 68040,68060) alone is a mere modest boost. A 32-bit accelerator with 32-bit fast ram gives a large boost in performance.
Everything depends on which Amiga and how far you ultimately intend to expand it.
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A great deal depends upon which Amiga you're talking about!
68000 (16-bit data bus) Amigas (1000, 500, 600) perform noticeably better with TRUE (still 16-bit) fast ram. Adding a 32-bit processor (68020, 68030, 68040,68060) alone is a mere modest boost. A 32-bit accelerator with 32-bit fast ram gives a large boost in performance.
Everything depends on which Amiga and how far you ultimately intend to expand it.
That just about sums it up extremely well and has been my experience.
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@koshman
My experience is that, depending on the settings I use in a game, additional RAM almost always helps - from the odd loading jerkiness to the ability to keep large textures cached in RAM for longer. However, I grant you it doesn't just make things "faster", instead it helps stop them from getting slower, by mitigating latencies from parts of an application that might otherwise have to go to disk to retrieve something.
EDIT: I completely agree that the game can be more enjoyable with more RAM, but it doesn't technically run faster - if the screen refresh during combat is low, buying more RAM doesn't solve that.
Well, again, that also depends on your settings and quantity of RAM of the "right sort" can make a big difference. Try playing games that use large graphical datasets on identical GPUs but with different amounts of video RAM. Without enough dedicated ram on the graphics card, frame rates can plummet through the floor as data is streamed constantly from system ram into the graphics card.
Now, regarding the Amiga, there is a definite case that adding RAM can improve performance markedly. Just try using any 68020+ with Chip RAM only ;)
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Yeah, I totally agree with the VRAM issue. My poor 8800GS with 384MB... :-)
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Well, it's all depending on the type of system we're talking about, and where the bottleneck currently is.
Taking an Amiga 1200, for example, it's completely hobbled when it can only access Chip RAM. Adding some 32-bit Fast RAM makes a _HUGE_ difference. If you test an A1200 with an '030 card with 2MB Chip/0MB Fast and compare typical processing vs. an A1200 with the stock '020 but a 8MB 32-bit board... The one with the '020 and Fast RAM will win that fight most of the time. Of course, add a stick of Fast RAM to that '030 board, and then it's easily back on top.
So... For old school Amigas... Fast RAM helps. Faster CPU with on-board Fast RAM helps more. (But adding just a faster CPU, without giving it a 32-bit path to Fast RAM, doesn't help that much. [unless, as stated, you manage to fit all the instructions into cache, which is VERY UNLIKELY, as the '030 had something like 256 _BYTES_ of cache...] That is why most CPU expansions also include Fast RAM.)
More modern systems are a little harder to figure out. But, typically, you want to find the bottle-neck and increase that. (Sometimes it's the CPU speed, sometimes it's the RAM speed, and sometimes it's swapping a bunch, which means RAM size.)
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Back from dinner.
To complete the thought, 16 bit accelerators are harder to come by today. The Supra Turbo 28 Mhz was the only one worth anything. It was very good!
32-bit accelerators for 16-bit amigas are spendy and need 32-bit ram to be useful.
Which Amiga are you talking about?
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Amiga accelerators are affected by slow ram. e.g. I had an A2000 with 68030 and 2MBs of 32-bit ram on the accelerator. Also there was 4MB of 16 bit ram in a zorro slot. The machine would fly on while it had that 2MBs available. If I turned off the CPU slot ram the machine would slow down... a lot. If you turn off all extra memory and it has to share the chip RAM memory there is an even bigger slow down, only slightly faster than a stock unexpanded system.
Starting with an 68040 (8k cache) you start to notice the performance benefit of the cache memory. Processors nowadays wouldn't be any faster if they didn't have very fast and adequately sized level 1 cache memory. Level 2 cache memory larger, but slower only adds about 15% more speed.
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Back from dinner.
To complete the thought, 16 bit accelerators are harder to come by today. The Supra Turbo 28 Mhz was the only one worth anything. It was very good!
32-bit accelerators for 16-bit amigas are spendy and need 32-bit ram to be useful.
Which Amiga are you talking about?
Ultimately a 1200, but cheap 600s show up reasonably often as well
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SWIV is a great game and showed on a standard amiga when loading from disk during game play showed littel sign of slow-down during disk access if i remember correctly.
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Either way, an accelerator wont be any use unless you put some RAM in it.
Got an Apollo 1240 for the 1200 for new when I was a kid. Didn't make any difference in speed til I put a 16MB SIMM in it. Wow what a difference!
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Starting with an 68040 (8k cache) you start to notice the performance benefit of the cache memory. Processors nowadays wouldn't be any faster if they didn't have very fast and adequately sized level 1 cache memory. Level 2 cache memory larger, but slower only adds about 15% more speed.
Bingo! Even the C= A3640 performed reasonably well using only motherboard memory because of the cache and small Amiga programs. It generally outperformed a 50MHz 68030 with faster memory and 2x the processor speed. It had a lot to do with the cache. It is more important to have some fast ram instead of chip ram though. The CPU can be slowed to as much as 1/2 speed without fast ram as the custom chips steal CPU cycles.
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I just did a few speed tests using SysInfo on some of the Amigas here. These are the results:
A600 (2MB Chip, No FastRAM)
526 Dhrystones
0.54 MIPS
A600 (2MB Chip, 2MB PCMCIA SRAM)
699 Dhrystones
0.72 MIPS
A1200 (2MB Chip, No FastRAM)
1092 Dhrystones
1.13 MIPS
A1200 (2MB Chip, 2MB PCMCIA SRAM)
840 Dhrystones
0.87 MIPS
A1200 (2MB Chip, 8MB FastRAM)
2819 Dhrystones
2.94 MIPS
Some RAM makes the Amiga perform faster, other RAM can slow it down.
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In an Amiga 4000 for example.
Lets hypothetically say, the Mainboard has 16MB of ram, with a Cyberstorm 060, WITHOUT any ram.
That is going to CHOKE beyond belief while the 060 waits for the system bus to access the ram on the mainboard. Then we add the ram to the 060, fully populate the Cyberstorm board with 128MB of ram, at which point it no longer needs to wait, the 060 with ram SCREAMS with speed, it only needs to access the main system to access the Custom chips, and/or IDE. (That is also why Cyberstorms have their own SCSI).
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Cammy wrote:
A1200 (2MB Chip, 2MB PCMCIA SRAM)
840 Dhrystones
0.87 MIPS
A1200 (2MB Chip, 8MB FastRAM)
2819 Dhrystones
2.94 MIPS
Some RAM makes the Amiga perform faster, other RAM can slow it down.[/QUOTE]
PCMCIA SRAM is Fast Ram but only 16-bits wide (still great for an un-accelerated A600). For a performance boost, a 1200 needs 32-bit fast ram, with or without an accelerator.
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Isn't that what I just proved?
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A1200 (2MB Chip, No FastRAM)
1092 Dhrystones
1.13 MIPS
A1200 (2MB Chip, 2MB PCMCIA SRAM)
840 Dhrystones
0.87 MIPS
Some RAM makes the Amiga perform faster, other RAM can slow it down.
That is odd and rare. That must be some slow SRAM. The OS probably gives the SRAM a higher priority than chip ram as normal but it must be slower. You need ChipMemFirst for this 1200 ;). Lot's of memory on the Amiga can actually be slower after it's fragmented unless running TLSF mem or similar. There is a longer memory list to transverse.
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That is odd and rare. That must be some slow SRAM. The OS probably gives the SRAM a higher priority than chip ram as normal but it must be slower. You need ChipMemFirst for this 1200 ;). Lot's of memory on the Amiga can actually be slower after it's fragmented unless running TLSF mem or similar. There is a longer memory list to transverse.
IIRC, PCMCIA bandwidth on the A1200 is something like 2-3MB/s, which is pretty damn slow even compared to chipram.
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The simple answer is this:
With A1200, fast ram will double the speed of most tasks. A cpu card with no fast ram will only speed up cpu-intensive tasks. A cpu card with fast ram on it will make the biggest speed improvement.
If you want to do things like play games, mess about with 2D paint and animation software, then just get a cheap RAM card and a compact flash card and stick whdload on it with a preconfigured Workbench environment like ClassicWB (use the version thats made for an A1200 with a fast ram only.)
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I reckon its the quaility of the cut.
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I think some confusion as to why RAM 'increases' the speed of a PC or Mac and therefore the question here. Also PCs do not have Chip/Fast/32bit RAM debacle too.
I will bow to the superior Amiga knowledge about the merits of CPU and various types of RAM on every Amiga model produced.
But as far as PCs and Intel Macs go...they are running bloatware....adding more memory just alleviates the seriously bad code running on your CPU box. So...if you have Windows 7 and 1Gb of RAM and simply shove in a stick of 2Gb memory to make 3Gb (negating a speed increase due to dual channel mode) the only reason your speed 'increases' is because your bloatware OS has more room to stretch it's bingo wings code ;) I suppose some Amigas will benefit from RAM over CPU in some cases but overall it's not quite as general a problem.
You can run XP quite happily on 100mhz if you have 256mb of RAM...but 64 or even 64mb on 300mhz is useless and 'slower'
What you should also factor in though is replacing hard drives with state of the art lightning fast solid state Compact Flash drives on any AGA machine too....this also makes a massive difference on PCs and will improve your perceived speed on an Amiga too I guess. Some companies produce 2.5 IDE hard drive sized solid state drives with the SATA/PATA IDE connectors all fused in a handly little plug in replacement box which work a treat on the A1200/600 and A4000.
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It is pretty sad when Windows 95 was happy with 8MB and fast with 16MB compared to 1GB minimum nowadays, just for a plain 2D desktop than is meant to launch programs.
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I agree to al the words said about the processor.
This is the calculator, this is the bottle-neck in processing the 0's and 1's.
But it is so specifically Commodore.
RAM can be expanded up to the amount as much as your turbo-card can handle.
I can live with the idea my amiga will never coop with the latest processor of a PC.
But that is comparing "apples with pears".