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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: AmigaClassicRule on November 22, 2012, 05:10:02 AM
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I know A2000 is an OCS/ECS and an A4000 is AGA so the difference is there. But what if you take a 68060 A4000 RTG vs a 68060 A2000 with the same RTG card. Does that make these two computers identical with the same performance and ability running the same software that uses the RTG card? Would you say the A4000 and A2000 are the same computer if we install RTG instead of custom chip set?
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no. a2k has zorro2 and a4k has zorro3 expansion bus, your card if this is z3 rtg card will work faster in a4k.
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no. a2k has zorro2 and a4k has zorro3 expansion bus, your card if this is z3 rtg card will work faster in a4k.
Is it just speed? Does it mean the software will still run but slower?
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Is it just speed? Does it mean the software will still run but slower?
Yes. I used my Picasso IV in my A2000 with the Picasso 96 software. The card ran in Zorro II mode. I use the same card and same software with my A4000 and the card runs in Zorro III mode.
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Yes. I used my Picasso IV in my A2000 with the Picasso 96 software. The card ran in Zorro II mode. I use the same card and same software with my A4000 and the card runs in Zorro III mode.
What about A3000?
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It really depends on a lot of factors. In general, the difference will be noticeable only under certain conditions. A Quake benchmark on a low-res screenmode will be identical on both systems. Scroll through a large picture that exceeds the amount of VRAM on your gfx board (=swapping data over the zorro bus) and the 4000 will perform a little better.
What about A3000?
Identical to the 4000.
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It really depends on a lot of factors. In general, the difference will be noticeable only under certain conditions. A Quake benchmark on a low-res screenmode will be identical on both systems. Scroll through a large picture that exceeds the amount of VRAM on your gfx board (=swapping data over the zorro bus) and the 4000 will perform a little better.
Identical to the 4000.
So really an A3000 will be identical to an RTG A4000, he is better getting an A3000 because it is cheaper than A4000.
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Im pretty sure that A3000 is not cheaper than A4000
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Yeah, it's definitely not cheaper, and potentially much more fussy when it comes time to upgrade. Your friend should stick with finding a 4000/4000T, or upgrade the 2000 if AGA isn't a concern.
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a 68060 A2000
You'll NEVER, EVER get a 68060 card for an A2000 without paying 2x or even 4x the price of an A4000 + an 060 card! They are very very rare.
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Your friend will never ever be able to play Total Chaos AGA on an A2000.
An A2000 will always have slower chipram than an A1200 or A4000
Remember you still play sounds thru chipram using Paula's lovely voice :)
A2000 chipram will be 16-bit forever and ever.
A1200/A4000 chipram will be 32-bit forever and ever.
A2000 only has 1Meg chipram unless you buy a kindof expensive adapterboard thingamjig to increase it to 2MB.
A1200 / A4000 have 2MB chipram built in for free. :)
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If the price is an issue, but Amiga model isn't, it would be cheaper to go with towered A1200 with PCI busboard and cheap but fast gfx card. 060 cards are also cheaper for A1200 than other models.
But if you really want fast and cheap RTG experience, get some next generation machine and OS. Those are way faster than any classic Amiga and more reliable than aging bunch of expansion cards :) And keep the classic Amiga for native chipset stuff.
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It really depends on a lot of factors. In general, the difference will be noticeable only under certain conditions. A Quake benchmark on a low-res screenmode will be identical on both systems. Scroll through a large picture that exceeds the amount of VRAM on your gfx board (=swapping data over the zorro bus) and the 4000 will perform a little better.
Identical to the 4000.
It depends on the software. Quake is limited by cpu, not by bus bandwitch. In contrast Doom should show some performance differences as it's not so cpu heavy. Try out Voxel test included with WarpOS on an A2000 RTG and later on an A4000 RTG and you'll see the huge difference. AGA has more bandwitch than ZorroII cards for these kind of games.
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Thank you all for clearing everything then :). As a conclusion I feel I am a proud owner of an A1200. I also feel I have reached one of the top of the line Amiga models compared to the A3000 and below.
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Thank you all for clearing everything then :). As a conclusion I feel I am a proud owner of an A1200. I also feel I have reached one of the top of the line Amiga models compared to the A3000 and below.
A1200 is cheap and easy to expand, I wouldn't exchange it by an A3000.
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A1200 is cheap and easy to expand, I wouldn't exchange it by an A3000.
Do not worry I will not replace my Amiga 1200 for anything in the world. :)
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I never had an A1200; a couple of 1000's, a couple of A2000's one towerized, an A500, and then went directly to an A4000T. The 4000 hasn't let me down.
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Scroll through a large picture that exceeds the amount of VRAM on your gfx board (=swapping data over the zorro bus) and the 4000 will perform a little better.
One real world scenario where the A2000 really fails at in RTG use is flipping high res / bit depth screens. Once you have more of those screens open than will fit in the RTG board's RAM, you will be waiting seconds for the machine to move the new screen into the RTG board.
I happened to have a beefy A2000 and I endured this for a while, but quite soon I became so annoyed with it that I dismantled my 060 + RTG A2000 and sold the pieces, went back to using Zorro 3 Amigas. Haven't had an RTG equipped Zorro 2 machine since.
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One real world scenario where the A2000 really fails at in RTG use is flipping high res / bit depth screens. Once you have more of those screens open than will fit in the RTG board's RAM, you will be waiting seconds for the machine to move the new screen into the RTG board.
I happened to have a beefy A2000 and I endured this for a while, but quite soon I became so annoyed with it that I dismantled my 060 + RTG A2000 and sold the pieces, went back to using Zorro 3 Amigas. Haven't had an RTG equipped Zorro 2 machine since.
Jeesh, that bad huh?
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Jeesh, that bad huh?
The zorro3 machines are quite a bit quicker than the zorro 2 machines. The 1200 is also full of bottlenecks compared to a A4000 even with mediator.
the 4000 makes the most sense.
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The zorro3 machines are quite a bit quicker than the zorro 2 machines. The 1200 is also full of bottlenecks compared to a A4000 even with mediator.
the 4000 makes the most sense.
Maybe, but A4000 are expensive. They are for 1k in eBay.
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One real world scenario where the A2000 really fails at in RTG use is flipping high res / bit depth screens. Once you have more of those screens open than will fit in the RTG board's RAM, you will be waiting seconds for the machine to move the new screen into the RTG board.
I happened to have a beefy A2000 and I endured this for a while, but quite soon I became so annoyed with it that I dismantled my 060 + RTG A2000 and sold the pieces, went back to using Zorro 3 Amigas. Haven't had an RTG equipped Zorro 2 machine since.
Very true. This is especially bad with the CV64/3D, which I discovered does at best only ~2 MB/s over Z2 (bustest). The Picasso IV handles Z2 much better (full 3.5 MB/s), really the only way to go if you must have a loaded 2000.
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The zorro3 machines are quite a bit quicker than the zorro 2 machines. The 1200 is also full of bottlenecks compared to a A4000 even with mediator.
the 4000 makes the most sense.
You are making me feel sad that I gave away my A4000/040 :( :cry:
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Very true. This is especially bad with the CV64/3D, which I dicovered does at best only ~2 MB/s over Z2 (bustest). The Picasso IV handles Z2 much better (full 3.5 MB/s), really the only way to go if you must have a loaded 2000.
My A1200 with Mediator gets 9MB/s with bustest.
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You are making me feel sad that I gave away my A4000/040 :( :cry:
Heheh...
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Very true. This is especially bad with the CV64/3D, which I discovered does at best only ~2 MB/s over Z2 (bustest). The Picasso IV handles Z2 much better (full 3.5 MB/s), really the only way to go if you must have a loaded 2000.
One last thing - PIV and an '060 on the 2000 will only save your behind up to a resolution of 1024x768x16-bit. Push it any further, and Z2 rears its head bigtime...
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One last thing - PIV and an '060 on the 2000 will only save your behind up to a resolution of 1024x768x16-bit. Push it any further, and Z2 rears its head bigtime...
We are all forgetting one thing.......A2000 is really an A500 in a desktop case.......with zorro slot so ummm the mere fact it can go this far....is a feat, yeah?
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One last thing - PIV and an '060 on the 2000 will only save your behind up to a resolution of 1024x768x16-bit. Push it any further, and Z2 rears its head bigtime...
And actually you can't do _much_ better resolutions with Zorro III either. They are pretty limited in today's standards. But if you have PCI gfx card, then you can really go further. I for example have no problems using 1600x1200x16bit screen with my A1200 with Mediator and Voodoo3.
Otherwise Mediator setup feels pretty much faster with other things too. For example networking is much faster than for example my friend's A4000/060/Zorro system.
For raw performance I think Mediator is the best today and VERY cheap with expansions. Only positive argument for Zorro3 machine is its elegancy in certain issues (like scandoubling with PIV, soundcards with DSP for mp3 playback...), but for raw bang per buck Zorro can't compete at all anymore.
One way is to get both on the same machine... I have MediatorZIV and ZorroIV busboards on my a1200. That way I can have fast gfx-card, network card, USB card etc in PCI, but also have Delfina Lite soundcard on Zorro. Of course it would be better to have Zorro3+PCI on A4000, but that is simply too much money for most of the people nowadays.
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We are all forgetting one thing.......A2000 is really an A500 in a desktop case.......with zorro slot so ummm the mere fact it can go this far....is a feat, yeah?
Don't get me wrong, a maxed 2000 ('060 + SCSI2, PIV, etc) is not by any means a letdown, still a very fast and fun system in classic terms. I had mine setup on the same desk next to a similarly equipped 4000 for a while, and couldn't tell the difference 90% of the time.
It's just that with the 4000 you get Z3 and AGA, so might as well do that if you can. But there's no shame in upgrading the 2000, if you go that route.
And actually you can't do _much_ better resolutions with Zorro III either. They are pretty limited in today's standards. But if you have PCI gfx card, then you can really go further. I for example have no problems using 1600x1200x16bit screen with my A1200 with Mediator and Voodoo3.
Exactly, once you push Z2 to the point of obvious slowdown, all other things being equal, the 3000/4000 will only be less slow. PCI is definitely another thing to consider, ofc it's not possible at all on the 2000. I've been tempted over the years, but never took the plunge. Voodoo on the Amiga must be a blast.