Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: matt3k on February 11, 2016, 11:46:00 AM
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Kicking around the idea of going PPC if it is really worth it in day to day living.
I'm not a big gamer these days so I primarily use simplemail, turbo calc, art department, tv paint, listening to MP3s, etc.
I'm looking to make workbench snappier and programs like simplemail faster when dealing with large files.
Is PPC really the ticket?
Is 4.1 really that much faster than 3.9 using the PPC?
I was tempted to pickup a sonnet 7200 to start cheap, but sadly they are now insane to pick one up for the limited update they give. Spending north of 1k for a PPC should really be worth it if I'm going to go the Cyberstorm route.
I do have a mediator 3000Di with a radeon 9200 and a CS MK 3 with a SSD SATA and it still isn't fast enough :)... The relentless pursuit of speed for the last 30 years...
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My intial thought is;
For what you want to do, the Vampire FPGA accelerator is what you want to consider.
At the moment the Vampire is only available for the A600. The A500 vampire is in development (soonish to be avaible)
Im unsure when the Vampire will be released for Amiga 3000 since development is a ongoing process. A wild guess, half a year from now, but thats a stab in the dark. The Vampire will restrict you to OS 3.9 tho.
The features of the Vampire core is also constantly in discussion and being expanded. There are "strong pressures" from the people in their IRC channel to develop a more modern ethernet feature, but the Apollo Team has to be careful about "feature creep" and cost.
So wether or not that becomes a reality is uncertain.
Anyhow, list a few Vampire videos and you can judge for yourself. IF it looks intresting you could join their IRC channel, and ask questions directly to the development team. If they dont respond there, the channel got quite a few knowledgable persons that will be able to explain the features much better than I can;
irc.freenode.org port 6667 channel #apollo-team
Atm the Vampire only got 128 megabyte of ram tho (for the moment).
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=803680&postcount=34
Comment by one of the developers.
Review of Vampire II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEjtc6JWlsk
About 1 minute 53 there is a Sysinfo test, altho its probarly not the best method of evaluating the performance ;)
http://www.apollo-core.com/index.htm?page=performance
More detailed info.
And then a few Workbench videos;
https://vimeo.com/152867182
https://vimeo.com/152180575
https://vimeo.com/153413790
Ofcourse you will be "restricted" to OS 3.9 and 680x0, but then you will have hardware that is being developed and produced, at a reasonable price.
I realise you mentioned PPC and OS 4.1 too, but figured Id mention Vampire too, incase you havent paid attention to its development.
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I was tempted to pickup a sonnet 7200 to start cheap, but sadly they are now insane to pick one up for the limited update they give. Spending north of 1k for a PPC should really be worth it if I'm going to go the Cyberstorm route.
The Cyberstorm/Blizzard PPC cards are pretty slow - WinUAE running OS4.1 on a modern PC is faster - in fact, if you ignore 3D performance, WinUAE even beats a SAM460 on a fast i7.
I've been tinkering with OS4.1 a lot under emulation (testing the latest WinUAE beta) and it's nice - I've been running TVPaint, PPaint, SketchBlock, Cinnamon Writer, Ignition and AudioEvolution and you can do *a lot* with an OS4 system and yes - it's much quicker (on a fast PPC) than say an '060.
What it isn't (so far as hardware's concerned) is good value for money - and the Vampire recommendation is a good one (since OS3.9 is still very capable and supported by Amiga devs).
If you really want to tinker with OS4 (and you've got access to a decent PC) I'd suggest picking up Amiga Forever 2016 and a copy of 4.1 FE for classic as the cheapest way to test the waters.
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In reality, OS4.1FE does not really give you much over OS3.9, except maybe a more modern browser. An emulated OS3.9 environment is much faster than emulated OS4.1FE environment, and no memory limitations. So it really boils down to what applications you are using, and for productivity software, I take OS3.9 on WinAUE/FS-UAE any day.
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I am, obviously, a big advocate of moving to PPCs, but current PPC options for legacy Amigas are too expensive, hard to find, and are not powerful enough.
I'd second Niding's comments about the Vampire board.
Once that is available for the 3000, if I were you, that is what I would buy.
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Here's a video I did a couple of weeks ago of the (then) current WinUAE beta running OS4: https://db.tt/MCdrDiNW
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Kicking around the idea of going PPC if it is really worth it in day to day living.
I'm not a big gamer these days so I primarily use simplemail, turbo calc, art department, tv paint, listening to MP3s, etc.
I'm looking to make workbench snappier and programs like simplemail faster when dealing with large files.
Is PPC really the ticket?
Is 4.1 really that much faster than 3.9 using the PPC?
I was tempted to pickup a sonnet 7200 to start cheap, but sadly they are now insane to pick one up for the limited update they give. Spending north of 1k for a PPC should really be worth it if I'm going to go the Cyberstorm route.
I do have a mediator 3000Di with a radeon 9200 and a CS MK 3 with a SSD SATA and it still isn't fast enough :)... The relentless pursuit of speed for the last 30 years...
I would sell the Mediator setup and buy an a600 +Vampire card for the 68K software and a Samflex for the PPC route with 4.1. The Vampire could replace your Mediator setup a lot cheaper, if the RTG drivers are ready.
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I would sell the Mediator setup and buy an a600 +Vampire card for the 68K software and a Samflex for the PPC route with 4.1. The Vampire could replace your Mediator setup a lot cheaper, if the RTG drivers are ready.
Thanks for the advice, but I already have a Powerbook 1.67 running MOS, so I have my fix of NG Amiga.
I want to push my 3000 to the next level if you will and if these Gents release a FPGA that fits the Amiga 3000/4000 cpu slot some day, I will gladly wait until then. Kinda partial to my 3k :)...
Interestingly the only Amiga I have never owned is a 600.
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OK Niding and Iggy, you win!
I will wait until/if their is a version for the 3000/4000. I assume they would use the cpu slot???
These guys may be the first to offer a real big box (3000/4000) Amiga accelerator for the Amiga in decades. I was hoping for the Ultimate PPC to come into being but wasn't meant to be.
@Aegis and Kolla
Not looking to purchase 4.1, Since I'm happy with 3.9 and MOS. Looking for more speed in my 3k and I hit a wall really. Sad even with all the boxes check for maximum performance for it, it still stalls when loading a huge email...
I'm pretty happy overall though, the MP3 playback via the Mpegit, and dvi out via the Radeon 9200, all on a nice big led make for a real nice experience. Sadly the Cyberstorm 060 just doesn't have the juice to keep up sometimes.
I will ask the developers about a big box version.
Perhaps they will setup a poll to see how many 3000/4000 users would buy one.
My intial thought is;
For what you want to do, the Vampire FPGA accelerator is what you want to consider.
At the moment the Vampire is only available for the A600. The A500 vampire is in development (soonish to be avaible)
Im unsure when the Vampire will be released for Amiga 3000 since development is a ongoing process. A wild guess, half a year from now, but thats a stab in the dark. The Vampire will restrict you to OS 3.9 tho.
The features of the Vampire core is also constantly in discussion and being expanded. There are "strong pressures" from the people in their IRC channel to develop a more modern ethernet feature, but the Apollo Team has to be careful about "feature creep" and cost.
So wether or not that becomes a reality is uncertain.
Anyhow, list a few Vampire videos and you can judge for yourself. IF it looks intresting you could join their IRC channel, and ask questions directly to the development team. If they dont respond there, the channel got quite a few knowledgable persons that will be able to explain the features much better than I can;
irc.freenode.org port 6667 channel #apollo-team
Atm the Vampire only got 128 megabyte of ram tho (for the moment).
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=803680&postcount=34
Comment by one of the developers.
Review of Vampire II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEjtc6JWlsk
About 1 minute 53 there is a Sysinfo test, altho its probarly not the best method of evaluating the performance ;)
http://www.apollo-core.com/index.htm?page=performance
More detailed info.
And then a few Workbench videos;
https://vimeo.com/152867182
https://vimeo.com/152180575
https://vimeo.com/153413790
Ofcourse you will be "restricted" to OS 3.9 and 680x0, but then you will have hardware that is being developed and produced, at a reasonable price.
I realise you mentioned PPC and OS 4.1 too, but figured Id mention Vampire too, incase you havent paid attention to its development.
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If you are feeling brave you could always try overclocking your 060.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~davem2/overclock/csppc.html
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Here's a video I did a couple of weeks ago of the (then) current WinUAE beta running OS4: https://db.tt/MCdrDiNW
Have you got a good tutorial for setting up the latest winuae? I already have OS 4.1FE and a second pc to run it on?
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If I wanted to make the fastest possible 3.9/classic system (excluding the Vampire cards), I'd get an '060/PPC card and then chuck on as many PPC-enhanced tools as possible. For example the PPC versions of the WarpDT's, AmigaAMP with PPC support, etc.
I wouldn't run 4.1 for classics on an actual classic system, too slow. Even though I own a copy, LOL. That's for if I ever set up an emulator! ;)
Just my .02 cents. :)
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If I wanted to make the fastest possible 3.9/classic system (excluding the Vampire cards), I'd get an '060/PPC card and then chuck on as many PPC-enhanced tools as possible. For example the PPC versions of the WarpDT's, AmigaAMP with PPC support, etc.
I wouldn't run 4.1 for classics on an actual classic system, too slow. Even though I own a copy, LOL. That's for if I ever set up an emulator! ;)
Just my .02 cents. :)
MorphOS 1.4.5 is probably the best thing to run on a CSPPC for speed but there's no support for the mediator iirc.
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Or if you really want's PPC hardware, get Mac Mini G4 and try MorphOs. I just bought mint Mac Mini G4 1Gb Ram for £40 shipped. Nice machine.
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Have you got a good tutorial for setting up the latest winuae? I already have OS 4.1FE and a second pc to run it on?
I'm actually putting together an optimization guide for when 3.3.0 is released :)
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Or if you really want's PPC hardware, get Mac Mini G4 and try MorphOs. I just bought mint Mac Mini G4 1Gb Ram for £40 shipped. Nice machine.
...and if you want MorphOS with you all the time, buy a Powerbook G4 :-) I love my setup.
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I'm actually putting together an optimization guide for when 3.3.0 is released :)
Please post in this thread when you post your guide.. wouldnt wan to miss it!
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There is no OS4 for sonnet card, most likely never.
I you want to have Amiga OS4 you could buy second hand Sam 440. Prices can be quite low.
Thay way you could get all the benefits of new hardware and PPC, compared to old original amiga hardware. Hard drives are really fast, even Sam Flex 2x PCI bus is many times faster than Zorro bus etc.
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Installed 4.1 classic on my Cyberstorm PPC and A4000T with mediator. It is way faster on my emulated i7 machine. Not worth it at all.
Get yourself a classic PPC Mac and try MorphOS. Its by far the best way to go and for OS4.1 just use it on a PC. Even buying a specific PC for emulating it would be less money than getting a Cyberstorm and be faster in the end.
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Im just going to chime in with another comment;
Since you seem to be thinking going with OS 3.9, there is the issue of development.
There are some really nice Boing Bag upgrades, but for the future, Im personally thinking about AROS68k version. Its activly being maintained/developed, and while OS 3.9 is looking really pretty (imho), AROS might be the future for the 68k line.
Thats the best way to avoid the endless "who got rights to what, and how can we figure out what component we can use here and there..." :P
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I am 110% behind the Vampire solution. The only issue is availability. I reached out to order an A600 Vampire II via the official email and I also reached out to offer investment to speed things up and get to an A1200 and FPGA cards for other original Amiga systems; No response. :(
I know many others in this and other forums prefer and welcome a speedier and more colourful OS 3.9 experience.
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I was reading in the IRC channel that Kippa (which is soldering the boards), is responding to mails as hes getting closer to your order etc.
I guess the point was; hes probarly swamped and focused on getting the boards delivered, so mails are taking second priority.
They do chat in the IRC channel tho, discussing all kinds of topics.
So maybe join the IRC channel? :)
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@ Niding
think you meant kipper aka kipper2k;)
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As someone that grabbed one of the first SAM's off the line, for day to day use, I consider it one short hair above "useless".
For tinkering around with solely Amiga stuff, I have a lot of fun with it, though.
It is a pain to be constantly reaching for my ipad, solely because the SAM's web browser has puked once again on something as simple as FB, Google Docs, etc.
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They do chat in the IRC channel tho, discussing all kinds of topics.
So maybe join the IRC channel? :)
Thanks for the info.
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As someone that grabbed one of the first SAM's off the line, for day to day use, I consider it one short hair above "useless".
For tinkering around with solely Amiga stuff, I have a lot of fun with it, though.
It is a pain to be constantly reaching for my ipad, solely because the SAM's web browser has puked once again on something as simple as FB, Google Docs, etc.
Situation is not different on any Amigish platform. Our best web browser is same.
Amiga is hobby machine, it is OK for general web browsing, like reading dayli news, googlin info about "something", but I wouldn't call Facebook or Google docs simple.
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@ Niding
think you meant kipper aka kipper2k;)
Maybe he has a Schwarzenegger accent. Like: "Get to da Kippa' !"
So don't correct the man, it's rude :p
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Situation is not different on any Amigish platform. Our best web browser is same.
Amiga is hobby machine, it is OK for general web browsing, like reading dayli news, googlin info about "something", but I wouldn't call Facebook or Google docs simple.
Yes, all the variants and platforms have a similar issue.
If you have to start delineating the practical use of what is being sold as a "modern PC/Amiga" in terms up "Will look up a good quiche recipe, but forget about checking Facebook or using Google Docs", we're really in a sad state.
I've got a 7 year old iphone that has zero problems with anything on the modern web, but no matter how much money I threw into the Modern/"Next Gen" Amiga platform, it'd still be there, from a $300 used SAM440 to a X5000.
Come on, Dude. Don't lay it at the feet of the people making the websites. They aren't doing anything wrong, no Black Magic from them. No other "Modern" systems have an issue with them. Blame the crap browser, not the site. My old 3GS can use FB just fine, an old Windows 98 machine I've got in a closet even can.
1 billion people log onto FB every single day - I'd call that a pretty basic site.
Earlier tonight, when I was too lazy to bother hopping onto my Win PC, I tried getting on it (FB) on my SAM, which came to a screeching halt.
But yes, by all means, let's keep making more and more powerful hardware to effectively... Do nothing in the modern, general/daily computing area.
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Gotta catch em all!
Is't worth it? Hell no! Is it fun? hell yeah! :)
I have several amigaos & morphos machines and they are pretty useless but i still love them and don't regret a thing.
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Installed 4.1 classic on my Cyberstorm PPC and A4000T with mediator. It is way faster on my emulated i7 machine. Not worth it at all.
Get yourself a classic PPC Mac and try MorphOS. Its by far the best way to go and for OS4.1 just use it on a PC. Even buying a specific PC for emulating it would be less money than getting a Cyberstorm and be faster in the end.
... and considering that in near future we will have better GPU emulation under UAE AmigaOS4.1 + UAE will be best possible option. I hope to actually have one of my old PC's set up to run Amiga Forever as a stand alone computer.
BTW. Can I boot AmigaOS4.1 directly under UAE WITHOUT Windows (using Linux)?
Getting some used PPC board for Amiga is still definitely "fun" (AND expensive!), but it depends from that what you would like to do with Amiga. I have AmigaOS4.1 running on my i7 and its fantastic, but I would like to have "real Amiga" that is useful and Amiga is NOT useful without 040/060 or PPC. My current 030 is great... to run games ;). It is way to slow to do anything serious.
When you set up you AmigaOS computer ("real" or not) then there is one, tiny problem... LACK OF SOFTWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Situation is not different on any Amigish platform. Our best web browser is same.
Amiga is hobby machine, it is OK for general web browsing, like reading dayli news, googlin info about "something", but I wouldn't call Facebook or Google docs simple.
Facebook works fine with Odyssey on MorphOS so it should be fine on OS4 and AROS too.
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... and considering that in near future we will have better GPU emulation under UAE AmigaOS4.1 + UAE will be best possible option. I hope to actually have one of my old PC's set up to run Amiga Forever as a stand alone computer.
BTW. Can I boot AmigaOS4.1 directly under UAE WITHOUT Windows (using Linux)?
Yes.
http://fs-uae.net/download
Or you can run winuae with WINE on Linux too.
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I believe either (68K or Ppc) is Worth It if one could have simply a use for it like games or programming.
Edit number 1: Could some one make and sell software using it?
Edit number 2: It seems like if you buy software today you will end up buying some thing else sooner or later.
I am not trying to be negative. :D If the price is right buy it.
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Installed 4.1 classic on my Cyberstorm PPC and A4000T with mediator. It is way faster on my emulated i7 machine. Not worth it at all.
Get yourself a classic PPC Mac and try MorphOS. Its by far the best way to go and for OS4.1 just use it on a PC. Even buying a specific PC for emulating it would be less money than getting a Cyberstorm and be faster in the end.
I have played with MorphOS on a G5 mac, It seem quite amazing vs my 25 Mhz 68040s and my A3000s and A4000s. In someways MorphOS (with it's clean OS on a G5) seems faster than modern PeeCees with all their OS overhead, however their seems to be a lack of software for MorphOS.
How does AmigaOS 4.1 (on a PPC amiga) compare with MorphOS 3.9 on a G4 or G5 mac? How does AmigaOS 4.1 emulated on WinUAE compare to MorphOS 3.9 on a G4 or G5 Mac?
What about software for morphos vs AmigaOS 4.1 vs 3.9?
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Or you can run winuae with WINE on Linux too.
For some reason I was thinking I can do it only with AmigaOS3.9. I have old Q8200 with 4GB ram doing literally nothing... it will be nice Amiga box. It is funny... case this PC is in right now I got for... SAM440ep... when it was out, but never got a chance to get one. At the end it will be use for AmigaOS and most likely speed will be similar ;)
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I gave up being an Amiga only puritan back in 2000. I think I did well to last that long. Since then its been a pure hobby. Once you have it as a hobby only, the question of "is it worth it?" becomes moot. It's not worth it for any practical use case and hasn't been for years. But it is a lot of fun.
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I gave up being an Amiga only puritan back in 2000. I think I did well to last that long. Since then its been a pure hobby. Once you have it as a hobby only, the question of "is it worth it?" becomes moot. It's not worth it for any practical use case and hasn't been for years. But it is a lot of fun.
Well said.
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I have played with MorphOS on a G5 mac, It seem quite amazing vs my 25 Mhz 68040s and my A3000s and A4000s. In someways MorphOS (with it's clean OS on a G5) seems faster than modern PeeCees with all their OS overhead, however their seems to be a lack of software for MorphOS.
How does AmigaOS 4.1 (on a PPC amiga) compare with MorphOS 3.9 on a G4 or G5 mac? How does AmigaOS 4.1 emulated on WinUAE compare to MorphOS 3.9 on a G4 or G5 Mac?
What about software for morphos vs AmigaOS 4.1 vs 3.9?
I dont want to turn this thread into a MorphOS or AMigaOS 4.1 thread, but on the same hardware with one running and switch to the other MorphOS blows away the other in all areas. Moving to a Pegasos II and running the latest OS4.1 and MorphOS is also the same in that area.
Setting up OS4.1 Classic using the new Amiga Forever 2016 isnt that hard. Its well worth doing and comes with everything you need. If you are handy with scripting you can set the machine to boot directly into the environment with little effort.
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I dont want to turn this thread into a MorphOS or AMigaOS 4.1 thread, but on the same hardware with one running and switch to the other MorphOS blows away the other in all areas. Moving to a Pegasos II and running the latest OS4.1 and MorphOS is also the same in that area.
Setting up OS4.1 Classic using the new Amiga Forever 2016 isnt that hard. Its well worth doing and comes with everything you need. If you are handy with scripting you can set the machine to boot directly into the environment with little effort.
I can vouch for that too, MorphOS on my Pegasos II runs rings around OS4.1FE performance wise, it's also more stable and more compatible with 68k/WarpOS/PowerUP software too. The main exception to that being Octamed which doesn't work on MorphOS.
Both are great fun though.
OS4 on WinUAE is surprisingly fast, it'll be even better once it can use the accelerated UAEGFX P96 driver instead of an emulated Picasso IV.
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I'm actually putting together an optimization guide for when 3.3.0 is released :)
That's Great let me know when your done :)
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Please post in this thread when you post your guide.. wouldnt wan to miss it!
That's Great let me know when your done :)
Don't worry - you won't miss it :) I'm toying with the idea of putting together a PDF for it since it's going to be quite extensive - it'll cover:
New features in WinUAE 3.3.0 + how to configure them
How to tweak OS4.1 on WinUAE to get a good balance of free memory/usability
Applications I've tested that work really well with OS4.1 on WinUAE plus any tweaks necessary to get them running perfectly.
I'm really impressed with Toni's work on this update - it's a whole new ball game with OS4 now - there's still some significant limitations though and this guide is about helping people make the most of 3.3.0
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I would love to get my hands on a Vampire for my A4000. I have an 060/50 right now, with no fast ram, since my cyberstorm MK1 kicked the bucket. I just have the A3640 with an 040->060 adapter, sad times. It's really such a shame that accelerators are so expensive, we really do need a set of the FPGA based ones.
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slaapliedje,
Waiting for the same on my A2000 and 4000T with all the goodies! Can't wait! Most likely I'll pass before it sees the light of day.
Chris
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I would love to get my hands on a Vampire for my A4000. I have an 060/50 right now, with no fast ram, since my cyberstorm MK1 kicked the bucket. I just have the A3640 with an 040->060 adapter, sad times. It's really such a shame that accelerators are so expensive, we really do need a set of the FPGA based ones.
Have you spoken to Stachu to see if he can repair your CS?