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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Robert17 on June 02, 2004, 04:51:11 PM
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Hey guys just bought myself some kit from ebay, a 4.1gb laptop hard drive (I've been told I can format it to 4gb and use it that way with OS 3.0) And one of those trapdoor memory expansions for the A1200 with 4mb, What kind of a performance boost can I expect from adding 4mb Fast ram?
Cheers
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Hi there!
Proberbly not a great deal using the standard CPU.
Your best bet would be to get an Accelerator card ..
Best way to test it is to plug it in and see :-)
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RAM access will be faster as you'd be using newer RAM and a better CPU on an accelerator card.
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Just I read somewhere ages ago from a company selling the ram expansions that adding fastram doubles the speed of the A1200 to 28mhz, I didn't think it was true either lol
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Any fast RAM in the trapdoor will around double the speed of the machine.
No, not in terms of MHz, that would be silly. In terms of, 'here Mr. CPU, have some memory you don't have to argue with the custom chips over for every access'.
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Yeah, cobblers :-) It would have to have an 030 CPU onboard to manage that at least, and you wouldn't see a doubling in speed I don't think, anyway.
I think an 040/40FPU (plus some RAM, say 8 to 16MB would be fine) accelerator would be about right for someone not wanting to expand much further (ie. a graphics card).
YAM (my email software) is fast enough. Web browsing (with IBrowse 2.3) is slowed mainly by the AGA graphics, I don't think the CPU is holding it back in that respect, unless I were to get a better graphics card.
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ah okie doke, so do you reckon I'll get any speed improvement playing any games, Gloom which I have get's a little slow with lots of enemies and stuff and other titles come to mind, I suppose in the least I'll be able to install all my games to hard disk and not have to worry about running out of memory :-)
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Is there any way to put better graphics into the desktop case though? I'd like to get out of towerising but I'm nto really interested in going PPC.
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A better CPU + RAM would noticeably help with newer games such as Gloom I think. Extra RAM only might help a tiny bit.
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Robert17 wrote:
Is there any way to put better graphics into the desktop case though? I'd like to get out of towerising but I'm nto really interested in going PPC.
I don't think there is, but don't take my word for it.
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I purely keep the A1200 for nostalgia purposes though, and I wouldn't ask it to do what my modern P.C does because that's just silly, I'll probably only go totally amiga if OS 4 is good (which I suspect it will be) but for now I'm quite happy toying with the oldie and using the pc for internet.
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Your Amiga would require huge amounts of upgrading, probably costing as much as an AmigaOne (and still nowhere near as fast as an AmigaOne) to upgrade to OS4.
TBH my A1200 sits in the cupboard behind me and I emulate it on my PC :-)
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I agree with Mikeymike - a1200 is old now.
TBH - i have one for nostalgia reasons and if there was no OS4 in the pipeline i would proberbly sell it and focus on something else.
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The harddisk will make a huge difference if you've not had one already. Now if you had a CDRom drive you could try out OS3.9 ;-)
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mikeymike wrote:
Robert17 wrote:
Is there any way to put better graphics into the desktop case though? I'd like to get out of towerising but I'm nto really interested in going PPC.
I don't think there is, but don't take my word for it.
What about the Graffiti by Individual Computers? I have saw the write up on their website and not entirely sure what it does, it seems it is what Robert17 wants but I'm skeptical...
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FAST RAM will actually double the usable speed of the A1200. CHIP RAM access is very slow compared to FAST RAM. I agree that an accellerator is a better choice but some FAST RAM and a FPU go a long way.
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adolescent wrote:
FAST RAM will actually double the usable speed of the A1200. CHIP RAM access is very slow compared to FAST RAM. I agree that an accellerator is a better choice but some FAST RAM and a FPU go a long way.
If a particular application runs better with more RAM, then it will be faster with just more RAM, but otherwise Workbench is perfectly happy with the 2MB chip.
In short, it won't make it faster unless you have something that could really do with more RAM. Just like with any other computer. What do you want to do with the machine? For example, if you want to use IBrowse, then check its system requirements.
Don't upgrade RAM unnecessarily, it's a waste of money. My Amiga runs just as quickly whether it has 8MB FAST or 64MB FAST (I picked up the latter stick of RAM off a friend :-)).
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Robert17 wrote:
Just I read somewhere ages ago from a company selling the ram expansions that adding fastram doubles the speed of the A1200 to 28mhz, I didn't think it was true either lol
Well there were low-end accels featuring a 68020 at 28MHz which would just to that (the Blizzard 1220 for example), but a pure RAM-expansion without CPU will only boost the machines speed by faster RAM-access compared to the on-board RAM (but you were allready told that).
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Well... I also have one of those 4Mb ram cards and they do in fact speed ut the computer quite a bit (id guess somewhere around 2-3times). Everything done on the computer is somehow related to shifting memory or acting on it so fastram do a great deal even if it's a small program that don't use very much memory.
About the Harddrive you got... 4.1Gb is a perfect size, old FFS only handled 4GB harddrives (max 2Gb per partision).
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What about the Graffiti by Individual Computers? I have saw the write up on their website and not entirely sure what it does, it seems it is what Robert17 wants but I'm skeptical...
The Graffiti is only supported by 4 Programs and that are: Trapped, Trapped II, Nemac IV and Shapeshifter (the only way to use 256color Display in an exeptable speed without an RTG-Board). There are some viewers that use it too, but that about all. It is a really nice card and it is a shame that it didn`t get that much support say in a form of an CGX/P96 driver.
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@mikeymike
Agreed. An app that runs fine on 4MB of FAST RAM will run the same on 8MB or 128MB. But, we're talking the difference between CHIP and FAST. Like I said (I think) CHIP RAM access is horribly slow.
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I only have the stock power supply though, will it have enough juice for my A1200 with the 4mb fastram, internal 2.5 hdd and an external disk drive?! I read somewhere that ChipRam is 160 or 170 ns ? as apposed to say 60ns of an EDO simm
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A simple RAM card shouldn't take much power, so the standard black power brick should work. Only way to find out is try. If that fails, then try an A500 power supply. They're easy to find and have a bit more juice.
As for the RAM speeds, the chips are actually 80ns or so. But, as I recall everything goes through the Alice so this slows everything up.
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Yeah, not as much power as a full accelerator obviously, it does have an FPU socket but it is currently unused, so shouldn't take too much juice.
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the Blizzard 1220 for example
I had one of these with 4Mb of ram, great little bit of kit for the price - selling it was pretty dumb in retrospect!
Oh, and it ran perfectly on the stock PSU too ;-)