Optimum A600 configuration for gaming?

[Eco]

In addition to my higher powered A1200 tower project, I have put together an A600 for retro gaming purposes. The specs of the machine are now:

First revision A600 mobo (says A300 on the PCB )
Extra 1mb of chip plugged in the expansion port (2mb chip in total)
500 mb IDE drive
Kickstart 3.1 ROM
OS 3.1

What can I do to maximise the gaming compatibility of this machine? I want to be able to use WHDLoad for the games that can be run with it on A600.

I am currenly using skick to get Kickstart 1.3 for the older games, would a hardware switcher be better? At least I would have more free memory..

Even OS 3.1 seems slow on this machine, since I only have 68000 and no fast ram. Should I consider switching to 2.05 roms and an earlier WB? Would that help compatibility with WHDLoad? I get the feeling that I'm starved for RAM after OS 3.1 loads up.

I know that loading WB is not necessary to use WHDLoad, it's just more convenient. However, I will go the way of the command prompt if that is the only way to have enough resources for WHDLoad.

[Eco]

I don't want to plug in an accerelator, since that will only introduce more problems for the older games and demos. The primary use for the machine is to be a portable "amiga console" so to speak, mostly operating from floppies. Whatever I can run from WHDLoad is a nice bonus.

Any suggestion on how to make things better for WHDload on a standard A600? Any tooltypes? List of games that will work?

[Eco]

By the way, what kind of a RAM expansion can I plug into the PCMCIA slot? Does it have to be an amiga-specific product, or can I just pick up some generic PCMCIA memory solution and hope it will work  :-D

[Eco]

A600 with 030 "on demand" would be undeniably neat. Take me to your A600 accelerators and mountable switches  :-D

[Eco]

Okay, I was looking at the A600 accelerators on the Big Book. There is not much of a choice in the accelerators, and they are all of the "clip over cpu" type which I don't much care for, since they're potentially much more flaky than proper expansion port ones (which A600 does not have..).

Plus, a PSU upgrade would be in order to feed the beast. Maybe I'll just make do without one for now.. unless I get a good deal one one  :lol:

[Eco]

Thanks for the heads up! Two DOA accelerators are enough to strike the fear of Ebay into my heart..   :-o

[Eco]

Just picked up two PCMCIA memory cards from a local used computer part store. I have absolutely no idea whether they will work in my A600, this was a long shot  :-D

The cards are Intel cards that say "Flash" and "4 MByte Memory Card" on the front. They're manufactured in Japan and Philippines (1993). The card from 1993 says "Series 2". There's nothing else of use written on the cards.

The bad part is, I don't get to try them out for a month! I'm stuck in the States with no miggy in sight..

[Eco]

Oh darn, good thing I only paid a few bucks for them  :-D

I'll be on the lookout for cards that specifically say "sram".

[Eco]

I'll just post to this same thread, since I have a new question which also concerns the optimum A600 configuration for gaming.

This time, however, I want to know how I can make my A600 as close to a "1.3 kickstart A500 with 512 chip and 512 fast" compatibility heaven. Can a degrader utility cut it? Is TUDE the best, or should I use something else?

Since I have 2 mb chip, it should be possible to kick into 1.3, make 512kb fake fast mem, and lose the rest of the chipmem. This should give me the target configuration, right? :-D

[Eco]

Sounds good. After TUDEing it up, my A600 should be good for all the old demos and games! But not everything will require TUDE, of course.

In case anyone is wondering why to go with the A600 instead of a plain vanilla A500, there are compelling reasons:

- It's small, light and quite portable
- Colour composite output
- It has an IDE controller, and the hard drive fits right inside it

Between my A1200 and A600, I should be set to trash a few joysticks again :-D

[Eco]

The degraded configuration is only for booting the incompatible old stuff off floppies. The non-degraded mode is good for networking, and creating the floppies from ADFs in the first place  :-D