New A4000, some questions...

[Holley]

All of those games run through AGA.  They should pick up the '040 though - do you have the correct '040 libs?

The more free ram the better - WHDLoad should archive your chip mem into fast while the game is running, but all those 3 will use the fast mem too.  More is better, and on the accellerator too if possible (not sure if some things don't pick up the MB ram first, which will be slower than your extra A1200 memory).

EDIT: Try booting into breathless from floppy, under UAE from floppy it runs at max detail for me, but under UAE with WHDLoad it needs 2x2 pixels to be fast in 320x200!

[Holley]

Check here :-)

It's commercial software BTW.  Oh, and ADoom doesn't use a FPU so it might be worth trying that for speed (it's on Back2Roots under the HD section).

[Holley]

Time to pop the case open and take an inventory before going any further I'd say :-)

If you're not too hot on ID'ing bits just take photos of the inside and I'm sure some of us annoraks will be able to help.

Also, once you know whats needed I'm sure someone can help you with the right system disks if you're missing them.  If you got any with the machine let us know what they are, it might help (inheriting someone elses baby is always tough - sometimes it's easier to just start again in the long term!).

[Holley]

You need to check where the memory is , then.  If you have an A3640 board, with memory on the motherboard, then it's not surprising it's sluggish in games.  The '040 at 25MHz does have more power, but the slow memory (compared to an A1200 accellerator) will cripple it.

[Holley]

@Tj - I'd contest that point, in games an A3640 won't set yer pants on fire like an A1200 '040/25 card would.

[Holley]

Arrr, that be a SCSI hard card with Zorro2 memory (check here).  Plus filled sockets on the MB would give a theoretical max of 24Mb.

The most importand bit is whatever is under the CDRom drive I'm afraid, though this machine would have been fitted with an A3640 from the factory.

[Holley]

Bingo, thats an A3640 ... unfortunately anything more potent costs money these days, ho hum.  One the plus side that SCSI hard card is quite a handy piece of of kit, an you've got a good chunk of memory.

BTW if you ever sell the A3640, that one will need a lower profile heatsink to fit an A3000.

[Holley]

Oh boy, yeah, that too!

It's ok to cut the legs off it to remove it, and they can be replaced with a remote battery if having a current clock is important.

This reminds me, gotta do the A1200 memory card I just got from Cyberus too ...!

[Holley]

On your motherboard you can have 2Mb of chip ram (it's best to leave that be), and up to 16Mb in simms (it needs a set of 4!).  Unfortunately not all simms the right size work (IIRC they're 30 pin ones).

I'm guessing yours shows up 8Mb on the SCSI card and 2Mb of chip, which would explain why everything feel sluggish in games!

The accellerator isn't ideal, but it's ok :-)

Those settings should result in good performance as long as you have enough Ram (8Mb counts as enough, unless any games work better with a full 8Mb available - that I don't know).

EDIT: sorry, you said 12Mb ... disable/remove the SCSI card ram and see how much shows up! - only the Fast mem matters for counting if you already have the full 2Mb of chip.

[Holley]

My bad :-) Can you remember which kinds of Simm work, Cyberus?

I think this is a case of the 2Mb on the MB running out, then the slower being used pretty quickly - it certainly explains why Workbench seems fast, but games slow!

If you can find a set of 16Mb for the MB then it'll only slow when you run out of fast memory (I think that made sense ...).

When I was talking about disabling the SCSI memory I was thinking to work out how much memory was needed, but you know already, so no worries.

TJ is in the enviable position of having memory to cobble dogs with, I've got 16Mb in my A3000 and now 8 in my A1200 :-)

[Holley]

Alberonn - AWeb has been working ok for me with 16Mb of fastmem (though I've never really pushed it hard!).

TJ - no worries - TBH I havn't found the quantity bad, just the speed frustrating! Whenever I get another machine I just know I won't have a use for more than 256Mb, lol.

It's a shame all the nice big box accellerators are so flippin' expensive right now!

[Holley]

I'm usually left with under half of that when I boot up

:-? Errr, there's something eating that up which shouldn't be!  I just have 3.9 (with Amidock, Glowicons etc), CGX4 and MUI ... and very little else at startup!  It's basic, and takes up very little memory.  CGX helps as it makes use of the graphics card memory though.