Selecting an accellerator (A1200)

[Hyperspeed]

Yeah the +8MB problem only affects the trapdoor memory expansions and not anything with an '030 or higher in. Not sure where this leaves SRAM in the PCMCIA port but I've read that someone has 128MB on their Blizzard 1260 and 4MB lying in the PCMCIA slot...

For retro gamers I would reccomend the Blizzard 1230-IV over the 1260. It doesn't need any modifications to SetPatch or the libraries and dummy libraries associated with a 1260. It also works at full speed without having to enter Workbench for the libraries to take effect. The downer is that Alien Breed 3D/3D2 will be 4x slower on the 1230-IV and so too games like Nemac-IV, Breathless, Quake, Doom, XTreme Racing etc.

The advantage of the Blizzard boards is the option of the SCSI-IV kit which allows you to attach CD burners, fast scanners etc. Other cards have SCSI adaptors but none are as well developed, have proper DMA and extra SIMM slot.

Doppie: I see your point of view but the UK Amiga magazines always reccomended the Blizzard range over the Apollo/Magnum cards. After all it was Phase5 that gave us the PowerPC! The 75MHz Apollo '060 doesn't have an FPU for 3D games/apps and none ever reached the Amiga Format GOLD award like the Blizzards. See the AIBB, SysInfo and SysSpeed tests and you'll see that with the Blizzard's MapROM feature the memory access is like nothing else (it copies Kickstart into FastRAM). Another advantage of the Blizzard range is that the new CPU can be temporarily disabled by holding '2' down on bootup for fully compatibility (hold reset for 15 secs to revert).

Argus/Jiffy: IBrowse 2.3 is very slow with javascript but it gets you there (and informs you it's thinking about it!), I too am eagerly awaiting IBrowse2.4. Surfing without an RTG card is dead slow, I think the ChipRAM bottleneck slows downloads, particularly with serial transfers.

humppa: How do you get a GFX card in an A1200 without spending the equivalent of a 1260 on just a new case, busboard and adaptors etc.?

[Hyperspeed]

Well the Blizzard 1230-IV uses a Motorolla MC68030 and the Blizzard 1260 uses a Motorolla XC68060. The latter is at least 5x more powerful (and costs 5x the $$$).

Also, the '060 (as it is abbreviated) has an internal FPU as standard (some economy models lacked it) so with this 'Floating Point Unit' games that use 3D calculations will run a lot faster. The '030 boards had an extra chip which the user could add called the 68881 or 68882 PGA/PLCC FPU (Pin Grip Array or Plastic Leaded Chip Carrier).

A typical Blizzard 1230-IV if I remember would have a 50Mhz FPU installed for just 20 GBP extra. You will notice a speed increase just with FastMem but with the '030 and FPU you will be delighted. The jump in performance isn't noticed as much when you go from '030 to '060 as when you had gone from '020 to '030.

You only notice an '060 board when things get really intensive - like web browsing, 3D games, MP3 and MPEG. Housekeeping on Workbench only gets faster after the '030 when you have a GFX card due to AGA's limits.

I would reccomend Blizzard boards primarily but the craze for them will mean you can pick up bargains if you keep your eyes open!

As for getting a RAM expansion board I'm not sure that is of much use these days. Back when I first got my A1200 I would have killed for 8MB of extra RAM but nowadays there's so much more to be done (better games, better demos, MP3 music etc.) you need extra speed too!


Oh and the 'WARNING!' signature is regarding a problem I had with Analogic 10yrs ago to this month. Never have I encountered such an incompetant, blithering bunch of monkey-men in my entire life. They took 50 bucks for not fixing my A1200 and sent it back to me. When I went down to London to sort the matter out personally, the Manager stares at me with a notepad and takes notes, then tells me "You can't have the cake and eat it!". It took a few months to get the machine back and in the end Wizard Developments/Compute! found and fixed the problem in 3 days.

[Hyperspeed]

Oh, yeah sorry... that's what I mean. The 1260 is 5x faster than the 1230... the 1230 is about 8x faster than the stock A1200.

A1200 - *
B1230 - *********
B1240 - *******************
B1260 - ***************************************

There, that's a sort of graphical depiction to give you some idea why the Blizzard 1260 is so expensive!

:-)

You could probably get an '040+PPC cheaper than a 1260.