Amithlon cpu speeds and emulator for games?

[fishy_fiz]

If youre planning to use 68k amiga emulators inside amithlon then the more power the better. 68k uae for example I was never 100% happy with until I upgraded my amithlon box to a 3ghz core2duo. The athlon64 3400+ I used before than was good too, but I was left wanting when it comes to uae for aga and fpse (playstation emulator). I guess it also depends on how fussy a person is. If a person is happy to skip a frame or disable sound, etc. then you can get away with less, but if u want a system that deals with everything thrown at it flawlessly then a c2d at around 3ghz or higher is what you'll want.
This said though even with the a64 3400+ I could get 60+ fps at 1024x768 in quake2 (ironically muuuch faster than native on os4 even when os4 is using h/w acceleration), could watch dvd quality rips full speed full framerate, play any game mame will run, etc, etc. The only things that made me want to upgrade beyond that where HD video, uae for aga games, and fpse (playstation emu). Oh, and on the UAE topic, I highly recommend using euaeload as it makes it as simple as double clicking an icon to run any hardware hitting software (be it floppy based, whdload, or anything else installed to harddrive).

Coincidently enough my interest in amithlon has been renewed the last week or so, so Im currently in the process of setting it back up as well. Feel free to ask me for any info, etc. if you want/need it

[fishy_fiz]

@XDelusion

Hehe, that's definately part of it, but really I just think amithlon rocks

[fishy_fiz]

For the record I *ONLY* ever used fully supported hadware with amithlon boxes. To not do so hurts more than gfx performance (vesa modes eat into cpu resources, its quite horrible). A c2d@3ghz-ish *IS* required for a flawless aga experience under 68k uae on amithlon. You can get away a lot less using only 68000/ocs/ecs software, but its not a case of perception,... you absolutely need the 3ghz c2d to have a flawless aga experience.
One word of warning though, ne careful who you listen to when it comes to amithlon,... lot of people who dont even understand it o know it seem to offer advice, which is mostly wrong. A Voodoo3 is for example a terrible choice. It's simply not supported properly. Anything Nvidia up to gf5xxx (although gf5xxxx is iffy, safer bet to use a gf4ti or gf3 based card, or a matro g100,g200,g400,g450,g550 card. The Matrox cards are also the only cards that support multiple monitors off one card in Amithlon as well.

As for Winuae vs Amithlon, theyre different beasts, but typically the heavier the load, the more Amithlon shines. In heavy situations amithlon can be up to 2x as fast. Winuae needs to do many, many more reads and writes due to lack of direct hardware access. This is only with 68k too, the fact amithlon can run x86 native amiga software is another bonus (there's an x86 native uae for amithlon out there too somewhere which is obviously somewhat faster than the 68k version). The more involved the software being run, the more Winuae can suffer in comparison.

[fishy_fiz]

Each to thier own and whatnot, but for a cheap Amithlon machine you cant go wrong with a socket775 mobo using ich7/8/9 (p35/p45/g31/g33/some g41) + a cheap core2duo. Im using a e5300 in my amithlon box (clocked at 3.86ghz (up from 2.6ghz, on standard cooling)). Ive yet to see an e5xxx cpu that didnt at least clock to use a 266mhz bus (up from 200) (basically add 1/3rd clock speed as a guarantee, usually more). Mine does go higher, but beyond 3.86ghz it starts to add a few extra degrees. Great value for money, and to my knowledge the only semi recent machines that have been properly tested.

As for network cards, off the top of my head:
ne2k compatible (rtl8029 is common), rtl8139 (via openpci), and some 3com cards (I cant be more specific here sorry) are the cards Ive used. Sound wise its a little limited, but ac97 that utilises via 686a/b chipset combo, sb128, and sblive are the most common options.

Again, feel free to ask for any more info or help if you need/want it.

[fishy_fiz]

It definately can be a little more difficult than the options youve mentioned, but well worth the effort in my opinion. A little ebaying though and it's easy enough to get a fully supported system running. TnT card, gf2 card, gf4 cards (avoid gf4mx cards though for amithlon) are a dime a dozen. Matrox cards are quite easy to get ahold of too. SB Live is easy to get ahold of, as are rtl8029 or rtl8139 cards. Add $60 for a mobo and another $60 for a cpu (new) and youre laughing  

The main "trick" I guess can be in getting it up and running. To use some of the more recent hardware you're likely to need either kernel3.1 or 4, which can be awkward sometimes if you dont have a machine that will boot from the cd. Thats something to bare in mind too I guess,.... just because a machine doesnt boot off the cd doesnt mean it wont work nicely.

If you're interested I can elaborate on some of this stuff for you. It's not actually all that complicated once youve dealt with it a few times, but I must admit can seem a little daunting when 1st going through it.

[fishy_fiz]

Yeah, my curiosity was piqued when I heard Amithlon and AMD 1800 in the same sentence, as I have a box of that power (or lack thereof) handy, and would consider playing...
But if it's not worth it, personally I'm not at the "spend money" stage for that project.
All my hobby money is going into my classic Amiga's currently (mostly the 1000 recently)..
(well, that and my Vectrex a bit..  Don't tell the Amigas, they get jealous.. :confused: )

desiv

If you have a classic already and running 68k version of UAE isnt important to you then amithlon will work very nicely on that machine (assuming you have supported video/sound/nic). While Ive been talking about needing higher spec gear, etc. Im talking from a perspective of wanting everything you can throw at it to run nicely (full speed aga through 68k uae, HD video and and fpse being the main culprits for my want or something more powerful). An Athlon 1800+ will run very, very nicely for most things. If you have even half an inclination, and are able, it cant hurt to give it a go, it really is very much like a very fast rtg based 68k amiga system

With the system youve mentioned you'll be able to play 68k quake 1 and 2 at high framerates, descent freespace, napalm, run up to and beyond mk2/3 in mame, run sd videos nicely, mp3s, lightwave, etc. will fly and so on.

Yes, this can be done with Winuae also, but assuming you have an "amithlon friendly" system it's a more pleasant experience with Amithlon (and not just because of speed advantage).

It's a shame it was killed off in the way it was, it really is a great product.

[fishy_fiz]

@XDelusion

Nah, voodoo based cards arent great choices for amithlon. The only exception I guess being if a person does the "hack" to get elbox drivers working (in which case in theory you might get 3d hardware acceleration). Personally Ive never had the software to even try(I dont have the elbox drivers), but I dont know of anyone who's had success (apart from one of the authors, who unless it's an urban myth has shown it running using 3d acceleration). There's some docs in the uae-jit (and inherritantly euae) that I suspect is somethng like the procedure needed to be followed (also works with uae on linux too, and in fact the docs target that in the description).

Anyway, that's possibly confusing the matter, just assume for now that any voodoo 1/2(including bashee)/3/4/5/6 cards only support VESA modes with Amithlon, which really cripples the experience.

[fishy_fiz]

Oh, and contrary to what has been advised here by dreamcast270MHZ,. Do *NOT* buy a radeon9250 for use with amithlon. Much like a voodoo3, it'll work, but it doesnt have full support (better than voodoo3 at least).

http://web.onetel.net.uk/~garycvl/amithlon/hardware.htm

There's a couple of omissions, but that's basically the supported hardware. Core Logic chipsets are the main omission there.

[fishy_fiz]

Err,... no offense bloke, but youre talking nonsense. Wazp3d is simply a software implementation of warp3d. In no way, shape or form does it add speed, but rather simply give the user a software rendering option, and its quite slow (albiet the only option for warp3d on amithlon). Thankfully there's very little software that uses it as software (non w3d) renderers are available. Wazp3d will be a multitude of times slower than a normal software renderer. Quake1 for example drops from about 180FPS @640x480 using normal software renderer to about 40 using wazp3d. It does look a little nicer though.

As for the list of hardware, its up to and including kernel310, which has only just recently been superceeded and the new kernel offers next to no additional hardware support anyway and definately not graphics hardware.

[fishy_fiz]

Each to thier own and whatnot, but limited hardware support is just something amiga users have to deal with. Its not like amithlon has less hardware support than either mos or os4.x (in fact amithlons support is probaby better than either of those 2).
Winuae is easier to get going, but amithlon is far superior and a heck of a lot more authentic (both in feeling and how it behaves).