ZorRAM performance in A3000

[bbond007]

I've currently got a total of 2MB in my 3000 and looking at buying the ZorRAM expansion until such time can find a suitable accelerator card with it's own memory. I understand this type memory is slower than conventional motherboard Ram because of limitations imposed across the Zorro bus, has anyone got experience with this card, even with just the standard 030@25Mhz in my 3000 will I a notice a performance hit?

I never owned a A3000, but I thought the full 2MB is configured as CHIP RAM? If so, that ram is quite slow as the CPU has to compete with the custom chips, so the ZorRAM expansion would probably help.

I'm not so sure even if the FAST RAM on the MB is that much faster than the ZorRAM... but even if it is, as long as you have the memory priority set correctly, you won't experience any slowdown until you use up that RAM and start using the slower RAM.

I had a A2000 with 32MB 32bit RAM on an PP&S 040 accelerator, and 4MB of 16bit RAM on a GVP 4008 controller card. The controller RAM helped the SCSI do DMA or something(GURU ROM), and I had the priority set so that it did not adversely effect performance...

When I first got the accelerator it had only 8MB of ram, and once I exceeded that and started into the 4MB (on Z-II bus which is worse) the system really did slow down.

[bbond007]

Not to put you off, but Indivision is set to release BigRamPlus this month, a Zorro III 256MB card for 3/4000(T)'s in the $125 range vs ZorRam 256MB in $200 range

I found one source that says:

There are two types of ZIP memory for the Amiga 3000. Static Column and Page Mode, where the first type is faster. Amiga 3000 fast memory can handle as high datatransfers as 30 Mb/sec (http://www.oocities.org/ovegun/Amiga-3000/Motherboard3000.html)

I'm not sure if that's accurate because I thought the A4000 Fast RAM was around 18mb/sec. If so, 12MB/sec can't be that bad and certainly faster than CHIP RAM.

I think the ZorRam is a good idea, but the 256MB one is really overkill... and the 128MB one for $100 is a better deal.  I have 80MB fast ram in my A1200 and I never come anywhere close to using all that. BigRamPlus seems pretty cool. I wonder if it can take a custom kickstart. that would be cool...