a1200 highest OS level 030 blizz accel

[darkage]

So now I have a a1200.  I got myself a blizzard 030 IV about 1 year previously and had been waiting for a good deal on a ami system.  


So given I have a Blizzard 030 as described above, whats the highest practical OS level (patched)

Should I aim for 3.9?  or a bit lower..  

I do plan on getting to get max 128m ram but that could take some time.. think I have a spare 12 or 32meg simm at home.,

[fishy_fiz]

Personally I'd stick to os3.1 for an '030. There's no real advantage in using 3.5 or 3.9 anyway apart from less work to build up a nice system. OS3.9 is significantly slower, to a point that it's really only an option for '060 users, and even then I wouldnt use it. I do like OS3.9, but apart from Amithlon or variants of x86 UAE (ie. jit cpu emulation) it's just too slow (for no apparent reason). This isnt to say it's unusable, but when resources are limited like they are on 680x0 machines it simply eats into resources too much. OS3.5 is somewhere inbetween.

[kolla]

And again I'm flabbergasted by the fact that people find it quite all right to pimp up OS3.1 with third party patches and whatnot, but are uncapable of setting up OS3.9 to fit their systems. I have yet to experience OS3.9 as any slower than OS3.1, as far as I can tell, they are more or less identical in terms of speed.

At the end of the day, what matters is what you want to _do_ with your amiga. If all you really need is WHDload, then OS 3.1 is plenty fine. If you on the other hand use the system, spend alot of time with CLI, rexx, want to use big drives etc. then OS 3.9 is the answer.

[kolla]

And again I'm flabbergasted by the fact that people find it quite all right to pimp up OS3.1 with third party patches and whatnot, but are uncapable of setting up OS3.9 to fit their systems. I have yet to experience OS3.9 as any slower than OS3.1, as far as I can tell, they are more or less identical in terms of speed.

At the end of the day, what matters is what you want to _do_ with your amiga. If all you really want is to run games, then OS 3.1 is plenty fine. If you on the other hand use the system, spend alot of time with CLI, rexx, intend to use big drives etc. then OS 3.9 is better. Allthough you might want to replace picture.datatype, which in OS3.9 is a m68k/powerpc "fat" binary. I've used http://aminet.net/package/util/dtype/PictDT42 without any major issues.

[Khephren]

I agree. Yes a pimped out 3.1 is not to different to 3.9 generally. But the 3.1 will be patched to buggery, and in my experience will fall over a lot.

I use 3.9 on my 030/50 A1200. It runs well, but you will still have to run a few patches to get the best performance out of it Fblit, Ftext etc).

[Daedalus]

I'll agree with Kolla here - I use 3.9 on an 030/50 and an 060/66. Naturally the 060 is faster, but the 030 machine holds its own, and doesn't feel any slower to use than when it had 3.0 on it. It takes longer to boot and takes up more memory, but that's due to extra stuff like Amidock loading at the start. And let's face it, you're probably not going to leave your 3.0/3.1 installation bare...

[Damion]

It's really what you're used to doing I suppose, but I prefer installing and tweaking 3.9, and a small partition with bare 3.1 for test. Recently, I installed an '030 card in my desktop 1200 for test (it's normally fitted with an 80MHz Apollo 1260), and I was amazed at the lack of slowdown in 3.9 compared to the '060 - no problem here with speed. My bare 3.1 install boots maybe a second or so faster.

[fishy_fiz]

We'll have to agree to disagree here I guess. Even on my old a1200+bppc (25mhz 040/175mhz 603e)+grex1200+voodoo3+sb128+256meg fast system I opted for os3.1 rather than os3.5/3.9 due to (lack of) speed with the latters.

[Khephren]

whatever you have the most fun with, is the one that's right
Still run the same software whichever you choose.

[stefcep2]

Sorry Kolla but I disagree: 3.9 is slower than 3.1. The glowicons system takes its toll I suspect, 3.1 just feels snappier with drawing menus, icons and windows.

BTW I now run a bog standard 4 color icon 3.1 WB and it flies, no longer see the point of eye candy.

[spirantho]

OS 3.9 is just as fast as OS 3.1 as long as you disable the bits that require a fast processor (weird that).

I'm running OS 3.9 on my A1500 with an '030/50 in it and I certainly don't find myself with any desire to downgrade. Far from it, given the stuff 3.9 helps with.

[golem]

OS3.9 is good if you are lazy and don't have the time to spend configuring your installation to get a nice GUI. These days it infuriates me having to rebuild an Amiga by loading on 3.1 with floppies, finding the right monitor driver so it displays, CPU libraries...endless. I no longer have the patience it seems

[rvo_nl]

I dont think your choice should depend on your CPU speed. If anything matters, it must be adding a graphics card to your system. Unfortunately, you dont have much to choose from. I would almost say OS3.9 should be just as fast as OS3.1 when you select a graphics mode that suits your machine. And that also means you dont need fancy icons and solid window dragging if you dont have a graphics card. if you turn all that off, OS3.9 is for sure the better OS. A tweaked OS3.9 really is a great 'little' OS, something I even prefer over OS4.

[Khephren]

Sorry Kolla but I disagree: 3.9 is slower than 3.1. The glowicons system takes its toll I suspect, 3.1 just feels snappier with drawing menus, icons and windows.

BTW I now run a bog standard 4 color icon 3.1 WB and it flies, no longer see the point of eye candy.

It will be faster, but with an ugly workbench. I might be wrong, but I think darkage wants a patched OS probably with somesort of icon upgrade.

[darkage]

It will be faster, but with an ugly workbench. I might be wrong, but I think darkage wants a patched OS probably with somesort of icon upgrade.

Well I never really ever been exposed to anything above WB 1.3.

I did try to setup a custom 3.1 WB in UAE from scratch.  Had to go through the process a few times to get it right and in the end I wondered off onto something else.. Think I was in China and the electronics markets overtook what I was doing before..

So now I have 2x A1200's.  I think its wise for me to setup 2 test beds one for 3.1 and one for 3.9  to see for myself..

I didnt expect this much discussion.  It seems to be a valid to have the experience myself.

Yes I would prefer a prettier OS due to all these years with a bland WB 1.3

Was curious if with my accelerator 030/50 if I was wasting my time with something as high as 3.9 but seems like its worth wild after all this discussion