Towerizing an amiga 2000 motherboard?

[Damion]

I'm not sure I understand why the video would be too slow if I got a zorro rtg card and an accellerator, wouldn't the video with a rtg card like picasso be as fast an on
an a3000 or a4000?

At least here Z2 and Z3 are about equal until the screenmode is greater than 1024x768x16. It's true there's a _lot_ less bandwidth with Zorro 2, so it might depend on how well your accelerator and other cards utilize it. With an '060, SCSI2, and good graphics card, it's not going to feel any different than a similarly equipped Z3 machine, *unless* you pick a large 24/32-bit screenmode (in which case the Z3 computer will simply feel "less slow").

Thanks for warning me about the video speed issue, can anyone else confirm this?

I can say I've ran a lot of benchmarks (including quake) on my A2K and A3K, and found little difference. Games and demos using low-res rtg screens are going to perform the same.

[save2600]

You could probably get a complete A2000 for about £150

$250?!? For a complete A2000 setup? Holy moley are currencies and supply totally different between these two countries. In the States, we can pick up A2000's all day long for about $50. Then add accelerator, graphics, ram , etc. cards to that...

[save2600]

This site:  http://amigamaniac.com/atx_to_amiga.html  says you can flip a jumper on the mobo to source the tick elsewhere...

- t

Are you guys referring to the "tick" signal as the PAL/NTSC or 50hz/60hz jumper on the board? Yeah, that's a tough one alright... lol   Don't want to forget which mode Agnus starts up in... lmao

[cv643d]

I ran my A2000, 030 25MHz with a Picasso2 at 800x600, with 16-colors and for example Personal Paint was incredible sluggish. Forget 1024x768 at 16bit or more on a Z2 bus unless you have not experienced Z3 and Z3 graphics.

Zorro 2 bus i slower than Zorro 3, I tried a CV643d on the Z2 buss also with a 040 CPU and that experience was horrible IMHO, ok so I ran a nice background image on the workbench then but when I moved windows around you it left empty spaces on the wallpapers and then slowly filled them up with the BG-image.

My A1200 with 060 and Indivision running HighGFX package giving 1024x768 resolution feels faster in 16 colors than the A2000 with 030 and proper GFX-board at the same resolution/color.

[playgeneration]

$250?!? For a complete A2000 setup? Holy moley are currencies and supply totally different between these two countries. In the States, we can pick up A2000's all day long for about $50. Then add accelerator, graphics, ram , etc. cards to that...

 
The 2000 didn't sell that well in the UK, where the 500 and 1200 were king. The 2000 is far more common in the US, and in Germany too - where apparantly it sold way more than the 1200.
So even a totally standard not great condition 2000 will fetch over £50 in the UK

[tone007]

ZIII really is faster, though ZII is definitely usable, way better performance than native ECS/AGA, comparing systems with roughly equal processor power.

[Damion]

Zorro 2 bus i slower than Zorro 3, I tried a CV643d on the Z2 buss also with a 040 CPU and that experience was horrible IMHO, ok so I ran a nice background image on the workbench then but when I moved windows around you it left empty spaces on the wallpapers and then slowly filled them up with the BG-image.

My A1200 with 060 and Indivision running HighGFX package giving 1024x768 resolution feels faster in 16 colors than the A2000 with 030 and proper GFX-board at the same resolution/color.

There had to be something wrong. Yes Z2 is obviously a slower bus, but not until the available bandwidth has been saturated, which doesn't happen in general use. Later I'll post a few P96Speed comparison benchmarks, showing that 1024x768x16 is just as fast on my A2000 as it is on my A3000. (There's no slow redrawing or sluggish performance.) I use large 1024x768 jpeg backdrops, they load and pop on the screen instantaneously, no visible drawing.

There are benefits to Z3... it had DMA capability and greater bandwidth, but it's simply not true that a Z2 machine is automatically "slower" in general use, unless there's a hardware or software problem.

[save2600]

There are benefits to Z3... it had DMA capability and greater bandwidth, but it's simply not true that a Z2 machine is automatically "slower" in general use, unless there's a hardware or software problem.

I agree with Damion. I've used a CV64/3D in both my A2000 & an A4000 with no noticeable difference in draws, window manipulation and all around Workbench use. I think the ZII bus is unduly getting slammed here! lol

[Damion]

OK, dug some benchmarks out...

Relevant info:

A2000/TekMagic@50MHz/Picasso IV
A3000/CSMKII@50MHz--/Picasso IV

Same hard drive (CF card) swapped between both machines to eliminate software issues.

800x600x16

1024x768x16

Overall, they're very close. (Yes, the A3000 is slightly faster. ) I have a feeling that 1024x768x24 would start showing a larger gap, as that's when the Z2 machine begins feeling slower.

My A1200 with 060 and Indivision running HighGFX package giving 1024x768 resolution feels faster in 16 colors than the A2000 with 030 and proper GFX-board at the same resolution/color.

You might be right, but both feel terribly slow IMHO. I did a P96Speed run on the A1200 though for fun...

The contenders:

A1200/060@80MHz/320x256x4 (16 colors)
A2000/060@50MHz/1024x768x16 (65535 colors)

The A1200 has everything going for it, FBlit, BlazeWCP, Piru's exec/blizkick patches, etc, etc... not to mention 30MHz clock advantage and much smaller (pal low-res) screenmode.

AGA vs PIV/Z2

Also ran a Quake timedemo on each:

A1200/80MHz/320x200 - 12.92 FPS
A2000/64MHz/320x200 - 12.42 FPS

Difference between Z2 and Z3 at the same clock is less than 1 FPS.

Accelerator and gfx card choice probably plays a role here. With the A2000, writes to the PIV reach very close to the theoretical limit of Z2 (sez bustest), which helps. Other hardware combinations might not make as efficient use of the limited bandwidth, making the system seem sluggish. (Pure conjecture on my part!)

No difference in feel between the two Zorro systems though, and I ran them side-by-side for a while playing games, demos, running benchmarks, and just general things like IBrowse. (These aren't mine, but you can see a few vids of an accelerated A2K doing various things here. Definitely doesn't look slow!) The A3000 ended up back in the closet for the time being... the Z2/Z3 thing was having litttle impact, SCSI on the TekMagic is *much* better than A3K built-in (sadly the MK2 SCSI-module doesn't fit in the A3K case), plus the A2000 is easier to keep quiet, cool, and fit expansions.

But I'm rambling OT..

[haywirepc]

Thanks guys at least now I know if I do happen to hobble together enough parts, it should work out nicely for me. I'm going to work on the case next week when I have more time.
 
As far as all the other parts I'll need...
I'm broke and this may take some time, but I have a dedicated emulation pc in the meantime for now thats working out very well. I love it more than any windows pc I ever had, thats for sure. Thanks for everyone's thoughts about this issue.
 
BTW Damien, I never met anyone with so many 68060's Sheesh, I'm drooling just thinking about all that acceleration on every machine you apparently have.
 
Steven

[save2600]

Thanks for taking the time to fiddle around and produce such a nice comparison Damion!

[Damion]

Just a quick update.

Although the p96speed results from the Z2 and Z3 machines were similar overall, there were two areas were the A3000 tested twice as fast.

BlitBitMap()

and

BlitBitMapRastPort()

687 and 674, vs 378 and 375 on the A2000.

This turns out to be a bug in either p96 or p96speed, and has nothing to do with the Zorro bus. If you start with any resolution other than 1024x786, start p96speed and select the 1024x768x16 screenmode, the results are much different:

BlitBitMap() - 5660
BlitBitMapRastPort() - 5256

A huge increase. No other tests are affected, or other screenmodes (at least up to 1024x768, didn't test higher).

So, the big question:

How else can I test the above blitting operations, to narrow down where the bug might be?

*edit*

Looks like a bug in P96, it can be cured by booting in something other than 1024x768 and switching screenmodes a few times... (weird!!)

[pulppure]

If I only had the motherboard and little money ~35$ : I would find a thin metal case (i.e: an recycled audio one = 0$, or from a server) or make a wooden one (recycled 0$), stick a small atx psu recycled from old servers (5$), two disk drives (30$), and I would be able to play games, use deluxe paint and protracker; on the thinnest amiga 2000 ever, I would call it "Amiga 2000 AIR".

If you want to go the highend route I can only recommend getting a 4000. At least you can play aga games and demos and there are some that can benefit from the 060. The only trouble is that they are hard to find without leaked batteries, they also have the bad caps problems. Whereas I got two amiga 2000 and removing the battery was easy and there was no damage at all. Amiga 2000 are simply more solid.

I had a friend who had an Amiga 2000, with 060, lots of ram, scsi drives, picasso II, it was fine for DTP, or photo editing, small 3D projects under lightwave or imagine, but we couldn't play avi or quicktime well : poor framerate. But it was in 1998 and now nobody cares about avi or quicktime and you find small divx players that can read from a sd card for 30 euros

Three years ago I could have bought a 040 amiga 2000 in a huge tower (the original 2000 chassis was fitted inside) with picasso IV and scsi for only 140 euros but I didn't see the point in having an enormous heavy amiga workstation when I had a pc which could do much more under winuae. Unless you're into video toaster, I think it's the only good reason you would want such a config, the rest is just nostalgia.

[edit: well after some more thinking, having myself two bare 2000's, I can see why one would like to upgrade a 2000, if you like the big case or if you like starting from something really bare and upgrade it, plus you could learn a lot that way, although the result would not be the most powerful, the cheaper, or the easier to do, it could be cool in its own way. After all , that's why we use amigas don't we ?]

[pyrre]

Agreed, towering will be a futile exercise in frustration.

Yes, there is a good reason to towerise your amiga 2000.
Get more 5/25 front slots.

And there were made a few 2000 tower cases.
sadly are they a rare find today.
Id be very happy for 2K tower....

[salax54]

Wow! Talk about old threads! Been through that stuff about the same period when this thread started. Since pictures are worth a thousand words, for whomever cares, you can view my old project here: https://www.amigahellas.gr/showthread.php?5260-Die-Griechische-Panzer-tower-!-(%CE%BA%CE%BF%CE%B9%CE%BD%CF%8E%CF%82-%CE%912000-GRT)
I know it's all Greek to you, but i believe pix are worth it..