A4000 RAM upgrade

[CRL]

Hi All-
I have a fairly stock A4000 desktop, 16 mg fast, 2 mg chip, A3640 cpu card with a Sonnet quaddoubler(50mh)68040 cpu chip.  I recently realized the advantage of running stuff out of ram instead of off the storage disks (duh?).  Now I have a lust for more ram, but no idea of what I should look for.  Any recommendations?  Keep in mind I'm an obvious cheapskate.
Yours
CRL

[X-ray]

Cheapskate plus A4000 RAM upgrade doesn't mix. You can't go backwards from a 68040, so if you get an accelerator with RAM, your cheapest and best bet is going to be a Cyberstorm 060 card. In terms of overal cost vs benefit I would say it is a better option than getting a zorro ram board such as the DKB3128.

In short: if you are interested in RAM and you already have an 040, then you need to get a Phase 5 Cyberstorm MKII or better.

That's my opinion, based on my experience as a former owner of the 68040 card that came with my A4000T, and the current owner of a MKII 060, a PPC/060 card, a DKB3128 card and an 030 card for testing.

[Argus]

The el cheapo way to add a quick 8Mb is to throw an old ZII 8MB memory card in.  I think the best option is to get an old GVP HC+8 card and populate with 8 30-pin 1MB simms.  This will be faster than the old dip-style 100+ns boards such as an 8Up! or Supra board but slower than the motherboard simms:( It also gives you a slow SCSI interface). I recommend  disabling the autoboot jumper on the board or be prepared to wait 3 minutes for the A4000 to boot.  The Dataflyer RAM8 board is another ZII option that takes 30-pin simms, but probably slower than the GVP.

Of course, a real 32-bit accelerator with its own simm slots is the way to go, a Cyberstorm or a WarpEngine, but these are not cheap unless you get real lucky.

[Bazzaq]

Your still lumbered with 2mb chip..  This seems to get munched quick in os 3.9.. I have 2mb chip and 24mb fast.. Is fastmemfirst still about.. Can you get the progs to eat the fast memory instead of the chip.. I tried opening a cd with a ton of files and the chip mem runs out very quick..

[Argus]

There is an option in Prefs that allows you to select 'Use Fastmem first', very helpful if you have a graphics card.  If you are using the native AA display (i.e. Lisa), then your going to be using the chipram for the display.  There was a version of CybergraphX (v.3??) that allowed rtg of the native AA display, presumably to fast ram.  I never tried it myself.

[patrik]

@Bazzaq:

If you are using aga - first start using fblit. Then preference program "Workbench" set "Images in:" to "Other memory" instead of "Graphics memory". If you a fast 030 or even better a 040+ then fblit wont just save chipmem, it will speed up blitter operations quite a bit.

Unfortuntaly I think there is some issue that makes those multi-million fileviews to still take a lot of chipram. Nevertheless - for that I would recommend Dopus4 - a much more convenient way of handling that amount of files and it doesnt drain your memory either.


/Patrik

[Dr_Righteous]

I've got a GVP HC+8 card in my A4k... Works well enough for cheap memory. Alas, there really isn't much in the way of cheap upgrades for this ol' box.

[Brian]

There are a few ways:

1. Zorro Memorycard. Pros/Cons: 8Mb cards are easy to get and doesn't cost much but is just that... 8Mb, getting a 128 or 256Mb (DKB3128 / FastLaneZ3) card though is both hard and expencive and that said any Zorro memory will be even slower than the one existing on the motherboard... and it takes up one of you're precious Zorroslots that can be put to better use.

2. X-Calibur addon for 3640. Pros/Cons: Allows for 128Mb memory and will speed up your computer quite a bit. Belive it's even compatible with the quaddobler you got. The problem however is that it's addons on addons on addons and more places to fail... And this card is virtually impossible to find so prise will be high if you do.

3. A CPU card witch takes memory. Pros/Cons: Usually allows for 128Mb memory and will speed things up, especialy if you go for a 060 card. Might not be the cheapest option but is by far the best one.

[motrucker]

Everyone here is right - no such thing as a "cheapskate" A4000 user! The DKB 3128 with 128Mb of RAM is the cheapest way out, and an excellent solution.

[Effy]

I´ve seen such a DKB3128 being sold for over 180 USD ... not really so cheap for a Ram board. For a few dollars more you might even get a Cyberstorm with 128 Mb !!!

[CRL]

Thanks for the advice!
  I have FBlit and some other free and commercial (oxypatcher) speed-ups on my old A4000, and with the sonnet I clock out close to a vanilla '060 system according to AIBB.  If I splash out big $$ on this 'obsolete' system it will be to put a Dragon in my A1200, and retire the A4000.  Running the old hardware is a nostagia trip, but some of the old software has advantages for me.  I work in a "Laptop University", and the continual churning of patches and bug fixes and updates and 'improvements' means that I spend most of my computer time just trying figure out how to do this year what I learned to do last year.  Reasonably good software that is frozen in time allows one to go on to more and more sophisticated usages without devoting ones whole life to the effort.
Thanks again-
CRL

[X-ray]

I agree with Effy: forget the DKB. Try for a Cyberstorm (it is available at least).