A1200 accelerators - how much RAM is really sensible?

[mingle]

Hi,

My upcoming DKB Cobra 030 card can apparently take a 128MB SIMM, which is all fine and dandy, but how much RAM is really worthwhile and useable on an A1200 and would I get any benefit from whacking 128Mb rather than just 16MB?

I know that on an XP/Linux/Mac system, generally the more RAM you throw at it, the better things are, but is 128MB fast RAM on an A1200 overkill?

Cheers,

Mike.

[djbase]

For a default OS and some small apps is even 16MB fine but if you work with your ram disk for extracting files or as temporary drive you can't get enough. I have 256MB ram in my A1200 desktop.

[ZeBeeDee]

I use 64mb in my A1200 mostly as a RAM drive for un-arc'ing files before sending them to the hard drive.

Of course, you don't have to justify the need to use 128mb or above IMHO but it's down to personal taste and possible bragging rights lol

[Retro_71]

I have the same card as you and 32MB is perfect for me, but it all depends what you want to do.

[stefcep2]

I had the same card as you with 16 MB and never ran out of memory.  Sure if you dearchive to ram: a lot then you can even fill 128 mb but seriously how often are you going to do that as opposed to dearchiving to hard drive?

No game will ever need more than 4 mb.

Save your money and buy an FPU instead.  If you want to do some 3d renders you might need more ram to open some big lightwave scenes, but for that sort of stuff you are better off firing up winuae becausee it will be a lot faster to render images than the 030 is.BTW if you do get into renedrtring you will need that FPU, but I just renedr with winaue, save the anim to compact flash and transfer to the A1200 to play it back.

[Rudei]

I ran with 32mb for years, now have two A1200s with 64mb and 128mb on their respective 030 boards.

To be honest though, 32MB was fine.

Rude!

[spirantho]

stefcep2 wrote:
No game will ever need more than 4 mb.

Apart from the games that require more than 4MB, of course. Of which there are quite a few (even on the Amiga). Admittedly not so many will get by on an '030, but even so. If you plan to use WHDLoad at all get as much RAM as possible. If you're going to connect it to the net (my 1200 is connected via a £5 wireless card) you need at least 32MB.

The answer is get the best you can afford. If the 128MB isn't much more than the 64MB option, get that, and knowing the prices of SIMMS it's very possibly not much more.
Don't waste your time on anything less than 32MB - there's no point. Even if you think you know what you need it for now there's no guarantee you won't suddenly feel like doing something crazy.

Also don't bother with an FPU unless you're going to be rendering or doing a lot of image decoding - nothing else will use it.

[Caius]

mingle wrote:

I know that on an XP/Linux/Mac system, generally the more RAM you throw at it, the better things are, but is 128MB fast RAM on an A1200 overkill?

This is generally because these systems use virtual memory, so more physical RAM means less swapping to disk, resulting in more speed. On an Amiga this doesn't make a difference.

Examples of tasks that may make 128MB RAM desirable:
* Editing large 24bit pictures
* Compiling medium->large code projects
* 16bit sound sampling and editing

If you only need ram for having a large, fast temporary storage (ie RAM Disk) then I personally think it's a waste of money.

[orange]

maximum..

[cv643d]

Back in the 90'ies I found out that 4 MB was to little, and 8 MB was perfect for an A1200 AGA setup, nowdays go for 16+ MB.

[ChaosLord]

stefcep2 wrote:

No game will ever need more than 4 mb.

Total Chaos AGA has required 32 MB for many years.

[AmiDreamer]

Hello!
I´d have only 5 years schoolenglish, so i can write only in simple words:
When you need WHD-load is this possible:
On my Blizzard 1230IV where 32Mb. When i play Lords of the
rising sun, whd-load takes 5Mb ram. is there 128Mb, it
takes 13Mb. A difference, but i don´t know why. The games
was playing with 128Mb a LITTLE bit faster, but that was all!

[Rob]

@mingle

If you already have a 16MB simm then stick with that and see if you find yourself running out of memory before splashing out.

[ddniUK]

Always go for the maximum. If you can fit 256mb but settle for 128mb, you will always have a niggling doubt that "an extra 128 would make all the difference". :-)

[McVenco]

mingle wrote:

how much RAM is really worthwhile and useable on an A1200 and would I get any benefit from whacking 128Mb rather than just 16MB?

If you're only playing games and doing some random Workbench stuff then you are pretty much safe with 16MB. But like Caius wrote, if you do a lot of big graphics/audio stuff then you might want to plug in some more.
In my A4000 I have 272MB Fast RAM, which is a complete waste normally, but I already managed to have "just" 70MB free memory left when I had a few audio things running...