New ZorRAM Image

[Karlos]

But think of the possibilities! What could we do with 1gig of ram?

Weed

Not just 1GB of RAM, but 1GB of contiguous RAM (looking at the showconfig shot). If I recall correctly, X-Ray experimented with using Zorro 3 RAM expansions (screenshot in the gallery somewhere), but his memory seemed to be split into separate ranges.

-edit-

See here...

[Piru]

But think of the possibilities! What could we do with 1gig of ram?

Got any ideas?

[countzero]

Got any ideas?

umm yeah, how about a sensible soccer mod with a real size soccer field :laughing:

[Karlos]

Got any ideas?

Well, I could use MIDI In to mix entire tracks (converted to AIFF) :lol:

Just imagine the time it would take to load them all !

[amigakit]

I don't expect any Classic Amiga user to utilise a full 1GB of FastRAM- the example test was just a bit of fun :-)

However, I often use up to 256MB Fast memory on my own A1200 especially when I am using Pagestream, TVPaint, PDF, Ghostscript, and FXScan applications.

A4000 accelerators with memory on-board are very scarce (and expensive on Ebay unfortunately).   Hopefully, ZorRAM will give standard A4000 users a well-priced and readily-available way of adding memory with modern SDRAM technology and warranty/support.  

It designed to be the most cost effective way of adding memory to the A4000 so it need not be constrained to standard 16MB on board memory.

If it has the added benefit that larger, more memory expansive programs are developed for the Classic Amiga, then we will be very happy.

I estimate that access times of Zorro memory would be around the approximate 10Mb/sec rates- but I have not yet run the memspeed test yet.  When I am back in the office on Monday/Tuesday I will run speedtests and post back the exact results.

[Karlos]

I estimate that access times of Zorro memory would be around the approximate 10Mb/sec rates- but I have not yet run the memspeed test yet.  When I am back in the office on Monday/Tuesday I will run speedtests and post back the exact results.

I'd certainly expect the Zorro bus to be the limiting factor, rather than the memory itself.

[amigakit]

Sure, the memory chips are very fast, they will not even break into a sweat when the Amiga is accessing it ;-)

[countzero]

amigakit, just curious, is the 16mb onboard A4000 necessary for anything ? can a A4000 work with just ZorRam ? (just 2 mb chip mem installed on the mobo)

[amigakit]

The initial tests I did were without any onboard memory except 2MB chip mem.

[Piru]

I estimate that access times of Zorro memory would be around the approximate 10Mb/sec rates- but I have not yet run the memspeed test yet.

Hmm so it takes roughly 2 minutes to fill the 1GB memory. That's not very fast ;-)

[Karlos]

Hmm so it takes roughly 2 minutes to fill the 1GB memory. That's not very fast ;-)

The theoretical Z3 bus transfer rate limit is, what ~150MB/s ? Of course, the buster puts the brakes on long before that is reached.

[kolla]

10Mb or 10MB?
Anyways, the CSPPC has UW SCSI with theoretical speed of 40MB/sec, so in principle it can be faster.

[Karlos]

10Mb or 10MB?
Anyways, the CSPPC has UW SCSI with theoretical speed of 40MB/sec, so in principle it can be faster.

Megabytes/second. Z3 is not a serial bus, so quoting figures in Megabits/second would be unusual.

[T3000]

Hmmmm....  More ram = less limitations.
Regadless of speed, even an A4000/VTFlyer with a Warp'40/128 (although myWarpEngine is only sporting 64mgs at the momnent) would benifit greatly from extra added ram even if it's just another 128 megs. Chip ram is of concern when having all the VT programs (Switcher, LW, CG and TPaint) running concurrently.
Will be chucking change into a jar for this board and removing the TBCIV from the A4000 to make room. (TBC will find it's home in an A2000 with a couple of other anolog video cards when capture from VHS tape is needed)

Removal of the FLZIII/64 from my A3000 and replaced with 256mg ZorRAM would put way less strain on the stock A3000 powersupply and greatly increase it's memory space.
Hmmm... another change jar needed for this...

Thumbs up to AmigaKit!

[Piru]

I estimate that access times of Zorro memory would be around the approximate 10Mb/sec rates- but I have not yet run the memspeed test yet.  When I am back in the office on Monday/Tuesday I will run speedtests and post back the exact results.

So how was the speed?

[Crumb]

@Piru

do you know if MorphOS powerUp supports extra ZorroIII ram? It may come handy to run OWB*on my A4000 :-)