Amithlon cpu speeds and emulator for games?

[haywirepc]

Can someone with an amithlon machine tell me, what cpu speed do you suggest as the lowest really workable solution for an amithlon machine if it will also be used to play games through emulation?
 
As I understand, amithlon screams running system friendly apps, but while thats great, I may also want to run games through the emulator.
 
In my experience with windows and linux, some more demanding amiga games did not run well on 1.5ghz and 2.0ghz machines. on 2.4 or 3.0ghz machines, all seemed fine.
 
I am wondering if amithlon can get away with a 1.5 or 1.8ghz processor speed. Anyone who has some experience with using amithlon and running emulator for the more demanding games, could you please chime in with your thoughts on this?

I suppose alot of this depends on your settings as well, so any thoughts on tweaking an older amithlon based machine for max performance so games won't be choppy would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Steven

[kzin]

I had it running sweet on an Athlon XP 1800+ system with 68k UAE for games, it did not seem to have any problems. just make sure you get a supported GFX card, some work but dont support hardware acceleration correctly.

Even the realy old CPUs & mother boards will leave a real amiga for dead. the 1800+ was equivalent to a 1900Mhz 040

[fishy_fiz]

If youre planning to use 68k amiga emulators inside amithlon then the more power the better. 68k uae for example I was never 100% happy with until I upgraded my amithlon box to a 3ghz core2duo. The athlon64 3400+ I used before than was good too, but I was left wanting when it comes to uae for aga and fpse (playstation emulator). I guess it also depends on how fussy a person is. If a person is happy to skip a frame or disable sound, etc. then you can get away with less, but if u want a system that deals with everything thrown at it flawlessly then a c2d at around 3ghz or higher is what you'll want.
This said though even with the a64 3400+ I could get 60+ fps at 1024x768 in quake2 (ironically muuuch faster than native on os4 even when os4 is using h/w acceleration), could watch dvd quality rips full speed full framerate, play any game mame will run, etc, etc. The only things that made me want to upgrade beyond that where HD video, uae for aga games, and fpse (playstation emu). Oh, and on the UAE topic, I highly recommend using euaeload as it makes it as simple as double clicking an icon to run any hardware hitting software (be it floppy based, whdload, or anything else installed to harddrive).

Coincidently enough my interest in amithlon has been renewed the last week or so, so Im currently in the process of setting it back up as well. Feel free to ask me for any info, etc. if you want/need it

[XDelusion]

Fishy: So are we setting up a box for development per chance?

[fishy_fiz]

@XDelusion

Hehe, that's definately part of it, but really I just think amithlon rocks

[desiv]

I had it running sweet on an Athlon XP 1800+ system with 68k UAE for games, it did not seem to have any problems.

and...

68k uae for example I was never 100% happy with until I upgraded my amithlon box to a 3ghz core2duo.

So, is this just perception or ?
That's a rather larger chasm there....

desiv

[haywirepc]

Yes I was thinking the same thing myself. I do suppose alot has to do with having a supported accellerated graphics card.
 
Can anyone suggest an easy to find on ebay graphics card that amithlon fully supports?
 
Steven

[dreamcast270mhz]

Voodoo 3, and I have your network card you need.

[nicholas]

Yes I was thinking the same thing myself. I do suppose alot has to do with having a supported accellerated graphics card.
 
Can anyone suggest an easy to find on ebay graphics card that amithlon fully supports?
 
Steven

Geforce 2.

[haywirepc]

Dreamcast sounds great, find a supported video card on ebay, I'll send you a paypal for it. The system is bound to run better with a fast supported video card.
 
Steven

[LaserBack]

amithlon is faster than winuae but not very faster...I calculate 1.2x speed on idem computer
to play amiga games that uses custom chips is much better and faster winuae than amithlon + uae 68k
so I prefer winuae all my life...does not need specific hardware and works better

[dreamcast270mhz]

In my experience, the speed increase for non-game applications is far better and the lack of Microshaft overhead makes for a nicer experience. Until I get another Amiga, I'm making myself an AMD machine with Amithlon I can use for tinkering and boredom, and maybe development, if I can find some good tutorials for 68k assembly and C coding on the Amiga, then maybe I can try my hand at porting some applications for use on classic amiga, Amithlon and MorphOS as I alread have a MOS machine.

[fishy_fiz]

For the record I *ONLY* ever used fully supported hadware with amithlon boxes. To not do so hurts more than gfx performance (vesa modes eat into cpu resources, its quite horrible). A c2d@3ghz-ish *IS* required for a flawless aga experience under 68k uae on amithlon. You can get away a lot less using only 68000/ocs/ecs software, but its not a case of perception,... you absolutely need the 3ghz c2d to have a flawless aga experience.
One word of warning though, ne careful who you listen to when it comes to amithlon,... lot of people who dont even understand it o know it seem to offer advice, which is mostly wrong. A Voodoo3 is for example a terrible choice. It's simply not supported properly. Anything Nvidia up to gf5xxx (although gf5xxxx is iffy, safer bet to use a gf4ti or gf3 based card, or a matro g100,g200,g400,g450,g550 card. The Matrox cards are also the only cards that support multiple monitors off one card in Amithlon as well.

As for Winuae vs Amithlon, theyre different beasts, but typically the heavier the load, the more Amithlon shines. In heavy situations amithlon can be up to 2x as fast. Winuae needs to do many, many more reads and writes due to lack of direct hardware access. This is only with 68k too, the fact amithlon can run x86 native amiga software is another bonus (there's an x86 native uae for amithlon out there too somewhere which is obviously somewhat faster than the 68k version). The more involved the software being run, the more Winuae can suffer in comparison.

[haywirepc]

Thanks Fishy, lots to think about in building or buying a pre-assembled amithlon machine. I think I agree with you that 3ghz should be the bottom end. Anything less I think aga games will not be a pleasant experience.
 
I don't want to sink money into a machine only to have to upgrade to a faster cpu later because it won't quite run well for all amiga classic software.
 
Maybe its better to just go 3ghz+ from the start and avoid problems.
If you use a supported network, video and sound card with that, I think you'll have a much more pleasant experience using it.
 
Steven

[fishy_fiz]

Each to thier own and whatnot, but for a cheap Amithlon machine you cant go wrong with a socket775 mobo using ich7/8/9 (p35/p45/g31/g33/some g41) + a cheap core2duo. Im using a e5300 in my amithlon box (clocked at 3.86ghz (up from 2.6ghz, on standard cooling)). Ive yet to see an e5xxx cpu that didnt at least clock to use a 266mhz bus (up from 200) (basically add 1/3rd clock speed as a guarantee, usually more). Mine does go higher, but beyond 3.86ghz it starts to add a few extra degrees. Great value for money, and to my knowledge the only semi recent machines that have been properly tested.

As for network cards, off the top of my head:
ne2k compatible (rtl8029 is common), rtl8139 (via openpci), and some 3com cards (I cant be more specific here sorry) are the cards Ive used. Sound wise its a little limited, but ac97 that utilises via 686a/b chipset combo, sb128, and sblive are the most common options.

Again, feel free to ask for any more info or help if you need/want it.