Advice on best A1200 accelerator

[Snoozy]

Hi ppl, i would value ur advice on recommending an accelerator card for my a1200 that i have recently revived. I have purchased a 4gb hard drive card and installed this but my a1200 needs more memory...so bought a 2mb SRam card to install in the pcmcia slot (not received it yet) but i don't think this will be enough for games over 4-5 disks (eg Conquest Camelot or Monkey Island etc)
 
So i hope this question hasn't been asked many times b4 but what sort of card should i be looking at? 8mb minimum? How do i strike a balance between good value for money and decent working with Whdload? I don't need a super duper mega card!
 
Is a budget of £50-£80 realistic? There's not much on ebay at the moment but there are a couple of cards..:confused:
 
Thanks for any help you can give me :afro: wow i'm glad my hair isn't as big as this - i'll keep it spikey :roflmao:

[mousehouse]

The AC1230 is nice (and new) and double your budget... supposedly Vesalia has 2 left: http://www.vesalia.de/e_aca1230-56.htm

My guess is for some gaming basically any 030 based accelerator with 4-8MB would be great for running WHDload etc.

[runequester]

With patience an 030/25 with 8 megs of RAM can probably be had pretty cheap, and that should be plenty for your needs, though I'd look into getting one of the ACA cards. Its a bit more, but they are extremely nice.

[desiv]

If ALL you want to do is play WHDLOAD games, then 95+% would be happy with 8M RAM.  Really, even 4M would probably do it..
(With my 8M card, I had it toggled to 4M for PCMCIA compatibility and I can't remember a game I needed to toggle back to 8M for...)

Now, if you want performance in 3D FPS games (and some others), then you'll want an accelerator.
I have an ACA1230/28 which I think is fine for 3D FPS, but a lot of people might disagree.  ;-)  
If you want to run things like ScummVM AGA, you'll want at least a 50Mhz 030...

All of those get spendier tho, as you know..

The best value currently is, as has been mentioned, the ACA1230's, which are new and have GOBS of memory.  ;-)

desiv

[runequester]

The ACA's also benefit from faster memory, or so I seem to recall.
I was shocked that on my 030/56, AB3D2 was completely playable.

[fitzsteve]

IMHO the Blizzard 1230MkIV is the best 'all round' A1200 Accelerator, It has 50mhz 030 and optional FPU.  It can take up to 128mb and you can add FastSCSI II which can take another 128mb Ram!

The ACA's are a good choice too, they can Map a Rom from an image (so if you only have 3.0 Rom you can have 3.1 without buying it)  Or you can map your own Custom 3.9Rom with updated modules.

Of course, it's new with waranty but bear in mind there is no FPU and you cannot upgrade the Ram or add SCSI, although to be fair 64mb is pobably more than you'll ever need.

Also, the ACA's can bring out timing issues in some A1200's, so you might end up needing to fix the Motherboard.

There are many, many more options to suit all budgets so you can always ask here if you see something you like before taking the plunge.

All the best,

Steve.

[nicholas]

I've got a 50MHz Blizzard 060 card for sale.

[Snoozy]

Wow sheesh guys thanks for all your help I realise now when i was using my a1200 in the early to mid 90's i was a "software boy" only wit no real knowledge of the hardware capabilities.
 
I really don't look forward to fitting it cos i know if i get it wrong i could kill the card. I've looked in the trap door and found what i think is the male connectors? hmmm :angry:
 
how much ram is ur card capable of taking nicholas?

[runequester]

Wow sheesh guys thanks for all your help I realise now when i was using my a1200 in the early to mid 90's i was a "software boy" only wit no real knowledge of the hardware capabilities.
 
I really don't look forward to fitting it cos i know if i get it wrong i could kill the card. I've looked in the trap door and found what i think is the male connectors? hmmm :angry:
 
how much ram is ur card capable of taking nicholas?

Dont worry, I was in the same boat when I re-acquired an amiga

Fitting an accelerator card is quite safe. It really will only fit one way.
Changing kickstart ROM's was a bit hair raising for me, what with all the tiny little legs and stuff.

[Duce]

Heard a lot of good about the ACA cards.  Had a PPC/040 in my 1200 but sold it not long ago.

Bang for the buck, I'd jump on the ACA if I was in the market for another accel for my 1200.

[DonutKing]

I picked up an ACA1230/42 from amigakit.com and I'm pretty happy with it.

I'd read on the internet that some people had issues.

Certain revisions of the A1200 require a couple of caps or resistors to be removed due to a design flaw in the Amiga. I can't remember the exact details but they gave me a sheet with the instructions on it. It wasn't particularly difficult if you know how to solder.I have a 1D4 revision and I haven't had any problems at all so I haven't bothered to do the mod.

Installation was a bit of a pain. It was easier to open the case and remove the motherboard, and install the accelerator from the top side of the Amiga, than try to install it through the trap door on the underside. You might as well remove the metal shield as well because the accelerator won't fit with it in place - alternatively you could just bend the edge up so it doesn't touch the acclerator. From what I've read there's really not much benefit to leaving it on though.

Also, the floppy they gave me had an outdated version of ACATune that wouldn't detect my accelerator so I had to download a newer version from the web before it would work.

Apart from that though, it works like a charm

The 42MHz model is a bit out of your stated price range but I believe they also make 28MHz versions which are significantly cheaper. They seem pretty thin on the ground at the moment though.

[XDelusion]

Stachu (spelling?) occasionally sells 80mhz 060 Apollo's on here. That's what you want.

[runequester]

I had no issues with the metal shield touching, but yeah, trying to fit the card through the slot is basically impossible Take the girl apart and put in the card.

The ACA cards are a /really/ snug fit too. Once its in, its there to stay!

[Snoozy]

It makes you wonder what the point of the trap-door is?:lol:
 
So do i def need an accelerator card or is there a way of adding 8mb ram on a board ?

[AndyLandy]

I wrote this a few months ago:
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=16681

Sums up pretty much all you need to know about A1200 accelerators.

If you're looking in the £50-£80 region, you're probably looking at anywhere between a plain FastRAM card and a budget '030 accelerator. Best bang-for-buck is probably the ACA1230/28 at £85-ish.

Don't bother with PCMCIA FastRAM on an A1200, it's only 16-bit and will actually make your A1200 run slower. They're great for basic A600s, but a trapdoor card makes far more sense for an A1200.