I ordered a PPC card for my A1200

[AmigaClassicRule]

I just ordered a PPC card for my A1200 I believe it is the one with the speed 160 Mhz on it. The question is, I want to run the best C64 emulator on my A1200 (AGA) with PPC card...what is the best C64 emulator out there for the Amiga 1200 that is equivalent to compatibility on the PC c64 emulator and would it run on a decent playable and comfortable speed on a 160 Mhz PPC card, even if it is using AGA chipset? Thanks in advance.

[560SL]

Congratulations on your purchase!

[magnetic]

HI stop bragging! lol congrats and have fun.. for c64 emu I dont know that much about it but look into Vice and Frodo programs

[kickstart]

I dont know so much about c64 emuls on ppc, but use a ppc card just for emulate c64 maybe isnt the best option, consider a 060 first.

[magnetic]

kickstart

I'll give it a go on my peg2.. wanted to use the amiga joysticks with c64 emu though (

btw love the Mourinho picture

[fishy_fiz]

I think your only option for c64 emulation using ppc is frodo. It should be ok, but wont be perfect. A 25mhz 68040/160mhz 603e card isnt a great purchase in my opinion (I say this because I had one). Id have preferred an '060 card. The best thing about the bppc was the connector that I connected my grex to (ergo the ability to add a video card and sound card).

With aga though it adds pretty much nothing and apart from a few bits and pieces you'd be better off with a standard '040 card even (the '040 side on the card youve mentioned is the weakest '040 card available).

I hope you enjoy your purchase, but I warn you, be prepared to be disappointed. For me it felt like a huge waste of money and effort

[AmigaClassicRule]

I think your only option for c64 emulation using ppc is frodo. It should be ok, but wont be perfect. A 25mhz 68040/160mhz 603e card isnt a great purchase in my opinion (I say this because I had one). Id have preferred an '060 card. The best thing about the bppc was the connector that I connected my grex to (ergo the ability to add a video card and sound card).

With aga though it adds pretty much nothing and apart from a few bits and pieces you'd be better off with a standard '040 card even (the '040 side on the card youve mentioned is the weakest '040 card available).

I hope you enjoy your purchase, but I warn you, be prepared to be disappointed. For me it felt like a huge waste of money and effort

Maybe but there is one thing I discovered in my experience with Amiga hardware and it is this:

1) Every time you invest your money on an Amiga hardware and sell it, you always get your money back and more sum.

2) This card is 175 Mhz PPC actually and can be upgraded to 300 Mhz

3) I can have 256 MB of RAM now with this card

4) The 040 being 25 Mhz is still going to give a big boost to my current speed of my Amiga 1200 where it stands now

5) The value of my Amiga 1200 with the PPC card and a USB Sub now jacked up dramatically.

It is still better that card I am getting than the current setting I have now and because of this card I can upgrade my AGA to BVision PPC card where as a normal 68k card will not be able to give me this privilege. Worse case scenario...at least I can try out AmigaOS 4.1 even if it is going to be slow...giving me an idea and feel of this OS and software without buying a whole NEW COMPUTER and spend 3k for it...with this..I can OS 4.1 classic version and experience what the big boys are experiencing in their modern PPC computers and still use it on a desktop case A1200.

[fishy_fiz]

Ouch, the 175mhz version is even worse. Slower fsb + ram speed.
In some situations its even slower than a 50mhz '030.

If youre happy though then good luck to you. Just remember you'll end up spending almost as much to upgrade the cpu and add a bvision as you would to buy a sam (probably more). There's also no guarantee the card will work at 300mhz. Some do, but not all, and its an expensive proposition to find out.

Honestly the only worthwhile bppc's are those that contain an '060. Dont forget that you'll still be using the 680x0 cpu 95% or so of the time.

[AmigaClassicRule]

Ouch, the 175mhz version is even worse. Slower fsb + ram speed.
In some situations its even slower than a 50mhz '030.

If youre happy though then good luck to you. Just remember you'll end up spending almost as much to upgrade the cpu and add a bvision as you would to buy a sam (probably more). There's also no guarantee the card will work at 300mhz. Some do, but not all, and its an expensive proposition to find out.

Honestly the only worthwhile bppc's are those that contain an '060. Dont forget that you'll still be using the 680x0 cpu 90% or so of the time.

really??

[fishy_fiz]

From my experiences, yes, and Id be surprised if many people who have owned an '040 based bppc disagree. For me it was all a massive disapointment and this is with a voodoo3 card and soundcard, which is much nicer than aga. The only things that I enjoyed that ppc bought to the table were a couple of emulators (snes, megadrive, mame), ppc video players (still not great, but 320x240 low quality .avi videos (or thereabouts) played reasonably), some ppc datatypes, and ppc ahi. Oh there was also a couple of ppc scene demos that are quite nice (although no better than what was available for 68k).

As for the 175mhz card, downclocking to 166mhz helps a little (assuming the 68k cpu will do 33mhz), or failing that overclocking to 180mhz will also help (33/30mhz bus respectively). Quite a big jump vs the default 25mhz bus that the card comes clocked at. Bus speed and ram speed are more important at these sorts of speeds than cpu clock rates.

[AmigaClassicRule]

From my experiences, yes, and Id be surprised if many people who have owned an '040 based bppc disagree. For me it was all a massive disapointment and this is with a voodoo3 card and soundcard, which is much nicer than aga. The only things that I enjoyed that ppc bought to the table were a couple of emulators (snes, megadrive, mame), ppc video players (still not great, but 320x240 low quality .avi videos (or thereabouts) played reasonably), some ppc datatypes, and ppc ahi. Oh there was also a couple of ppc scene demos that are quite nice (although no better than what was available for 68k).

As for the 175mhz card, downclocking to 166mhz helps a little (assuming the 68k cpu will do 33mhz), or failing that overclocking to 180mhz will also help (33/30mhz bus respectively). Quite a big jump vs the default 25mhz bus that the card comes clocked at. Bus speed and ram speed are more important at these sorts of speeds than cpu clock rates.

I am requesting refund money then as I am cancelling the transaction. I do hope he refunds it, if he doesn't refund it, can I get it from paypal? I might as well just stick with what I have then.


Curious fishy_fis. What if I got a PPC card 300 Mhz with 68060 @ 50 Mhz running instead. Is it worth it then? Does it make a very nice card allowing me running 68k and PPC at comfortable speed, even watching movies in my A1200 AGA or is it still not worth it?

[Britelite]

Curious fishy_fis. What if I got a PPC card 300 Mhz with 68060 @ 50 Mhz running instead. Is it worth it then? Does it make a very nice card allowing me running 68k and PPC at comfortable speed, even watching movies in my A1200 AGA or is it still not worth it?

You don't really want to watch movies on AGA, unless you enjoy watching them in grayscale. The 060 itself, I think, is enough for most tasks, especially if coupled with a graphicscard.

But as for running C64-software, if you want to emulate one with good accuracy you really need to do it on a fast PC (or a fast PPC-machine). The only good emulator on Amiga is Vice, and it won't run smooth on a classic Amiga, you really need a fast AOS4/MorphOS-machine to really enjoy it.

[utri007]

Magic64 is absolutely best C64 emulator for amigas, it works nicely with 040 and better.

Forget vice/frodo and try to found Magic64.

For music/soundFX you need playsid library from aminet

[fishy_fiz]

I guess maybe I was a bit harsh, and I dont really want to deter you from something you wanted to buy. There is some fun to be had with them, but it's a lot more limited than most people seem to expect. In my honest opinion a person really needs an '060, and to avoid the 50/25mhz bus and an rtg card before a bppc system starts to be worth the effort, by which time its become quite expensive. There's also other things to consider such as the need to 2 seperate diplays for custom chipset/rtg (or a workaround) once you hit that point too.

To each his own, but Im personally more of the opinion that if you want to do things in a more typical/mainstream way a person is better off with aros/amithlon/os4/mos anyway. If you want to enjoy a classic amiga just keep it simple (cpu+ram upgrade/harddrive upgrade, pcmcia networking and so on) and then work within the machines restrictions.
That's half the fun for me Having said that though, if I won the lotto I would buy a ppc classic amiga based system again, but I'd still use it as a nice retro system rather than trying to use it as a replacement for an ng system.

[gertsy]

I guess maybe I was a bit harsh, and I dont really want to deter you from something you wanted to buy. There is some fun to be had with them, but it's a lot more limited than most people seem to expect. In my honest opinion a person really needs an '060, and to avoid the 50/25mhz bus and an rtg card before a bppc system starts to be worth the effort, by which time its become quite expensive. There's also other things to consider such as the need to 2 seperate diplays for custom chipset/rtg (or a workaround) once you hit that point too.

To each his own, but Im personally more of the opinion that if you want to do things in a more typical/mainstream way a person is better off with aros/amithlon/os4/mos anyway. If you want to enjoy a classic amiga just keep it simple (cpu+ram upgrade/harddrive upgrade, pcmcia networking and so on) and then work within the machines restrictions.
That's half the fun for me

Cummon Fishy stop it..  It's an "upgrade" opportunity.  treat it with the positive focus it deserves.  Drop this ol' fart experience stuff and let the sun shine on the parade..
Surely it's heaps better than the stock 020 or a 030.