I ordered a PPC card for my A1200

[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.

[fishy_fiz]

Well that's exactly why I made the last post, because my earlier posts were a bit negative. AmigaClassicRule appears to want to do more mainstream things, and despite being a little negative in the way I presented it, there's actually some info that may be of interest to him amongst what I wrote.

@AmigaClassicRule

If you're willing to spend a little extra money on it rather than going the whole hog, adding an '060 and running the ppc cpu at 3x60mhz rather thank 3.5x50mhz will make up for a lot of the shortcomings I mentioned of the 25mhz '040/175mhz 603e cards. There's plenty of other options/possibilities. As for the '060 the reason its important on the bppc cards isnt so much the exptra speed of the '060 vs and '040, but rather that the clock frequencies influence the memory bus.

Anyway, hope you enjoy your card, and I do appologize for my excessively negative feedback (based on my own disappointment).

[Mad-Matt]

What killed the possible purchase was when yu mentioned that it can be slower then an 030/50.

I still own this model of ppc card and if your upgrading from an 020/030 the speed increase wont be instantly apparant due to the lower bus speeds but any programs you run should instantly notisably faster.  It is the weakest ppc card in the entire lineup and youll always get the feeling of wanting more (as fast is never fast enough).

The Problem is the 040/25 is about the same performance as 030/50 for normal 68k programs. its not until you take advantage of the 040 fpu or caches that youll get a noticable speed increase.  This was perhaps the most dissapointing aspect, but any prog that takes advantage of the 040 like emus and later  games (doom and those from clickboom) and scenedemos will see a boost.

Having the card will open you up to ppc datatypes which will help the workbench in a small way at least. AGA will be a limiting factor but youll be able to try ppc stuff like quake/doom for a massive speed increase and there are a few movie players like isis/frogger/amp that can render mpg/video cd to aga and wont look to bad.  C64 emu frodo will run nicely on ppc, might just need to enable/dissable drive emulation as needed for full speed with no frame skipping.  Its far more compatable then Magic64.  I never tried Vice if it was ported to warpos.

In short, the card will open up software youll not get to try on a plain 68k card, but even though its the slowest card of the lot, it shouldnt put you off and you can trade up later if you feel the need for speed.  Id certainly have gone 060 and 240ppc if I had the coin for it

[Bamiga2002]

And don't forget that stachu can upgrade the card to 060/300mhz ppc. Then you'll be stomping on even the newest pc's...or not! :p

[spirantho]

Also, remember you can always sell it when you find a faster one, and still get your money back as they hold their value so well.