Is an RTG A2000 same as an RTG A4000?

[AmigaClassicRule]

I know A2000 is an OCS/ECS and an A4000 is AGA so the difference is there. But what if you take a 68060 A4000 RTG vs a 68060 A2000 with the same RTG card. Does that make these two computers identical with the same performance and ability running the same software that uses the RTG card? Would you say the A4000 and A2000 are the same computer if we install RTG instead of custom chip set?

[wawrzon]

no. a2k has zorro2 and a4k has zorro3 expansion bus, your card if this is z3 rtg card will work faster in a4k.

[AmigaClassicRule]

no. a2k has zorro2 and a4k has zorro3 expansion bus, your card if this is z3 rtg card will work faster in a4k.

Is it just speed? Does it mean the software will still run but slower?

[LoadWB]

Is it just speed? Does it mean the software will still run but slower?

Yes.  I used my Picasso IV in my A2000 with the Picasso 96 software.  The card ran in Zorro II mode.  I use the same card and same software with my A4000 and the card runs in Zorro III mode.

[AmigaClassicRule]

Yes.  I used my Picasso IV in my A2000 with the Picasso 96 software.  The card ran in Zorro II mode.  I use the same card and same software with my A4000 and the card runs in Zorro III mode.

What about A3000?

[Damion]

It really depends on a lot of factors. In general, the difference will be noticeable only under certain conditions. A Quake benchmark on a low-res screenmode will be identical on both systems. Scroll through a large picture that exceeds the amount of VRAM on your gfx board (=swapping data over the zorro bus) and the 4000 will perform a little better.

What about A3000?

Identical to the 4000.

[AmigaClassicRule]

It really depends on a lot of factors. In general, the difference will be noticeable only under certain conditions. A Quake benchmark on a low-res screenmode will be identical on both systems. Scroll through a large picture that exceeds the amount of VRAM on your gfx board (=swapping data over the zorro bus) and the 4000 will perform a little better.



Identical to the 4000.

So really an A3000 will be identical to an RTG A4000, he is better getting an A3000 because it is cheaper than A4000.

[utri007]

Im pretty sure that A3000 is not cheaper than A4000

[Damion]

Yeah, it's definitely not cheaper, and potentially much more fussy when it comes time to upgrade. Your friend should stick with finding a 4000/4000T, or upgrade the 2000 if AGA isn't a concern.

[alexh]

a 68060 A2000

You'll NEVER, EVER get a 68060 card for an A2000 without paying 2x or even 4x the price of an A4000 + an 060 card! They are very very rare.

[ChaosLord]

Your friend will never ever be able to play Total Chaos AGA on an A2000.

An A2000 will always have slower chipram than an A1200 or A4000
Remember you still play sounds thru chipram using Paula's lovely voice

A2000 chipram will be 16-bit forever and ever.
A1200/A4000 chipram will be 32-bit forever and ever.

A2000 only has 1Meg chipram unless you buy a kindof expensive adapterboard thingamjig to increase it to 2MB.

A1200 / A4000 have 2MB chipram built in for free.

[pVC]

If the price is an issue, but Amiga model isn't, it would be cheaper to go with towered A1200 with PCI busboard and cheap but fast gfx card. 060 cards are also cheaper for A1200 than other models.

But if you really want fast and cheap RTG experience, get some next generation machine and OS. Those are way faster than any classic Amiga and more reliable than aging bunch of expansion cards And keep the classic Amiga for native chipset stuff.

[Crumb]

It really depends on a lot of factors. In general, the difference will be noticeable only under certain conditions. A Quake benchmark on a low-res screenmode will be identical on both systems. Scroll through a large picture that exceeds the amount of VRAM on your gfx board (=swapping data over the zorro bus) and the 4000 will perform a little better.

Identical to the 4000.

It depends on the software. Quake is limited by cpu, not by bus bandwitch. In contrast Doom should show some performance differences as it's not so cpu heavy. Try out Voxel test included with WarpOS on an A2000 RTG and later on an A4000 RTG and you'll see the huge difference. AGA has more bandwitch than ZorroII cards for these kind of games.

[AmigaClassicRule]

Thank you all for clearing everything then . As a conclusion I feel I am a proud owner of an A1200. I also feel I have reached one of the top of the line Amiga models compared to the A3000 and below.

[Crumb]

Thank you all for clearing everything then . As a conclusion I feel I am a proud owner of an A1200. I also feel I have reached one of the top of the line Amiga models compared to the A3000 and below.

A1200 is cheap and easy to expand, I wouldn't exchange it by an A3000.