ACA 1232 Accelerator with 128MB RAM

[mrmoonlight]

ACA 1232 Accelerator with 128MB RAM
Hi i know i keep banging on about Accelerators ,but still not sure what is good or bad ,so how about this one for my Amiga 1200 and will i need to upgrade my psu as i only have the standard one ,i have 3.1 roms ,os 3.1 and 4gb cf card fitted .,best wishes Brian.
Specification:
For Amiga 1200 and ACA 500
Full 68030 inc MMU running at 25MHz (not overclocked)
128MB Fast Memory (32-bit) with burstmode support
1MB reserved for MapROM feature
PCMCIA compatible
Optional Real Time Clock module (available separately from us)

[ChaosLord]

This is the 10th time I have gone to Amigakit to look at the busspeed test to see if someone should buy the card or not.  But every time I  go there, the busspeed test mysteriously does not work.  So I just assume there is a problem with the card that they don't want you to know about.  Sorry.

If you find someone who has the card and will do a bustest then I will give u a new opinion.

[Lurch]

Didn't purchase the ACA 1232 bypassed it as it is slower than the ACA 1231, which I bought through Vesalia as they were still making them.

Plus the RTC is builtin to the card no addon. Although the RTC addon is great if you want to use it by connecting it directly to the A1200.

Nearly hitting the 10K mark :-)

Would highly recommend getting the timing fixes done as it makes a huge difference have only had one game not work since getting the fixes.

Also got the cap's replaced and the sound is crisper/cleaner than it was sounds a lot different.. :-)

[fitzsteve]

I have an ACA1232 - It works well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni3SrjjiSB0

[paul1981]

I have an ACA1232 @ 33MHz as well, and it's a damn good card. 7.97Mips with SysInfo, and plenty of RAM (128MB). I softboot KS3.1, as the 1200 has original 3.0 roms in it. All works great, can even play doom at a reduced screen size. :elvis:
Preloading huge CD32 games in WHDLoad is pretty cool as well (Darkseed). You'll need timing fixes though with any A1200 cpu card depending on motherboard revision. What's your A1200 mobo revision?

[Lurch]

I have an ACA1232 - It works well

Agreed :-)

They're good reliable boards, WHDLoad just works. Apart from the timing fixes.

Although there are couple of WHDLoad games that just seem to need just a little more speed :-)

[mrmoonlight]

Didn't purchase the ACA 1232 bypassed it as it is slower than the ACA 1231, which I bought through Vesalia as they were still making them.
 
Plus the RTC is builtin to the card no addon. Although the RTC addon is great if you want to use it by connecting it directly to the A1200.
 
Nearly hitting the 10K mark :-)
 
Would highly recommend getting the timing fixes done as it makes a huge difference have only had one game not work since getting the fixes.
 
Also got the cap's replaced and the sound is crisper/cleaner than it was sounds a lot different.. :-)

Thanks very much for your help ,can i do the timing fixes or do i have to send my Amiga off to say Amigakit,Brian

[mrmoonlight]

I have an ACA1232 @ 33MHz as well, and it's a damn good card. 7.97Mips with SysInfo, and plenty of RAM (128MB). I softboot KS3.1, as the 1200 has original 3.0 roms in it. All works great, can even play doom at a reduced screen size. :elvis:
Preloading huge CD32 games in WHDLoad is pretty cool as well (Darkseed). You'll need timing fixes though with any A1200 cpu card depending on motherboard revision. What's your A1200 mobo revision?

Hi its a 104 revision
 thanks for the reply,Brian.

[Lurch]

Thanks very much for your help ,can i do the timing fixes or do i have to send my Amiga off to say Amigakit,Brian

http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/Amiga/amiga_hacks/A1200_Mobo_fix/a1200_mobo_fix.html

Can give it a go, I ended up sending it to Amigakit. Some of the fixes went a little over my head especially the version 2 board :-(

[magnetic]

mr moonlight, if I were you Id get a Blizzard, Apollo, Gvp, or some other 030 cpu that is known working no problem, so you probably wont need "timing fixes" as with the ACA boards.

[Lurch]

mr moonlight, if I were you Id get a Blizzard, Apollo, Gvp, or some other 030 cpu that is known working no problem, so you probably wont need "timing fixes" as with the ACA boards.

The timing fixes are an issue with the A1200 motherboard :-) Those other cards also show signs/faults.

The ACA cards however are pushing it further than the older hardware and if you go 040/060 later on the timing fixes will be needed.

[magnetic]

The timing fixes are an issue with the A1200 motherboard :-) Those other cards also show signs/faults.

.

I have run the following board with ZERO problems on many rev a1200s with no "timing fixes"

Blizzard 030
blizz 060
Apolllo mk3 030
Dkb cobra 030
Gvp 030
Ematrix 030
Magnum 030
etc etc

[Lurch]

A couple of those have worked fine for me too, but every A1200 motherboard is different. Most of the time the older hardware is fine, but I've noticed small little faults on a couple of different A1200's (and so have others).

Actually some A1200's have sound problems and video tearing issues, but the problems don't show up on all motherboards even version numbers seem to be not a guide either to determine if fixes will be needed or not.

Some 1200's work fine with the ACA cards even though it's stated that timing fixes are needed.

It appears to be luck of the draw.

There are long technical posts about this issue on EAB and Amibay which explain it better than me.

040/060 cards have a tendency to show the timing faults more often than 030 cards, especially when clocking the 060 at 80MHz +

Just need to do a google and find a lot of people having timing issues.

The best advice is to get the card you want, try it and if the amiga shows faults then get the timing fixes.

TBH I find the ACA card's to be faster than the Bliz 030. Must be the faster more modern RAM that they come with. The ACA 1231 is a very good card.

[kolla]

I'd buy an acc card with 50MHz 030+882 and 128MB RAM to upgrade from the Blizzard 1230 III, but so far all the ACA cards would have been downgrades.

[ChaosLord]

Could someone with an ACA1232 and/or other related accelerator please run Bustest and copy/paste the text here for me to look at?  Thanx!

And you must state the exact video mode that your Amiga was in when you ran the test, in order for the test to be valid.  And tell us the Mhz of your ACA card.

If the ACA is as awesome as Jens says it is then it should produce really outstanding bustest results, but I will wait and see.


p.s. I have run Blizzard 060 50Mhz and Apollo 060 50Mhz in 2 A1200s and never needed any "timing fixes".  I never even heard of "timing fixes" before the ACA cards came out.