ACA 1220 or ACA 1232

[gxenakis]

I have a stock A1200 from Petro and I plan to use it for whdload gaming and OS 3.5 / 3.9. Right now I have order and waiting for an external scandoubler. I will also need a memory expansion for running the games and I am between the two ACA , 1220 with 16.67MHz and 1232 with 33MHz. They both have 128MB Ram. Which one should I prefer ?

thank you for your time.

[nickoteen]

... to jump right in the middle ... And what about those timing fixes ? How can one know if the ACA board will perform without any problems before one buys it ?

[carls]

I have a stock A1200 from Petro and I plan to use it for whdload gaming and OS 3.5 / 3.9. Right now I have order and waiting for an external scandoubler. I will also need a memory expansion for running the games and I am between the two ACA , 1220 with 16.67MHz and 1232 with 33MHz. They both have 128MB Ram. Which one should I prefer ?

thank you for your time.

Congratulations!

Well, that depends on what you want to do with your Amiga. If you plan on using WHDLoad to play games and watch old demos, then the 1220 will be more than enough. If you want to do a bit of net surfing or watch demos/play games with 3D texture mapping, then get as much power as you can.

The difference in compatibility between the 020 and 030 aren't that big and all the nice WHDLoad installs will fix that for you anyway.

[ChaosLord]

If you want to play Total Chaos AGA then I recommend the 1232 because I wrote it for ppl who love their Amiga and take care of it and feed it a decent CPU.  The faster your cpu the faster your framerate.

If you don't care about strategy games and just want to play ancient WHDLoad games then the 1220 is perfect for you.

Whichever you choose, Have fun!   Teach your kids and grandkids all the great Amiga games!

[desiv]

If you're mostly looking for games, then the 1220 will be fine.
Yeah, it will struggle with the FPS games, and there are some games that take advantage of the faster CPU..
But there's not too many of those....

I even think basic (very) web browsing will be fine on the 1220.

However, if you plan on doing a lot in 3.9 and/or really want the to play those games, you might want to look at the 1232.
That being said, if you really want/need that performance, you're probably honestly looking at an 040 or faster....

I have an ACA1230/28 and think it's awesome..  Had the 1220 been out when I bought my card tho, I probably would have gone for the 1220.
But I do LOVE my 1230/28..  ;-)
DoomAttack plays about the way I remember it playing on my old PC with his really cheap (free to me) Tseng video card.  ;-)

desiv

[paul1981]

I have a stock A1200 from Petro and I plan to use it for whdload gaming and OS 3.5 / 3.9. Right now I have order and waiting for an external scandoubler. I will also need a memory expansion for running the games and I am between the two ACA , 1220 with 16.67MHz and 1232 with 33MHz. They both have 128MB Ram. Which one should I prefer ?

thank you for your time.

You'll need to do timing fixes, but it's easy to do. If in doubt, send your A1200 to Amigakit and they'll do it for you, and also install the ACA card at the same time.
I'd get the 1232 personally, as you should always get the best you can afford.

[gxenakis]

Never heard about time fixing before! Both cards may require time fixing or only the 1232 ?

[paul1981]

Never heard about time fixing before! Both cards may require time fixing or only the 1232 ?

You can read all about the fixes here:

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

The later A1200 motherboard revisions need fixes, and being as though the machines for sale by Petro are the last Amiga's ever built, I'm pretty sure they'll need a fix (for most accelerator cards at least, certainly including the ACA1232 because I had to do this myself to get my 1232 to work correctly).

[gxenakis]

I have one last question. The Real Time Clock Module for the ACA is it really needed?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Only if you like to know what time it is.    Just kidding, it's also useful for timestamping files, etc., so you know when they were edited.

[GadgetUK]

I got the 1220 (@18Mhz) and have it on a switch to overclock to 26Mhz.  It's great for everything I play on it.

[LaserBack]

I got the 1220 (@18Mhz) and have it on a switch to overclock to 26Mhz.  It's great for everything I play on it.

18mhz ? what ?

plz post a pic of your turboboard including such switch
thx

[LaserBack]

I have a stock A1200 from Petro and I plan to use it for whdload gaming and OS 3.5 / 3.9. Right now I have order and waiting for an external scandoubler. I will also need a memory expansion for running the games and I am between the two ACA , 1220 with 16.67MHz and 1232 with 33MHz. They both have 128MB Ram. Which one should I prefer ?

thank you for your time.

the 1232 is a bit faster but the 1220 is more compatible with old games
some old games don't like the 030 and unlike the blizzard 1230 MK4 the aca 1232 do not have a feature to turn it off
personally I'go for the 1220

[GadgetUK]

I got the 1220 (@18Mhz) and have it on a switch to overclock to 26Mhz. It's great for everything I play on it.

I think it's 16.67Mhz (Standard) - but the chip on mine is marked as an 18Mhz version, but then overclocks to 26Mhz.
 
I will take it apart when I get time and take a pic. It's an extremely simple mod - but you take the risk of overheating your CPU.  That said, i've run mine for hours and checked temperature and its barely warm, so I could have a 'good chip', Motorola are well known for basically having single production runs whereby they then speed and stability test chips to work out how best to sell them - ie. at what clock speed.
 
Wouldnt suprise me if an 18Mhz chip ran OK at 33 or 40Mhz based on how its very luke warm for me at 26Mhz.
 
Anyway, i've got a red PCB for my 1220 - despite it looking green on their website, I think the latest ones are red (mines 4 months old).  With the chips facing upwards and the expansion connector to the left side, if you look to the right hand side just above the RAM and to the right of the CPU there's a little matrix of solder pads.  On the standard 1220 config it has the top link jumpered with what I believe is a 1ohm resistor / link.  The points are very very tiny to solder on so I recommend a good clean soldering iron and fine Kaynar wire or similar.
 
If you look elsewhere on the board there's actually a table printed on the board that shows the clock frequencies when certain jumpers are set out of that matrix of 4.  Actually 8 pins, 4 lots of 2.  
 
All I did is solder 2 wires, 1 from each end of the very small pads and if memory serves it was the top 2 pads (already joined) and the bottom 2 pads that give 26Mhz, and each wire went to a switch - ie. 1 wire to the middle of a toggle switch, the other to the outer pin of a toggle switch.  
 
 
JP1 []---[]  < already has a 1ohm link / resistor soldered in there
JP2 []    []
JP3 []    []
JP4 []    []  < these are the 2 pads with wires to a switch
 
That's it, just dont switch when powered up.  So now you can toggle between default speed and 26Mhz on the 1220.  The switch just shorts those 2 bottom pins (JP4) out which tells the FPGA to run at 26Mhz.
 
You get a wonderful speed boost for normal operations and some of the more intensive games like Frontier and 3D shooters etc gain enough to become a bit more playable.  Just dont expect to be playing Doom etc, you really need 40Mhz+ and actually I think frame rate can suck on anything less than 50Mhz.  For the 3 or 4 games like that I am not bothered personally, the 1220 is the best balance of performance vs cost.

[LaserBack]

I think it's 16.67Mhz (Standard) - but the chip on mine is marked as an 18Mhz version, but then overclocks to 26Mhz.
 
I will take it apart when I get time and take a pic. It's an extremely simple mod - but you take the risk of overheating your CPU.  That said, i've run mine for hours and checked temperature and its barely warm, so I could have a 'good chip', Motorola are well known for basically having single production runs whereby they then speed and stability test chips to work out how best to sell them - ie. at what clock speed.
 
Wouldnt suprise me if an 18Mhz chip ran OK at 33 or 40Mhz based on how its very luke warm for me at 26Mhz.
 
Anyway, i've got a red PCB for my 1220 - despite it looking green on their website, I think the latest ones are red (mines 4 months old).  With the chips facing upwards and the expansion connector to the left side, if you look to the right hand side just above the RAM and to the right of the CPU there's a little matrix of solder pads.  On the standard 1220 config it has the top link jumpered with what I believe is a 1ohm resistor / link.  The points are very very tiny to solder on so I recommend a good clean soldering iron and fine Kaynar wire or similar.
 
If you look elsewhere on the board there's actually a table printed on the board that shows the clock frequencies when certain jumpers are set out of that matrix of 4.  Actually 8 pins, 4 lots of 2.  
 
All I did is solder 2 wires, 1 from each end of the very small pads and if memory serves it was the top 2 pads (already joined) and the bottom 2 pads that give 26Mhz, and each wire went to a switch - ie. 1 wire to the middle of a toggle switch, the other to the outer pin of a toggle switch.  
 
 
JP1 []---[]  < already has a 1ohm link / resistor soldered in there
JP2 []    []
JP3 []    []
JP4 []    []  < these are the 2 pads with wires to a switch
 
That's it, just dont switch when powered up.  So now you can toggle between default speed and 26Mhz on the 1220.  The switch just shorts those 2 bottom pins (JP4) out which tells the FPGA to run at 26Mhz.
 
You get a wonderful speed boost for normal operations and some of the more intensive games like Frontier and 3D shooters etc gain enough to become a bit more playable.  Just dont expect to be playing Doom etc, you really need 40Mhz+ and actually I think frame rate can suck on anything less than 50Mhz.  For the 3 or 4 games like that I am not bothered personally, the 1220 is the best balance of performance vs cost.

ah ok thx for the info
can u post sysinfo screenshots ie at 18mhz and 26mhz