Best big box Amiga to get into.

[Toryglen-boy]

Ok, so not really true, the A4000 would be the best big box Amiga to get, i suppose i am asking for opinions on whats the best, affordable, big box Amiga to look into? Are they the same as their desktop counterparts, or are they faster? do they have many significant changes?

ta,

[Jope]

It depends so much on everything. The A3000/A4000 would probably be the machines to aim for in terms of speed and upgradability (however internal drives won't fit into either).

The A2000 is rather disappointing as a big box machine, an A500 can achieve many of the same things. The 2k comes to its own if you need a bridge board or a professional video workstation. Those cards need the A2000's slots.

[Toryglen-boy]

Originally Posted by Jope

It depends so much on everything. The A3000/A4000 would probably be the machines to aim for in terms of speed and upgradability (however internal drives won't fit into either).

The A2000 is rather disappointing as a big box machine, an A500 can achieve many of the same things. The 2k comes to its own if you need a bridge board or a professional video workstation. Those cards need the A2000's slots.

thanks for that, would an A1200 in a tower with a mediator be a better option?

[Jope]

Really hard to say which is a better option. To make an apples to apples comparison, the A4000 would have to be a towerized desktop model.

I'd say the A4000 conversion with a mediator might be a tiny bit stabler than the A1200 conversion with a mediator, but you'd find yourself reseating the CPU card every now and then in that one too. :-D

My unpopular opinion: if the custom chip modes are not enough for you, why not run WinUAE?

[Toryglen-boy]

Originally Posted by Jope

Really hard to say which is a better option. To make an apples to apples comparison, the A4000 would have to be a towerized desktop model.

I'd say the A4000 conversion with a mediator might be a tiny bit stabler than the A1200 conversion with a mediator, but you'd find yourself reseating the CPU card every now and then in that one too. :-D

My unpopular opinion: if the custom chip modes are not enough for you, why not run WinUAE?

yeah, WinUAE is good, but its not the real hardware, or should i say, not the full experience.

[Jope]

Yep, that's a philosophical discussion, that's not worth getting into much further. If you are going the tower route, just use the HW you already have. If you want to have a desktop, then try to hunt down a cheap 4k.. :-)

[Robbie]

I would like to stand up for the 2000. It's super upgrade-able. graphics cards, usb, accelerators, sound cards. you can have it all! obviously not as fast as Zorro III but it's fast enough for an Amiga.

[Jope]

Zorro 2 gets very disappointing if you go RTG. Been there, had an A2000/060/CV3D.. And in terms of drive bays, it is not very expandable. Two floppies, One HDD on a hard card and a CD-ROM and you're going to have to pile external boxes next to it.

[Toryglen-boy]

this is all good. I should imagine when the Vampire A1200 comes out, it will render all this moot anyway

[indigolemon]

I'm a fan of my towered A1200. Got a Mediator TX in there, and it's running well with a Radeon on graphics duty, SB128 doing audio, and a Realtek 10/100 ethernet card keeping it connected to the world. IMO the bonus of this approach really is that you can use boggo standard (and easy to get) items, like the above PCI cards, or ATX PSU's.

[Toryglen-boy]

Originally Posted by indigolemon

I'm a fan of my towered A1200. Got a Mediator TX in there, and it's running well with a Radeon on graphics duty, SB128 doing audio, and a Realtek 10/100 ethernet card keeping it connected to the world. IMO the bonus of this approach really is that you can use boggo standard (and easy to get) items, like the above PCI cards, or ATX PSU's.

nice one, how does the Radeon fare in the A1200? what differences does it make, i hate to say to gaming, but yes, to gaming. Come to think of it, what difference does the SB128 make?

I have heard bad things about the mediators, very tempremental etc.

[Jope]

For WHDLoad, RTG and AHI do absolutely nothing.

There are a few RTG capable games that benefit though.

Make sure you're getting into this for the right reasons. If your main use case is WHDLoad, then you might not be that happy with RTG.

[Toryglen-boy]

Originally Posted by Jope

For WHDLoad, RTG and AHI do absolutely nothing.

There are a few RTG capable games that benefit though.

Make sure you're getting into this for the right reasons. If your main use case is WHDLoad, then you might not be that happy with RTG.

am more curious than getting into. after real world opinions, like your own

[Jope]

I've tried to keep my opinions about this out of here, don't know why I engaged in the discussion this time. :-)

But for the record: I've taken out all of the RTG + AHI boards from the 4000s and 3000. The A1260 gets most use these days. If it won't run nicely using the custom chips for video/audio, it's not an "Amiga thing" that I have an interest in doing.

I took the turn sometime in 2007. It was no longer enjoyable to do things badly that any of my PCs hardly broke a sweat doing. This goes for ports of Doom and Quake, playing MP3s while avoiding too much multitasking, being able to perceive a jpg file being decoded on your screen..

That's why I use a cautious tone when talkign with people about these expansions. Be sure what you plan on doing are things you really want to do on this old computer, don't get in it to see how well or badly it can be done. Most often it can be done, but it is often quite underwhelming.

[trixster]

I bought an A4000 purely to scratch an itch. I dreamt of having one in 1992 as a kid but couldn't afford one back then. If you don't have a similar compulsion or don't have a specific aim to achieve then I don't really see the point of getting one if you've already got a decent A1200.

Once you've rationalised that and still decided to go ahead with it, be prepared to put your hand into you pocket to get a really top end setup. A good basic A3000 or A4000 will cost iro £600+. A cpu card will cost a bomb on top of that, and a classic rtg or mediator equivalent will be £££.

And whilst I'm on a roll, I absolutely do not see the point of an expensive tower-ised A1200. For me it has to be an original, unmodified case. But that's just me.

[Daedalus]

Indeed, emulation and PC versions of the bigger games are in general a better experience, however I wouldn't swap my RTG+AHI A1200 setup for anything. I have come close to selling it several times but couldn't bear it. There aren't that many games that I play on it (the RTG games I have like Payback, Descent: Freespace, Earth 2140 and Foundation run much smoother on my OS4 machine), so it's probably massively overkill to build a system just for that, but if you use the machine for anything serious at all, it makes a huge difference - it makes using my native AGA machines feel so clunky, slow and primitive in comparison. Getting a graphics card was probably just as big a leap for me as getting a 68060.

But probably the main reason you would actually go through with the hardship and expense of building such a machine would be the "just because I can" factor. As Jope and I have said, emulation and the PC counterparts of games have the practicality of your computer needs covered.

[Toryglen-boy]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Indeed, emulation and PC versions of the bigger games are in general a better experience, however I wouldn't swap my RTG+AHI A1200 setup for anything. I have come close to selling it several times but couldn't bear it. There aren't that many games that I play on it (the RTG games I have like Payback, Descent: Freespace, Earth 2140 and Foundation run much smoother on my OS4 machine), so it's probably massively overkill to build a system just for that, but if you use the machine for anything serious at all, it makes a huge difference - it makes using my native AGA machines feel so clunky, slow and primitive in comparison. Getting a graphics card was probably just as big a leap for me as getting a 68060.

But probably the main reason you would actually go through with the hardship and expense of building such a machine would be the "just because I can" factor. As Jope and I have said, emulation and the PC counterparts of games have the practicality of your computer needs covered.

yeah, just curious really. I know that A1200 has a Zorro II slot, and the A4000 a 32bit Zorro III. i just wondered what difference in the architecture made to performance.

[trixster]

Daedalus speaks the truth, only do it because you want to, not because it makes any sense whatsoever!

[indigolemon]

Originally Posted by Toryglen-boy

nice one, how does the Radeon fare in the A1200? what differences does it make, i hate to say to gaming, but yes, to gaming. Come to think of it, what difference does the SB128 make?

I have heard bad things about the mediators, very tempremental etc.

As Jope (rightly) said - for most classic games (WHDLoad stuff as mentioned) You end up using your native video output again. I have a VGA switch box so I can switch from the Radeon to the Indivision AGA output as required.
I have played some RTG capable games using the Radeon which worked perfectly - and for general workbench use its really speedy and looks great. The Soundblaster has AHI support, and I means I can playback 16bit audio now, I have the standard Paula audio into the line in on the card so I can route all audio from the Soundblasters audio out into my amp.

The Mediator has been plenty stable for me, no real issues to report at all, and it allowed me to lump the Radeon's spare memory in with my fast ram This whole project has kinda been my attempt to build the machine I always wanted back in 1999ish, but could never afford at the time. One note was I started from scratch to get the mediator going, fresh OS 3.9 install etc - Daedelus really helped me out there!

Anyway - here are some piccies of the machine in action, including MI2 via WHDLoad and the desktop running native 1280x1024 (excuse the black DVD rom, beige replacement is inbound): https://goo.gl/photos/WZs91k7WjjcxEQ158

[Toryglen-boy]

Originally Posted by indigolemon

As Jope (rightly) said - for most classic games (WHDLoad stuff as mentioned) You end up using your native video output again. I have a VGA switch box so I can switch from the Radeon to the Indivision AGA output as required.
I have played some RTG capable games using the Radeon which worked perfectly - and for general workbench use its really speedy and looks great. The Soundblaster has AHI support, and I means I can playback 16bit audio now, I have the standard Paula audio into the line in on the card so I can route all audio from the Soundblasters audio out into my amp.

The Mediator has been plenty stable for me, no real issues to report at all, and it allowed me to lump the Radeon's spare memory in with my fast ram This whole project has kinda been my attempt to build the machine I always wanted back in 1999ish, but could never afford at the time. One note was I started from scratch to get the mediator going, fresh OS 3.9 install etc - Daedelus really helped me out there!

Anyway - here are some piccies of the machine in action, including MI2 via WHDLoad and the desktop running native 1280x1024 (excuse the black DVD rom, beige replacement is inbound): https://goo.gl/photos/WZs91k7WjjcxEQ158

looks nice. sharin' is carin'