Need opinions on Amiga 1200 Accelerators?

[tech3475]

I currently have a cheap (well at the time at least) RAM expansion card in my Amiga 1200 which is playing up and I'm looking at possibly replacing it.

Looking around the price of a basic RAM expansion (which is also PCMCIA friendly) is making me consider just looking at getting a full CPU Accelerator card.

The main issue I'm having though is whether the cards within my budget (around £200) are actually worth the extra money in terms of performance increase and/or any missing feature(s).

On ebay, allot of the cards allot of the 'decent' are either hundreds of pounds more, hard to come by and/or I'm not sure of (such as a Blizzard 1220/4 for £140).

One card I'm considering is the ACA 1233N which is about £210 on Amiga Kit but I'm not sure if the 68030 is worth it, particularly as it lacks an FPU (although I read elsewhere that very little software actually uses them).

There is also the ACA 1221EC which while using an 020 based CPU and has less RAM (but still plenty at 16MB) is half the price.

I know the Vampire is supposed to be launching for the 1200 but the last ETA I saw was for Q4 2017.

Are there any other recommended options within my price range and/or opinions on the two cards I listed?

Thank you.

[trixster]

I can’t comment on the ACA cards but I had a blizzard 1220/4 back in the 90s and it was a great budget accelerator - it gave over 5mips so was roughly twice as fast as an A1200 with fast ram. You can now get readily available 4mb expansions for the A1220/4 so it would be good for more ram-hungry whdload games. I wish I hadn’t sold mine.

[Daedalus]

Well, you can never have too much CPU power In reality though it does depend on what you're intending to use it for. Many games will benefit from as much CPU power as you can afford, but equally, many games will show exactly no improvement other than perhaps loading slightly faster. The ACA1221EC has 16MB on board, but only ~9MB of that can be used as conventional fast RAM, the rest is reserved for things like custom Kickstarts, custom RAM handlers and so on. Still, that's more than enough for the vast majority of games. so I wouldn't be too concerned about that.

If you were planning on playing games where there's a lot of heavy, calculating action going on on screen (e.g. at certain points in Theme Park, Syndicate, Dune 2 etc.), or 3D games (e.g. flight sims, Frontier, F1GP), then you would benefit from the 030. If you only play arcade-type games that run at full speed on a stock machine (e.g. Superfrog, SWOS, Turrican), the 030 doesn't offer you much over the 020, and all you really need is a bit more RAM for WHDLoad. But it's hard to argue with the ACA1221EC alongside a RAM-only card for similar money - it's still an additional speed boost over the internal 020.

Using productivity software, like PPaint, DPaint, Wordworth, or any 3D rendering stuff will also benefit from the 030 of course, as will some demos and the system in general. Some demos do require an FPU, but most software that does is also available in an integer version which will run without the FPU.

[tech3475]

Originally Posted by trixster

I can’t comment on the ACA cards but I had a blizzard 1220/4 back in the 90s and it was a great budget accelerator - it gave over 5mips so was roughly twice as fast as an A1200 with fast ram. You can now get readily available 4mb expansions for the A1220/4 so it would be good for more ram-hungry whdload games. I wish I hadn’t sold mine.

Believe it or not but there's one on ebay UK right now at around £140 (and a separate post for the expansion for around £30).

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Well, you can never have too much CPU power In reality though it does depend on what you're intending to use it for. Many games will benefit from as much CPU power as you can afford, but equally, many games will show exactly no improvement other than perhaps loading slightly faster. The ACA1221EC has 16MB on board, but only ~9MB of that can be used as conventional fast RAM, the rest is reserved for things like custom Kickstarts, custom RAM handlers and so on. Still, that's more than enough for the vast majority of games. so I wouldn't be too concerned about that.

If you were planning on playing games where there's a lot of heavy, calculating action going on on screen (e.g. at certain points in Theme Park, Syndicate, Dune 2 etc.), or 3D games (e.g. flight sims, Frontier, F1GP), then you would benefit from the 030. If you only play arcade-type games that run at full speed on a stock machine (e.g. Superfrog, SWOS, Turrican), the 030 doesn't offer you much over the 020, and all you really need is a bit more RAM for WHDLoad. But it's hard to argue with the ACA1221EC alongside a RAM-only card for similar money - it's still an additional speed boost over the internal 020.

Using productivity software, like PPaint, DPaint, Wordworth, or any 3D rendering stuff will also benefit from the 030 of course, as will some demos and the system in general. Some demos do require an FPU, but most software that does is also available in an integer version which will run without the FPU.

Thanks.

I do plan on using some of the kind of software which would benefit from the 030.

Would you say the 030 is worth double the price in terms of the price-performance?

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by tech3475

Would you say the 030 is worth double the price in terms of the price-performance?

Hmmm... Again, that's going to be different from person to person. Personally for me having owned both a Blizzard 1220 and 1230 for many years, I would miss my 030 and wouldn't part with it, but then I've owned both since they were relatively cheap. In reality, the performance difference between them isn't double (both CPUs are very similar with the exception of a bigger cache, higher clock speed and faster RAM access on the 030), so if you were paying based purely on numbers I would say it wasn't worth it. But it will be faster, significantly so for certain things like tight loops and fast RAM operations, and performance is rarely linear with price in any technological realm. So, if it was me I'd probably go for the 030, but I really can't say whether the difference is justifiable for anyone else.

[ajk]

Looking at how things have sold on AmiBay, £200 may well be enough for a Blizzard 1230. Not saying you should definitely get one, but an A1200, 030 and a decent amount of Fast RAM is a very good overall combination for sure, able to run almost everything smoothly.

I have both aca1221ec and 1220/4 with add4 expansion arriving next month. Personally I like the 1220/4 more, it seems more stable in my environment, that might have something to do with amiga needing recapping or a better psu. Even with 4mb I am able to run a lot of whdl games and even demos. The aca1221ec is wonderful for pimping up workbench and having all whdl games run, as it comes with 9mb fast ram (i noticed better stability with maprom feature turned off). But somehow, I have a feeling (i am underlining this that it's just a feeling after using amiga for decades) that the overall OS and demos work slightly faster or smoother with 1220/4. Although sysspeed reports couple of hundreds dhrystones more in case of ACA1221ec.

I'd go with 1220/4. I had one in the '90, sold it, and just recently acquired it for 70Eur, which is a hard to come by price for this piece of equipment. Just add extra 4 mb to it and an FPU if you need some raytracing and I think you are fine for most cases.

ps. i have also a blizzard 1230 mark 4, with 8mb, but somehow i end up most of the time working with 1220/4.

Sent from my Redmi 4 using Tapatalk

[demolition]

No Amiga hardware is 'worth buying' if you look at it objectively. They are all luxury hobby-items, so you should ask yourself what you really want to use it for. To play mainly old games, designed for A500 or A1200? In that case, the ACA1221ec is a very nice product which should suit you well and should do almost as well as any 030 accelerator. If you also want to play with more modern productivity software, then an 030 accelerator could be nice to have.

Forget about the FPU unless you plan on running 3D software like Lightwave. In that case, an 030 would probably also feel too slow since that kind of software was designed with 060 in mind.

[tech3475]

I think I'm going to get the ACA1233n.

The Blizzard 1230 I can find on ebay seems to be better but is more than what I'd like to pay looking around (around £300) and the nearest 1220/4 is fairly close to the ACA once I add the extra RAM.

For most games it may be overkill, but there is software I might look at which may benefit from the 68030.

Thanks for the advice.

[Daedalus]

Cool beans! And don't forget, Amiga hardware tends to hold its value, so even if you regret the decision, you'll be able to sell it on for most of what you pay for it new.

But try a few 3D or "busy" games and see how they compare to running on the '020. It'll be a world of difference, and makes many games vastly more playable IMHO.

[redblade]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Cool beans! And don't forget, Amiga hardware tends to hold its value, so even if you regret the decision, you'll be able to sell it on for most of what you pay for it new.

Sad but true, I know the 2nd hardware is cheaper now, but some of the prices are a bit high. I was lucky to get some Amiga hardware early 2000s of trademe.co.nz but some people wanting more the $100 for a A500 is a expensive.

I keep looking for a cheap A3000. But hopefully Chucky and his open schematics he is doing shows up something nice in the future .

[ajk]

The ACA will certainly be a nice upgrade and brand new, too. But just for future reference eBay prices for Amiga items tend to be quite high, so it's always worth checking Amibay also.

[tech3475]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Cool beans! And don't forget, Amiga hardware tends to hold its value, so even if you regret the decision, you'll be able to sell it on for most of what you pay for it new.

But try a few 3D or "busy" games and see how they compare to running on the '020. It'll be a world of difference, and makes many games vastly more playable IMHO.

Knowing my luck the whole market will crash just before I do something .

Originally Posted by redblade

Sad but true, I know the 2nd hardware is cheaper now, but some of the prices are a bit high. I was lucky to get some Amiga hardware early 2000s of trademe.co.nz but some people wanting more the $100 for a A500 is a expensive.

I keep looking for a cheap A3000. But hopefully Chucky and his open schematics he is doing shows up something nice in the future .

I sometimes feel I was born about a couple of decades too late, I remember picking up/seeing stuff which around the mid 2000s were half the price they were now.

I got my Amiga for about £30-40 back and even a basic, no-frills, no PCMCIA, RAM expansion is about double what I paid on ebay back then (£20-30).

The only thing I might get cheaper these day is kickstart 3.1.....if only because I would have tried seeing if I could get a cheap flasher and compatible EEPROMs.

Originally Posted by ajk

The ACA will certainly be a nice upgrade and brand new, too. But just for future reference eBay prices for Amiga items tend to be quite high, so it's always worth checking Amibay also.

Yeah, I had a quick browse, didn't see anything of interest (well kind of....) but definitely a place to keep an eye on.

Update:

Ordered the card.

Thanks for the advice again.