CDTV accelerator

[iXien]

Originally Posted by utri007

There are some and most of procutivity apps get benefits of faster prosessor.

Amiga is not a PC. I'm but I don't see the interest in making work on my Amiga games that weren't designed for its architecture . If I wan't to play 3D mapped games, I power on my old 386DX2/66Mhz and I enjoy PC games made for Intel CPUs.
imo hundred of euros (because that's what a so uselessly powerful card will cost) just to play a handful of games is not what I call productivity imo
If someone (for once) don't try to stupidly rip off us all selling an 68030 accelerator card more than 200 euros with memory and IDE feature, maybe it would be interesting but I know i advance that if someone create such a card, he will try to sell it far much more. I recently saw a card for 68060 : 500 euros... without the 68060. Unbelievable. So 68EC020/28Mhz is enough for every ECS Amiga use, really.

[d4rk3lf]

Great piece of hardware.
I've never even saw CDTV in person, but I still think it's amazing machine and needs a bit more love from both hardware and software support.

Originally Posted by iXien

I would be curious to know what to do on an ECS Amiga that would require a 68030 or a 68040. With a 68EC020 at 28mhz, you got an Amiga twice as fast as a stock A1200, four times faster than a stock A500. I don't know any ECS content that would be more interesting on a 68030/40 than on this 68EC020, just because I don't know what content could need more than 28Mhz, even on 68000, to be fully working

Basically yes, but there's still some games that could use extra power.
Frontier, for example, if you going to fly a lot above detailed cities... never enough power...
Then, it could be Nemac IV, or Gloom (both are ecs, just requires 020)..

I've tried Dune 2 on my Aca 500+ overclocked on 42Mhz, and while it was HUGE improvement over the standard A500, it was still a little bit choppy.

Last, but not least, a famous Doom (ecs version), that is pretty slow even on 030.

Oh, and as utri007 said - productivity software.
Run Lightwave, or Real 3D, and you'd want as fast processor as you can get, for rendering.

[iXien]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Great piece of hardware.
I've never even saw CDTV in person, but I still think it's amazing machine and needs a bit more love from both hardware and software support.

Basically yes, but there's still some games that could use extra power.
Frontier, for example, if you going to fly a lot above detailed cities... never enough power...
Then, it could be Nemac IV, or Gloom (both are ecs, just requires 020)..

I've tried Dune 2 on my Aca 500+ overclocked on 42Mhz, and while it was HUGE improvement over the standard A500, it was still a little bit choppy.

Last, but not least, a famous Doom (ecs version), that is pretty slow even on 030.

Oh, and as utri007 said - productivity software.
Run Lightwave, or Real 3D, and you'd want as fast processor as you can get, for rendering.

When I used to play ECS games on my A1200 with some Fast RAM, I saw that it was already enough to enjoy some titles smooth and fast compared to a stock A500. I made some tests and if you configure you ACA500+ to 28Mhz, you will see that games like Dune 2 or all these lazy conversions of PC adventure games (Sierra or late Lucasfilm Games) already fly. I don't think more is necessary.

And with all my respect (and I'm serious, it's always interesting to discuss different point of views), I don't understand the wish to play 3D mapped games on an Amiga. Nemac IV, Gloom, just play some other games like this on PC and you will so how these ones are crap games compared to what PC users enjoyed back in the days. Doom? It sounds like an old dream (nightmare?) from Amiga users to enjoy the same games as the ones that made PC defeat the Amiga range of computers on gaming market.
If I want to play Doom and other legends of the first 3D mapped game generation, any cheap PC of the same era will do this far better. On an expanded Amiga, I enjoy faster 2D games, smoother 3D plain surfaces games. What a pleasure to play Sierra games at the right speed with better music than Adlib sound from PC thanks to my Amiga, what a pleasure to play smoothly Robocop 3, Alpha Waves, Rotox or Powermonger. What a pleasure to play officially released games that just needed a little more power to be perfect.

Productivity? If you can use Amiga apps that you enjoy and that work at there best on a stock system, why not for the fun. But I'm sorry, here at the cost of the accelerator cards on Amiga, I don't understand the interest in using your real Amiga to create prehistorical rendered pictures. It will take ages even using a costly 68060 at full speed. If the interest is to show what an ECS Amiga could make in terms of 3D rendering, launch WinUAE at its fastest speed, render the picture in a few or minutes, save it and then just show the result on your real Amiga . Ie, I love HAM aspect, knowing the OCS/ECS constraints I'm so impressed by the picture quality an Amiga could display even in 1985 compared to other general public systems. Ok, I don't waste my time showing JPEG pictures directly appear line by line on my CDTV with FastJPEG (really fabulous HAM rendition). I make the job on the fastest WinUAE configuration in 2 seconds, save the picture in IFF then enjoy the result on my CDTV. It's the same with word processing, picture design, coding, music creation, etc. Nowaday systems offer so much speed, convenient and modern alternatives to create content that you can then enjoy on you're real system. Even back in the good old days, lot of Amiga developers were using fast PCs to work and then transfer the result to implement it in there Amiga projects. That's what I call productivity.

I upgraded my CDTV with 2Mb Chip-RAM, 8Mb Fast-RAM, KS2.04 with Workbench 2.10, Internal 8Gb CF card, external 32Gb CF card, Bluetooth CD32 compatible joypad, wireless RF mouse and keyboard. I can play hundreds of WHDLOAD installed games, launch demos, display lot of demoscene and games pictures, without forgetting homemade HAM pictures, hear thousands of musics in various mod formats and even streamed music stored in 8SVX. And with my external floppy drive, I can continue to launch the original games of my own collection.

No really, I think even a 68000 at 28Mhz is perfect on an antiquity like our beloved Amiga. Maybe 42mhz on your ACA500+ of course, as it's easily available. But as my own ACA500+ doesn't fit in my CDTV, 68000/28mhz would make me perfectly happy

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by iXien

And with all my respect (and I'm serious, it's always interesting to discuss different point of views)

It's no different view, I agree completely.
That's why I said at the beginning of my post "basically yes".
Personally, I couldn't care less for Doom, and I didn't cared even back then. I thought, that you were just asking for list of the games, so I listed some.
Also, you say, you'd be happy with 28Mhz 68000, and I am perfectly happy with 14Mhz (default) on my Aca 500+.
I go above, only when testing something, and that is, very very rare.

Even the few 3D games I play regularly on Amiga (Frontier, Wing Commander, F/A18 Interceptor), I play it on 14Mhz. I could squize a bit more speed with 28, or 42Mhz, but I don't care, and it doesn't bother me.

Originally Posted by iXien

I don't understand the interest in using your real Amiga to create prehistorical rendered pictures. It will take ages even using a costly 68060 at full speed.

Well, not really...
I did a test render on some Real3D test scene (teapot with a candle), removed bump from the teapot, as it was very slow and ugly (much nicer look without bump), and it rendered something like 10 minutes per frame (on 14Mhz), which is more then acceptable, for, as you said, machine from 1985.
To bad I didn't saved render, as it was really good looking.

Well, I guess, I could easily create new one, when I have some spare time, and play further.

[iXien]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

It's no different view, I agree completely.
Also, you say, you'd be happy with 28Mhz 68000, and I am perfectly happy with 14Mhz (default) on my Aca 500+.
I go above, only when testing something, and that is, very very rare.

Even the few 3D games I play regularly on Amiga (Frontier, Wing Commander, F/A18 Interceptor), I play it on 14Mhz. I could squize a bit more speed with 28, or 42Mhz, but I don't care, and it doesn't bother me.

I'm already making some tests with a friend of mine but we are finishing the assembly of a simple 68000/14mhz in replacement of the original 7Mhz one. Basically it will give my CDTV the same speed of on my A1200. I made some tests on an A500 with my ACA500+ and with a very carefully created Winuae configuration I use everyday as a clone of my CDTV system. And when I set it to 14Mhz, I'm already impressed by the comfort and fluidity that this brings to an already functional configuration at 7Mhz.

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Well, not really...
I did a test render on some Real3D test scene (teapot with a candle), removed bump from the teapot, as it was very slow and ugly (much nicer look without bump), and it rendered something like 10 minutes per frame (on 14Mhz), which is more then acceptable, for, as you said, machine from 1985.
To bad I didn't saved render, as it was really good looking.

Well, I guess, I could easily create new one, when I have some spare time, and play further.

I understand what you say but the duration of processes doesn't really interest me as I'm concentrated to the result. So if it's of course impressive to see a 1985 architecture making 3D rendering, that's not something you've time to enjoy daily. I'm not sure it's rational to spend money in an expansive very fast accelerator card when more cheaper ones make the same for 90% of the needs on Amiga At its launch, your ACA500+ didn't cost more than 200€, that's a reasonable spent for all the stuff offered on this board. But when I see cards that cost more than 400€ or 500€ just because they're designed for 68030/40/60 at more than 50Mhz with 128 or 256Mb Fast-RAM, I'm really puzzling How many times per year users really exploit the power of such CPU and RAM on an A500, A600 or CDTV? I have 8Mb of Fast-RAM and I never managed to fill it completely

[utri007]

Originally Posted by iXien

And with all my respect (and I'm serious, it's always interesting to discuss different point of views)

I 'm not sure if I get you point. You point is seems to be "don't", just with some hundred lines of text, wich is little vague for this conversation. Not a interested stop tinkering with my Amigas and don't see any reason to discus it, so end of that discussion.

[eXeler0]

I have 2 CDTVs but honestly they get very little attention and its mostly because they are so underpowered and no real killer apps that only work on that particular model.
And the remote is dodgy, I have 3 remotes but I can never really tell if its working properly or what going on.
So then yea you can connect Mouse and Keyboard and then you basically have a big box Amiga.. But only size-wise.. not in any other respect unfortunately.

Have you ever wondered why Commodore launched the CDTV with basically the same specs as their, by then, 4 year old entry level model A500?
But CDTV wasn't cheap at launch. Couldn't they have at least doubled the clock of the 68000 CPU or something? Trying to play video of CDs could have used some extra horsepower.

Anyway, where I'm getting at is that its such a big piece of hardware it sort of needs to perform a lot better than say an A600 to be worth the extra "bulk", but it really doesn't if all you're looking for is playing simple 2d Amiga games.

If I'd put a Warp 060 card in it on the other hand, that could then be my main Amiga and I would set it up as a big box Amiga with external keyboard, mouse and a monitor on top of the CDTV ;-)

[iXien]

Originally Posted by utri007

I 'm not sure if I get you point. You point is seems to be "don't", just with some hundred lines of text, wich is little vague for this conversation. Not a interested stop tinkering with my Amigas and don't see any reason to discus it, so end of that discussion.

As you want