ACA1233-40 to ACA1233n-55 worth it??

[Damion]

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

Still curious bout that 1230/56 you own and why it's not listed on the individual computers list with all the bench marks. Its an ACA1230 right?

Sorry, I meant 1230/55--the 1230/56 was the top dog of the very first iteration of the ACA series, if I remember right. Regardless, I don't own an ACA card, I've only briefly tested a friend's 55 or 56Mhz after adding an FPU (can't recall what it was). These days I run a Blizzard 1230 in my desktop, as it works perfect for my needs (WHDLoad, old demos) but have extensively used both the Apollo and Blizzard '060 cards in the past. If it were my money, I'd get the '060 for 3D games and the (very awesome) late 90's onward AGA demoscene. However, Jens' new '040 card appears very promising, it might be more than what you need once it's released.

[vroom6sri]

The info I’ve given is for my Individual Computers ACA1230/56 which was the fastest of the first of the ACA accelerators Jens did as far as I know.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by Damion

Sorry, I meant 1230/55--the 1230/56 was the top dog of the very first iteration of the ACA series, if I remember right. Regardless, I don't own an ACA card, I've only briefly tested a friend's 55 or 56Mhz after adding an FPU (can't recall what it was). These days I run a Blizzard 1230 in my desktop, as it works perfect for my needs (WHDLoad, old demos) but have extensively used both the Apollo and Blizzard '060 cards in the past. If it were my money, I'd get the '060 for 3D games and the (very awesome) late 90's onward AGA demoscene. However, Jens' new '040 card appears very promising, it might be more than what you need once it's released.

We shall see. I actually had a look at the Vampire prices and they are a lot cheaper than I thought. In fact they probably will be the same price as Jen cards when they come out. However, I do feel Vampire is an onboard emulator since it uses bugger all of the Amiga that hosts it. Well that's my understanding of it having watched a video with the Vampire guy talking about it. So it probably works out better value to get it. But we shall see with these new 040/060 cards. Perhaps I will get the 060 if it is affordable and has the options to downgrade. The options the latest ACA1233's have are really great. I tend to run my own full speed all the time. Haven't had any issues running games, apart from speeded up sequences in Monkey Island and a few other games.


What are the demos people always bang on about on this site? I don't see how demos would hold anyone's attention for more than 5 minutes, am I missing something? I've watched a few but that's it.

Originally Posted by vroom6sri

The info I’ve given is for my Individual Computers ACA1230/56 which was the fastest of the first of the ACA accelerators Jens did as far as I know.

I thought the ACA1233n-55 was the fastest. Oh well may be not

[AMike]

I have a 1230/56, 1233/55, Blizzard1230,GVP1230 ect. In short - it's not worth to move form a card with the speed of a Blizzard 1230 or 1233/40 to the faster 030 card with 55/56Mhz. Wait for the upcoming 060 cards - you get much more for your money.

[A1200]

I have owned a lot of 020/030 boards and about 3 060 boards in the past. Would never buy an 040 as I like to keep the A1200 in its orginal wedge case, and the heat generated from them is just nuts. If you are going 040, may as well go 060. (IMO of course).

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by A1200

I have owned a lot of 020/030 boards and about 3 060 boards in the past. Would never buy an 040 as I like to keep the A1200 in its original wedge case, and the heat generated from them is just nuts. If you are going 040, may as well go 060. (IMO of course).

Yeah I fully intend to get the new 060 cards if they ever come out. It's all gone very quiet on that front. Pandemic has probably not helped.

I won't need to modify my case to fit a 060 in there will I?

If the prices of the new cards (should they ever materialize) are insane I might just buy a f**king Vampire instead even though it's sorta of emulation really.

I dare say if the new Individual cards come out they will have useful options for switching speeds etc like the other ACA cards.

[vroom6sri]

I messaged Jens a week or so ago as I’ve been checking their website for news on the new accelerator since last year. He replied very quickly to say their current focus is the Indivision AGA MK3 so development of the ACA1240/1260 has been interrupted since February but he gave firm assurances that the project is definitely still alive which I was pleased to hear.

I’m not sure if I’ll go 040 or 060 though when they’re finally released.

[trixster]

Memory speed makes a big difference with games like doom and quake as they move textures in and out of memory, so it’s worth checking bustest to see what your accelerator can do compared to what you’re thinking of buying. MIPS matter most but ram speed is also important.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by vroom6sri

I messaged Jens a week or so ago as I’ve been checking their website for news on the new accelerator since last year. He replied very quickly to say their current focus is the Indivision AGA MK3 so development of the ACA1240/1260 has been interrupted since February but he gave firm assurances that the project is definitely still alive which I was pleased to hear.

I’m not sure if I’ll go 040 or 060 though when they’re finally released.

How come you contacted him about the new cards when you might not get one?

I nearly emailed him also.

The last thing I emailed him about was these cards and whether it was worth getting the ACA1233n-55 and he didn't really try and talk me out of it

But then we got onto something else regarding new Amiga power supplies that he intends to bring out also. That too sounds appealing to me. He mentioned that a lot of the models floating around from Polish sellers on ebay are not cut out for some reason I did not understand. Some of those power packs I have seen around look pretty good as well so I wonder what the issue is with them???

Back to the cards though, I don't think I am too worried about the heat of the new 060 cards as we have already saw on Jens site that he intends to fully incorporate a cooling system.

Originally Posted by trixster

Memory speed makes a big difference with games like doom and quake as they move textures in and out of memory, so it’s worth checking bustest to see what your accelerator can do compared to what you’re thinking of buying. MIPS matter most but ram speed is also important.

Well I think the ram on my ACA card is pretty quick. It does run Doom Attack pretty good but then slows down when the action heats up with more stuff going on. From what I gather from talk on here and videos I have watched on youtube, in real basic terms the 030 is not the best at running games like that, but the 040 and 060 seem to be able to cope. So it's an avenue I am willing to go down. It depends on the price. I do love the ACA1233n-40. Might sell it, might keep it, I dunno yet.

[trixster]

have a go with bustest and mesaure the ram speed, and then compare to other 030 cards.

a slightly anecdotal example of what a difference memory speed makes to Doom - my bridgeboard had a 50mhz 486SLC2 processor with 1k cache. Upgrading that chip to one clocked the same, same instruction set etc but with 8k cache increased Doom's speed by 1.5x....

re: 040 and 060 - the 040 in mips-terms is about 4x quicker than an 030 clock for clock and has bigger 4K cache, so an 040 with some decent local ram is a much better placed at dealing with intensive stuff like Doom.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by trixster

have a go with bustest and mesaure the ram speed, and then compare to other 030 cards.

a slightly anecdotal example of what a difference memory speed makes to Doom - my bridgeboard had a 50mhz 486SLC2 processor with 1k cache. Upgrading that chip to one clocked the same, same instruction set etc but with 8k cache increased Doom's speed by 1.5x....

re: 040 and 060 - the 040 in mips-terms is about 4x quicker than an 030 clock for clock and has bigger 4K cache, so an 040 with some decent local ram is a much better placed at dealing with intensive stuff like Doom.

Sure why not!!

Ok now if I ask how do I go about doing a bustest don't laugh!

So how do I do the bustest?

Is it a program on workbench some where? I always feel bad about asking questions on here, everyone seems to know infinitely more than me when it comes to Amiga systems.

[vroom6sri]

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

How come you contacted him about the new cards when you might not get one?

What I was trying to say was I most certainly AM thinking of getting one of his new cards but I haven’t decided if it’ll be an 040 or 060 one. Price will be the key of course. I have an ACA1230/56 currently and it’s great but I’ll probably sell that when I get one of the new ones.

[roondar]

Bustest can be found here: http://aminet.net/package/util/moni/bustest

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by roondar

Bustest can be found here: http://aminet.net/package/util/moni/bustest

Already ahead of you there. Got and installed and no idea how to use. The "read me" files are always written for people who know Amiga OS inside out.

I did try one test and of course it brought up nothing. Not even sure what I should be testing.

bustest fast

I assume for fast ram. What do I type after fast?

[roondar]

I tested it just to be sure, but for fastmem speed you type bustest fast
And then press enter. That should give a result, though it may take a small amount of time.

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by trixster

have a go with bustest and mesaure the ram speed, and then compare to other 030 cards.

a slightly anecdotal example of what a difference memory speed makes to Doom - my bridgeboard had a 50mhz 486SLC2 processor with 1k cache. Upgrading that chip to one clocked the same, same instruction set etc but with 8k cache increased Doom's speed by 1.5x....

re: 040 and 060 - the 040 in mips-terms is about 4x quicker than an 030 clock for clock and has bigger 4K cache, so an 040 with some decent local ram is a much better placed at dealing with intensive stuff like Doom.

That's why Dhrystone MIPS are only a rough approximation, but mileage definitely varies depending on the workload. For instance the 060, working in registers, can add numbers 4 times as fast as a similarly-clocked 030 (adds are twice as fast, and it can do two at once), but it can multiply an order of magnitude faster.

Since 3D games often use lots of multiplication, the 060 can absolutely destroy the 030 if it's not slowed down by other stuff (like AGA).

That's why using the RTG patch an 060 can play AB3D2:TKG very smoothly if you have a fast-bus-connected display card.

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by roondar

I tested it just to be sure, but for fastmem speed you type bustest fast
And then press enter. That should give a result, though it may take a small amount of time.

Just for a test I was practicing on my WINUAE with my cf hard drive loaded. It had crashed when I ran the command originally so I tried it again there and the command ran fine.

I will test on my A1200 and see what happens.

Am I able to screenshot it on Amiga and save to an image file and then bring back to my PC? Tried that in WINUAE but the format I chose can't be read by PC. May have to just take a photo with my phone when I do it on the A1200

[rabidgerry]

So here are the results

[trixster]

Cool, now compare it to other accelerator results. You figures look pretty good. There are a load on here:

http://apollo-core.com/knowledge.php...e=352&z=yYG4ur

And from faster processors here:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=98465

[rabidgerry]

Originally Posted by trixster

Cool, now compare it to other accelerator results. You figures look pretty good. There are a load on here:

http://apollo-core.com/knowledge.php...e=352&z=yYG4ur

And from faster processors here:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=98465

I don't really under stand those numbers.

If the less nano seconds there are does that mean it's faster at doing that particular job? Also what does the band width mean?