Why would one need 2MB chip RAM over 1MB in an ECS/OCS machine?

[turrican9]

So from my experience you can run about all whdload games with a 1MB chip RAM Amiga. There was a few games requiring 2MB chip like cannon fodder (CD32 whdload version only require 1MB and can be run on non CD32). A later version of cannon fodder (non CD32) whdload was released that would only require 1MB chip anyway. And of course, assuming one have enough fast RAM and everything. Other than that I think there was like two more games that required 2MB chip. Which can be worked around anyway.

So with this in mind, you have graphics modes. Like running high res workbench with more colours. This will require chip RAM. But the fact is that OCS/ECS machines do not have the speed required to run this anyway. You would need an AGA machine for this.

So is there any good reason why one would need 2MB chip over 1MB in an OCS/ECS machine?

[zipper]

I did it because it was possible...

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by zipper

I did it because it was possible...

I understand. But I'm looking for any reason to why I would do so. For an A500 you would need an 8375 Agnus which is expensive on ebay. You would need to solder on more RAM and 1meg memory expansion.

The Indivision ACE2 is very expensive aswell.

On A600s I have already done 2meg chip because it was really cheap. On an A500 with ACA 500 I'm struggeling to justify an upgrade because it's expensive. And when I do not see any benefits of doing so...

A500 Plus are really overpriced these days. So I'm just wondering if there is really any noticeable benefits of having 2MB chip on an ECS/OCS machine..

[Galahad/FLT]

the only reason Cannon Fodder was 1meg chip ram when I first wrote it was because WHDLoad wasn't intended for 68000 based Amigas, it was intended for big box and anything 020+, i.e. mainly AGA machines.

What you have to remember is the goal of WHDLoad was to make previous games that didn't work on 68020+ machines, work, and as a default, hard drive installable.

Back in 2000 when I first started with WHDLoad, there wasn't the cheap upgrade paths to SD card drives and cheap processor cards for 68000 based Amigas like there are today, so there was simply no consideration for them.

Now there are all these cheaper options for A500 and A600 Amigas, so slaves get revisited to put in 68000 working quit keys and reducing memory requirements so they have a chance of working.

[robinsonb5]

Larger modules in ProTracker, playing large module in the background while using other software, more applications with screens open simultaneously - to name just a few use cases.

[AmigaHope]

I don't think you can get Dungeon Master II working without 2M chipmem, and there are a few games that use the extra chipmem for more sound effects and video and such and they do it in a way that would require them to be completely rewritten if they were to try to buffer the data in fast memory instead.

But yeah, just being able to open larger scrolling images when working on them in dpaint, or creating large music mods, etc. was a nice feature.

In my case what I really appreciated was the ability to have a ton of programs open at once while multitasking without having to worry about running out of chip. It sucks if you have like 32 megs of fast memory and aren't even close to running out, but you then stuff crashes because you ran out of chip because you forgot to close dpaint in the background.

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

I don't think you can get Dungeon Master II working without 2M chipmem, and there are a few games that use the extra chipmem for more sound effects and video and such and they do it in a way that would require them to be completely rewritten if they were to try to buffer the data in fast memory instead.

But yeah, just being able to open larger scrolling images when working on them in dpaint, or creating large music mods, etc. was a nice feature.

In my case what I really appreciated was the ability to have a ton of programs open at once while multitasking without having to worry about running out of chip. It sucks if you have like 32 megs of fast memory and aren't even close to running out, but you then stuff crashes because you ran out of chip because you forgot to close dpaint in the background.

So I did some research. Dungeon Master II was marked as an AGA game but is in fact an ECS game. Will run on a 2MB chip ECS machine. One of the few exceptions then. I think there must be very few OCS/ECS games which benefits by more sounds/music from having 2MB chip over 1MB. Multitasking etc. are good enough reasons for people who uses their Amigas for stuff like this.

I have A1200 and 3 A600s with 2MB chip so I cannot justify to buy something like ACE2 for my A500 + ACA 500 + ACA 1221 setup. Just to get 2MB chip on that setup. I mainly do whdload games on it and can run probably 99/if not 100% of my library. Do not have dungeon master 2 on that setup. It is on my A1200 though

[Daedalus]

There are a couple of games that run on ECS 2MB machines that were marked as AGA - Jungle Strike is another for example. But really most games are targeted at base machine specs, so games that do need 2MB were labelled as AGA, since that was the base spec.

It would be far more likely to be used for productivity stuff really - editing large images, building large animations, working with large sound samples, having lots of applications open on their own screens...

[Marchie]

Lightwave, even though it will run in 1meg chip, regularly gives out-of-memory errors without 2mb.

[malko]

Originally Posted by zipper

I did it because it was possible...

So did I for my A2000 BitD

Originally Posted by turrican9

[...] For an A500 you would need an 8375 Agnus [...]

And the A500 will leave the OCS world to reach the ECS one with this chip (but only max 1MB chip with the 8375, if I am correct. 2MB chip will requires another Agnus - can't remember which one I fitted in the A2000, will have to check...)

When it comes to games, most of original ones doesn't need more than the "vanilla" Amiga. If you use a lot the Workbench, this is another story and you will enjoy having more chip ram.
Since you have several Amiga, I am not sure you need to upgrade the "smallest" one as you can WHDLoad on your A1200 the few games that are not going to work on the A500.
Then, of course, everything depend on the use you have of your computer...

[Gordon]

Back in the day it was cheaper to increase my 600s chip than fast. I wanted it to get the best out of of one of my fave games, Settlers, to get sound and music at the same time as well as bigger maps

[Misclegend]

is better to purchase an A1200 instead adding more chip memory to any ecs ocs machine

upgrading today an old amiga without AGA is a bit retarded

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by Misclegend

is better to purchase an A1200 instead adding more chip memory to any ecs ocs machine

upgrading today an old amiga without AGA is a bit retarded

I don't think it's retarded upgrading any Amiga. I love all my Amigas and happily upgrade them. If you think like that you could just aswell say that buying any Amiga or upgrades is retarded when you could just buy an FPGA based system or use emulators.

I have A600s, A1200 and A500s with ACA 500. All of them have accelerators, some have scandoublers and so on. I love them all. For gaming I think AGA is way overrated. Very few AGA games. The true classics came out before AGA was a thing. So an A600 or A500 using accelerator and whdload makes perfect sense. Runs all of the classic games.

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by malko

So did I for my A2000 BitD


And the A500 will leave the OCS world to reach the ECS one with this chip (but only max 1MB chip with the 8375, if I am correct. 2MB chip will requires another Agnus - can't remember which one I fitted in the A2000, will have to check...)

A500 Plus has the 8375, which can address 2MB chip. I heard of another variant of the 8375 which cannot do 2MB chip though. 8372a is the ECS one that can do 1MB chip. Found in A500 Rev 6a and up. 8371 is the OCS one that can do only 512KB chip. Found in A500 Rev.5 and older boards.

Edit: The Indivision ACE2 is actually based on the 8375. It uses an actual 8375 chip.

[Retro1234]

Adding 1mb Chip to A600 is the cheapest memory upgrade there is, you can use this for Running games from HD, Productivity such as Dpaint, Programming etc.

[Predseda]

There are two main reasons to have 2MB chip:

1) Walker
2) Hired guns.

[fxgogo]

Originally Posted by Marchie

Lightwave, even though it will run in 1meg chip, regularly gives out-of-memory errors without 2mb.

Is that chip ram specifically or overall ram? I remember having 8MB of ram on my 500+ to run Imagine, but it only had 1mb of chip ram

[rare_j]

More animation frames in deluxe paint 3.

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by fxgogo

Is that chip ram specifically or overall ram? I remember having 8MB of ram on my 500+ to run Imagine, but it only had 1mb of chip ram

Yeah that's strange I don't see why Lightwave would use so much chip ram. It has the hires modeling screen (max 16 colors on ECS) or the hires scene layout screen (I don't think it opens both at once) and then its lores+laced HAM6 preview screen while you're rendering. Maybe it tries to keep both the modeling and layout screens in memory at the same time. This could be a problem if you're also using some sort of fancy workbench screen.

[Hewitson]

Difficult to answer your question when we don't know what you actually use your Amiga for and whether you have any fast ram.

Is it worth upgrading to 2MB just for games? Probably not.