ACA 1220 & Amiga 1200 - first impressions

[Kenan]

Lord Aga asked me to do a little review of my newly purchased ACA 1220 (16mhz, 128mb ram) accelerator (from Amigakit) so here it goes:

First attempt plugging it in (the worst part as I was afraid I might break something) resulted in black screen, no floppy ticking sound. Did some googling and there it was: looks like my light PSU can't handle it. Oh well, so, let's try it again, maybe the fit wasn't strong enough. This time I get a blue screen. Effing great, looks like I'm gonna need a stronger PSU.

On the last attempt I cleaned the motherboard slot (for the card), actually, I just ran my finger over it as I was pretty sure dirt shouldn't be the problem as it already looked clean. I also removed the jumper out of curiosity and turned my Amiga back ON. Nothing, same blue screen. I then put the jumper back and on the very last attempt when I was 99% sure it wouldn't work, guess what?

IT WORKED! How, why, what? Don't ask. No idea. Looks like it needed couple of re-inserting and messing with the jumper (although, to add to the confusion, the inital position of the jumper was already as it should have been). I really don't know what exactly did I do, but the card works fine now and I have NO intention of ever touching it again or removing it.


I installed ACATune, ie. placed the file in the C folder, did some search on this very forum and entered the MAPROM line in the startup-sequence file (after placing the 3.1. rom file in the Devs folder). After a cold reboot (turn off the PSU switch and then turn it back ON), everything worked fine - the whole 132,000,000+ bytes of Fast Memory present.. (Before the ACATune installation, as mentioned in the README, on kickstart 3.0 it shows only 1MB of additional RAM!)

Tried some games and apps and it -seems- I have no timing issues and my mobo likes it (it's 1D4 revision, Made in UK).

Overall, I'm happy with it and already tried Alien Breed 3D AGA to see how it works. BTW, if you have a game to recommend for this little beast, please feel free to share.

BTW, it took only 7 days for my order to arrive (it was in Croatia on the 6th day but the Zagreb post office was taking their sweet time delivering it to Rijeka..)

It came with PCMCIA adapter (additionally ordered item!) but I need to get a proper card for it (installed the drivers, now it just needs a card).

That's pretty much it. If you have questions, shoot!

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Kenan

Overall, I'm happy with it and already tried Alien Breed 3D AGA to see how it works. BTW, if you have a game to recommend for this little beast, please feel free to share.

Cool, good review

I can recommend a game, go grab the WHLOAD install of 'Beneath a Steel Sky' (CD32), it is the only game I know about that needs 128MB to work properly (after you enable both speech and music).

[demolition]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

I can recommend a game, go grab the WHLOAD install of 'Beneath a Steel Sky' (CD32), it is the only game I know about that needs 128MB to work properly (after you enable both speech and music).

Takes forever to start with preload though. I tried it once on my 1200 with ACA1232, and it took more than 30 mins to load it all..

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by Kenan

Lord Aga asked me to do a little review of my newly purchased ACA 1220 (16mhz, 128mb ram) accelerator (from Amigakit)

Well... he seems like a cool guy

Originally Posted by Kenan

Overall, I'm happy with it and already tried Alien Breed 3D AGA to see how it works. BTW, if you have a game to recommend for this little beast, please feel free to share.

AB3D would be the first game to recommend, but you have already tried that. AB3D II looks even better (plays a little quirkier though) but it would be slow even with that turbo card. I think a bare minimum is something like 030 33+ MHz.
Extreme Racing should be the next thing to try! It works pretty well with FAST RAM alone. Should work even better with a little CPU boost.
Gloom Deluxe is also very optimized, and is a load of fun to play. Especially in 2 player mode. Also works nicely with FAST RAM alone. Should be even better with your card.

Give these two a spin, see how they play, and then we'll think of some more