Sell Blizzard 1230 and buy Blizzard 1260 for A1200

[gntavelis]

Hi guys, I have a question: is it worth selling my Blizzard 1230-IV with 50Mhz and FPU 6882/50Mhz and 128MB Ram and buying a Blizzard 1260 instead for my A1200?
I'm only using WHDLoad games and since it takes some time loading, I thought a 1260 would speed things up a bit.
Also, the 1230 does not really run newer demos like "Smoke & Mirrors" or "Norwegian Kindness"...

I've read somewhere that the 1260 apparently has incompatibility issues with WHDLoad compared to the 1230. Is that true? Should I stay with the current 1230?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks in advance

if its worth 400 euros, then go for it. as far as i know, 1230-IV is one of the most stabile cards there is. Then again, I haven't heard of issues with blizzard's 1260 either.

[jbenam]

It won't speed up things massively unless you also get a SCSI-kit to go along with it and use a CF with a SCSI-to-IDE adapter (unless you want to use a really clunky and noisy SCSI drive ). That's another 200eur there

I think it's not worth to get a 1260 if all you do is play games. If you're REALLY interested in 060 demos then it could make some sense, otherwise stick with the 030.

[fitzsteve]

A 1260 will make difference for WHDLoad games, in fact you already have the most compatible option so if you only play WHDLoad Games stick with it.

If your Games are taking a long time to load probably your HDD isn't set up properly, look at a file system like SFS of PFS3 and updating the scsi.device and/or more buffers

A 1260 will only be with it if you want to watch 060 demos, play Amiga CD games or emulators that need more oomph or explorer productivity software.

You will also be introducing more heat and power consumption so consider extra cooling/noise or towering your Amiga.

Still worth it? You decide

[gntavelis]

Thanks guys for all your replys!

I have used the PFS3 file system (for the 020 processor) for partitioning my 8GB CF HDD and right now, it appears to run relatively slowly.
I’m running Classic WB however.
It is really super-slow for a CF HDD and I thought that upgrading to a more speedy card would help with increased performance for WHDLoad games.

How can I optimize partition settings for the use of this CF with the Blizzard 1230-IV?

[fitzsteve]

If you have enough Ram try adding some extra buffers:

addbuffers <partition name> 200

(In CLI)

Check your transfer speeds with SysSpeed and SysInfo. Note SysInfo is only accurate for your DH0/System partition.

You should be getting 1.7-2mb/sec with an A1200 and Blizzy 030, it wont be any faster with 060, in fact it can be slower.

If you have the optional SCSI kit you can try SCSI instead for up to 10mb/sec (although I only saw 6.6mb/sec with a 133x CF using SCSI-IDE bridge)

[gntavelis]

Hi fitzsteve,

thanks a million for this! Will sure try it out!
Question: does "addbuffers" consume chip-memory or fast-memory?

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by gntavelis

Hi fitzsteve,

thanks a million for this! Will sure try it out!
Question: does "addbuffers" consume chip-memory or fast-memory?

Like most operations it should use your Fast Ram but only if you have none left or no Fast Ram then it will use the Chip Ram.

200 Buffers shouldn't use a lot if Ram, one of the Guru's here will tell you exactly but if you have above 8mb Fast Ram then I'm sure you wont even notice it.

It greatly improves loading times on bigger games or larger files though!

[demolition]

I agree that getting an 060 won't do much for the loading speed of WHDLoad games unless you also replace the controller. Since you have plenty of fast mem, don't worry about adding buffers.

Maybe getting a FastATA Mkxx controller could help in this regard. It should significantly improve HDD access speed (I think to ~double speed?). Some people have various issues with it however, and it is not very physically compatible with an Indivision if you have that installed, so ask around before you get that.

[gntavelis]

thanks!!
I actually have 128MB of fastram, so that should work out beautifully!

thanks a lot demolition! Will look into it!

[gntavelis]

Sorry another qUestion: since I have 128MB of fastram, can I use more than 200 buffers to get even faster results?
What would be the optimum/maximum to use here?
Thanks again for all your help

[fitzsteve]

There's no need to use more I don't think it makes any difference.

I'm using 100 here and it's fine.

Default is 30

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

Default is 30

Which because of a bug deliberate programming choice, in reality sets the buffers to 150.

It's all documented on another thread here on EAB.

[Leffmann]

The maximum transfer speed on the internal IDE is 3.5 Mb/s, and you can reach just above 3 Mb/s with the right type of adapter and card.

I can't find the thread right now, but someone here on EAB posted a 3.2 Mb/s transfer speed using a fast MicroSD card in a MicroSD-CF Type 1 adapter, instead of using a plain CF card. You should also get BlizKick from Aminet and use the SpeedyIDE patch.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by Leffmann

You should also get BlizKick from Aminet and use the SpeedyIDE patch.

Or use Don_Adan's scsi.device which does the same (and more)

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

200 Buffers shouldn't use a lot if Ram, one of the Guru's here will tell you exactly but if you have above 8mb Fast Ram then I'm sure you wont even notice it.

Buffers are whatever your blocksize are, so with a 512-byte blocksize (which it should be under PFS), 200 buffers will take up 102400 bytes (close enough to 100KB or 0.1MB). FFS is often used with bigger blocksize so the same number of buffers will take up more memory. But with 128MB, you can pretty much use as many buffers as you like!

2,048 buffers with a blocksize of 512 bytes is 1MB for reference, though I'd imagine that's way past the point of making any difference in reality.

[gntavelis]

Dear guys,

I have an update to my issue:

Today I received a box with a Blizzard scsi-kit inside.
I atached it to the Blizzard 1230 - and so far - no change at all

It appears I need a SCSI to IDE adapter so I can connect the CF to the scsi kit?

How exactly can I make this happen? What else do I need?

Kindly asking for help here.

Thanks guys

[gntavelis]

Btw, the Blizzard 1230 accelerator I have is the version from Phase 5, the scsi-kit says DCE.
Does that matter?

[fitzsteve]

Just connecting SCSI kit wont make any difference other then the extra Ram you can connect.

You need a SCSI Hard Disk or as you say SCSI-IDE bridge to use the SCSI for data storage.

[gntavelis]

Hi fitzsteve,

thanks a lot. SO that scsi-ide bridge is needed and nothing else?
No extra cable?
Which one of those 2 would I need:

http://www.vesalia.de/d_acard.htm

And may I ask you something very subjective: do you think it is worth it for going from currently about 1.7MB/s to around 7 - 10MB/s?
Will I feel a big improvement in loading times of games?

THanks again for all your help!