Amiga and RAM

[Sim085]

Hello, for most of my life I used an A500+ with 2MB of ChipRAM and 4MB of FastRAM. I never had any trouble doing any of the day to day stuff I used to do (mostly playing and some word processing).

Today I have an A1200 with 2MB of ChipRAM and 32MB of FastRAM. However my 030 card can take up to 128MB of RAM.

My question is; what is the maximum FastRAM and amiga can take but more importantly what is the need for more RAM on an amiga?

Was it only used for people who did videos and music for example?

[MigaTech]

The Amiga 1200 can accept up to 256MB fast ram, depending on the Accelerator card.

More fast ram means better operation of programs that require it. There are many reason why more memory makes sense.

Although 128MB is more than efficient for your requirements.

[ross]

Originally Posted by Sim085

My question is; what is the maximum FastRAM and amiga can take but more importantly what is the need for more RAM on an amiga?

The 32bits (full) processors of the 680x0 family can address flat memory up to 4GB.
In amiga the MSB bit is used by the system so this quantity drops to 2GB.
Furthermore, low memory parts are used differently: CHIP RAM, RANGER RAM, Z2 MEM, custom and i/o registers, ROM, PCMCIAA/16bit mem, etc,
but only in the first 16MB (24bit address).
Hence, excluding memory used by some sort of Z3 devices, theoretically expansions of about 2GB of fast ram are possible.

For the second question: no , is not needed, the existing 256MB expansions are more than enough

[Daedalus]

If you're compiling large projects, more RAM might be useful too, though I shudder to think about an Amiga development project that would use up 256MB. I had 256MB in my A1200 but reduced it to 192 because the 128MB SIMMs I had didn't fit properly, so I swapped one for a physically smaller 64MB SIMM. I still don't use it all, but it was handy in the past to have buckets of RAM for various things. Working with audio for example, if you were trying to process a single CD track in Samplitude, you'd be surprised how quickly the project eats up memory - CD quality audio uses around 10MB per minute, and you could have multiple tracks open at the same time. Similarly, if I'm working on some large images, they can quickly eat up lots of RAM. And, of course, that old Amiga nut: multitasking. I can have these all going at the same time, switching between several large images without having to worry about closing anything. When I only had 64MB, I occasionally ran out of RAM, which is why I upgraded.

Of course, it totally depends on your use case. Another A1200 I have is only really used for WHDLoad and occasionally testing and development. Like your machine, that's fitted with an 030 and 32MB, and that's plenty for that job.

[Sim085]

I understand, I was always amazed how everything (I mean Workbench) booted in just 1.5MB and was under the impression that 256MB of FastRAM was mostly a "because you can" sort of thing rather than "it is needed". However I can see there might be some reasons to have so much FastRAM even back then.

[zipper]

On PC and MAC emulation lots of contiguous RAM is a good thing.

[trixster]

Agreed, lots of ram definitely helps Shapeshifter.