Is 030 overated, and 040 underrated?

[d4rk3lf]

I remember... once...
It was 1993-94... I met my friend at a market.

And he shared with me "secret" that A1200 with 030 was at some (local (in our town)) TV station.. WE were all.. drolling.. ahh such a beast.. .

Now, after internet and everything... I have to ask question: is 030 capable of anything ?
It's so weak that can't run doom, at acceptable rates, and Ok.. it's more compatible with old games, comparing to 040... but what about 020?

I mean.. it seems that 030 gets bad from each way... you are not enough fast to run Doom, yet you provide compatibility for older games less then 020.

Why would anyone want this processor?

[Pyromania]

It's both!

[Predseda]

If I want to play Doom, I get a PC. 030 is comfortable processor with great price / value / reliability ratio.

What is it with you people who still want to play PC games on Amiga???

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Predseda

What is it with you people who still want to play PC games on Amiga???

Any Amiga is too underpowered for such PC games, I'd rather play games released on a platform FOR that platform (emulation aside).

[Daedalus]

Well, it gets a bit vague when you start talking about ports. What you mean is 3D PC games - after all, games like Monkey Island are nothing but ports from the PC.

Being a commercial release for a particular platform is also too cut and dried. After all, Quake got a commercial release on the Amiga.

Now, regarding the original questions, things are very different now than they were back in the day. Back then, if you were doing anything serious with your Amiga, you went for the fastest processor you could afford/justify. Just like today in PC land - you buy the fastest CPU and GPU (assuming you can find one) that fits your budget, even if the games you want to run will happily run on lesser models.

It's different now, because for many people, the Amiga is still only about the old games and the Amiga OS, wonderful as it is, is used for little more than loading iGame or similar, and maybe the occasional mod. For this sort of use, the 030 is the sweet spot - fast enough for most classic games and not that expensive. It's also a significant step up from the 020, despite being so similar, due to the greatly enhanced cache and memory speeds. If you fall into the other camp and want to do more serious stuff, or want to play the few later games on actual hardware, the 060 is king of the hill. This leaves the 040 to fall between stools - it's significantly faster than an 030, but if you want speed, the 060 is a significant step up again. There's not much of a purpose for 040s these days...

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Predseda

If I want to play Doom, I get a PC. 030 is comfortable processor with great price / value / reliability ratio.

Value?
What does better then 020?

[pipper]

Integrated mmu and clocks much higher. 32bit address bus to go above 16mb.

[meynaf]

040 is barely twice faster than 030 and overheats, which 030 does not.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Now, after internet and everything... I have to ask question: is 030 capable of anything ?

Yes, obviously.

It's so weak that can't run doom, at acceptable rates,

It's acceptable to me.

and Ok.. it's more compatible with old games, comparing to 040...

True.

but what about 020?

030 and 020 have same compatibility, but FastRAM outside 16MB address range may be a problem, in which case you just run NoFastMem and play the game from ChipRAM (which also may solve speed issues).

I mean.. it seems that 030 gets bad from each way... you are not enough fast to run Doom, yet you provide compatibility for older games less then 020.

Not true. 030 is fast enough to run Doom, and games that can't be made to run on 030 probably won't run on 020 either.

Why would anyone want this processor?

to

- Assemble or compile code faster.

- Use software which needs an MMU, eg. The Enforcer.

- Have more than more than 4MB of FastRAM with PCMCIA.

- Browse the web at an acceptable speed.

- Play games that run smoother on a faster CPU.

- Anything else that benefits from more speed.

- Multitasking without slowing down too much.

- More responsive GUI.

- Run cooler with lower power consumption than an 040.

I have a Vampire 600 V2 and a Blizzard 1230-IV. The Vampire is much faster and has RTG, but the Blizzard is fast enough for most of the stuff I do and gets the most use. They will pry my it from my cold dead hands!

[robinsonb5]

A 50MHz '030 with fast RAM is the sweet spot for me - it *is* fast enough for DoomAttack to be enjoyable, but still runs cool enough that you don't need to introduce the noise of a CPU fan.

[duga]

Yes, 030 at 40-50 MHz were good enough for playing Doom (not as good as on a Pentium 90 of course) and early web browsing (up until 98-99). Today it's nice to have for a fast WHDload machine and PCMCIA usage (CF and/or NIC).

For A3000/4000 040/25 is the equivalent solution.

[Lord Aga]

I kinda like all 68K CPUs, and can see a role for each of them.

The only thing I dread is 040's heat, and would consider it only in a big box Amiga with some extra cooling.

[crazyc]

I have use my B1230 IV more than I use the machine with a B1260 and RTG card etc. The B1230 IV allows me to run a nice fluid 3.9 based workbench, blizzkick a rom image, have 32MB of fastram, is compatible with pretty much everything, and just makes workbench and any non native games stuff quicker.

If I was doing something that required more than an 030, I would want an 060 anyway so I dont see the attraction of the 040. Except maybe given what has happened with prices for 060s recently that its maybe a cost thing. Its like putting an FPU on a 020 based card. If you really need an FPU then I doubt an 020 will cut it anyway......

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by crazyc

Except maybe given what has happened with prices for 060s recently that its maybe a cost thing.

Yeah, they really gone crazy prices last months...
How much approximately?
It's 600-700 euros per 060, if I am not mistaken.

[crazyc]

Depends which revision etc you want but didnt think they were quite that high for the cpu alone. Anyway they are all out my league (and I have Rev 6 060 in my towered amiga from 6-7 years ago so am not really following the market.

[Predseda]

Doom is an Amiga benchmark?

[Nobby_UK]

Missing Option:

Because it was cheaper (more compatible ?) than an 040

[khph_re]

To me the 040 is a the dead zone (for my current usage) .

I like watching demo's on original hardware, my 030 50 runs A500/A1200 to the late nineties great.

I can't run 060 demo's, and the 040 won't help with that.

Most games are released for the A500, a few are AGA specific.

A lot of modern ports require...you guessed it, an 060.

[redblade]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Now, after internet and everything... I have to ask question: is 030 capable of anything ?
It's so weak that can't run doom, at acceptable rates, and Ok.. it's more compatible with old games, comparing to 040... but what about 020?

I mean.. it seems that 030 gets bad from each way... you are not enough fast to run Doom, yet you provide compatibility for older games less then 020.

Why would anyone want this processor?

My Viperk MkII 030@28mhz with 68882fpu came with a A1200 I brought. That extra speed when working with archives was great. Also being able to use the internet because I had more RAM available to run Miami with MUI as I couldn't figure out how to set up AmiTCP/IP at the time was nice.

I never used it for NetBSD as I didn't have a CD drive and trying to copy the files from pc via floppy was not going to be worth it.

I don't know what DOOM is like on a 030 if it was writing directly to a chunky display, I guess Mac or a NextStep would be best to compare. I read on the Atari Falcon that it had to write at 16 bits and not the full 32bits which caused a slow down.

030 is great

[Zak]

I don't think 68040 is bad for classic Amiga games, especially the Commodore approved 68LC040 at 25 MHz. It does not have the MMU and runs more old games than a proper 040. The same applies to 68030. The Commodore selected 68EC030 at 25 MHz runs more old games than a 68030/50 would do. Of course you can use the CPUnocache command, but it doesn't seem to have a full effect. I used a lot of different 68k processors and can tell the difference.

I once bought an Amiga tower and sold the 040 board to get a 68060 and I regretted it, because the 060 will run nothing classic at all.

And you will have more of a nostalgic Amiga feeling with real Commodore chosen processors like the EC030 or the LC040.

And it's great to have the old games with more horsepowers.