ACA1233n Vs Blizzard mk2 1230/50 mhz with 6882 FPU

[Pjeff18]

I acquired a ACA1233n last week and at the same time won a Blizzard mk2 board on ebay, I now have two accelerators so one will have to go however I have carried out some tests and so far:

SPECS:
ACA: 68030@40Mhz 128mb ram No FPU
Blizzard: 68030@50Mhz 32mb ram FPU:6882@50Mhz

ACA 1233n Sysinfo: Dhrystones 9016 ; MIPS 9.16

Blizzard Sysinfo: Dhystones 8610; MIPS 8.90 MFLOPS(FPU) 1.32

Memory access is clearly faster on the ACA, this is noticable on workbench.

Now onto Games: Doom, Gloom and Genetic Species all run at a faster framerate in all screen modes and are playable at full screen PAL low res on the blizzard. This is not the case for the ACA other than Gloom which is slower but still decent enough to play.

Here is the point of the post, give the Sysinfo scores (Dhrystones) is less for the Blizzard then why are 3D Games smoother and more playable? Is it the FPU? is it the 10mhz extra speed on the 68030 CPU.

I like the ACA1233n as its new and I believe will be better supported in years to come. Can this be overclocked to a stable 50mhz, who can do it if this is possible?

[Mrz]

I would stay with the blizzard and sell the ACA

[dalek]

Those games depend on the FPU. If you like voiding your warranty you could get an FPU, crystal and solder on a socket to get the FPU going on the ACA1233n. You should also then disable 030 burst mode.

Easiest path for you seems to be keep the Blizzard.

[Pat the Cat]

My 0.02 cents worth - Vulcan never released a version of GS that worked without an FPU. Ditto Quake, AFAIK.

A fairer comparison would be to try a non-FPU version of Doom (not sure there is one) or Gloom (definitely exists).

Snag with trying to overclock the ACA - you are limited both by the CPU fitted (40MHz) and I think, IIRC, by the clock generator. Quite a task to get it up to 50MHz. In theory you could fit a military spec equivalent and clock it up to run beyond boiling point, in reality you would melt the plastic casing of the A1200 if you tried that (105C is the GTP of ABS plastic, 125C is the operating limit of Motorola based 030 and 040 military spec processors).

Myself, I would be tempted to buy a 40MHz 68882, fit it to the ACA (probably have to solder a socket onto it, 68 pin PGA) and then compare again. Burst mode unlikely to work with the combination but it might, and if so, would edge the Blizzard into a (close) second place. Certainly there are Amigas with 030, FPU that work quite happily with burst mode, so I am not sure why the ACA would not work like that.

Even if the ACA does still get beaten, adding the FPU does increase its resale value. The snag is getting it right. Which is why adding a socket makes sense - but do check for fit, it might make the card too fat to fit!

[Pjeff18]

Thanks you, so it doesn't surprise any of the you (the results?)

Is there a program that measures the real time FPS during games ? I would like to test both cards on a few games and see what difference their is - can someone point me to a program and brief details on how to use it please ?

[indigolemon]

Both cards have more than enough power to run any classic Amiga games, with a HDD/CF installed and whdload you'd be laughing. The games you mentioned, as stated above, are likely using the FPU to speed things up - giving the Blizzard the edge.

As said, you can add an FPU to the ACA - see http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php...33-accelerator but you've instantly voided any warranty you had, as well as potentially introduced instability into the hardware - there are a few posts from Jens about why he didn't fit an FPU by default.

It really comes down to what your intentions are for the machine, I've run a Blizzard 1230IV since the late 90's (only just replaced it) and it's about to go into my 'games' A1200 as soon as I figure out why the IDE port is gubbed For reference, the 1230IV in my Amiga is getting around 9.69 MIPS in SysInfo.

[cypher007]

id keep the aca and add a 50mghz fpu with 50mghz crystal for the fpu.

ive got a dead blizzard mk3 that gave up the ghost not long after bringing it out of retirement. the consensus is it could be bit rot on the Mach chips, as they have a limited lifetime.

[Toryglen-boy]

i maybe wrong, but i think the speed of the 1233n is at least partially controlled with software/firmware etc. an ACA1230 would be a far better candidate to overclock, as the speeds are jumper controlled, with a surface mounted xtal. Although, that doesn't help you, as you have an ACA1233n. i have often thought about modding my card, but why bother, its fast enough, now if i can pickup an older 1230, i would give modding that a try, looking at the clocks on the memory speeds, you could get it to 48mhz easy enough.

[cypher007]

ive wondered about modding an aca 1233n. I think it would be possible by changing the 80mghz smd crystal for a 100mghz. which would give you 50mghz. not sure if the ram can keep up but cant see why not.

maybe the wait state would need increasing to 1 from 0. as I think this affects memory access.

[cypher007]

oh and probably need to change the cpu to a 50mghz part.

[Toryglen-boy]

Originally Posted by Pjeff18

Thanks you, so it doesn't surprise any of the you (the results?)

Is there a program that measures the real time FPS during games ? I would like to test both cards on a few games and see what difference their is - can someone point me to a program and brief details on how to use it please ?

nope. as i expected. The Blizzard is buffered, which means it takes a slight hit in performance, against the ACA, that isn't buffered, thats why you never hear of a blizzard card with "timing issues" on a motherboard. I could have gotten a Blizzard 1230/IV, but i went with the ACA1233n ... and its great

[Jope]

The Amibay discussion has a new home: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=86303 - please stay on topic.

[Pjeff18]

Just an update on this. Having tried the -FPS option on ADOOM there is no difference between the two cards.

Simple sections of the first level run at 15-17fps dropping to 10-11 to complex areas and down to 6-7 when two enemies are firing and I am too!

It would seem my initial feelings were wrong! So the ACA1233n 40mhz matches the Blizzard50mhz with FPU at least on ADoom.

Does anyone know if there is a -FPS command in Gloom?

[ubermick]

Spot of thread necromancy...

So with me having returned to the fold and an A1200 winging it's way to me, I'm on the lookout for an accelerator. Since I'm in the USA and don't have to pay VAT, I can pick up the ACA1233n for about €210 including shipping. Meanwhile, the Blizzard - if I can find one - will be more like €275 or so shipped. €65 difference which isn't to be sneezed at.

The other issue is that I have no clue if the 1200 has had the timing fix done. And here in the States, there are no services that offer it beyond Acill and he's massively backlogged. (The Amiga is recapped, but no clue if he did the timing fix and he's currently away).

So is the ACA1233n still a decent option if the timing fix is in question, or should I save a few more pennies and show a bit more patience for a Blizzard?

[fluffkitten]

I believe the 1233n, like 1221ec, was reworked to not need the timing fix.

[esel]

The wiki says that they are still needed in the aca1233n.

http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/ACA1233n

It could work but they still recommend to remove the capacitors.

[HardStep]

Ubermick, I'd go with ACA and save the difference for some other expansions, like Indivision scandoubler , PCMCIA network card or something.

[ubermick]

Originally Posted by HardStep

Ubermick, I'd go with ACA and save the difference for some other expansions, like Indivision scandoubler , PCMCIA network card or something.

Yeah, thats where I'm leaning as well. It's a shame that there isn't the range of Amiga service techs willing to work on boards on this side of the pond as there are back in Europe. See Amigakit basically charges a tenner for the timing fix plus postage and there's a list of others that'll do it as well. (Confirmed with him it's not done to the one I bought)

Individual's wiki basically says "Give it a try, it might work and if it doesn't arse around with it!" which is a bit of a laugh. So that's what I'll go with.

[d3cka2d3pwood]

I have an ACA1233n and it runs perfectly. To be honest FPS game on the Amiga don't hold up well today so even if the Blizzard did run faster it wouldn't be beneficial as I can't see anybody playing games like gloom on the Amiga anymore... maybe thats just me.