Amiga Accelerators & Why We Love Them

[sysop]

I'd like to start a discussion about the practical value of Amiga accelerators. There must be a need for accelerators, but I have yet to find anything that a stock A3000 at 25Mhz can't handle, AGA graphics not being accounted for. Any time an accelerator goes up for sale, Amiga lovers line up to buy them. So I'm wondering what games or applications those of you in the know are aware of that genuinely benefits from the added CPU power. I'm wondering if the Amiga scene is simply taking pride in have the fastest Amiga engine on the block, or what games and applications really need the turbo charge ..

 

[commodorejohn]

Not so many games get a big boost out of one, but plenty of desktop/productivity software does. If you want to run a graphical web browser usably on basically anything but an A3000/4000, you need an accelerator. And of course there's paint/image processing programs, raytracing, etcetera that can all use a performance boost...

 

[CrazyC]

And then of course there is Novacoder, who is a big reason to have an 060....

Sent from my HTC One.

 

[AmiNeo]

They make our classic experiences more enjoyable by making things happen on par speed with modern computing?

That's why I like them so much anyway.

 

[roy_bates]

take a 1200 for instance,its pretty much of little use without a hardrive and extra memory,so as soon as i add a drive it uses valuable resources so at least extra memory is must.
faster cpu is a bonus.
it just boils down to what anyone wants to do with there machine.
and thats just the 1200.
if i had a 4000 say,i would want more than 16mb of ram and rtg an sound card.and at least an 040.

 

[AndyLandy]

Mostly it's LAGS (Latest And Greatest Syndrome); people like their SysInfo bars to be as long as possible.

More seriously, there's a lot more you can do with a faster Amiga, certainly if you're starting from a bog standard A500/A600/A1200. If you want to play WHDLoad games, an '030 with a few megs of FastRAM is ideal (The basic-spec A3000/A4000 also fits this category). If you want to play about with some of the higher-end stuff, you may need an '040 or an '060, or even a PPC. Largely, I guess it depends on what you want to do with the thing...

 

[NovaCoder]

And then of course there is Novacoder, who is a big reason to have an 060....

Sent from my HTC One.

Yep I like to code for AGA and push an 060, sometimes a little too far

I've never had a 3000 but from a 1200's point-of-view, the stock 1200 is next to useless. If you add a ram upgrade that gets you something nice, add an 030 card and that improves things again. Personally, I'd say an 040 card is not worth the money and hassle over an 030 card (esp if you've got a Blizzard or 56Mhz ACA), the best thing about 040's is that they can (usually) be upgraded to an 060.

With an 060 you can run the latest demos and ports, everything else is pretty much the same experience as having a good 030. I know some people say an 060 is a must for rendering or compiling large source code projects but why not just use WinUAE for these kind of tasks (that's what I do).

 

[Harrison]

One thing that really benefits a lot from an accelerator is Workbench itself, especially 3.0+. It makes the whole experience is much smoother and faster and allows you to have more custom stuff running to improve the environment.

Also as mentioned, productivity applications such as graphic and 3D really benefit from faster processors and more ram. Some games, especially 3D also benefit greatly.

 

[sysop]

Accelerator Envy

Accelerator Envy

I suspected there were newer demos that were pushing the native graphics engine, for both non-AGA and AGA. I'd imagine some of the higher resolution graphics cards like Opal Vision, Retina, etc .. have smoother mouse movement and screen painting when dragging stuff around or perhaps when running multiple apps within workbench. The Amiga never seemd to reach a multitasking plateau for me, but that's probably becuase I use it mostly as a gaming machine. It certainly without a doubt would aid in rendering 3D animations, but those of us with those talents are few and far between, compared to the number of accelerators that change hands. I can see boosting machines from the A500 up to the A2500,
but as a gaming rig, I still have yet to see my A3000 stumble. I don't use WHDLoad though .. I presume an accelerator would help load times .. can't see one aiding runtimes .. unless again, there are games out there that have pushed past the 030@25MHz mark. Anyone know of any games that have over the top way cool graphics that need the speed? US Gold's Vaxine was one game that came close to lagging on a A3000 .. great game too ..

btw .. nice rig Roy .. sounds like a reason to have A1200T envy .. have any posts on here of your speed demon with pics of what's under the hood ?

 

[NovaCoder]

unless again, there are games out there that have pushed past the 030@25MHz mark. Anyone know of any games that have over the top way cool graphics that need the speed?

An 030@25 would probably struggle with this sucker.

[m]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDuDfD5yPeo[/m]

 

[Firthy2002]

The bog standard models aside from the A3000 and A4000 were underpowered for anything other than basic gaming.
I would imagine Doom on an 020 would be painfully slow, for example.
Some WHDLoad slaves can take advantage of an accelerated system.

I would say that any Amiga today needs at least an 030 in it if you want to get the most out of it. For most users, that involves an accelerator purchase.

 

[Harrison]

For WHDLoad, more ram is the most important thing, so it can cache the game data before running. 8mb is enough for most.

Some of the later 3d doom style games like Gloom, Breathless and Alien Breed 3D definitely benefit from a fast accelerator. It allows them to run at larger window/screen sizes, smaller pixels and faster frame rates.

And others like Wing Commander and Frontier: Elite 2 also benefit.

 

[Zoltar]

I'd like to start a discussion about the practical value of Amiga accelerators. There must be a need for accelerators, but I have yet to find anything that a stock A3000 at 25Mhz can't handle, AGA graphics not being accounted for. Any time an accelerator goes up for sale, Amiga lovers line up to buy them. So I'm wondering what games or applications those of you in the know are aware of that genuinely benefits from the added CPU power. I'm wondering if the Amiga scene is simply taking pride in have the fastest Amiga engine on the block, or what games and applications really need the turbo charge ..

There are surley lots of benefits in having more processing power. That's the same for the Amiga as it is for any other computer. Anything a computer does, can always be done faster. And faster is always better, in my book.



SJ