A new Amiga 500 Accelerator for under £40

This week we are looking at a brand new, budget, Amiga 500 accelerator.
This card can be picked up for under £40 but just how much of an improvement can a clock doubled 14mhz 68K and 1mb of ram add?
Turns out its quite a bit!
github link - github.com/Mathesar/14mhz-acc...
follow CRG on twitter - / yt_crg

[@CRG]

I feel a bit of house keeping is required. Firstly the memory on this card is referred to as ranger ram, essentially fast memory but mapped into the slow ram address space. From conversation with the cards designer this was done to simplify the design while achieving the best performance and keeping the cost to a minimum. Secondly there has been some comment over my stated price of this card and its availability. I need to be clear and state that the card I have was genuinely listed for £35. Anyone building and selling these cards is welcome to charge whatever they feel is appropriate for the cost of materials and their labour to assemble. There are currently 2 of these cards available on eBay for £55 plus postage. I'll leave it for you lot to decide if that offers value for money.

[@akkudakkupl]

I think that having fast memory in ranger space is fine. You can go to 1MB chip and software that forces the use of slow mem should still work.

[@TerribleFire]

This is what i want to see... Cheap cards. I'm really disappointed that my cards are so expensive.

[@CRG]

Your cards are without doubt the best bang for buck in terms of performance and features. This one just peeked my interest as I wanted to see how much improvement you can get from seemingly so little.

[@TerribleFire]

@@CRG I still think my cards should be roughly half the price they are. But since i dont build em i dont set the prices.

[@simonebernacchia5724]

Found out when i cisited my family that my old A500 in italy still works albeit the expansion is probably dead due to the darn Varta battery; wish there was a memory+mass storage solution at a low price [problem is also that is an 1.2 machine so no hard disk boot though]

[@dorsetengineering]

@@TerribleFire Now that you've released the gerbers we might see some people offering them at cost... I'm considering it (I have a background in SMT design/manufacture/assembly)... I could use a cpl for the top layer though if you've got it

[@elmariachi5133]

Why compare a 68030 card to a 68000? Isn't there an huge difference, not only performance wise, but also in the needed traces?

[@lurkerrekrul]

Back in the 90s, I once bought a 25Mhz 68030 board for my A500. I plugged it in and saw absolutely no noticeable difference in speed. When I contacted the seller, he told me that I needed to have some Fast memory in my system to see much of a difference and that ideally, I should populate the accelerator board with RAM for the most improvement. As memory was expensive back then and I couldn't afford to buy the RAM, I arranged to send it back for a refund. Later on, I ended up buying a package deal from someone that included an 8MB ram expander. Shortly afterwards, I got a Supra Turbo 28, which was a 28Mhz 68000 chip. You could switch it on/off while the system was running and the change in framerates n games like Wing Commander made more than a few jaws drop. Best of all, it seemed to be 100% compatible even with European games. I can't recall ever having to disable it to get any game to run, or any game not running properly with it enabled.

[@craftuar2439]

Sound awesome ! Could it run this nasty US Crap Outrun with some usable fps ? lg

[@vcv6560]

The first one was likely the Mighty Midget Racer. I had similar experience with the earlier 020 (CSA Midget Racer).

[@005AGIMA]

Wow that's a nice price for such a jump. I'm not big into accelerators but this has certainly peaked my interest. I LOVED how you did a split screen comparison on Frontier. That really shows how it's an improvement in FPS without messing up the timing, as it stayed in sync. Love it! It was noticeably smoother on the left for sure (I think). The stunning thing about Dread is, it doesn't need the accelerator to be playable. It's stunning even on 7mhz. It's maaaaaaad :D Great review / comparison Glen.

[@Imperious685]

Impressive little accelerator board that, especially as it literally seems to give double the frame rate at 14mhz. Can't believe I only just came across Your channel, subscribed and bookmarked. Thanks for the content.

[@z4dude131]

Very interesting. I had an Amiga 500 back in the day and remember paying $300 for a 8mb memory module. Also had a 20mb hard drive. Fun times!

[@davidewhite69]

you got off cheap, my gvp sidecar with 52MB hard disk and 8MB ram cost me $1200 Australian in 1992

[@scouse1967]

Love your Amiga collection. Those 2x A1200's ( on your shelves ) look brand new

[@CRG]

Thanks, I've got the 2x 1200s (one with an ACA1233N and the other with just 8mb fast ram), a CD32 with TF330, a PiStorm A500+, the A500 from this video and another A500 with the RGB2HDMI mod. As for the 2x 1200s looking new you might be surprised to know they've never been retro-brightened. Maybe I'm just lucky but the plastics just stayed white.

[@AClarke2007]

Still got 10 A1200`s, 3 A600`s a couple of 500+`s & 10 A500`s! But not a collector though. Duh.

[@kostassarakinos3062]

Really smooth with the accelerator

[@someguy872]

For this price i'm certainly interested...

[@amigadude6409]

Great video....i have used a TF534/536 on my A500+......awesome cards.....i now run a PiStorm.....25 mips with RTG....😁

[@davidewhite69]

you could do the jumper mod so the amiga sees the trap door ram as chip ram, 1MB chip ram makes a bit of improvement in rendering graphics

[@cbmeeks]

One thing I did was replace the onboard RAM in one of my A500's with higher density RAM using low-profile sockets (and a new Agnus...IIRC), to get 1MiB CHIP RAM on-board. 😃

[@RETROCENGO]

Nice upgrade, also worth checking the Spitfire 500 for about the same price, but with 14MHz/8MB/IDE port😊

[@CRG]

I watched you're video on it, certainly seems like a good option. I'm going to build an IDE68K to sit along side this card but need to think of something to add a bit more memory. Maybe a 1MB or possibly even 2MB chipram mod.

[@RETROCENGO]

@@CRG Thanks😊 If you are thinking about whdload gaming, I would recommend at least 4MB Ram.

[@8BitRetroJournal]

Great video! I wrongly thought things should play faster rather than having smoother frame rates.

[@CRG]

Thanks. You have to remember that like any Amiga accelerator all this is doing is increasing the speed of the CPU. The chipset still runs at 7mhz. That's why I tested games that are CPU intensive. All 3 of them hit the processor hard for calculating geometry and it is only within CPU intensive software you will notice any difference.

[@envoycdx]

Nicely done! It'll be interesting to see what mods can be done to that accelerator if any.

[@hemi86]

Awesome review! Just wish I still had an Amiga

[@ridiculous_gaming]

I prefer an 50mhz 68030, but appreciate the easy install and the price is amazing. Imagine such an Affordable upgrade in 1988? Priceless! This is a great pairing with a gotek.

[@50shadesofbeige88]

I wouldn't expect "Golf" to push any limits on any hardware lol. Great video!

[@CRG]

Well just thought it was something a bit different. It is a 3D game although granted its only pushing things when the ball is in flight.

[@50shadesofbeige88]

@@CRG I agree it's definitely something different and I can appreciate that.

[@50shadesofbeige88]

@@CRG You're definitely right on the color. It makes me wonder if the machine does some kind of interlacing or blending of the graphics as it draws them. That would explain the difference in the perceived brightness. Just a shot in the dark.

[@AClarke2007]

What about Interphase?

[@gd515051]

My 1st 512k expansion cost $150 in 1987. Near the end Around ‘93 I found a 68040 33mhz expansion for around $500 on Clearance. My A500 was up to 8MB of memory. Worked well for Vista Pro scenery generator. Loved that computer. Will always love the Amiga.

[@jameslewis2635]

This card is surprising in terms of the performance boost. Going from its performance in Frontier it was getting pretty close to that of the stock A1200 that I played that game on back in the day. Dread was pretty impressive too. It is a title I had not heard about before but it looks and runs like Doom on a high end 486 PC (albeit without any background music an less verticality in the level design).

[@CRG]

Dread is still very much a work in progress. Music is going to be added as is verticality. KK/Altair who is developing it has a KZbin channel on which he's been showcasing the development. I'd recommend checking it out.

[@pcuimac]

I still have an MTec 68020i accelerator in my Amiga. The main effect of such an accelerator like yours is the 1MB of slow RAM added, which frees up the AGNUS RAM. The game code gets loaded into the slow RAM and the AGNUS can freely access the video RAM without interruptions by the CPU.

[@iXien]

Very interesting card. Perfect to add some more speed for minimum cost. I would pay a little more to add 8Mb RAM as 1Mb Fast-RAM is really too few if you're using a HDD with Workbench. But for gaming, I suppose a player don't need more 😅. Sadly, I think this card wouldn't fit in my CDTV, even if I disconnect the RAM to use my current 8Mb Fast-RAM expansion board plugged in the diagnostic port.

[@Chordonblue]

I remember people trying to drop a 68010 in the socket. While electrically compatible, it didn't offer much of a speed increase, and it DID introduce some miserable side effects (usually software not working). Something like this is PERFECT as a drop-in accelerator while maintaining a high degree of compatibility. Wish this was available back in the 80's!

[@systemchris]

The spitfire open source expansion is pretty nice, 8mb fast, ide, and a 14mhz switch

[@ridiculous_gaming]

Back in the day, a buddy of mine purchased a 68000 accelerated with a cache that brought his A1000 to 14mhz. He paid $350 for such an upgrade, which was a steal in the late 80s, early 90s.

[@poshpaul55]

good review 👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@minksnopes5551]

Nice Kruschev sweater. I'm jealous.

[@decidedly_retro]

It's probably the use of the on-board "Slow RAM" which is making it a lot faster as it won't be being accessed by the graphics sub-system and hence fewer wait states.

[@CRG]

Yes the onboard ram makes all the difference. As I understand it's actually fast ram but mapped into the address space of slow ram, that's why it clashes with the trap door memory. If you disable this ram the difference is not that great.

[@Ama-hi5kn]

Actually, Slow RAM is on the same bus as the Chip RAM, so in theory it should hold the CPU back. The addition of real Fast RAM is where its at.

[@NorthWay_no]

With a 1MB Agnus you should be able to use the trapdoor memory. Kinda cool that it has Ranger mem like the A1000 addons originally had (real fast ram), and since it isn't slowmem then I'd go for a 68010 so you get the VBR and can move the interrupt tables out of chipmem.

[@CRG]

I've got a 68010 on order, will be interesting to see how it performs.

[@Quicksilveraus]

try some phosphoric acid with a brush we get it here as rust remover at Bunnings in Aussie land minute amounts tho eats your face off like alien egg trying dissemble legs :P, nice work with Gary legs i would done same :) and keep that amiga content coming or retro shiz stuff mate, love your Chan bud keep its coming like i said to Chris(gadgetuk) we love your bro keep it coming bro

[@ClassicRetroByte]

That Accelerator has made a big difference. And Yes if Dread had of been out in the 90`s it would of held back the huge up take of the Pc`s . I remember playing Gloom on my A1200 and was not impressed at all. Dread would of kept me away from buying a Pc for a bit longer for sure.

[@TheVanillatech]

Dude even looking at Elite Frontier is a mess. I had a meagre 486-slc-33Mhz back in 1993 and couldn't run the latest games very well. Doom ran particularly slowly, maybe 15-20fps on average in low detail mode, and X-Com wasn't much better with lots of smoke or light effects on screen. Alone in the Dark was a slideshow during combat too. But Frontier was a buttery smooth affair. Here on the original Amiga, looks to be about 6fps while panning the city.

[@valenrn8657]

@@TheVanillatech 486-SLC is not a real 486. 486SLC is based on the i386SX 16-bit bus. 486SLC inherited the 386SX's 24-bit address bus (16mb max. DRAM), and 16-bit datapath which limited its memory bandwidth. 486SLC performance could not compete with the 486SX when the latter was running on a full 32-bit bus kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYKndn6lh8iLkMU 386DX-33 with ET4000 running Doom. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z3OUm36gp7eIo80 Doom comparison A1200's 68030 50 Mhz with AGA VS PC 386DX 40 Mhz with ET4000AX ISA. The performance is similar.

[@fattomandeibu]

Man, that's pretty mental seeing that Doom clone running on a 1mb A500. On my A1200, I had to fit a 68030, a FPU AND 8mb of fast RAM just to get Doom to run at that speed. As for the accelerator itself, you could see the difference before you even hit the ball. The speed at which the pre-shot map drew in was already at least twice as fast. Great value if you can get it.

[@CRG]

The dread project is coming along really well, they've added a fair bit to it now. If you're interested its worth jumping on their discord to see progress.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Wow, definitely an improvement - agreed that it's got to be worth the investment. Although personally I think Dread looks better on the ST 😉 *runs away*

[@CRG]

At least you get music on the ST :) It's shaping up to be a great game though, can't wait to see what KK does with it next.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Let’s get an accelerator in the ST and run a comparison 😎

[@jandoor2068]

The reduction in colours makes the ST version look pretty awful compared to the Amiga version, though the music is a nice edition, even if it is only low rent AY buzzing. ;) Hopefully the Amiga version will be updated to include (better) music as well.

[@propinki]

@@CRG Hi even some older games that was writen for stock Amiga have some extra effects on 020 cpu, please check in Winuae emulator stock amiga 500 configuration with The Secret of Monkey Island and later please change only CPU setting to 020Mhz you can see moving clouds on title screen with 020Mhz cpu.

[@chibisf4]

Formula one Grand Prix and Wing Commander will become playable with this Card. Very Cool!

[@doriphor]

Time to check out the new Pistorm update!

[@CRG]

Yes, I just need to find time to update mine. I want to have a go playing with emu86.

[@garyhart6421]

Nice !

[@CRG]

Thanks

[@djGreenALERT]

I know I really should have stuck more to the improvements you made but I'm still stuck on you picking the 8 iron for your second shot. If you set it way out to the left using perhaps a 3 iron then brought it back with massive slice, you could have reached the green in two.

[@rolandexclusive6306]

hi, great video! are there any accelerators around the same price range for the 1200?

[@CRG]

Not really, the most affordable accelerator for the 1200 is probably the new TF1230 but it costs about £170. That said the 1200 responds well to just adding fast ram, pretty much doubles in performance. A fast ram card typically costs about £70.

[@wimwiddershins]

This was the kind of kit i was looking for around the time I built a PiStorm. While i like the PiStorm, it's a bit of a "kludge fix" compared to real hardware.

[@CRG]

The Pistorm is considerably faster with a lot more features (plus more to come) but I agree there is something nice about real hardware, even if it only gives you a little speed boost.

[@digitalarchaeologist5102]

In many ways I wish there had been a lot more games for the Amiga which specifically required more than a stock 68000 @ 7mhz. It might have encouraged many more people to upgrade but it was compounded by Commodore still selling things like the A600 longer after it shouldn't have even been a thing. There were many contemporary games that could run on an Amiga, but the market of say 060 and 040 Amiga owners was so tiny the R&D couldn't justify it.

[@rasz]

- This has Fast Ram (fast ram is ram not sitting behind Agnus), but its mapped in the slow/ranger region? Is this because mapping it otherwise would require some logic for autoconfig? Are there any Amiga benchmarks letting you test memory speed by manually selecting address range? This will show 2x speed difference. - This design could be cheaply boosted to 8MB with 245 buffer and $25 AS6C6416 8MB SRAM. Like Amiga 1000 Parceiro, but with care not to run 3.3V part on 5V bus like a crazy person. - You should be able to use your trap door ram if you set it to Chip memory and Agnus is able to handle the size. - There used to be A500 mod to double CPU clock to 14MHz (14MhzA500.lha), but without fast ram or cache speed gains were minimal. Makes me think second 68000 on this card is redundant.

[@CRG]

Yes it's fast ram mapped as slow but I'm not sure why this is the case. There are other more detailed benchmark utilities that allow more detailed testing, I'll see about running a few tests. I need a different Agnus to mod for 1mb chip ram but I'll see about getting one as it would top this system off nicely. The use of the plcc, I assume, is because they are rated for the faster speed. As for taking it up to 8mb I'm sure it could be done easily enough as you say but there are plenty of other upgrade paths, I think the point of this card is to do it as cheaply and as simple as possible.

[@rasz]

@@CRG 14MhzA500.lha hack worked with stock 68000 CPUs in A500, so speed shouldnt be an issue, heat might. As for the cost, 5V 512KB SRAM used in this are already $4 a pop and you need two, replacing with one modern $25 8MB chip seems like a no brainer. If this could be made to run with 68000 onboard the price would stay the same. Remap SRAM back to 200000 + manual addram command and we have a cheapskate upgrade winner. Its still great for what it is, Im just throwing ideas around.

[@notjustforme8857]

I remember from my old 286 upgrades to 386 and better, you would put the upgrade board on top of the old processor. The processors had a pin that disabled them when another was stacked on top. Perhaps this works the same?

[@CRG]

On this card we are removing the original 68k cpu and replacing with the one on the accelerator but in other Amiga accelerators, like those on the 1200, it works exactly as you describe. The original onboard CPU is disabled and the one on the accelerator card takes over.

[@LBXComputers]

Would it also be wise to put a bit of tape over the socket soldering on the back of the expansion card?

[@CRG]

It is well clear of the components underneath but adding tape certainly wouldn't do any harm.

[@haraldhimmel5687]

Neat. I wonder how hard it would be to adapt this accelerator for the ST, maybe without the ram.

[@blackcathardware6238]

Then it would be pretty useless. I have built a 68000 16MHz "speeder" (no cache, no AltAM onboard) last winter. Speed increase is just 13%. It's very similar to the DIY project "SpeedUp16" from c't magazine 10/1990.

[@fordprefect80]

You should try Rorke's Drift with it. It may turn out to be playable.

[@evangelosm537]

That is so cool! I'm glad they are people with passion for old computers such as Amiga and Atari. Where can I get that accelerator?

[@CRG]

Getting one is unfortunately part of the problem. As I said at the end of the video it's not readily available but rather is a hobby project. You can make your own or they do crop up from time to time on eBay or the various Amiga user groups. I got this one from a guy on one of the discord servers, he made a few, I bought one of them. Hopefully with some exposure from this video someone will take the reigns and make a bunch for the community. If I had the time I'd do it myself.

[@evangelosm537]

@@CRG I've checked the cpu is the most difficult to get seen them around 40 quid. I will look around

[@CRG]

@@evangelosm537 you can get a plcc 68k on eBay for £8

[@evangelosm537]

I was trying to check using my phone while on my way to work. You are right they are around 8 pounds. I will check the bom see the cost and hopefully after payday I can order some parts. I like the project will keep me busy for a while. Wish they had something similar for the atari ste but looks like will have to stay as it is for now.

[@ltheden]

how the A500+ should have been?

[@CRG]

Possibly, a faster CPU with a bit of local RAM does make all the difference.

[@MrRobbyvent]

the slow ram is a great no-no. I'm wondering why this memory is not mapped as fast-ram being mounted near the bus of the CPU and not thru the Agnus.

[@rootbeer666]

I built me a couple of these, parts cost is about $35 each I'd say. Did you have any luck stacking this accelerator with ide68k or any other addons? When I tried it with my ide68k+mem68k combo at first it was a white screen, then there were flashing black bars, then colors, then solid black and I switched it off. I built the 2nd one with a different PLL and it has better clock duty cycle but also frequent guru meditation, I think the problem is the clock phase which I can play with using the variable delay line chip I have. As-is that one only produced a black screen with ide68k+mem68k, so I'm thinking clock phase is worth looking into. Too bad I don't have separate ide68k or mem68k to test with.

[@alanhaynes4576]

How would the Trapdoor expansion go if the a500 was configured to use it as Chip Ram?

[@ncot_tech]

What would happen if this was put into an Atari ST? (or at least the version with no extra RAM on it).

[@CRG]

No idea if I'm honest, would be cool to try though.

[@mattx5499]

The best A500 is A500 with a hard drive (CF) and bit faster CPU and more memory. Turning it into superfast A1200-like may break the compatibility with plenty of original software. Running games from HDD with more memory solves all the problems we had with this machine in the past which was disk swapping. Most of games won't even use the accelerator and it's unlikely that you'll going to use sophisticated software that takes advantage of fast CPU. Keep it minimal and close to the original as possible.

[@elecdrum6700]

Would love to see that compared to a pistorm.

[@FindecanorNotGmail]

Have you tried the accelerator in a late-model A500 that supported 1MB Chipram?

[@CRG]

I don't have one unfortunately, but I'm on the lookout for a different Agnus then I can mod this one for 1mb chip.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

A bit odd that you had to use a riser to get the accelerator to fit correctly in the machine it was designed for. Was this a beta?

[@philiphandforth4390]

What about the 1meg chipram mod for the 500? Would this work alongside the trapdoor ram working as chipram?

[@oiho8351]

This is exactly my question, want to try this out.

[@CRG]

I don't have the correct Agnus for this system to be able to do that. The guy I got this from is going to test it so I'll let you know. I don't see why it wouldn't work, I think if I could get 1mb chip and the 1mb on this card it would make for a nice little A500.

[@philiphandforth4390]

@@CRG you should give the chipram mod a go it's really easy and I think the agnus you need is fairly easy to get hold of, or you could go for the ace2b chipram mod from individual computers for 2 Meg, that's my plan 2 meg all the way 😀. Love the video and this accelerator is a great piece of kit, I love the variety of stuff out there and this kind of thing fills a nice budget space... Especially if you have an A500+ with it's own IDE for a hard drive

[@CRG]

@@philiphandforth4390 yeah I just need to get the Agnus, I'll keep an eye out for one and if I can get up to 1mb chip I'd be happy enough. I've got everything I need to build an ide board for this so that will be coming soon.

[@nikosidis]

Works :) I done the chip mod. I have 1MB chip and using this accelerator. 2MB in total.

[@botialoach1]

If you want a ready made one where can you get from?

[@SuperVstech]

What did you do with the demo disk cleaning session?

[@ryszardadamus4241]

How it is compared with Vampire extension which allows to run doom on amigas?

[@CRG]

Well this card won't run doom but it does a great job with dread as I showed. The vampire is a completely different beast, FPGA running their own 68080 core, buckets of ram, rtg graphics etc. If you want that sort of speed the only thing which gets close on a budget is the pistorm although it still has some compatibility issues. The problems being worked on and will be fixed at some point though.

[@michaelclement1337]

Someone has produced a small board that plugs into the 68000 socket and a raspberry Pi zero plugs into it which software emulates the 68000. I'm wondering how the Pi solution compares with accelerators such as this one?

[@CRG]

That's called the pistorm, I have a few videos on it if you want to take a look. It is considerably faster then this board(about 25mips at present) and also adds support for hardfiles and rtg graphics. It does have some compatibility issues at present but they are being worked on. But it not for everyone, some people might just want a bit more memory and a little speed boost, this card is perfect for that.

[@michaelclement1337]

@@CRG I guess it depends on how true you want to be to the Amiga architecture (for want of a better description)

[@DerekWilsonProgrammer]

It looks like you already have 1mb of chip ram installed - have you tried cutting the trace between pins 2 and 3 of JP2 and short 1 to 2?

[@AndrewAHayes]

I always wanted to convert my A500 or 1200 in to a case similar to my 3000, I cant find any 3d Print files for this apart from a keyboard case, are you aware of any available cases for this mod?

[@CRG]

You'll be wanting the checkmate case which is styled after the 3000 and takes a wedge Amiga board.

[@jaakkorisku7811]

Could this work with a 8mb fast ram board between motherboard and the accelerator?

[@CRG]

No it supposedly doesn't work with those 8mb fast ram cards. While the card reports slow ram its actually fast ram just in the slow ram address space. The only way to make it work would be to disabled the ram on the accelerator but I think you'd loose performance.

[@massmike11]

All that ever gets tested is games. I would like to see wordsworth 7

[@pauledwards2817]

I found it a bit confusing as it appears to me that the card puts the memory in to the slow ram address space. Seemed very odd to put the trap door one in too. The one on the accelerator would be much faster but if the trapdoor mem gets used first very little improvement.

[@CRG]

The ram on the card is fast ram but as you say addressed to slow ram. I just put the trapdoor memory in there at the end to see what would happen. I dare say with the correct agnus and a mod your trap door memory can still be used for chip ram, then the 1MB on the accelerator is just seen as slow. This is certainly my intention with this machine going forward.

[@pauledwards2817]

@@CRG as usual I realised what I commented was rather daft afterwards. I does look like a good buy for games. Being a 68k and thus the memory in the 24 bit address range it should be about as compatible as is possible while getting a bit of extra responsiveness from even frame rate locked games. For apps the pi storm wins the day for value but not very compatible

[@Ama-hi5kn]

I think it's actually faster than a stock A1200. If I recall correctly, I got 1.34 MIPS in Sysinfo. Not sure, it's been a while. I still have my souped up A1200, but it's out of commission atm.

[@JeremyLevi]

The stock A1200 is massively hamstrung by the lack of any non-chip ram. Just adding a basic trapdoor ram card makes a huge performance difference. It's completely brain-dead that Commodore even sold it without any fast ram on board in the first place.

[@dean8553]

Can you get this card with just 1 MB of fast ram in place of the 1mb slow?

[@CRG]

While the ram on this card is mapped to the slow address space it actually sits local to the CPU running at (in this case) 14mhz just like fast ram would. Apparently this type of arrangement is known as ranger ram and it is this which gives the card most of its speed.

[@mmcv1987]

have you happen to had the pleasure of trying the Pistorm as of late?

[@CRG]

I do have an A500+ with the pistorm but I haven't used it in a few weeks. Still need to try out the last update.

[@mmcv1987]

@@CRG working on some tables for emu68 not where it should be but getting there. If you have questions you can ask on the discord getting it up and running on your pistorm.

[@AmigaLove]

Hey CRG! Do you know if this card is being sold anywhere in 2023?

[@CRG]

Hi Amiga Love, There was one on eBay not that long ago as a parts kit but beyond that they seemed to have disappeared. If you want to build one, the gerbers and BOM are readily available on the github - github.com/Mathesar/14mhz-accelerator

[@artbell259]

I expected to see 'please test stunt car racer' or 10 other titles. In Canada &America, the Amiga was too costly. People bought Atari ST's knowing that the greatest system was the Amiga (even with lazy ST ports). In the late 80s such a boost might be $300-600.

[@elmariachi5133]

Why is it shown as slow-RAM, despite being attached directly to the CPU? Is it an intentional 'feature' for maintaining compatibility with those older games, which demand the 2nd 512K chunk to be in ChipRAM range? Or is it just by design? But then the speedtest looks like if it was Fast-RAM?! Edit: OK, just found the explanation by the creator on abime: "the ram on this accelerator is actually fast ram. However, I mapped it to the address range of the slow/ranger ram @$C00000 so it gets autodetected without doing the whole zorro/autoconfig stuff. (I had to keep things simple as I only used standard logic.) Any real slow ram installed in the trapdoor gets overruled. When the accelerator ram is disabled then the trapdoor slow ram appears again. "

[@Pracedru]

Interesting how this system is faster than the the A1200 with a 020 at the same frequency.

[@CRG]

That's the ranger ram for you and it is really that which gives this accelerator its speed.

[@AncientElectronics]

I heard this accelerator was incompatible with the Amiga 2000 due to timing issues which is a bit of a bummer for me. can anyone confirm this?

[@CRG]

I honestly don't know but even if it did work I'm not sure I'd recommend this board for the big box Amiga. The additional 1MB of memory this provides despite sitting in the slow ram address space seems to always conflict with fast ram in the Z2 space. My assumption here is its because this "ranger ram" is local to the CPU. You'd be essentially limiting the box box Amiga to 1MB chip and 1MB ranger ram.

[@joefx69]

Funny you say about no point testing Lemmings. Detonating loads of Lemmings all at once would cripple my Amiga500 😂

[@CRG]

Now that you mention it, that probably would have been a good example. Oh well 😅

[@tarstarkusz]

The only way I could see this being worthwhile is if you have a 512k machine and want the extra RAM. Because there really isn't any other use case for it. This isn't the 1980s where your general computing needs will be faster. There are probably very few if any games that will both run on an a500 and benefit from the faster CPU. In the worst case, there will be some games that run slow, only faster. It will still run at 10fps, but the seconds go by quicker. It's hard to explain what I mean, but this happens on certain very early PC games that ran slow. When you get a faster PC, the clock of the game runs faster, but not the FPS compared to a real clock in the real world.

[@CRG]

I know what you mean, the game F18 interceptor is an example and 005 AGIMA did a great video on it - kzbin.info/www/bejne/fXW0gmiNmbCZeLs. Its not the case for all games though and very much depends on how they were coded. The likes of Dread and Frontier increase their frame rate rather than game speed. Microprose golf though, that I showed in the video, in hindsight I think it might be another like F18 in that both the frame rate but also game time speed up. I think I'll do some more testing on that part. Regardless though I still think this card is a good option. Its got the 1MB of ranger (slow) ram and the CPU is twice the speed. Yes there are very few games that will make use of it but if you just want a cheap drop in card to make things that little bit faster it is a good option.

[@tarstarkusz]

@@CRG Is the RAM on this expansion board faster than the trap door RAM?

[@CRG]

@@tarstarkusz yes, it's considerably faster. While addressed to slow ram it is actually fast ram.

[@Xalior]

Wow, if I had an A500 that wasn't accelerated I'd be getting one of those - but all three of mine are already pimped in some way. Two of those using stacked sockets like you did, BTW. -Dx

[@svenkarlsen2702]

Can't the address space of the trapdoor expansion be changed by cutting a trace on the mother board and jumping two solder pads? That may give you 1MB Chip + 1 MB Slow in total if you have an Agnus chip that supports 1MB or more of Chip RAM. Depends on Your board revision and the custom chip revision(s), but it could be worth checking out.

[@CRG]

Yes it can but I need a different agnus. The revision in my A500 can only address 0.5MB chip. It does work though and it is my plan for this system.

[@svenkarlsen2702]

@@CRG I may have a spare 1MB chip or two somewhere. I got the MegAChip adapter back in the day so I'm maxed out at ~2MB in my old A500.

[@CRG]

If you had a spare one I'd certainly be interested in buying it from you. Drop me an email if you like.

[@svenkarlsen2702]

@@CRG I'll have a look and see what I can find. I made a screenshot of your last post, so you can delete it if you want. To avoid spam-bots etc.

[@CRG]

Thanks

[@d0nKsTaH]

So they just remade an ICD AdSpeed with some RAM on it. They didn't even bother putting the RAM on the CPU's bus (which they could have done). Making me think that if you dropped in a 2mb Agnus.. it might very well turn into CHIP Ram by default (usually Slow RAM under the 2mb belt can become CHIP RAM). The socket problem is an issue of poor planning. I guess they didn't bother taking any measurements eh?

[@larswadefalk6423]

I guess the blitter becomes the bottleneck. Still have to wait for blits to complete. Besides, blitter, copper and audio steals valuable cycles. Increase in stuff like z plane sorting and all other cpu related tasks in between blits would of course be better, but only just slightly taking all things together.

[@lancashirered]

A zipstick! Clearly a man of taste.

[@160rpm]

is that a 60-pin socket?

[@CRG]

The one I had to fit under the accelerator? It's a 64 pin socket.

[@romaneberle]

oops. i just noticed something that really confuses me. I have tested a 68000 and a 68010 in an A500, and I got 528 and 547 dhrystones, respectively. how do you get 549 dhrystones with a 68000...?

[@CRG]

It just seems to fluctuate between processors. There is no one thing you can do to improve it other than try another chip.

[@romaneberle]

@@CRG do you maybe have a 68010, so you can check its dhrystones on your A500? that would be interesting. :) maybe a PAL vs. NTSC thing? (I have PAL.)

[@MrAlan1828]

Would it work in a CDTV?

[@CRG]

If it fits I don't see why not.

[@iXien]

It can work but it's not so simple. First it has to enter. The problem is as there is lot of space on an A500. The creators of this kind of expansion card don't make big efforts to reduce the size of the board as they usually don't care about CDTV and only think in terms of A500. In CDTV, I think that this card will be a problem without a riser, and if you use a riser, I suppose you won't be able to put the cover back in place. And then there is another problem. The RAM address. In the CDTV, some address is already in use by the spectific CDTV ROM. If this address, free on another Amiga, is used by the card, you will have to turn on the CDTV ROM to make it work, loosing the CDTV expansions.

[@TheLemminkainen]

This might work with GPV Impact II Scsi controller + 8mb ram

[@CRG]

There is an updated version of this that fixes compatibility issues with some side car A500 accessories. I'm not sure though if it'll still work with those accessories that add fast ram as to the best of my knowledge anyway the address will conflict with the ranger ram on this card.

[@TheLemminkainen]

@@CRG no idea where to buy this updated version ? :)

[@CRG]

@@TheLemminkainen Its on the github - github.com/Mathesar/14mhz-accelerator-SE

[@davidwright9166]

what are ge-ums?

[@CRG]

Honestly... I've no idea.

[@gertachimrenel595]

Does it work with the A570?

[@CRG]

Honestly I'm not sure, the card does have problems running with the HDD side car expansions that also add memory. As far as I know the A570 doesn't add ram so it may work.

[@renepedersen7141]

I wonder how it compares to a 7Mhz MC68010 :)

[@CRG]

You could always drop a 68010 into this card and get that little bit more performance. It's a fair bit more expensive though.

[@MrRobbyvent]

the improvements in performances of an MC68010 over the stock MC68000 @7Mhz are basically near to zero.

[@stephenkennedy6358]

I'm surprised the accelerators memory couldn't be configured as fast mem

[@CRG]

It is fast ram but it's mapped to slow ram. If I'm honest I'm not 100% sure why this is the case but I'll try to find out.

[@MrMarianoamigo]

Its the best of two world's - compatibily and speed boost

[@amigaboy]

where can it be bought?

[@stevemann6082]

is anyone making this card. would be nice to just pick one up off ebay. or even the complete set of parts for self assembly. saves us ordering wrong parts by mistake. thanks for the video.

[@grahamparker325]

Where could I buy one of these?

[@CRG]

They crop up on eBay from time to time or you could ask on EAB, there's a thread discussing the development of this board in the hardware section.

[@retrotronics1845]

Showing just 2.08 times faster than a bog standard 7mhz Amiga 2000. Not sure what the problem with the A600 speed is there.

[@user-zv1ev4ec7e]

where i'm buy it ?

[@user-zv1ev4ec7e]

Ciao, dove lo compro ?

[@lokz9632]

without an SD cart interface? Missed chance.

[@iXien]

It's a question of needing. Personnally, I think it's an interesting project that offer only CPU feature : new CPU and Extra RAM needed to work well. As I already have a HDD solution, I'm searching for such card that won't make me pay for extra features I usually found on another projects that want to offer a all-in-one solution 😋

[@craiggilchrist4223]

The SBS demonstration of Elite was a bit poor. Should of had SBS showing both running full screen to see the difference.

[@CRG]

I had considered that but wanted to try something different. Doesn't always pan out as you think though.

[@Doug_in_NC]

I actually quite liked it, and thought it showed the difference in performance pretty well. The accelerated side looked clearly better.

[@djordjedragic7110]

you could convert trapdoor ram to chip, its an easy hack.

[@CRG]

Could but I need a different agnus. Its on the list to be done one day.

[@JarppaGuru]

why we still need yet another same. we got many accelerators alleady and fully working emulator even on pi

[@ximonx]

Would this fit an a600?

[@CRG]

The 600s CPU is the plcc type, you'd need to modify this to clip over the top of that chip.

[@ximonx]

@@CRG aahhh yes, i should have known!

[@tarstarkusz]

I honestly don't find dread particularly impressive. It took a lot of compromises to get it to run and it takes a serious hit because of that. I ran Doom on a 386-16 and though it was no speed demon, it did run. The fact that an AGA machine couldn't run it says a lot. The Amiga was way ahead of PCs in 1986/87, but by late 93 when Doom came out, the Amiga was hopelessly behind. The Amiga platform and especially the 500 was inferior in every way to a PC by then and the 500 was pretty long in tooth too. The A1200, released a year before Doom couldn't play Doom. Even an 030 Mac couldn't run Doom.

[@CRG]

Dread is still very much in development so watch this space, it will get better. I don't think it will ever mirror Doom on the A500 but I think it will get close. Us Amiga nuts are just happy to see a game like this being developed!

[@tarstarkusz]

@@CRG The Amiga has had a lot of impressive games lately along with more authentic arcade conversions like Tiny Bobble, Tinius and Bomb Jack Beer. To me, this is what the Amiga is all about. It is just a shame it had such lackluster conversions back in the day, because I always knew it could do better.

[@dennislindqvist5461]

Why didn’t it add fast RAM instead of slow? Is it a compatibility thing? And why just 1 MB? Memory is very cheap now a days…

[@CRG]

The memory on this card while I said it's slow ram is actually ranger ram which is essentially just fast ram but mapped to the slow ram address space. It's only 1MB as the address space for this type of memory is limited. This was done to simplify the design. You will note there is no cpld etc on this card it's all just discrete logic. The last time I checked the designer of this was working on another version to add more features including a faster CPU and more memory.