mkl mem68k for Amiga 1000

[sportbikepilot]

So at the suggestion of intric8, I purchased a mem68k board from mkl on eBay. Got the second to the last one, I don't think he has any more on eBay right now.

Installation was easy, and WHOA! Totally bitchin' having 8 megabytes of RAM on an A1000 with no intrusive modifications. Found out that my A1000 has had the "wire chain" ground modification done to it (and that it's missing a LOT of screws on the inside )

Anyhow, the 8M RAM showed up immediately and the machine is MUCH zippier now! Looking forward to spending more time with it running some programs it previously wouldn't run due to running out of memory (like NCOMM).

Thanks for the suggestion, intric8! Totally worth the effort, money and time.

Chris

[obitus1990]

Now, if only the Rejuvenator project would yield the secrets of the GALs and we can get 2MB chip RAM....

[sportbikepilot]

Will the 8MB of Fast RAM help me with program memory? Or do I need Chip RAM for that?

[sportbikepilot]

Anyone? Bueller?

[McTrinsic]

The thing is: it depends.

There is no quick answer. Games and Kick1.2- Programs will probably need Chip.

WHDLoad games do great with FastMem.

[EzdineG]

What @mctrinsic said.

I have an A1000 with 4MB RAM expansion and can run pretty well everything I throw at it. So unless it's a game specifically requiring more than 512k chip or you're using a screenmode that leaves you super low on it you should be ok.

Newer workbench packages like BetterWB, etc. have utilities that push everything possible into fast RAM, which will definitely help you here.

[sportbikepilot]

What is the "FastMemFirst" thing in WB1.3?

[nonarkitten]

What is the "FastMemFirst" thing in WB1.3?

Exactly what it sounds like.

So the memory list on AmigaOS is a priority list. The allocator strategy will always try to allocate memory from the highest priority first. The application can also request a specific type of memory that will set a constraint, but without that, it will simply get "any memory".

FastMemFirst ensures that CPU "fast" memory has the highest priority and is the preferred memory for anything not requiring chip RAM.

This isn't always ideal. Some games need to run from chip RAM to get blocked by the blitter. This avoids the task having to execute an explicit blitter wait loop which adds a lot of overhead on the meager 68000. However, I do believe applications like HDLoad will push programs into chip RAM to force that if they know of that specific incompatibility.

[Christian]

FastMemFirst does not cause the OS to prioritize FastMem over ChipMem unless ChipMem is explicitly requested. That functionality has been there since at least AmigaOS 1.1.

What FastMemFirst does is to prioritize real FastMem over SlowMem (the memory area starting at 0xC00000) on the A500 and A2000B. AmigaOS 1.2 did not know the difference and assigned the same priorities and since the SlowMem was configured prior to AutoConfig or manually added memory (real FastMem), programs ended up in the slower memory.

Please note that this is of no concern with memory at 0xC00000 for the A1000 (as with the DKB Insider and the Spirit Inboard) nor the A2000A (at least if it's 0xC00000 memory board is fixed to remove the waitstates).

[nonarkitten]

FastMemFirst does not cause the OS to prioritize FastMem over ChipMem unless ChipMem is explicitly requested. That functionality has been there since at least AmigaOS 1.1.

What FastMemFirst does is to prioritize real FastMem over SlowMem (the memory area starting at 0xC00000) on the A500 and A2000B. AmigaOS 1.2 did not know the difference and assigned the same priorities and since the SlowMem was configured prior to AutoConfig or manually added memory (real FastMem), programs ended up in the slower memory.

Please note that this is of no concern with memory at 0xC00000 for the A1000 (as with the DKB Insider and the Spirit Inboard) nor the A2000A (at least if it's 0xC00000 memory board is fixed to remove the waitstates).

My mistake.