Commodore Amiga 500 - ACA500+ Accelerator Card - FULL REVIEW
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- Опубліковано 21 січ 2017
- Full review of the ACA500+ Accelerator card for the Amiga 500 from Individual Computers
tl;dr : this is a great card!
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I kept saying MIPS when i meant Dhrystones. Here are the real scores
14Mhz : 1.41 MIPS
28Mhz : 3.04 MIPS
42Mhz : 3.54 MIPS
so ACA500+ or the Vampire V500+. What do you guys think?
Vampire kicking ass in any way ...
Modern Vintage Gamer I think I would prefer Vampire - any chance you could do a video on the new Gold 2 Core?
working on it - stay tuned :)
Huh - The ACA1221 @ 28 mhz only offers ~ 4926 Drhystones, so only ~ 50% faster than the 68000 @ 42 mhz.. still an upgrade but not as big as it used to be :)
always nice to see that there is still new hardware in development for amiga computers!
Rewatching this as I was just able to order one from individual computers. Great content!
I just ordered one of these. Thanks for reviewing this. I didn't know it existed.
Thanks for the review. Yes, I would agree that the regular ACA 500 with no Amiga 1200 accelerator is useless for whdload, but don't forget that it could be used like a regular harddrive. You could still install HD installable games on it. With that said, I am using a regular ACA 500 with a ACA 1221 plugged into it.
Thank you for the review! i am planing to get the ACA500+ card and i am "new" to the Amiga 500.
"New" because i played with them in the past at friends places, but after 20 years i finally bought one myself.
The card is interesting to me mostly, because mine is still sealed, and i am not sure i want to go there yet.
A new old world to explore! ✌😎
Nice video! Glad to see Jens upped the memory to 8 megs of Fast. And having licensed kickstarts and workbench disks in flash was a great idea.
yep - gotta give him credit on this one. he definitely listened to the criticisms of the first card
Brilliant video MVG!! Excellent work. That looks like a great card. I was considering a Vampire 500 as well. Hummm, decisions, decisions... -- Bill
I'm just in awe of people who still care enough to put out products like this.
This is exactly the type of thing I need! 👀👀
I am working on the first ever amiga 600 laptop built from original amiga 600. it is the first to use an original pc laptop case, it uses a pc case and its matching pc lcd monitor. it has working laptop buttons for sound and monitor functions attached to the lcd controller, sounds: uses the pc speakers and a headphone socket. i have also managed to build in a keyboard that fits in the hole for the pc one, it also has a vga out for a monitor and it supports the vampire 2 and the aca620ec and the indivision ecs. its supports df0: as an external device. it has 2 fans for cooling, one under, one on the back. this was a 2 year project, i will make only 5 additional to sell! watch out for me on youtube!
looking forward to seeing this!
Detailed Video, I was hoping maybe you could do a little video on whdload compatibility and installation with this card, I'm looking into whdload applications and after seeing this it sounds like it will do the job. Just a thought .
Cheers
I picked one of these things up last year and this card is the best accelerator bargain for the dollar anywhere. It is full of features that simply add up on the other provided solutions. I am not putting down these other solutions for they are fantastic, but this one is the best bang for the buck!
Hi, fantastic video. I can see a beautiful visualization on your Monitor, what you use to have a so clear image?
Awesome! I really like the workbench disks being built in - that's a nice touch! Is the CPU done in FPGA or is there a physical 68K CPU on there? (I am guessing FPGA since 40+Mhz from a standard 68K would be tough to achieve I think - unless its some modern chip)
theres a 68k in there :)
@GadgetUK164, I think what they are doing is creating a signal from the FPGA like you would achieve from a function generator. If you have more than one CPU (if you match the right ones) you can "oscillate them together" (although you must avoid harmonic distortion) so as to achieve a frequency greater than the usual 7MHz. Of course there is not more than one physical CPU on their, however, a FGPA could emulate a second CPU simply for the purpose of behaving like the aformentioned function generator (so as to have the second emulated CPU simply be there to osciallate together with the actual 68k CPU in there). This way the CPU you are actually using is the legitimate CPU but you get higher frequency (MHz) from it. So that means you are not "cheating" because you are not getting the FPGA to emulate a CPU being used. In the past (decades ago), when this was achieved by using two real CPUS ("osciallting together" - think Fourier) and the old RAM you got in an Amiga, this would eventually destroy the RAM. They did that attempt to save them from having to use more costly CPUs and also so as to maintain the instruction set compatability. However, these days the RAM is modern enough that this side-effect problem need not occur. Perhaps by using a EC versoin of 68k on this expansion, there is one less aspect of the architecture to break from doing this, hence the higher frequency is achieved. Of course, the instruction set is maintained for compatability rather than opting for some other (motorola or toshiba) CPU.
Love that sound from GODS!
As always,pro quality content! Sir are you Ausie? Cheers!
Looks like a great piece of hardware! And you did a great job explaining what it is and what it does! I wonder who officially owns the Kickstart ROMs?
Picking up mine from P.O. in the morning !
Amazing piece of technology
Here I am, 9 months later, with an ACA500+ arriving in the mail! Do you think passive cooling (tiny affix-able heat sinks) would work on the overclocked settings? or is an active fan more sensible?
Amazing review of the hardware, I really enjoyed watching this vid.
Finally got around ordering my ACA500+, as well as the X-Surf-500 network extension for it. Not caring too much about the OS/TCP connectivity actually, more the mounting of remote shares for even faster file exchange from my modern computers/NAS.
I went looking for amiga stuff for my stock OCS Amigas, and this is still top-tier, only reasonable competitor is a pistorm, and that has it's pros and cons too.
Got the ACA500Plus V1 in 2016 with the ACA1221EC (with RTC module) for WHDLoad and it works great. Two hears later i got for my A500 Rev6A a ACE2 is a NTSC Fat Agnus with 2MB CHIP RAM. Force it to PAL and you get a greater WHDLoa.d. This year i used the Indivision ECS V1 with a Super Denise 8373 Rev0 perfect working on a BenQ BL702A 17 inch VGA monitor. The ACA500Plus is must for the A500. My specs is WB 3.1 with BetterWB 4.3 with a 8GB CF limit and have a 68020 with 28MHz and have 2MB CHIP RAM, 1MB SLOW RAM and 8MB FAST RAM. WHDLoad 18.5 with iGame 1.5 and use Delitracker, Protracker 3.61 and EaglePlayer and it’s play great also demos. With the Bose speakers it’s a dream A500. Now i busy with my A1200 project for AGA. There’s alot of ups a downs with my A500 project but you get alot of pleasure with it and joy. The ACA500Plus and the ACA12221EC is a great combo for WHDLoad with iGame You did a super great review for the ACA500Plus.
Greetings from the states. Am curious how this card would improve frame rates on vector graphics, like flight simulators. Thanks for the review.
Hi, great video. Any chance you maybe abe to do a comparison of the ACA500+ with say the Terrible Fire TF534 & the Kipper 2K?
Would you recommend this ACA500+ or the Kipper A508IDE? I bought the ACA500+, but that A508IDE internal drive solution looks pretty sweet.
Great vid, how do you get such a crisp picture and nice scanlines on an LCD?
Guessing some kinda scaler, like an XRGB Framemeister.
MVP, I was wondering if I can pick your brains for a mo. I'm looking to upgrade the chipmem on my A500, I have the ACA500 Plus which is utilising the trap door memory so I have the 1mb chip ram expansion enabled in the menu. Unfortunately, some games in whdload requires 1.1mb chipmem. I currently have around 0.9 with classic WB running. Any idea what the best solution going forward would be? Cheers and keep up the good work.
An amazing piece of hardware and a fantastic review. I have the old model and I confirm that Blizzard 030 works.
Does it supports more than 4GB filesystem via firmware?
yes it does!
Hi vincent GR i have the aca 500 and was tempted to plug my blizzard 030 @50mhz accelerator card on but was advised not to by amigakit ???? So can i go ahead and use the 030 @50mhz on the aca 500 ? I was told to stick to the aca accelerator cards for the aca 500 ?????
back2skooldaze Did work for me 100%, you have my word.
Was this a marketing trick?
Hello, I watch your videos all the time and really enjoy your channel. I have a question to this device/Amiga maybe you can answer. I am having an issue with the installer and Whdload(it installs and works fine) some of the more modern whdload games have their own installers as you know however they want Installer 44.10 as it says the installer I have from the auto install of 3.1 is outdated . I've only found 2 sources for the Installer and have tried both by copying from my PC and my Morphos laptop to the CF card and transferring over to the amiga via copying to the utilities folder and then in Shell typing "copy utilities/installer c:installer" which it does but it does not work. It comes up with "Installer Program failed (error #80000003) wait for disk activity to finish." when I used the stock installer v2.whatever it would at least come up with use commands for help to let me know its working .
Am I doing something wrong? I also tried InstallerNG prior to this with no luck. I admit I'm new to the amiga as a whole but I have to be missing something i'm sure
Great Video! I might pick one up... I am sick of the struggle using Floppies (kryoFlux) and Floppy emulators (HxC). Right now my PSU is fried, so I have to wait a bit...
Boojakascha
Just cut ur original cable off the old supply and wire it to just about any PC Supply! Been poweri,g mine like that for years...
I must be doing something wrong when it comes to overclocking. No matter which values I select, I'm only seeing either 7MHz or 14MHz in SysInfo. Are there any other settings on the ACA500plus that must be selected in addition to toggling through the different CPU speeds? Great video! I missed out on the original ACA500. Glad I did because I have a Rev 5 NTSC board and I read it wouldn't have worked anyway.
I got this today! it's awesome. Installation was easy 5 minute hard pushing to slot lol. Made 3.1 floppies then i see F7 HAHA
I have got a ACA 500+ now I got the X-Surf-500 for it. When I put my CPU to 42Mzh I found it got a bit warm so I put a cupper heat sink on it, this works ok.
Some times I add my ACA 1232 40Mzh card it works ok. I had no luck with my Apollo 1230 Turbo Mk3 card. It would not boot. I have got new PSU.
Hi there,
I have decided time resurrect my old A500 and get an ACA500+ and I was wondering, in this review you say the ACA500+ is now good enough as a stand alone that you don't need an A1200 accelerator, so would the ACA500+ would be good enough to enhance some of the old 3D games and be good enough to play something like Gloom or ADoom?
I was thinking about the ACA-1221ec in addition to ACA500+ but if I don't need it then that would save me some cash! I realize ACA-1221ec isn't the best one out there but I dunno any other accelerator within my budget.
Thanks for the review! Just bought the new ACA500+. Would like to install WHDload onto a CF card, but not really sure how to do this on a ACA500+. I have a A1200 with the new ACA1233n and set up a CF card on my PC with WINuae and installed Classic WB Full. I suppose I would have to use Classic WB Lite for my ACA500+?. I have managed to setup a CF card with WINuae and used that CF card with my ACA500+ The only problem is when I want to start Dir Opus, it says I need a 68020 CPU or more. How do I extract all the WHDload files onto a CF card then?
I just ordered the ACA500 Plus and I'm looking at ordering CF cards atm.
Considering a Kingston 16GB card with 45/40 MB/s read/write speed.
I don't suppose there's any point in spending more on a faster card seeing as you had between 3ish to 4.5 MB/s?
Do I understand this correctly?
So can you use the 1200 clock port to add a MP3 decoder board like the Prisma Megamix?
What's your blizzard 1260 clocked to? I remember when I got a VXL-030 for my 500 back in the day it just wouldn't boot if I had it clocked to 50 MHz, I had to clock it down to 43 to get it working and still I had problems with my serial port. Tested the card at 50 MHz in a friends 2000 and it worked just fine so the 500 hardware just doesn't like clocks over 42-43 MHz.
my 1260 is stock @ 50mhz. its interesting though because it doesnt seem to get enough power to boot it. I even tried removing the SIMM RAM also but to no avail. i have a Phase 5 1260 rather than a DCE so im not sure if theres a high power requirements for those
Is your A500 a Rev 5 by any chance? the original A500 didn't play well with the Rev 5 NTSC amiga 500, and I have one :(
jrherita I have NTSC rev5 and the aca500plus works great with it. I emailed them first to confirm that before buying
Is the ACA500+ the one to get today for an A500? Or is there any better option?
I didn't see a 68000 on the board. Is it FPGA? Or one of those small 68SEC000 chips?
The Obsolete Geek it's on the underside of the board and yep one if the smaller ones
i want to know more about the o2 accelerators you mentioned
Can you please do a video on showing how to get games from ADF files to the ACA500PLUS? Thank you!!
What dreams are made of.
I'd love to take a look at the action replay, however I'd really want an hex editor that would give me months worth of codes to provide for Amiga games.
great!
if you find one of the older A500 PSU bricks, they have a higher amperage than the newer ones that came with later models, or those supplied with A600 and even A1200 machines ...
those old bricks should work better with these added accelerator cards ... that's what i do with my A1200+1260+16MB RAM, using my A500's brick and it works fine ... of course then i have problems running the A500+8MB Supra sidecar and an extra floppy drive DF1: using the A1200 brick! the same with my A600+68030+32MB RAM ... but well ... :)
On an NTSC Amiga 500 equipped with the ACA500+, is there a way to run PAL games at 50hz to keep the music/game speed from playing fast?
yes there are options to switch it in the menu. you can also use the early boot sequence to switch to PAL. Theres also a hardware mod you can before to default an NTSC Amiga to boot in PAL mode
Thanks man. Mine is on its way from Germany. Looking forward to getting it all set up!
I am new to everything AMIGA. Wanted one when i was kid but was never able to afford it. Fast forward today, i just got an AMIGA 500 with 512k extra RAM. purchased a Gotek drive. I want to be able to play games. Some of the games run very slow. Will this fix card that? I have Kickstart 1.2 ROM/Workbench 1.2, will this work or do i need to upgrade ROM? Thanks in advance for your response.
Need a case for it !!!
Do you know if this will work with an 33mhz fpu with 8mb ram expansion for A1200?
Do the 28MHz and 42MHz come as standard for the 140$ or do you have to pay extra?
standard - if you had to pay that would be a deal breaker for me. I am not a fan of the ACA1221 for that exact reason
Makes me think all these Amiga 500 upgrades creating the ultimate Amiga makes me think what company took over Commodore computers can make that same equivalent for a game console. Even I thought the original Xbox can run that fast as a highly upgraded Amiga 500 to me.
What did you use to hook up your amiga to that modern monitor?
So you can use to A500 as a storage device? Which means one only needs a floopy drive.
The only thing I don't like is the licensed kickstart and WB disks.
I already have original KS 1.3 and 2.01 (A500) and 3.1 (A1200).
It's a great feature, sure, but I don't want any money to go to cloanto.
I mean, back in the day Commodore even updated the roms and fixed some bugs of the 1985 C128 flat model -> 1986 desktop model.
What has cloanto done since they acquired the rights to kickstart and WB... except selling it since then together with open source emulators.
AmigaOS wants to be free. Make it open source!
what does the accelerator do to the video output please?
will blizzard accelerator cards work on it?
Hi,I have asked this question over and over but nobody seems to answer my query (Only amigakit)
I have the ACA500 and i wanted to know can i use my blizzard accelerator cards with it ? amigakit told me NO! stick to using ACA accelerators that are designed for the ACA500
I have a blizzard 030 @50mhz and a blizzard 040/ppc card which i'd love to see if i could get doom running nice and fast on my A500
I could go ahead and stick the card on and see if it works but then i'd void my warranty if something went bad.So i'd rather ask if they work first before taking the plunge!
Thanks to VincentGR for answering my query I'll go try it out ;)
+back2skooldaze Did work for me 100%, you have my word.
Was this a marketing trick?
i can only go on my experience. I own a Blizzard 1260 Card and it does not work with it.
How did you get it to run at 42 MHz? I can't get mine to go over 21 MHz. Anything higher fails to boot. I am using the latest firmware.
hand picked cpus?
triax1972 You have to set it up in global settings: Max speed 42MHz
Ive got a 1200 any thing like this?
Could this work upside down on a1000? I have a couple of a500s, but rather use my a1000.
I wondered this myself. I've seen an ACA500 working on an A1000; the video is here on UA-cam somewhere. The slot is the same; the orientation of the card would be different, but it could work. I only have an A1000, and I don't really want to replace it with an A500, so it would be great if it works.
Is it compatible with Gotek drive emulator?
Can I use ACA500plus with the original heavy and grey Commodore PSU? How many watts consumes the card?
MrGasS27 yes I use one and it works fine
Modern Vintage Gamer Also with CPU set on 42 MhZ?
Yes
Modern Vintage Gamer My ACA500plus arrived today, It's veeery great, I love it, but in Expert Options I can only switch 7 and 14 MhZ on CPU speed and Freezer Speed, how can set CPU on 21, 28 or 42? Thank you :)
were can i buy it ?
but can you actually buy it? ACA500 (the orginal) was always out of stock
yes its available now (as of me posting this) on icomp.de
I first saw how powerful the Amiga was when I saw it being used for video editig and graphic design in 1987in London . It was beyond any PC but they dropped the ball they had the creative world at it's knee's as well as Apple.Sadly The games killed the platform's serious image.
Why not post a link to the product?
icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/news.html
Which song is at 3:54?
does it run doom? ;)
Gloom with A500plus
i dont believe it will run as it needs a 32bit CPU to launch, but ill try it outsometime. Maybe Wolf3d might work :)
I wonder if this would work upside down in the A1000?
Stephen Jones Not upside down! Back to front. Up is the same way as on the A500.
Ville Jouppi ok, but would it work reversed.
Ville Jouppi actually I checked and answer is no.
Stephen Jones apparently some timings are a bit off and it works like once every five powerups or something, so it's probably not a good idea to get one for the A1000 just now. :-)
AR says you have a virus infection
The card is really not capable of throughput much better than 28mhz mode before disastrous loss of efficiency, and it is too slow. It is also quite a horrible thing plugged into an already excessively large desk space hogging design case. Pass
are you greek?
Australian native but born to Greek parents. I can speak fluent greek
Or, as Americans would call it, the Obamacare 500+ Accelerator Card. To be replaced by a new Republican manufactured card that's cheaper but works in far fewer machines.