exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Hi,
I’m finishing the restoration of a Mega 4 motherboard and I’m considering adding a booster.
Would there be any reason to use the 16 MHz Booster instead of a TF536, knowing I have both available ?
At first glance, the TF536 brings more speed, more RAM and IDE while the 16 MHz booster might be more compatible. I’m I missing something ?

I would ask you first what your intended use is for the Mega ST?

mrbombermillzy wrote: 03 Oct 2023 16:29 I would ask you first what your intended use is for the Mega ST?

Very good question indeed… It was currently used mostly for games, a Mega STE being used mostly for other application (Music, Dev, etc…)
The idea behind the TF536 was to replace both with a powerful machine.

Well the ST536 is what you would need. Its a 50MHz 030 CPU so its running way faster than 16MHz and the 030 has cache and fast-ram. You get what you pay for basically.

Ok, so I’ll go for the ST536 then :D
When I mentioned I had a TF536 available earlier, it was actually an ST536, so I will go for that one, the 16 MHz booster will go in a another machine.

Yeah, the only real reason I can think of to go for the 68k booster, is if you are wanting exact timing on your code.

mrbombermillzy wrote: 03 Oct 2023 17:44 Yeah, the only real reason I can think of to go for the 68k booster, is if you are wanting exact timing on your code.

Yep, indeed a 030 will break pretty much all demos . Not sure about a 8MHz 030 with caches off.. presume it would still break something. But never really thought about it.

olivier.jan wrote: 03 Oct 2023 16:32

mrbombermillzy wrote: 03 Oct 2023 16:29 I would ask you first what your intended use is for the Mega ST?

Very good question indeed… It was currently used mostly for games, a Mega STE being used mostly for other application (Music, Dev, etc…)
The idea behind the TF536 was to replace both with a powerful machine.

Far fewer games will run with a 68030 processor relative to a faster 68000.

Most of PP's converted games get very confused as they check for the TOS version to determine the CPU type rather than honouring the cookies. (Very sily of him) To get most of his games working I have to switch my board to use a 512K ROM and use the Pak/3 TOS 3.06 ROM, then his loaders patch the games to be 68030 compatible as they think that they're running on a TT.

I see, I was more or less expecting this issue with the games. :( :(
So I guess I will not make it my main machine then.
I will use the 16mhz booster then and put this mega 4 motherboard in my mega 2 then.
The ST536 will go on the mega 2 motherboard, but I still need to find a case for this motherboard.
I guess the 2 mega stacked won’t be much bigger than the Mega STE.

Odd. I've been able to play quite a few of the P.Pera patched
games that I've tried on my Pak 68/3 equipped STacy.

What titles are known not to work? I'd be curious to
try them out here and see if they won't either.

Thanks.

PS Of course, with the Pak boards you can always flip
1 switch and you're in 8mhz, TOS v1.4 mode...