** Centurbo II 2nd opinion boxout / 700 words ** 


Stephan Pollok bought a Centurbo II accelerator card for his C-LAB Falcon at the recent Neuss Atari Messe and shares his experiences with us...

Centek did most of the installation during the show but because I have a metal C-LAB MKX case I also had to cut away some internal metal plate and drill a hole in the case to add the hardware switch to complete the installation when I returned home.

On booting my machine it was all in French! Luckily I did this at the show and Centek changed the language for me - it involves adding your language TOS to the flash EPROM on the Centrubo card.

** FLASH.GIF here **
** Caption **
Centurbo II includes a flash EPROM which means software/TOS updates are quick and easy
** /Caption **

I noticed some pixels were shimmering and Centek told me my ST-RAM (16Mb EDO RAM) was too slow so when I got home I raided my PC [Ed: Now that's a useful PC!] for some faster memory and now it works perfectly.

My current configuration is 32Mb fast RAM with 50MHz FPU. You can still use your "old" RAM so I have a total of 48Mb memory - 16Mb ST-RAM and 32Mb fast RAM. When the Centurbo II card is active a Setup menu offers a choice of three modes:

** UL **

* Dolmen Multitasking TOS: This is currently only available to registered Phoenix developers but when it's released you'll be able to update it via the flash EPROM.

* TOS 7.0x: A patched version of Falcon TOS which supports fast RAM access. This mode also requires a software graphic accelerator such as NVDI. Fast RAM is only available in this mode and most software which supports TT RAM should work with it.

* TOS 4.0x: Boots your normal Falcon TOS only faster. It doesn't support access to fast RAM and you can't reset using the [Control]+[Alternate]+[Delete] key combination - you have to press the reset button.

* Normal Falcon mode: Centurbo II switched off - your Falcon should(!) be 100% Falcon compatible.

** /UL **

** Leave this chunk out out if it means we can shoehorn **
** it into three pages total **

There's also an HD disk supplied which includes some utilities including: 
* CENTBOOT: Set up your boot-configuration
* CENTSCREEN: Replaces the original TOS screen setup
* CENTVIDEL: Check/set frequency of the Videl
* CENTVIEW: Compact image viewer
* NVRAM: Sets the NVRAM-settings via software
* PUTFLASH: To update your Flash EPROM
* VIEDIOMOD: Sets the video mode resolution
* Tixtax: ACC that displays the system time
** /UL **

There are also a couple of patch utilities.

DSP_IRQ.PRG: A patch utility for Cubase etc. It encourages software that uses the DSP_IRG to work because Centurbo II doesn't support it - here's an explanation from the Centek documentation: "Something differentiates a Falcon from an another with a CENTurbo II: The interrupt coming from the DSP isnšt wired and can block a program using it. To use this kind of software you need to put DSP_IRQ.PRG in your Auto folder after your debugger (if you use one). In this mode, do not forget to remove wait-states on the DSP."

EXCLKOFF.PRG. In addition to VGA resolutions Turbo mode also supports RGB and SM124/144 (ST-high) resolutions thanks to the presence of 32MHz clock on the EXT entrance of VIDEL. This clock can be disabled via the setup screen in Turbo mode or by adding this utility to the Auto folder in normal Falcon mode.

** end of optional chunk **

Benchmarks!

These "real world" tests were carried out in TOS 7.0x mode running at 640x480 resolution in 256 colours:

** Papyrus table here **

Normal          Centurbo II on
ST-Zip packing 9 folders comprising 160 files totalling 8Mb
16:07 min       4:25 min

ST-Zip packing 220 files totalling around 1.5Mb:
3:39 min        1:06 min

Displaying 1100x628 JPEG image in Graftool
2:34 min          31 sec

Running Reeking Rubber v0.09 which displays the frame-rate after quitting the game:
9.5 fps           26.6 fps

** /table **

Summary

Pros: Centurbo II gives you raw speed, ability to access lots of memory with the prospect of a new multitasking OS soon. Most GEM compliant programs run in Turbo mode. Fixes some SCSI problems.

Cons: A few programs need patching, special handling, or simply won't work.

Rating: 92%