Radius Rocket Stage II on an original Mac II - compatibility and drawbacks?

[esselfortium]

As I mentioned in another thread yesterday, I've got an original Mac II running System 7.1 with 20mb of RAM, SCSI2SD, and a 40mhz Daystar Turbo 040 upgrade. The Daystar is a noticeable improvement over stock, but it seems to be held back by the Mac II's slow bus speed, which AFAIK can't realistically be increased.

So I've become curious about the Radius Rocket, particularly the 40mhz Stage II. Do these actually work in an original Mac II, and are there any significant drawbacks or gotchas I should be aware of? And what kind of performance can be expected for games like Doom II and Marathon in those circumstances? I assume that the bus speed should be much less of an issue since it's all on one card, but I'd like to know more before attempting to get one of these.

 

[eharmon]

As I mentioned in another thread yesterday, I've got an original Mac II running System 7.1 with 20mb of RAM, SCSI2SD, and a 40mhz Daystar Turbo 040 upgrade. The Daystar is a noticeable improvement over stock, but it seems to be held back by the Mac II's slow bus speed, which AFAIK can't realistically be increased.

So I've become curious about the Radius Rocket, particularly the 40mhz Stage II. Do these actually work in an original Mac II, and are there any significant drawbacks or gotchas I should be aware of? And what kind of performance can be expected for games like Doom II and Marathon in those circumstances? I assume that the bus speed should be much less of an issue since it's all on one card, but I'd like to know more before attempting to get one of these.

A Stage II can't be used to replace the onboard processor -- only with RocketShare as a second half-virtual computer. Performance probably won't be what you want for any gaming.

Only an original will work for booting the system. Performance won't near a Quadra, graphics, disk, etc, all still have to head over NuBus.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

When I was looking for a Macintosh II as a launch pad for my Rocket 33 plans, I was told in no uncertain terms that upgrading a Mac II for that use case was a fool's errand. Too many upgrades required to get close enough to the Rocket compatible Macintosh IIx spec to be worthwhile. So I bought the IIx and never looked back.