Forget about 68k Hively unless you've got a bvision, a Picasso or a scandoubler (as well as an 060), and even then you may as well fucking emulate I only got Buzz to port it to 68k as a desperate hack anyway. I'd dare to say I'm the only person to have played live with Hively in 10+ chans with keyjamming and it's a low-volume, lag-tastic nightmare. Works great under emulation, though;) Btw, Delfinas etc won't help the lag, as the mixing is still all done in soft before Paula.

Oh, and I sold my Phase5 Blizzard 1260/50mhz for £450 last month, leaving me with just a 1230. Proper Phase5 Blizzards (not the DCE ones) are great and trouble-free; accept no imitations...but on the other hand, save yourself a shitload and just emulate Yeah, you heard me.

(Edit: added some smileys in case people thought I was getting militant about this shit. There are 8 Amigas (and 1 empty A1200 case) in my direct line of vision as I type this, but I'm still recommending emulation as a remedy for Gear Acquisition Syndrome, so clearly my militant days are behind me.)

Yeah, the Blizzards seem to be the way to go if you want to put more oomph into your Amiga. If you're interested in demos, an 060 enables you to watch recent high-end Amiga stuff at acceptable framerate (f.ex. the TBL and Elude stuff). They're damn expensive though, don't expect to get one for anything less than a few hundred US$/Euros, even second-hand. Apart from demos I'm not really sure what benefit you'd gain from an accelerator card; it probably won't hurt for Hively Tracker, but you'd have to decide for yourself if that's worth it.

The Blizzards are popular and cool but very expensive.
I have a Microbotics XA1230, which is very sturdy and almost as cool as a Blizzard, but goes for much less.

My 030 is clocked at 50Mhz which is the top in most of these cards.

To be honest I never really pushed it except for demo watching.

Stagediver uses a Blizzard 1230 for his Octamed SoundStudio setup. This allows for 64 tracks of audio (software mixed, not as bad as it sounds).

The secret is out.

The accelerator makes things go fast
That 1220 is a piece of shit. You already have an 020 in the 1200, it just doesn't have an MMU and it goes half as fast. Hardly an improvement.

If you want an accelerator for mild use, a 030 is what is most recommended. but they are going for a lot of money nowadays.
Hively Tracker will set you back an 060@100 which can cost anything from 5 to 6 hundred euros.

It will make your whole experience a lot faster and smoother but also may bring incompatibilities, depending on the software you want to run. I can't live without my accelerator, then again, I am an Amiga power user, for 17 years now.

I'd say only get one once you are swimming like a fish in water with the Amiga system.
And if you want options, here's a list of all available accelerators for the A1200:
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showcat.cgi?CATID=5

Suggestion: those in teh market for an accelerator should wait until late December/early 2011, because new ones are coming which will be very cool.

I do know what an accelerator does. I don't have in mind a specific program that I would want accelerated.

I am not seriously considering buying one at the moment. I just want some general information on the subject for the future.

If you don't even know what it's for, why are you considering buying one? xD

Seems like accelerators are the prosound mod of the amiga, heheh.

I don't know. That's part of my question. What can I do with different types of accelerators? I don't really have anything specific in mind (apart from Hively Tracker, which I don't think I can afford to run). I was just wondering if there was a simple guide about this sort of thing for Amiga n00bs (not The Big Book of Amiga Hardware).

I mean, right now the audio on my Amiga isn't even working, so I'm not going to buy an accelerator right now. I just wanted to know more about the subject.

demos

What requires acceleration?

So... what options are out there in terms of accelerators for the 1200? Anything I need to know? Is this a good deal?