>Once you start going in to more than four channels, you suddenly start needing to do the mixing in the CPU instead. I remember my original Amiga 500 was capabl

>Once you start going in to more than four channels, you suddenly start needing to do the mixing in the CPU instead. I remember my original Amiga 500 was capable of only doing 7 channels using OctaMED (six mixed into three, and one native), so the CPU load of mixing was significant. That is why it generally wasn't possible to use more than four channels in games. A basic A500 can definitely handle 8ch (not just 7) on OctaMED, but not in "HQ" mode.