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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Amiga Emulation => Topic started by: amigakidd on April 23, 2008, 05:13:34 PM

Title: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigakidd on April 23, 2008, 05:13:34 PM
I briefly had an Amiga 500 back in 2002, bought it from a guy who owned Amigas and Pegasos machines, it just stopped working. At the time, I actually and physically laid my hands on A500, but turned out to be a giant paperweight. I was so interested in this hobby that I had to figure out how should I attain an Amiga. Eventually, I forgot about the Amiga, until years later (2008), my interests were rekindled.

Now, I'm running WinUAE. Of course trying out AmiSYS, Amikit, ClassicWB, and AROS distro. It came to me that the current state of the Amiga Community is dependent on emulation, or at least to a certain extent. Yes, many of you still have your hardware, but the newbies like myself are just experiencing the Amiga though UAE or alternatives.
Emulation surpasses the inaccessability to Amiga hardware, there is a limited supply out there. You cannot find a good A500 factory sealed in a box.

The question is: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing? Does it have that original Amiga soul comparable to its hardware counterparts? or is it just a bland Windows executable or binary file that tricks you to thinking that you really have an Amiga?

Is Amiga Emulation really modern Amiga Computing since there is no new hardware out from A-inc?

Can you integrate Amiga Emulation into the enterprise? Let's say a type shop who prefers Amiga's to Macs?

Give me your thoughts.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Heinz on April 23, 2008, 05:22:22 PM
I that people have very different opinions about emulation.
I think Emulation is good for testing applications as developing on real amigas is just painful and slow.
But real and fast Hardware would be better, because emulation always rely on other Operating Systems.

Ah and by the way... AROS is not depending on Emulation. You can just burn it on a CD and boot your PC with it.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amiga_3k on April 23, 2008, 05:44:57 PM
My opinion is that experiences differ. I was pretty amazed by the likes of Amikit on my Pentium 4 PC (2.4 GHz). That is until I felt in a really retro mode (the wife was at work, kids in their beds) and thouhgt it was a good idea to run OctaMED soundstudio to make some noise. I did that on lots of occasions when still running an A500, later the A3000, A2000 and A4000 and I had loads of fun doing so. But on Amikit it didn't come near to the real fun. It seemed like ages between hitting a key and actually hear the sound!

Naturally I blamed Amikit and did a minimal UAE install, only to find out that it didn't really matter. It turns out that emulation is good and acceptable if you're running programs in RTG mode (where the graphics are taken care of by the video-chips) and playing audio directly via the soundcard (over AHI). If your application depends on Amiga Audio and Amiga Video than UAE just doesn't any right to the Amiga. You'd be far better of using a true Amiga.

Which reminds me... has anyone ever done a real-life (i.e. gaming) comparisson between the Minimig and A500?
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigakidd on April 23, 2008, 05:49:02 PM
I was tempted to start building my own Minimig out of Radioshack electronic parts. But it wasn't for faint of heart. I do want a Minimig and build a case for it.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Phantom on April 23, 2008, 05:49:08 PM
What is better than the real thing? Nothing. So THE REAL THING.

I never liked emulations though.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Varthall on April 23, 2008, 07:07:53 PM
For 68k Amigas it might be true, not for PPC ones though since no emulator for such machines exists.

Varthall
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: persia on April 23, 2008, 07:28:56 PM
Absolutely yes, who needs old hardware?  Emulation is fast, simple and doesn't take more space on your desk and you can have as many Amigas as your memory allows!



(http://www.journalish.com/Journalish.com/00ACE593-C491-47D2-8D09-03C93127076E_files/Wings%20Screenshot.png)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: klx300r on April 23, 2008, 08:22:19 PM
When I am using my A1200 or 128 or 64 it takes me back to a great time in my life...I love the look and feel of them to go along with my memories when I have some spare time to enjoy them :-D
emulation is just that..it 'tries' to copy the REAL thing :lol:

..why is that many of us retro dudes have dust covers over our Miggys but our Macs or PeeCees are left to fend for themsleves ;-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: tokyoracer on April 23, 2008, 08:32:10 PM
In my opinion, no.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Fester on April 23, 2008, 08:50:46 PM
I'm counting on emulation to be good enough for my needs because I no longer wish to maintain aging Amiga hardware.

I'm very impressed with winUAE and I feel confident this will be enough for my Amiga dabbling.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on April 23, 2008, 09:05:53 PM
Quote

I'm very impressed with winUAE and I feel confident this will be enough for my Amiga dabbling.


I thought the same thing several years ago (sold most of my hardware), and several years after that I began buying classic gear again.

Personally, I enjoy both... I love WinUAE, it's fantastic and works well for most things, much better than real hardware in many ways. Unlike some, I don't have problems with "jerky" scrolling or poor audio, it simply works great for me.

However, tinkering with the classics can also be a blast. Nothing like popping a good OCS demo into the A2K and relaxing with a beer. :-) Actually, now that I'm *finally* getting some good display solutions for the old gear, it's becoming far more enjoyable to use. (I'm just loving the A2K + CV scandoubler + Trinitron combination, the picture is simply the finest I've seen on classic HW by far... and as soon as Jens' new unit comes out, I will be set!)

 
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Roj on April 23, 2008, 09:09:12 PM
ARexx scripts would often break under emulation when I tried it a year or so ago. When that situation is resolved, I'd say emulation is superior, but there's something intangible about running real Amiga hardware. That's something emulation will never be able to replace.

My opinion would probably be different if it weren't for my CSPPC. When that goes I'll probably lose my interest in using my Amiga unless newer mass-market hardware shows up. Let me know when I can start holding my breath. ;-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: redrumloa on April 23, 2008, 09:16:38 PM
Quote
The question is: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?


Yes.

Quote
Does it have that original Amiga soul comparable to its hardware counterparts?


No, but it doesn't fail like ancient Amiga hardware has a tendency to do.

Quote
Is Amiga Emulation really modern Amiga Computing since there is no new hardware out from A-inc?


But of course.

Quote
Can you integrate Amiga Emulation into the enterprise? Let's say a type shop who prefers Amiga's to Macs?


No, very few people remember the Amiga.

Don't get me wrong, I love Amiga classic hardware. however if you are looking for a modern Amiga experience nothing comes close to WinUAE on modern PC hardware in speed or compatibility.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: AmigaHope on April 23, 2008, 10:45:37 PM
It depends.

Compared to a stock A500, emulation is going to run rings around it.

...but then that's like asking if Windows is better on real hardware or emulation if you're comparing it to a 386SX. =)

The other issue with emulation is that you lose the cool exact-sync display. I still struggle trying to get emulators to work properly in this respect. It emulates things faster than the fastest 060, but it still can't manage the display to an exact 50hz with perfect smooth scrolling and no tearing? =/

I'm beginning to think that emulators need to have their own video card drivers. =P


And so far nothing emulates my A4k/604e233
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Nostalgiac on April 23, 2008, 10:46:49 PM
call me sick/stupid.... but there is the 'strokeability' about  an original :) in my case the heavy weight A2000... the real "iron" :-) no emulator can beat that  :-D

Tom UK
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Fester on April 23, 2008, 10:55:56 PM
Quote

-D- wrote:
However, tinkering with the classics can also be a blast. Nothing like popping a good OCS demo into the A2K...


I totally and absolutely agree. Amen. I became totally addicted to classic hardware. I have to break free. :-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on April 23, 2008, 11:25:21 PM
Quote

Fester wrote:
Quote

-D- wrote:
However, tinkering with the classics can also be a blast. Nothing like popping a good OCS demo into the A2K...


I totally and absolutely agree. Amen. I became totally addicted to classic hardware. I have to break free. :-)


LOL, yeah, I hear you there. I'm trying *real* hard to keep a minimal collection of things I will use (at least somewhat), and not get too carried away or become a "hoarder". But who knows, I may have to break free again myself someday. (Plus, I will likely be married with children to think about in the near future, obviously that's going to change life a bit.) The only things I will always keep are my C128 (first computer) and my first Amiga (a lowly A500). The rest can go if necessary, but hopefully not  too soon! ;-)


Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: ami_junki on April 24, 2008, 01:22:02 AM
I think emulation is good the getting the Amiga feel while on the go, booting up an Amiga emulator on your laptop on a long flight is great but it the whole experience pales in comparison to the real hardware.  The little sounds you hear, the clicking of the floppy disk, the sound of the real Amiga mouse, the nice feeling of the keys and even just the way the Amiga looks there on your desk.  When I want to have fun using a computer and maybe write some good music or  design some graphics I always find that the real Amiga gets it done better.  I just  hope that someday we will have real machines  :-(
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: spihunter on April 24, 2008, 01:44:20 AM
@amiga_3k

Quote
But on Amikit it didn't come near to the real fun. It seemed like ages between hitting a key and actually hear the sound!


I'm running Octamed w/ Winuae/amikit on a 3ghz Dell GX280 here and I dont get the lagging that your talking about?

Its faster and more responsive than my real 030/A1200?

I sold off all my "high end" Amiga harware after running Winuae on my Dual Xeon :-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: sdyates on April 24, 2008, 01:54:35 AM
It is better than the real thing in many ways:
- A simple change of a configuration file and it is any Amiga you want it to be
- Back up and restoration of HDF and ADF iseasy
- Ability to change upgrade or downgrade the rom or chip sets is easy
- adding ram is cheap ;)
- Don't have to worry about if your amiga will fail to boot each time.
- accessing windows and mac shares is easy

However, with all the advantages, there is something missing. I miss the floppy sounds and even the sound the hard drive makes on the A3000. It's just not the same.

My UAE a3000 emulation runs at 1.08% of a real A3000 and I use it to grammar check articles for our corvette newsletter. I let my real Amigas sleep.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: AeroMan on April 24, 2008, 02:07:39 AM
Yes and no...

 I still want to see an emulated Amiga run as nice as a Real one. Try some demos.
 I've seen problems similar to the ones seen by amiga_3k. But I believe it is a matter of how fast your PC is, and what you expect of it.

 In the other hand, it is easy to get how many RAM you want in the emulator. AHI and RTG will be easy also. My A1200 is still standard and I would have to spend some money to have a nice setup. If you compile stuff, you can notice the speed advantage of the emulation also.

 My opinion: have both  :-D Unless you buy a super powerful Amiga
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: trekiej on April 24, 2008, 04:09:09 AM
It appears that emulation gives preservtion and flexibility.

Was the Amiga developed on a workstation before Amigas were made? The original design needed a few brief cases or luggage containers to move it.

Hardware gives a tangible feel that software does not give.

Emulation could give an illusion and not keep with the spirit of the original system.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amiga_3k on April 24, 2008, 06:31:43 AM
Quote

spihunter wrote:
@amiga_3k

I'm running Octamed w/ Winuae/amikit on a 3ghz Dell GX280 here and I dont get the lagging that your talking about?

Its faster and more responsive than my real 030/A1200?

I sold off all my "high end" Amiga harware after running Winuae on my Dual Xeon :-)


Then I must be doing something wrong (or that combo of Xeons is doing the trick, my machine has just a single core Pentium IV, luckily a true one, not a hellaron). Tell me the settings you use (can be done of thread by personal message) so I can check if it also solves the trouble I have playing Oldtimer.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: clemenza on April 24, 2008, 08:08:23 AM
Well, in my opinion WinUAE is an excellent piece of software and i use it on my laptop at work (can't bring a 'real' Amiga here!). But, when I return home, there's nothing that can compare to the feeling of my A500's and A2000's. They're, quite simply, the real thing - they're old (and beautiful!), they make funny noises, and their picture on the 1084 is simply DIFFERENT to that of WinUAE on my LCD screen. So, emulation is just the next best thing...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: a-pex on April 24, 2008, 08:17:25 AM
Give emulation no chance!

Real men plays with real hardware, or are you also emulating your girl friend.  :crazy:

Give emulation no chance!
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: a-pex on April 24, 2008, 08:18:34 AM
Emulation is something for people that are not willing to buy and setup real hardware...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on April 24, 2008, 08:52:59 AM
>I briefly had an Amiga 500 back in 2002, bought it from a guy who owned Amigas and Pegasos machines, it just stopped working...

Everything in this world is subject to birth, death, old age, and disease including your body, your PC emulator, and your Amiga so a dieing Amiga does not make an emulator on a new PC a new Amiga.

>Emulation surpasses the inaccessability to Amiga hardware, there is a limited supply out there. You cannot find a good A500 factory sealed in a box.

So that does not mean that one should get something that is NOT an amiga (from the hardware perspective).  You need to convince some of your hardware pals to build you a REAL amiga.  As an example, try putting an instruction like $009C,$8010 into the copper list and write an interrupt routine (pointed to by location $68) that does something time critical like writing to joystick ports and there your emulator won't work.  The PC timer goes only as accurate as 1.19318Mhz whereas the copper is timing the color clocks at 3.57954525Mhz.

>The question is: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?

No.

>Does it have that original Amiga soul comparable to its hardware counterparts? or is it just a bland Windows executable or binary file that tricks you to thinking that you really have an Amiga?

Souls are only present in living entities-- anything subject to birth, death, old age, disease cannot be a soul.  You are a soul that's why you know you are same person (unchanging identity) throughout your life although your body has changed from when you were a baby.  
As far as tricking, I don't think they are deceiving you since it does emulation on the software level and to some extent hardware (assuming no bugs and real Amiga bugs are emulated), but your Amiga is software+all of the hardware.

>Is Amiga Emulation really modern Amiga Computing since there is no new hardware out from A-inc?

Even if all the Amigas were dead on the planet, the emulator is not an Amiga.  That would just mean the Amiga is extinct.

>Can you integrate Amiga Emulation into the enterprise? Let's say a type shop who prefers Amiga's to Macs?

Amiga emulation is not an Amiga so the question does not apply.

>Give me your thoughts.

You got them.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Eclipse on April 24, 2008, 11:22:25 AM
Hi,
See for me emulation is a front-end for the real Amiga. I usually set everything up UAE then transfer to the real 1200 just because it's easier.
For me though, sometimes you just cannot beat getting out the old joysticks and loading a game from floppy(I love the sound) even when I have the game on WHDload.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Phantom on April 24, 2008, 11:49:28 AM
Quote
No, very few people remember the Amiga.


I don't agree with that. I think a lot of people remember Amiga about the games and especially about the video capabilities. Even now some tv stations in my country use an Amiga in some parts.

Here in my little city of Crete Island, a lot of people remembers Amiga... and they ask me: "Do you -still- have Amiga?" and my answer?

Only Amiga -still- makes it possible. 8-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: foleyjo on April 24, 2008, 12:04:10 PM
I prefer the real thing because I can be playing a game on my Amiga before my PC boots up.

I also like the sounds of the drives and the lights flashing at me.

I like pressing A+A+CTRL rather than F12 and clicking reser.

I like the fact that when Ive finished playing my game I can simply turn it off without the need of waiting for a shutdown.

I like the fact that the hardware looks like its been cared for especially when compared to some yellow or broken amigas that Ive seen.

I dont mind emulators. I use winuae to test things that Ive got off T'internet before transfering them over to the Amiga
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 24, 2008, 12:30:42 PM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:

>Emulation surpasses the inaccessability to Amiga hardware, there is a limited supply out there. You cannot find a good A500 factory sealed in a box.

So that does not mean that one should get something that is NOT an amiga (from the hardware perspective).  You need to convince some of your hardware pals to build you a REAL amiga.  As an example, try putting an instruction like $009C,$8010 into the copper list and write an interrupt routine (pointed to by location $68) that does something time critical like writing to joystick ports and there your emulator won't work.  The PC timer goes only as accurate as 1.19318Mhz whereas the copper is timing the color clocks at 3.57954525Mhz.


Sorry, but your paragraph makes no sense. Of course an Emulator would fully support the Amiga interrupts and memory address space... and I think you'll find far more accurate and fine grained timers on a modern PC than on an Amiga... A typical OS quantum on a PC would be 1000 times every second... on the Amiga it was 12 times...

Get over it the Amiga is old!! :roll:

Quote

>The question is: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?

No.


Actually yes, Emulation is a better experience. My Amiga's are kept as museum pieces now... other than my A500 and A1200 which sometimes get used for Audio sampling when I need a sound.

Quote

>Does it have that original Amiga soul comparable to its hardware counterparts? or is it just a bland Windows executable or binary file that tricks you to thinking that you really have an Amiga?

Souls are only present in living entities-- anything subject to birth, death, old age, disease cannot be a soul.  


You don't know that. Since you can't define a Soul, my calculator might have one!

Quote

You are a soul that's why you know you are same person (unchanging identity) throughout your life although your body has changed from when you were a baby.


Actually that's not true, your current stream of consciousness (i.e. your identity is only defined by your memories) may not even survive a night's sleep!! There are plenty of studies in memory disorders to question the nature of consciousness... But this is not the place for that discussion...

Quote

As far as tricking, I don't think they are deceiving you since it does emulation on the software level and to some extent hardware (assuming no bugs and real Amiga bugs are emulated), but your Amiga is software+all of the hardware.

>Is Amiga Emulation really modern Amiga Computing since there is no new hardware out from A-inc?

Even if all the Amigas were dead on the planet, the emulator is not an Amiga.  That would just mean the Amiga is extinct.


Is MiniMig an Amiga?

Quote

>Give me your thoughts.

You got them.


You thoughts are odd and erratic!
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: DrDekker on April 24, 2008, 01:08:58 PM
Me - I'm undecided.

On the one hand emulation offers you virtually (no pun intended) any Amiga with greater speed, screen resolution, RAM, range of peripherals, etc.  All this running on your PC - requiring no other equipment/financial outlay.

On the other hand, a real Amiga produces a much richer display, smoother scrolling and character - that despite being defined by its quirkiness/inadequacies/WHY - is simply charming.

One upshot of emulation is that it opens up the Amiga world to non-Amiga owners (let's assume they bought the ROMs).  Once having had a taste of a virtual Amiga, they then may go on to buy Amiga hardware to live the experience for 'real' - increasing the Amiga userbase - which can only be a good thing!  :-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: a-pex on April 24, 2008, 01:54:16 PM
WinUAE is very good for making WHDLoad installs via IPF-Images.

WinUAE is very good for setting up a new harddisk for the Amiga 1200 for example.

But to answer the question about real hardware:
Is a picture of a naked woman the same for you like a real naked woman in front of you? If you say YES, then you need no REAL hardware.  :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Crom00 on April 24, 2008, 02:22:18 PM
This is what I use:

GAMES:
modded XBOX with UAEX (this get me an A1200 with 32 megs of ram with sys3 WB and all the bells and whistles)
Runs A500, A1200, CD32 games (cd32 games play off orignal CD's)

REAL AMIGA 1200: for games, this is my last Amiga rebuilding it from spare parts but this will live alongside the Wii, XBOX1, Xbox360, and ps3.

HIGH END:
MacBook dual core with Amigakit and a copy of my A4000t 060 Video Toaster Flyer original hard drive with setup dating back originally to 1993, I've continually updated this over the years. If I were to try and create an amiga this powerfull I'd pay $2000 or more based on current EBAY prices.

Emualtion kicks ass, but I have a serious case of retro additcion due to Mini-MIG. Was actually getting rid of my Amiga stuff when Mini-MIG came along, as I was trying to mass produce the thing I started to use a real Amiga vs. Minimig to check compatibility and show investors what the real machines were caplable of.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Phantom on April 24, 2008, 02:27:52 PM
@ a-pex

LOL! You got the idea! ;-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: persia on April 24, 2008, 02:38:19 PM
Or who you rather make love to Zsa Zsa Gábor or an 18 year old who looks like Zsa Zsa Gábor did when she was 18...


(http://forum.zazzle.com/images/emoticons/smiley_central_idea.gif)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: TheGoose on April 24, 2008, 02:59:23 PM
I'd say UAE and AmigaKit have come a long way. True that audio was never quite right, but I think that's been over come with what I've seen and heard.

I have the extremes, very old A1000 and a A1200TPPC. So, with both of these machines, emulation just doesn't give me the kicks.

I have fun with A1000 for the hardware; have a CF drive going now, and I'm still working on my neobitz mod. I run WHLoad on there.

A1200PPC - OS4, PPC, hey no emulation for this.

Having said that, I would go complete emulation in a minute if I didn't have these two freaks around.

 

 :-D
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on April 24, 2008, 03:12:20 PM
Quote

a-pex wrote:
Give emulation no chance!

Real men plays with real hardware, or are you also emulating your girl friend.  :crazy:

Give emulation no chance!

Atleast 'this' girl friend is a newer model. Modern X86 processors translates X86 CISC to RISC like instructions pior to execution.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on April 24, 2008, 03:22:11 PM
Quote

foleyjo wrote:
I prefer the real thing because I can be playing a game on my Amiga before my PC boots up.

I also like the sounds of the drives and the lights flashing at me.

WinUAE can emulate drive noise and lights flashing.

Quote

I like pressing A+A+CTRL rather than F12 and clicking reser.

RWin+LWin+Ctrl on my ASUS G1S laptop.

Quote

I like the fact that when Ive finished playing my game I can simply turn it off without the need of waiting for a shutdown.

I just close the lid on my laptop.

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on April 24, 2008, 03:23:49 PM
Quote

a-pex wrote:
Emulation is something for people that are not willing to buy and setup real hardware...

People just buy faster hardware.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on April 24, 2008, 03:28:18 PM
Quote

AeroMan wrote:
Yes and no...

 I still want to see an emulated Amiga run as nice as a Real one. Try some demos.

Cite some examples. Also, Pentium 4 @2.4Ghz is like Core 2 Solo @1.4Ghz.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 24, 2008, 05:01:07 PM
Today computers don't allow emulators to display animated PAL/NTSC screen modes, unless you manage to use the emulator on a 50 Hz screen mode (for PAL modes) and synchronize the emulator screen's refresh rate with the emulated screen's refresh rate.  As I have never found any way to make emulators do this, in my experience emulators are unusable, so that I have to go on with using real Amiga computers although emulators could be a much more convenient option for me.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: kgwhdload on April 24, 2008, 05:52:30 PM
For playing games I love using my real Amiga, but I also love using WinUAEX on my xbox.

It outputs at 50Hz, via RGB scart and looks awesome.  Good stuff.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: trekiej on April 24, 2008, 06:05:48 PM
One thing that I can do with an emulator that I can not do with hardware is send software over the web.
UAE is Amiga Everywhere, or at least close to it.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 24, 2008, 06:22:44 PM
Quote
For playing games I love using my real Amiga, but I also love using WinUAEX on my xbox.

It outputs at 50Hz, via RGB scart and looks awesome. Good stuff.


I had forgotten that animation in XBox emulators may well be normal without any hardware tinkering.  I will have to give it a try.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Sig999 on April 24, 2008, 06:38:33 PM
I've run UAE on Linux, and WinUAE on the windows box, and it's run very well, run lots of apps - games - without hassles. It's very capable. For some reason though, getting back into programming didn't 'do it for me' on it - Amithlon came close (but the hardware I had it running on gave up the ghost).

I had a few jerky scroll issues with emulation here and there, but nothing major - and when running it sans-Xwindows on Linux it was nigh flawless.... for me there was an undefinable 'something' that was lacking.

So I ended up buying an Ami2000 to remedy that.  There's just something about the look and feel of the machine that completes the experience for me....

Sig.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: AmigaHope on April 24, 2008, 08:16:46 PM
Er, I've been sending/receiving software over the net on my Amiga since 1988 or so. o.O

Admittedly my x86 box can transfer stuff way faster (it has gigabit ethernet whereas my Amy has only 10bT ethernet =) but since my internet connection never goes above 10Mbit anyway, it's only really relevant when transferring files between my own systems in my house. =)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 24, 2008, 08:26:09 PM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
Today computers don't allow emulators to display animated PAL/NTSC screen modes, unless you manage to use the emulator on a 50 Hz screen mode (for PAL modes) ...


I don't know what your on about, but WinUAE on my laptop and external 22" widescreen tft works flawless (except for the occasional bugs/glitches due to not 100% compatibility).

Most games/demos work fine, like a real Amiga. Never saw jerkyness with screendragging or scrollers.
I enjoy playing Pinball Fantasies/Illusions just as much as I did on my real miggies.

Yes, emulation is different in that you don't have the hands on experience of a real Amiga, but other then that it runs circles around the real deal in almost every aspect such as speed, storage capabilities, internet useage etc.

Do I miss a real Amiga? Hell yeah  :boohoo:
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 24, 2008, 09:20:44 PM
@Krusher

What are your operating system and screen mode ?  Do you use any special screen mode created by any special software tool ?

To my knowledge, in order to emulate PAL animation you have to get your OS and monitor to display a 50 Hz mode, or you have to select some option in WinUAE that will accelerate the display to 60 frames per second instead of 50.  However, in order to display animation properly, the emulator also needs to be synchronized with the emulator screen mode's refresh rate, but this may only be possible with some special screen modes and maybe certain graphic cards.  Some people say that in any case it is impossible to display both normal animation and normal animation speed, because 50 and 60 Hz VGA refresh rates are not exactly the same as PAL and NTSC refresh rates.  However, if the emulator is able to synchronize itself with the emulator's refresh rate, then you may have normal animation and only a small speed difference.

As far as I'm concerned, I have never seen nor obtained any decent animation in emulators.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 24, 2008, 09:31:21 PM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
@Krusher

What are your operating system and screen mode ?  Do you use any special screen mode created by any special software tool ...

As far as I'm concerned, I have never seen nor obtained any decent animation in emulators.


I'm running Windows XP Professional SP2 @1680x1050 @ 60hz. Nothing special. Fot games, WinUAE is configured to use 800x600 @32bit and the FPS slider is at 50.

As far as I can see animation just looks the same to me as native Amiga's (and pc animation, for that matter)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 24, 2008, 09:37:59 PM
Thanks for the details.

What you say is strange : if emulation speed is normal, then in 60 Hz animation must be awfully jerky - as jerky as on a Samsung LCD TV ;-) - and you couldn't miss it.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 24, 2008, 09:43:50 PM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
...

What you say is strange : if emulation speed is normal, then in 60 Hz animation must be awfully jerky - as jerky as on a Samsung LCD TV ;-) - and you couldn't miss it.


I know, but for some reason it looks normal to me. I can play Pinball Fantasies as if it was on a normal Amiga. And I know about the jerkyness effect, it's only non-existent  :-?
I don't even have the tearing effect!
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 24, 2008, 09:50:53 PM
If your animation is really normal then I don't understand why.

Unless WinUAE contains some new complex algorithm that creates virtual frames in order to emulate 50 Hz animation on higher refresh rates.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 24, 2008, 09:56:43 PM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
...

Unless WinUAE contains some new complex algorythm that creates virtual frames in order to emulate 50 Hz animation on higher refresh rates.


Like 3:2 pulldown they use on converting 35mm film movies to NTSC/Pal?
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 24, 2008, 10:15:55 PM
I don't know what you refer to.

I mean that WinUAE would draw 60 frames per second instead of 50.  To this end it would have to simulate what the eye would see at the same moment if there were only 50 frames.  But I suppose it would require a lot of processing power, as this would demand from the emulator that it anticipate the next frame and scale the image and colours with antialiasing techniques.

I will test the latest versions of UAE when I find the time.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 24, 2008, 10:21:37 PM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
...

I will test the latest versions of UAE when I find the time.


I'm using v1.4.4 with all bells and whistles on (100% accurate and all that, even with floppy sound emulation on)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 24, 2008, 11:18:12 PM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
Today computers don't allow emulators to display animated PAL/NTSC screen modes, unless you manage to use the emulator on a 50 Hz screen mode (for PAL modes) and synchronize the emulator screen's refresh rate with the emulated screen's refresh rate.  As I have never found any way to make emulators do this, in my experience emulators are unusable, so that I have to go on with using real Amiga computers although emulators could be a much more convenient option for me.


Absolute rubbish!

I was happily playing MegaLoMania on the latest Universall E-UAE* (with OpenGL rendering) on my 2.33Ghz MacBook Pro, last week. The graphics were perfect, there was aboslutly no difference than running it on my A500, except the disk loading was much faster as I had the "Turbo Floppy Mode" active.

I get really annoyed when people like you post some ignorant junk, without using even looking at the state of technology now. I got into the Amiga because it was the best thing available. I still like to ride the crest of the technology curve, but so many people here are stuck 18 years in the past.

Ok, 10 years ago... Amiga emulation was jerky and flawed. But now emulation is perfect. Get some new hardware and enjoy yourself.

-Edit- Just tested my old G4 PowerBook with the same E-UAE binary... worked a treat, perfect... I honestly don't know what piece of crap you are running UAE on...

*WinUAE is even better than E-UAE (But I can rarely be bothered to boot into windows).
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 24, 2008, 11:42:09 PM
Quote

bloodline wrote:
... Get some new hardware and enjoy yourself...


I'm running WinUAE on a single core Intel Centrino laptop running at 1.6Ghz, hardly new or state of the art (heh, a familiar name amongst Amigans  :lol: ) hardware but it does the job.

Does E-UAE have the floppy sound in it? Just curious as I don't have a Mac.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 24, 2008, 11:47:42 PM
@Krusher

OK, I will remember.


@bloodline

This kind of unnecessary rude talk is a common problem in forums.  I know my hypotheses are clumsy, but I have absolutely no technical knowledge on the subject, so advices are more welcome than insults.  What makes you think that I am stuck 18 years in the past ?

My aim is precisely to replace my real Amiga by an emulator, at least on my desk as I'm lacking space.  To this end, a few years ago I tested several emulators on various PCs and various monitors including TVs, tried a few software hacks, without success as far as animation was concerned.

Now my main computer is a 2007 Apple Mac Mini, and I still haven't managed to obtain normal animation in UAE.  I am willing to buy a PC again if this is the only solution, but since my finances are not in a good shape, I am still gathering feedback.

Anyway you are using a Mac, so if I am ignorant, then please explain me how these issues have been solved and how you manage to obtain normal animation on your Mac.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 24, 2008, 11:54:25 PM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
... I am willing to buy a PC again if this is the only solution, but since my finances are not in a good shape, I am still gathering feedback.....


Actually I'd spare the cash and wait until Minimig gets ECS and more compatible or Natami. Macs are great for everyday use and just buying a pc for Amiga emulation just doesn't make sense to me.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 25, 2008, 12:01:31 AM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
@Krusher

OK, I will remember.


@bloodline

This kind of unnecessary rude talk is a common problem in forums.  I know my hypotheses are clumsy, but I have absolutely no technical knowledge on the subject, so advices are more welcome than insults.  What makes you think that I am stuck 18 years in the past ?


My abruptness stems from my irritation with people spreading FUD.

As long as the host can update the display faster than 50fps the display will be good. Especially since LCD displays don't actually use a refresh cycle.

Quote

My aim is precisely to replace my real Amiga by an emulator, at least on my desk as I'm lacking space.  To this end, a few years ago I tested several emulators on various PCs and various monitors including TVs, tried a few software hacks, without success as far as animation was concerned.

Now my main computer is a 2007 Apple Mac Mini, and I still haven't managed to obtain normal animation in UAE.  I am willing to buy a PC again if this is the only solution, but since my finances are not in a good shape, I am still gathering feedback.

Anyway you are using a Mac, so if I am ignorant, then please explain me how these issues have been solved and how you manage to obtain normal animation on your Mac.


Go here: http://e-uae.de.vu/

And in the configuration make sure you set the OpenGL rendering on (If you write your own configs: sdl.use_gl=true )... I expect you need the latest SDL framework installed for this.

Tweak the settings to suit your needs best.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 25, 2008, 12:05:06 AM
Quote

Krusher wrote:
Quote

bloodline wrote:
... Get some new hardware and enjoy yourself...


I'm running WinUAE on a single core Intel Centrino laptop running at 1.6Ghz, hardly new or state of the art (heh, a familiar name amongst Amigans  :lol: ) hardware but it does the job.


Not really state of the art at all... but if my old 1.5Ghz G4 can run UAE fine... then a 1.6Ghz Core Solo will have no problems at all.

Quote

Does E-UAE have the floppy sound in it? Just curious as I don't have a Mac.


No, WinUAE is quite a bit better than E-UAE... but E-UAE is still pretty good.

I have BootCamp on my Mac, so I do have WinUAE installed, but E-UAE is good enough.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 25, 2008, 12:15:55 AM
@bloodline

Well, thanks, when I find the time I will make sure I do everything right.  If it works this is good news for me...


@Krusher

...and I would not have to buy any PC.  I still haven't considered the Minimig yet.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 25, 2008, 12:17:36 AM
Quote

bloodline wrote:
Quote

Krusher wrote:
Quote

bloodline wrote:
...
Not really state of the art at all... but if my old 1.5Ghz G4 can run UAE fine... then a 1.6Ghz Core Solo will have no problems at all.


Heck, I even remember my old AMD @ 1Ghz running WinUAE just fine. With a lot less memory then my laptop :-P

Quote

Does E-UAE have the floppy sound in it? Just curious as I don't have a Mac.


No, WinUAE is quite a bit better than E-UAE... but E-UAE is still pretty good...


I remember the moment the floppy sound was build in, I was like OMG this is the icing on the cake! Too bad that sound output is just not the same (DAC filters and whatnot aren't the same as on the Amiga, and I guess it's too much horsepower to do some trickery to make it sound the same)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 25, 2008, 12:22:47 AM
Quote

Krusher wrote:
Quote

bloodline wrote:
Quote

Krusher wrote:
Quote

bloodline wrote:
...
Not really state of the art at all... but if my old 1.5Ghz G4 can run UAE fine... then a 1.6Ghz Core Solo will have no problems at all.


Heck, I even remember my old AMD @ 1Ghz running WinUAE just fine. With a lot less memory then my laptop :-P

Quote

Does E-UAE have the floppy sound in it? Just curious as I don't have a Mac.


No, WinUAE is quite a bit better than E-UAE... but E-UAE is still pretty good...


I remember the moment the floppy sound was build in, I was like OMG this is the icing on the cake! Too bad that sound output is just not the same (DAC filters and whatnot aren't the same as on the Amiga, and I guess it's too much horsepower to do some trickery to make it sound the same)


No, not really, it would take only a simple lookup table rather than the shifting* currently used. I the NetAmi thread I posted the theory how to achive this. I also have the look up table here. I don't have time to play with the UAE source code, but I have offered it to the UAE devs if they want to implement it.

I doubt anyone would really notice the difference though, while the Paula DACs are not linear they are not really that far off... :-)

*-Edit- while a Lookup table requires a memory access and a shift doesn't, it's obviously going to be a bit slower, but since the Lookup table is only 256bytes it should fit comfortably into a x86 CPU cache and thus be pretty fast!
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 25, 2008, 12:35:02 AM
Quote

bloodline wrote:
...

I doubt anyone would really notice the difference though, while the Paula DACs are not linear they are not really that far off... :-)

*-Edit- while a Lookup table requires a memory access and a shift doesn't, it's obviously going to be a bit slower, but since the Lookup table is only 256bytes it should fit comfortably into a x86 CPU cache and thus be pretty fast!


To me the WinUAE output sounds harsh to my ears (regardless of the soundcard used) so yes, I do notice. Then again mp3 @ 128kbps sounds the same to me while most people are ok with that  :crazy:

Oh and I don't have a background in programming other then some Pascal/Amos/php stuff, nor hardware (although I did a year of I guess you can call it a midway between college and university classes on electronics- not for me, too much theory)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 25, 2008, 12:38:46 AM
Quote

Krusher wrote:
Quote

bloodline wrote:
...

I doubt anyone would really notice the difference though, while the Paula DACs are not linear they are not really that far off... :-)

*-Edit- while a Lookup table requires a memory access and a shift doesn't, it's obviously going to be a bit slower, but since the Lookup table is only 256bytes it should fit comfortably into a x86 CPU cache and thus be pretty fast!


To me the WinUAE output sounds hars to my ears (regardless of the soundcard used) so yes, I do notice. Then again mp3 @ 128kbps sounds the same to me while most people are ok with that  :crazy:


That is probably more to do with the very low quality (and hence actually rather "warm" sounding) amps on the Amiga motherboard than the actual Paula Audio... plus whatever sound system you used to use with your Amiga...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 25, 2008, 12:41:19 AM
Quote

bloodline wrote:
...

That is probably more to do with the very low quality (and hence actually rather "warm" sounding) amps on the Amiga motherboard than the actual Paula Audio... plus whatever sound system you used to use with your Amiga...


More like comparing tubes with new opamps then  :-D

For most of my +18 year old life I've had semi-highend audio equipment. Did a few years recording orchestra's so that might explain it.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 25, 2008, 12:58:42 AM
Quote

Krusher wrote:
Quote

bloodline wrote:
...

That is probably more to do with the very low quality (and hence actually rather "warm" sounding) amps on the Amiga motherboard than the actual Paula Audio... plus whatever sound system you used to use with your Amiga...


More like comparing tubes with new opamps then  :-D


yeah, basically... Looking at the A1200 mainboard schematic amp circuits used to bring the DAC output to line level are not high quality, they must introduce a lot of "colour" into the sound.

Quote

For most of my +18 year old life I've had semi-highend audio equipment. Did a few years recording orchestra's so that might explain it.


18... I wish I was 18 again, but knowing what I know now :-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 25, 2008, 01:07:34 AM
Quote

bloodline wrote:
...

18... I wish I was 18 again, but knowing what I know now :-)


Who wouldn't be, I'm 34 now  :lol:
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 25, 2008, 01:08:21 AM
Quote

Krusher wrote:
Quote

bloodline wrote:
...

18... I wish I was 18 again, but knowing what I know now :-)


Who wouldn't be, I'm 34 now  :lol:


Ahhh, so then you are the old man, and I am the young :-D
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: stefcep2 on April 25, 2008, 02:30:45 AM
The mouse control under emulation is not the same as the real thing.  This really changes the feel and the speed and comfort with which I can select and execute things on the GUI.

Also the display of a real Amiga especially on a 1084 seems far more vibrant:  I remember 5 years ago when a PC owner friend saw some hand-drawn picture on my 1084(only pal overscan hires laced) being wowed by the colors.

Some functions in some art packages don't function correctly, resulting in screen garbage.

Stuff which does hardware banging eg scala is far smoother on the real thing.
 
I don't understand this fixation with the annoying floppy disk click:  I actually deliberately turned it off with MCP in the day when I only had Amiga: why emulate an annoyance?

But for convenience emulation is unbeatable.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: redfox on April 25, 2008, 02:37:00 AM
@amigakidd

Replying to first post ....

I prefer to think of Amiga emulation as one of the many options that are available to us in the Amiga community.

My A2000HD has a 68000 CPU and runs AmigaOS 3.1.
My MicroA1 has an IBM PPC750GX CPU and runs OS4.

On my MicroA1, I use the AmigaOS4/PPC version of E-UAE to provide a more compatible environment for some of my older 68K programs that want to see the classic Amiga chipset or certain features that are not available in OS4.  I emulate a classic amiga with a 68000 CPU, ECS chipset, NTSC and AmigaOS 3.1.  I'm running the 68000 CPU speed at max setting.

E-UAE creates a classic Amiga on my OS4 desktop.  I usually run it in full screen mode, or I can do a "ctrl alt s" and run it as a window on my OS4 Workbench.  In any case it has it's own Workbench and drawers just like on a normal Amiga running AmigaOS 3.1.

I also used E-UAE when I installed TVPaint and Real3D on my MicroA1.  E-UAE allowed me to mount the .adf files as floppy disks and AmigaOS 3.1 gave me access to an older version of the installer program.  I installed TVPaint and Real3D onto my hard drive, quit E-UAE and used OS4 Workbench to drag the TVPaint and Real3D drawers out to where I keep my other applications.  Both programs run fine from my OS4 Workbench.

In summary, 68K programs like Amiga Explorer, Final Writer 97, Personal Paint, TVPaint, Real3D, IBrowse 2.4, AmigaAMP, MakeCD, MicroRexx, and KingCON work just fine on my OS4 Workbench using the 68K emulation provided by OS4.  I just launch them and OS4 takes care of the emulation.  I launch E-UAE when I want to run my really old 68000 stuff or install programs that are supplied as Amiga ADF files.  Then I have a classic Amiga Workbench running on my OS4 Workbench.

---
redfox

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 25, 2008, 02:44:13 AM
Quote

bloodline wrote:
...

Ahhh, so then you are the old man, and I am the young :-D


I'm well aware, I wish Billie Piper went along for the ride but heh  :lol:
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on April 25, 2008, 03:04:12 AM
>>    So that does not mean that one should get something that is NOT an amiga (from the hardware perspective). You need to convince some of your hardware pals to build you a REAL amiga. As an example, try putting an instruction like $009C,$8010 into the copper list and write an interrupt routine (pointed to by location $68) that does something time critical like writing to joystick ports and there your emulator won't work. The PC timer goes only as accurate as 1.19318Mhz whereas the copper is timing the color clocks at 3.57954525Mhz.

>Sorry, but your paragraph makes no sense.

You forget to end that line with "to me" as you cannot speak for everyone.

>Of course an Emulator would fully support the Amiga interrupts and memory address space... and I think you'll find far more accurate and fine grained timers on a modern PC than on an Amiga... A typical OS quantum on a PC would be 1000 times every second... on the Amiga it was 12 times...

I don't.  I have the latest PC at 2.8Ghz, it has two timers at 1.19318Mhz and 4096Hz (RTC timer).  Why use terms like "would"?  Why don't you try it out and speak with knowledge rather than guess and assume.  Even if I ASSUME there's some timer at a higher rate, what would be the quantum of the timer after ONE interrupt occurs which does an EOI (Mov AL,20h followed by OUT 20H,AL)?

>Get over it the Amiga is old!!

Sure, it's old but it still contains unique features that modern hardware can't emulate.

>>    Souls are only present in living entities-- anything subject to birth, death, old age, disease cannot be a soul.

>You don't know that. Since you can't define a Soul, my calculator might have one!

You should stop ASSUMING things.  Speak from what you know and don't assume what other people know or don't know.  I have experience that I am the same person but the body has changed and others report to me similar experience.  I don't want to ASSUME calculator has a soul.

>>You are a soul that's why you know you are same person (unchanging identity) throughout your life although your body has changed from when you were a baby.

>Actually that's not true, your current stream of consciousness (i.e. your identity is only defined by your memories) may not even survive a night's sleep!!

Some people remember some things and forget other things but remain the same person.  I know that I use my memory and am separate from my memory.  There are NDE (near death experiences) of people going outside their body and giving accounts of what happens, astral projections, etc. etc.  Perhaps, you need to contemplate that a bit more.

>There are plenty of studies in memory disorders to question the nature of consciousness... But this is not the place for that discussion...

Then you should never have replied as I was not discussing but giving my thoughts that someone asked for.  Now that you have stated your ASSUMPTIONS, you are starting the discussion.

>Is MiniMig an Amiga?

If it does what the real Amiga hardware does, yes.

>You thoughts are odd and erratic!

Ahh, but I don't give a crap about what anyone ASSUMES or THINKs.  I am interested in facts.  
Why don't you try out the CIA interrupt on your real Amiga and fake amiga and see the difference?  Try for example, divisor 11942 for CIA timer at 715909Hz and see the difference and then perhaps you can try out the tougher task of the Copper List based timer events which I was talking about.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Seiya on April 25, 2008, 03:30:46 AM
to replay to first post, today Amiga is any platform able to run AmigaOS emulated or not.
AmigaOS running on emulator are the same AmigaOS running on real Amiga, and the new hardware AmigaOne and Pegasos.

In the past maybe not, but in the latest years, Amiga is re-born like a software for many hardware and for many more users.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: AmigaHope on April 25, 2008, 03:54:48 AM
Quote
As long as the host can update the display faster than 50fps the display will be good. Especially since LCD displays don't actually use a refresh cycle.

The LCD panel itself does not use a refresh cycle, but the video card and how it communicates with the monitor DO.

When your video card is sending 60 frames per second to the monitor, and your emulator is putting out 50 frames per second, and assuming you're using vsync to avoid tearing artifacts, *every fifth frame will be doubled*. Scrolling will not be smooth!

That said, your particular eyes may or may not notice.

For best results, you need to use a 50Hz or 100Hz screenmode. Whether or not your monitor logic supports these properly is another issue.

This should yield FAIRLY good scrolling -- because the clock rate is not 100% identical there will still be dropped/doubled frames every so often (depending on whether the 50Hz of the monitor is clocked every-so-slightly slower or faster than Amiga 50Hz). These errors should be very infrequent (but noticeable if you have a golden eye).

I can definitely see the difference when I run an emulator at 50Hz in a display at 60Hz.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on April 25, 2008, 08:27:18 AM
Quote

stefcep2 wrote:
The mouse control under emulation is not the same as the real thing.  This really changes the feel and the speed and comfort with which I can select and execute things on the GUI.

Also the display of a real Amiga especially on a 1084 seems far more vibrant:  I remember 5 years ago when a PC owner friend saw some hand-drawn picture on my 1084(only pal overscan hires laced) being wowed by the colors.

I have used SVGA monitor and 1084S on my A3000 and I dislike my 1084S's dot pitch.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on April 25, 2008, 08:28:57 AM
Quote

AmigaHope wrote:
Quote
As long as the host can update the display faster than 50fps the display will be good. Especially since LCD displays don't actually use a refresh cycle.

The LCD panel itself does not use a refresh cycle, but the video card and how it communicates with the monitor DO.

When your video card is sending 60 frames per second to the monitor, and your emulator is putting out 50 frames per second, and assuming you're using vsync to avoid tearing artifacts, *every fifth frame will be doubled*. Scrolling will not be smooth!

Cite an example.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: AmigaHope on April 26, 2008, 08:40:13 AM
An example? o.O It's simple math. o.O

Framerate pulldown happens. It's why 24fps film does not look right on an NTSC TV, and why PAL versions of films on VHS, Laserdisc, and poorly-mastered DVDs are sped up to 25fps (making the sound pitch slightly higher, the action slightly faster, and the movie slightly shorter).

It's why good modern flat-panel TVs support 24fps input on their HDMI ports (if you have HDDVD or Blu-ray make sure you enable this!) and why when you're playing movies via a VGA input you should set your refresh to 72Hz (24fps frametripled).

In the case of your Amiga emulator, your video card is sending a new image to your monitor every 60th of a second, assuming your refresh is 60Hz. There is no way for it to space 50 frames evenly apart across 60 frames that are spread evenly apart. The smoothest you can get is by sending every fifth frame twice (50/60 with all common factors divided out, yields a lowest term of 5/6).

In other words, only every sixth frame will be displayed at the accurate moment, the following five frames will consist of a repeated frame, followed by four delayed frames (with progressively decreasing delay, until the sixth frame which will again be properly synchronized).
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: motorollin on April 26, 2008, 10:33:01 AM
I'm coming in late on this one, replying to the original topic.

"Better" is subjective. Nobody can say which is "better" since it totally depends on what you actually want to do. If you want to run high-end Amiga software and don't care how you do it, then emulation is better: it will be faster and cheaper than buying real Amiga hardware. If (like me) you like your Amiga experience to feel more authentic and don't care about running Amiga apps at the fastest speed you possibly can, then hardware is better. But some would disagree here: even people who just like playing Amiga games, and therefore don't *need* the speed advantages of emulation, will find UAE more convenient and reliable than a real Amiga.

So I repeat: "better" is subjective. Only you know what is better for your needs.

--
moto
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: foleyjo on April 26, 2008, 10:46:54 AM
Quote

motorollin wrote:
So I repeat: "better" is subjective. Only you know what is better for your needs.



Most intelligent thing said in this thread.

People are comparing speeds, sound quality, graphic quality etc but to be honest even if there was an undisputable 100% accurate Amiga emulator for PC some people will still prefer using a real Amiga just because they like to have a real amiga.

Im a bit of a collector so Ill always take the real thing over emulation.
Imagine if a stamp collector instead of getting stamps just got photos of stamps
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: actung_bab on April 26, 2008, 11:50:16 AM
Quote

a-pex wrote:
Give emulation no chance!

Real men plays with real hardware, or are you also emulating your girl friend.  :crazy:
l chouldint resist maybe l should have hehe
l though porn was g/f emulation hehe well rymes with aghh no wont say that hehe
know l finallyhave g/f the hardware is much  better.

Give emulation no chance!
:-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on April 26, 2008, 01:20:00 PM
Quote

AmigaHope wrote:
An example? o.O It's simple math. o.O

I was referring to a Classic Amiga PAL demo with smooth scrolling.

Super frog game is smooth on my ASUS G1S laptop (via WinUAE).

Quote

It's why good modern flat-panel TVs support 24fps input on their HDMI ports (if you have HDDVD or Blu-ray make sure you enable this!) and why when you're playing movies via a VGA input you should set your refresh to 72Hz (24fps frametripled).

Are you claiming jerky frame rates while playing back 24FPS on 60hz LCD with PureVideo HD or Avivo HD video processor?

NVIDIA PureVideo HD (Geforce 8)covers the following(quoting nVIDIA)...

Inverse Telecine (3:2 & 2:2 Pulldown Correction):
Recovers original film images from films-converted-to-video, providing more accurate movie playback and superior picture quality.

Bad Edit Correction:
When videos are edited after they have been converted from 24 to 25 or 30 frames, the edits can disrupt the normal 3:2 or 2:2 pulldown cadence. PureVideo uses advanced processing techniques to detect poor edits, recover the original content, and display perfect picture detail frame after frame for smooth, natural looking video.

Advanced Spatial-Temporal De-Interlacing:
Sharpens HD and standard definition interlaced content on progressive displays, delivering a crisp, clear picture that rivals high-end home theater systems.
(vector adaptive deinterlacing)

Other nVidia statement on Advanced Spatial-Temporal De-Interlacing;
"Smoothes video and DVD playback on progressive displays to deliver a crisp, clear picture that rivals high-end home theater systems.

Quote

In the case of your Amiga emulator, your video card is sending a new image to your monitor every 60th of a second, assuming your refresh is 60Hz. There is no way for it to space 50 frames evenly apart across 60 frames that are spread evenly apart. The smoothest you can get is by sending every fifth frame twice (50/60 with all common factors divided out, yields a lowest term of 5/6).

Run the emulated Amiga in NTSC mode.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 26, 2008, 03:46:00 PM
To my knowledge AmigaHope is making an accurate description of the animation problem, and will soon receive some insults from rough specimen Bloodline.

@Hammer

Quote
Are you claiming jerky frame rates while playing back 24FPS on 60hz LCD with PureVideo HD or Avivo HD video processor?


The frame rate would not be accurate, but animation would not be jerky either since there's no moving 2D object, except in special circumstances such as a smooth credits scrolling (but if they are common in TV shows I can't remember seeing any in films).  In emulators however you will get jerky animation on moving 2D objects or scrollings.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: AmigaHope on April 27, 2008, 12:49:59 AM
Quote
I was referring to a Classic Amiga PAL demo with smooth scrolling.

Super frog game is smooth on my ASUS G1S laptop (via WinUAE).
You might not be able to see the jerkiness -- different people have different tolerances for it. If you actually took video of your screen with a high speed camera and played it back slowly, you'd see the jerkiness. It really is happening.

An A/B comparison between a properly synced display and one that isn't would show the difference well -- you could probably see it then.

Quote
Are you claiming jerky frame rates while playing back 24FPS on 60hz LCD with PureVideo HD or Avivo HD video processor?

NVIDIA PureVideo HD (Geforce 8)covers the following(quoting nVIDIA)...
All of those features you're listing focus on *recovering the original frames* of the film. All of the features listed are basically motion-detection techniques to try to reconstruct the original frames from the fragments generated by various telecine conversions (including reconversion to progressive).

All this does though is recover the original frame! Once you have your nice original frames, it *still* has to perform a framerate conversion, which still leads to jerkiness unless the source frame rate can be evenly divided into the target framerate.

It *does* reduce jerkiness in the sense that it removes any jerkiness caused in the mastering of the source materal. The reconstructed video data that results is in fact not jerky. When you actually *DISPLAY* it though you're introducing jerkiness in your final pulldown conversion. It's just better than the much-worse jerkiness you'd get from cascaded pulldown conversions.

It can't magically make 24fps or 50fps fit into a 60fps framerate smoothly.

Quote
Run the emulated Amiga in NTSC mode.
This actually works. There will still be the occasional glitch due to very slight differences in framerate (unless you can 100% accurately synchronize the mode -- this is hard to do unless your emulator has direct access to the timing controls of the video drivers), but it will mostly look great.

The only problem is that tons of software on the Amiga is carefully timed to run synchronized with a 50Hz display, and simply won't play or sound right when run in NTSC mode.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 27, 2008, 01:24:44 PM
Quote

AmigaHope wrote:

It can't magically make 24fps or 50fps fit into a 60fps framerate smoothly.



http://www.troubled-mind.com/output.mp4

and...?
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: monami on April 27, 2008, 03:26:45 PM
"rough specimen Bloodline."

 :lol:  :lol:  :lol:
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 27, 2008, 03:57:41 PM
Quote

monami wrote:
"rough specimen Bloodline."

 :lol:  :lol:  :lol:


Of all the things I've been called, that is actually one of the nicest :-)
Title: Re: Easiness
Post by: Nautilus on April 27, 2008, 05:32:01 PM
Emulation is cool, but without the "real thing" there is not that feeling of refreshing tranquility and an absence of tension or worry when you turn on the computer. There is nothing like using a real Amiga1200 or a real MSX2.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: AmigaHope on April 28, 2008, 07:44:45 AM
Quote

http://www.troubled-mind.com/output.mp4

and...?
The clip on that link shows *exactly* the kind of jerky scrolling I'm talking about. =/ If you watch it you'll notice that the scrolling is not as silky smooth as on a real Amiga.

To see why this is the case, play it back frame-by frame while the player is running past the trees. Advance one frame at a time and you'll see that every 6th frame is a repeat (i.e. it will scroll for 5 frames, and then the 6th will have no motion at all).
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Krusher on April 28, 2008, 08:04:15 AM
Quote

AmigaHope wrote:
Quote

http://www.troubled-mind.com/output.mp4

and...?
The clip on that link shows *exactly* the kind of jerky scrolling I'm talking about. =/ If you watch it you'll notice that the scrolling is not as silky smooth as on a real Amiga...


I fail to see jerkyness *shrug*

Perhaps I'm one of the lucky few who can't see it. Then again, fluorescent light bulbs annoy the heck out of me and CRT monitors below 72hz always flicker to me.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on April 28, 2008, 09:24:52 AM
Hmmm, the jerking is obvious to my eyes, just watch the trees. Maybe it would appear smoother on a CRT... :shrug:

Anyway.. 50Hz/50 FPS WinUAE setting on a 60Hz LCD will look far less smooth than the "real thing", but truthfully very few people notice or care.

About running WinUAE in NTSC mode -- many games (and almost all demos) are fuXor3d that way. If you're super picky, I'd run a CRT @ 50 or 100Hz (like TBL recommend for watching their demos on emulation, IIRC).

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: monami on April 28, 2008, 09:56:54 AM
they are both useful tools. what you can't do on amiga you can do on your amiga/pc! i was annoyed at how incompatible an a1200 can be till whdload but then i tried alot of games. where as some people may have not. 1/1 graphics on breathless are glitchy on my 40/28 2/2 are fine so i may go for pc emulation of that game. when i find an involving game i forget what i am using. any other high end amiga games may be the same.
i just downloaded amigasys and it was pretty dam good. i finally got to use an amiga browser on the web. although i was disapointed it didn't like some things webwise... i may not use it again. as i'd worry about safety and it runs a little slow on an 800mhz machine. (come on new lappy!) but it's always there.
i strangely would like to use an amiga for audio sequencing. a long term dream. and some writing. i feel more productive in front of it! where as at my pc's i sometimes think "oh i can't be bothered." i don't think a even modern pc can emulate high end audio sequencing effectively so i would need new hardware for that. (come on new hardware! 8-))
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: coldfish on April 28, 2008, 10:24:13 AM
UAE4all on GP2X = sublime.

Handheld Amiga Fun!

IMO, "better" than the real thing.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: foleyjo on April 28, 2008, 11:59:25 AM
Quote

coldfish wrote:
UAE4all on GP2X = sublime.

Handheld Amiga Fun!

IMO, "better" than the real thing.


Even though its not compatable with every game, it isnt 100% full speed, EHB and Ham modes are not supported and the gp2x batteries can run out while halfway through a game without warning?????

Its good but its not better
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: persia on April 28, 2008, 12:09:42 PM
Amiga graphics are very simple compared with 21st Century graphics.  We're all used to staring at much higher resolution with a lot of refinement.  To the collector or history buff that refinement isn't the same.  It's like using a bus to look like an old trolley car, the suspension is too smooth, the windows too air tight, the ride too quiet.  It's too modern comfortable.  That's why the computer collectors/historians  complain about emulation, it's just too refined to be real.

(http://media.expedia.com/tshops/media/van_trolley/trolley_Gastown.jpg)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 28, 2008, 11:58:44 PM
@persia

"Collectors/historians" may recognize themselves in your comparison, but as far as the animation problem is concerned, I think that your comment is irrelevant.

It would be relevant if it was a question of subjectivity, but it's not : the animation problem is an objective technical incompatibility.

It would be relevant too if it was about an incidental detail, for example the look and feel of a real Amiga being missing in Amiga emulators.  But it's not : animation is one of the principal qualities of the Amiga, so that it is an essential quality of numerous games (and demos).  Without normal animation, numerous games' (and demos) aesthetics are hidden : it's like condemning any music masterpiece to arbitrary chaotic rythmics.  As a result, not only is the best works' aesthetic identity lost, but the work of art itself is harmed in such a process, and - in my opinion - destroyed.

So, as far as 2D animation is concerned, your judgement is not true : the emulated Amiga is not more refined despite its differences, but less refined.  If it was more refined I would agree with you : but animation is essential, and it is the only reason why I still have to use a real Amiga although I would prefer to use emulators.

Your judgement is not true even if we consider the whole 2D animation on PC and Mac computers : I have never seen any good 2D animation on a PC or Mac, whatever the era and computing power, except a few text scrollings in a few old pirate intros and one - only one ! but there may be more - MS-Dos PC game of the early 90s (I think it was "Magic Pockets" but it must be confirmed), while most Amiga games have perfect animation.  The Amiga is not the only one : some other computers or consoles using video screen modes (hence offering an easy way to synchronize animation with the refresh rate) had perfect animation, especially the Commodore 64 and the Sega Megadrive/Genesis.  The appearance of DirectX could have been the time to make 2D animation easier on a PC, but instead it favoured 3D animation for good, which is another subject.  So as far as 2D animation is concerned, what you call refinement is in fact both technical and aesthetic regression, since the PC and Mac have won the game although 2D animation has always been neglected on these systems.  

In addition, your point of view seems to confuse technology and aesthetics.  If you think that refinement is just a matter of technology, I'm afraid it is nobody's business but yours.  But I know you would not be the only one : in this Lemon64 thread (http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10358&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=) I had a hard time trying to introduce some (strongly studied but obviously unorthodox) musical point of view on a computer forum among numerous people sharing a similar confusion that made them very touchy, which I didn't expect at all.

In conclusion, as for me even the mouse pointer's motion in emulators is too bad to be bearable, in my experience Amiga emulators are a sad and unrewarding waste as long as this problem stands in the way.  As I am not interested in computers and not knowledgeable in that domain, but passionately fond of some digital works of art (including some Amiga games), I feel a bit frustrated and helpless, especially when knowledgeable people say they don't even notice or care about the problem.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: kreciu on April 29, 2008, 12:57:55 AM
Hello, I will just jump for a while.

I use both. "Real" Amiga and UAE emulated Amiga. My real Amiga  is to get the idea how nice system can work on system with "real" simm ram, "slow" 040 ;) and graphic card, and one more think I really enjoy listen to "modules" on Paula :).

BUT...

I really enjoy running Workbench on my iBook :), and play in airplane in Amiga games, you CAN't find more fun stuff!!!

UAE also give me a speeeeeeed, writing, drawing is AMAZING. This what I was dreaming 10 years ego...and basically you can emulate any kind of Amiga which was produced.

I use it with AmiKIT (exceptional set of software!!)+ Rom's from AmigaForever (exceptional compilation of Amiga history!!) and OS3.9 (good old Workbench ;) replaced by Magellan in AmiKIT BTW. I need to register it!).

What is better? BOTH are good. UAE will not give you an idea of "a smell" of Amiga with hundreds "attachments" but also you will not spend for it $1000 ;)

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 29, 2008, 01:12:52 AM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:

So, as far as 2D animation is concerned, your judgement is not true : the emulated Amiga is not more refined despite its differences, but less refined.  If it was more refined I would agree with you : but animation is essential, and it is the only reason why I still have to use a real Amiga although I would prefer to use emulators.


You speak such rubbish! I promise you that if you ever come to London, I can show you Perfect Amiga emulation on my MacBook Pro using WinUAE on WindowsXP SP2. I will use WinUAE as it's better than E-UAE.

I will gladly meet you and show you.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: kreciu on April 29, 2008, 01:24:25 AM
Quote

persia wrote:
Amiga graphics are very simple compared with 21st Century graphics.  We're all used to staring at much higher resolution with a lot of refinement.  To the collector or history buff that refinement isn't the same.  It's like using a bus to look like an old trolley car, the suspension is too smooth, the windows too air tight, the ride too quiet.  It's too modern comfortable.  That's why the computer collectors/historians  complain about emulation, it's just too refined to be real.

(http://media.expedia.com/tshops/media/van_trolley/trolley_Gastown.jpg)


Heh, this is somehow true. Runnuning Amiga games on 20" LCD look's "bad" but when you get the idea of "game" you will forget.

Today games are not different form old one, "just" ;) a graphic is better...I mean IDEA of playing is the same...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 29, 2008, 01:44:13 AM
@bloodline

It's not because somebody's wrong that he speaks rubbish.

Of course it's possible that I am wrong : I still have to double-check all E-UAE settings following your advice, and I still have to see WinUAE on a brand new PC.

If you get perfect animation, why did you post this : http://www.troubled-mind.com/output.mp4 ?
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: coldfish on April 29, 2008, 07:55:02 AM
@foleyjo,

re:GP2X + UAE4all.

You have actually tried it, right?

btw;
- Loads of games work, the list grows with each update.
- Give me a handful of worthwhile games that use EHB and HAM as a crucial part of gameplay (not just title/loading screens)?
- Battery issue is way overstated, anyone with a good set of NiMH and a bit of mechanical sympathy is fine.

Even with these things you've mentioned, its very good having a hand held A500, not to mention Snes, MD, C64...

 :-P
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 29, 2008, 09:31:08 AM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
@bloodline

It's not because somebody's wrong that he speaks rubbish.

That is correct.

But it is rubbish when one speaks with authority on a subject about which they have no evidence to support.

You cannot state as fact your opinion.

Quote

Of course it's possible that I am wrong : I still have to double-check all E-UAE settings following your advice, and I still have to see WinUAE on a brand new PC.

WinUAE will provide the most accurate emulation. If you require configuration files I will gladly provide them.
Quote

If you get perfect animation, why did you post this : http://www.troubled-mind.com/output.mp4 ?


That video is 50fps upsampled to 60fps using Apples H.264 encoder. I don't care if I'm right or wrong, I just want the truth and will happily provide the evidence I used to support my position.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on April 29, 2008, 09:41:33 AM
Quote

In addition, your point of view seems to confuse technology and aesthetics. If you think that refinement is just a matter of technology, I'm afraid it is nobody's business but yours. But I know you would not be the only one : in this Lemon64 thread I had a hard time trying to introduce some (strongly studied but obviously unorthodox) musical point of view on a computer forum among numerous people sharing a similar confusion that made them very touchy, which I didn't expect at all.


Yikes. I think some of those guys need to get out more. Is there anything more retarded than acting like that over c64 music...? LOL. (FWIW, I own an unopened copy of PSI-5, it's a classic IMHO and one of my favorites -- nothing wrong with thinking the music is great, it absolutey is!) And what's up with the guy trying to equate rock with classical music?? Just because some rock guitarists borrow (or loop) some baroque "riffs" hardly makes them identical. :/

Anyway, sorry to get off topic. I still maintain that (as someone put quite well earlier in the thread) the issue is largely subjective, some have eyes that are simply less sensitive than others. To mine, WinUAE set for PAL/50 FPS displayed at 60Hz absolutely does not look perfect, and smearing of some LCDs can amplify the effect even more. There are ways of getting WinUAE very close, running everything at 60 FPS (for LCDs) is not acceptable though (IMO). Just try running "Desert Dream" at those settings...

edit-- Just to clarify (my apologies if I'm sounding repetitive), WinUAE, running demos @ 50 or 100Hz on a CRT, in some cases does look nearly perfect to me. :-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on April 29, 2008, 09:54:25 AM
Quote

bloodline wrote:
That video is 50fps upsampled to 60fps using Apples H.264 encoder. I don't care if I'm right or wrong, I just want the truth and will happily provide the evidence I used to support my position.


No offense intended, but that video looks like ass IMHO... I have yet to check it on a CRT (or LCD with "fast" response time), but the trees in particular don't scroll smoothly at all. :shrug:


Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: foleyjo on April 29, 2008, 10:28:26 AM
@coldfish

Yeah Ive tried it. I have it on an SD card and do use it on my GP2X and do like using it but I think its far from better than the real thing.

bte,
-I found that games that worked previously stopped working in the most recent version. I also remember seeing a post or 2 on the Gp2X forums saying the same.
-the fact is a real amiga can do EHB and HAM modes making it better.
-Ive got good batteries they last for ages on everything but the amiga emulator just drains them.
-In addition you cant play Walker properly on the GP2X

I agree that its good having a handheld A500 (+the others and some you didnt mention) but to be fair the gp2x amiga emulator is not better than real thing
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 29, 2008, 10:37:52 AM
Quote

-D- wrote:
Quote

bloodline wrote:
That video is 50fps upsampled to 60fps using Apples H.264 encoder. I don't care if I'm right or wrong, I just want the truth and will happily provide the evidence I used to support my position.


No offense intended, but that video looks like ass IMHO... I have yet to check it on a CRT (or LCD with "fast" response time), but the trees in particular don't scroll smoothly at all. :shrug:




I grant you that it doesn't look as good as it does out of the Emulator (the uncompressed video is 400meg so I won't post it), but even as an mp4 it still looks better than my Amigas do on a real TV...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 29, 2008, 05:39:02 PM
@bloodline

Quote
But it is rubbish when one speaks with authority on a subject about which they have no evidence to support.


You are right : I should have added one "to my knowledge" to the paragraph you quoted.  But my omission doesn't justify your vocabulary, and if I had no evidence I wouldn't say anything.  My experience is fact but is only experience.

Quote
WinUAE will provide the most accurate emulation.


I still have to buy a new PC - or install Windows on the Mac.  To date I have only tried Amiga emulation on my new Mac and others' PC (and on my 8 years old PC), so I may have skipped some settings.

Quote
That video is 50fps upsampled to 60fps using Apples H.264 encoder. I don't care if I'm right or wrong, I just want the truth and will happily provide the evidence I used to support my position.


OK - I thought you had managed to output exactly what you see.

Quote
I grant you that it doesn't look as good as it does out of the Emulator (the uncompressed video is 400meg so I won't post it), but even as an mp4 it still looks better than my Amigas do on a real TV...


This mp4's animation can only be worse than real Amiga animation, whatever the monitor or TV (this is not experience but indisputable fact).  Only the picture's sharpness and colours can be better depending on your screen.




@D

Thanks : I'm relieved at last somebody does not totally disagree with me on a question of music !

Quote
I still maintain that (as someone put quite well earlier in the thread) the issue is largely subjective, some have eyes that are simply less sensitive than others.


I agree that perception is individual, but in the case of a 50 Hz on 60 Hz projection it is at least an objective issue, since some original frames are displayed more times than others.

Quote
Just to clarify (my apologies if I'm sounding repetitive), WinUAE, running demos @ 50 or 100Hz on a CRT, in some cases does look nearly perfect to me.


In my experience it does not, as synchronization is not accurate - about C64 emulators some people say that Windows does not manage "VBLANK" synchronization accurately but I don't know what it means exactly.  At least I seem to remember that emulation speed has to be adapted to the exact refresh rate, as I seem to remember that the VGA rates don't exactly equal PAL's 50.12 Hz or its multiples.

Quote
No offense intended, but that video looks like ass IMHO... I have yet to check it on a CRT (or LCD with "fast" response time), but the trees in particular don't scroll smoothly at all.


To my knowledge CRT and fast response time only make things worse at the same refresh rate, as they make the problem even clearer.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on April 29, 2008, 07:34:57 PM
Quote

In my experience it does not, as synchronization is not accurate - about C64 emulators some people say that Windows does not manage "VBLANK" synchronization accurately but I don't know what it means exactly.  At least I seem to remember that emulation speed has to be adapted to the exact refresh rate, as I seem to remember that the VGA rates don't exactly equal PAL's 50.12 Hz or its multiples.


Interesting. Admittedly, it's been a long time since I've used a CRT with WinUAE, I may have to give it another go now that I'm used to playing around with the old hardware again. I do remember it being fairly close, but I'm thinking some side-by-side comparison may be in order. ;-) I know that at 60Hz, scrolling is obviously wonky running PAL software on any LCD I've tried, including supposed "2ms" overdriven panels. And I agree, there is absolutely a technical reason for this -- I just wanted to point out that some people aren't as bothered by it as others. (On a personal level, it doesn't bug me for casual use, but for demos in particular I do prefer a real amiga + CRT.)

Quote
No offense intended, but that video looks like ass IMHO... I have yet to check it on a CRT (or LCD with "fast" response time), but the trees in particular don't scroll smoothly at all.


To my knowledge CRT and fast response time only make things worse at the same refresh rate, as they make the problem even clearer.[/quote]

Agreed, though I thought what I was seeing with the trees could have been some smearing on the relatively slow 20ms PVA panel I watched it on. I did fire the game up on an A1200/1084 (thinking perhaps the scrolling trees weren't "fullframe" or something, as it looked similar to, say, Ruff n' Tumble), but alas, all scrolling was flawless. (As an aside, the SOTB 3 title screen is another good one to check for scrolling issues.)

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 29, 2008, 08:47:24 PM
The best I could obtain in 100 Hz on a CRT monitor was C64 emulator CCS64 showing only one animation jump every second or so, but as far as C64 emulators are concerned I still have to try Hoxs64, which has a reputation for being more accurate.

Quote
As an aside, the SOTB 3 title screen is another good one to check for scrolling issues.)


Even the Workbench's mouse pointer is a good witness... Most horizontal or vertical text scrollings are strong - and common - indicators as well.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on April 30, 2008, 06:28:18 AM
I went ahead and connected a CRT to the PC, and compared a few programs next to an A1200/1084 combo.

In brief, running the PC display at 100Hz, setting WinUAE for PAL/50 FPS, no filter, and no vsync seemed to provide the best quality. (Naturally, you will need to make sure everything is cleaned up on the Windows end of things to prevent hiccups.) While not 100% flawless, from the standpoint of an average user I think the results are acceptable. Some AGA demos (Impossible is one example) can actually be a bit smoother via emulation, as even an 80MHz 68060 (and possible Amiga chipset limitations?) is not enough to play them entirely perfect everywhere.

Pinball games seem to be a small exception, while they may look *almost* as fluid just watching the table scroll (especially from normal viewing distance), actually playing them is not nearly as nice IMHO. Also, you will not be able to correctly run a PAL demo/game at 60Hz and have good scrolling.

Just some casual observations from a non-expert... :-) While it's a hell of a lot of $$$ for that extra smidge of better scrolling, I think a perfectionist will be unhappy with anything other than an actual Amiga (especially a game or demoscene nut). As I said earlier in the thread, I use and enjoy both. I would have no problem running WinUAE exclusively (despite flaws) if I didn't have room for my computer hobby. YMMV.
 

edit -- Something I just thought of, I bet you could use Powerstrip to create some custom video modes with more "precise" frequencies for use with WinUAE, that might help dial in the scrolling a bit better. Something to fiddle with later in the week. :-)

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: stefcep2 on April 30, 2008, 11:13:48 AM
Quote

bloodline wrote:
Quote

arkpandora wrote:

So, as far as 2D animation is concerned, your judgement is not true : the emulated Amiga is not more refined despite its differences, but less refined.  If it was more refined I would agree with you : but animation is essential, and it is the only reason why I still have to use a real Amiga although I would prefer to use emulators.


You speak such rubbish! I promise you that if you ever come to London, I can show you Perfect Amiga emulation on my MacBook Pro using WinUAE on WindowsXP SP2. I will use WinUAE as it's better than E-UAE.

I will gladly meet you and show you.


No he speaks the truth.

I run winua on Athlon X2 4800+ with geforce 8600 graphics card.  I still can't get PAL animations to play as smoothly as on an A1200.

Try running Scala under Winuae and watch the screen tear as it tries to scroll effects on and off.   Trying running SSA animations or anim8 formats and then you'll really see the emulator fall behind.

And I still think a 256-color PAL overscan hand drawn "scene" artwork on a 1084 looks far more vibrant than the same thing viewed on an emulator hires display.

Winuae gives a faster RTG Amiga, but the feel of the mouse pointer movement is miles off the real thing. If you use software that came from the time when the Amiga was trying to be a PC ie the era of 24 bit windowing graphics software like Arteffect, Photogenics, TV Paint, and 3d Doom-alikes  then the  emulator has the horsepower to perform faster, but the feel isn't the same.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on April 30, 2008, 11:55:58 AM
@stefcep2

Don't blame either your computer or UAE for your inability to configure UAE... Would you like me to send you a config?
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on April 30, 2008, 12:21:08 PM
Quote

It can't magically make 24fps or 50fps fit into a 60fps framerate smoothly.

DScaler5 removes judder caused by 3:2 pulldown on a monitor with 60hz refreshrate (3:2 playback smoothing).

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on April 30, 2008, 12:54:57 PM
Quote

AmigaHope wrote:
Quote
I was referring to a Classic Amiga PAL demo with smooth scrolling.

Super frog game is smooth on my ASUS G1S laptop (via WinUAE).
You might not be able to see the jerkiness -- different people have different tolerances for it. If you actually took video of your screen with a high speed camera and played it back slowly, you'd see the jerkiness. It really is happening.

An A/B comparison between a properly synced display and one that isn't would show the difference well -- you could probably see it then.

Quote
Are you claiming jerky frame rates while playing back 24FPS on 60hz LCD with PureVideo HD or Avivo HD video processor?

NVIDIA PureVideo HD (Geforce 8)covers the following(quoting nVIDIA)...
All of those features you're listing focus on *recovering the original frames* of the film. All of the features listed are basically motion-detection techniques to try to reconstruct the original frames from the fragments generated by various telecine conversions (including reconversion to progressive).

All this does though is recover the original frame! Once you have your nice original frames, it *still* has to perform a framerate conversion, which still leads to jerkiness unless the source frame rate can be evenly divided into the target framerate.

It *does* reduce jerkiness in the sense that it removes any jerkiness caused in the mastering of the source materal. The reconstructed video data that results is in fact not jerky. When you actually *DISPLAY* it though you're introducing jerkiness in your final pulldown conversion. It's just better than the much-worse jerkiness you'd get from cascaded pulldown conversions.

It can't magically make 24fps or 50fps fit into a 60fps framerate smoothly.

Refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_interpolation

"Motion interpolation is a form of de-judder video processing used in various display devices such as HDTVs and video players. New frames are interpolated and inserted between standard frames to smooth the picture. Films are recorded at a frame rate of 24 frames per second (fps) and television is typically filmed at 30 or 60 fps. Display devices such as HDTVs have a refresh rate of 60 Hz or 120 Hz. The display device can repeat the standard frames or insert new frames that are interpolated on the fly."

WinDVD uses Philips' TrimensionDNM for frame interpolation.

Crystalplayer uses Motion Morphing MultiSampling for frame interpolation
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on April 30, 2008, 01:18:56 PM
Quote

stefcep2 wrote:
Quote

bloodline wrote:
Quote

arkpandora wrote:

So, as far as 2D animation is concerned, your judgement is not true : the emulated Amiga is not more refined despite its differences, but less refined.  If it was more refined I would agree with you : but animation is essential, and it is the only reason why I still have to use a real Amiga although I would prefer to use emulators.


You speak such rubbish! I promise you that if you ever come to London, I can show you Perfect Amiga emulation on my MacBook Pro using WinUAE on WindowsXP SP2. I will use WinUAE as it's better than E-UAE.

I will gladly meet you and show you.


No he speaks the truth.

I run winua on Athlon X2 4800+ with geforce 8600 graphics card.  I still can't get PAL animations to play as smoothly as on an A1200.

Try running Scala under Winuae and watch the screen tear as it tries to scroll effects on and off.   Trying running SSA animations or anim8 formats and then you'll really see the emulator fall behind.

And I still think a 256-color PAL overscan hand drawn "scene" artwork on a 1084 looks far more vibrant than the same thing viewed on an emulator hires display.

Winuae gives a faster RTG Amiga, but the feel of the mouse pointer movement is miles off the real thing. If you use software that came from the time when the Amiga was trying to be a PC ie the era of 24 bit windowing graphics software like Arteffect, Photogenics, TV Paint, and 3d Doom-alikes  then the  emulator has the horsepower to perform faster, but the feel isn't the same.

Note that an Amiga 3000 can use SVGA monitors without add-on Gfx board.

 
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 30, 2008, 01:40:46 PM
@D

Thanks for these details.  What you say corresponds to what I have experienced until now.

I tried Powerstrip : all it did was crashing the computer so I didn't insist, but this may be an option indeed.


@stefcep2

Thanks for your comments.

I would not say that the Amiga once tried to be a PC, as the PC wasn't more suitable than the Amiga for the kind of software you quote (except maybe the "chunky" vs "planar" processing but I suppose that processing power could compensate) : the PC was favoured for marketing reasons rather than technical reasons.


@Hammer

If I understand well, such an interpolation is usefeul in films or wholly moving screens because it suppresses the "pauses" that occur when a frame is repeated.

But if it only adds frames it can't improve 2D animation, especially for objects that moves on the screen without changing shape, because in it motion must be regular.  Every added frame will just slow animation down instead of stopping it, so instead of getting jerky animation you will just get wavy animation : it won't make the motion regular.  In order to reproduce 2D animation accurately on a different refresh rate, you would need to redraw every frame to make it correspond to what the eye would see at the same moment if the display's frame rate was right.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on April 30, 2008, 01:55:15 PM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
@persia

"Collectors/historians" may recognize themselves in your comparison, but as far as the animation problem is concerned, I think that your comment is irrelevant.

It would be relevant if it was a question of subjectivity, but it's not : the animation problem is an objective technical incompatibility.

It would be relevant too if it was about an incidental detail, for example the look and feel of a real Amiga being missing in Amiga emulators.  But it's not : animation is one of the principal qualities of the Amiga, so that it is an essential quality of numerous games (and demos).  Without normal animation, numerous games' (and demos) aesthetics are hidden : it's like condemning any music masterpiece to arbitrary chaotic rythmics.  As a result, not only is the best works' aesthetic identity lost, but the work of art itself is harmed in such a process, and - in my opinion - destroyed.

So, as far as 2D animation is concerned, your judgement is not true : the emulated Amiga is not more refined despite its differences, but less refined.  If it was more refined I would agree with you : but animation is essential, and it is the only reason why I still have to use a real Amiga although I would prefer to use emulators.

Your judgement is not true even if we consider the whole 2D animation on PC and Mac computers : I have never seen any good 2D animation on a PC or Mac, whatever the era and computing power,
.

Sorry, my laptop can play H.264/DIVX/WMV-HD 1080p 2D video titles just fine.
 

Quote

except a few text scrollings in a few old pirate intros and one - only one ! but there may be more - MS-Dos PC game of the early 90s (I think it was "Magic Pockets" but it must be confirmed), while most Amiga games have perfect animation.  The Amiga is not the only one : some other computers or consoles using video screen modes (hence offering an easy way to synchronize animation with the refresh rate) had perfect animation, especially the Commodore 64 and the Sega Megadrive/Genesis.  The appearance of DirectX could have been the time to make 2D animation easier on a PC, but instead it favoured 3D animation for good, which is another subject.

The 3D hardware i.e. shaders aids with video processing.

Quote

  So as far as 2D animation is concerned, what you call refinement is in fact both technical and aesthetic regression, since the PC and Mac have won the game although 2D animation has always been neglected on these systems.  

Are seriously comparing AGA vs AVIVO HD or PureVideo HD?

What is AGA's HQV score again?
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on April 30, 2008, 02:07:51 PM
Quote
If I understand well, such an interpolation is usefeul in films or wholly moving screens because it suppresses the "pauses" that occur when a frame is repeated.

But if it only adds frames it can't improve 2D animation, especially for objects that moves on the screen without changing shape, because in it motion must be regular. Every added frame will just slow animation down instead of stopping it, so instead of getting jerky animation you will just get wavy animation : it won't make the motion regular. In order to reproduce 2D animation accurately on a different refresh rate, you would need to redraw every frame to make it correspond to what the eye would see at the same moment if the display's frame rate was right..

The whole point about "motion interpolation" is to avoid judder issues e.g. playing 24FPS video on 60hz/120hz display.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 30, 2008, 02:20:26 PM
@Hammer

Quote
Are seriously comparing AGA vs AVIVO HD or PureVideo HD?

What is AGA's HQV score again?


You seem to be out of sync with the topic, if I may say.  ;-)

The animation problem we are discussing is independant of processing power.  It is a physical problem - the difference between the emulated screen's refresh rate (in other words the emulated frame rate) and the emulator screen's refresh rate.

On the other hand, there is a misunderstanding about the words "2D animation", which I clarify in my previous post.  Perfect 2D animation of moving objects is designed for only one refresh rate, unlike movies.

Quote
The whole point about "motion interpolation" is to avoid judder issues e.g. playing 24FPS video on 60hz/120hz display.


Yes, and this point is not enough for emulated Amiga 2D animation.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: coldfish on April 30, 2008, 03:52:39 PM
@foleyjo

I disagree.

Being handheld alone makes it "better", not having to use floppies seals the deal, IMO.
 
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on April 30, 2008, 05:18:22 PM
@coldfish

As you can see, I have been no further forward since our last discussion on the subject, about two years ago.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: fishy_fiz on April 30, 2008, 09:03:05 PM
In regards to the topic, Id have to say both have thier pros and cons. Generally emulation is much faster, but while its pretty accurate these days, its not "perfect" as some have said here. There's still a (admittedly smallish) percentage of heavily copper intensive software that doesnt work as intended. Also the "feel" is a bit wrong. Not really a flaw as such, but I also dont really like running hosted ontop of another OS, but that one is just personal taste. Mostly its pretty good, but any of the emulators that have custom chipset support have enough quirks for them not to be really for me. Personally I enjoy my combination of Amithlon plus my a1200/bppc/grex. Having said this though I can understand why people are happy with UAE variants, as for the most part theyre pretty good these days and I do still use Winuae from time to time.
Just my 2 cents  :-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on April 30, 2008, 09:24:23 PM
Quote

Hammer wrote:
Quote
If I understand well, such an interpolation is usefeul in films or wholly moving screens because it suppresses the "pauses" that occur when a frame is repeated.

But if it only adds frames it can't improve 2D animation, especially for objects that moves on the screen without changing shape, because in it motion must be regular. Every added frame will just slow animation down instead of stopping it, so instead of getting jerky animation you will just get wavy animation : it won't make the motion regular. In order to reproduce 2D animation accurately on a different refresh rate, you would need to redraw every frame to make it correspond to what the eye would see at the same moment if the display's frame rate was right..

The whole point about "motion interpolation" is to avoid judder issues e.g. playing 24FPS video on 60hz/120hz display.


Actually, the point is to reduce judder, nothing eliminates it entirely. You'll notice film aficionados generally prefer certain scaling techniques over others for this exact reason. From your wiki link:

Quote
According to CNET.com executive editor David Carnoy, with Sony's MotionFlow objects look more stable when the feature is turned on. This is sometimes accompanied by a glitch in the picture.[1] Not everyone likes the effect and some complain that it gives film a "video" look.[6]


Anyway, as has been pointed out, the discussion had nothing to do with OMtehG AGA vs s0ny peeCee5 vide0 scalZing ab1Lit33z11!, but rather how closely WinUAE can emulate Amiga 2D scrolling. Bloodline's video (which wasn't really that bad :-P) was supposed to be an example of game scrolling with a good WinUAE config. The bottom line (as was expected) seems to be that some are content, others are not. :/
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: foleyjo on April 30, 2008, 10:16:17 PM
@coldfish

I use WHDLoad on my amiga and its been a long time since Ive used a floppy (except to check if something works before it goes on ebay)

So using your argument would the GP2X playstation emulator be better than a real playstation??
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: coldfish on May 01, 2008, 07:35:33 AM
@foleyjo

PS1 uses floppies?!?  LOL!

/deliberately obtuse mode off.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: foleyjo on May 01, 2008, 10:29:33 AM
I was obviously referring to your argument that being handheld alone makes it better
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on May 01, 2008, 12:49:09 PM
Quote

Yes, and this point is not enough for emulated Amiga 2D animation.

It's fine for SuperFrog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZfX-EvDeNc

Also, WinUAE(I'm running 1.4.6) has Fullscreen + VSync, FPS adj and NTSC.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on May 01, 2008, 12:53:54 PM
 :-)
Quote

-D- wrote:
Quote

Hammer wrote:
Quote
If I understand well, such an interpolation is usefeul in films or wholly moving screens because it suppresses the "pauses" that occur when a frame is repeated.

But if it only adds frames it can't improve 2D animation, especially for objects that moves on the screen without changing shape, because in it motion must be regular. Every added frame will just slow animation down instead of stopping it, so instead of getting jerky animation you will just get wavy animation : it won't make the motion regular. In order to reproduce 2D animation accurately on a different refresh rate, you would need to redraw every frame to make it correspond to what the eye would see at the same moment if the display's frame rate was right..

The whole point about "motion interpolation" is to avoid judder issues e.g. playing 24FPS video on 60hz/120hz display.


Actually, the point is to reduce judder, nothing eliminates it entirely. You'll notice film aficionados generally prefer certain scaling techniques over others for this exact reason. From your wiki link:

Quote
According to CNET.com executive editor David Carnoy, with Sony's MotionFlow objects look more stable when the feature is turned on. This is sometimes accompanied by a glitch in the picture.[1] Not everyone likes the effect and some complain that it gives film a "video" look.[6]


Ermm, it’s a Sony....

This is not Philips Trimension middleware.
http://www.trimension.philips.com/

"Philips Trimension software for PCs ensures stunning image quality − even on the biggest, most demanding HD flat screens. No judder, no artifacts, just superb images and razor sharp video."

WinDVD7 is shipped with Philips TrimensionDNM middleware.

According to http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hitech/1449/smooth-operator.html


"To eliminate judder, Trimension calculates enough interpolated frames between the actual frames recorded on a DVD to be able to show them all at 60 fps. Good frame interpolation is a technically difficult and sophisticated process, and it's impressive that Trimension runs smoothly on a PC (a 2.8-GHz Pentium 4, at minimum)."


Not a problem with today's multi-core CPUs and video accelerators. Brute force computation performance can be applied at this problem.


"Smooth is also the word to describe the results. Old or new, B&W or color, animated or live action — if the original film was made at 24 fps, Trimension makes nearly all moving objects cross the screen with an almost surrealistic smoothness. While images containing no motion look precisely the same with the system on or off, it takes only a very slight movement — a turn of a head, the raising of a hand, a single step — to make the image look more lifelike than normal film. The effect is so pronounced that the latest version of WinDVD, v.7, includes a toned-down mode that introduces an even-rhythm, cinema-like judder ("2:2 pulldown")."


Latest WinDVD is at 9th release.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: stefcep2 on May 01, 2008, 01:48:29 PM
Quote

bloodline wrote:
@stefcep2

Don't blame either your computer or UAE for your inability to configure UAE... Would you like me to send you a config?


Oh I can configure Winuae ok:  I have about a dozen different configs ranging from a 1.3 1 meg ecs A500, through to a 3.1 AGA 1200 with 4 meg, through to a A4000 68040 with P96.  I have also run all of the preconfigured hard files eg AIAB, Amigasys, Amikit, Amiga Classic, even my own A4000 os3.9 install.

Its nothing to do with configuration, its everything to do with the fact the emulator is running on top of the host OS, using the host's hardware and graphics drivers to re-target custom chip calls to equivalent functions on the host hardware.  Sometimes directly equivalent functions exist on the host system or are approximated well enough that you don't notice, sometimes that doesn't work.  Winuae is good but NOT the same as the real thing, yet.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: stefcep2 on May 01, 2008, 02:04:11 PM
Quote


@stefcep2

Thanks for your comments.

I would not say that the Amiga once tried to be a PC, as the PC wasn't more suitable than the Amiga for the kind of software you quote (except maybe the "chunky" vs "planar" processing but I suppose that processing power could compensate) : the PC was favoured for marketing reasons rather than technical reasons.




I'd differ on this.  At the time, I used Art effect, TV Paint and Photogenics on a top flight Amiga: A4000 68060, scsi drives, 128 meg ram CV64, 1024 x768 16 bit display.  I also ran Photoshop, Painter, Illustrator on a PC and i can say unequivocally that the PC's processing speed and superior graphics display speed made all the difference in making its software more usable, in terms of speed and the quality of the processing, and features.  Using a few layers in Art Effect on the A4000 use to get painfully slow.
The Amiga hardware was not as well suited to this sort of work as well as the PC was at the same time.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on May 01, 2008, 02:04:14 PM
@Hammer

Quote
It's fine for SuperFrog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZfX-EvDeNc


Animation in this video is quite ugly, you know.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on May 01, 2008, 02:26:10 PM
Quote

stefcep2 wrote:
Quote

bloodline wrote:
@stefcep2

Don't blame either your computer or UAE for your inability to configure UAE... Would you like me to send you a config?


Oh I can configure Winuae ok:  


Well, clearly not... :-)

Quote

I have about a dozen different configs ranging from a 1.3 1 meg ecs A500, through to a 3.1 AGA 1200 with 4 meg, through to a A4000 68040 with P96.  I have also run all of the preconfigured hard files eg AIAB, Amigasys, Amikit, Amiga Classic, even my own A4000 os3.9 install.


Yes, but have you tuned the emulation for the hardware? if you want a perfect experience you have spend a bit of time to try every setting in isolation, and then in various combinations to get the very best emulation.

Quote

Its nothing to do with configuration, its everything to do with the fact the emulator is running on top of the host OS, using the host's hardware and graphics drivers to re-target custom chip calls to equivalent functions on the host hardware.


But that isn't how it works...

The software, UAE, actually pretends to be the hardware... there is no re-targeting of calls (except in the RTG emulation)... the Amiga display is built entirely in software and then simply displayed via the host OS.

Quote

Sometimes directly equivalent functions exist on the host system or are approximated well enough that you don't notice, sometimes that doesn't work.  Winuae is good but NOT the same as the real thing, yet.


The Amiga was once considered impossible to emulate due to the very tight timings between the chips and the shear number of operations that need to be performed in the right sequence... If the emulation gets anything wrong, things go downhill fast!
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on May 01, 2008, 02:44:52 PM
@stefcep2

But I suppose you are comparing the A4000 to a more recent PC with a more recent motherboard.  Even if you don't, I suppose that the difference of processing power may only be explained by Motorola's or the graphic card's slower processor, which too are a consequence of the PC being in favour with the public, as it has been delaying the Amiga's inheritances and slowing down the hardware's improvements since the late 80s.  And last but not least, as you say it, PC software was better coded, as it was coded for the most powerful setups while Amiga software (especially games) was usually coded for the least powerful setup, which again was a consequence of the public's favour and in turn fueled the hardware factor.  But originally, this favour was independant of processing power.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigadave on May 01, 2008, 04:03:22 PM
I just don't get how some people are so passionate about this argument.  I mean look how long this thread is, about something that is very subjective and personal and not easily quantified.  Also I don't understand why they care.

Emulation is a great thing, at least I think so, but I would not give up all my real Amigas and only use emulation until they all die from old age.  And with the invention of the CloneA project, it will likely be true that some day, brand new hardware will be available that is a cycle exact duplicate reproduction of any model Amiga you want.

As we all know the MiniMig already is available as a close hardware recreation of an OCS A500/A1000 and may soon be able to emulate ECS as well. And with NatAmi and other potential new projects, we may have a new AmigaLike computer that is better than any original Amiga model ever produced.

It is all good!  I see a future where the Amiga experience will continue indefinitely in one manner or another, long after the last original Amiga computers stop working.

Truly "Amiga Forever"!
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on May 01, 2008, 04:30:45 PM
Quote

Hammer wrote:
 :-)
Quote

-D- wrote:
Quote

Hammer wrote:
Quote
If I understand well, such an interpolation is usefeul in films or wholly moving screens because it suppresses the "pauses" that occur when a frame is repeated.

But if it only adds frames it can't improve 2D animation, especially for objects that moves on the screen without changing shape, because in it motion must be regular. Every added frame will just slow animation down instead of stopping it, so instead of getting jerky animation you will just get wavy animation : it won't make the motion regular. In order to reproduce 2D animation accurately on a different refresh rate, you would need to redraw every frame to make it correspond to what the eye would see at the same moment if the display's frame rate was right..

The whole point about "motion interpolation" is to avoid judder issues e.g. playing 24FPS video on 60hz/120hz display.


Actually, the point is to reduce judder, nothing eliminates it entirely. You'll notice film aficionados generally prefer certain scaling techniques over others for this exact reason. From your wiki link:

Quote
According to CNET.com executive editor David Carnoy, with Sony's MotionFlow objects look more stable when the feature is turned on. This is sometimes accompanied by a glitch in the picture.[1] Not everyone likes the effect and some complain that it gives film a "video" look.[6]


Ermm, it’s a Sony....

This is not Philips Trimension middleware.
http://www.trimension.philips.com/

"Philips Trimension software for PCs ensures stunning image quality − even on the biggest, most demanding HD flat screens. No judder, no artifacts, just superb images and razor sharp video."

WinDVD7 is shipped with Philips TrimensionDNM middleware.

According to http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hitech/1449/smooth-operator.html


"To eliminate judder, Trimension calculates enough interpolated frames between the actual frames recorded on a DVD to be able to show them all at 60 fps. Good frame interpolation is a technically difficult and sophisticated process, and it's impressive that Trimension runs smoothly on a PC (a 2.8-GHz Pentium 4, at minimum)."


Not a problem with today's multi-core CPUs and video accelerators. Brute force computation performance can be applied at this problem.


"Smooth is also the word to describe the results. Old or new, B&W or color, animated or live action — if the original film was made at 24 fps, Trimension makes nearly all moving objects cross the screen with an almost surrealistic smoothness. While images containing no motion look precisely the same with the system on or off, it takes only a very slight movement — a turn of a head, the raising of a hand, a single step — to make the image look more lifelike than normal film. The effect is so pronounced that the latest version of WinDVD, v.7, includes a toned-down mode that introduces an even-rhythm, cinema-like judder ("2:2 pulldown")."


Latest WinDVD is at 9th release.


Nice (I think it looks OK), but quoting from the marketing literature doesn't change the fact that the process isn't 100% flawless, do some research around the video forums. Losing the "film-like" look of the video is a common complaint with Trimension, as are artifacts (like halos) in certain situations. By its nature, scaling/processing modifies the video content in some way or another, so far there is no method that everyone is happy with. That's why the wiki article (which mentions Trimension) sez "reduces", and not "eliminates". Might be a better argument to compare dedicated image processing hardware anyway, an $80 copy of WinDVD hardly compares to multi thousand dollar scaling hardware.

Anyhow... regardless, you can't use it to play Superfrog via WinUAE. :-) The video you posted (while not terrible) absolutely isn't showing flawless scrolling, but as I said above, most people would be content with it. It would be better to just record it at 60Hz (if it works without glitches at 60Hz, or find an NTSC version if one exists). Fire up some Slamtilt at 60Hz, with your emulator configured for PAL/50 FPS and let me know how smooth it looks. ;)

--edit-- BTW, Just thought I'd add Trimension software decoder doesn't even require "today's multi-core CPUs", requirements are a P4 and 256 MB RAM.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on May 02, 2008, 07:02:44 AM
>...I mean look how long this thread is, about something that is very subjective and personal and not easily quantified...

True in many cases, but some things are not just limited experience of someone but logical deductions or common sense.  I mean if you know the Amiga hardware and the target platform hardware, you can draw certain conclusions without ever having to run an emulator (like in my case).  Processing speed is just one aspect of the computer.  Peripheral I/O speed, timing accuracy, type of ports, etc.  If you wanted to control some external device with parallel signals, obviously an Amiga with a parallel port cannot be emulated (in software) with a machine without a parallel port but only USB, SATA, or other serial-based I/O.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: stefcep2 on May 02, 2008, 08:43:25 AM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
@stefcep2

But I suppose you are comparing the A4000 to a more recent PC with a more recent motherboard.  Even if you don't, I suppose that the difference of processing power may only be explained by Motorola's or the graphic card's slower processor, which too are a consequence of the PC being in favour with the public, as it has been delaying the Amiga's inheritances and slowing down the hardware's improvements since the late 80s.  .


Not really.  The classic Amiga graphics software such as DPaint, Brilliance, functioned differently to the "24 bit in a window" packages such as Photogenics and Art Effect.  Brilliance could work in 24 bit but the way it went about things was very different.  Those 24bit in a window programs were trying to imitate the Photoshop way of working, with the use of layers: this type of graphics software didn't originate on the Amiga.

Similarly the 3D first person shooters such as AB3D and Gloom where attempts to copy what the PC was doing with Doom.

I wonder: was there any plan for Amiga to have a native chunky 24 bit display:  does anyone know how AAA would have worked?
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: stefcep2 on May 02, 2008, 08:57:06 AM
Quote




But that isn't how it works...

The software, UAE, actually pretends to be the hardware... there is no re-targeting of calls (except in the RTG emulation)... the Amiga display is built entirely in software and then simply displayed via the host OS.


I am not sure I understand the difference:  At the end of the day, the host's hardware has to display the images that are created by the software.  Access to the host hardware has to go through some sort of API on the host OS eg DirectX.  How accurate the end display is will depend on how well and how quickly the emulator can recreate the images and how well and quickly the host OS and hardware can display this recreated image.  The emulator is one bottle neck, and the OS and hardware are another.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on May 02, 2008, 10:30:43 AM
@stefcep2

Quote
Not really. The classic Amiga graphics software such as DPaint, Brilliance, functioned differently to the "24 bit in a window" packages such as Photogenics and Art Effect. Brilliance could work in 24 bit but the way it went about things was very different. Those 24bit in a window programs were trying to imitate the Photoshop way of working, with the use of layers: this type of graphics software didn't originate on the Amiga.

Similarly the 3D first person shooters such as AB3D and Gloom where attempts to copy what the PC was doing with Doom.


I'm not denying that some of these programs have imitated PC programs.  You said that "the PC's processing speed and superior graphics display speed made all the difference" : what I mean is that these software were born on the PC because of the latter's popular favour rather than any power advantage.  Favour is also the reason why similar concepts were not developed on the Amiga at the same time : from that point of view there was no imitation, just delay.  As software quality has influenced success hence hardware development, eventually this favour also led to hardware advantage.  But originally this mighty favour was only driven by psychology and marketing : it was not justified by any power advantage, except to my knowledge the small advantage Intel had over Motorolla processors.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on May 02, 2008, 11:20:18 AM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
@stefcep2

Quote
Not really. The classic Amiga graphics software such as DPaint, Brilliance, functioned differently to the "24 bit in a window" packages such as Photogenics and Art Effect. Brilliance could work in 24 bit but the way it went about things was very different. Those 24bit in a window programs were trying to imitate the Photoshop way of working, with the use of layers: this type of graphics software didn't originate on the Amiga.

Similarly the 3D first person shooters such as AB3D and Gloom where attempts to copy what the PC was doing with Doom.


I'm not denying that some of these programs have imitated PC programs. You said that "the PC's processing speed and superior graphics display speed made all the difference" : what I mean is that these software were born on the PC because of the latter's popular favour rather than any power advantage.  Favour is also the reason why similar concepts were not developed on the Amiga at the same time : from that point of view there was no imitation, just delay.  


The Amiga was developed with planar graphics, as due to high memory prices in the early to mid 80s, it made sense to allow programmers to chose their colour depth and make a trade off between graphical quality and memory usage.

But the time PCs started to use bit mapped graphics, the late 80s and early 90s, memory prices were much lower and more CPU friendly (ie faster) packed pixel format was used. When people wanted to move beyond 256 colours, palette based gfx were no longer practical... and the chunky pixel formats could easily hold the colour component data within the actual pixel itself.

The Amiga was stuck with the graphics system that made great sense in the mid 80s... but really kinda sucked by the 90s, lets not even talk about the horrifically slow bus that these chips were bolted onto...

Commodore squandered the Amiga for 6 years... and the AGA chipset was only just acceptable by the time it was released (being little more than an upgrade to the Denise chip)...

The PC graphics subsystems were suited to large resolutions with high colour depths, They were simply better. That is why these applications were developed for the PC and not the Amiga... which already had a history in the graphics field!


Quote

As software quality has influenced success hence hardware development, eventually this favour also led to hardware advantage.  But originally this mighty favour was only driven by psychology and marketing : it was not justified by any power advantage, except to my knowledge the small advantage Intel had over Motorolla processors.


By the early 90s when people started to demand better Graphics... The PC was not lumbered with a 5 year old graphics system, for which compatibility had to be maintained... Motorola were not developing the 68k as fast  as intel were pushing the x86 (I imagine resources were starting to drift to the PPC teams... or at least the 88K teams...)... hell, by 1990 almost every PC had an MMU as standard... often they had FPUs...

The PC was expensive but offered more power and better graphics, that is where it's popularity stemmed from.

Had Commodore kept up R&D budgets... the world today would be somewhat different.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on May 02, 2008, 12:53:06 PM
@bloodline

Ah, I prefer this to your insults.

I don't quite follow you, but my technical knowledge is poor.  Do you mean that Amiga graphic cards too are stuck in this planar system ?  In order to compare a 1990 PC with a 1990 Amiga for example, you have to compare machines that both have a graphic card, or it makes no sense to me, as the PC had no custom chips on the motherboard.

If you want to compare the Amiga's custom chips to what corresponds to them in the PC world, you have to compare two portable computers (because portable PCs had built-in graphic devices on the motherboard), and then you have to compare an A500 to a 1986 portable PC, as "portable" Amiga availability around 1990 was already negatively influenced by the PC's sucess.  And from this only comparison you have to conclude that the Amiga had better graphics than a PC, and that the PC's success was independant of graphic processing power.

So you can't compare the PC's graphic devices to the AGA chipset since the latter is a consequence (not a cause) of the PC's supremacy, which began as soon as the late 80's when most journalists chose to ignore the Amiga 2000 and 3000, in other words the Amiga's power and evolution, especially video gaming magazines.

Consequently, in the early 90's it's already too late to attribute the PC's success to a power advantage.  That's why, to my knowledge, the PC's sucess and power advantage are both the consequence of journalism.

However I agree that Commodore's reaction was inadequate.  But I'm pretty sure that Apple with the same reactions would have survived because Apple did not suffer from journalism (I am caricaturing to make short but I can illustrate).
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on May 02, 2008, 01:41:54 PM
Quote

-D- wrote:
Quote

Hammer wrote:
 :-)
Quote

-D- wrote:
Quote

Hammer wrote:
Quote
If I understand well, such an interpolation is usefeul in films or wholly moving screens because it suppresses the "pauses" that occur when a frame is repeated.

But if it only adds frames it can't improve 2D animation, especially for objects that moves on the screen without changing shape, because in it motion must be regular. Every added frame will just slow animation down instead of stopping it, so instead of getting jerky animation you will just get wavy animation : it won't make the motion regular. In order to reproduce 2D animation accurately on a different refresh rate, you would need to redraw every frame to make it correspond to what the eye would see at the same moment if the display's frame rate was right..

The whole point about "motion interpolation" is to avoid judder issues e.g. playing 24FPS video on 60hz/120hz display.


Actually, the point is to reduce judder, nothing eliminates it entirely. You'll notice film aficionados generally prefer certain scaling techniques over others for this exact reason. From your wiki link:

Quote
According to CNET.com executive editor David Carnoy, with Sony's MotionFlow objects look more stable when the feature is turned on. This is sometimes accompanied by a glitch in the picture.[1] Not everyone likes the effect and some complain that it gives film a "video" look.[6]


Ermm, it’s a Sony....

This is not Philips Trimension middleware.
http://www.trimension.philips.com/

"Philips Trimension software for PCs ensures stunning image quality − even on the biggest, most demanding HD flat screens. No judder, no artifacts, just superb images and razor sharp video."

WinDVD7 is shipped with Philips TrimensionDNM middleware.

According to http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hitech/1449/smooth-operator.html


"To eliminate judder, Trimension calculates enough interpolated frames between the actual frames recorded on a DVD to be able to show them all at 60 fps. Good frame interpolation is a technically difficult and sophisticated process, and it's impressive that Trimension runs smoothly on a PC (a 2.8-GHz Pentium 4, at minimum)."


Not a problem with today's multi-core CPUs and video accelerators. Brute force computation performance can be applied at this problem.


"Smooth is also the word to describe the results. Old or new, B&W or color, animated or live action — if the original film was made at 24 fps, Trimension makes nearly all moving objects cross the screen with an almost surrealistic smoothness. While images containing no motion look precisely the same with the system on or off, it takes only a very slight movement — a turn of a head, the raising of a hand, a single step — to make the image look more lifelike than normal film. The effect is so pronounced that the latest version of WinDVD, v.7, includes a toned-down mode that introduces an even-rhythm, cinema-like judder ("2:2 pulldown")."


Latest WinDVD is at 9th release.


Nice (I think it looks OK), but quoting from the marketing literature doesn't change the fact that the process isn't 100% flawless, do some research around the video forums. Losing the "film-like" look of the video is a common complaint with Trimension, as are artifacts (like halos) in certain situations.

WinDVD 7 "includes a toned-down mode that introduces an even-rhythm, cinema-like judder ("2:2 pulldown")."

Quote

 By its nature, scaling/processing modifies the video content in some way or another, so far there is no method that everyone is happy with. That's why the wiki article (which mentions Trimension) sez "reduces", and not "eliminates". Might be a better argument to compare dedicated image processing hardware anyway, an $80 copy of WinDVD hardly compares to multi thousand dollar scaling hardware.

One should realise that multi-thousand dollars and  dedicated image processing hardware doesn’t automatically equal performance.

The computation performance from ATI and NV GpGPUs makes some multi-thousand dollar solutions a joke.

Any cost values must factor in the economic of scale.

Quote

Anyhow... regardless, you can't use it to play Superfrog via WinUAE. :-) The video you posted (while not terrible) absolutely isn't showing flawless scrolling, but as I said above, most people would be content with it. It would be better to just record it at 60Hz (if it works without glitches at 60Hz, or find an NTSC version if one exists). Fire up some Slamtilt at 60Hz, with your emulator configured for PAL/50 FPS and let me know how smooth it looks. ;)

I don't have Slamtilt, but I do have  Pinball Illusions AGA.

My WinUAE settings for playing PI-AGA

Model: A1200
ROM:KS ROM v3.0 (A1200) rev 39.106 (512k)

Settings
_Filter:
___PAL/50
_Display:
___FullScreen+VSync
___Render Every Frame
___FPS adj:50

_Chipset
___Cycle-exact
___Sound Emulation, 100 percent
___NTSC: FALSE
___Collision Level:FULL
___Faster RTG: FALSE
___Chipset Extra:A1200

The scolling is smooth (i.e. no judder) on
ASUS G1S laptop with Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit
Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 @2.2Ghz,
Dual MCH mode PC5300 4GB RAM,
NV Geforce 8600M GT GDDR3 @1.4Ghz VRAM 256MB.
Displayed on Samsung made built-in TFT 15.4" screen.

Quote

--edit-- BTW, Just thought I'd add Trimension software decoder doesn't even require "today's multi-core CPUs", requirements are a P4 and 256 MB RAM.

Without video co-processors such as PureVideo HD or Avivo HD, multi-core CPUs would be required to decode Blu-Ray or HD-DVD HD content.

BTW, Trimension middleware is not the decoder i.e. it's post processing.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on May 02, 2008, 01:46:01 PM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
@Hammer

Quote
It's fine for SuperFrog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZfX-EvDeNc


Animation in this video is quite ugly, you know.


Well the encode quality is poor..  
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on May 02, 2008, 01:49:50 PM
Quote
The software, UAE, actually pretends to be the hardware... there is no re-targeting of calls (except in the RTG emulation)... the Amiga display is built entirely in software and then simply displayed via the host OS.

Don't forget AHI, Warp3D, Midi.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on May 02, 2008, 02:01:43 PM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
@bloodline

Ah, I prefer this to your insults.


I can do both.

Quote

I don't quite follow you, but my technical knowledge is poor.  Do you mean that Amiga graphic cards too are stuck in this planar system ?  


No Amiga graphics cards are built using the same chips as PC graphics cards.

Quote

In order to compare a 1990 PC with a 1990 Amiga for example, you have to compare machines that both have a graphic card, or it makes no sense to me, as the PC had no custom chips on the motherboard.


The Amiga was a little bit cheaper than the PC at the high end of the Market. But for the little more that you paid with the PC you got better Graphics. With the Amiga you had to pay the price of the Base machine and the graphics card, this pushed costs to far more than the PC. Plus the Amiga Operating system offered little support (ie none) for these graphics cards. This support had to be added by third party and were often buggy and incompatible.

Quote

If you want to compare the Amiga's custom chips to what corresponds to them in the PC world, you have to compare two portable computers (because portable PCs had built-in graphic devices on the motherboard), and then you have to compare an A500 to a 1986 portable PC, as "portable" Amiga availability around 1990 was already negatively influenced by the PC's sucess.  


But in the time frame we are looking at, neither the A500 or the "portable PC" would have been used for serious graphics work.

Quote

And from this only comparison you have to conclude that the Amiga had better graphics than a PC, and that the PC's success was independant of graphic processing power.


The Amiga had better graphics at the low end of the market, fine for the type of games available in the 80s and early 90s.

At the top end of the market the Amiga was considerably more expensive to achieve the same results.

Quote

So you can't compare the PC's graphic devices to the AGA chipset since the latter is a consequence (not a cause) of the PC's supremacy, which began as soon as the late 80's when most journalists chose to ignore the Amiga 2000 and 3000, in other words the Amiga's power and evolution, especially video gaming magazines.


AGA should have been included in a minor 1988/1989 update to the A500. It is after all little more than a new 24bit Denise chip.

The A2000 is just an A500 with ZorroII slots... the A3000 offered more CPU power, but at considerable cost and with the reason I mentioned above interms of gfx power.

Quote

Consequently, in the early 90's it's already too late to attribute the PC's success to a power advantage.  That's why, to my knowledge, the PC's sucess and power advantage are both the consequence of journalism.


The advantage was economic. Amiga's stopped being value for money at the high end graphics market in about 1991... and the low end of the market by 1993. This was Commodore's fault. They assumed that the Amiga like the C64 would just sell, without the need to constantly innovate.

Quote

However I agree that Commodore's reaction was inadequate.  But I'm pretty sure that Apple with the same reactions would have survived because Apple did not suffer from journalism (I am caricaturing to make short but I can illustrate).


Apple had a better marketing team, and were more prepared to take risks with innovative devices. Commodore's only achievement was to get the Amiga from the original prototype to market... The A500 was also brilliant, but late... that should have been on the cards with the original Amiga release... certainly within a few months.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on May 02, 2008, 02:05:11 PM
Quote
I don't quite follow you, but my technical knowledge is poor. Do you mean that Amiga graphic cards too are stuck in this planar system ? In order to compare a 1990 PC with a 1990 Amiga for example, you have to compare machines that both have a graphic card, or it makes no sense to me, as the PC had no custom chips on the motherboard.

One can treat Amiga’s custom chips as PC's IGPs.

Anyway, my laptop’s GPU (Geforce 8600M GT) and audio chips are mounted on the motherboard. I preferred a MXM-II gfx card btw…
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on May 02, 2008, 02:09:40 PM
Quote

Hammer wrote:

 don't have Slamtilt, but I do have Pinball Illusions AGA.

My WinUAE settings for playing PI-AGA

Model: A1200
ROM:KS ROM v3.0 (A1200) rev 39.106 (512k)

Settings
_Filter:
___PAL/50
_Display:
___FullScreen+VSync
___Render Every Frame
___FPS adj:50

_Chipset
___Cycle-exact
___Sound Emulation, 100 percent
___NTSC: FALSE
___Collision Level:FULL
___Faster RTG: FALSE
___Chipset Extra:A1200




I can confirm that these settings also give perfect video on my MacBook Pro runing WinXP SP2 using WinUAE.

Quote

Hammer wrote:
Quote
The software, UAE, actually pretends to be the hardware... there is no re-targeting of calls (except in the RTG emulation)... the Amiga display is built entirely in software and then simply displayed via the host OS.

Don't forget AHI, Warp3D, Midi.


I did not wish to confuse the issue and was referring only to Graphics which seems to be the major concern of posters in this thread.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on May 02, 2008, 03:19:25 PM
@bloodline

[/quote]No Amiga graphics cards are built using the same chips as PC graphics cards.[/quote]

None ?  And were they significantly less powerful than the PC graphic cards of the same technological generation ? -- I don't mean the same "era" as the delay between PC and Amiga hardware, at the time of the Amiga graphic cards, may be attributed to other factors than power difference between the two standards.

Quote
The Amiga was a little bit cheaper than the PC at the high end of the Market. But for the little more that you paid with the PC you got better Graphics. With the Amiga you had to pay the price of the Base machine and the graphics card, this pushed costs to far more than the PC.

At the top end of the market the Amiga was considerably more expensive to achieve the same results.


I agree, but the price factor depends on success, and success is not only the consequence of price, but reputation, and the reputation was mainly made by journalists, the majority of which never considered the desktop Amiga models, making price increase and condemning the Amiga to death (as if it was a game console).  Since graphic cards were (almost) only designed for desktop models, it may be enough to explain their rarity and the technological delay.

Quote
Plus the Amiga Operating system offered little support (ie none) for these graphics cards. This support had to be added by third party and were often buggy and incompatible.


I hadn't thought about that.  Yet again I can't remember any journalist complaining about this problem, while even any video game journalist would any time criticize MS-Dos and Windows, hence encouraging progress.

Quote
But in the time frame we are looking at, neither the A500 or the "portable PC" would have been used for serious graphics work.


Then we must only compare PCs to Amiga with graphic cards.  Yet most journalists were only interested in the "portable" Amiga.  Open any game magazine of that era : all talk about the Amiga 500, and later 600, CDTV, CD32 and 1200, but most act as if they ignore the existence of the A2000, 3000 and 4000, to such an extent that they were comparing 486 or Pentium PCs to the Amiga 500 or 600 - and nobody realized it was absurd.

Quote
AGA should have been included in a minor 1988/1989 update to the A500. It is after all little more than a new 24bit Denise chip.

Thee A2000 is just an A500 with ZorroII slots...


Yes but the AGA chipset was not upgradeable anyway, so the Zorro slots hence desktop models had to be the key of Amiga evolution, which they couldn't be because of public disinterest forced by journalism.

Quote
The advantage was economic.


You see, power did not make everything.

Quote
Amiga's stopped being value for money at the high end graphics market in about 1991... and the low end of the market by 1993. This was Commodore's fault. They assumed that the Amiga like the C64 would just sell, without the need to constantly innovate.


But as I say I think it was already too late in 1991, as journalism had already been sending the A2000 (and later 3000 and 4000) - hence indirectly the whole Amiga range - into oblivion for five years.  Commodore has only accelerated the demise.  A computer can't sell if nobody talks about it.

Quote
Apple had a better marketing team, and were more prepared to take risks with innovative devices


Yes indeed, but people were not acting as if the only Apple on the market in 1992 was the '84 Mac or the Apple IIc.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on May 02, 2008, 03:22:49 PM
Quote

arkpandora wrote:
@bloodline

No Amiga graphics cards are built using the same chips as PC graphics cards.[/quote]

None ?  And were they significantly less powerful than the PC graphic cards of the same technological generation ? -- I don't mean the same "era" as the delay between PC and Amiga hardware, at the time of the Amiga graphic cards, may be attributed to other factors than power difference between the two standards.
[/quote]

My original sentence should have read:

No. Amiga graphics cards are built using the same chips as PC graphics cards.

Stupid . button failed me.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: arkpandora on May 02, 2008, 03:26:04 PM
O-kay.  Then the journalism factor is only confirmed.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on May 02, 2008, 07:26:37 PM
@Hammer

You crack me up, man :pint:

About the video processing - it's not really an area of huge interest or concern to me, all I'm pointing out is that any type of processing introduces its own elements (this is common knowledge, product literature aside), some will be more or less happy with different technologies. In regard to so-called "framerate conversion" (specifically, 50 Hz content -> 60Hz), it looks like {bleep}e to me and I'm afraid that's simply a matter of subjective taste. This also goes for an emulator output set at 50 FPS "synced" to a display refresh of 60Hz. If it looks OK to you... then rock on! :D

I may get a few videos up to try and illustrate the difference.

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: persia on May 02, 2008, 08:08:15 PM
(http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/images/smilies/hysterical.gif)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on May 02, 2008, 08:36:31 PM
Quote

persia wrote:
(http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/images/smilies/hysterical.gif)


Indeed, but I guarantee it's far more hillarious from my standpoint. :lol:

If 50Hz material looked perfect at 60Hz, there would be no need for frame rate conversion. Same with film. This is just common knowledge...

Ever played a fast 3D game without vsync? Why do you think 120Hz capable LCDs are becoming available? Synchronized display (f.e, 60 FPS @ 60Hz) is always better for smooth gaming... amiga games are no exception. Ask any 133t PC gamer which argument makes more sense. :-)

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on May 02, 2008, 11:57:18 PM
Quote

-D- wrote:
@Hammer

You crack me up, man :pint:

About the video processing - it's not really an area of huge interest or concern to me, all I'm pointing out is that any type of processing introduces its own elements (this is common knowledge, product literature aside), some will be more or less happy with different technologies. In regard to so-called "framerate conversion" (specifically, 50 Hz content -> 60Hz), it looks like {bleep}e to me and

Which type of framerate conversion?

Quote

I'm afraid that's simply a matter of subjective taste. This also goes for an emulator output set at 50 FPS "synced" to a display refresh of 60Hz. If it looks OK to you... then rock on! :D

I may get a few videos up to try and illustrate the difference.

Example of judder effects refer to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lik4zcmPoY
24FPS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E8j6hvEf0E
50FPS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVZip0uYX_o
Judder issues (Motion Plus 100Hz set to low) with Transformers Movie. I’m assuming we all have this movie for common reference.

Playing Pinball-I AGA on my WinUAE setup(as posted on this topic) doesn't have these effects i.e. the scrolling is smooth.

Also, the latest NVIDIA driver 175.12 or 174.93 enables the user to create custom screen modes and refresh rates without the use of Powerstrip.

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on May 03, 2008, 12:05:36 AM
Quote

-D- wrote:
Quote

persia wrote:
(http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/images/smilies/hysterical.gif)


Indeed, but I guarantee it's far more hillarious from my standpoint. :lol:

If 50Hz material looked perfect at 60Hz, there would be no need for frame rate conversion. Same with film. This is just common knowledge...

Most of my post shows FPS smoothing post-processing.

Quote

Ever played a fast 3D game without vsync?

Yes, and also for benchmarking. VSync can be locked from driver's control panel or in game settings.

Quote

 Why do you think 120Hz capable LCDs are becoming available? Synchronized display (f.e, 60 FPS @ 60Hz) is always better for smooth gaming... amiga games are no exception. Ask any 133t PC gamer which argument makes more sense. :-)

My other PC is built around Intel Core 2 Duo@3Ghz (not overclocked) and CrossFire Radeon HD 3870 setup i.e. (Radeon HD 3870 X2). Enough performance to play 2007/2008 era games (and Fold@Home) beyond PS3 or X360 (you only need one Radeon HD 38x0 or one Geforce 8800 GPU to beat these "next-gen" consoles).

I have bought Unreal Tournament 3, Crysis, Assassins Creed (XBOX 360/PS3 port), Quake 4, Doom 3, Two Worlds (XBOX 360 port), Half Life 2 EP1/EP2, Hellgate London, The Witcher and 'etc'.

Btw, ASUS G1S is a "gamer" 15.4" laptop. I could have brought MacBook Pro...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Hammer on May 03, 2008, 01:04:03 AM
Quote
This also goes for an emulator output set at 50 FPS "synced" to a display refresh of 60Hz

The catch is "FullScreen + VSync" which disables "FPS Adj".
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on May 03, 2008, 01:49:52 AM
Quote

Hammer wrote:
Quote
This also goes for an emulator output set at 50 FPS "synced" to a display refresh of 60Hz

The catch is "FullScreen + VSync" which disables "FPS Adj".


Ah, well, that's where the discrepancy was then. :-) (I'll trash the post I was going to submit basically reiterating what was already said).

BTW, the videos I was going to post:

1. SOTB III (NTSC version), @ 60 FPS/60Hz display refresh, to illustrate very nice scrolling with WinUAE

2. SOTB III (PAL version), @ 50 FPS/60Hz display refresh, to illustrate an unsynchronized emulator/display refresh

For some people, # 1 still isn't QUITE as smooth as the old hardware, my opinion is it's very close, and the differences that do exist might yet be down to some type of configuration problem. (Basically, I haven't screwed around with it enough to know for sure, looks pretty good to to me though.)
 
The only issue you might have is that some amiga stuff was coded for either PAL or NTSC timings, so running, say, a PAL demo at 60 FPS/60Hz might show some weird artifacts (though this is no different from the original hardware).

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on May 03, 2008, 08:58:59 AM
Quote

-D- wrote:
Quote

Hammer wrote:
Quote
This also goes for an emulator output set at 50 FPS "synced" to a display refresh of 60Hz

The catch is "FullScreen + VSync" which disables "FPS Adj".


Ah, well, that's where the discrepancy was then. :-) (I'll trash the post I was going to submit basically reiterating what was already said).

BTW, the videos I was going to post:

1. SOTB III (NTSC version), @ 60 FPS/60Hz display refresh, to illustrate very nice scrolling with WinUAE

2. SOTB III (PAL version), @ 50 FPS/60Hz display refresh, to illustrate an unsynchronized emulator/display refresh

For some people, # 1 still isn't QUITE as smooth as the old hardware, my opinion is it's very close, and the differences that do exist might yet be down to some type of configuration problem. (Basically, I haven't screwed around with it enough to know for sure, looks pretty good to to me though.)
 
The only issue you might have is that some amiga stuff was coded for either PAL or NTSC timings, so running, say, a PAL demo at 60 FPS/60Hz might show some weird artifacts (though this is no different from the original hardware).



Running SOTB II doesn't work properly at 60fps, the audio is all messed and the games play too quickly. Instead you have to set the 50fps VSync option.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: paolone on May 03, 2008, 01:36:45 PM
Hi, this emulation VS real_thing topic is stunning. It's quite as comparing a babe from Playboy to a doll from Realdoll.com.

You might have advantages using emulation in both way: emulated Amigas doesn't take space (you can put the realdoll in a box when you're not using it: try this with your girlfriend); they act as like as the real thing but with some limitation and, differently from realdolls, they are cheaper than the real hardware. However, using emulation and real hardware is some way different.

There are motivations to keep our Amigas alive and other to forget about them, and use them into a PC window. Everyone will find his way. Mine is quite a compromise between my actual computing needs and cheer old "Amiga feeling", which reminds of my past when I was 20 or so: I've turned an A1200 into a USB keyboard and I use it with my PC. And when I'm not working, I fire up the AROS partition or launch Amiga Forever and I'm fine.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: mauidj on May 03, 2008, 06:02:38 PM
So does anyone out there run emulation on a Mac and if so how?
I tried twice with Amiga Forever and got absolutely nowhere. Thanks to a complete lack of instructions and support from Cloanto.
I would have loved to be able to do this rather than spend the hundreds of dollars I have recently on Amiga hardware but even as along time user of both platforms I could not even get close to figuring out how to do it.
Cloanto were absolutely no help whatsoever, never replying to even one of my many emails.
I really would love to run DPaint on my MacBook Pro.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: persia on May 03, 2008, 06:07:13 PM
Sure, check this page out:

Vanuatu German E-UAE (http://www.e-uae.de.vu/)

It's in german from Vanuatu...


http://www.rhythmiccanvas.com/personal/emulation/MaxUAE/index.html (http://www.rhythmiccanvas.com/personal/emulation/MaxUAE/index.html)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: mauidj on May 03, 2008, 06:25:52 PM
Quote

persia wrote:
Sure, check this page out:

Vanuatu German E-UAE (http://www.e-uae.de.vu/)

It's in german from Vanuatu...


http://www.rhythmiccanvas.com/personal/emulation/MaxUAE/index.html (http://www.rhythmiccanvas.com/personal/emulation/MaxUAE/index.html)


Thanks for the link...but I'm not fluent in German unfortunately  :-(
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: mauidj on May 03, 2008, 06:39:49 PM
Quote

persia wrote:
Absolutely yes, who needs old hardware?  Emulation is fast, simple and doesn't take more space on your desk and you can have as many Amigas as your memory allows!



(http://www.journalish.com/Journalish.com/00ACE593-C491-47D2-8D09-03C93127076E_files/Wings%20Screenshot.png)


Damn...how'd you do that?
I want it! :headwall:
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on May 03, 2008, 06:46:34 PM
Quote

mauidj wrote:
Quote

persia wrote:
Absolutely yes, who needs old hardware?  Emulation is fast, simple and doesn't take more space on your desk and you can have as many Amigas as your memory allows!



(http://www.journalish.com/Journalish.com/00ACE593-C491-47D2-8D09-03C93127076E_files/Wings%20Screenshot.png)


Damn...how'd you do that?
I want it! :headwall:


I don't mean to sound rude... well ruder than I already have been, but are you quite sure you are up to the task of using a computer?

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_source/hitoro.html
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: mauidj on May 03, 2008, 06:53:20 PM
For someone not wanting to sound rude you are not doing a very good job.
Thanks for the put down.  :-(
All I wanted was some help.
Obviously came to the wrong place.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on May 03, 2008, 07:00:18 PM
Quote

mauidj wrote:
For someone not wanting to sound rude you are not doing a very good job.
Thanks for the put down.  :-(
All I wanted was some help.
Obviously came to the wrong place.


Ok... follow the link I provided, and download the Hi-Toro program... It really should be self explanatory from there on... If you have troubles then you might want to read the supplied documentation...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Damion on May 03, 2008, 07:26:36 PM
@bloodline

Yeah, you guys were lucky... all the "good stuff" was PAL, especially the last few years of decent A500 software. I remember having to use silly degraders/PAL booters ("Banzai" PAL reset FTW) at every boot. Sometimes the software would arbitrarily kick the machine back to NTSC, requiring some tricky usage of degraders to finally get it working. (This was after my machine recovered from a "friend" using Rev 5 motherboard docs to try and perform the Agnus mod on my Rev 6 board... last time I let someone else touch my hardware... :nervous:)

Though I'm now wondering if the PITA factor of the Amiga wasn't part of its charm... :lol:
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: AmigaHope on May 04, 2008, 08:43:54 AM
The differences are probably due to slight clock differences. Remember there really are *TWO* kinds of "NTSC Amiga" and "PAL Amiga".

An NTSC Amiga running in PAL mode runs at a slightly different speed than a PAL Amiga running in NTSC mode. This is because the bus in NTSC machines was clocked slightly differently.

I'm not entirely sure which of these UAE emulates. Either way, there will be occasional missed frames because it will not exactly sync to your 60Hz video display -- especially if your video display is "NTSC-style" 60Hz, which is really 59.94Hz. Amigas tend to put out a 60Hz signal that is not *exactly* 59.94 unless you installed a genlock, but it was close enough such that NTSC displays could handle it.

If you installed a good, real Amiga genlock something cool happened -- it threw out the internal clock and synced the machine to the NTSC clock. If you played a game while synced the difference in speed was noticeable. xD
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on May 05, 2008, 01:42:12 PM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
As an example, try putting an instruction like $009C,$8010 into the copper list and write an interrupt routine (pointed to by location $68) that does something time critical like writing to joystick ports and there your emulator won't work.  The PC timer goes only as accurate as 1.19318Mhz whereas the copper is timing the color clocks at 3.57954525Mhz.


This is weird, because you don't need hi-res timers to do accurate emulation. Usually it's a matter of accurately interleaving CPU- and hardware emulation, not synchronizing emulation to the host hardware. In theory, nothing prevents perfect emulation of the Amiga hardware today, including copper timing.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: MASACREWILL on May 05, 2008, 03:49:35 PM
..well, for me the real thing is just better.. as far as my usage of Amiga is limited to watch demos, I think that nothing can  beat that experience of watching a demo being generated by that poor old hardware without any 3D hardware support (Mnemonics for example, or Abecedarian.. and tons more).. for me, this means Amiga.. and watching demos runnig under emulation would be without any charm (almost like watching a videos of them)..    :-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on May 07, 2008, 02:12:19 AM
Quote:


    amigaksi wrote:
    As an example, try putting an instruction like $009C,$8010 into the copper list and write an interrupt routine (pointed to by location $68) that does something time critical like writing to joystick ports and there your emulator won't work. The PC timer goes only as accurate as 1.19318Mhz whereas the copper is timing the color clocks at 3.57954525Mhz.


>This is weird, because you don't need hi-res timers to do accurate emulation. Usually it's a matter of accurately interleaving CPU- and hardware emulation, not synchronizing emulation to the host hardware.

Depends on what you are emulating.  The case above won't work on your emulator as the frequency of bits being toggled on the joystick port won't be what the emulator will output assuming it even emulates a joystick port.  I like my clocks running at the same speed even on faster CPUs just like the copper sets bits at the same exact color clock on the A500 or A4000 w/higher CPU speed.  [aside: that vector should be $6C for Copper and $68 for CIA timers.]  

>In theory, nothing prevents perfect emulation of the Amiga hardware today, including copper timing.

Nice joke but you should have corrected yourself by now (if you had read all the posts).  It should read "In theory (software-wise), not even an Atari 800 can be perfect emulated what to speak of Amiga."  I just gave a simple example that's not doable although it may seem like it's doing it.  A fake diamond and a real diamond are different in molecular structure/density although they may look the same.  Your emulator cannot be doing timing at 3.579545Mhz if it's timer is only accurate to 1.19318Mhz where reading the tick count itself takes more time than the quantum of the timer.  You may need new hardware graphics card or joystick card when we start discussing writing to overscan areas of the screen, hi-speed reading joystick ports (for periperhals or other reasons), other port emulation, etc.  The Commodore 64 can read a joystick port faster (@ $DC01) than a modern PC (@ 201h).  Here-- I posted this before somewhere on this forum (see if you can get an interrupt to occur consistently on some color clock then we can discuss further):

;*** Test timer accuracy on Atari 400/800 by Krishna Software Inc. without using DLIs.
      TIMERFREQLSB = 53760
      TIMERFREQMSB = 53762
      WSYNC = 54282
      VCOUNT = 54283

      DOSVEC = 10
      CASINI = 2
      WARMSTART = 58484
      VMIRQ = 534   ;hardware irq ptr

      ORG = 600h  
      ;DW 0FFFFh
      ;DW StartAdr
      ;DW LastOffset-1
      DB   0,3   ;# of sectors to load 1..255
      DW   ORG
      DW   StartAdr
      Rts
StartAdr:          Lda       #MyReset,L
      Sta       CASINI
      Lda       #MyReset,H
      Sta       CASINI+1
      Lda        #0
      Sta   580
      Lda       #2
      Sta       9
      Jmp       WARMSTART
MyReset:           Lda       #2
      Sta       9
      Lda       #MyReset,L
      Sta       CASINI
      Lda       #MyReset,H
      Sta       CASINI+1
      Sei
      Lda   #0      ;no VBIs nor DLIs for maximum performance
      Sta   54286
      Sta   53774      ;disable all IRQs
      Sta   54272      ;turn off screen
      Lda       #TimerTwoIRQ,L   ;general IRQ routine but we use only for timer #2
      Sta       VMIRQ
      Lda       #TimerTwoIRQ,H
      Sta       VMIRQ+1
      Lda       #80  ;40 for join channels 3,4; +80 for channels 1+2 @1.79Mhz
      Sta       53768   ;join channels at 1.79 Mhz
      Lda       #165   ;lsb 165
      Sta       53760   ;timer #2 freq = 1789790/[A+1]
      Lda       #116   ;msb for rate divisor A
      Sta       53762
      Lda   #2     ;2=timer interrupt
      Sta       53774       ;enable IRQ #2
NotMidScreen:   Lda   VCOUNT
      Cmp   #65
      Bne   NotMidScreen
      Sta   WSYNC
      Sta       53769   ;start timer counter
      CLI
      Lda       #34
      Sta       54272
IdleLoop:      ;put your code here
      Jmp   IdleLoop

TimerTwoIRQ:          Pha
      Lda   #255
      Sta   53272   ;change register (like color for example)
      Lda       #0   
      Sta       53774
      Lda       #2   
      Sta       53774   ;send ack to timer irq
      Nop
      Nop
      Lda   #96
      Sta   53272   ;change register (like color for example)
      Pla    
      Rti

;LastOffset:   DW 2e0h,2e1h,ORG
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Wibbly on May 16, 2008, 02:05:46 AM
I think (as it seems many others do) that both have their place. Emulation is my quick and dirty fix when I can't be arsed to find a plug socket and a dust rag (because as useful as a dust cover is, the dust cover itself has no ability to protect it's own self from gathering a half inch of dust, and unless I want to dust the whole room, a careful dusting of the dust cover is in order)

Nothing though, can beat the satisfaction, of finding old bits and pieces and actually getting your old hardware to display a high res image to a vga monitor, and play things like doom or quake. Sure those are infinitely old by todays standards, but I don't know why, there's just something very cool about seeing them running knowing that your PC is firmly turned off.

In fact, I was kind of excited the first time I got my amiga  connected to the internet. It was years after I'd done it with my PC, and despite the fact that the browser I was using with the Amiga looked a little clunky, it was almost like discovering the net all over again. I went to page after page, just to see how the amiga handled it.

Pointless maybe, but enjoyable nonetheless.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: persia on May 16, 2008, 02:21:16 PM
I have an uncle with an extensive classical record collection, I've digitised part of his library, in the process cleaning up the sound - eliminating all the record noises etc.  He still prefers to listen to the record.  The digital music is "too clean."  

I think emulation can be that way, emulation is too clean, too pure for the retro feel.  My MacPro is rock solid, it can run rings around an Amiga, but some might find E-UAE running on it too pure, it isn't the 80's feel.

Me I just want to reminisce about old games I used to play, but it's not the old push your equipment to the limit feel, E-UAE almost makes the Amiga look too easy.  The E-UAE process barely shows up on my system usage while running faster than any Amiga ever made.

In a way the Amiga experience was about doing a lot with a little.  Pushing technology almost to the breaking point.  I don't do that with m MacPro, video, high resolution images, 3D rendering, nothing even gets the machine "warm."  In some ways it's like cheating compared to the Amiga.  

Retro has it's appeal, I was once an amateur radio operator, I used to make contacts with people using 5 watts and an antenna thrown over a tree branch.  The morse code was barely distinguishable over the noise.  Now I use Skype and talk with people half a world away by clicking a button.  It's better but it's not the same.  India, the US, somewhere else in Oz, it's all the same.  There's no thrill in it.  This is why there will always be classic equipment lovers.

(http://www.diggerhistory.info/images/aircraft-ww1/taube2.gif)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on January 20, 2009, 05:13:28 PM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
Depends on what you are emulating.
Quote


No, as long as the individual systems in the device being emulated is cadenced by clock signals, you can emulate it through software.

Quote

In theory, nothing prevents perfect emulation of the Amiga hardware today, including copper timing.
Quote

Nice joke but you should have corrected yourself by now (if you had read all the posts).  It should read "In theory (software-wise), not even an Atari 800 can be perfect emulated what to speak of Amiga."


Nice insult. The Atari 800 can also be perfectly emulated, just like the Amiga. Just because current solutions doesn't offer what you want, that doesn't mean these things are impossible to emulate.

Quote
I just gave a simple example that's not doable although it may seem like it's doing it.  A fake diamond and a real diamond are different in molecular structure/density although they may look the same.  Your emulator cannot be doing timing at 3.579545Mhz if it's timer is only accurate to 1.19318Mhz where reading the tick count itself takes more time than the quantum of the timer.


Funny, because that's not even applicable. You generally don't use timers when emulating stuff this way. To put it simple, tou interleave the code for each subsystem. Granularity is then dictated by the number of cycles spend on each "interleave". No timer. In theory that means you can emulate just about any device cadenced by a clock.

The Atari 800 and the Amiga are cool machines, but there is nothing "magic" about the hardware which makes it impossible to emulate. The 2600 is notoriously difficult to emulate, even though it's a really simple design.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 21, 2009, 09:59:55 AM
You replied to this after about 1 year.  I never stated anyting "magical"-- just bare bone facts about hardware differences.  You do need timing to emulate things that rely on it.  Atari 800 has 8 POT counters that increment at exact cycle positions on the scanline; it has a fast pot scan that increments every 558 ns.  A Vcount that increments at exactly 2 scanlines (228 CPU cycles) on an exact cycle consistently.  Atari 800 has an IRQ that can cause an interrupt to occur at exact pixel points on the screen without flickering or diverging.  It has a DLI which can also be stabilized w/o requiring WSYNC register.

Amiga can also use VHPOSR which to emulate by itself requires a 3.58Mhz timer or better.  If I start doing I/O based on Copper timing or even IRQ timing triggered off of Copper, your buffer-based emulators will go bonkers because there won't be any standard PC resources that can do that accuracy (assuming you even have the 1.19Mhz timer availabe since OS usually hogs that up as well).  

Perhaps, you want to wait another 5 years or so before you reply so that there's some chance that more people have HPET timers in their machine and OSes are allowing direct access to their hardware.  
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: darksun9210 on January 21, 2009, 11:46:13 AM
on a side note, if you want 1.19Mhz, just install vista.
*ba-dom tish!*

also noted in theoretical circles. anything can emulate anything given an infinite amount of time and understanding. like running windows on a babbage engine.  :lol:
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on January 21, 2009, 11:53:24 AM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
You replied to this after about 1 year.  


Yeah. I remembered having this discussion once before and I was right. And you're just as misinformed now as you were one year ago, aparently.

Quote
I never stated anyting "magical"-- just bare bone facts about hardware differences.  You do need timing to emulate things that rely on it.  Atari 800 has 8 POT counters that increment at exact cycle positions on the scanline; it has a fast pot scan that increments every 558 ns.  A Vcount that increments at exactly 2 scanlines (228 CPU cycles) on an exact cycle consistently.  Atari 800 has an IRQ that can cause an interrupt to occur at exact pixel points on the screen without flickering or diverging.  It has a DLI which can also be stabilized w/o requiring WSYNC register.


Nope. You interleave code for each subsystem, and that's what makes it cycle accurate. The internal state of each emulated part is correct in relation to eachother. That's what cycle-accurate means. You don't use timers for that. You're simply misinformed about this.

Quote

Perhaps, you want to wait another 5 years or so before you reply so that there's some chance that more people have HPET timers in their machine and OSes are allowing direct access to their hardware.  


Again - this is bull. You don't need high res timers to achieve high res emulation. You seem to think so, but that's not how you do it.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on January 21, 2009, 12:06:06 PM
@amigaski

You really have no idea how an emulator works do you!?

The timing of operations within the emulator must be consistent within the emulator world, not the real world. That is to say operations must be performed within the documented number of emulator cycles... If this is true, then software running on the emulator will function perfectly. Secondly, if the host CPU can run the emulated cycle faster than a real hardware cycle (thus the emulator can then wait until a real cycle would complete), the user will experience will be perfect.

Now which bit don't you get?

-Edit- bah! Shaggoth said it better :-D  
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on January 21, 2009, 01:09:23 PM
@amigaski

I think you confuse "timing" and "timer". Huge difference. You can maintain *timing* for subsystems in relation to eachother without using a *timer*.

Nowadays it's common to synchronize emulation to a "virtual" electron beam. The state of each subsystem is updated every other pixel (depends on the machine itself and how accurately you need to emulate it). For a given number of pixels, you execute the corresponding number of CPU cycles, followed by the corresponding number of cycles for each subsystem.

However: back in the days, we didn't have much CPU horse power, hence people used different tricks to achieve higher speed. AFAIK it was fairly common to use interrupts and dedicated hardware if possible. It wasn't very accurate, but it enabled people to emulate machines at reasonable speed.

A good comparison is the SMS+ emulator vs. older Sega Master System emulators for the Amiga. SMS is scanline accurate and very compatible, it is however much slower compared to e.g.AmiMasterGear which iirc uses the on-board sprite hardware etc for emulation. The latter does not achieve the same level of compatibility, but is definitely useful on lower-spec machines. The former one does not need any high resolution timers or anything of that nature, yet it's superior to the older approach when it comes to emulation accuracy (note however that AmiMasterGear is excellent given the circumstances).


EDIT: I spelled like a monkey. I corrected that somewhat.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 22, 2009, 12:57:57 PM
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/21 6:53:24

>>You replied to this after about 1 year.

>Yeah. I remembered having this discussion once before and I was right. And you're just as misinformed now as you were one year ago, aparently.

Insults won't help.  Fact help.  Reality doesn't seem to care about your insults; it keeps chugging along according to its laws.  You have been misinformed since 1 year and assumed you are not so you decide to come back.  That's the reality.  

>>I never stated anyting "magical"-- just bare bone facts about hardware differences. You do need timing to emulate things that rely on it. Atari 800 has 8 POT counters that increment at exact cycle positions on the scanline; it has a fast pot scan that increments every 558 ns. A Vcount that increments at exactly 2 scanlines (228 CPU cycles) on an exact cycle consistently. Atari 800 has an IRQ that can cause an interrupt to occur at exact pixel points on the screen without flickering or diverging. It has a DLI which can also be stabilized w/o requiring WSYNC register.

>Nope. You interleave code for each subsystem, and that's what makes it cycle accurate. The internal state of each emulated part is correct in relation to eachother. That's what cycle-accurate means. You don't use timers for that. You're simply misinformed about this.

Sorry, I live in REALITY not your illusory concepts of cycle-accurate.  You are dealing with FAKE time not REAL time so the real/fake jewelry example applies.  Just having some counter for cycles is not same thing as measuring the cycle time.  Eventually you have to map the cycles to real time cycles.  We don't want to experience your fake cycles.  

>Again - this is bull. You don't need high res timers to achieve high res emulation. You seem to think so, but that's not how you do it.

Just read what you wrote-- where's the argument?  All you did was give your opinion.  If I simulate a 10-bit DAC on an OCS Amiga using Volume registers and AUDxDAT, you better get your fake time cycles to correspond to real time cycles else the output will be "bull" as you put it.  That's just one example just to see if you'll insult me or reply logically.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on January 22, 2009, 01:36:32 PM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
>>I never stated anyting "magical"-- just bare bone facts about hardware differences. You do need timing to emulate things that rely on it. Atari 800 has 8 POT counters that increment at exact cycle positions on the scanline; it has a fast pot scan that increments every 558 ns. A Vcount that increments at exactly 2 scanlines (228 CPU cycles) on an exact cycle consistently. Atari 800 has an IRQ that can cause an interrupt to occur at exact pixel points on the screen without flickering or diverging. It has a DLI which can also be stabilized w/o requiring WSYNC register.


To emulate this you synchronize emulation to the electron beam. For each pixel, you let the CPU and other subsystems run the corresponding number of cycles with respect to their own clocks. That enables emulation of advanced mid-scanline hardware effects. This is a well known technique and is used in most emulators.

Quote

Quote

>Nope. You interleave code for each subsystem, and that's what makes it cycle accurate. The internal state of each emulated part is correct in relation to eachother. That's what cycle-accurate means. You don't use timers for that. You're simply misinformed about this.

Sorry, I live in REALITY not your illusory concepts of cycle-accurate.  You are dealing with FAKE time not REAL time so the real/fake jewelry example applies.


No, that's what cycle accurate means. The state of each subsystem at any given time equals that of a real system given the same number of clock cycles. That's what it means.

Quote

Just having some counter for cycles is not same thing as measuring the cycle time. Eventually you have to map the cycles to real time cycles. We don't want to experience your fake cycles.


Ok, you're talking about emulation throttling. Generally you let the system run for one frame, then you use throttling to ensure that emulation speed stays constant.

Real time emulation as you describe it have no impact on the actual accuracy of the emulation with respect to the emulated application. You've got that part wrong.

Quote

Quote

>Again - this is bull. You don't need high res timers to achieve high res emulation. You seem to think so, but that's not how you do it.

Just read what you wrote-- where's the argument?  All you did was give your opinion.  If I simulate a 10-bit DAC on an OCS Amiga using Volume registers and AUDxDAT, you better get your fake time cycles to correspond to real time cycles else the output will be "bull" as you put it.  That's just one example just to see if you'll insult me or reply logically.


Again I've explained this numerous times. Look at the source code of any modern emulator and you'll see.

About your example. As I've stated earlier, you use code interleaving to achieve synchronisation between the subsystems (in this case the sound hardware and CPU). It's possible to emulate this part perfectly, except for the small delay induced by buffering (which is necessary since computer load varies, both because of the actual emulator and fluctuations caused by other processes).
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: detz on January 22, 2009, 03:35:24 PM
Quote

spihunter wrote:
@amiga_3k

Quote
But on Amikit it didn't come near to the real fun. It seemed like ages between hitting a key and actually hear the sound!


I'm running Octamed w/ Winuae/amikit on a 3ghz Dell GX280 here and I dont get the lagging that your talking about?

Its faster and more responsive than my real 030/A1200?

I sold off all my "high end" Amiga harware after running Winuae on my Dual Xeon :-)


Yep me too, 300 quid in my pocket, and space on my  desk.
Not really played with getting the audio working properly, as I only use Octamed as a MIDI sequencer nowadays. I did play one of my old modules which used a mixture of samples and MIDI, and yeah, it was well out of sync, but I didn't play around with settings to see if I could make it better...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 22, 2009, 06:45:43 PM
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/21 8:09:23

>@amigaski

>I think you confuse "timing" and "timer". Huge difference. You can maintain *timing* for subsystems in relation to eachother without using a *timer*.

I am clear on what I stated and am sticking to it.  I already explained that-- you are just calling it "timing", but it has nothing to do with actual cycle time.  But you can write applications (and many already exist) where this cycle time is measuring actual time.

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Painkiller on January 22, 2009, 07:14:47 PM
For the countless of hours I have banged my head against the wall with real Amigas I'd say emulators are well worth it.

But then again nothing beats the real thing and sadly there isn't PPC emulation in WinUAE. I'm hoping that Mac Mini will finally be the new "Amiga" experience for me that will allow me to play old games via emulation and at the same time have a very modern Amiga like OS that doesn't need that much tweaking to get something running.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on January 23, 2009, 08:54:26 AM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
I am clear on what I stated and am sticking to it.  I already explained that-- you are just calling it "timing", but it has nothing to do with actual cycle time.  But you can write applications (and many already exist) where this cycle time is measuring actual time.


Ok, so what you're claiming is that no matter how accurate an emulator is, you could write an application that can detect that it's not the real deal? :-)
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 23, 2009, 01:22:49 PM
>by Painkiller on 2009/1/22 14:14:47

>For the countless of hours I have banged my head against the wall with real Amigas I'd say emulators are well worth it.

You mean banged your head for debugging stuff?  There's also the cross compile option that I use for that (and almost instant upload).

>But then again nothing beats the real thing and sadly there isn't PPC emulation in WinUAE.

Agreed-- nothing beats the real thing.  

>I'm hoping that Mac Mini will finally be the new "Amiga" experience for me that will allow me to play old games via emulation and at the same time have a very modern Amiga like OS that doesn't need that much tweaking to get something running.

That's the thing-- you just have to hope it will do whatever experience you are looking for.  I prefer getting things exact and knowing beforehand especially if it involves timing.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 23, 2009, 01:43:59 PM
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/22 8:36:32

amigaksi wrote:
>>I never stated anyting "magical"-- just bare bone facts about hardware differences. You do need timing to emulate things that rely on it. Atari 800 has 8 POT counters that increment at exact cycle positions on the scanline; it has a fast pot scan that increments every 558 ns. A Vcount that increments at exactly 2 scanlines (228 CPU cycles) on an exact cycle consistently. Atari 800 has an IRQ that can cause an interrupt to occur at exact pixel points on the screen without flickering or diverging. It has a DLI which can also be stabilized w/o requiring WSYNC register.

>To emulate this you synchronize emulation to the electron beam. For each pixel, you let the CPU and other subsystems run the corresponding number of cycles with respect to their own clocks. That enables emulation of advanced mid-scanline hardware effects. This is a well known technique and is used in most emulators.

Good so you agee you do need to synchronize emulation to the electron beam.  This translates to having something that can time things at 3.58Mhz or greater.  But you're wrong that it's used in most emulators as there's no way to run the corresponding number of cycles with respect to their own clocks without an accurate timer.  Remember that current processors based on caching, power management, dynamic frequency shifts, etc. can give different cycle counts running the same exact code.

>>Sorry, I live in REALITY not your illusory concepts of cycle-accurate. You are dealing with FAKE time not REAL time so the real/fake jewelry example applies.

>No, that's what cycle accurate means. The state of each subsystem at any given time equals that of a real system given the same number of clock cycles. That's what it means.

If on an Atari 800, I plot a pixel each time the CRT reaches point A, B, C, etc. on the screen, it resolves to a certain frequency.  That frequency will not be the same if you use FAKE time.

>Real time emulation as you describe it have no impact on the actual accuracy of the emulation with respect to the emulated application. You've got that part wrong.

I think we have different definitions of emulation.

>>Just read what you wrote-- where's the argument? All you did was give your opinion. If I simulate a 10-bit DAC on an OCS Amiga using Volume registers and AUDxDAT, you better get your fake time cycles to correspond to real time cycles else the output will be "bull" as you put it. That's just one example just to see if you'll insult me or reply logically.

>Again I've explained this numerous times. Look at the source code of any modern emulator and you'll see.

I don't need to look at any source code to derive a deductive conclusion that if the timing of the PC hardware isn't being used or isn't there for the given accuracy required for an application, the results will be wrong.  If I update the volume registers at 30Khz in the above example, you have two options-- write directly to the hardware at the same rate or patch up the emulator and "understand" what I am up to and buffer up data and introduce a latency.

>About your example. As I've stated earlier, you use code interleaving to achieve synchronisation between the subsystems (in this case the sound hardware and CPU). It's possible to emulate this part perfectly, except for the small delay induced by buffering (which is necessary since computer load varies, both because of the actual emulator and fluctuations caused by other processes).

But your emulator won't buffer up writes to volume registers done via some IRQ/Copper unless it knows the timing of the IRQ/Copper and that it's audio; it would be bufferring up DAC data going to AUDxDat.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 23, 2009, 01:47:59 PM
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/23 3:54:26

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


amigaksi wrote:
I am clear on what I stated and am sticking to it. I already explained that-- you are just calling it "timing", but it has nothing to do with actual cycle time. But you can write applications (and many already exist) where this cycle time is measuring actual time.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


>Ok, so what you're claiming is that no matter how accurate an emulator is, you could write an application that can detect that it's not the real deal?

I don't need to do anything special to detect it's the real deal.  For example, if I shift right the VHPOSR by a few bits and add them to some counter and use that counter overflow to draw a pixel on the screen, you won't get the same effect on the emulator unless you have timed the VHPOSR using a real timer.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on January 23, 2009, 01:56:29 PM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/23 3:54:26

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


amigaksi wrote:
I am clear on what I stated and am sticking to it. I already explained that-- you are just calling it "timing", but it has nothing to do with actual cycle time. But you can write applications (and many already exist) where this cycle time is measuring actual time.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


>Ok, so what you're claiming is that no matter how accurate an emulator is, you could write an application that can detect that it's not the real deal?

I don't need to do anything special to detect it's the real deal.  For example, if I shift right the VHPOSR by a few bits and add them to some counter and use that counter overflow to draw a pixel on the screen, you won't get the same effect on the emulator unless you have timed the VHPOSR using a real timer.


As long as the VHPOSR and the counter are synchronized to the same clock, then the effect would be the same as on the real hardware, taking your unstated assumption that they are synchronized to the same clock on the real hardware...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 23, 2009, 02:05:09 PM
>As long as the VHPOSR and the counter are synchronized to the same clock, then the effect would be the same as on the real hardware, taking your unstated assumption that they are synchronized to the same clock on the real hardware...

Hey, we agreed on something.  Just name the clock or register on the PC that you would use.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on January 23, 2009, 02:13:16 PM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
>As long as the VHPOSR and the counter are synchronized to the same clock, then the effect would be the same as on the real hardware, taking your unstated assumption that they are synchronized to the same clock on the real hardware...

Hey, we agreed on something.  Just name the clock or register on the PC that you would use.


Given this is a display issue, I would sync it with a virtual electron beam, as Long as the PC can perform all the operations required by the emulator before the real hardware could do it, then by the time of the screen refresh (the point where both the emulator and real hardware interface with the human), the states of the Emulator and the real machine would be identical.

-Edit- @Chaoslord :-D
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: ChaosLord on January 23, 2009, 02:26:18 PM
@Amigaski

I am currently trying to port my game from real Amigas over to WinUAE/UAE/etc.

One of the things I do is like this:
Code: [Select]

IF (UAE) THEN
  // don't bother reading VPOSR on WinUAE. No point.
ELSE
  // take VPOSR into account when drawing realtime gfx
END_IF

Am I doing the correct thing?
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on January 23, 2009, 02:37:31 PM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
Good so you agee you do need to synchronize emulation to the electron beam.  This translates to having something that can time things at 3.58Mhz or greater.  But you're wrong that it's used in most emulators as there's no way to run the corresponding number of cycles with respect to their own clocks without an accurate timer.  Remember that current processors based on caching, power management, dynamic frequency shifts, etc. can give different cycle counts running the same exact code.


"Cycles" in this case is the number of cycles the hardware in question would have completed given a particular number of pixels. It's not based on timers. And caches etc won't have any impact whatsoever on that value, since it's a relationship between the subsystems in the emulated context. You're confusing the "real" CPU with the emulated dito. The emulated CPU can run perfectly in sync with the emulated hardware regardles of performance fluctuations in the host environment.

It's like this. You know how many cycles a particular subsystem would complete during e.g. 16 pixels. In case of the CPU, let's say it's 4. Another hypothetical device completes 12 cycles during the same time span. You let the emulated CPU run 4 emulated cycles. Then you run the other hypothetical device for 12 cycles. Then you draw 16 pixels. Then you repeat this process. If needed, you can increase the resolution of this approach even further down to 1 cycle, but in many cases this is not necessary since the subsystems in question require a certain number of cycles for each task. If the granularity is right, the behavior and interaction between the subsystems in the emulator will equal that of their hardware counterparts. You've achieved cycle accuracy in the emulated context.

Quote
If on an Atari 800, I plot a pixel each time the CRT reaches point A, B, C, etc. on the screen, it resolves to a certain frequency.  That frequency will not be the same if you use FAKE time.


In the emulated context - and that's what we're discussing - it'll have the same frequency as the original. The application cannot detect the difference, nor does the user - given that the emulator runs fast enough.

Quote
I think we have different definitions of emulation.


Amigaski - I do get what you're after - but you've got the terms "emulation" and "cycle accuracy" wrong. I go by the common definition, and you clearly have your own one. Check wikipedia, for example. It'll confirm my definition of the word "emulator".

I claim that it's possible to emulate an Amiga or a A800 percectly accurate - and the definition of accurate in this case means A: the software can't tell the difference between an emulated machine and a real one, and B: the user perceives the framerate, response time etc. as a real machine.

I suspect that your definition is a comparison in real time - where the emulated machine won't be perfectly in sync with a "real" one at any given moment. Problem is, this is not even true for two "real" machines, given different hardware revisions, CPUs - it's not even true for two identical machines due to clock drifting.

Quote
>>Just read what you wrote-- where's the argument? All you did was give your opinion. If I simulate a 10-bit DAC on an OCS Amiga using Volume registers and AUDxDAT, you better get your fake time cycles to correspond to real time cycles else the output will be "bull" as you put it. That's just one example just to see if you'll insult me or reply logically.


I did answer that, at least I was under the impression that I did. The solution is pretty fundamental and you'll find the same kind of coding techniques in any modern music application. You use buffering - one buffer is calculated while another one is being replayed. This causes a slight sound latency, depending on buffer size. Given that the sound emulation catches register changes at a per sample basis, it'll sound like the original. On top of that you can apply filters etc. to mimic analog filters etc. present on the original sound hardware. Faster systems can have a smaller buffer, and hence less latency, naturally.

Quote

But your emulator won't buffer up writes to volume registers done via some IRQ/Copper unless it knows the timing of the IRQ/Copper and that it's audio; it would be bufferring up DAC data going to AUDxDat.


But the emulator will know the timing of the IRQ/Copper and the audio circuitry - in relation to eachother. It doesn't do that by keeping some hardware timer, it does so by keeping track of the cycle count of each subsystem. That cycle count is then synchronized to "real life" by means of throttling, at regular intervals.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: ChaosLord on January 23, 2009, 02:52:42 PM
Quote
I claim that it's possible to emulate an Amiga or a A800 percectly accurate


Of course it is possible.  Just because it has never actually happened does not mean that it is not possible.

I claim that it is possible to move from point A to point B at 256x the speed of light.  Just because it has never actually happened does not mean that it is not possible.

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 25, 2009, 09:09:20 PM
by bloodline on 2009/1/23 9:13:16

amigaksi wrote:
>>>As long as the VHPOSR and the counter are synchronized to the same clock, then the effect would be the same as on the real hardware, taking your unstated assumption that they are synchronized to the same clock on the real hardware...

>>Hey, we agreed on something. Just name the clock or register on the PC that you would use.

>Given this is a display issue, I would sync it with a virtual electron beam, as Long as the PC can perform all the operations required by the emulator before the real hardware could do it, then by the time of the screen refresh (the point where both the emulator and real hardware interface with the human), the states of the Emulator and the real machine would be identical.

>-Edit- @Chaoslord

If you had the Amiga VBI perfectly synched to PC VBI, than you would be resynching every 1/60 second, but still what happens in between those refreshes will be out of sync given different cycles times.  Usually, PC VBI isn't the same rate as Amiga VBI and PC emulation has the latency to begin with and may also be out of phase.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 25, 2009, 09:13:23 PM
>by ChaosLord on 2009/1/23 9:26:18

>@Amigaski

>I am currently trying to port my game from real Amigas over to WinUAE/UAE/etc.

>One of the things I do is like this:

>IF (UAE) THEN
  // don't bother reading VPOSR on WinUAE. No point.
>ELSE
  // take VPOSR into account when drawing realtime gfx
>END_IF


>Am I doing the correct thing?

I don't program for the UAE platform specifically so I don't know what they are substituting for the VHPOSR register.  In the example, I was using it to time something so it's better to put something in than nothing.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 25, 2009, 09:33:58 PM
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/23 9:37:31

>>amigaksi wrote:
>>Good so you agee you do need to synchronize emulation to the electron beam. This translates to having something that can time things at 3.58Mhz or greater. But you're wrong that it's used in most emulators as there's no way to run the corresponding number of cycles with respect to their own clocks without an accurate timer. Remember that current processors based on caching, power management, dynamic frequency shifts, etc. can give different cycle counts running the same exact code.

>"Cycles" in this case is the number of cycles the hardware in question would have completed given a particular number of pixels...

>It's like this. You know how many cycles a particular subsystem would complete during e.g. 16 pixels. In case of the CPU, let's say it's 4. Another hypothetical device completes 12 cycles during the same time span...
certain number of cycles for each task. If the granularity is right, the behavior and interaction between the subsystems in the emulator will equal that of their hardware counterparts. You've achieved cycle accuracy in the emulated context.

I agree in the "emulated context" (fake time) you have (basically everything was done in order).  The only problem you would have in the emulated context is if the cycles become fractional for a subsystem.  However, this is not cycle accuracy if the time elapsed makes a difference like in the audio example I gave or even in the VHPOSR if timing adds up to a critical value.

>>If on an Atari 800, I plot a pixel each time the CRT reaches point A, B, C, etc. on the screen, it resolves to a certain frequency. That frequency will not be the same if you use FAKE time.

>In the emulated context - and that's what we're discussing - it'll have the same frequency as the original. The application cannot detect the difference, nor does the user - given that the emulator runs fast enough.

The application cannot detect the difference but user can if the elapsed time for the cycle makes a difference.  You are synching up during refresh but humans can detect much higher frequencies than 60Hz especially for audio and even the 60Hz has latency and may be phase shifted and not exactly 60Hz (which it is not in NTSC).

>I claim that it's possible to emulate an Amiga or a A800 percectly accurate - and the definition of accurate in this case means A: the software can't tell the difference between an emulated machine and a real one, and B: the user perceives the framerate, response time etc. as a real machine.

This is where we differ; user may get close to the real framerate (depends on hardware support), but response time will always have the minimum of 1/60 latency.  And other things will also have latency or be perceived to be different depending on hardware support.

>I suspect that your definition is a comparison in real time - where the emulated machine won't be perfectly in sync with a "real" one at any given moment. Problem is, this is not even true for two "real" machines, given different hardware revisions, CPUs - it's not even true for two identical machines due to clock drifting.

Sorry, but if you do Copper-based, IRQ-based, Audio Intr-based, etc. operations on any Amiga (OCS, ECS, AGA), you are in-sync on a per cycle basis.  Yes, the CPU varies in speed, but your emulation is not just a CPU speed enhancer.  No clock drifting in Copper, IRQs, Audio Interrupts, and other things based on their hardware spec.

>...calculated while another one is being replayed. This causes a slight sound latency, depending on buffer size. Given that the sound emulation catches register changes at a per sample basis, it'll sound like the original. On top of that you can apply filters etc. to mimic analog filters etc. present on the original sound hardware. Faster systems can have a smaller buffer, and hence less latency, naturally.

Latency is always there unless you are doing cycle by cycle emulation in real-time AND your hardware supports similar audio registers to that on the Amiga.  Another problems is that you don't know what the user may modify dynamically so you don't know which registers to buffer up.

>But the emulator will know the timing of the IRQ/Copper and the audio circuitry - in relation to eachother. It doesn't do that by keeping some hardware timer, it does so by keeping track of the cycle count of each subsystem. That cycle count is then synchronized to "real life" by means of throttling, at regular intervals.

If it does not buffer it up, it needs an accurate timer.  If it can guess to buffer up, it has latency.

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 25, 2009, 09:42:34 PM
>by ChaosLord on 2009/1/23 9:52:42

>>I claim that it's possible to emulate an Amiga or a A800 percectly accurate

>Of course it is possible. Just because it has never actually happened does not mean that it is not possible.

His definition of emulation is the ATTEMPT to mimic the machine and for it to be accurate all its cycles (using fake time) of various subsystems are in chronological order in right ratios.  Then the "MAGICAL" WM_TIMER will come and put everything in real-time order and you won't notice the difference from the real machine.

>I claim that it is possible to move from point A to point B at 256x the speed of light. Just because it has never actually happened does not mean that it is not possible.

He was taking it out of context; I stated that it's impossible to emulate the Atari/Amiga given the standard PC hardware like 1.19Mhz timer, 2-channel audio card, zero sprites, etc.  Taking your example, traveling from A to B at 256X the speed of light IS impossible using today's rocket.  

Sorry, for the delay in replying but this thread has a latency of 1 year.  
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 25, 2009, 09:48:05 PM
>Amigaski - I do get what you're after - but you've got the terms "emulation" and "cycle accuracy" wrong. I go by the common definition, and you clearly have your own one. Check wikipedia, for example. It'll confirm my definition of the word "emulator".

One more thing; it's not my definition.  Emulate means to equal or excel in the dictionary.  And this thread is discussing whether emulation is better than the real thing so my definition makes sense.  Cycle accuracy can also mean 1/7.16Mhz (140 ns).
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on January 27, 2009, 09:23:42 AM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
One more thing; it's not my definition.  Emulate means to equal or excel in the dictionary.  And this thread is discussing whether emulation is better than the real thing so my definition makes sense.  Cycle accuracy can also mean 1/7.16Mhz (140 ns).


You obviously don't know how to read a dictionary either.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=emulate
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/emulate
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emulator
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/emulator.html

In the context of computers, emulation does *not* mean "to equal or excel". You've chosen a definition intended for *behavioral* *science*, and while that might suit your twisted view of things, it's about as wrong as things get. Maybe - just maybe - you should use a definition which can be considered to be the *correct* one from a linguistic point of view.

I think wikipedia makes it quite clear. The following link is about computer emulation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator

The following link is about behavior science, which is the definition you're using: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulation_(observational_learning)

This is getting sillier than I could ever imagine. I don't know why I even bother. Judging by your previous posts, I guess you won't check those links - simply because "you already know better". Please grow up. I mean honestly. Please.

EDIT: Don't blame me for getting of topic. I'm merely trying to correct some *very* inaccurate posts about how emulators work. I find that highly relevant in this context.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on January 27, 2009, 09:38:55 AM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
by bloodline on 2009/1/23 9:13:16

amigaksi wrote:
>>>As long as the VHPOSR and the counter are synchronized to the same clock, then the effect would be the same as on the real hardware, taking your unstated assumption that they are synchronized to the same clock on the real hardware...

>>Hey, we agreed on something. Just name the clock or register on the PC that you would use.

>Given this is a display issue, I would sync it with a virtual electron beam, as Long as the PC can perform all the operations required by the emulator before the real hardware could do it, then by the time of the screen refresh (the point where both the emulator and real hardware interface with the human), the states of the Emulator and the real machine would be identical.

>-Edit- @Chaoslord

If you had the Amiga VBI perfectly synched to PC VBI, than you would be resynching every 1/60 second, but still what happens in between those refreshes will be out of sync given different cycles times.  Usually, PC VBI isn't the same rate as Amiga VBI and PC emulation has the latency to begin with and may also be out of phase.


I'm not even sure anything you just said made any sense... But hey ho... I can easily run my gfx cards at 60hz, then use the gfx card's VBI to sync the emulation's virtual VBI to the real world... That would give me a nice NTSC emulation. But if I want a 50hz interrupt for PAL emulation, then I would run the gfx card at 100hz and sync the emulation every two real frames. Given the fact that re granularity of this system is based on the frame rate, since a human being's senses are being refreshed at 50/60hz on both the real and emulated Amiga (and the fact that a PC can do all work that a real Amiga can normally do in 25ms, in ~1ms so it spends most of it's time just waiting for the sync), the emulation and real Amiga will be in the same state WRT the user at all times. This really is elementary stuff...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on January 27, 2009, 09:40:38 AM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
His definition of emulation is the ATTEMPT to mimic the machine and for it to be accurate all its cycles (using fake time) of various subsystems are in chronological order in right ratios.  Then the "MAGICAL" WM_TIMER will come and put everything in real-time order and you won't notice the difference from the real machine.


I'm using the same definition as other emulator coders. It's just you who have a definition which happens to deviate from that of common dictionaries and wikipedia (well - and common sense too).

EDIT: I added the word "wikipedia", since I accidentally erased it prior to posting.

Quote

He was taking it out of context; I stated that it's impossible to emulate the Atari/Amiga given the standard PC hardware like 1.19Mhz timer, 2-channel audio card, zero sprites, etc.  Taking your example, traveling from A to B at 256X the speed of light IS impossible using today's rocket.  


You don't need sprites to emulate sprites accurately. You don't need for channel audio to emulate four channel audio. You don't need a timer to emulate something with an accuracy of one cycle.

You would know that if you actually checked how emulators are written today - something you've refused to do - probably because it would fundamentally contradict your earlier statements.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 27, 2009, 11:07:20 AM
>You obviously don't know how to read a dictionary either.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=emulate
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/emulate
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emulator
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/emulator.html

"to try to equal of surpass; imitate so as to excel: to emulate the success of great writers." - Page 258, Dictionary by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

>In the context of computers, emulation does *not* mean "to equal or excel". You've chosen a definition intended for *behavioral* *science*, and while that might suit your twisted view of things, it's about as wrong as things get.

It doesn't say it's behavioral science in the dictionary.  Regardless, isn't the defintion I quoted what people assume when they hear "PC can emulate the Amiga in a cycle-exact manner."

>EDIT: Don't blame me for getting of topic. I'm merely trying to correct some *very* inaccurate posts about how emulators work. I find that highly relevant in this context.

I don't know which posts you are referring to.  All my posts are accurate given the definition above.  If I take your definition, then it gets silly-- Atari 800 can emulate a Pentium IV, Quad core given enough time.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 27, 2009, 11:14:32 AM
>>If you had the Amiga VBI perfectly synched to PC VBI, than you would be resynching every 1/60 second, but still what happens in between those refreshes will be out of sync given different cycles times. Usually, PC VBI isn't the same rate as Amiga VBI and PC emulation has the latency to begin with and may also be out of phase.

>I'm not even sure anything you just said made any sense... But hey ho... I can easily run my gfx cards at 60hz, then use the gfx card's VBI to sync the emulation's virtual VBI to the real world... That would give me a nice NTSC emulation. But if I want a 50hz interrupt for PAL emulation, then I would run the gfx card at 100hz and sync the emulation every two real frames.

NTSC rate isn't exactly 60Hz, it's more like 60/1.001.  And anyway, your video card isn't doing 262.5 scanlines per field nor is a user response showing up in same time as on emulator given the buffer approach.  

>Given the fact that re granularity of this system is based on the frame rate, since a human being's senses are being refreshed at 50/60hz on both the real and emulated Amiga (and the fact that a PC can do all work that a real Amiga can normally do in 25ms, in ~1ms so it spends most of it's time just waiting for the sync), the emulation and real Amiga will be in the same state WRT the user at all times. This really is elementary stuff...

Not true so not elementary.  For example, if Amiga moves a screen full of sprites in a few microseconds, the PC will take much longer since most video cards can't update their display in a few microseconds so emulators will hope that time will be made up for by other things.  Our senses aren't being refreshed at 60Hz on real Amiga but higher frequency.  Only display is around 50/60Hz.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 27, 2009, 11:20:13 AM
by shoggoth on 2009/1/27 4:40:38

amigaksi wrote:
>>He was taking it out of context; I stated that it's impossible to emulate the Atari/Amiga given the standard PC hardware like 1.19Mhz timer, 2-channel audio card, zero sprites, etc. Taking your example, traveling from A to B at 256X the speed of light IS impossible using today's rocket.

>You don't need sprites to emulate sprites accurately. You don't need for channel audio to emulate four channel audio. You don't need a timer to emulate something with an accuracy of one cycle.

Yes, you do for all three of your statements above.  I recently timed how long a field takes on an Amiga in interlaced and non-interlaced mode.  How would your word jugglery of the word "interleave" come up with the correct answer (barring you hard-code it)?

>You would know that if you actually checked how emulators are written today - something you've refused to do - probably because it would fundamentally contradict your earlier statements.

You are being vague.  I have stuck to my position for many years now although in the process HPET got introduced and Vista came out.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on January 27, 2009, 11:23:15 AM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
"to try to equal of surpass; imitate so as to excel: to emulate the success of great writers." - Page 258, Dictionary by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.


"verb, -lat⋅ed, -lat⋅ing, adjective
–verb (used with object)
1.   to try to equal or excel; imitate with effort to equal or surpass: to emulate one's father as a concert violinist.
2.   to rival with some degree of success: Some smaller cities now emulate the major capitals in their cultural offerings.
3.   Computers.
a.   to imitate (a particular computer system) by using a software system, often including a microprogram or another computer that enables it to do the same work, run the same programs, etc., as the first.
b.   to replace (software) with hardware to perform the same task."

Hmm.... I wonder which definition that applies to this discussion.

Most up-to-date dictionares share this definition. This one is from http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=emulate.

Quote
It doesn't say it's behavioral science in the dictionary.  Regardless, isn't the defintion I quoted what people assume when they hear "PC can emulate the Amiga in a cycle-exact manner."


You'd have to be a complete moron not to understand that it does, especcially when there is an additional definition for the word when used in the context of *computers*.

To clarify this I added the two definitions from wikipedia, something which you convieniently ignored completely:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator

vs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulation_(observational_learning)

Quote

I don't know which posts you are referring to.  All my posts are accurate given the definition above.  If I take your definition, then it gets silly-- Atari 800 can emulate a Pentium IV, Quad core given enough time.


That's taken out of context. In theory the statement is true, given enough time and memory - that was the point of it. In practice it's completely retarded. Just like some posters in this forum.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on January 27, 2009, 11:39:12 AM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
>You would know that if you actually checked how emulators are written today - something you've refused to do - probably because it would fundamentally contradict your earlier statements.


You are being vague.  I have stuck to my position for many years now although in the process HPET got introduced and Vista came out.
[/quote]

No. I entered this discussion because:
A: You make claims about how emulators work.
B: Those claims are completely wrong.

Given that, the statement is highly relevant. You've stuck to your position for many years because you refuse to take facts into the equation.

I've got a question for you, Amigaski:
A: You know how emulators work internally, and therefore your statements about emulators are true.
B: You don't know how emulators work internally, but you do know for a fact that your statements are true anyway.

Which one is it, Amigaski? A or B?
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on January 27, 2009, 11:55:42 AM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
>>If you had the Amiga VBI perfectly synched to PC VBI, than you would be resynching every 1/60 second, but still what happens in between those refreshes will be out of sync given different cycles times. Usually, PC VBI isn't the same rate as Amiga VBI and PC emulation has the latency to begin with and may also be out of phase.

>I'm not even sure anything you just said made any sense... But hey ho... I can easily run my gfx cards at 60hz, then use the gfx card's VBI to sync the emulation's virtual VBI to the real world... That would give me a nice NTSC emulation. But if I want a 50hz interrupt for PAL emulation, then I would run the gfx card at 100hz and sync the emulation every two real frames.

NTSC rate isn't exactly 60Hz, it's more like 60/1.001.  And anyway, your video card isn't doing 262.5 scanlines per field nor is a user response showing up in same time as on emulator given the buffer approach.  


True actually, NTSC is 59.98 or something and that is very slightly too slow but I know the human eye can't see the difference between the two rates... And I personally run my stuff in PAL anyway and 50hz is possible on modern cards by halving the 100hz rate. As for your dislike of the "buffer approach", I suggest you throw away all your amiga games as they all use double buffering... Have you ever writen a game on an Amiga?  

Quote

>Given the fact that re granularity of this system is based on the frame rate, since a human being's senses are being refreshed at 50/60hz on both the real and emulated Amiga (and the fact that a PC can do all work that a real Amiga can normally do in 25ms, in ~1ms so it spends most of it's time just waiting for the sync), the emulation and real Amiga will be in the same state WRT the user at all times. This really is elementary stuff...

Not true so not elementary.  For example, if Amiga moves a screen full of sprites in a few microseconds, the PC will take much longer since most video cards can't update their display in a few microseconds so emulators will hope that time will be made up for by other things.  Our senses aren't being refreshed at 60Hz on real Amiga but higher frequency.  Only display is around 50/60Hz.


A modern gfx chip can redraw an entire screen, perform thausands of blitter operations and render a 3D scene... At many times the resolution of the Amiga in far less time than it takes for an Amiga to update the sprite registers...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Seiya on January 27, 2009, 11:58:02 AM
Quote

Varthall wrote:
For 68k Amigas it might be true, not for PPC ones though since no emulator for such machines exists.

Varthall


PowerPC emulator for windws there is, and they are able to run very well macOS PPC as far as MacOS9.04.

The problem, is that there aren't amiga ppc emulator.

OS4 and MoprhOS on Virtual Machine or in a WinUAE with PPc emulation, could stop further hardware developments

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: ChaosLord on January 27, 2009, 01:06:06 PM
Bloodline wrote:

Quote

I suggest you throw away all your amiga games as they all use double buffering... Have you ever writen a game on an Amiga?


I have, and so have some of my friends.  None of them use double-buffering.  AFAICT double-buffering is only really useful when displaying an FMV movie.  It is often a mistake to double-buffer a whole game on the Amiga.  The Amiga has real-time beam position knowledge with approximately 1/21000000th second resolution (if you want the exact number then consult your HRM).
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on January 27, 2009, 01:34:48 PM
Quote

ChaosLord wrote:
I have, and so have some of my friends.  None of them use double-buffering.  AFAICT double-buffering is only really useful when displaying an FMV movie.  It is often a mistake to double-buffer a whole game on the Amiga.  The Amiga has real-time beam position knowledge with approximately 1/21000000th second resolution (if you want the exact number then consult your HRM).


ChaosLord - you're probably thinking of 2d games. Generally 3D games are double-buffered.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: ChaosLord on January 27, 2009, 01:43:29 PM
Yes I was thinking of 2D games.  Most Amiga games are 2D.

I would assume that most 3D games and some 2D games use double buffering.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on January 27, 2009, 01:54:35 PM
Quote

ChaosLord wrote:
Bloodline wrote:

Quote

I suggest you throw away all your amiga games as they all use double buffering... Have you ever writen a game on an Amiga?


I have, and so have some of my friends.  None of them use double-buffering.  AFAICT double-buffering is only really useful when displaying an FMV movie.  It is often a mistake to double-buffer a whole game on the Amiga.  The Amiga has real-time beam position knowledge with approximately 1/21000000th second resolution (if you want the exact number then consult your HRM).


Unless you are only using sprite and static sceens (or hardware scrolled screens), no double buffering will look like crap... All blitter ops will look nasty... The blitter was the best thing in the Amiga chipset... IMO
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: ChaosLord on January 27, 2009, 02:25:05 PM
Quote
no double buffering will look like crap... All blitter ops will look nasty


Wrong.  It all depends on what you are blitting and if you are making use of the Amiga chipset's awesome features (Jay Miner rulez 4eva) and how you have written your code.  Some games require double-buffering and some do not.

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on January 27, 2009, 02:43:07 PM
Quote

ChaosLord wrote:
Quote
no double buffering will look like crap... All blitter ops will look nasty


Wrong.  It all depends on what you are blitting and if you are making use of the Amiga chipset's awesome features (Jay Miner rulez 4eva) and how you have written your code.  Some games require double-buffering and some do not.



I'm not going to be drawn into a debate as to the "correct" usage of the Amiga chipset, suffice to say if you want make a game that looks really good you need to use the blitter quite extensively, and the slowness of the blitter will need to be smoothed out with double buffering, which I might add the Amiga chipset was rather well suited to.

On topic, I could easily set up an Emulation that no one here would be able to tell from a real Amiga... I have just such a WinUAE set up on my MacBook Pro for running Shadow of the Beast II...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 27, 2009, 05:58:38 PM
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/27 6:23:15

>>"to try to equal of surpass; imitate so as to excel: to emulate the success of great writers." - Page 258, Dictionary by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

>Hmm.... I wonder which definition that applies to this discussion.

Whichever a person understands when he reads a statement "PC can emulate Amiga with cycle-accuracy."  I understood it as what I quoted.  If it's just an attempt, it's trivial then.

>You'd have to be a complete moron not to understand that it does, especcially when there is an additional definition for the word when used in the context of *computers*.

Your insults don't help nor do your straw-man arguments.  Words are defined by their context.  People I know threw away their Amigas because of the way they understood the misleading remarks.

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulation_(observational_learning)

I have also read many articles on wikipedia and other internet sources that are wrong.  I rather trust a published dictionary.

>>I don't know which posts you are referring to. All my posts are accurate given the definition above. If I take your definition, then it gets silly-- Atari 800 can emulate a Pentium IV, Quad core given enough time.

>That's taken out of context. In theory the statement is true, given enough time and memory - that was the point of it. In practice it's completely retarded. Just like some posters in this forum.

Your insults don't help nor do your straw-man arguments.  If you can't deal with the facts, that's your problem.  I already told you I don't accept your definition.  Atari CANNOT emulate a Pentium IV, Quad core-- there's no way to execute two instructions simultaneously amongst other things.

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 27, 2009, 06:01:26 PM
>by ChaosLord on 2009/1/27 8:43:29

>Yes I was thinking of 2D games. Most Amiga games are 2D.

>I would assume that most 3D games and some 2D games use double buffering.
 
There are problems with double buffering as well...  And if the user interacts, then the latency effect won't get buffered whereas the video/audio is still buffered.

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 27, 2009, 06:04:09 PM
>A modern gfx chip can redraw an entire screen, perform thausands of blitter operations and render a 3D scene... At many times the resolution of the Amiga in far less time than it takes for an Amiga to update the sprite registers...

You need to calculate this out and you'll see that modern graphics cards cannot redraw an entire screen (repaint).  If they have built-in similar hardware sprite-type stuff, they can probably keep up.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 27, 2009, 06:09:48 PM
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/27 6:39:12

>>You are being vague. I have stuck to my position for many years now although in the process HPET got introduced and Vista came out.

>No. I entered this discussion because:
>A: You make claims about how emulators work.
>B: Those claims are completely wrong.

You haven't shown any of my claims to be wrong.  You just have a different definition of cycle-accuracy and emulation.  All of my statements are proven.

>I've got a question for you, Amigaski:
>A: You know how emulators work internally, and therefore your statements about emulators are true.
>B: You don't know how emulators work internally, but you do know for a fact that your statements are true anyway.

>Which one is it, Amigaski? A or B?

I already answered this.  It's C-- I know how the PC works and Amiga works so I know whether some Amiga function can be emulated on the PC.  It's called deductive logic-- not straw man argument or insult like you use.  Here's a simpler example, I know for a fact that Gameport joystick on PC takes 1 ms to read using port 201h (directly read port).  I know Amiga joystick read takes, a few microseconds.  Thus, you cannot emulate an Amiga joystick on PC using PC joystick.  It'll never EQUAL OR EXCEL it.

Same claims I made using timers with 1.19Mhz timer vs. 7.16Mhz cycle accuracy and other claims.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on January 27, 2009, 07:33:08 PM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
>A modern gfx chip can redraw an entire screen, perform thausands of blitter operations and render a 3D scene... At many times the resolution of the Amiga in far less time than it takes for an Amiga to update the sprite registers...

You need to calculate this out and you'll see that modern graphics cards cannot redraw an entire screen (repaint).  If they have built-in similar hardware sprite-type stuff, they can probably keep up.


Sorry amigaski, I hate to use the phrase "you're wrong", but you really are... The weakest gfx card I own is able to push 3.4Gigabytes per second... The amiga struggles to keep up with 2megabytes per second and this is using AGA!!! The Amiga is Very Old technology, it is very slow and lacks the resolution and colour depth of modern hardware... It can't compare!
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: ChaosLord on January 27, 2009, 08:30:05 PM
Sorry bloodline, I hate to use the phrase "you're wrong", but you really are... The weakest Amiga I own is able to push a lot more than 2 megabytes per second.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on January 27, 2009, 09:47:29 PM
Quote

ChaosLord wrote:
Sorry bloodline, I hate to use the phrase "you're wrong", but you really are... The weakest Amiga I own is able to push a lot more than 2 megabytes per second.


Ok, but even if we include your magical blitter engine that can push the Amiga's blitter beyond even its theoretical maximum transfer rate, you can't deny that a modern gfx chip can outperform the Amiga by several orders of magnitude!!! Honestly there is nothing the Amiga can do that I can't do faster with more colours and at a greater resolution on a modern chip... That is just simple physics! You can even prove it yourself using SDL!!!
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: dammy on January 27, 2009, 11:43:11 PM
Quote
Sorry bloodline, I hate to use the phrase "you're wrong", but you really are... The weakest Amiga I own is able to push a lot more than 2 megabytes per second.


I'll bite, how many MBPS in what slowest Amiga?

Dammy
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: shoggoth on January 28, 2009, 12:51:38 PM
Quote

amigaksi wrote:
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/27 6:39:12

>>You are being vague. I have stuck to my position for many years now although in the process HPET got introduced and Vista came out.

>No. I entered this discussion because:
>A: You make claims about how emulators work.
>B: Those claims are completely wrong.

You haven't shown any of my claims to be wrong.  You just have a different definition of cycle-accuracy and emulation.  All of my statements are proven.

>I've got a question for you, Amigaski:
>A: You know how emulators work internally, and therefore your statements about emulators are true.
>B: You don't know how emulators work internally, but you do know for a fact that your statements are true anyway.

>Which one is it, Amigaski? A or B?

I already answered this.  It's C-- I know how the PC works and Amiga works so I know whether some Amiga function can be emulated on the PC.  It's called deductive logic-- not straw man argument or insult like you use.  Here's a simpler example, I know for a fact that Gameport joystick on PC takes 1 ms to read using port 201h (directly read port).  I know Amiga joystick read takes, a few microseconds.  Thus, you cannot emulate an Amiga joystick on PC using PC joystick.  It'll never EQUAL OR EXCEL it.

Same claims I made using timers with 1.19Mhz timer vs. 7.16Mhz cycle accuracy and other claims.


Sorry for the long quote.

Amigaski, you're twisting the truth. You invent your own definitions - none of which are in line with that of the rest of the world. You deliberately use definitions intended for completely different contexts. You simply do whatever to support your claims rather than accepting the fact that you're wrong. This is especially retarded considering that we're discussing an area of which you yourself admit that you have no real knowledge. You're simply amazing on your own very special way.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: AmiKit on January 28, 2009, 02:14:53 PM
@shoggoth

Quote
Amigaski, you're twisting the truth. You invent your own definitions - none of which are in line with that of the rest of the world. You deliberately use definitions intended for completely different contexts. You simply do whatever to support your claims rather than accepting the fact that you're wrong. This is especially retarded considering that we're discussing an area of which you yourself admit that you have no real knowledge. You're simply amazing on your own very special way.

Give up. There cannot be any constructive outcome from a discussion with someone with such an approach...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 28, 2009, 07:16:19 PM
>>You need to calculate this out and you'll see that modern graphics cards cannot redraw an entire screen (repaint). If they have built-in similar hardware sprite-type stuff, they can probably keep up.

>Sorry amigaski, I hate to use the phrase "you're wrong", but you really are... The weakest gfx card I own is able to push 3.4Gigabytes per second... The amiga struggles to keep up with 2megabytes per second and this is using AGA!!! The Amiga is Very Old technology, it is very slow and lacks the resolution and colour depth of modern hardware... It can't compare!

Latest NVidia card I used does about 200MB/second in repainting screens.  AGA machine like low-end 30Mhz A4000 does over 4MB/second easily.  But that wasn't the point-- the point was emulating sprite hardware not raw drawing capability.  If you have a sprite overlay on top of an image-- let's say a curtain of size 352*240 and you move the curtain, the Amiga does it in a few microseconds, whereas your graphics card will be repainting the screen and take much longer.  I can compute the exact figure for you if you need it...
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 28, 2009, 07:18:27 PM
>Give up. There cannot be any constructive outcome from a discussion with someone with such an approach...

Why do you blindly accept his false statements?  So far you have yet to prove the earth is round according to your subjective approach.  If you take it subjectively, most people would agree earth is flat according to their observations.  Unless you can find some people who have seen the earth as a WHOLE.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 28, 2009, 07:21:25 PM
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/28 7:51:38

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


amigaksi wrote:
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/27 6:39:12

>>You are being vague. I have stuck to my position for many years now although in the process HPET got introduced and Vista came out.

>No. I entered this discussion because:
>A: You make claims about how emulators work.
>B: Those claims are completely wrong.

You haven't shown any of my claims to be wrong. You just have a different definition of cycle-accuracy and emulation. All of my statements are proven.

>I've got a question for you, Amigaski:
>A: You know how emulators work internally, and therefore your statements about emulators are true.
>B: You don't know how emulators work internally, but you do know for a fact that your statements are true anyway.

>Which one is it, Amigaski? A or B?

>>I already answered this. It's C-- I know how the PC works and Amiga works so I know whether some Amiga function can be emulated on the PC. It's called deductive logic-- not straw man argument or insult like you use. Here's a simpler example, I know for a fact that Gameport joystick on PC takes 1 ms to read using port 201h (directly read port). I know Amiga joystick read takes, a few microseconds. Thus, you cannot emulate an Amiga joystick on PC using PC joystick. It'll never EQUAL OR EXCEL it.

>>Same claims I made using timers with 1.19Mhz timer vs. 7.16Mhz cycle accuracy and other claims.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


>Sorry for the long quote.

>Amigaski, you're twisting the truth. You invent your own definitions - none of which are in line with that of the rest of the world. You deliberately use definitions intended for completely different contexts. You simply do whatever to support your claims rather than accepting the fact that you're wrong. This is especially retarded considering that we're discussing an area of which you yourself admit that you have no real knowledge. You're simply amazing on your own very special way.

I did not invent the definition.  I didn't twist the truth-- I'm sticking to my definition.  It's retarded to say that Atari 800 can emulate P4-Quad core given time and memory.  I never said I have no knowledge of emulators-- I have written some emulators as well for joysticks, mice, keyboards, etc.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: amigaksi on January 28, 2009, 07:24:42 PM
>by dammy on 2009/1/27 18:43:11

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry bloodline, I hate to use the phrase "you're wrong", but you really are... The weakest Amiga I own is able to push a lot more than 2 megabytes per second.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


>I'll bite, how many MBPS in what slowest Amiga?

>Dammy
 
We're not talking raw memory to graphics memory update speed.  Even if you consider without sprites, there's blitter and then there's the scroll/graphics memory pointer registers which can be updated in a few microseconds and those things are non-standard in modern graphics cards so you end up repainting the screen which would be slower.

Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: bloodline on June 05, 2009, 12:53:40 AM
Quote from: amigaksi;439906
>by dammy on 2009/1/27 18:43:11

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry bloodline, I hate to use the phrase "you're wrong", but you really are... The weakest Amiga I own is able to push a lot more than 2 megabytes per second.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


>I'll bite, how many MBPS in what slowest Amiga?

>Dammy
 
We're not talking raw memory to graphics memory update speed.  Even if you consider without sprites, there's blitter and then there's the scroll/graphics memory pointer registers which can be updated in a few microseconds and those things are non-standard in modern graphics cards so you end up repainting the screen which would be slower.


But it isn't slower because of the faster memory bandwidth... in fact repainting the entire screen is faster.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: koaftder on June 05, 2009, 12:59:17 AM
The thing is, PC's don't treat the video interface as just one chunk in memory that you spew data into like we used to using vga or vesa modes and haven't in a *long* time. The 2d acceleration on even old video cards is nuts. Check out a programmers manual for a matrox millennium for a good example.
Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Karlos on June 05, 2009, 01:02:47 AM
Quote from: bloodline;509284
But it isn't slower because of the faster memory bandwidth... in fact repainting the entire screen is faster.


Graphics memory bandwidth is measured in GB/s nowadays:

Code: [Select]
karlos@Megaburken-II:~/NVIDIA_CUDA_SDK/bin/linux/release$ ./bandwidthTest
Running on......
      device 0:GeForce GTX 260
Quick Mode
Host to Device Bandwidth for Pageable memory
.
Transfer Size (Bytes) Bandwidth(MB/s)
 33554432 2473.4

Quick Mode
Device to Host Bandwidth for Pageable memory
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Transfer Size (Bytes) Bandwidth(MB/s)
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Title: Re: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing?
Post by: Trev on June 05, 2009, 01:13:39 AM
Quote from: amigaksi;439903

Latest NVidia card I used does about 200MB/second in repainting screens.  AGA machine like low-end 30Mhz A4000 does over 4MB/second easily.  But that wasn't the point-- the point was emulating sprite hardware not raw drawing capability.  If you have a sprite overlay on top of an image-- let's say a curtain of size 352*240 and you move the curtain, the Amiga does it in a few microseconds, whereas your graphics card will be repainting the screen and take much longer.  I can compute the exact figure for you if you need it...


You wouldn't use sprites on a modern graphics card. You'd use a 2D, texture-mapped polygon. I don't know if any current emulator does that, but it seems like a reasonable approach. Even relatively ancient 3D cards supported texture sizes in line with Amiga sprite sizes. (Or not. The 3dfx Voodoo supported 256x256.) Google pixel and polygon fill rates for your graphics card if you're curious. Anyhow, on a current card with maximum texture sizes that exceed screen sizes, you could probably fill the screen with more virtual sprites than there are working Amigas in the world--dependent on your implementation, of course. :-P