Amiga.org
The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Amiga Emulation => Topic started by: DiskDoctor on January 18, 2009, 02:57:56 PM
-
Hello,
Did any of you made ANY of the available Amiga (OCS) emulators working? I mean thorougly.
I ask because I didn't manage to, using WinUAE, E-UAE, MaxUAE, and others (both Windows and Mac OS).
Also, some time ago I encountered some post on some other forum stating that "no one has ever managed to re-create the original chipset as a Virtual Machine because it was SO PERFECT it is hardly possible if ever."
My problem is EVERY time I managed to set up the proper configurations, e.g. games (it's all about games) were playable but the music was getting stalled every time on rapid pseudo processor's usage.
Classic Amiga music is crucial to me, something one might not accept unfidel.
Or maybe it is my fault because of not optimizing configuration set-up properly?
Please let me know.
It is (PC emulation) my only source of Amiga breeze for the time being...
One more thing, I just learned that running classic amiga files on sam440 requires some emulator, too. What's my guarantee it is gonna work, for a change?
-
The Amiga emulation that is provided by WinUAE is 100% for most of the Amiga games out there (and 99% for the rest).
I think your inquiry is too general. Either post a detailed problem you are experiencing with certain game or follow some guides first:
http://www.pcguru.plus.com/uae_faq.html
http://www.tweakguides.com/Amiga_1.html
http://ale.emuunlim.com/guides/guides.shtml
-
The various versions of UAE are almost technically perfect. That's what some complain about, 80's computer was clunky and a bit unstable, running an Amiga has always been a bit like building your own ultra lite aircraft, you were exposed to the environment and never knew when you would experience a crash. UAE provides a safe, clean, smooth environment that just doesn't feel the same. You use your modern beautiful monitors and somehow all the imperfections that were hidden by trashy old CRTs are visible on your 1080p monitor.
Real Amigas are always on the edge of disaster, with cobbled together parts that were never meant to work together. They click, they pop, they wheeze. Experiencing an Amiga through the clean safety of a modern OS is somehow almost cheating.
-
I think success of emulation can't be guaranteed. One say it's perfect, the other says it sucks. I'm not too impressed with emulation. Tried WinUAE (always the newest versions) on a variety of PC hardware (Duron 750, Duron 1300, Pentium IV 2000 GHz, Pentium IV 2.4 GHz, Xeon 2.8 GHz) and always ended up somewhat down. While some games work rather well, using software like OctaMED really doesn't do the experience any good. The time between pressing a key and actually hearing the sample seems to be hours where as I can't recall such behaviour back in the A500 or A3000 era (note, the A3000 was at first just a 16 MHz 030).
Probably it's just me experiencing this behaviour, that's why I've asked a few times if this is also true on the MiniMig.
-
As someone who has used WinUAE for years and bought several Amiga Forever packages I can honestly say that if you want to play games and "feel" as if you're using a real Amiga (and AGA isn't an issue) then the Minimig is the only solution.
WinUAE certainly works, but the look and feel is missing. When it comes to using digital joysticks then the frustration factor just grows.
With the Minimig (once you've set up your core and PIC) it may as well be a real Amiga. You switch on, you see the "insert floppy" logo as per your Kickstart version and you insert your "disk" (ADF). I also love the way I can keep both of my digital joysticks attached thanks to the PS2 mouse.
Who want's to go through the ball-ache of waiting for your PC's OS to load, runing UAE, selecting the configuration, etc when you can just switch on your Minimig?
With Hard File support already working on the prototype ARM board, it will so be available to the masses and I'm ready to solder on my RAM expansion too.
-
(note, the A3000 was at first just a 16 MHz 030).
The 16 and 25 MHz versions of the A3k were released simultaneously, so neither is older.
-
the Minimig is the only solution
Yes that's probably the best solution for those wanting to play on a "brand new Amiga 500" environment.
But my case is I'd like both play and use OS4 as my prime desktop environment.
I'm considering SAM with OS4/4.1 and want to use it for playing ancient games (I never managed to get myself interested in any PC game since, maybe there's one exception), also I want to use the web browser, some multimedia features but also some office (word processor MS Word-compatible?) and so.
Actually when considering 1000$ purchase (my local reseller's price), I want something more than just games (Minimig is much cheaper, though)... I want it all! Or maybe just all that's available, with fewest compromises possible.
I still wonder why OS4 developers didn't simply wrap the classic 1.3 Kickstart as a built-in Virtual Machine. Apple did it since switching to OS X and the solution is perfect! Instead, when I want to use Sam I'm forced to go, again, into some software emulation I never trusted.
-
DiskDoctor wrote:
the Minimig is the only solution
Yes that's probably the best solution for those wanting to play on a "brand new Amiga 500" environment.
But my case is I'd like both play and use OS4 as my prime desktop environment.
I'm considering SAM with OS4/4.1 and want to use it for playing ancient games (I never managed to get myself interested in any PC game since, maybe there's one exception), also I want to use the web browser, some multimedia features but also some office (word processor MS Word-compatible?) and so.
Actually when considering 1000$ purchase (my local reseller's price), I want something more than just games (Minimig is much cheaper, though)... I want it all! Or maybe just all that's available, with fewest compromises possible.
I still wonder why OS4 developers didn't simply wrap the classic 1.3 Kickstart as a built-in Virtual Machine. Apple did it since switching to OS X and the solution is perfect! Instead, when I want to use Sam I'm forced to go, again, into some software emulation I never trusted.
I understand. I'm toying with the whole Sam(flex)/OS4.1 idea, but I'm still faced with teh fact that everything I currently want to do I can do either on my Minimig or expanded A4000.
An entire "virtual A500/A1200" in OS4.x would be ideal. I'm sure it's on the list of thinsg to do. :-)
-
Zac67 wrote:
(note, the A3000 was at first just a 16 MHz 030).
The 16 and 25 MHz versions of the A3k were released simultaneously, so neither is older.
I know. What I meant is, that when I bought it it only had the 16 MHz 030, later on I upgraded it with the 25 MHz 040. :-)
(http://www.elf8.nl/AMIGA_BANNER_3.gif)
-
@ Persia
There are many here who have used classic Amigas continuously sinse the beginning.
-
WINUAE is hardly safe and clean. very fiddely even the latest build, not to mention some severe bugs aswell..
yeah it works, but it makes me sick at times.
-
WinUAE is a very very good emulation. However, it's still an emulation.
The problem with emulating a computer is that there will always be latency. Usually this is most visible in sound. This is because on the Amiga the sound output is wired straight from the sound chip to the audio out. On the virtual machine, the sound goes into the sound buffer which is constantly playing out of the audio socket, but it must always go out of a buffer, as this is how sound cards work. The larger the buffer the smoother the sound, but the higher the latency.
You'll never get the complete Amiga look and feel via emulation, no matter how good UAE is.
Get a SAM 440 but get an A500 or A1200 too for old games! They're hardly expensive... (compared to the Sam!)
-
The problem with emulating a computer is that there will always be latency. Usually this is most visible in sound.
I don't think so. Even if there was any latency I doubt any human can notice it.
You'll never get the complete Amiga look and feel via emulation, no matter how good UAE is.
Well, a simple Turing test denies your statement. http://www.amigaforever.com/tutorials/goodorbad/
-
Running WinUAE on a modern PC is now for me, perfect... It is more compatible than my real Amigas... That is to say, I only need one WinUAE, when I would need to use several different models of real Amiga, and I can also build any config I need.
My real Amigas are now museum exhibits... Preserved to show my grandchildren... But as I have mentioned before, display technology is moving on and it won't be long before I have no way to get Video Output from an Amiga that is compatible with any display device...
Even my last VGA monitor is due to be dumped in 4 months... Then I will be DVI only...
-
I had configured UAE and winUAE on many machines from day one till now.
its a surprising experience to see how a heavily upgraded amiga works.
But emulation is always emulation, especially when trying to emulate DMA and synced chipsets on non DMA-asynchronous buffered chips. the sound latency is there, and even thought its hardly noticeable on games with appropriate config file, its still there..
try protracker or octamed and you will have a nerve breakdown!
From the other side you have a fast amiga with graphics and even sound card to play with.
JIT really make all things fly, but again, in some tasks, UAE is 20x faster and in some others is 10x slower, and that difference don't allow you to really feel as you are using a real amiga.
Ofcourse with proper configuration you can minimize that, but it never become perfect.
-
@StormLord
Well I use E-UAE on my Macbook Pro to run OctaMED... While E-UAE is not even close to the level of WinUAE, I do get Audio latency below 8ms, which as a professional musician is better than the minimum required for studio work... Where anything over 14ms is unusable...
So I stand by my statment that emulation is almost perfect. As pointed out, what we don't have anymore is low quality Display (TV) and Audio devices which cover up the flaws in the Amiga's outputs...
-
winUAE has been more than usefull on many occasions, from dumping a "known good" amiga install from an HD file to a compact flash cards attached via USB-IDE then IDE-CF adapters to creating backups, and setting up a fileserver with samba shares dishing out to any real amiga that can get to it. (much faster and more stable than a samba share off of a real amiga).
i won't be running out of VGA capable displays for a while. half the place i work for is currently going through administration, and there is the chance a stack load of NEC 1570nx monitors comming up for grabs. even pretty closely colour matched to "amiga white". perfect for an indivision attatched 1200 :-)
an indivision 500 and 4000 would be cool too :-D
-
My problem is EVERY time I managed to set up the proper configurations, e.g. games (it's all about games) were playable but the music was getting stalled every time on rapid pseudo processor's usage.
This sounds like you have not set speed to "MATCH A500 SPEED".
-
bloodline wrote:
@StormLord
...what we don't have anymore is low quality Display (TV) and Audio devices which cover up the flaws in the Amiga's outputs...
Have to agree there. I think when people see an old Amiga game at 320x200 on a 21.3" monitor, there like, WoW those are some big pixels! :-)
I use WinUAE and it's emulation is great. The only thing that I never could get to work before was one of the NewTek demos where it shows "4096 color Hi-Res" (on OCS) and it has the picture of the guys face closed up, well, the latest version of WinUAE show it perfectly now. So I guess it's WinUAE IS perfect now.
-
Well, listening to this testimonies makes me feel convinced, at least about WinUAE. For most people sound is not the issue (if there is an issue) so I can blame myself having, again, bad luck.
Actually I did try ALL the provided config files (i.e. from back2roots site), tried each on several games, also I manipulated with some options but... still got my ear aching.
So OK if we consider WinUAE as finest solution on Windows, can anybody claim that made some emulator work as fine on OS X for a change? I tried E-UAE, same story.
And I am really not a lamer computer user..
BTW talking about some emulation, I assume AmiKit and AmigaForever environments claim to perform better? Or am I just talking nonsense?
-
Quote:
The problem with emulating a computer is that there will always be latency. Usually this is most visible in sound.
I don't think so. Even if there was any latency I doubt any human can notice it.
Maybe I wasn't precise.
The problem with the sound is actually that it rraaapdly loops for a while, then gets back to its pace and time frame. I called it latency, I should have said echoing rather than that.
Sorry for this confusion.
-
BTW talking about some emulation, I assume AmiKit and AmigaForever environments claim to perform better? Or am I just talking nonsense?
Actually both AmiKit and Amiga Forever use WinUAE as its own emulation engine. More info here: http://amikit.amiga.sk/faq.htm
-
DiskDoctor wrote:
Quote:
The problem with emulating a computer is that there will always be latency. Usually this is most visible in sound.
I don't think so. Even if there was any latency I doubt any human can notice it.
Maybe I wasn't precise.
The problem with the sound is actually that it rraaapdly loops for a while, then gets back to its pace and time frame. I called it latency, I should have said echoing rather than that.
Sorry for this confusion.
Oh very odd! I suggest that you increase the priority of the Emulator, that sounds like the audio buffer isn't being filled in time.
-
DiskDoctor wrote:
BTW talking about some emulation, I assume AmiKit and AmigaForever environments claim to perform better? Or am I just talking nonsense?
No I don't think they claim better performance or anything.
Basically, AmigaForever is the same WinUAE we download. But it includes all the Kickstart ROMs, 1.0 to 3.1 (maybe 3.5 - 3.9) as well as all the disks for pretty much all the OSes. So Workbench 1.0 disk to a full set of Workbench 3.1 disks. (ADF format of course). It also comes with tons of games and it installs a "launcher" to choose from a huge list of games which in turn launches WinUAE with a specific config.
Now, AmiKit, you could think of like an image of someones Amiga Harddrive that has tons and tons of programs. You still need your own legal copy of Amiga Workbench and rom images (which the installer automatically adds to the HD image) It still just WinUAE, but your HD is now setup with 24bit drivers, AHI, and 1000s or programs. Makes it real easy to get into a high end Amiga setup. Great for people coming back to the Amiga and seeing how far we've come.
-
AmiKit wrote:
Actually both AmiKit and Amiga Forever uses WinUAE as its own emulation engine.
Sorry for me being so dull; actually it is because I'm trying to catch up with the news, started recently.
But also as I skimmed the AmiKit and AmigaForever www pages, my first impression was not "emulator with some feature pack"; I concluded it must be something else, yet similar...
-
if you have any problems setting winuae up on your own from a download, get amigaforever. it is an awesome package that takes 99% of the guesswork out of running an emulated amiga.
there are two sources of latency that you may notice but only if you are doing some pretty intense stuff with your emulated rig.
the first is frame rate. the amigas (and uaes ) chipsets are locked to the video frame. and there some things that break or dont work correctly if the frame rate is changed. for example with lower video modes you cant set your audio rate to 41khz because paula is locked to the video rate. it is limited to like 22khz or so, but if you change to 640 ntsc or 512pal modes you can set your audio higher.
where this becomes a problem is with the pcs video. your video card is probably scanning at somewhere between 70 and 120hz where the emulated amiga is locked to 30. 30 goes evenly into 120, but not 70, or 75 85 or many of the other refresh rates svga modes use.
that makes smooth scrolling amiga games look jumpy even if the pc is 1000times faster than an amiga simply because the frame rates arent divisable.
change your pcs video refresh to one divisible by the miggies frame rate and it will look much better.
the second latency problem is audio latency and also isnt winuaes fault. a midi stream has a long way to go between a midi (or other device) and the emulated amiga. there are decent sound cards out right now that are close to the 13ms latency mentioned, because of poorly written drivers etc. throw an emulation monkey wrench into the works and you wont even be close. many pc sequncing etc. software can test latency and time for it. as far as i know there is no way to do this with emulated amiga programs.
i used to use winuae for desktop stuff and dosfellow for games with very decent speed on a 333mhz k6-2 computer. it is very doable on any of todays computers
sorry for the book :roll:
-
Sometimes I've found that the audio drivers for UAE sometimes loop unnecessarily but if you run through the more processor consuming hardware sound emulation (in particular, not using AHI as an audio.device substitute), it should be better.
I run EUAE on my Intel Mac Mini and the HiToro GUI frontend. They work well together. Also, I've discovered that the AHI audio driver works as well under EUAE as WinUAE even though that isn't documented.
-
>by DiskDoctor on 2009/1/18 9:57:56
>Hello,
...
>Also, some time ago I encountered some post on some other forum stating that "no one has ever managed to re-create the original chipset as a Virtual Machine because it was SO PERFECT it is hardly possible if ever."
If you go by PC standard hardware, it is impossible to do the cycle-exact emulation of the Amiga. Now if you have some specialized PC hardware like a multi-channel audio card, sprite-based video card, digital joystick interface, PC w/HPET timers, etc. that are all superset of the hardware of your Amiga in every respect and have software that uses these directly (not through an API or buffered scheme), then it is possible.
>My problem is EVERY time I managed to set up the proper configurations, e.g. games (it's all about games) were playable but the music was getting stalled every time on rapid pseudo processor's usage.
>Classic Amiga music is crucial to me, something one might not accept unfidel.
From what I have read, emulators rely on buffering and do not do cycle-exact one-to-one mapping of the hardware; i.e, if I change the volume register of the Amiga dynamically at some set frequency based on Copper or IRQ, you can bet there will be latency or distortions in the emulation (without even trying it).
>Or maybe it is my fault because of not optimizing configuration set-up properly?
For some things, it does not matter how much you play with the configuration, it just won't work. For example, if you were relying heavily on joystick port for input or output via CIA chip ($BFE001/$BFD000) or $DFF00A/$DFF00C/$DFF036 to cause "fill-ins" for your music manually or controlled by another device, you can bet that using the PC Gameport or even USB version of joystick will give you inferior performance.
-
>by persia on 2009/1/18 10:38:43
>The various versions of UAE are almost technically perfect. That's what some complain about, 80's computer was clunky and a bit unstable, running an Amiga has always been a bit like building your own ultra lite aircraft, you were exposed to the environment and never knew when you would experience a crash...
Believe it or not, Amiga computers are stable-- it's the software on any machine that makes the computer look unstable. Early Windows were also crashing all the time; but now with memory protection, the crash is localized to the application running. I have plenty of software on Amiga that never crashes.
>Real Amigas are always on the edge of disaster, with cobbled together parts that were never meant to work together. They click, they pop, they wheeze. Experiencing an Amiga through the clean safety of a modern OS is somehow almost cheating.
If the emulator is cycle-exact, it should crash the emulated software just like the real amiga.
-
>by AmiKit on 2009/1/19 5:13:35
>Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>The problem with emulating a computer is that there will always be latency. Usually this is most visible in sound.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>I don't think so. Even if there was any latency I doubt any human can notice it.
There IS latency since they purposely introduced it in their buffering scheme so they get more time to translate from one machine to another. You will notice it -- it depends on the application and which hardware resources it uses.
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>You'll never get the complete Amiga look and feel via emulation, no matter how good UAE is.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Well, a simple Turing test denies your statement. http://www.amigaforever.com/tutorials/goodorbad/
That article is subjective (understandably) and flawed. You can also put a person who mostly does BASIC language programming in front of an Atari ST set up like an Amiga but that does not make an Atari ST an Amiga. There's no way to try all the possible applications that can be written for a machine. CPU power increasing over many years does not make all the other hardware automatically better. And if the emulation was 100% accurate on PC, there's no reason to use the emulation-- just get the PC version of the software which avoids the translation layer completely and get a more efficient result. It's easy enough to write a program that works on all OCS amigas but not on an emulator given the standard PC hardware.
-
That article is subjective...
lol, a human being IS subjective! And the Turing test, in this case, is about human perceiving. You did not get it.
-
If you go by PC standard hardware, it is impossible to do the cycle-exact emulation of the Amiga.
Hmmm, strange because I saw Cycle-Exact option in WinUAE/Chipset settings. In addition there's "100% accurate" sound emulation option in sound settings.
-
by AmigaHeretic on 2009/1/19 11:44:46
...
>I use WinUAE and it's emulation is great. The only thing that I never could get to work before was one of the NewTek demos where it shows "4096 color Hi-Res" (on OCS) and it has the picture of the guys face closed up, well, the latest version of WinUAE show it perfectly now. So I guess it's WinUAE IS perfect now.
I guess the earth is flat now-- I just looked out the window and saw in every direction I could.
-
by AmiKit on 2009/1/20 2:16:08
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That article is subjective...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>lol, a human being IS subjective! And the Turing test, in this case, is about human perceiving. You did not get it.
No, the URL you gave is stating much more than just someone being subjective.
-
by AmiKit on 2009/1/20 3:14:58
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you go by PC standard hardware, it is impossible to do the cycle-exact emulation of the Amiga.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Hmmm, strange because I saw Cycle-Exact option in WinUAE/Chipset settings. In addition there's "100% accurate" sound emulation option in sound settings.
I can also put many options in software that work partially or not at all. I don't follow blindly. You are not even giving experimental results what to speak of deductive logic of whether it's do-able on a particular hardware.
-
No, the URL you gave is stating much more than just someone being subjective.
I was referring to the Turing test paragraph only ("Amiga Feeling Can't Be Emulated"). It cannot be linked directly. Sorry.
-
I can also put many options in software that work partially or not at all. I don't follow blindly. You are not even giving experimental results what to speak of deductive logic of whether it's do-able on a particular hardware.
Experimental results? Lol, you still don't get it, do you? It is the subjective human perceiving that counts here. Not the small difference in exact numbers, voltage or whatever.
Look, I understand that from objective point of view the emulated Amiga on PC hardware is not Amiga. But my favourite games behave just like they behaved on my real Amiga. At least my impression is the same. So from MY point of view it IS Amiga. I really don't care about the PC HW that is under the desk, I don't care about cycle-exact issue or whatever. I don't need to do experimental HW research in order to increase my subjective impression of the game, etc. That's it.
--Jan
-
As is always the way, different people have different requirements.
For myself, I use UAE because it's a very good program. However, it is not and never will be perfect.
There is a latency in the UAE engine, there has to be - it's fundamental to the way it works. And for myself the combined latency of the sound, the graphics, and the input maybe be almost imperceptible, but I still feel the difference, and that's what's most important to me.
I'm lucky in as much as I have both a powerful WinUAE setup and also a beefed-up A4000 (CSPPC 060), but I can tell you I only really enjoy using one of them, even though they're both controlled by the same mouse/keyboard/monitor, and it's not the UAE.
-
@spirantho
Are we still talking about A500 games?
Even WHDLoad on a real machine (A1200 and better) can be considered as emulation when running A500 games - in strict point of view.
And for myself the combined latency of the sound, the graphics, and the input maybe be almost imperceptible, but I still feel the difference, and that's what's most important to me.
If those things are imperceptible, what makes the difference in your feelings? Just the knowledge that it is the emulation? If so, that is exactly what Turing test eliminated.
--Jan
-
I love using Amikit, as far as Amiga emulation goes it has to be the best I have used so far, blazingly fast compared to my Expanded 1200, no more waiting for this or that to open its fast, very fast.
The sound I have never had a problem, I can do far more with Amikit than I can with my 1200, Ok Amikit is not the real thing and never will be of course not well its an emulator after all, but it is the closest thing I have come across.
Lets face it the way the Amiga world is going the Amiga is pretty much finished, so a decent emulator has to be a good thing.
If only some one would get there fingure from out there bum concerning the Amiga we might just get some where.
So until that day comes its an emulator for me. for my real 1200 I do like to use it now and then for nostalgia.
I still must contributed to Amikit I said I would and so far I havent but now Christmas is out the way I can now give some thing.
I know some people will find things wrong with emulation, but over the time emulation has come a long way, it can only get better.
For me on a personal level its Amikit every time.
If only I could get a keyfile for Frogger that would be great.
Mike.
-
amigaksi wrote:
If you go by PC standard hardware, it is impossible to do the cycle-exact emulation of the Amiga.
I'd like to see you explain that statement. Emulation granularity is *not* dictated by hardware capabilities such as timers, sprites, multi-channel audio chips. Generally that's not how you solve these things, at least not in any of the emulators I've worked on.
-
shoggoth wrote:
amigaksi wrote:
If you go by PC standard hardware, it is impossible to do the cycle-exact emulation of the Amiga.
I'd like to see you explain that statement. Emulation granularity is *not* dictated by hardware capabilities such as timers, sprites, multi-channel audio chips. Generally that's not how you solve these things, at least not in any of the emulators I've worked on.
Ignore amigaski, he is more ilinformed than a British General during the First World war...
-
bloodline wrote:
Ignore amigaski, he is more ilinformed than a British General during the First World war...
Ah, ok that explains it. I'll try, but I might not be able to. My BS-o-meter just went off the scale.
-
KThunder wrote:
if you have any problems setting winuae up on your own from a download, get amigaforever. it is an awesome package that takes 99% of the
swift240 wrote:
I love using Amikit, as far as Amiga emulation goes it has to be the best I have used so far, blazingly fast compared to my Expanded 1200, no more waiting for this or that to open its fast, very fast.
This is why I want to have them both (for a case?), just wanted to be sure.
I wrote:
I assume AmiKit and AmigaForever environments claim to perform better?
So maybe that wasn't silly question to the hilt...
What is performance? Well once you have all things installed and properly set, AmiKit says the engine's the same - it should work exactly the same.
But when you're not sure about the setup (despite of trying hard), the take-it-out-of-the-box-and-play solutions might be considered working "better".
This is performance, too. Or maybe configuration is the issue here, too? As much complicated?
-
@DiskDoctor
Maybe the performance of the user? With AmiKit you can eg. unpack archives with simple drag&drop. This saves much time compared to the bare system which doesn't even have any unpacker program installed...
-
AmiKit wrote:
@DiskDoctor
Maybe the performance of the user? With AmiKit you can eg. unpack archives with simple drag&drop. This saves much time compared to the bare system which doesn't even have any unpacker program installed...
Well as far as I know a solution's performance one might think of as the level of usability, as compared to the level designed/deserved or some other solutions' level.
So performance is measured by a performance of the user actually. To the user.
This is all about making things easier; the main reason many people do not use Linuxes is that one needs significant effort (or knowledge or time) to get most stuff work on it, since Win and Mac versions seem causing no problems on installation and are always ready to use.
Users are not necessarily also computer geeks.
Or sometimes they simply do not want to be.
So, still, I claim some alternative distribution working fine without any extra set-up effort (RTFM? No thanks, I'll just step into another store) performs better, from any application's proper perspective - the user perspective.
-
>Experimental results? Lol, you still don't get it, do you? It is the subjective human perceiving that counts here. Not the small difference in exact numbers, voltage or whatever.
Okay, if you can live with the inaccuracies of those softwares you are using the emulator for, great. But it does not take away from the FACTs that some software won't work given those inaccuracies and other humans can perceive differences where you may not. Some people I know think the lossy MP3 is same as 16-bit lossless linear audio CDs. They may live with it, but objectively studied-- you can compare the original digitized wave file to the audio CD and MP3 file and show the distortions caused by MP3.
>Look, I understand that from objective point of view the emulated Amiga on PC hardware is not Amiga. But my favourite games behave just like they behaved on my real Amiga. At least my impression is the same. So from MY point of view it IS Amiga. I really don't care about the PC HW that is under the desk, I don't care about cycle-exact issue or whatever. I don't need to do experimental HW research in order to increase my subjective impression of the game, etc. That's it.
You are studying a small sample only. I can write software where even YOU will notice a difference.
-
>by AmiKit on 2009/1/20 5:29:32
>@spirantho
>Are we still talking about A500 games?
>Even WHDLoad on a real machine (A1200 and better) can be considered as emulation when running A500 games - in strict point of view.
But there's a big difference. AGA is a superset of the OCS hardware (and backward compatible). You can write software for OCS that works fine on AGA w/o modifications. It's just that some software used the CPU for timing or called OS routines at absolute locations or something like that which you need adjust to make them compatible.
>If those things are imperceptible, what makes the difference in your feelings? Just the knowledge that it is the emulation? If so, that is exactly what Turing test eliminated.
>--Jan
You can tell certain differences if you are really addicted to a game and know its nuances rather than if you just played it once or twice or just saw it. Audio and Video is not the only thing of our experience, subtle timings also is in our experience which you seem to be throwing under the "subjective" catagory. And even for a buffered 60Hz display, if you don't properly sync up the frames to the same VBlanking used by Amiga, you can notice the 1/60 difference. And for audio, it's much higher frequency that one can notice.
-
@amigaksi
...humans can perceive differences where you may not.
Exactly... wait a sec, does it mean I am not a human? ;-) Just kidding.
Some people I know think the lossy MP3 is same as 16-bit lossless linear audio CDs.
You mix the knowledge and the experience. If they cannot differentiate between lossy MP3 and WAV, in their world lossy MP3 is OK. No need for "objective" studies.
You are studying a small sample only.
Yep, but it doesn't mean it's bad. Seems we're getting to the core finally. While you're talking about nomothetic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomothetic) approach I am talking about ipsative or individual approach. Now the question is what approach is more suitable when talking about emulated games. I think that with regards to the impression of the game the INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE is more important than subtle differences in video, sound or timing (if there are any, of course).
You can tell certain differences if you are really addicted to a game and know its nuances rather than if you just played it once or twice or just saw it. Audio and Video is not the only thing of our experience, subtle timings also is in our experience which you seem to be throwing under the "subjective" catagory. And even for a buffered 60Hz display, if you don't properly sync up the frames to the same VBlanking used by Amiga, you can notice the 1/60 difference. And for audio, it's much higher frequency that one can notice.
If there really is any 1/60 difference then the fact whether the human can notice or not depends on the intensity of the original value. This is called Weber-Fechner law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weber%E2%80%93Fechner_law). Needles to say that such a 1/60 difference, even though noticed, won't affect your game experience at all. It objectively affects your measurement device only.
I can write software where even YOU will notice a difference.
That would be interesting.
-
>by AmiKit on 2009/1/21 5:56:17
>>@amigaksi
>>...humans can perceive differences where you may not.
>Exactly... wait a sec, does it mean I am not a human? Just kidding.
There was the word "other" before humans. People addicted to a game (or application) get used to the audio/video/timing so what they did not perceive initially they perceive later. And with MP3, it's similar-- if you show them the distortions by selecting the appropriate parts of the wave and original wave and playing them one after another, they can notice the difference. So it's not a constant.
>>Some people I know think the lossy MP3 is same as 16-bit lossless linear audio CDs.
>You mix the knowledge and the experience. If they cannot differentiate between lossy MP3 and WAV, in their world lossy MP3 is OK. No need for "objective" studies.
Yes, there is. When people create a product they are targetting the general populace with various interests/levels of perception. You have to take an objective approach although different people may have different levels of requirements.
>>You are studying a small sample only.
>Yep, but it doesn't mean it's bad. Seems we're getting to the core finally. While you're talking about nomothetic approach I am talking about ipsative or individual approach. Now the question is what approach is more suitable when talking about emulated games. I think that with regards to the impression of the game the INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE is more important than subtle differences in video, sound or timing (if there are any, of course).
There is a difference so let's not put that into doubt as we only need to show one example to prove they are different. And we already know the latency is purposely there. What you need to do is change the "the" in front of "the INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE" to "MY". "The" would imply an objective approach.
>If there really is any 1/60 difference then the fact whether the human can notice or not depends on the intensity of the original value. This is called Weber-Fechner law. Needles to say that such a 1/60 difference, even though noticed, won't affect your game experience at all. It objectively affects your measurement device only.
Sorry, it does not depend on any "intensity". It's not so vague. Just move a screen large object a few pixels every 1/60 of a second. So if you are in 320*240 mode, say you can move object 320 pixels in 2 seconds. Well, if your emulator does not know when that position changes, 1 frame will show part of the object moving and another frame will show the rest of the object.
>>I can write software where even YOU will notice a difference.
>That would be interesting.
Not "would be". It is already existing.
-
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/20 11:33:18
>>amigaksi wrote:
>>If you go by PC standard hardware, it is impossible to >>do the cycle-exact emulation of the Amiga.
>I'd like to see you explain that statement. Emulation granularity is *not* dictated by hardware capabilities such as timers, sprites, multi-channel audio chips. Generally that's not how you solve these things, at least not in any of the emulators I've worked on.
It's good to have conversations and learn things but when you start insulting and poking fun at the other party, that "learning" experience goes away and it's more to do with biased emotional sentiments.
Accurate emulation depends on hardware capabilities. I'll explain it further if I feel like it.
-
amigaksi wrote:
It's good to have conversations and learn things but when you start insulting and poking fun at the other party, that "learning" experience goes away and it's more to do with biased emotional sentiments.
No, you're making false statements, and you don't appreciate when people correct them.
If I do have a bias, it favours amiga and other machines of that era. I appreciate the complexity and capabilities of these machines, but I don't let that blind me or prevent me from accepting technology today.
I claim that you have decided that these machines cannot be emulated accurately, based on wrongful assumptions about how emulators work internally. For that reason, I've explained how they work. If you don't want to accept that, you're simply rejecting reality in favour of your wrongful assumptions.
Accurate emulation depends on hardware capabilities. I'll explain it further if I feel like it.
No, it does not. You need enough CPU power, that's it. You don't need high resolution timers or any of the other stuff you've stated.
Marat Fayzullin has written a simple yet very informative tutorial about writing computer emulators. You can find it here: http://fms.komkon.org/EMUL8/HOWTO.html
Marat is well known for his work. If you look at his source code, or the source code of 95% of the emulators on the net, you'll find that they do *not* rely on timers nor special hardware capabilities to ensure cycle accuracy. They do so by interleaving the code for each emulated subsystem. In the case timers are used, it's generally to throttle emulation so that it does not run too fast, or to skip frames to maintain speed.
-
@DiskDoctor
I see you mention Amiga OS4.x in a few of your posts in this topic. I appologise if youre aware of the following, but just incase youre not there are a few things to be aware of. Firstly OS4.x wont run on any current emulator. Id be surprised if this didnt change in time, but I wouldnt hold my breath for it. Also in regards to the emulator built into OS4.x, it will only work for system friendly software. Ninety plus percent of old classic games simply wont work and will require running E-UAE ontop of OS4.x to get them working, which unfortunately isnt the best experience. Lack of both hardware power and jit cpu emulation makes even ocs/ecs software very sluggish on a Sam440 system (to a point of being next to useless in my opinion). Some of the A1 systems fare a little better, and will let you play a good portion of ocs/ecs games at a reasonable speed if you set it to skip a frame or 2 (and some stuff without frameskip). Very few AGA games however are usable on any of the current PPC/OS4.x systems ("usable" however is probably a little bit of personal taste, and some people may be happy with disabling sound and jerky movement). 68k software that doesnt directly hit custom chipset (mostly apps, but some of the more recent 68k amiga games too) will generally run quite nicely though, even on a Sam440.
-
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/22 8:11:28
>No, you're making false statements, and you don't appreciate when people correct them.
That's a false statement. Claiming that cycle-accurate should mean 1/7.16Mhz timing accuracy on OCS Amiga is false right? Perhaps, your term is misleading others-- care to think of it that way?
>If I do have a bias, it favours amiga and other machines of that era. I appreciate the complexity and capabilities of these machines, but I don't let that blind me or prevent me from accepting technology today.
I never said technology today should not be accepted.
>I claim that you have decided that these machines cannot be emulated accurately, based on wrongful assumptions about how emulators work internally. For that reason, I've explained how they work. If you don't want to accept that, you're simply rejecting reality in favour of your wrongful assumptions.
Based on facts about hardware of target platform and source platform (Amiga), I made my statements-- I can verify all my statements. I have nothing to gain by speculating something imaginary nor are you stating what those "wrongful assumptions" are.
>>Accurate emulation depends on hardware capabilities. I'll explain it further if I feel like it.
>No, it does not.
Yes, it does. See below.
>You need enough CPU power, that's it. You don't need high resolution timers or any of the other stuff you've stated.
Regardless, of how fast your CPU is, it won't make your beep speaker (1-bit resolution) do 4-channel 16-bit 44Khz audio. Regardless if your CPU is Pentium IV at 4Ghz, it won't improve your timers. And you can't time things equally or better with 1.19Mhz timer vs. a 3.57Mhz timer-- just seems to be violating some laws.
>Marat Fayzullin has written a simple yet very informative tutorial about writing computer emulators. You can find it here: http://fms.komkon.org/EMUL8/HOWTO.html
He is claiming any computer can be emulated because he defines "emulate" as an ATTEMPT to imitate the target machine. That means, you should also accept: Atari ST can emulate Amiga, Atari 800 can emulate Pentium IV dual core, Apple I can emulate the MAC II, etc.
-
A Pentium 4 is yesterday's technology, Core2 and Quad Core Xeons are the processors of today. I've qot a pair of Quad Core Xeons in my machine...
-
amigaksi wrote:
Regardless, of how fast your CPU is, it won't make your beep speaker (1-bit resolution) do 4-channel 16-bit 44Khz audio. Regardless if your CPU is Pentium IV at 4Ghz, it won't improve your timers. And you can't time things equally or better with 1.19Mhz timer vs. a 3.57Mhz timer-- just seems to be violating some laws.
On my nice new 2.8Ghz Core2Duo, UAE uses ~12% of my CPU when emulating an A500 using the most accurate, most compatible settings... the video and audio are perfect...
Put it another way, it doesn't matter about timers, the Emulator is able to complete all required operations and then spend 88% of it's time just waiting to run the next cycle...
No matter how you try and spin it, a 2.8Ghz CPU can easily accommodate the 28Mhz system of the Amiga.
-
by amigaksi on 2009/1/22 12:25:08
That's a false statement. Claiming that cycle-accurate should mean 1/7.16Mhz timing accuracy on OCS Amiga is false right?
No, cycle accuracy at 1/7.Mhz granularity is perfectly possible without using timers. Get those timers out of your head.
Based on facts about hardware of target platform and source platform (Amiga)
... based on facts about hardware - but not based on how emulators actually work. You've *assumed* that they work in a certain way using timers - which they generally don't (because it would be completely retarded to do it that way).
Regardless, of how fast your CPU is, it won't make your beep speaker (1-bit resolution) do 4-channel 16-bit 44Khz audio.
Now you're just being silly. Of course you need a soundcard to get proper sound. That wasn't the point - we were discussing emulation accuracy.
Regardless if your CPU is Pentium IV at 4Ghz, it won't improve your timers. And you can't time things equally or better with 1.19Mhz timer vs. a 3.57Mhz timer-- just seems to be violating some laws.
Drop timers. You don't use timers to achieve accurate emulation. That's *in* your *head*. You've chosen to compare this aspect of computers because it suits your ideas, obviously.
He is claiming any computer can be emulated because he defines "emulate" as an ATTEMPT to imitate the target machine. That means, you should also accept: Atari ST can emulate Amiga, Atari 800 can emulate Pentium IV dual core, Apple I can emulate the MAC II, etc.
LOL! So by this you claim that Marat Fayzullin has no idea what he's talking about? :-D Do you know who this guy is?
"... as an ATTEMPT to imitate" - well that's *exactly* what emulation is. And emulation accuracy is defined by compatibility and perceived user experience. Both which can be realized on any PC today. If you ignore the latter, even a ZX81 can accurately emulate a modern quad core x86 class machine, given enough time and memory.
I'll try to refrain from further comments now, since there is no point in discussing a topic such as this one with you. You're either incredibly ignorant or trolling, or both.
-
@ shoggoth
&@ amigaksi
Guys guys.
Theoretically, given enough speed, say some 10^[original processor speed] x each unit (CPU, graphic etc) one might emulate everything. Hardware or software, it's a manner of coding efficiency, nothing else (except core I/O).
Old Amigas were excellences, though nothing divine. Sure it is theoretically possible to re-create this. But I do not think it is doable on the current PC stuff especially with all WinLinMac stars as middleware... Nowadays, like software (OS), like hardware.
I was always a critic of this all PC/Mac (maybe less Mac) TB/PHz World of Waste and Pathos. Just compare the figures with efficiency. 20 years ago I would have said... ill... That's why I will NEVER leave Amiga.
This post's purpose was to put the point "UAE works everywhere" in question as I can sense it. The issue is rather... what if not? why? what then?
I'm thinking that good idea would be mixing Linux with UAE so that it makes a standalone bootable Amiga-like environment, DEDICATED to the PC hardware. Is it so hard to shed all unnecessary (95%) linux tasks and reinforce the rest with core Amiga emulation functions?? There are so many Linuxes, why not Aminux for a change?
What do you think?
-
What you're talking about has already been done. It's called Amithlon. Works very well on older hardware.
-
ferrellsl wrote:
What you're talking about has already been done. It's called Amithlon. Works very well on older hardware.
But isn't it like discontinued now? If I can get it, working, I'm ready do pay much.
-
It was once a commercial product but is no longer being developed. You can find torrents for it on the net. It has a fairly active user group on Yahoo and several people still work on updating the linux kernel and hardware drivers.
-
ferrellsl wrote:
It was once a commercial product but is no longer being developed. You can find torrents for it on the net. It has a fairly active user group on Yahoo and several people still work on updating the linux kernel and hardware drivers.
So provided that I get sufficient PC hardware (buy tomorrow), can I use it? Can you drop me a link?
***
BTW I should have mentioned previously MiniMig and NatAmi (soon?) are, too, classic emulators. If I wanted NEW A500, I'd probably get one since hardware emulation is always best I can trust (BTW I am seriously interested in benchmarking both Amis, once NatA released...)
-
I ran it on a P-III at 800Mhz and it flew!
Here's a link for it on the bay.
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3753842/AmigaOS_Amithlon_for_x86
-
Oh, man...
By saying "get" it, I meant buy it...
*EDIT PIII doesn't make it work now.
Nice project, though.
Fortunately nowadays PC hardware (e.g. graphics) is less diverse, so maybe some time...
-
amigaksi wrote:
>by DiskDoctor on 2009/1/18 9:57:56
>Hello,
...
>Also, some time ago I encountered some post on some other forum stating that "no one has ever managed to re-create the original chipset as a Virtual Machine because it was SO PERFECT it is hardly possible if ever."
If you go by PC standard hardware, it is impossible to do the cycle-exact emulation of the Amiga. Now if you have some specialized PC hardware like a multi-channel audio card, sprite-based video card, digital joystick interface, PC w/HPET timers, etc. that are all superset of the hardware of your Amiga in every respect and have software that uses these directly (not through an API or buffered scheme), then it is possible.
(SNIP)
To have design for Windows Vista logo on PCs, the PC must have HPET timers.
Refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb931844.aspx
-
Regardless, of how fast your CPU is, it won't make your beep speaker (1-bit resolution) do 4-channel 16-bit 44Khz audio. Regardless if your CPU is Pentium IV at 4Ghz, it won't improve your timers. And you can't time things equally or better with 1.19Mhz timer vs. a 3.57Mhz timer-- just seems to be violating some laws.
Just look for Vista logos on PCs for HPET(high performance event timing) aka MMT(mutimedia timing).
-
@amigaski
Just for your info, the HPET is a 64bit, 10Mhz Timer...
-
bloodline wrote:
@amigaski
Just for your info, the HPET is a 64bit, 10Mhz Timer...
Does AROS use HPET?
-
Hammer wrote:
bloodline wrote:
@amigaski
Just for your info, the HPET is a 64bit, 10Mhz Timer...
Does AROS use HPET?
No, IIRC AROS uses the millisecond timer, and generates a fake VBL at 50Hz :-)
-
DiskDoctor wrote:
Oh, man...
By saying "get" it, I meant buy it...
*EDIT PIII doesn't make it work now.
Nice project, though.
Fortunately nowadays PC hardware (e.g. graphics) is less diverse, so maybe some time...
The GPU race is basically down to NVIDIA, AMD/ATI and Intel.
Tsang Labs = Gone. Assimilated by AMD/ATI
SIS = insignificant.
3DFX = Gone. Assimilated by NVIDIA.
PowerVR = insignificant in desktop market
S3 = insignificant.
3Dlabs = insignificant. Its software engineering teams assimilated by Intel (for Larrabee).
Pricey IBM’s CELL BE has the potential to enter PC GPU race.
http://www.mc.com/uploadedFiles/Cell-accelerator-board-2-ds.pdf
Pixelshading on CELL BE (PS3)
http://research.scea.com/ps3_deferred_shading.pdf
-
@DiskDoctor
It's no longer sold in stores and I doubt that anyone will resurrect it for commercial purposes....just not enough demand.
I suppose if you're insisting on paying for it, you might find a copy on E-Bay, but it will be terribly out of date. The torrent version has been updated to a much more recent kernel and updated video and network drivers as well.
I ran it on a P-III. It also runs on the latest processors too. You can run in on whatever x86 system you want. I really don't care.
-
@amigaksi
There is a difference so let's not put that into doubt as we only need to show one example to prove they are different. And we already know the latency is purposely there.
What is this discussion about actually? While you are still pointing at the subtle and objective difference between real and emulated game, I am saying it doesn't matter.
Let's say I admit that the difference exists. But from the subjective point of view the result is the same, because:
1) the difference is subtle
2a) the difference is hardly noticeable by human perceiving
2b) even though the difference is noticeable, it won't affect your game experience or a whole enjoyment of the game because of what is mentioned in 1).
Yes, you can train people to identify those subtle differences but why would you do that? Just to be a winner who can say: "I told you there was a difference!". And I would say: "I don't care, let me play."
What I am trying to say here is that human perceiving works differently compared to precise computers. For example Gestalt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology) says that:
"...the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is different from the sum of its parts. The Gestalt effect refers to the form-forming capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves."
Sorry but in such a context the subtle differences between real and emulated game are simply irrelevant.
I can write software where even YOU will notice a difference.
That would be interesting.
Not "would be". It is already existing.
Link please?
-
>by AmiKit on 2009/1/24 4:44:21
>@amigaksi
>>There is a difference so let's not put that into doubt as we only need to show one example to prove they are different. And we already know the latency is purposely there.
>What is this discussion about actually? While you are still pointing at the subtle and objective difference between real and emulated game, I am saying it doesn't matter.
I was pointing out that differences exist even in cases where YOU did not perceive them. I gave you the example of MP3 vs. linear uncompressed audio. But the small differences is not the entire story. Major differences also exist depending on target hardware used by emulator and it's spec.
>Let's say I admit that the difference exists. But from the subjective point of view the result is the same, because:
>1) the difference is subtle
>2a) the difference is hardly noticeable by human perceiving
>2b) even though the difference is noticeable, it won't affect your game experience or a whole enjoyment of the game because of what is mentioned in 1).
No, the difference is "subtle" for YOU that's why you don't notice it unless YOU are trained. As I stated, some people like some musicians can easily notice difference between MP3/uncompressed 16-bit audio. Objectively, you can measure the difference and that approach has to be taken since YOU are not the only user.
>Yes, you can train people to identify those subtle differences but why would you do that? Just to be a winner who can say: "I told you there was a difference!". And I would say: "I don't care, let me play."
No, I already win even if I accept you don't notice any differences since it's better to have real Amiga that works 100% for everyone than an emulator which is good for some games for some people.
>"...the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is different from the sum of its parts. The Gestalt effect refers to the form-forming capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves."
That's true but it actually supports me. Emulator is not an Amiga as a whole although some parts (like the static visual output) look the same.
>>I can write software where even YOU will notice a difference.
>>Not "would be". It is already existing.
>Link please?
I can post source code or an ADF to a sample code I wrote. I don't have a record of everyone else's work.
-
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/23 3:51:30
>>by amigaksi on 2009/1/22 12:25:08
>>That's a false statement. Claiming that cycle-accurate should mean 1/7.16Mhz timing accuracy on OCS Amiga is false right?
>No, cycle accuracy at 1/7.Mhz granularity is perfectly possible without using timers. Get those timers out of your head.
This is where we differ and you also differ from others who also claim you need higher precision timers than just a 60Hz WM_TIMER message. I won't be getting timers out of my head since my work is mostly timing stuff. I time stuff through the I/O ports in interfacing between Ataris/Amigas/PCs. Here your WM_TIMER bullcrap won't cut it nor your updating frames at 60Hz be enough. But I am trying to give you cases where this I/O is not involved since everyone knows that's not emulated.
>... based on facts about hardware - but not based on how emulators actually work. You've *assumed* that they work in a certain way using timers - which they generally don't (because it would be completely retarded to do it that way).
Again that's your flawed idea. You can make the emulators cycle-exact if you had an interrupt of 1/7.16Mhz accuracy and did everything cycle at a time instead of frame at a time which is only makes it "visually" appear the same except for the VBI not being in sync with WM_TIMER difference.
>>Regardless, of how fast your CPU is, it won't make your beep speaker (1-bit resolution) do 4-channel 16-bit 44Khz audio.
>Now you're just being silly. Of course you need a soundcard to get proper sound. That wasn't the point - we were discussing emulation accuracy.
Emulation-- to equal or excel in my dictionary. That means you have to equal or excel in every catagory including audio (DAC output/music/dynamic effects/etc.), video (color depth/sprites/blitter/etc.), timing, reading joystick ports (for games), etc.
>>Regardless if your CPU is Pentium IV at 4Ghz, it won't improve your timers. And you can't time things equally or better with 1.19Mhz timer vs. a 3.57Mhz timer-- just seems to be violating some laws.
>Drop timers. You don't use timers to achieve accurate emulation. That's *in* your *head*. You've chosen to compare this aspect of computers because it suits your ideas, obviously.
If your defintion of emulation means "an ATTEMPT" to mimic the target machine, yeah you can drop timers. Otherwise, you should drop your ideas that you only need CPU speed to emulate any machine.
>LOL! So by this you claim that Marat Fayzullin has no idea what he's talking about? Do you know who this guy is?
>"... as an ATTEMPT to imitate" - well that's *exactly* what emulation is. And emulation accuracy is defined by compatibility and perceived user experience. Both which can be realized on any PC today. If you ignore the latter, even a ZX81 can accurately emulate a modern quad core x86 class machine, given enough time and memory.
Okay, as long as you stick to this definition.
>I'll try to refrain from further comments now, since there is no point in discussing a topic such as this one with you. You're either incredibly ignorant or trolling, or both.
Your the one who keeps insulting and making straw man arguments like I am claiming "not accepting technology" or "Amigas can never be emulated" or "their divinity is preventing them from being emulated". Your taking them out of context.
-
Everyone notices the lag and/or slowness of WinUAE when playing Total Chaos AGA. I know because I am the one who has to listen to their zillions of complaints.
Everyone notices when games and utils crash while JIT is on.
Many people, such as myself, notice the laggy input when emulating AGA. If you own a fearsomely powerful bgcPC, there is always a delay of 1/50th second or more when moving the mouse or typing. Its quite annoying. If you own a "regular" bgcPC the delay is more, around 3/50th of a second or more. Really unusable.
This is why I am rewriting the game and porting it to WinUAE.
-
>by DiskDoctor on 2009/1/23 14:18:58
>@ shoggoth
>&@ amigaksi
...
>Old Amigas were excellences, though nothing divine. Sure it is theoretically possible to re-create this. But I do not think it is doable on the current PC stuff especially with all WinLinMac stars as middleware... Nowadays, like software (OS), like hardware.
...
I mostly agree but it's hard to assume it's "nothing divine" without some further evidence.
About using stand-alone boot-able Amiga that uses the hardware resources directly-- that would be a better approach.
-
>by Hammer on 2009/1/23 15:30:49
amigaksi wrote:
>>by DiskDoctor on 2009/1/18 9:57:56
>>Hello,
...
>>Also, some time ago I encountered some post on some other forum stating that "no one has ever managed to re-create the original chipset as a Virtual Machine because it was SO PERFECT it is hardly possible if ever."
>>>If you go by PC standard hardware, it is impossible to do the cycle-exact emulation of the Amiga. Now if you have some specialized PC hardware like a multi-channel audio card, sprite-based video card, digital joystick interface, PC w/HPET timers, etc. that are all superset of the hardware of your Amiga in every respect and have software that uses these directly (not through an API or buffered scheme), then it is possible.
(SNIP)
>To have design for Windows Vista logo on PCs, the PC must have HPET timers.
>Refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb931844.aspx
Someone declaring a standard is different from being a standard (in reality). I can declare the new timing standard for Amigas is 28.6363Mhz not 3.579545Mhz but that does not mean everyone has it. By standard PC hardware, I mean you go to almost anyone's home and they have that hardware. The 1.19Mhz timer is there in every PC.
I can offer some upgrade h/w that uses the 28.6363Mhz crystal on the Amiga MB and uses it to increment some register but it's specialized hardware. Perhaps, I can get Microsoft to declare it an Amiga standard.
-
>... based on facts about hardware - but not based on how emulators actually work. You've *assumed* that they work in a certain way using timers - which they generally don't (because it would be completely retarded to do it that way).
Again that's your flawed idea. You can make the emulators cycle-exact if you had an interrupt of 1/7.16Mhz accuracy and did everything cycle at a time instead of frame at a time which is only makes it "visually" appear the same except for the VBI not being in sync with WM_TIMER difference.
The term "cycle accurate" doesn't dictate the actual cycle duration. I've never claimed it did. What it means is that the state each subsystem is accurate on the cycle level - which have *nothing* to do with real time.
You're talking about timing. I'm talking about synchronization at the cycle level. That's not the same thing at all. You've got the definition for cycle accurate wrong, clearly.
>Drop timers. You don't use timers to achieve accurate emulation. That's *in* your *head*. You've chosen to compare this aspect of computers because it suits your ideas, obviously.
If your defintion of emulation means "an ATTEMPT" to mimic the target machine, yeah you can drop timers. Otherwise, you should drop your ideas that you only need CPU speed to emulate any machine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulator
Download the sources of some modern emulators and see how they work. They'll confirm my statements. Ah - oh now I remember - you didn't want to do that. You said you had nothing to gain by doing so. Right.
This is like discussing colour with a blind person. You don't know the fundamentals, yet you keep discussing them. You have your own definitions, and even though they differ greatly from that of the rest of the world you stick to them. You've seen a piece of the puzzle and somehow think that's enough to get the whole picture. I'll try to stop myself from answering any more of your posts, because you won't understand the message anyway. I think we've proved that several times now.
@bloodline
- I get it now. Thanks.
-
>by shoggoth on 2009/1/24 9:08:25
>>Again that's your flawed idea. You can make the emulators cycle-exact if you had an interrupt of 1/7.16Mhz accuracy and did everything cycle at a time instead of frame at a time which is only makes it "visually" appear the same except for the VBI not being in sync with WM_TIMER difference.
>The term "cycle accurate" doesn't dictate the actual cycle duration. I've never claimed it did. What it means is that the state each subsystem is accurate on the cycle level - which have *nothing* to do with real time.
Okay, so both words emulator and cycle-exact are different for both of us. I am going by emulator defintion in dictionary and cycle accurate or cycle-exact to be 1/7.16Mhz for Amiga OCS.
>Download the sources of some modern emulators and see how they work. They'll confirm my statements. Ah - oh now I remember - you didn't want to do that. You said you had nothing to gain by doing so. Right.
...
And the reason for that is deductive. If you can't take some application on Amiga and make it on a PC as efficiently using it's native hardware, then it can't be done using an emulator regardless of how many millions of source code lines you show me.
-
>by Hammer on 2009/1/23 15:48:42
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>bloodline wrote:
@amigaski
>Just for your info, the HPET is a 64bit, 10Mhz Timer...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Does AROS use HPET?
10Mhz, that's all? I thought the spec was for 14.318Mhz or higher. 10Mhz could be problematic as Amiga is using NTSC frequencies and not being evenly divisible by them would pose a problem in this case.
-
@amigaksi
amigaksi said:
I was pointing out that differences exist even in cases where YOU did not perceive them.
And I accepted what you said if you did not notice. The point is somewhere else but I won't explain it to you ONCE AGAIN.
amigaksi said:
Major differences also exist depending on target hardware used by emulator and it's spec.
Sorry, but your knowledge about how emulation works was put in question here in this thread...
amigaksi said:
No, the difference is "subtle" for YOU that's why you don't notice it unless YOU are trained.
Seems you still don't get it.
amigaksi said:
I can write software where even YOU will notice a difference.
AmiKit said:
That would be interesting
amigaksi said:
Not "would be". It is already existing.
AmiKit said:
Link please?
amigaksi said:
I can post source code or an ADF to a sample code I wrote.
Yes, please. Or should I ask you for it for the fourth time?
amigaksi said:
No, I already win even if I accept you don't notice any differences since it's better to have real Amiga that works 100% for everyone than an emulator which is good for some games for some people.
Sure :roll:
AmiKit said:
"...the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is different from the sum of its parts. The Gestalt effect refers to the form-forming capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves."
Sorry but in such a context the subtle differences between real and emulated game are simply irrelevant.
amigaksi said:
That's true but it actually supports me. Emulator is not an Amiga as a whole although some parts (like the static visual output) look the same.
You did not understand it at all.
Well, I will refrain from further discussion with you as it seems it's useless. Your capacity or will to hear and understand is too low. Bye.
-
persia wrote:
Real Amigas are always on the edge of disaster, with cobbled together parts that were never meant to work together. They click, they pop, they wheeze. Experiencing an Amiga through the clean safety of a modern OS is somehow almost cheating.
Funny that you say that. My experience has been the opposite. I have had a number of "modern" systems die on me (probably all made in China), while my old Amigas keep running after decades. The only exception was when I tinkered with and destroyed an Amiga myself!
-
amigaksi wrote:
>by Hammer on 2009/1/23 15:48:42
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>bloodline wrote:
@amigaski
>Just for your info, the HPET is a 64bit, 10Mhz Timer...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Does AROS use HPET?
10Mhz, that's all? I thought the spec was for 14.318Mhz or higher. 10Mhz could be problematic as Amiga is using NTSC frequencies and not being evenly divisible by them would pose a problem in this case.
Every PC has always had a 1.193182Mhz timer, this is 1 third the NTSC colourburst...
But most Video cards have a VBL interrupt, and UAE allows you to sync the emulator to a real Video card VBL... I don't see how it could be any more perfect than that...
-
Since I don't access to a REAL AMIGA, I legally emulate
an Amiga using Amiga Forever 2008. It does the job, plus all the games I can play. I run AF2008 on an eeepc 4gb.
-
>>10Mhz, that's all? I thought the spec was for 14.318Mhz or higher. 10Mhz could be problematic as Amiga is using NTSC frequencies and not being evenly divisible by them would pose a problem in this case.
>Every PC has always had a 1.193182Mhz timer, this is 1 third the NTSC colourburst...
>But most Video cards have a VBL interrupt, and UAE allows you to sync the emulator to a real Video card VBL... I don't see how it could be any more perfect than that...
For frame rate, it may be good approximation, but there's other things going on in the system than video running at 60Hz. And even the video is subject to latency and phase shifts. Sure it could be better if every cycle was a real Amiga cycle in time.
-
>>by AmiKit on 2009/1/24 10:19:52
@amigaksi
>>I was pointing out that differences exist even in cases where YOU did not perceive them.
>And I accepted what you said if you did not notice. The point is somewhere else but I won't explain it to you ONCE AGAIN.
Okay.
>>Major differences also exist depending on target hardware used by emulator and it's spec.
>Sorry, but your knowledge about how emulation works was put in question here in this thread...
Definition was being debated. I also put the shape of the earth into question earlier in this thread so what's the big deal if someone is questioning. You and many others perceive the earth as flat but what's the reality?
>Seems you still don't get it.
I get it. You see things as a whole not parts so when the video is out of phase or has latency with respect to audio, timers, etc. you will notice it.
>>Not "would be". It is already existing.
>Link please?
>>I can post source code or an ADF to a sample code I ...
>Yes, please. Or should I ask you for it for the fourth time?
I can't find where you asked 3 times. I currently have it as a bin file that loads at absolute location $10000 so I need to convert it to ADF so it boots up. It works consistently on OCS, ECS, and AGA.
>"...the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is different from the sum of its parts. The Gestalt effect refers to the form-forming capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves."
>Sorry but in such a context the subtle differences between real and emulated game are simply irrelevant.
>>That's true but it actually supports me. Emulator is not an Amiga as a whole although some parts (like the static visual output) look the same.
>You did not understand it at all.
You apply the same principle to a flat earth. I rather have a perfectly working "whole" with audio/video/timing all exact.
>[insults deleted]
-
WTF!!!! where have all my posts gone? How frustrating! :-x
amigaksi wrote:
>>10Mhz, that's all? I thought the spec was for 14.318Mhz or higher. 10Mhz could be problematic as Amiga is using NTSC frequencies and not being evenly divisible by them would pose a problem in this case.
>Every PC has always had a 1.193182Mhz timer, this is 1 third the NTSC colourburst...
>But most Video cards have a VBL interrupt, and UAE allows you to sync the emulator to a real Video card VBL... I don't see how it could be any more perfect than that...
For frame rate, it may be good approximation, but there's other things going on in the system than video running at 60Hz. And even the video is subject to latency and phase shifts. Sure it could be better if every cycle was a real Amiga cycle in time.
The human is refreshed at (on a PAL Amiga) 50 times a second... Or once every 25ms. As longs as the real Amiga and the emulator refresh the human at the same rate, there is no difference between the two systems WRT to the human. On both a real Amiga and the emulator a large chunk of time is just spent waiting for the VBI... So it doesn't matter which system waits the longest...
-
I recently purchased Amiga Forever 2008 Premium. It has totally got me back into the Amiga. I have thrown everything at it, Octamed, Opus4, Donkey Kong, Newtek Demos, CD32 games like Morph, bubba n stix. I have made dms images of my floppies and you can play it right there. My hat is off to the authors that they have done an excellent job. They only thing I haven't tried is games that do not use the AMiga OS. I have to figure out how to make images to play them.
I run it on my AMD Quad Core under Windows XP. I highly recommend this product. It makes running old software so easy that wouldn't run on my native 4000.
-
The emulator has to be synced to the display device for accurate scrolling, this means 50/100Hz for PAL software (unless you want to run PAL software at NTSC 60Hz for most LCDs, which screws some software). Running 50Hz settings (PAL/50 fps emulator setting) at 60Hz will visually mess the scrolling. This is admittedly more noticeable with certain games than others, also not all Amiga games featured perfect scrolling anyway. Fire up a pinball game though, or SOTB3 intro, and the difference (PAL settings at 60Hz) is plainly discernible.
However - this is simply a matter of finding the right settings (and possibly an annoyance for LCD users who use UAE for gaming), not a dis on WinUAE which is obviously fantastic.
-
>by -D- on 2009/1/27 17:19:59
>The emulator has to be synced to the display device for accurate scrolling, this means 50/100Hz for PAL software (unless you want to run PAL software at NTSC 60Hz for most LCDs, which screws some software). Running 50Hz settings (PAL/50 fps emulator setting) at 60Hz will visually mess the scrolling. This is admittedly more noticeable with certain games than others, also not all Amiga games featured perfect scrolling anyway. Fire up a pinball game though, or SOTB3 intro, and the difference (PAL settings at 60Hz) is plainly discernible.
>However - this is simply a matter of finding the right settings (and possibly an annoyance for LCD users who use UAE for gaming), not a dis on WinUAE which is obviously fantastic
I don't know if it's the right settings in some cases if the underlying hardware won't allow perfect synching at VBL. And even then you have 119472 cycles in a normal field that are not cycle-exact. That's 0.0008% cycle exactness even if you think the VBI cycle is exactly timed.