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Author Topic: Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems  (Read 14216 times)

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Offline fishy_fiz

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Re: Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems
« Reply #104 from previous page: September 03, 2011, 09:34:46 AM »
@XDelusion

Im pretty disorganised at the moment (usually happens on days that end in 'y'), hence my quietness of late with ports. Im getting there though, and am looking forward to getting back to some developing. Dosbox and prboom are definately on the cards for 68k though soon(ish). Im also somewhat more confident with my coding than I was last I tried, so Im looking forward to trying some bex86 amithlon compiles too. I really should get in contact with blacky stardust though, he had an amithlon native version of Vice (c64/128/vic20/etc. emulators) for me to try out some time back, but my amithlon box was pulled apart at the time so I never got to try it.

This thread has inspired me, time to get off my but and fix my amithlon boxes dh0: (smegger invalidated on me,... sodding FFS (the filesystem, not the curse :)))

As for sound on amithlon,..... Midi, I think so, but only if using a dedicated amiga ahi driver that supports it (ie. not linux drivers (amithlon sound device in ahi)). In regards to Nuldeh Pal (or whatever its called), I have used it before, but not for many years. It seems to works fine though but you need to set sound back to rtg afterwards or software will continue to try to use paula from then on end. (it's kinda vague in my mind, but I dont recall having any real problems after I read docs.)
« Last Edit: September 03, 2011, 09:40:36 AM by fishy_fiz »
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline XDelusion

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Re: Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems
« Reply #105 on: September 03, 2011, 10:09:50 AM »
Hmm. Your friend is a Saul Williams fan apparently. :)

What is bex86?

And I look forward to your work! And I'm glad to see you working on something outside of AROS too. Not that AROS is bad. It's just that I like to see all the Amiga alternatives supported. Now I wonder when P.OS (or what ever that alternate OS was called) is going to get revived? :)

 I've been working on my Star Wars project for PrBOOM-Plus as of late, and have found a new trick with the MP3 support that will allow me to better tell the story. Well it's an idea I've had kicking around that I finally put to the test.

 I've got an interesting level created which takes place inside a pyramid. The central part of the pyramid is open and casts down light upon a tomb in the center of the room. When you enter in, a translucent image of a Spirit manifests above the tomb, and in the background I have an MP3 playing which consists of some ambient effects along with the dialog for the the floating image of the ancient spirit.

 Hidden underneath the tomb is a LONG shaft which contains an elevator which is slowly and silently carrying a Talisman up towards the top of the tomb.
The elevator will reach the top at the exact time the Mp3 reaches the point where the dialog finishes, and the spirit tells you to take the talisman for protection. This Talisman will also allow the character to cross the room and exit through a door that could not be opened before you grab the talisman.

I need to add at least 2 or 3 minutes of additional Ambiance to the end of the MP3 though. In this way, unless the player leaves the game running to make a cup of coffee or what ever, they will have exited the door by the time the MP3 loops and the dialog repeats.

I have recently wrote the author of PrBOOM-Plus and asked if he might be able to add in game support to Start, Stop, and Pause MP3's within game. Not something my project depends upon, but surely something that would come in very handy for story telling!!!

While I was at it, I requested Jump support since we now have freelook in Gl mode.


Anyhow it would be great to be able to run my project underneath Amithlon some day too! As a matter of fact I set up my system to allow me to boot into Amithlon, or to boot into MicroXP which I have dedicated to working on my Star Wars project which I keep on an 8Gb USB stick so I can also work on the run. :)
Earth has a lot of things other folks might want... like the whole planet. And maybe these folks would like a few changes made, like more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and room for their way of life. - William S. Burroughs
 

Offline fishy_fiz

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Re: Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems
« Reply #106 on: September 03, 2011, 10:40:03 AM »
bex86 = big endian x86. Amithlon native x86 basically. Being big endian makes it somewhat easier for x86 and 68k code to run concurrently.

Not something Id use for original projects, but for open source ones that are too demanding for real 68k hardware I may as well try to squeeze more speed from (or less overhead, either way its good) :)
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline Frags

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Re: Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems
« Reply #107 on: September 03, 2011, 03:11:16 PM »
I know it`s been mentioned already but an Amithlon-like solution that ran OS4/MOS (a sort of Peg2 emulator) would be utterly killer.  Killer.  Just think how fast it could be, all ppc hardware would be obsoleted on the day of release and I bet MOS/OS4 sales would benefit too.  Everyone wins.
-insert clever profundity here-
 

Offline nicholas

Re: Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems
« Reply #108 on: September 03, 2011, 03:30:52 PM »
Quote from: Frags;657655
I know it`s been mentioned already but an Amithlon-like solution that ran OS4/MOS (a sort of Peg2 emulator) would be utterly killer.  Killer.  Just think how fast it could be, all ppc hardware would be obsoleted on the day of release and I bet MOS/OS4 sales would benefit too.  Everyone wins.


If someone managed to merge the QEMU PPC JIT into UAE to provide a virtual PPC card then that would run OS4 at least.
“Een rezhim-i eshghalgar-i Quds bayad az sahneh-i ruzgar mahv shaved.” - Imam Ayatollah Sayyed  Ruhollah Khomeini
 

Offline nicholas

Re: Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems
« Reply #109 on: September 03, 2011, 03:55:36 PM »
Quote from: Duce;657601
Amithlon type systems are likely the fastest emulation based Amiga experience you'll ever get.  It's been awhile since I had one, but the speed was simply staggering.  Of course, for the purists like Franko that don't consider anything other than a wedge shaped system with "Amiga" on it, it's not desirable.  Will run circles around UAE, but will choke on stuff that attempts to hit the native Amiga HW.  I'll take fast, quiet and efficient/more modern solutions any day of the week over old native hardware myself, but I certainly understand the purist aspect.

What I would like to see is a more modern "how to" guide and package to run Amithlon type systems.  The original Amithlon was sort of a picky little bugger as far as what it would work on.  If I understand it correctly, the newer kernels support a wider range of hardware and I hope to try it on this old AMD 4200+ X2 dual core/7800 GTX machine I have here collecting dust soon.

A more modern and up to date guide on Amithlon type machines would be a big bonus to the community if anyone is willing to do one up.  I haven't been able to locate a reasonably modern guide on what more modern HW the newer iterations of the software supports, but it did work well on an old 2.8ghz P4 Dell I had.

Last time I tried it I was blown away at how nice of an experience it was, ran absolutely circles around any C= Amiga I ever had and I had both '060 and PPC Miggy's with gfx cards in the "good old days".


See my signature. :)
“Een rezhim-i eshghalgar-i Quds bayad az sahneh-i ruzgar mahv shaved.” - Imam Ayatollah Sayyed  Ruhollah Khomeini
 

Offline trekiej

Re: Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems
« Reply #110 on: September 04, 2011, 09:04:45 PM »
How could one weigh the differences between Amithlon and Xamiga?
1. Software:Amithlon needs a special version of Amiga OS 3.9 and Xamiga does not. Roms?
2. Hard Drive: How much hard drive is need for both?
3. Installation: Difficulty Level.
4. Hardware Compatability:
5. Screen Modes:
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Offline fishy_fiz

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Re: Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems
« Reply #111 on: September 04, 2011, 09:52:34 PM »
No need to worry about roms with amithlon. Its different to uae in that you dont need to configure it to your liking. The kickstart rom comes with the package and is dealt with automatically.
Harddrive space: Thats up to to you, but amithlon files total about 3meg. Anything using UAE needs considerably more (although still a negligable amount). OS3.9 I believe is only about 25meg.
Hardware compatibilty: The one area that uae has an advantage. Amithlon is more or less restricted to p2/p3/p4/athlon/athlon xp/athlon64/core/core2duo/core2quad/phenom/phenom2/athlon2 type machines with tnt/tnt2/gf/gf2/gf3/gf4/gf5/matrox g100/g200/g400/g450/g550 for gfx and ac97/sb128/sblive/audigy/audigy2 (plus any hardware that a real 68k machine has drivers for). Other graphics cards are supported, but with limited support. There's also other sound support via linux drivers, but you then lose DMA for that device.
Installation: actually pretty easy to set up amithlon. The entire process, including updating kernel and installing OS3.9 takes about 10 minutes when you know what youre doing (although to be honest it can be a little confusing at 1st).
Compatibility: Amithlon has no custom chipset emulation, so relies on 68k uae for old games, etc.
Speed: No contest. Amithlon is, and probably always will be faster than any other amiga emulation. Not just because of lack of custom chips to emulate, but amithlon gives you direct hardware access, something no version of UAE does. Write to ram in amithlon and ram gets written to directly, no need to emulate memory busses, chipset timing, etc. Same is true with gfx, sound, nic, etc.
Screenomdes: Using Amithlon you can create your own using p96mode. With UAE youre restricted to the modes that come with the p96 driver.

As for amithlon's "special version" of os3.9, its actually pretty similar, just with a few extra files for amithlon devices and so on, not to mention it also comes with BB1.
 
In a nutsehll if you want a "serious" dedicated amiga os system amithlon is a better option. If youre more interested in old custom chipset games then some form of uae might be a better bet (although 68k uae works nicely using amithlon/os3.9).
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline trekiej

Re: Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems
« Reply #112 on: September 04, 2011, 10:03:47 PM »
@ fishy_
Great. Have you tried Nicholas' links above?
I have down loaded them but do not have a machine to test them on but this one.
I do not have any discs to burn the images.
Edit:
I guess that leaves Emumiga.
From what I hear it does not emulate the chip set either.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2011, 10:21:17 PM by trekiej »
Amiga 2000 Forever :)
Welcome to the Planar System.
 

Offline trekiej

Re: Pros and Cons of Amithlon type systems
« Reply #113 on: October 19, 2012, 05:18:41 PM »
Is there a dedicated place for me to check up on Amithlon?
I may have some used hardware to build a system.
Has anyone tried any Aros 68K files or roms?
Thanks.
Amiga 2000 Forever :)
Welcome to the Planar System.