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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Gaming => Topic started by: Faerytale on November 26, 2012, 09:40:48 PM

Title: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Faerytale on November 26, 2012, 09:40:48 PM
Whdload machines seems to be ok with 2-4 MB of ram.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: desiv on November 26, 2012, 09:45:54 PM
Not sure about the full 128M, but I have 64M on my A1200..

Mostly, I use the RAM drive when transferring files and organizing things.
I download to RAM.  

I also do some basic WEB browsing and streaming (I have a MAS Player Evolved also).
And it's nice not to have to worry about memory when I have all those apps open.

My guess is that 128M was chosen for CHIP availability reasons.
Smaller chips probably cost more money nowadays...

desiv
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Thorham on November 26, 2012, 09:49:30 PM
Probably. I have a 64 megabyte stick in my A1200, and it's very useful when using Brilliance and Adpro together with large images. I used to have 16 megabytes, and that wouldn't be enough here.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Oldsmobile_Mike on November 26, 2012, 10:05:48 PM
"Nobody will ever need more than 640K!"  ;)
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: paul1981 on November 26, 2012, 10:22:07 PM
Quote from: Faerytale;716458
Whdload machines seems to be ok with 2-4 MB of ram.

That's fine, but the extra ram comes in handy for preloading much larger games such as Indiana Jones FOA (11 disks). Or CD32 adventure games etc.

On top of that, with 64MB or more ram you can easily load and edit CD quality stereo audio tracks without having to use any form of swap file or virtual memory, as the whole track will load into ram.

I think there's also some AGA demos that require 64MB ram as well.

It's also nice having a large ram disk to extract archives into.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 26, 2012, 10:26:06 PM
If you want to play every WHDload game at maximum speed then you need more than 4MB.

Amiga multitasks.  Of course you can use 128MB of RAM.
7zip can use more than 128MB all by itself.
Web browser can use more than 128MB all by itself.
Editing gfx can use more than 128MB all by itself.
Editing music can use more than 128MB.

Now try to do multiple things at once.

Total Chaos AGA takes 32MB.  But that is only because so many people starve their Amiga of memory.  So I had to make the game all cut down and squished into only 32MB.

If everyone had a proper 3GB of RAM.  Or maybe say 2GB Fastram + 256MB gfx card ram then game coders could make better games.

If ppl insist on keeping their Amigas in the 1980s with 1980s memory levels then Amiga gaming will get stuck.

In 1980s my A2000 had 1MB chipram and 8MB fastram.  That was ok because that was just an old game machine for compatibility reasons.  I consumed 4MB on lots of games in the 1980s.  I can't imagine trying to get by with only 4MB in 2012.

My dad was really penny pincher.  He only had an A500 with 4MB fastram and 1MB chipram + SCSI hard drive in 1980s.

I remember watching a lot of 3MB fastram + some chipram required demos in 1980s too.

In 1990 I went to 18MB and never looked back :)

Later on I went up higher and higher.  Always needing more than what was being offered.


Amiga: Sporting a 4096MB memory map since 1985.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: commodorejohn on November 26, 2012, 10:32:28 PM
Quote from: paul1981;716464
On top of that, with 64MB or more ram you can easily load and edit CD quality stereo audio tracks without having to use any form of swap file or virtual memory, as the whole track will load into ram.
Well, that all depends on how long the track is (http://archive.org/details/RemnantOfTheUniversalVeil) ;)
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 26, 2012, 10:37:59 PM
18 Mins of CD audio takes around 158MB.  And presumably you would want to have various sound samples in memory also.  So 256MB could be an ok number.

Amiga: Making Beautiful Music since 1985.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: commodorejohn on November 26, 2012, 10:40:01 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716465
If ppl insist on keeping their Amigas in the 1980s with 1980s memory levels then Amiga gaming will get stuck.
If people insist on pushing for higher memory requirements for games, then fewer people will be able to play them :/
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Akiko on November 26, 2012, 10:50:27 PM
Someone commented recently that the talkie version of Beneath a Steel Sky needs I think it was at least 64MB of Ram.

I was trying to play the Whdload version of Bloodnet recently on my CD32 with 8MB and it stutters a lot, but running on my A1200 with 64MB it works fine.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Thorham on November 26, 2012, 11:21:16 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716465
Total Chaos AGA takes 32MB.  But that is only because so many people starve their Amiga of memory.  So I had to make the game all cut down and squished into only 32MB.

I don't see how something like Total Chaos actually needs 32 megabytes. The graphics can be done in lowres with a lower number of colors, for example, and still look good, while at the same time increasing the speed. This makes the same game accessible to more people.

Quote from: ChaosLord;716465
If everyone had a proper 3GB of RAM.  Or maybe say 2GB Fastram + 256MB gfx card ram then game coders could make better games.

Wrong. A quality game depends on the quality of the game engine, not all the hoopla around it. Take games like Advance Wars and Fire Emblem for example. Can be done properly on an A1200 with a hard drive and some fastmem in the trapdoor.

Also, what kind of a game are you thinking of that needs 3 gigabytes on an Amiga? Sounds crazy.

Quote from: ChaosLord;716465
If ppl insist on keeping their Amigas in the 1980s with 1980s memory levels then Amiga gaming will get stuck.

Amigas need some fastmem and maybe a '030 for good games.

Quote from: ChaosLord;716465
I can't imagine trying to get by with only 4MB in 2012.

For the more serious persuits, more is obviously better, yes.

Quote from: ChaosLord;716465
Amiga: Sporting a 4096MB memory map since 1985.

Not really. The 68000 has a 24 bit address bus, and can therefore only address 16 megabytes. Same for the 680ec20 in the A1200. Further more, AmigaOS may have issues with anything above 2 gigabytes :(
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: cgutjahr on November 26, 2012, 11:22:48 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716465
Amiga multitasks.  Of course you can use 128MB of RAM.
Of course you can fill 128 MB, that wasn't the question. The question was if people actually do fill them up occasionally during normal use.

I can see how that could happen under OS4 (it did to me), due to the much larger footprint of the OS. But as the original poster is probably referring to the new accelerators from Individual Computers, we're talking OS3 here. With a 68030 CPU.

Quote
7zip can use more than 128MB all by itself.
Web browser can use more than 128MB all by itself.
Certainly not on a classic Amiga, unless you plan on unpacking 7zip'ed movies from the net on your Amiga before you move them to the PC for watching... And there's no web browser that runs on a classic Amiga and requires anything close to 128 MB.

Quote
Editing gfx can use more than 128MB all by itself.
Editing music can use more than 128MB.
It can, yes. But who's editing "CD quality stereo audio tracks" on an A1200 these days?

Somebody mentioned 4 MB for a WHDLoad machine. That should be mostly okay, though having 8 MB wouldn't hurt for preloading the bigger games. If you have a 68020 CPU, there are no games that run at a decent speed on your setup and would require more than 8 MB (maybe 16, what's the game with the most disks?).

If you have a better CPU and would like to run some newer RTG games or the occasional application, you might manage to fill up 32 or 64 MB occasionally. But I can't imagine filling up 128 MB - unless you actually try to.

But having 128 MB doesn't give you any problems, and Jens probably couldn't get his hands on anything smaller at a cheap enough price, so 128 MB it is.

But hey, I'm one of the few who don't edit HD movies on their classic setup, so what do I know ;)

Quote
Total Chaos AGA takes 32MB.
Huh? For what? It seems to be a nice game, but it's still AGA - how do you fill up 32 MB using bitmapped graphics intended for a lores display? That's a serious question, I don't understand how a turn based strategy game for an AGA machine could need that much memory.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Karlos on November 26, 2012, 11:25:19 PM
I have 256MiB of FastRAM in my A1200, 8MiB of VRAM and of course 2MiB of ChipRAM. Whereas Amiga applications may have a small footprint, productivity applications will always require as much memory as the size of the data being worked on. It's possible to put a big dent in even 256MiB if you are editing large images for instance.

If your requirements are more modest, you can get away with less.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 26, 2012, 11:35:28 PM
Quote from: commodorejohn;716469
If people insist on pushing for higher memory requirements for games, then fewer people will be able to play them :/


Artists need room to work.  Give them the room they need or they go work somewhere else.

The artists in Team Chaos are perfectly capable of creating giant amounts of animations... like a 4.7GB Aminet archive type of deal.  Artists don't like being told "ur art has too many colors", "ur art takes too much ram", "ur art takes too much hard drive space".  Artists just want to create.  If you annoy them enough they quit.

Our latest artist made his first monster animation.  It had like, 1200 frames of animation.  So that is 1200 x 1152 bytes on AGA.  Multiply by 16 for gfx card, lets say 20MB.  That is 1 little monster. 1.  There are thousands of monster anims in the game.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Thorham on November 26, 2012, 11:47:06 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716476
Our latest artist made his first monster animation.  It had like, 1200 frames of animation.  So that is 1200 x 1152 bytes on AGA.  Multiply by 16 for gfx card, lets say 20MB.  That is 1 little monster. 1.  There are thousands of monster anims in the game.

And how exactly does that make a game good? Does a good game need 1200 frames of animation for a single monster, or does it need a good game engine with good AI and good controls? Also, quantity isn't the same as quality. Those 1200 frames won't do you any good if they don't look good.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: commodorejohn on November 27, 2012, 12:16:32 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716476
The artists in Team Chaos are perfectly capable of creating giant amounts of animations... like a 4.7GB Aminet archive type of deal.  Artists don't like being told "ur art has too many colors", "ur art takes too much ram", "ur art takes too much hard drive space".  Artists just want to create.  If you annoy them enough they quit.
Well, for starters, the better game artists actually understand the constraints of digital art and are willing to work within them. (Take a look at Adrian Carmack's magnificent models for DOOM sometime, and compare them with the little sprites that were the end result. Sure, the models are nicer, but the DOOM team did an amazing job of capturing the details in images only a hundred-plus pixels tall.) If, on the other hand, you're stuck with prima donnas like the ones you're describing, you can always have someone else do the job of adapting it to the target platform, for the sake of team harmony.

But seriously, the more you crank up the requirements, the smaller your potential target audience gets. Sure, I have a 50MHz 030 and 32MB RAM, but how many people don't? Very few people who've just pulled their old Amiga out of the attic to play with are going to be able to run a game that requires 32MB RAM, and are they willing to hunt down a couple hundred bucks' worth of accelerator just for that?

And as Thorham says, package size has very little to do with the quality of a game. Super Mario Bros. 3 is still a beloved classic to this day, and it's all of 384KB.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Ral-Clan on November 27, 2012, 12:27:59 AM
Quote from: cgutjahr;716474
It can, yes. But who's editing "CD quality stereo audio tracks" on an A1200 these days?

Up until 2008 I was editing music I had recorded in my home project studio using my A2000 and samplitude.  I had a 32MB machine, while a three minute song in stereo is about 45MB so I had to use virtual RAM.  While it was bearable, it was slow.  I certainly would have LOVED 128MB.

I designed the artwork for the VIC-20 mega-cart that year too using PageStream and ImageFX on the Amiga.  I was using large 300dpi images and multiple layers. I really pushed the 32MB ceiling on my machine - more RAM would have been good.

This year I did all the layout for the artwork of several children's books I wrote/illustrated.  This was done using ImageFX under WinUAE (as my A2000 has departed).  I was dealing with 8.5" x 11" images at 600dpi and I had to at times up the "emulated" RAM to 256MB.  But good ol' ImageFX handled it!

So, yes, if I was still using a hardware classic Amiga - 128MB of RAM would definitely get used.  For classic gaming, I don't think it's meaningful, but for productivity/creative work, it definitely comes in handy.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Thorham on November 27, 2012, 12:33:34 AM
Quote from: commodorejohn;716481
Well, for starters, the better game artists actually understand the constraints of digital art and are willing to work within them.

Indeed. Anyone and their cat can create thousands of crappy looking hires frames of animation, but it takes tremendous skill to produce something good looking in lowres and only five frames.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: amiman99 on November 27, 2012, 12:40:03 AM
How about MAC emulation running Photoshop?

That should be enough.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 01:25:01 AM
Quote from: cgutjahr;716474
But as the original poster is probably referring to the new accelerators from Individual Computers, we're talking OS3 here. With a 68030 CPU.


That is a very big assumption.

Maybe they are trying to decide if they should build us a run of accelerator cards that have 2GB RAM installed on them. :kitty:


Quote

Certainly not on a classic Amiga, unless you plan on unpacking 7zip'ed movies from the net on your Amiga before you move them to the PC for watching... And there's no web browser that runs on a classic Amiga and requires anything close to 128 MB.

Today, right this second, I have 44 tabs open in my browser.
At 1920x1080 (which is not the Amiga's maximum resolution) each tab consumes  8MB of ram just for the rendered gfx + whatever else.  So that is at least 364MB.

In the past I had 70 tabs open.

My brother keeps over 100 tabs open at all times.

Quote

It can, yes. But who's editing "CD quality stereo audio tracks" on an A1200 these days?

Everyone who wants to.  Some of them post on this forum.  Some on other forums.  + zillions of ppl who do not post on any forum.

Quote

Somebody mentioned 4 MB for a WHDLoad machine. That should be mostly okay, though having 8 MB wouldn't hurt for preloading the bigger games. If you have a 68020 CPU, there are no games that run at a decent speed on your setup and would require more than 8 MB (maybe 16, what's the game with the most disks?).

Back in the 1990s when ppl used floppy disks there were a few commercial games published that used 18-20 disks.  If you don't believe me I can go look them up.

Quote

If you have a better CPU and would like to run some newer RTG games or the occasional application, you might manage to fill up 32 or 64 MB occasionally. But I can't imagine filling up 128 MB - unless you actually try to.

Its really easy to fill it up.  AmigaOS has RAM:  (ramdisk.device)

A lot of ppl like to play their games from RAM: the first time they try them to decide if they are any good.  Other ppl do it the other way around and only put a game in their RAM: if they do like it, to make it load faster.  These are things random ppl tell me.


Quote

Huh? For what? It seems to be a nice game, but it's still AGA - how do you fill up 32 MB using bitmapped graphics intended for a lores display? That's a serious question, I don't understand how a turn based strategy game for an AGA machine could need that much memory.


For starters it isn't using a lores display.  It uses HIRES | LACED which is 4x the memory of 99% of all WHDLoad games.  And instead of using 4 bitplanes like 80% of all WHDLoad games use, Total Chaos AGA uses 8 bitplanes so that is 2x more for a total of 8x the memory requirements.

Most WHDLoad games have monster anims of 3 frames.  Yes I looked at them and counted them. :)  You are really lucky to get 4-8 frames.  A typical monster anim in Total Chaos AGA might have 8-24 frames but some have 40, 64, 120 or whatever.  Its an Amiga.  It does gfx.  Why limit it?  I love my Amiga :knuddel: and I let her do what she is good at because she is so lovely and has never let me down. :angel:
Number of anim frames multiplies the MB requirements again.


Note to Karlos: When I went to get the cuddly smiley something happened and it destroyed half a paragraph of my text.  I donno if this was caused by the Amiga.org forum software or by Chrome or by windoze XP SP3 or what.

Oh crap. It was the fault of Amiga.org.  See my next msg.



There are also things like variables, AI, Scripting Language, the game records itself while playing,   etc.

It takes 100K just to save the game
Then another 100K (I guess) to run LHA and archive it down to a small cuddly 6k.
0.2 MB gone just for that.

There are 8 screenbuffers of the size of the screen for calculating special fx.  That is a big chunk of RAM all by itself.   I would like to use a lot more but then I break the 32MB barrier. :/

Also, technically u can shoehorn the game to just barely run on a 24MB Amiga.  We have a guy who does that.  But then you cannot multitask in any meaningful way and he will never be able to Netplay like that.  He has his drivebuffers dialed way down to free up ram.   So I advertise 32MB because I cannot do tech support for ppl with only 24MB.  Ppl expect to be able to multitask basic things while they are playing a strategy game.  Like CED or YAM or a calendar or whatever.  A random person with 32MB ram might be using 3.5MB of that for his drive buffers + 0.5 for kickstart + random stuff.  Memory disappears fast.

Btw I tell everyone who plays with WinUAE to set fastram to 64MB or more.

I hope all of this answered your question. :)
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 01:37:16 AM
Dear Karlos:

Pursuant to my previous post where the forum software went bonkers:

I tried to preview my post and first it made me log back in as it often does.  It only keeps me logged in for a very short time.  No big deal.  It always works.  But not today.

I got this error message:
Code: [Select]

Your submission could not be processed because you have logged in since the previous page was loaded.

Please push the back button and reload the previous window.

Of course pushing the back button and reloading did nothing but generate the same message.

Going back twice and reloading also did not work.

Triple going back and then pressing Preview or Submit
generated this error:
Code: [Select]

The following errors occurred with your submission:
The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 1 characters.

But the message edit box was full with my giant message.

I must have broke the 255 byte barrier.  I told Tedd Gal he should not try to run Amiga.org on a C64 :D

Eventually I just clicked New Posts and found the thread again and started over from scratch, then it worked.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: danbeaver on November 27, 2012, 01:45:18 AM
Quote from: Faerytale;716458
Whdload machines seems to be ok with 2-4 MB of ram.


Simple answer, Yes.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Thorham on November 27, 2012, 01:47:27 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716487
Its an Amiga.  It does gfx.  Why limit it?
Because it reduces requirements, and well made lowres, low frame graphics will still look good if made by a skilled artist.

Quote from: ChaosLord;716487
There are also things like variables, AI, Scripting Language, the game records itself while playing,   etc.
Sure, but that doesn't need many megabytes.

Quote from: ChaosLord;716487
There are 8 screenbuffers of the size of the screen for calculating special fx.  That is a big chunk of RAM all by itself.   I would like to use a lot more but then I break the 32MB barrier. :/
Perhaps you should try to write highly optimized routines in assembly language so that you wouldn't need eight screen buffers. Show me a video of where this is really required.

Quote from: ChaosLord;716487
Also, technically u can shoehorn the game to just barely run on a 24MB Amiga.
Technically, you can do an equivalent game without excess graphical weight with around four megabytes of fastmem. It's not about the graphics, it's about the game. Games like this don't need highres graphics with dozens of frames. Graphics like that should be an option.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: commodorejohn on November 27, 2012, 01:56:08 AM
Yeah, I'm a little curious about the eight framebuffers thing, myself. In any event, though: whether or not your game needs the space it takes is pretty much irrelevant. Some people just plain don't meet those requirements and aren't going to, certainly not for a game; upgrading Amigas ain't cheap. Given that, your choices are to A. exclude them from being able to run your game, or B. do what developers back in the day did, and adjust the scope and approach of your project to fit the target instead of complaining that the target isn't moving to match where you're aiming.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 02:10:50 AM
Quote from: Thorham;716473

Not really. The 68000 has a 24 bit address bus, and can therefore only address 16 megabytes. Same for the 680ec20 in the A1200.

Nobody cares. :quickdraw:

Sure the economy 68000 could only make use of 16MB out of the memory map.

Even though the M68000 is a 32-bit processor, it is a cheapo cutdown version that has 8 of its address pins removed.  But the 32-bit address are all there inside the cpu.  All 8 of the Amiga's address registers have all 32-bits of their addressing

The Amiga was fully compatible in every way with the full 4096MB memory map if you just add a little accelerator card to your miggy that has all 32 of its address pins soldered on and connected.

68020 accelerators appeared in 1986 which could use the entire Amiga memory map.

In 1987 I started selling them.  And a lot of ppl bought them.

Memory-wise, the 68020+ had all 32 of their address pins and were 100% compatible to the Amiga way of doing things.  Any programs you had that worked in the bottom 16MB of memory (below the 24-bit barrier) all just plain worked when ran from addresses above the 24-bit barrier.  That is because the Amiga is and always will be a 32-bit machine, no matter how many pins you hack off of it. :hammer:


Quote
Further more, AmigaOS may have issues with anything above 2 gigabytes :(

AmigaOS has had many problems which have all been patched.

The 2GB limit is even easier to fix than other typical random problems.

As I already explained in the other thread:

NewAllocMem()
The old AllocMem() suxxored.  This NewAllocMem() r0xx0rz.  Use it to allocate all the ram you want in the upper 2GB of the Amiga's memory map. KTHANXL8RBYE :banana:
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Thorham on November 27, 2012, 02:22:16 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716496
As I already explained in the other thread:

NewAllocMem()
The old AllocMem() suxxored.  This NewAllocMem() r0xx0rz.  Use it to allocate all the ram you want in the upper 2GB of the Amiga's memory map. KTHANXL8RBYE :banana:
And which OS version is NewAllocMem part of? 3.9? I don't have 3.9 and don't want it. Software should work on KS2+, unless it needs AGA.

Also, most software uses AllocMem or AllocVec, and unless those are patched, you can forget more than two gigabytes (which isn't needed anyway).
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: cgutjahr on November 27, 2012, 02:26:40 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716487

Today, right this second, I have 44 tabs open in my browser.
At 1920x1080 (which is not the Amiga's maximum resolution) each tab consumes  8MB of ram just for the rendered gfx + whatever else.  So that is at least 364MB.

What browser would that be? And on what operating system? If you manage to do that with AWeb or IBrowse, you'll have my eternal respect.

Quote

For starters it isn't using a lores display.  It uses HIRES | LACED

My fault, that one was misleading - I wasn't referring to the Amiga screen mode. I was using "lores" as short form of "extremely low resolution",  Hires Laced is an extremely low resolution by today's standards.

Quote

There are 8 screenbuffers

eight? Why eight? how big are the animations, 40x40 or something like that, and only one displayed at any given time with no scrolling taking place?

Quote

Its an Amiga.  It does gfx.  Why limit it?

The Total Chaos distribution is bigger than 90 MB (http://aminet.net/search?query=TotalChaosAGAr6.lha) and takes 10 minutes to self-extract (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=50907) on a 68030 CPU. That's why you limit yourself.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 02:26:58 AM
@rai-clan
Dude, you are awesome!  Respect!  :cool:



Amiman99 has:
Quote

A600 KS 3.1, 2MB Chip, ACA630 32MB RAM

Your little bitty itsy bitsy teeny weeny A600 has 32MB RAM?
You rawk hard!  That's the spirit! :banana:
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: commodorejohn on November 27, 2012, 02:33:06 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716496
68020 accelerators appeared in 1986 which could use the entire Amiga memory map.
The 68020 can address a full 4GB, sure, but how many accelerators even support that much RAM, let alone in a form that's economical to max out? The most I can recall seeing on a non-PPC accelerator is 256MB, and the average is much more in the 16-32MB range than anything higher.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 02:40:01 AM
Quote from: Thorham;716499

Also, most software uses AllocMem or AllocVec, and unless those are patched, you can forget more than two gigabytes (which isn't needed anyway).


NewAllocVec()
This function is used to allocate memory from above the 2GB barrier using the TLSFmem algorithm.

AllocMem() and AllocVec() cannot be patched to fix the problem.  Sorry but those routines were designed terribly badly :(

Only new software which wants to make use of the extra memory can use NewAllocMem() NewAllocVec() etc.

New software is released onto Aminet all the time.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 03:34:41 AM
Quote from: Thorham;716499
you can forget more than two gigabytes (which isn't needed anyway).


Since you, and various other people in various threads are morally opposed to having 4GB of ram on the Amiga Megacomputer I have decided to stop harping on it.  I will stop talking about the 4GB limit if you do?

> OK

Ok. :)
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: commodorejohn on November 27, 2012, 03:51:57 AM
Nobody's opposed to having it - we just don't think that there's any particular reason to do so, outside of heavy-duty stuff like multimedia editing.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 03:53:31 AM
Quote from: commodorejohn;716502
The 68020 can address a full 4GB, sure,


Actually Motorola 680x0 addresses 32GB.  There are 8 banks of 4GB in hardware since day one.*

What you meant is just that they can only directly address 4GB.  But they can indirectly address 32GB.


* The 32GB of RAM limitation is a secret known only to us hardcore asm c0derz and hardcore hardware deziners.  shhh don't tell anybody. :cool:

Quote
but how many accelerators even support that much RAM, let alone in a form that's economical to max out? The most I can recall seeing on a non-PPC accelerator is 256MB, and the average is much more in the 16-32MB range than anything higher.


In 1987, 4GB of ram would have been over $200,000 :eek: I think.  Surprisingly, most ppl could not afford that. :mickeymouse:

But if you mean "Why is Jens not putting more ram on his brand new accelerators" then I have no idea.

Iirc Natamis have 512MB on the motherboard + some more on the CPU card + some PCI slots so there are various ways to add more.

My brand new bgcpc came with 10GB of ram.  Now I want my Amiga to have 32GB.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: amiman99 on November 27, 2012, 04:13:43 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716501
@rai-clan
Dude, you are awesome!  Respect!  :cool:



Amiman99 has:

Your little bitty itsy bitsy teeny weeny A600 has 32MB RAM?
You rawk hard!  That's the spirit! :banana:
Hell Yeah!!!
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Thorham on November 27, 2012, 04:23:50 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716506
Since you, and various other people in various threads are morally opposed to having 4GB of ram on the Amiga Megacomputer I have decided to stop harping on it.  I will stop talking about the 4GB limit if you do?

> OK

Ok. :)
I'm not morally opposed to filling up the address space completely. It would be cool for the novelty factor alone, but if the OS, by default, only supports half of that, then there's no point in having it... which actually sucks massive turds :(

Which leads me back to NewAllocMem and NewAllocVec: Which OS revision are they part of, and can they work with KS2/3?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 04:28:29 AM
Quote from: cgutjahr;716500

eight? Why eight? how big are the animations, 40x40 or something like that, and only one displayed at any given time with no scrolling taking place?


The screenbuffers are only used for special fx.  These special fx were added in Total Chaos 7 I think.

The special fx can be any size at all, and sometimes cover the whole screen.  so their size can be anything from 32x32 to 544x448.   Maybe they could go all the way to 640x512 in the future.

I calculate up the gfx based on simple algos using small tiles and then draw them out into the buffer.  Then blit the smallest part of the screenbuffer that covers the whole fx onto the screen.

The animation is rigged to loop or pingpong according to the 8 frames.

The fx could be smoother and kewler if I could do, for example 60 frames.

I just noticed that if you are low on memory.  I mean "just low" not "out" then I disable these fx and don't allocate the memory for them.  This must be the secret to why the game runs on Magnus' 24MB Amiga.

Who says I don't cater to the low end Amigas? :)


Quote

The Total Chaos distribution is bigger than 90 MB (http://aminet.net/search?query=TotalChaosAGAr6.lha) and takes 10 minutes to self-extract (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=50907) on a 68030 CPU. That's why you limit yourself.


Nope.  That is why you buy a 68040 or 68060. :biglaugh:

68030 came out in 1987.  It was way kewl.  I loved my 030.  It rawked my world. :knuddel:

68040 came out in 1990 and I bought mine in 1992 in my A4000/040. My 25Mhz 040 was 3x the speed of my 25Mhz 030 A3000 at unlhaing. :knuddel::knuddel::knuddel:  I timed it many times.  But I still loved to write optimized asm routines for the tiny 256 byte caches in the 030 until 1994.  Then I just got sick of it.  Sorry.  68040 forever! :biglaugh:

I reward ppl who support the Amiga with purchases of 040 and 060 by giving them something that makes use of it.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: motrucker on November 27, 2012, 04:37:37 AM
I can't believe this thread! Sounds like you all only use your Amigas for playing games. No one works with graphics any more?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 04:43:53 AM
Quote from: Thorham;716515
I'm not morally opposed to filling up the address space completely. It would be cool for the novelty factor alone,

Ok, glad to hear it :)

A lot of times you sound really really negative.

Quote

 but if the OS, by default, only supports half of that, then there's no point in having it... which actually sucks massive turds :(

There is absolutely no way in hell to patch the old AllocMem() etc. to support memory above 2GB without breaking everything.  Whoever wrote that routine made a terrible mistake. :(

Quote

Which leads me back to NewAllocMem and NewAllocVec: Which OS revision are they part of, and can they work with KS2/3?

They can work with any kickstart v1.0 or higher.

They are basically just like the old Allocmem() without wasting the sign bit the way Allocmem does.

I guess what you are saying is you have some favorite old program that (like a sound or video editor) that uses tons of ram and you want it to use the memory above 2GB.  I can understand that.

Here are ways to make old nonupdated software work with ram above 2GB:
1. We can patch the RAM: drive to prefer to use the memory above 2GB.  There u go u now have an awesome huge RAM: that doesn't steal ANY memory away from all your old progs!  Many ppl have patched RAM: before so I am 100% certain that they can patch the AllocMem() calls too!  You can see them when u disassemble the code. :hammer:

2. Or another way would be to use one of those virtual memory programs with your favoriite old proggy.  But instead of redirecting RAM accessess to a hard drive it can redirect the ram accesses to ... moar ram! Yeah! :idea:

And if we combine these ideas with the different BANKS of 4GB that we have then we can totally make use of 32GB.  AmigaClassicRule can watch his HAM8 Family Guy episodes straight from memory in uncompressed format.  etc. etc.

32GB Amiga FTW! :banana:
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 04:50:20 AM
Quote from: motrucker;716517
I can't believe this thread! Sounds like you all only use your Amigas for playing games. No one works with graphics any more?


Hey Motrucker,
There are guys in Team Chaos and other guys in Natami Team who use their Amigas for hardcore gfx work in ImageFX, Photogenics and others.  They need as much ram as they can get.  They can always work in higher resolutions, add more layers, make more animation frames, etc. etc.

So you are not alone. :)
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: commodorejohn on November 27, 2012, 05:20:10 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716510
Actually Motorola 680x0 addresses 32GB.  There are 8 banks of 4GB in hardware since day one.*

What you meant is just that they can only directly address 4GB.  But they can indirectly address 32GB.

* The 32GB of RAM limitation is a secret known only to us hardcore asm c0derz and hardcore hardware deziners.  shhh don't tell anybody.
Mind elaborating on this? Because the '020 certainly doesn't have any address lines after A31 on the pinouts I've found, and I can't find a datasheet for the 68851 MMU to verify whether it has any such capability.

Quote
But if you mean "Why is Jens not putting more ram on his brand new accelerators" then I have no idea.
It's largely irrelevant anyway; how many people are going to buy a new accelerator just for the purpose of having more RAM, simply to run a single game, when they could simply buy an NG Amigoid system?

Quote from: ChaosLord;716516
Nope.  That is why you buy a 68040 or 68060.

I reward ppl who support the Amiga with purchases of 040 and 060 by giving them something that makes use of it.
That's your call, but you must realize that you are impacting your potential audience with an attitude like that.

Quote from: ChaosLord;716519
They are basically just like the old Allocmem()  without wasting the sign bit the way Allocmem does.
Oy, did they decide to use "unused" high-order bits for flags, too? It was bad enough when the Mac Team did that... :angry:
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on November 27, 2012, 05:29:13 AM
Quote from: motrucker;716517
I can't believe this thread! Sounds like you all only use your Amigas for playing games. No one works with graphics any more?

And Amiga's classic hardware valued for serious business? For education? For running servers? For used in government servers to maintain valuable secret data that is worth billions?

Uh....duh....of course it is only for games. When you stick C= there as an addition to it's record history and WHY at least *I* own it, I am surprised you call it computer in the first place and not a console?

Actually, I call mine a console regardless of your attempt to convince me otherwise, hehe.

As graphics wise I believe we go through the route of Macintosh!!!

So BRING OUT THE GAMES BABY FOR the Amiga!!!

I know Chaos Lord will love me for saying this, but, lately most of the time I spend playing on my A1200 is Total Chaos. I tend to play it for hours usually, because it is not registered, I tend to turn off the monitor and keep my A1200 on for days until I finish it. Of course when my Amiga 1200 decides to crash on me and I bit my nails from frustration that is when I turn her off.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 06:03:32 AM
Quote from: commodorejohn;716481
Well, for starters, the better game artists actually understand the constraints of digital art and are willing to work within them. (Take a look at Adrian Carmack's magnificent models for DOOM sometime, and compare them with the little sprites that were the end result. Sure, the models are nicer, but the DOOM team did an amazing job of capturing the details in images only a hundred-plus pixels tall.) If, on the other hand, you're stuck with prima donnas like the ones you're describing, you can always have someone else do the job of adapting it to the target platform, for the sake of team harmony.

According to TPB the small version of Doom 3 for PC is 1400 MB

The BFG version of Doom 3 for the PS3 game console is 3440 MB

You criticize Total Chaos AGA for having a 100MB archive when PS3 version is the size of 34 Total Chaos archives.

Your argument has failed. :roflmao:

Quote

But seriously, the more you crank up the requirements, the smaller your potential target audience gets. Sure, I have a 50MHz 030 and 32MB RAM, but how many people don't? Very few people who've just pulled their old Amiga out of the attic to play with are going to be able to run a game that requires 32MB RAM, and are they willing to hunt down a couple hundred bucks' worth of accelerator just for that?

I know at least one person who bought an Amiga specifically to play Total Chaos.

And a ton of ppl who don't know what an Amiga is were forced to install WinUAE so they could play the game.  Even Atari ST users. :eek:

This forced them to confront the fact that AmigaOS is awesome. (many of them use AmikitOS as their very first experience of Amiga)

Ppl who have a 3Ghz PC with 1TB of free hd space (and the ability to buy as many more TB of HD space as they like) simply don't care about the package size.

They download a 145MB basic version of AmikitOS without complaining (with amikit addons its 345MB), just to play a tiny little 100MB game.  Mac basic version of Amikit is 380MB.  


Quote

And as Thorham says, package size has very little to do with the quality of a game.

If you really believe that then why all the criticism about Total Chaos package size?  It isn't even the biggest game on Aminet.  And it is sooooooooooooooo tiny compared to PS3, Xbox 360 and PC games of 1995 to 2012.

I don't remember you criticizing any of the Aminet games that are bigger than Total Chaos.  Is it because they deserve the 100MB and we don't?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: commodorejohn on November 27, 2012, 06:27:04 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716526
According to TPB the small version of Doom 3 for PC is 1400 MB

The BFG version of Doom 3 for the PS3 game console is 3440 MB

You criticize Total Chaos AGA for having a 100MB archive when PS3 version is the size of 34 Total Chaos archives.

Your argument has failed.
No it hasn't. I was talking about real DOOM, not Monsters Jumping Out Of Closets In Unlit Boiler Rooms 2004 Edition. The real DOOM is about 10MB, a tenth of TC-AGA's size and every inch a classic.

Quote
Ppl who have a 3Ghz PC with 1TB of free hd space (and the ability to buy as many more TB of HD space as they like) simply don't care about the package size.
I'm sure they don't - but people who want to play it on a real Amiga do.

Quote
I don't remember you criticizing any of the Aminet games that are bigger than Total Chaos.  Is it because they deserve the 100MB and we don't?
No, it's because nobody was talking about oversized games at all until you brought up TC-AGA.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 06:39:46 AM
@AmigaClassicRule
If you find any bugs in Total Chaos then please tell me about it.

But if your Amiga crashes while playing TotalChaos and running Ibrowse or WookieChat or Amirc then I don't actually want to know about it :)  When I run those softwares for 3 days straight on a clean Amiga (no TC) I always crash.  Unless I run TLSFmem then I can make it for 5 days.

What I am saying is if your Amiga crashes and you really think it was the fault of Total Chaos then I really need to know because I take bugs seriously.  Die bugs die! :flame:

There is only 1 bug in the game right now that I know of and it only happens if you use SFS.  It allegedly does not affect PFS3 or FFS.  We have a patch that fixes the problem and I will send it to you.  Do you use SFS?

I hope you enjoy the game and don't worry about how small it is or how big it is :)
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Methuselas on November 27, 2012, 06:52:53 AM
Being a graphic artist, myself, I have to admit having more ram does  help. Granted, now I do as little graphic work on my Amiga or Emulated  Amiga, as possible (I am spoiled), but more ram does help. For example, a  640x400 png file I did in photoshop for Backbone blocks crashed on an  Emulated 1200 with 4MB of expansion ram, when trying to convert it to an  IFF in Personal Paint 7.1 I remember how agonizing it was to work in  Lightwave 5, on my A500 with 4.5 megs of ram.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Oldsmobile_Mike on November 27, 2012, 08:09:15 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716487
Most WHDLoad games have monster anims of 3 frames.  Yes I looked at them and counted them. :)  You are really lucky to get 4-8 frames.  A typical monster anim in Total Chaos AGA might have 8-24 frames but some have 40, 64, 120 or whatever.  Its an Amiga.  It does gfx.  Why limit it?  I love my Amiga :knuddel: and I let her do what she is good at because she is so lovely and has never let me down. :angel:
Number of anim frames multiplies the MB requirements again.


I pulled up some YouTube videos of this game just based on this comment.  Shame the quality gets so chopped down on anything uploaded to that site, but still looks pretty good, and kudos for your hard work!  :)
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 08:48:34 AM
Quote from: Oldsmobile_Mike;716531
I pulled up some YouTube videos of this game just based on this comment.  Shame the quality gets so chopped down on anything uploaded to that site, but still looks pretty good, and kudos for your hard work!  :)


Thanxx0rz dude! :D  I was starting to get bummed about the whole thing.  Your Raise Dead spell has revived me :)

Ok the thing about those videos is that the guy who made them did them on a 780Mhz Laptop so, some of the choppiness might be YouTube's fault but a lot of it is the guy's computer just plain chops the hell out of the anims.  Speeds up, slows down, lots of frames of animation go missing here and there, sound is not always in sync...  I hate it :(

I offered to make him a special version of the game with anims that play in super slow motion so that none of the frames would go missing (no more jarring steps) but he was not interested so I kinda forgot about it.

Now that I just bought myself a brand new 3.1Ghz bgcpc I might possibly make some videos of my own, where the gfx are all there and in sync with the sound so it will at least look and sound like it does in real life (hopefully)...  I have no idea how to record such a video but at least now I have the equipment.

To the best of my knowledge (which is not very far or anything) Total Chaos was the very first playable game on YouTube.  You can actually play it on YouTube.  Yeah its amazingly simplistic compared to the real game and honestly might make you hate the game for how simple the YouTube version is,  but it "works". :)

AGA: 1992 Lives Forever
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Lord Aga on November 27, 2012, 12:37:56 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716487

Its really easy to fill it up.  AmigaOS has RAM:  (ramdisk.device)

A lot of ppl like to play their games from RAM: the first time they try them to decide if they are any good.  Other ppl do it the other way around and only put a game in their RAM: if they do like it, to make it load faster.  These are things random ppl tell me.


I used to do this all the time with Dune II :)
'Twas lightning fast running from the RAM, and had no wait states.
Amiga WAS memory starved from the beginning. If only A1200 was launched with 2+2MB of RAM we would have had more then 2x faster machine, and with room for little extra gaming material.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Linde on November 27, 2012, 01:44:00 PM
An interesting thing to note about Doom 3 (since it was suddenly brought into discussion although the Doom in question was quite obviously the original one) is that it doesn't require more than 256 MB RAM.

I can see how more RAM could be an asset, but I'll go ahead and say that there are a lot of games that look better than TC: AGA that run on a stock A500 and some even on C64 (not that it looks bad in any way; I'd love to give it a try if it ran on my wedge). Mostly superior in style and visual coherence, but that only goes to show that hi-res graphics maximalism isn't necessarily the "right" approach to better looking games.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 01:54:53 PM
@Lord AGA

I agree!

And I used to load Wings into my 8MB ram disk.  Made things way faster.  I used to do that with several cinemaware games.  Cinemaware games were great but they sure did load a lot.

I also used to play Might & Magic II while multitasking a screengrabber.  I would grab the screen and save it to RAM (I did not even have a hard drive yet).  I would have Deluxe Paint running with my Might & Magic.  I would load up the screen grab adjust the colors and then print it out to my printer while moving on to the next area to be mapped.

Having a printed map that did not disappear between adventures, saved me a lot of time.

Everyone else was stuck with a tiny little $3000.00 640K pc but I was using 3000-4000K of my 9000K total just to play M&M2 with professional mapping ability. :laugh1:
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 02:22:34 PM
Quote from: Linde;716557
An interesting thing to note about Doom 3 (since it was suddenly brought into discussion although the Doom in question was quite obviously the original one)
I don't think anyone cares about the filesize of the Original Doom in 1993.  It is 2012.  By my reckoning that makes it 19 years ago.

If you want to compare archive sizes of 1993 games then in 1993 TC was either at the 5MB level or 16MB level.  I don't remember which.  Toooo long ago.   If I had to pick I would say 5MB.

For those who are obsessed with archive sizes:
Why can't we compare the archive size that today's Doom sequel is?


Quote
is that it doesn't require more than 256 MB RAM.
You mean for the PS3 version?

So translated into English: Doom 3 requires 100% of all the ram available to the hardware, correct?

Doom 3 on PS3 ties up all the hardware resources and a player may not type a letter to grandma while the game is paused.  Is that correct?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 02:25:57 PM
If PS3 games can use 256MB then Amiga games should be allowed to use 256MB, right?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Thorham on November 27, 2012, 02:32:56 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716563
If PS3 games can use 256MB then Amiga games should be allowed to use 256MB, right?
Of course, but could you give an example of a hypothetical Amiga game that would need 256 megabytes?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Karlos on November 27, 2012, 02:34:51 PM
Quote from: Thorham;716564
Of course, but could you give an example of a hypothetical Amiga game that would need 256 megabytes?


Well, I can just about run Quake 3 on my A1200. That uses most of the available RAM :)
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 02:39:04 PM
A unlimited number of games can be written in the future that need 256MB or more.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Linde on November 27, 2012, 02:44:58 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716561
I don't think anyone cares about the filesize of the Original Doom in 1993.  It is 2012.  By my reckoning that makes it 19 years ago.

If you want to compare archive sizes of 1993 games then in 1993 TC was either at the 5MB level or 16MB level.  I don't remember which.  Toooo long ago.   If I had to pick I would say 5MB.

For those who are obsessed with archive sizes:
Why can't we compare the archive size that today's Doom sequel is?



You mean for the PS3 version?

So translated into English: Doom 3 requires 100% of all the ram available to the hardware, correct?

Doom 3 on PS3 ties up all the hardware resources and a player may not type a letter to grandma while the game is paused.  Is that correct?

You have a really annoying habit of extrapolating people's arguments to make the most ridiculous assumptions whenever you see fit. You're flailing at a strawman here; no, I don't mean the PS3 version of Doom 3.

Regarding being "allowed" to use 256 MB RAM, don't think for a second that anyone is trying to stop you. Use how much RAM you see fit, just don't be surprised that no 2 GB accelerators exist or when only a few people are interested in frankensteining their Amigas to play your game because of its requirements. I'm content with my 8 MB expansion, it allows me to play most of the games that made Amiga matter, and lets me use all the tools where Amiga still seems to have a definite edge over current hardware to me.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Thorham on November 27, 2012, 02:58:01 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716566
A unlimited number of games can be written in the future that need 256MB or more.

I have a hard time with comming up with anything. Can you give me a concrete example of a hypothetical game that would need 256 megabytes of ram?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: yssing on November 27, 2012, 03:08:24 PM
I have 256 on my A1200 and I ever use it all. But I do download to ram disk and use it for temp storage, so potentially I could use it all.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 03:11:17 PM
Quote from: Linde;716567
I don't mean the PS3 version of Doom 3.


Well tell me what you do mean.  I can't read your mind.

Are you saying PS3 version of Doom 3 uses more than 256MB?
Are you saying PS3 version of Doom 3 uses less than 256MB?

Are you saying PC version (which is a port of the PS3 or XBOX version) uses 256MB?

Or are you saying we should just drop this whole discussion since it doesn't actually matter how much ram DOOM3 uses? :)
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 03:14:28 PM
Quote from: yssing;716571
I have 256 on my A1200 and I ever use it all. But I do download to ram disk and use it for temp storage, so potentially I could use it all.


Do you consider your Amiga to have been "frankensteined"?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: yssing on November 27, 2012, 03:23:38 PM
Well it is updated quite a bit :)
I would really like to have a Mediator solution installed as well.
So I could use all the goodies that the mediator provides.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Linde on November 27, 2012, 03:39:17 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716572
Well tell me what you do mean.  I can't read your mind.

Are you saying PS3 version of Doom 3 uses more than 256MB?
Are you saying PS3 version of Doom 3 uses less than 256MB?

Are you saying PC version (which is a port of the PS3 or XBOX version) uses 256MB?

Or are you saying we should just drop this whole discussion since it doesn't actually matter how much ram DOOM3 uses? :)
No, I am saying that Doom 3, which is not a port of any PS3 or XBOX game, only needs 256 MB system RAM to run. It doesn't matter which system you run it (the official release) on. You don't have to read my mind because I wrote exactly what I meant.

To be perfectly fair, that's only a half-truth, since it also requires 64 MB of VRAM.

You are the one who brought up Doom 3 in the first place to compare apples to oranges, remember? When the comparison stops being in your favor you suddenly decide that it doesn't matter.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 27, 2012, 04:36:18 PM
Quote from: Linde;716575

You are the one who brought up Doom 3 in the first place to compare apples to oranges, remember? When the comparison stops being in your favor you suddenly decide that it doesn't matter.


Commodore John brought up Doom first.  CommodoreJohn compared apples to oranges.  He compred a game for a different genre (FPS vs TBS), made for a different platform, using a different engine, using a different type of gfx and produced in a different century.

If you want to compare 2 games then you need to compare the latest versions don't you?

Or at least versions from the same century?

Doom 3 came up because 1. he provided no size.  2. its the first thing in the list when I looked for Doom.  None of that is my fault.

Its 2012 not 1993
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Tripitaka on November 27, 2012, 05:42:55 PM
Wow, I can't believe I've just read this thread through and more than once someone has stated that making Amiga games that don't run on an 80's spec Amiga is "leaving people out" or some other such comment.

Is that for real?

Own an original Amiga so can legally use the ROMs or have purchased them by buying Amiga Forever? Check!

Own a PC that can run UAE? Check!

Can download UAE for your OS for free or have purchased Amiga Forever? Check!

Then how the hell can you be left out? I just don't get that logic at all.
Plenty of us have 80's spec Amigas for classic stuff and a UAE install (or NG 'miggy of some type) for more needy software. No one is left out, let's be honest, that sort of comment is borderline troll food.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Linde on November 27, 2012, 06:13:08 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716582
Commodore John brought up Doom first.  CommodoreJohn compared apples to oranges.  He compred a game for a different genre (FPS vs TBS), made for a different platform, using a different engine, using a different type of gfx and produced in a different century.

Commodorejohn never compared Doom to anything. He used it as an example of a game having high quality assets under quite heavy constraints. I'm not sure where he compares it to any other game, so maybe you can point it out.

Quote
If you want to compare 2 games then you need to compare the latest versions don't you?

Sure, but since when is Doom 3 a version of Doom? It's a sequel, for sure, but "3" is not a version number.

Quote
Or at least versions from the same century?

Yeah, let's see if that is favorable to you.

Quote
Doom 3 came up because 1. he provided no size.  2. its the first thing in the list when I looked for Doom.  None of that is my fault.

Right, so the fact that you didn't bother to look anything up before answering with an utterly invalid argument is not your fault. Fair enough, at least you agree that it was uninformed.

Either you are just playing dumb while painting yourself into a corner, or you didn't really read commodorejohn's post. Do you think the hundred-pixel tall sprites he wrote about was in a less than ten years old AAA title? It's 2012, not 1993.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Linde on November 27, 2012, 06:23:52 PM
Quote from: Tripitaka;716588
Wow, I can't believe I've just read this thread through and more than once someone has stated that making Amiga games that don't run on an 80's spec Amiga is "leaving people out" or some other such comment.

Is that for real?

Own an original Amiga so can legally use the ROMs or have purchased them by buying Amiga Forever? Check!

Own a PC that can run UAE? Check!

Can download UAE for your OS for free or have purchased Amiga Forever? Check!

Then how the hell can you be left out? I just don't get that logic at all.
Plenty of us have 80's spec Amigas for classic stuff and a UAE install (or NG 'miggy of some type) for more needy software. No one is left out, let's be honest, that sort of comment is borderline troll food.


Yeah, what's the point in having an Amiga at all, really? I dismissed UAE for gaming a while ago on the basis that it has some slight issues with I/O delay. Sound is quite obviously delayed (and for obvious reasons, too!), and either graphics or HID input is also slightly delayed. The effect is minimal, but it detracts from the full experience in a way that I prefer to avoid.

I don't mean to say that UAE is bad. For all I know, this behavior might be inherent to emulators of this kind.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on November 27, 2012, 06:33:03 PM
Quote from: Tripitaka;716588
Wow, I can't believe I've just read this thread through and more than once someone has stated that making Amiga games that don't run on an 80's spec Amiga is "leaving people out" or some other such comment.
 
Is that for real?
 
Own an original Amiga so can legally use the ROMs or have purchased them by buying Amiga Forever? Check!
 
Own a PC that can run UAE? Check!
 
Can download UAE for your OS for free or have purchased Amiga Forever? Check!
 
Then how the hell can you be left out? I just don't get that logic at all.
Plenty of us have 80's spec Amigas for classic stuff and a UAE install (or NG 'miggy of some type) for more needy software. No one is left out, let's be honest, that sort of comment is borderline troll food.

Sorry mate, but WinUAE and UAE or whatever letter combination that comes out as UAE is not a real Amiga or an Amiga. It emulates it. It is a software that tricks Amiga software on running on Windows. It tries to get as much compatibility as posisble and add things into it that the original Amiga hardware cannot provide like 8 MB CHIP RAM, but dude....it aint Amiga. It is an emulator running on Windows/Mac/Linux, but aint Amiga. If it was, I would not go huntin for 040 apollo and spending 400 bucks for it, I would save that cash for something else and instead go to WinUAE and select configuration and select 040 and run the emulator.
 
To imply that UAE is a real Amiga is an insult to people like me who ACTUALLY spending fortune on outdated hardware FOR THEIR REAL AMIGA to get their best experience.
 
I own a commodore 1084s monitor on a real Amiga 1200 and the experience of these CAN NEVER BE MIMICED on the best emulator on Earth.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Linde on November 27, 2012, 06:46:00 PM
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;716597
To imply that UAE is a real Amiga is an insult to people like me who ACTUALLY spending fortune on outdated hardware FOR THEIR REAL AMIGA to get their best experience.

Where exactly was the implication that UAE is a real Amiga?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: strim on November 27, 2012, 06:52:30 PM
Quote
Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?

For NetBSD/amiga (http://www.netbsd.org/ports/amiga/) 24MB is absolute minimum these days, but it will happily fill 128MB during normal usage (like expanding tar archive, compiling stuff, etc.).
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: paul1981 on November 27, 2012, 07:29:05 PM
Quote from: cgutjahr;716474
It can, yes. But who's editing "CD quality stereo audio tracks" on an A1200 these days?

I do. You can load a 6 minute song into 64MB. Most songs are under 6 minutes fortunately. Classical music tends to be much longer. Even 256MB wouldn't be enough for some classical pieces.

People use their Amiga's for all sorts of stuff. And like ChaosLord said - the majority of users aren't even forum members. I've been a hardcore fan for 20 years since Santa delivered me an A1200 and yet I didn't join an Amiga forum until 2009.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: darksun9210 on November 27, 2012, 08:04:31 PM
well... depends on what you're doing with it... :)
OS3.9 on an RTG screen ~4MB
TCP/IP stack ~1MB
USB stack ~1MB
other random stuff you like to run:- magic menu, something mui based, yadda yadda +2/4Mb?
and that's before we've even got going.
YAM email client with all the icons? I can't remember, but it's not going to be cheap
so even the basic 16MB on the 3k/4k mobo starts to look limiting.

a little bit of quake for sir/madame? as much ram as you want to assign

PPC based heretic2 wants at least 64MB.

I just like the idea of 128MB+ ram... means you don't worry about it :D and 256MB... well, that's just "infinite" as for as miggys go I guess
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: commodorejohn on November 27, 2012, 08:19:48 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716561
I don't think anyone cares about the filesize of the Original Doom in 1993.  It is 2012.  By my reckoning that makes it 19 years ago.
As Linde has pointed out, I brought up the DOOM comparison because A. it's a solid example of a game working within the constraints of a smallish filesize to deliver something amazing, and B. it's also fairly well within comparability to an AGA Amiga game, time-wise.

Quote
For those who are obsessed with archive sizes:
Why can't we compare the archive size that today's Doom sequel is?
Nobody said we can't - but if we're going to, then we're going to compare everything else. Your game is so far removed from Doom 3 in all aspects that a comparison is basically meaningless, but TC-AGA requires twice (or, taking the 24MB situation, 1.5x) the RAM and 1.2x the disk space of the original StarCraft. Does it stack up favorably against StarCraft?

Quote from: Thorham;716569
I have a hard time with comming up with anything.  Can you give me a concrete example of a hypothetical game that would  need 256 megabytes of ram?
Total Chaos RTG :roflmao:
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: som99 on November 27, 2012, 08:39:57 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716572
Are you saying PC version (which is a port of the PS3 or XBOX version) uses 256MB?

Not ranting but Doom 3 was written for PC and it uses the id tech 4 opengl engine it is not a port from any console and it was released 2004 so it was made before ps3 and 360 existed.

Also there patch so it can run on 2x sli voodoo 2 cards with 12MB vram but it looks crap but is quite cool since it needs 64MB vram :)

Just trivial facts.

I understand that some need more ram on their Amiga but I am happy with 64MB
But more would not hurt but I'm not in need of more atm.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Tripitaka on November 27, 2012, 10:16:26 PM
@AmigaClassicRule & Linde.

First off, as Linde pointed out, I did not imply UAE was a real Amiga. God forbid. That  would just lead us down the "what is a real Amiga?" path and let's face it we have had that debate on A.org countless times.

I also meant no insult to my fellow classic Amiga users nor did I imply that UAE made it worth ditching your real hardware, or anything else so insanely silly.

However, I did feel it needed pointing out that someone taking time and effort to make a high-spec Amiga game that required a decent CPU and/or a shed load of RAM should not be bashed for his efforts.

The point is (and this was the whole point of my post) that writing games for high end Amigas is a good thing, not everything needs to run on a 6800 or 68020. Even if the spec is too much for your 'miggy no one needs to be left out. If you have a classic Amiga with the spec needed ( because maybe you hunted down an 040 and payed hundreds of bucks) or a NG system, great, no problem. If not, use UAE, it's free.

ChaosLord was getting stick for his stance of making high spec games that required an upgraded machine on the grounds that he should aim at a lower spec, I was just pointing out that if you haven't got the spec another choice exists.

Just for the record, I loathe emulation and would rather use classic hardware anyday and with games like TotalChaos around buying all that RAM and CPU power becomes more worthwhile. Sadly, if it needs an 060, I still need UAE :(
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: motrucker on November 28, 2012, 12:12:18 AM
Quote from: AmigaClassicRule;716524
And Amiga's classic hardware valued for serious business? For education? For running servers? For used in government servers to maintain valuable secret data that is worth billions?

Uh....duh....of course it is only for games. When you stick C= there as an addition to it's record history and WHY at least *I* own it, I am surprised you call it computer in the first place and not a console?

Actually, I call mine a console regardless of your attempt to convince me otherwise, hehe.

As graphics wise I believe we go through the route of Macintosh!!!

So BRING OUT THE GAMES BABY FOR the Amiga!!!

I know Chaos Lord will love me for saying this, but, lately most of the time I spend playing on my A1200 is Total Chaos. I tend to play it for hours usually, because it is not registered, I tend to turn off the monitor and keep my A1200 on for days until I finish it. Of course when my Amiga 1200 decides to crash on me and I bit my nails from frustration that is when I turn her off.

I still use my Amigas for graphics, and DTP. I use the windows machine for games, more often than not. Thank god for ImageFX....
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Linde on November 28, 2012, 01:24:06 AM
Quote from: Tripitaka;716640
ChaosLord was getting stick for his stance of making high spec games that required an upgraded machine on the grounds that he should aim at a lower spec, I was just pointing out that if you haven't got the spec another choice exists.


Personally I'm neither against the idea of a lot of RAM or games for high-spec Amigas. What I can't stand is ChaosLord's arrogant demeanor, fallacious reasoning and his idea that more RAM is somehow necessary to make better games. I'll gladly argue against anyone who plays dumb in order to try to make a fool of another member, and applies the same reasoning to 2000s PC games to games that need to run on machines with MIPS in the 2-digit range.

Thorham puts it nicely; a 60 frame animation won't somehow magically make a game look good if your collection of assets has no real coherence or follow any sort of style guidelines. Looking at videos of TC: AGA, I think it's not a bad example of a game that could use some coherence in its assets. It looks fun, but in my opinion the graphics could use some work on the existing frames of animation instead of adding more. If this is bashing, so be it, but I hope it is taken as constructive critique, as it was meant.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Tripitaka on November 28, 2012, 03:06:07 AM
@Linde

To be honest, it wasn't you my original post was aimed at and constructive critique is all good. Sadly I've seen too many people give up the Amiga due to feeling that although they give good time, and in some cases good money to the hobby and just get grief in return. ChaosLord has done a lot of work to give us Total Chaos, he could have spent that time making a game for iOS and made some proper cash. Kudos to him for that. Anyway, g'night, I'm off to bed.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 28, 2012, 09:40:08 AM
Quote from: Tripitaka;716640
@AmigaClassicRule & Linde.

ChaosLord was getting stick for his stance of making high spec games that required an upgraded machine on the grounds that he should aim at a lower spec, I was just pointing out that if you haven't got the spec another choice exists.


I made an A1000/A500 Total Chaos for many years.  Low-spec.  Lores gfx.  Ran from a single floppy.  Nobody really cared.  In the present day I know of 3 ppl who prefer the ancient games in the series complete with their gawdawful gfx and sfx that sound like they escaped from a burning buiilding of C64s.

Once I made a higher specced game reuiring AGA Amigas and a hard drive and extra memory more ppl started to enjoy the game.  All the extra colors allowed me to greatly improve the user interface.  Extra cpu power meant I was not afraid to code better AI. etc. etc.

Quote

Just for the record, I loathe emulation and would rather use classic hardware anyday and with games like TotalChaos around buying all that RAM and CPU power becomes more worthwhile. Sadly, if it needs an 060, I still need UAE :(

Whether Total Chaos "needs" an 060 is a subjective opinion.  I say it "needs" it becuase all the compression and decompression goes noticeably faster.  The framerate of the anims is higher.  The unlha time of the archive goes noticeably faster.  The AI in a complex situation goes a bit faster.  its just a whole bunch of little things.  My main reason for recommending 060s is simply that the 060 has dual 8K caches that can hold 7 tiles at once and give the animations a speedboost.  All Amigas should have cheap mass-produced 200Mhz 060s AFAIC.

But alas we live in a different world.

Many ppl play the game on a 50Mhz 030, 33Mhz 030 or (GASP!) 25Mhz 030.  To me this would be agony.  But to them they are totally kewl with it.  "So the onscreen monsters animate more slowly?  so what?  Its the gameplay that counts!"  And I can't argue with that.  The game play is exactly the same no what CPU you are using.  As long as u don't mind waiting an extra few seconds for your Autosave file to be generated each turn then an 030 could be for you. :)

But for those of you who love ur miggy enough to feed her an 040 or 060 you will get noticeably faster Frames Per Second thruout the game, faster save/load.  Faster AI.

My dream is a hires game where all the onscreen anims move at least 60fps.  060 gets me closest to my dream.

Since you meantioned WinUAE, recently someone complained about how long it takes to start the game.  I immediatlely knew the problem was because he had run Ibrowse and other MUI software first which fraggled out his RAM real bad, this slows -everything- down teribly.  + He is using unmodified plainjain IDE A1200 port.  arrrgh.  slowest IDE on the planet.

So anyway a bunch of ppl got together and raced our startup times.
Lots of interestng times on different configs.  To make a long story short I show you the 2 fastest times:
Amiga 1200      50Mhz 060 old slow ram old SCSI hard drive 15 seconds
PC multicore  3100Mhz Winuae new fast ram new IDE UDMA hard drive 12 seconds.

I was really expecing WinUAE to go faster than that!  C'mon its got SUPERFAST DDR3 RAM and superfast brand new high density drive and superfast brand new hard drive controller.

What if the amiga had a 100Mhz 060 in it?  It might have beaten the 3000 mhz pc or at least tied it.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Britelite on November 28, 2012, 09:47:46 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716703

So anyway a bunch of ppl got together and raced our startup times.
Lots of interestng times on different configs.  To make a long story short I show you the 2 fastest times:
Amiga 1200      50Mhz 060 old slow ram old SCSI hard drive 15 seconds
PC multicore  3100Mhz Winuae new fast ram new IDE UDMA hard drive 12 seconds.

I was really expecing WinUAE to go faster than that!  C'mon its got SUPERFAST DDR3 RAM and superfast brand new high density drive and superfast brand new hard drive controller.

There's of course also the possibility that your WinUAE is badly configured ;)
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 28, 2012, 10:24:47 AM
Quote from: Britelite;716704
There's of course also the possibility that your WinUAE is badly configured ;)


Can you give an example of "badly configured" ?

Where is the "Badly Configured" / "Properly Configured" option located in WinUAE?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Britelite on November 28, 2012, 10:29:45 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716706
Can you give an example of "badly configured" ?

Where is the "Badly Configured" / "Properly Configured" option located in WinUAE?

That's impossible to answer, considering I don't know what you're trying to emulate. But assuming you're aiming for maximum speed, are you using 040 emulation with JIT enabled and disabled cycle exact chipset emulation?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 28, 2012, 10:54:12 AM
Quote

That's impossible to answer, considering I don't know what you're trying to emulate.
 Fastest Amiga possible.  That actually works.

Quote
But assuming you're aiming for maximum speed, are you using 040 emulation

Why did you say 040 instead of 020 or 030 or 060?

Most ppl have their cpu set to 020 or 030 in WinUAE for maximum compatibility and speed.  So why do you suggest 040?

Quote
with JIT enabled
Without JIT WInUAE runs at the speed of a 1Mhz a500 if I am lucky.  Less if I am unlucky.  So I -always- have JIT on all the time.  Turning it off is unbearable.

Quote

 and disabled cycle exact chipset emulation?"

Yes of course.  But the option says "Fastest possible but maintain chipset timing"
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Britelite on November 28, 2012, 11:06:53 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716712

Why did you say 040 instead of 020 or 030 or 060?

Most ppl have their cpu set to 020 or 030 in WinUAE for maximum compatibility and speed.  So why do you suggest 040?

At least in the past 040 emulation was the best option when developing for the 060, might have changed since.

Quote

 Without JIT WInUAE runs at the speed of a 1Mhz a500 if I am lucky.  Less if I am unlucky.  So I -always- have JIT on all the time.  Turning it off is unbearable.

Well, on my Pentium4 running stuff without JIT is surely slow, but not 1MHz A500 slow :)
I also use JIT all the time, and it makes a huge difference for me, even on my old netbook. The speeds I get are way beyond anything an 060 Amiga can produce, including diskaccess. Which is why I wondered if you have it turned on, considering your loadingtimes don't differ that much.

May I ask what your host system is?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 28, 2012, 12:00:27 PM
Quote from: Britelite;716715
At least in the past 040 emulation was the best option when developing for the 060, might have changed since.


Well, on my Pentium4 running stuff without JIT is surely slow, but not 1MHz A500 slow :)
I also use JIT all the time, and it makes a huge difference for me, even on my old netbook. The speeds I get are way beyond anything an 060 Amiga can produce, including diskaccess. Which is why I wondered if you have it turned on, considering your loadingtimes don't differ that much.

May I ask what your host system is?


Can you run the timing test on your system and lemme know what you get?

Download TotalChaosAGAr6.lha from aminet.
1. unlha it. (time how long this takes)  This is just for fun since someone mentioned it earlier.
2. Run the game.  This means double click its icon and start your stopwatch.  stop the stopwatch when the blackish screen comes up that allows you to enter your wizard names and teams.  This is for historial purposes.  Just interesting.  The first time the game runs, all the audio in the game must be decompressed.  Its thousands of files, loads of disk thrashing.

Having completely that test  we are about to do the REAL timing test that so many ppl did the other week.  Its called the "2nd run test"

Quit the game


4. Double click the game icon and start your stopwatch.  When the black screen with the wizard names and teams comes up. stop the stopwatch.  This is the meaninful test because this is what the player experiences every time he loads the game.  All that other stuff was just a once in a lifetime thing.

Be sure to say the hardware you used. what kind of Drive, HD?  what size?  SSD?  Is ur drive on SATA 300 OR SATA 600 or PATA ?  How many Ghz you have?  How many cores?  the usual stuff.

Thanxx0rz
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Britelite on November 28, 2012, 12:02:38 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716717
Can you run the timing test on your system and lemme know what you get?

Sure, will do that later today as soon as I get home.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Ral-Clan on November 28, 2012, 01:13:00 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716712
Fastest Amiga possible.  That actually works.

 Without JIT WInUAE runs at the speed of a 1Mhz a500 if I am lucky.  Less if I am unlucky.  So I -always- have JIT on all the time.  Turning it off is unbearable.

If using RTG in WinUAE, you also need to manually install a special UAE RTG driver to MONITORS in AmigaOS (and a faster picasso/rtg library??).  Otherwise RTG is very slow.  I can't remember how this is done, as I did it back in 2008 and have used it ever since.  It made a BIG difference in speed.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: bloodline on November 28, 2012, 01:32:45 PM
I noticed on the front page that this thread has 85 replies... That's a lot of replies just to say "no"!



:lol:
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: motrucker on November 28, 2012, 02:01:18 PM
Quote from: bloodline;716725
I noticed on the front page that this thread has 85 replies... That's a lot of replies just to say "no"!



:lol:

Point is, the correct answer is YES. You surprise me.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: bloodline on November 28, 2012, 02:17:05 PM
Quote from: motrucker;716727
Point is, the correct answer is YES. You surprise me.
I was making a joke, if there is one rule in computing... It is that you can never have too much memory.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: motrucker on November 28, 2012, 03:04:53 PM
Sorry, I should have realized that. Gawd, am I getting that serious these days?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: bloodline on November 28, 2012, 03:31:38 PM
Quote from: motrucker;716736
Sorry, I should have realized that. Gawd, am I getting that serious these days?
20 years of disappointment will do that to a guy! :(
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Britelite on November 28, 2012, 04:26:15 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716717
Can you run the timing test on your system and lemme know what you get?

Ok, now I've tried it

Quote

1. unlha it. (time how long this takes)  This is just for fun since someone mentioned it earlier.

Unpacking took around 3:30min

Quote

2. Run the game.  This means double click its icon and start your stopwatch.  stop the stopwatch when the blackish screen comes up that allows you to enter your wizard names and teams.  This is for historial purposes.  Just interesting.  The first time the game runs, all the audio in the game must be decompressed.  Its thousands of files, loads of disk thrashing.

Took 3:10min

Quote

4. Double click the game icon and start your stopwatch.  When the black screen with the wizard names and teams comes up. stop the stopwatch.  This is the meaninful test because this is what the player experiences every time he loads the game.  All that other stuff was just a once in a lifetime thing.

After installation and running the first time this took about 5 seconds. After I reset WinUAE and tried it a few times it took 5-8 seconds.

Quote
Be sure to say the hardware you used. what kind of Drive, HD?  what size?  SSD?  Is ur drive on SATA 300 OR SATA 600 or PATA ?  How many Ghz you have?  How many cores?  the usual stuff.

My machine is an old Pentium4, ~3GHz and single core. Old regular (not SSD) 160GB SATA harddrive which hasn't been defragmented in ages. 5 year old WinXP installation and WinUAE 2.4.1
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: billt on November 28, 2012, 05:38:11 PM
Remember that there is and was more to Amiga computing than just games on a floppy disk or two.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 28, 2012, 09:07:06 PM
@BriteLite
Interesting that u got faster times than the other guys....

Was your AGA emu on?
Was your PAULA emu on?

Did the gfx look right?

Music sounded ok?

I wonder if yours loaded faster than his because you had 040 set.  020 and 030 (+FPU) are supposed to be fastest.... :confused:

If 040 is faster then 060 should be even fastererer :)

What filessystem did u run the game from?

Did u unlha the game from within your amiga?
Or did u unla from outside your Amiga with 7zip?


I will get brand new 3.1Ghz bgcpc and try this myself at some point.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: derringer3 on November 28, 2012, 09:07:15 PM
Until to get os4 or using serious app you don't need. But As i remembered for example browsing with OWB under os4 classic eat up your memory to the limit. Also If you want to play Battle of wesnoth you need to kick all of the tasks or end up with slide show because out of memory effect.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Britelite on November 29, 2012, 07:00:14 AM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716777
@BriteLite
Interesting that u got faster times than the other guys....

Was your AGA emu on?

Yes, AGA emulation is turned on

Quote

Was your PAULA emu on?

Of course, no point in playing games or watching demos without sound ;)

Quote

Did the gfx look right?

Yes, they looked fine

Quote

Music sounded ok?

The music sounded good

Quote

I wonder if yours loaded faster than his because you had 040 set.  020 and 030 (+FPU) are supposed to be fastest.... :confused:

If 040 is faster then 060 should be even fastererer :)

The 060 option doesn't speed up anything, as it really doesn't emulate a 060.

Quote

What filessystem did u run the game from?

I've mounted a directory in Windows as a harddrive (instead of using a hardfile), so that might actually speed up loading times.

Quote

Did u unlha the game from within your amiga?

Yes, I used lha 2.12

I can share my WinUAE configuration-file, if you want to try it yourself.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: som99 on November 29, 2012, 07:52:17 AM
Quote from: Britelite;716836

I've mounted a directory in Windows as a harddrive (instead of using a hardfile), so that might actually speed up loading times.


I've noticed this myself when using dopus,  at least I think it's quicker, I have never measured it but it feels quicker.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 29, 2012, 02:18:13 PM
Quote from: Britelite;716836

The 060 option doesn't speed up anything, as it really doesn't emulate a 060.

But "The 040 option doesn't speed up anything, as it really doesn't emulate a 040.", right?

Quote

I've mounted a directory in Windows as a harddrive (instead of using a hardfile), so that might actually speed up loading times.

AHA!  u cheated! :)

I appreciate ur test results and everything but as the NTFS dirs option has multiple bugs that corrupt the game, it does not count.

Unless Toni fixed the bugs in the intervening years (4?).  It has been quite some years since I documented the bugs so it is possible.  Yes it acted like more than one bug iirc.

All I can say is that until I can certify that all NTFS dir bugs have been fixed, timing tests have to be done from some kind of hardfile.  FFS, SFS, PFS3, or some other more exotic one.  Hardfiles are supposed to be pretty fast.  I would be very interested to see your times from a hardfile, to see how much difference it makes, if any.

I am wondering how PFS3 compares to SFS compares to FFS 4k compares to FFS 16k.

I wanted to release Total Chaos on an FFS 4K hardfile way back before PFS3 was released for free.  But I was in horrible pain and could do absolutely nothing but watch the world go by all these years.

I have now recovered just a little bit to the point that I can write a few forum msgs here and there, but I hafta be real careful not to over do it.

Anyway I figured a FFS 4K or 16K with a bunch of Addbuffers would really whoopass. :cool:  But now PFS3 is out and that throws a monkey wrench into my plans for world domination :kitty:



Quote

I can share my WinUAE configuration-file, if you want to try it yourself.


Maybe later after I have my new 3.1Ghz quad-core WinUAE machine set up.  I bought it for the purpose of performing as close to a 50Mhz real Amiga (or better) as possible.  I would love for it to solidly go at 100Mhz speed but I have never seen it do that.   I have a few ideas for making WinUAE go faster.  We shall see.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Crumb on November 29, 2012, 02:19:47 PM
Quote from: Faerytale;716458
Whdload machines seems to be ok with 2-4 MB of ram.


ham8 cdxl pr0n
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: AmigaClassicRule on November 29, 2012, 02:20:40 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716860
But "The 040 option doesn't speed up anything, as it really doesn't emulate a 040.", right?
 
 
AHA! u cheated! :)
 
I appreciate ur test results and everything but as the NTFS dirs option has multiple bugs that corrupt the game, it does not count.
 
Unless Toni fixed the bugs in the intervening years (4?). It has been quite some years since I documented the bugs so it is possible. Yes it acted like more than one bug iirc.
 
All I can say is that until I can certify that all NTFS dir bugs have been fixed, timing tests have to be done from some kind of hardfile. FFS, SFS, PFS3, or some other more exotic one. Hardfiles are supposed to be pretty fast. I would be very interested to see your times from a hardfile, to see how much difference it makes, if any.
 
I am wondering how PFS3 compares to SFS compares to FFS 4k compares to FFS 16k.
 
I wanted to release Total Chaos on an FFS 4K hardfile way back before PFS3 was released for free. But I was in horrible pain and could do absolutely nothing but watch the world go by all these years.
 
I have now recovered just a little bit to the point that I can write a few forum msgs here and there, but I hafta be real careful not to over do it.
 
Anyway I figured a FFS 4K or 16K with a bunch of Addbuffers would really whoopass. :cool: But now PFS3 is out and that throws a monkey wrench into my plans for world domination :kitty:
 
 
 
 
 
Maybe later after I have my new 3.1Ghz quad-core WinUAE machine set up. I bought it for the purpose of performing as close to a 50Mhz real Amiga (or better) as possible. I would love for it to solidly go at 100Mhz speed but I have never seen it do that. I have a few ideas for making WinUAE go faster. We shall see.

Sometimes when I disable sound in WinUAE it goes SO fast that double clicking an icon no longer register.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: ChaosLord on November 29, 2012, 02:47:00 PM
Quote from: Britelite;716747

Took 3:10min

My machine is an old Pentium4, ~3GHz and single core. Old regular (not SSD) 160GB SATA harddrive which hasn't been defragmented in ages. 5 year old WinXP installation and WinUAE 2.4.1


Based on the time to unpack all the audio files your 3000Mhz pc runs at the speed of a 100Mhz 060.  Or you could say it runs at about the speed of a 50Mhz 060 which has been connected to 50Mhz SRAM.

This is either good or bad depending on how you look at it.

I was really hoping for more speed than that.

I need 400Mhz 060 power to do the things I want in a game.

I really want to add in .mp3 playback for the WinUAE edition.  But if all ppl can get is 100Mhz 060 speed.... playing a .mp3 will place a huge strain on the game.  (remember the game has a zillion other things it has to do besides the music).

I also want to add .xm and .s3m  16-32 channel mod support.  But once again these can really drink CPU power.

We have actually supported 64 channel med mods for many many years but never really used them as too many ppl are playing the game on sloooooooooow 030s which just can't deal with 64 channel mods and an entire game with heavy animation at the same time.

P.s. what is your frameskip set to?
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: TheBilgeRat on November 29, 2012, 04:51:48 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716533
Thanxx0rz dude! :D  I was starting to get bummed about the whole thing.  Your Raise Dead spell has revived me :)

Ok the thing about those videos is that the guy who made them did them on a 780Mhz Laptop so, some of the choppiness might be YouTube's fault but a lot of it is the guy's computer just plain chops the hell out of the anims.  Speeds up, slows down, lots of frames of animation go missing here and there, sound is not always in sync...  I hate it :(

I offered to make him a special version of the game with anims that play in super slow motion so that none of the frames would go missing (no more jarring steps) but he was not interested so I kinda forgot about it.

Now that I just bought myself a brand new 3.1Ghz bgcpc I might possibly make some videos of my own, where the gfx are all there and in sync with the sound so it will at least look and sound like it does in real life (hopefully)...  I have no idea how to record such a video but at least now I have the equipment.

To the best of my knowledge (which is not very far or anything) Total Chaos was the very first playable game on YouTube.  You can actually play it on YouTube.  Yeah its amazingly simplistic compared to the real game and honestly might make you hate the game for how simple the YouTube version is,  but it "works". :)

AGA: 1992 Lives Forever

This reminds me of a video I watched of one of the Fallout team members discussing the making of the original Fallout and how he pushed hard to make it a 640x480 game (which was unheard of at the time).  Its a fascinating vid - but the piece out of it that got my attention was that the artists had done full VERY hires graphics for all the textures, anims, etc, that were cut down in color and size to actually run on a P1 90Mhz with 16Megs or 32 megs of ram.  It would be amazing if that game was re-released with the full sized and 24 bit color graphics.

Dang it - I can't find it on the youtube.  Anyways - the long and short is I love old games because they have nostalgic value, but I sure like games at 1900x1080x24 with photorealistc images, waving grass, water effects, and plot as well.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Britelite on November 29, 2012, 08:02:56 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;716866
Based on the time to unpack all the audio files your 3000Mhz pc runs at the speed of a 100Mhz 060.  Or you could say it runs at about the speed of a 50Mhz 060 which has been connected to 50Mhz SRAM.

You shouldn't base your assumptions of speed on anything related to diskaccesses. CPU-operations are WAAAAAY beyond anything an 060 can achieve (which usually leads to disappointments when an demoeffect I'm coding is running smoothly in WinUAE and runs like crap on my 060 Amiga :)

Quote
P.s. what is your frameskip set to?

No frameskips
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Tripitaka on November 29, 2012, 08:41:37 PM
Quote from: TheBilgeRat;716884
It would be amazing if that game was re-released with the full sized and 24 bit color graphics


I run Fallout with the Hi-res patch at 1024X600 on my netbook (it plays very well on a netbook) but of course the Hi-res patch is only really giving me a bigger window. I would love to see a release the way you said. I'de be happier still if it was an Amiga port. We can but dream.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: NovaCoder on November 29, 2012, 11:02:33 PM
Quote from: bloodline;716740
20 years of disappointment will do that to a guy! :(


Sounds like the Amiga scene then :)

You never know, maybe one day......
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: NovaCoder on November 29, 2012, 11:06:39 PM
Quote from: Tripitaka;716897
I run Fallout with the Hi-res patch at 1024X600 on my netbook (it plays very well on a netbook) but of course the Hi-res patch is only really giving me a bigger window. I would love to see a release the way you said. I'de be happier still if it was an Amiga port. We can but dream.


I managed to get Quake running in 1280x200 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWYndugCzuk) in AGA on my 1200 but I was taking some strong meds at the time.

The C2P cannot be helping the speed much, maybe when it goes direct-chunky (Indy Mrk2) it will get another frame or two :)
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: mechy on November 30, 2012, 09:48:25 PM
Quote from: commodorejohn;716481
Well, for starters, the better game artists actually understand the constraints of digital art and are willing to work within them. (Take a look at Adrian Carmack's magnificent models for DOOM sometime, and compare them with the little sprites that were the end result. Sure, the models are nicer, but the DOOM team did an amazing job of capturing the details in images only a hundred-plus pixels tall.) If, on the other hand, you're stuck with prima donnas like the ones you're describing, you can always have someone else do the job of adapting it to the target platform, for the sake of team harmony.

But seriously, the more you crank up the requirements, the smaller your potential target audience gets. Sure, I have a 50MHz 030 and 32MB RAM, but how many people don't? Very few people who've just pulled their old Amiga out of the attic to play with are going to be able to run a game that requires 32MB RAM, and are they willing to hunt down a couple hundred bucks' worth of accelerator just for that?

And as Thorham says, package size has very little to do with the quality of a game. Super Mario Bros. 3 is still a beloved classic to this day, and it's all of 384KB.

Its this kind of thinking that hinders us. Its ridiculous to code for the least common denominator when accelerators and ram expansions are plentiful.
If games had been coded for A3000/4000 spec instead of 500/600/1200 we might of had some much nicer games with way more levels and such.

Typical pc users in the day had no problem upgrading machine,but amiga users cry and whine if it does run on a bog standard 500/1200 and they have to spend some money.  think of accelerators of investments on amiga! its one of the few things you can play with 2,3,5,10 years and probably sell it and breakeven. Seems good value to me.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: desiv on November 30, 2012, 10:30:07 PM
Quote from: mechy;716987
If games had been coded for A3000/4000 spec instead of 500/600/1200 we might of had some much nicer games with way more levels and such.
Definitely something to that..
Back in the day, I bought a 512k expansion so I could play a game.
(Dragon's Lair.  Yes, I know a lot of people don't like that game, but I did and still do, so there!!! :razz: )

And there were more than a few games that used more than 512k, so it seemed like a good investment.

But I just didn't see many games out at the time that made me want to spend the kind of money it would have cost to upgrade.
And I'm sure game devs were looking at people like me saying "he doesn't have an accel so why bother putting the work in to have the game support it...

It would be easy to say the game devs just needed to write the games and I would have bought (as I did with the extra 512k).
But...  I can't think of a single game that would have made me spend Amiga Accelerator money...
There would have had to have been several games to justify that type of expense.
I pieced together my first PC for less money than it would have cost to buy an Amiga accel back in the day..
No, I'm not a cutting edge, pay hundreds of dollars for a video card, type of gamer.  ;-)

That being said, developers who push the limits and write huge games get my respect.  They know the market is smaller, but they do it anyway.

Yes, there's something to be said for cramming as much as you can into a small footprint.  That's an art in itself.  
But the other side of the spectrum is nice too....
I appreciate both types of DEVs..

desiv
(and at this point in time, I REALLY APPRECIATE ANY Amiga 68k dev!!!)
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: commodorejohn on November 30, 2012, 10:46:32 PM
Again, I'm not saying people shouldn't develop games for higher-end Amigas. I just don't care for this notion that developing for lower-end systems is "holding the Amiga back" or some such nonsense. Tons of bona fide classic games run on even a 1MB A500 - many were even developed for that spec. And it's still possible for quality games to be developed for that spec - and like it or not, they can potentially reach a wider audience than games that require an 040 and AGA, because any old schmoe who's just pulled his old A500 out of the attic can run it.

Amigans of all people should understand that a computer doesn't become less capable just because someone else introduces a newer computer with bigger numbers.
Title: Re: Is there any real use for 128MB on classic Amiga?
Post by: Thorham on December 01, 2012, 02:37:19 AM
Quote from: mechy;716987
Its this kind of thinking that hinders us. Its ridiculous to code for the least common denominator when accelerators and ram expansions are plentiful.

It depends on the game. For some games, high specs aren't needed. If a game truly requires higher specs, then it's obviously no problem, because it simply can't be done on lower specs anyway, and there's no reason at all to not make something just because it can't be done on low end machines.