Guide: How to make OS3.x faster and more efficient. (Updated)

[Amigaz]

AmigaMance wrote:
Nice! :-)
 You can probably find more recent smart refresh patches on Aminet. They are all the same, more all less. I just use this one.

Yeah..this one seem to work nice  :-) only thing that bothers me is it's splash screen when it starts

Just started using MemOptimizer too...can you please tell me what parameters you are running it with?

[AmigaMance]

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[Amigaz]

AmigaMance wrote:

Yeah..this one seem to work nice only thing that bothers me is it's splash screen when it starts

 No splash screen: SmartWB quiet

Just started using MemOptimizer too...can you please tell me what parameters you are running it with?

 The author provides a good command line in the docs:
Run >NIL: MemOptimizer 15 4096 1048576 20 NOCHIP NOFLUSH
 I would remove the NOCHIP option because even if you are using a gfx-card, your Chip-ram still gets accessed for some tasks.

You mean "SmartWB quiet" in it's tooltype?

Using the parameter from the docs too  :-)

Yeah, you're right about the chipram option

[Flashlab]

Nice topic!

While I have most of the patches already I now completing my setup. I have one question about AmberRAM:

How can I change the name the Ram disk gets? It's named "RAM Disc" which slightly annoys me...

[AmigaMance]

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[Flashlab]

Thanks that worked!

[stopthegop]

I have one other to add to your list:

wballocfast >NIL:

works wonders, and I've found it to be very system friendly.

[mr_a500]

Load the handler to a hex editor, search for disc and replace c with k. Carefull not to touch anything else.

Ah, I see you're also into binary modifications. That's what I like about old software - if you don't like the text, just grab the old Hex editor and change it.

[AmigaMance]

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[cpfuture]

Compliments to AmigaMance. Great topic! I've jotted down a couple of the suggestions and am eager to try them out this weekend.

[Karlos]

Install a "smart refresh" like SmartWB. It will make you WorkBench windows faster, but it will also increase their memory usage.
NOTE: Although i have read many times that these patches are not required for gfx-card users, i'm using a BVision with the latest C-GFX update, and SmartWB gives me a noticable speed increase in window moving etc!! Could anyone give me some feedback on this?

In theory, on a good graphics card the graphics.library rendering functions are hardware accelerated so that simple refresh operations ought to be fast enough so that you never see them.
There are several problems with this postulate:

1) The time it takes the system to physically set up the drawing (GUI layout etc) is totally unrelated to the speed of the underlying hardware.

2) Good hardware is often let down by abysmal drivers and the pretty hacky way RTG is implemented. A lot of acceleration is missed out. BlitBitMapScale() for example is totally software driven on my BVision under CGX4.2 except when the scale is 1:1, despite the fact the permedia can handle scaled blitting no problem. For those functions that are actually hardware accelerated, the time it takes to reach them from the graphics.library calls usually dwarves the time it takes to perform the actual operation.

Smart refresh is based around simply blitting away the hidden areas of a surface and then restoring them when they become visible again. This uses more video ram but can be achieved in a couple of blits at most. Therefore it's always going to win where (1) and (2) are significant.

[stopthegop]

In theory, on a good graphics card the graphics.library rendering functions are hardware accelerated so that simple refresh operations ought to be fast enough so that you never see them.
There are several problems with this postulate:

1) The time it takes the system to physically set up the drawing (GUI layout etc) is totally unrelated to the speed of the underlying hardware.

2) Good hardware is often let down by abysmal drivers and the pretty hacky way RTG is implemented. A lot of acceleration is missed out. BlitBitMapScale() for example is totally software driven on my BVision under CGX4.2 except when the scale is 1:1, despite the fact the permedia can handle scaled blitting no problem. For those functions that are actually hardware accelerated, the time it takes to reach them from the graphics.library calls usually dwarves the time it takes to perform the actual operation.

Smart refresh is based around simply blitting away the hidden areas of a surface and then restoring them when they become visible again. This uses more video ram but can be achieved in a couple of blits at most. Therefore it's always going to win where (1) and (2) are significant.

I'm not sure I followed all that..?  In english: Is SmartWB a good thing or a bad thing?

[AmigaMance]

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[Hyperspeed]

Well I'm going to be a bit more critical here...

I would not use ANY of those patches you have listed there AmigaMance.

If you spend your day dragging Workbench windows about and fragmenting your hard disk I suppose they're great but give me the 'Official is Best' philosophy any day.

Some programs like 'Frogger' demand FBlit but then that movie player is the slowest load of crap there is anyway - better get RiVA(+GUI). Things that patch to this level invariably make your system hideously unpredictable and for very little benefit.

I burn CDs and do a lot of printing, multimedia, emulation, surfing and gaming - I need programs to get along with each other. When I do something to my hard disk I would much rather use DiskSalv (as programmed by a Commodore engineer) than use some 3rd party file system and it's wobbly utilities.

I'd say getting a decent hardware accelerator or graphics card is better than trying to dress mutton as lamb (and making the system untrustworthy at the same time).

If you don't have a GFX card then your best speedup will be by giving the ChipRAM a break. Add more FastMem, keep screen colours 6-bit or below, screenmodes to 15Khz NTSC or therabouts and scale down your icons using Iconian (stripping away any NewIcons bumf in the tooltypes).

Unless you're running a huge database or streaming video then I'm not sure dumping Fast File System is worth the hassle and risk either - particularly if you have a SCSI card with a fast hard disk or Flash drive.

I know I'm sounding like your Grandma here but Cyberpatcher, MultiCX and Executive 2.0 are the only patches I'd pay money for (the latter of which was rated 98% by Amiga Format if I remember correctly).

[adz]

If you are using a 68000 or a 68020 with no fast-ram, please die.
For people who think that "Official = better" or can't edit a startup-sequence, please use windoze or something. It suits you better.

FYI, this is the point at which I stopped reading.

[AmiDude]

Hyperspeed wrote:

Well I'm going to be a bit more critical here...

I would not use ANY of those patches you have listed there AmigaMance.

If you spend your day dragging Workbench windows about and fragmenting your hard disk I suppose they're great but give me the 'Official is Best' philosophy any day.

Some programs like 'Frogger' demand FBlit but then that movie player is the slowest load of crap there is anyway - better get RiVA(+GUI). Things that patch to this level invariably make your system hideously unpredictable and for very little benefit.

I burn CDs and do a lot of printing, multimedia, emulation, surfing and gaming - I need programs to get along with each other. When I do something to my hard disk I would much rather use DiskSalv (as programmed by a Commodore engineer) than use some 3rd party file system and it's wobbly utilities.

I'd say getting a decent hardware accelerator or graphics card is better than trying to dress mutton as lamb (and making the system untrustworthy at the same time).

If you don't have a GFX card then your best speedup will be by giving the ChipRAM a break. Add more FastMem, keep screen colours 6-bit or below, screenmodes to 15Khz NTSC or therabouts and scale down your icons using Iconian (stripping away any NewIcons bumf in the tooltypes).

Unless you're running a huge database or streaming video then I'm not sure dumping Fast File System is worth the hassle and risk either - particularly if you have a SCSI card with a fast hard disk or Flash drive.

@Hyperspeed

You're right. I agree with you dude! :-D

 :pint: