PC still playing Amiga catchup

[Karlos]

It means buttocks in Dutch, though....

That's good to know

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Right. Do you even understand the difference between a PC and PC running Windows?

Linux isn't as real-time as AmigaOS, though...
But LynxOS actually is.
I sure do want to try that baby B-)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

That's good to know

You're never too old to learn

[Karlos]

It obviously not that hardware. I kind doubt it just sort of bottle necks it self for 10 seconds every now and then. ;-)

The only time I've had total freezes on this machine is when I've done something really stupid, like attempting to launch 1,000,000 GPU threads simultaneously, just to see what happens. It completely maxed out the hardware.

X has locked up twice, both times due to a conflict between CUDA and Compiz. Easy to fix, ssh into the box and kill the X server.

The point is, the assertion in this thread that the "PC", as a platform  is playing catch up to the amiga is only true in the vivid imagination of a few Amiga fans that can't comprehend the difference between the PC and the OS that runs on it.

I have an A1, with an 800MHz G4, AGP Radeon 7000 gfx etc. It totally outclasses my classic A1200T in every way imaginable (except that the A1200 currently has more RAM installed ). However, aside from the CPU, it's made entirely out of standard "PC" hardware. And bloody old PC hardware at that.

My "PC", is about 1 year old and was fairly bleeding edge when I built it. In terms of hardware, it outclasses my A1 by an equally obscene amount. It's a hardware box. Windows doesn't come into it, since I run a 64-bit native linux as my main OS anyway.

However, Vista is installed on the machine and, as much as you'll all want to disagree, it flies like sh!t of a shovel. Which is just as well, since I only have it for gaming. You simply cannot play Crysis or Fallout 3 at 1680x1050 with all details turned up to maximum, having it run liquid smooth for several hours of solid gaming and then conclude "its slow and stops responding every now and then".

[Karlos]

Linux isn't as real-time as AmigaOS, though...
But LynxOS actually is.
I sure do want to try that baby B-)

Neither Linux or AmigaOS are realtime OS's and damn well you know it. Claiming one is more "realtime" than another is a bit misleading. A realtime kernel guarantees that an event requiring service will receive it within a specified time limit. No commonly used desktop OS makes this guarantee.

Clock for clock, interprocess communication under AmigaOS is faster than Linux, but considering that procersses run in completely separate memory spaces under linux, a zero copy messaging system isn't really feasible (shared memory segments aside), nor desirable from a memory protection perspective.

You can easily demonstrate where the argument falls over. Simply run a busy process on the AmigaOS at normal priority and see how responsive it isn't. Unless you install a better task scheduler (eg Executive), everything starts to crawl. You can even lock yourself out entirely if your busy process runs higher than priorirty 19 (input.device).

Under linux, I've been able to use machines where the load average was over 100.

[smerf]

Hi,

@Karlos

I don't get it.

All I know is real time, and in real time my Amiga 4000 seems to get the job done faster than a Linux machine or a Windows machine. By the time they get done booting up, my Amiga has usually completed the job and is ready for turning off. As for running processes, the Amiga usually starts to slow down after about several large processes. Still think it is a pretty good machine if you don't mind obsolete games with poor graphics. Come to think of it don't you find Amiga games run on a A4000 harder to play than a new PC with it's modern day graphics and while we are on this subject why don't Electronic Farts, Sierra or any other game company produce games for Linux. Why do they only produce for Micro Soft?

Why aren't they bringing out games for the Amiga?

By the way I like Linux to, I use Ubuntu for all my important stuff, I trust it more than crash and burn windows including XP.

smerf

[InTheSand]

...why don't Electronic Farts, Sierra or any other game company produce games for Linux. Why do they only produce for Micro Soft?

Why aren't they bringing out games for the Amiga?

'cos the amount of remaining Amiga owners who would pay for new games can be counted in single digits - there's no money in it!

And there are some games around for Linux, and at least a few games companies take some steps to get their games running under Wine.

 - Ali

[Karlos]

Hi,

@Karlos

I don't get it.

All I know is real time, and in real time my Amiga 4000 seems to get the job done faster than a Linux machine or a Windows machine.

That all depends on what the job is. My A1, for example would be dozens of times slower than my current linux box for the stuff I'm experimenting with at the moment and my classic machine many times slower again. My 040 manages say, what, 3.5 MFLOPS peak? Assuming I could write the necessary code in assembler to maintain that throughput (totally overlooking the complete lack of memory speed) that's about 101,000 times slower than my current PC manages. In reality it would be even slower given how slow the fsqrt instruction is (ie you'd never get the 3.5MFLOPS for these calculations).

By the time they get done booting up, my Amiga has usually completed the job and is ready for turning off. As for running processes, the Amiga usually starts to slow down after about several large processes. Still think it is a pretty good machine if you don't mind obsolete games with poor graphics.

Don't get me wrong, I love using my old miggies, but when it comes to work, it's all horses for courses.

Why aren't they bringing out games for the Amiga?

Not enough of a market, sadly.

By the way I like Linux to, I use Ubuntu for all my important stuff, I trust it more than crash and burn windows including XP.

smerf

Can't argue with that. I use ubuntu on my home PC, though work requires that I use fedora.

[amigaksi]

No, you are quite right, there were only four at any given instant in time, one for each core*. However, a quick ps aux wwwf | less showed over 150 launched processes at the time I wrote that post.

*not including the 24576 GPU threads that were also active:

Thanks for clarifying.  You are just using some souped up graphics card.  Nothing to do with PC running 100s of processes.  And you forgot to answer the rest of the message.

And you still violate the law of conservation even with quad core since there's still some overhead involved.

[amigaksi]

Right. Do you even understand the difference between a PC and PC running Windows?

You don't understand what a PC is.  PC cannot be some souped up hardware that only a few people are running.  Does it run on my PC?  No.  So if I include all hardware add-ons that I have made to my Amiga, it still should be comparable to any arbitrary PC right?  Let's be more consistent.  If you PC is not backward compatible with most of old software, it's NOT a PC.  It's just a NEW computer.

[amigaksi]

karlos: that would never happen though, as it would require them to open their eyes, remove the fingers from their ears and stop humming.

Here's an example of a blind side-kick.  Just following someone blindly does not help you--  only misleads people.

[amigaksi]

Well, not really. I am reworking said example code into a charged particle simulation where each particle has a charge and mass. The force calculation then will be the Coulomb attraction between them. Unlike gravity, this force can be repulsive.

Also, the calculation is a bit more complex as I need one which has a maximum force potential at a distance equal to the sum of the radii of a pair of particles that becomes strongly repulsive at any distance less than that, regardless of the force potential (repulsive or attractive) at a distance greater than that.

I'm interested to see if such simulated charged particles of a given sets of mass, size and charge auto arrange in the way that ionic lattices do.

Why not try it out on a REAL PC with standard hardware rather than specialized graphics cards.

[amigaksi]

Well, as a user of AROS, Windows XP/Vista, OSX, I have to wonder sometimes what Windows and OSX are doing sometimes.

You guys can laugh at that guy and make jokes all you want, but I think most everybody has the same experience on Windows/MacOS sometimes.  The experience where by you don't really have any of 'your' apps open, other than standard stuff running in the background, and you go to launch an app and while it's loading 'for whatever reason' the computer slows down.  Or you are just browsing the web and you go to launch another app and in Windows you go to the Start button, but it won't click, screens "freeze" i.e. where the shape of the windows is there, but the image is a partial of the last window that was behind/infront of it.  

I use Maya on OSX and while Maya is a fairly large program I often have to wait a "while" for firefox to start when I'm not even doing anything in Maya.


There's no argument,  I mean I've been around computers a few days.  Everyone experiences, certainly in Windows case, the randomness of the computer slowing/freezing for a few seconds when you are seemingly doing nothing.  

It obviously not that hardware.  I kind doubt it just sort of bottle necks it self for 10 seconds every now and then.  ;-)

They are only laughing at themselves once they realize they didn't even understand the point nor reply to the entire message.  It's the hardware and the OS-- both.  The hardware has its limitations maintaining backward compatibility so slow-downs occur.  The OS obviously has it's limitations as far as real-time events go.

[amigaksi]

The only time I've had total freezes on this machine is when I've done something really stupid, like attempting to launch 1,000,000 GPU threads simultaneously, just to see what happens. It completely maxed out the hardware.

X has locked up twice, both times due to a conflict between CUDA and Compiz. Easy to fix, ssh into the box and kill the X server.

The point is, the assertion in this thread that the "PC", as a platform  is playing catch up to the amiga is only true in the vivid imagination of a few Amiga fans that can't comprehend the difference between the PC and the OS that runs on it.

I have an A1, with an 800MHz G4, AGP Radeon 7000 gfx etc. It totally outclasses my classic A1200T in every way imaginable (except that the A1200 currently has more RAM installed ). However, aside from the CPU, it's made entirely out of standard "PC" hardware. And bloody old PC hardware at that.

My "PC", is about 1 year old and was fairly bleeding edge when I built it. In terms of hardware, it outclasses my A1 by an equally obscene amount. It's a hardware box. Windows doesn't come into it, since I run a 64-bit native linux as my main OS anyway.

However, Vista is installed on the machine and, as much as you'll all want to disagree, it flies like sh!t of a shovel. Which is just as well, since I only have it for gaming. You simply cannot play Crysis or Fallout 3 at 1680x1050 with all details turned up to maximum, having it run liquid smooth for several hours of solid gaming and then conclude "its slow and stops responding every now and then".

Talk about Chewbacca defense.  I gave you a much simpler example-- 1Khz reading of joystick port (that works on all PCs).  You are replying with your own example unrelated to what was asked.  All I have to do is show one example, where Amiga wins out and your claims above are FALSE and the topic of this thread is valid-- PC still playing catchup.  So please answer the post else don't pretend that you did.

[amigaksi]

Neither Linux or AmigaOS are realtime OS's and damn well you know it. Claiming one is more "realtime" than another is a bit misleading. A realtime kernel guarantees that an event requiring service will receive it within a specified time limit. No commonly used desktop OS makes this guarantee.

...
Under linux, I've been able to use machines where the load average was over 100.

Depends on the task.  If your real-time task only involves modifying some registers, you can use the Copper and it's guaranteed with accuracy of 558ns (no +/- latency bullcrap).

And we can talk Amiga vs. PC w/o dealing with OSes although with PCs you'll have a hard time finding modern PCs that even maintain compatibility at hardware level.

[Trev]

You're right. Joystick polling is a much better test of computational power than a particle physics simulation.