Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: FuZion on June 26, 2003, 11:57:15 PM
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Ok ok, it' s not gonna quite be the thread you were expecting.
I've been kinda low profile lately, just clickin in, readin up then clickin out again so now it's a moment to express myself regarding how fast we want our new Amigas.
Hands up who are on a Classic Amiga... Come on, not Amithlon, AmigaOne or whatever, Classic, as in original chipsets.
Now tell me, what processors do you have? I'm a Blizzard 1260/50 man. Some have PPC @ 160Mhz, some of you are on 68030's... Right?
Now... Sit back a moment... Look at your screens, look through your drawers (Not folders) &, without running any software, look at some of the things your Amiga can do on this power.
Don't rush... ... ...
OK, now back you all come. Tell me, honestly, how many of you agree that these computers are just too damn efficient?
Pick up any other computer (PC, Mac, Linux) at the same kind of power & tell me what they would do on a similar spec please. Certainly not what these are doing right? Or at least not as efficiently.
Now I know we're not going to sit back & say, we don't need power because our Amiga's run too damn good at 50-200Mhz are we? No.
But! What we can be certain about (& may I be as bold to say, with some degree of confidence too) is that this OS, this "too damn efficient" OS, genuinely has the potential to perform quite some feats even on an outdated 600Mhz G3 doesn't it? I believe the people behind the hardware & software are going to impress us.
Summary: What am I saying?
For those people who keep saying:
- Are we gonna get 1Ghz+?
- When can we expect dual processor support?
- We need these new 20 TillaHertz processors because this & that are out of date
- Blah blah...
Please, chill a little. We of all people should know by now that the numbers attached to your processor are not THAT important. They help, but it is not mandatory that they are as high as possible. Especially when AmigaOS is the OS in question.
Right, that's off my chest, I'm off to surf, play Quake online, check my credit card statement, chat with my MSN buddies, burn some CDs, check some internet radio, run UAE (Yeah yeah, slowly ;-)), process some words & render another PacMan image on Cinema4D (www.deceptiveaudio.co.uk) before catching a little shut eye & all on my A1200 @ 50Mhz with 48mb of RAM:
Hope I didn't bore you too much :-P
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hear hear..
mhz is not equal speed.
my blizzard 060/50 probably is the same as a pentium 200-300 mhz, without the built in delays ocourse.
I love my 1260.
no fan,
no trouble,
no blue screens,
no quirky software driven mousepointer,
no progs asking for more speed,
no more 3 times slower 040/40 with a noisy fan
from my point of view,
an amiga with 060, aga and Workbench 3.x
with wellknown progs like Yam, Ibrowse, Amirc, cinema4D, Delitracker2, etc etc...
is the COOLEST computer spec in THE WORLD!!
sure, you can brag about mhz and millions invested in crappy operating systems,
but it will never get the COOLNES of amiga 68K!
PS: Bill Mceven, your staff is only going behind your back
to produce a new type of PC.
Just look at what areas that has progressed,
and wich havent, and its clear as crystal.
sorry for that conspiracy propaganda. ;)
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I did some rendering and other testing way back when and an intel 200mhz just barely nicked my 060/66 in most of those test. 060 was definitly better than a similar machine at 166mhz. My 060 still takes about 25 secs to boot. My windows 1gig box, about 3-4 mins. But it is loading several backgroud apps.
Plaz
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Plaz wrote:
I did some rendering and other testing way back when and an intel 200mhz just barely nicked my 060/66 in most of those test.
What about posting some Quake I benchmarks?
060 was definitly better than a similar machine at 166mhz.
Post some benchmarks.
My 060 still takes about 25 secs to boot.
The CPU has very little with the boot speed (in context of your unspecified 1Ghz CPU, assuming HD in UDMA mode). It’s your hard disk’s speed and the available physical memory.
25 secs to boot times is about same speed of my WinXP-SP1 boot speed (not including BIOS's initiation times). ~35 Processes at after login with Silver WinXP GUI theme.
My windows 1gig box, about 3-4 mins. But it is loading several backgroud apps.
What kind of apps?
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Plaz wrote:
I did some rendering and other testing way back when and an intel 200mhz just barely nicked my 060/66 in most of those test. 060 was definitly better than a similar machine at 166mhz.
Plaz
Then imagine how would, a Motorola Coldfire perform beside Intel branded, equally clocked CPUs!!! And it's still a 68K processor, not a PPC...
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AFAIK, this is due to the fact that the 060/Coldfire's are superscalar, while the Pentium series didn't go superscalar until the PentiumPro.
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Things I like about my classic Amiga:
1. It has an Amiga mouse and Amiga keyboard. Something about them.
2. It has a 240Mhz PPC processor with an 060 which does most things nippily.
3. The Amiga user interface.
4. Some of the software on it.
5. The crisp display using a Mediator and voodoo ( old card I know ).
Things I don't like
1. Instability, gurus.
2. Speed. Sorry, its slow. Slow slow slow.
3. Chip ram limitation. I use many apps at a time, and most of them pinch chipram. Run out real quick.
4. Naff combinations of look and feel, icons that are still in MagicWB format, some UIs use Reaction, others use MUI, some even use original format icons and whatnot.
5. AGA. For gods sake, it crawls! And worse, if you use AGA for anything serious with a decent screen resolution and depth and try and connect to the internet watch that mouse pointer jerk around like windows 3.1 - that is if you can get the internet connection to stay up.
6. Hardware cludge after cludge, if i knock the case too hard the buffered 4 way ide interface pops off that ancient IDE head on the mobo, or the Blizzard trembles and whacks into the side of the case.
7. Not being able to move individual windows off screen or onto other custom screens - Linux has spoiled me.
8. It feels horribly old.
Roll on AOS4 on A1 and save me from this ancient mutant of a machine.
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I couldn't agree more.
I'm one of those Amiga users that still happily plods away on a trusty old A1200/030/50Mhz. Still going great after 12 years.
What's always impressed me about AmigaOS and Amiga programs in general is the sheer amount of power coders can get out of such supposedly limited hardware.
We had all these hardware limits which were broken by clever pieces of software: "I'm sorry you can only have 32 colours on screen at once". Then someone came up with HAM.
"I'm sorry you've only got 2mb chip memory". Then someone came up with FBlit. (My vote for piece of Amiga software ever).
"I'm sorry, there's no way in hell Doom/Quake/whatever will run on an Amiga..."
And so on.
I think Amiga benefitted (though Commodore certainly didn't) from not having HDs for so long as programmers were forced to be innovative and brilliant at running great software from 880k disks on systems with a mere 512k chip mem.
Quake's all nice and everything but give me Alien Breed SE 92 anyday.
One day when I'm wealthy I'll splash out and buy a 060 accelerator for my 1200. I have no interest in going PPC, it just wouldn't be the same. I don't know about you guys, but AmigaONE just doesn't really sound like an Amiga to me.
Besides, I want to hang around and see just what hardware limit's going to be shattered next.
Long live A68k!
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well, i agree with most of the comments, I'm even about to buy a used A4000 (my third) for about $571, with CSPPC/CVPPC compo and the works. It's mostly for nostalgic reason though, and just to have one in my collection :-)
It will however be used plenty for Demo's and if it runs well, it might take the place as my primary setup :-)
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My post was a reply to the first post of the thread, not to the post immediately prior to mine (which was posted whilst I was still writing my post), as in the order all the posts are listed it sounds like I'm condradicting myself or something.
Hmm. That was a long sentence.
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We had all these hardware limits which were broken by clever pieces of software: "I'm sorry you can only have 32 colours on screen at once". Then someone came up with HAM.
HAM was built in and available all the time.
"I'm sorry you've only got 2mb chip memory". Then someone came up with FBlit. (My vote for piece of Amiga software ever).
Thanks, Ill check that out...!
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Slow old AGA is loads faster with FBlit and
FText, no choppy mouse pointers anyhow. ;) :)
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xyth wrote:
I have no interest in going PPC, it just wouldn't be the same. I don't know about you guys, but AmigaONE just doesn't really sound like an Amiga to me.
That's exactly how I feel too.
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68060@50MHz is maybe fast, but AGA isnt.
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True, AGA isn't as fast as would be ideal. So maybe one day when I'm considerably wealthier than at present I'll look at getting a tower and graphics card. Maybe. In the meantime FBlit is a lifesaver.
Elbox's Mediator towers do look rather nice but the thing that at this stage prevents me from ever getting one is that I'd have to use a PC keyboard, and basically, giving up 'HELP' and the two 'A's just wouldn't be right. F11 and F12 are just not any consolation.
Stupid I know but sometimes it's the little things that count.
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They used to say that a 060 @ 50 MHz was as fast as a P1-133 MHz.
I agree to a degree. From my own experience in raw performance a 060 @ 50 MHz was about as fast a P1 @ 100 to 150 MHz
When I had an A4000 with CV643D card I installed OS3.5 but the whole system felt slow. So I reinstalled OS 3.1 and run my workbench in 4 colors, that was something I could call speedy!
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I get the impression that you peeps dont want to embrace the future of amiga...
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@xyth
It may not be exactly the same, but the standard PC keyboard adaptor provided for an Elbox tower will remap the keys of a standard Win95 keyboard so the Windows keys are the Amiga keys and the help key is next to the right side of the right Win key (can't remember which one that is)
hope this helps.
Stimpy
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Once with Amiga...
forever with Amiga !!!
:-D
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I get the impression that you peeps dont want to embrace the future of amiga...
@ Samuar
No no no.. Not at all my friend.
I am sitting here with my AmigaOne-XE just looking at me (Probably thinking I'm a bit crazy)
My classic Amiga with it's B1260/50 is pretty nifty, especially with his Mediator & Voodoo 3 3000 inside ;-). I'm running a resolution of 1152x864 @ 24bits here & it's just loverly. All zippy & smooth. Play Quake in a window while surfing? Why not eh!?
My main point is that ^ The Amiga OS is truly an engineering master piece &, even in it's chimera like state, runs like a dream. Check? Check!
OS4 running on an AmigaOne @ 600Mhz is (I mean it) also going to be a masterpiece.
We do not NEED our new processors to be breaking the 1.x Ghz barrier with optional dual processor capability. It would be nice though.
What we need is to see what it can do on the specs it has to work with.
Yes, I DO want to embrace the Amiga of the future (My arms are open & waiting) but all the talk of: 'more, More, MORE' sounds a bit premature to me. We should not write off our new hardware before we see it running OS4. It might just fool us into thinking we are already at 1.x Ghz on a "mere" 600Mhz.
PS. We won't even have to tamper with our benchmarks like a certain type of fruit that shall remain unnamed :-D
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PS... Did anyone look at my Pacman render I mentioned?
www.deceptiveaudio.co.uk :-P
"Made on Amiga" I think they say ;-)
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@ FuZion
I have now. That's really cool, I like the 'out of focus' effect.
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FuZion wrote:
PS... Did anyone look at my Pacman render I mentioned?
www.deceptiveaudio.co.uk :-P
"Made on Amiga" I think they say ;-)
So when is it being released?? :-)
About the dual 1GHz or better. Maybe that would give companies like NewTek a reason to continue Amiga development.
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Samuar
>I get the impression that you peeps dont want to embrace the future of amiga...
do you mean the
"we'll take advantage of this community, and design a totally new concept with the same name" future?
or the
"Amiga -IS- Amiga68k" future?
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"I'm sorry you can only have 32 colours on screen at once". Then someone came up with HAM.
From http://amiga.emugaming.com/ahistory.html (http://amiga.emugaming.com/ahistory.html):
"In the AUI interview Jay Miner describes his experience of viewing of a military flight simulator developed by Singer-Link. Impressed by what he saw, Miner begins to consider the use of blitters to improve the graphics capabilities. This is eventually developed into HAM (Hold and Modify) during 1985. This made it possible to display 4096 colours at the screen by changing the colour registers. However, early reports suggest that he was willing to remove these capabilities when he realized how slow it was. It was only when the motherboard designer informed him its removal would leave a hole in the middle of the motherboard that he accepts that it will be present in the final version - a wise decision that would distinguish the Commodore Amiga from its Atari rival many years later."
HAM(6) is present on all Amiga hardware, except the very first test hardware.
"I'm sorry you've only got 2mb chip memory". Then someone came up with FBlit.
FBlit cannot really work around the 2MB chip memory limitation. What FBlit does, is to make it possible to use fast memory for *offscreen* bitmaps. This definetely is an improvement, but certainly doesn't have much to do with the 2MB chip memory limit, other than leaving the actual chip memory for the displayed bitmaps.
FBlit's main advantage is that on fast 68k cpu, the CPU is faster for blit operations than the blitter itself, esp. since in best cases both source and destination planes are in fast memory.
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I like to run software on a 060. Sometimes it is faster then my PC with 2.53 Ghz with 512 MB RAM. I also like to play games or applications on my good old 030/50. Running 060 demo's are very impressive to see.
This is the rule that counts for PC's:
The faster the processor, the slower the preformance is.
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xyth wrote:
"I'm sorry, there's no way in hell Doom/Quake/whatever will run on an Amiga..."
Well, it's true that some people said Doom wouldn't work on Amigas due to the planar chipset, and they were shown wrong by chunky to planar conversion being done in software.
But software like Quake required hardware advancing to the point where it could run (and indeed, the same in order to run Doom at a decent frame rate). It wasn't a case that someone wrote a magic software hack, and suddenly we were playing Doom/Quake etc on '020 A1200s..
What sort of framerates does Quake get on an '060 with AGA can I ask?
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Granted, Quake isn't too hot on a B1260/50 using AGA. Which is where the GFX card comes in, add a sound card & you gain a few frames still. Why? Because these cards are handling some of the work for the processor.
Buuuuuut... ... ... Wait for it... ... ...
It's still the 50Mhz processor underneath isn't it? Not a big numbered thing. We will add these GFX & sound cards to our AmigaOnes too won't we? But again, DO we need those BIG number processors so urgently? 50Mhz does fine with extra cards joining in the fun. Can't the G3? Or does it need more beef?
I was hoping this thread didn't stray too far off track. In my first post I referred to the processor frequency & how I don't think we need to stress over the 'mini' speed of the A1. Not the fact that AGA slows things down & chip ram causes a few grey hairs. These won't be a problem for the future of Amiga.
10 If OS4=>OS3.9_efficiency Then Mhz=Not_Too_Important
20 Print Mhz
30 Goto 10 : REM Remember that!
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Well, your posts seem to be talking about how the Amiga doesn't need to have the latest and greatest CPU (ie, 1GHz, dual processor etc), and yes I agree. Whilst it would still be better to have a faster machine than a slower machine, having the fastest desktop CPU isn't the most important factor for the Amiga - for me to return to the Amiga (I currently use WinUAE), it would take a reasonably fast modern machine to be available, but there are plenty of other factors more important than it having the fastest CPUs available.
However when it comes to the idea of how 68k is fine, then I disagree. Of course, I've got nothing against people who are happy using them, but there are plenty of occasions where I value having a faster processor (compilation speed, 3D programming, mp3 encoding, watching videos, playing games), and as a result I feel if there are going to be any new Amigas or Amiga clones, they need to be way ahead of 68k.
Can't the G3? Or does it need more beef?
Well, a G3 might be okay, if the other factors are enough of an improvement over other systems to make me prefer it, and the price is right.
But moving a system with 68k and AGA to a level of performance equal to G3 and graphics cards requires a real G3 and graphics cards. You can't "shatter" this hardware limitation just through clever software tricks.
It's more the other people in this thread that I disagree with; I mostly agree with your original post;)
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mdwh2 wrote:
...compilation speed...
I have some code that I literally had to leave for an hour to compile on my 68040 (the entire project I mean). The same code cross compiled from PPC (a 603e @240MHz) compiled in less than 5 minutes...