Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: barney on September 11, 2009, 12:36:14 AM
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What is the difference between OS 3.1 and OS 3.5? Is it a big differences? Is it really worth upgrading to this newer version? Thanks.
Barney
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yes it is if you like glow icons and cool backdrops :-)...downside is that I noticed some WHDLoad games stopped working properly compared to 3.1
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What is the difference between OS 3.1 and OS 3.5? Is it a big differences? Is it really worth upgrading to this newer version? Thanks.
Barney
I pre-ordered 3.5 originally and never regretted it. You do need a modestly expanded system to really appreciate it though. However, if you have the required specs to run 3.5, you are probably better off going the whole hog and getting 3.9.
A few general improvements of 3.9 over 3.1:
Updated user interfaces (based on Reaction, which is an evolution of ClassAct), improved icon set.
Updated workbench. Has asynchronous delete/copy/rename, arexx port, find tool, smooth scrolling of window contents etc.
Improved HD support. Drives greater than 4GB are supported (your WB partition needs to be in the first 4GB though).
TCP/IP stack included.
Most of the preference editors, tools and utilities have been updated.
It's possible to get 3.1 updated to include most of these features, but you are talking about a lot of 3rd party hacks and patches and the stability issues those imply.
In order to install 3.5 or 3.9 you'll need a working CD drive.
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Put it this way. I am running an Amiga 2000 with 18mb fast ram, 68030 GVP Accelerator/SCSI card and flicker fixer/scan doubler. I do not have a graphics card. I am using the stock amiga graphics so I only get 16 color in hi-res within workbench. In this case would I be better off with 3.1 instead of upgrading to 3.5 or 3.9?
Thanks.
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@barney
Go upgrade to 3.9 even without gfx board.. I have never had one and 3.9 was/is great!
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Is my stock Amiga graphics issue going to be a problem? I know Amiga OS 3.9 graphics are prettty amazing. Is it going to be flat out ugly on my system?
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As Karlos has already stated, if you are thinking about upgrading from OS3.1, just go ahead and go for OS3.9. I have owned both updates and (IMO) only 3.9 is worth having. 3.5 was a good first effort but it also had some application issues.
Interestingly, I have gone back to OS3.1 on both occasions, which is what I still use.
Regards,
Ltstanfo
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For me.. I don't have a reason to use 3.5 or 3.9. I like fast over shiny and pretty. All of my classic WB apps work.. and WHDLOAD too!
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Is my stock Amiga graphics issue going to be a problem? I know Amiga OS 3.9 graphics are prettty amazing. Is it going to be flat out ugly on my system?
I used to run OS3.5 on AGA for a while. I used a hand-picked 16-colour 640x512 (it was bigger due to overscan but I can't recall how much) PAL interlaced display that worked well. I installed a bit of software called MagicTV which aims to reduce interlace flicker on interlaced modes.
It was perfectly usable, however, I was using a 68040 CPU along with FBlit and a few other patches.
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I have had all three and I'm back to 3.1 (my HD is 4 gig).
Its fast and functional and compatible. Sweet
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What is the difference between OS 3.1 and OS 3.5? Is it a big differences? Is it really worth upgrading to this newer version? Thanks.
Barney
OS 3.5 only contains some Aminet stuff you can get for free anyway. OS 3.5 and 3.9 were never real OS upgrades and run slower than 3.1.
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If you're going classic it's OS3.9 all the way baby.
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I actually downgraded from OS 3.9 to OS 3.1 :)
This (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=1485) was my setup on my a4000 and a3000T and this (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=2896) is my current setup on my a2000 and a1200. Although my a1200 and a2000 could easily run OS 3.9 I prefer OS 3.1, it's smaller and faster.
I've got a nice OS 3.1 setup with different options at boottime:
No action > Scalos 1.2d
Left mouse > Opus Magellan II
Left mouse and Shift > plain Workbench 3.1
Right mouse > CLI with Parm
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Other than the extra added pieces of software, are there any notable improvements in 3.5 and 3.9 that might be relevant for people running more low performance amigas?
I did buy 3.9 but i never used it much on my 030 A1200. The "big" installation was a bit too demanding. Are there any good ways to "pick the raisins out of the cake", and take the best out of 3.9 for running on a relatively low spec amiga like my 030 A1200 or even an A600?
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OS 3.9 is terrible slow and looking ugly if you don't have a 040/060 CPU + GFX card.
It just don't look good on an ECS machine with 16 colors, or even if you have AGA with
030/50Mhz it's too slow and it's very annoying.
OS 3.9 was running good on my A3000/040/40Mhz + CyberVision64, but I like the
classic look of OS 3.1. So I'm back from 3.9 to 3.1.
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Hi,
see http://www.gregdonner.org/os39faq/whatsnew.html
and check it out yourself.
This FAQ lists all the fixes etc over 3/3.1
You may find it's suitable for you, I did.
I run 3.9 on a A1200/BlizzardmkII/SCSI system with 32 Meg fast RAM and its nice.
Regards, Michael
aka rockape
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OS 3.5 only contains some Aminet stuff you can get for free anyway. OS 3.5 and 3.9 were never real OS upgrades and run slower than 3.1.
What rubbish. not sure about 3.5, buit 3.9 fixed a lot of bugs.
Its just a neater package than installing 3rd party hacks and software yourself
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What rubbish. not sure about 3.5, buit 3.9 fixed a lot of bugs.
Its just a neater package than installing 3rd party hacks and software yourself
Why waste money when you can have everything for free and 3.1 runs better? 3.9 isnt even up to date but you have to download boing backs and updates from Aminet if you wish to use latest versions.
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I run OS3.9 on my Blizzard 030 with 128 colours DblPAL(no gfx card). It looks nice and is responsive enough for my needs. I wouldn't go back to 3.1. Theres just too much nice stuff in 3.9
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Why waste money when you can have everything for free and 3.1 runs better? 3.9 isnt even up to date but you have to download boing backs and updates from Aminet if you wish to use latest versions.
OS 3.5/9 support hard drives >8GB (new scsi.device) and have ATAPI support for CD ROMs, for which AFAIK there's no free alternative on Aminet.
Varthall
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OS 3.5/9 support hard drives >8GB (new scsi.device) and have ATAPI support for CD ROMs, for which AFAIK there's no free alternative on Aminet.
Varthall
Look at NSDPatch (http://aminet.net/search?query=nsdpatch), worked well on my a3000t to use >8GB harddrives. I think NSDPatch is also used in OS 3.9.
And there is also AmiCDFS (http://aminet.net/search?query=amicdfs) which is free.
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I always go back to OS 3.1,
I guess it's the speed thing and my Amiga always runs best on OS 3.1
At the moment I have downsized my hard drive as well so space is a small factor as well.
Having said that 3.9 seems to have issues with my accelerator card.
But even on other setups I have had in the past I always end back on OS 3.1
:)
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3.9 is great if only for the fact it supports JPG workbench backgrounds out of the box.
..of course there's other nice stuff, built in archive handling app, AmiDock, GenesisTCP stack, MP3 player, click and go CD drive configuration... If you don't want to spend hours getting a barebones 3.1 system usable, 3.9 is the way to go. I only go with 3.1 when I'm stuck with low memory.
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Once you've used AmiDock (in OS 3.9) it's hard imagining wanting to be without it.
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Why waste money when you can have everything for free and 3.1 runs better? 3.9 isnt even up to date but you have to download boing backs and updates from Aminet if you wish to use latest versions.
I used OS3.1, 3.5 and 3.9. Sure 3.5 was a half way but after installing 3.9 (with both boing bags) I never looked back again. And no, OS3.9 is not slower than a heavy patched OS3.1 system (considering mostly the same functionality). But to be truthfull, I talk about minimum 030 and a graphics card (starting with a PicassoII) here. I don't have much experiences with vanilla Amigas...I only sometimes downgraded by disabling the startup-sequence to run some funny games or very rare apps, that would't start in a full 3.9 enviroment. If you really have to, you can always use startup scripts like mentioned before in this thread by Tempest.
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If you're using OCS/ECS and don't have a graphics card, stay with WB 3.1.
Here are the problems in 3.5/3.9:
1. The new picture.datatype is super slow and will stupidly remap and dither images that are already mapped for your current palette. There is no option for "do not dither/remap".
2. Any palette requester is now in 256/256/256 - which makes selecting palettes in OCS/ECS painfully tedious. I don't know why it didn't automatically switch to 16/16/16 when in OCS/ECS modes. Also, the Palette Prefs still only allows you to change 8 colours (!) and there is still no colour locking. (!!)
3. The icon editor is super slow buggy garbage and Fkey doesn't work properly.
4. Reaction GUI is slow and ugly. ASL requesters are also super slow.
5. You must insert the CD-ROM to install updates (stupid copy protection) and "boingbag 2" ROM update is buggy and crashes.
I'm sure there are other annoyances I've forgotten. I consider 3.9 to be one of my worst Amiga purchases.
There is only one useful thing I've found in 3.9 - the new scsi.device for >4Gb - but even this is annoying because it causes a double boot. I extracted it and use it in WB 3.1 - and only when I need to access >4Gb.