Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Franko on August 24, 2010, 03:36:10 AM
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I would be genuinely interested to know from folk out there what they consider the benefits of using an Amiga emulator or other Amiga set up they have that's not an original piece of Amiga hardware ie: not an A500/600/1200/2000/4000 etc.. :)
I don't want this to become another Amiga Vs PC debate/debacle (I think we've all had enough of that one), but would like to know what you consider the best reasons for using such a set up are, how easy it is or otherwise to maintain such a system, in terms of hardware / software availability, OS type used and general ease of use without going into too much technical detail about it. :)
I ask because if you've read any of my previous posts I guess I come over as some sort of die hard Amiga hardware only fanatic, who's still living in the past, as many folk have kindly pointed out. ;)
I would really like to hear folks reasons or opinions on this, after reading many posts from such users on this forum, I am seriously considering giving it a go and would really like to know what folk use and consider the best way to go about this would be.
I'm not giving up my classic Amiga set ups, :) but I am considering dabbling in the dark side to see for myself. :D
Cheers :drink:
Franko
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WinUAE's JIT emulator and RTG driver make it blazing fast, pretty much as fast as the host system. It's by far the most cost-effective way to run an Amiga system these days, but, as you point out, at the expense of not having real hardware to tinker with. You can run anything that you'd run on a regular Amiga, plus a few more things built with the JIT in mind that are just too slow to run on a real 68K chip, even though they're 68K binaries.
It's free (provide your own ROM and OS) / cheap (http://www.amigaforever.com) (ROM and OS preconfigured) to try out, so I recommend giving it a shot. I like it for when I'm on the road with a laptop and want to do some Amiga work/fun.
The biggest caveat is that you can't use real Amiga floppies. Most disks are easily converted into ADF image files, but stuff with on-disk copy protection will be difficult/impossible to convert, so you'll need to find a cracked version online (no legal issues here, since you already own the original). There is some Catweasel support, but my understanding is that it works just like a Catweasel in a real Amiga - it needs a DOSDriver and isn't bootable.
For the host system, pretty much anything running XP or newer will do. There's E-UAE for non-Windows systems, but WinUAE is far superior in terms of ease of use and performance.
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I would be genuinely interested to know from folk out there what they consider the benefits of using an Amiga emulator or other Amiga set up they have that's not an original piece of Amiga hardware ie: not an A500/600/1200/2000/4000 etc.. :)
I don't want this to become another Amiga Vs PC debate/debacle (I think we've all had enough of that one), but would like to know what you consider the best reasons for using such a set up are, how easy it is or otherwise to maintain such a system, in terms of hardware / software availability, OS type used and general ease of use without going into too much technical detail about it. :)
I ask because if you've read any of my previous posts I guess I come over as some sort of die hard Amiga hardware only fanatic, who's still living in the past, as many folk have kindly pointed out. ;)
I would really like to hear folks reasons or opinions on this, after reading many posts from such users on this forum, I am seriously considering giving it a go and would really like to know what folk use and consider the best way to go about this would be.
I'm not giving up my classic Amiga set ups, :) but I am considering dabbling in the dark side to see for myself. :D
Cheers :drink:
Franko
I moved on to the PC years ago. I was upset when AOL and CompuServe started offering ways to get on the internet. So I called them when I owned my Amiga 500. "I need one of your disks so I can get on the internet" I said. They replied... "Is this IBM Compatible or is it Macintosh Compatible?" I said, "its Amiga Compatible or Commodore Compatible." That's when they let me down, and said... "I am sorry, we only offer programs for the IBM or Mac." That really made me mad, and I knew I couldn't afford two computers, so I ended up selling the Amiga 500 and got my first PC. I regretted that ever since, and now with WinUAE, I can sorta get back and enjoy the Amiga again. Back then I ran BBSes, and that's what I am doing with it today, running a board.
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The only fun I have with a PC is using Aros.
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The difference between an emulator and an original piece of hardware is in the mind of the owner. Personally I like the convenience of having everything in one box, a Mac Pro. I sometimes put UAE on the 30 inch display, sometimes on the 24, so I can use the other display to do work. Never driver problems, never hardware issues, it all just works. Sometimes I have AROS or Haiku in one monitor and UAE in the other.
I find I use the old hardware less and less, but I can't yet bear to part with it. But I doubt I'd miss it, the emulation is spot on.
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I used amithlon/os3.9 as my main system for years. Winuae is nice in it's own way, and has the advantage of also having custom chipset emulation (amithlon is rtg/ahi only), but for my tastes it's never felt quite right and amithlon has always been the better experience. It has less hardware support, but with a little shopping around its not too difficult to get a fully supported system, even with modern gear. No host OS is required (well technically Amithlon is the host OS (a customised linux kernel) , but its minimal to a point of never being seen). It's both faster than Winuae and unlike Winuae everything is done from within Amiga OS (drivers, uses amiga os tcp/ip stack,etc.). It's also possible to use native x86 amiga os3.x software from within 68k AmigaOS (although not a lot has been compiled for this architecture) for even more speed. Even when my a1200+bppc+grex1200/voodoo3/256 meg fast system was functional I found Amithlon to be the best OS3.x experience. As for what advantages either bring over classic hardware it mostly comes down to just performance, which in turn opens up new doors to OS3.x.... high res video files run flawlessly, duke3d, quake, quake2, freespace, napalm, and many other pieces of software that even the most expanded classics might struggle with run nicely, various emulators (mame, megadrive, super nintendo,playstation,etc.) all run great, sdl software is suddenly more than usable, compiling times drastically improve, lots of room for OS enhancements (afa os,etc.) without hurting performance, 3d rendering software is drastically faster and so on.... in short imagine a classic amiga with an '040 running at speeds 20x (and then some(sysinfo tells me I have roughly a 3.5ghz '040, but to be fair synthetic benchmarks and emulation dont always represent the true tale)) than that of the fastest '060. To suppliment the lack of custom chipset emulation there's also a 68k version of euae (I simply set up a def type to launch adf images with euae), although if you have a classic amiga already this may not be so important (although I also at one point ran my classic through a tv tuner card inside amithlon/os3.9)..... on an even modest pc you get 680x0 speeds in excess of what any available OS4.x hardware can provide for native ppc software. This is mostly true of Winuae as well, but if your interest in a pc is soley for what it brings to the amiga table Amithlon is the way to go in my opinion (assuming you can find it of course, as its no longer sold).
Now having said this it took a while, but AROS has gotten to the point where it's a serious alternate option. It doesnt run amiga software out of the box, but janus uae can create a fairly seemless intergration with things like launching software as normal from Wanderer (AROSes Workbench), aros menus for 68k software, mixing aros and amiga os software as though all native (cycling through screens with the screen gadget, etc.), full screen or windowed apps and so on..... a different method to either os4 or mos, but quite effective nonetheless and the advantage of full emulation and not just system friendly stuff. As nice as it is to have this however the real benefits of something like AROS (or os4.x/mos) is it's more modern software. Although there's probably no software that either have that couldnt be done for os3.x the simple fact is that it seldom is done and often if it is there's not nearly as much time/effort put into OS3.x versions of more modern software.... things like movie players, web browsers, sdl software (Of which there's a lot(although only a small percentage is decent in my op.)), 3d/gl games are all better experiences on the "NG amiga" systems.
Personally I still very much enjoy a lot of classic software and for all the advantages the NG systems offer I cant do without an os3.x system. Having said that though the same is true of the reverse.
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or other Amiga set up they have that's not an original piece of Amiga hardware ie: not an A500/600/1200/2000/4000 etc.. :)
Hardware setups that are not the original hardware (as you've listed), are not Amigas. An Amiga is not some PPC CPU with peecee bits added to it, no matter what anyone calls it :( Things don't magically turn into Amigas because of some AmigaOs like Os :( This goes especially for running Aros like software directly on peecees: not an Amiga in any way :(
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^^
There had to be one didnt there.... very useful contribution to the originals posters questions......
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I was only inspired to upgrade a real Amiga to RTG, '060, etc. after using AmiKIT (http://amikit.amiga.sk/ on a PC, and of course after I'd gotten that all done it was not nearly as usable as AmiKIT due to speed, so I sold off the overpriced old hardware and deleted AmiKIT as well (emulation is no fun.) Now I have a cobbled together A500 for when I feel like messing around with Amiga.
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He's also incorrect... I mean what exactly was the Amiga supposed to turn into? If it had kept evolving over the last 15 years it wouldn't be unlike the upcoming X1000... probably just higher spec... The SAM and X1000 carry the legitimate version of AmigaOS and for all intents and purposes the hardware is what it basically has to be (some modern variant) it demands my support and I shall support it...
As for the posters query, I can happily say I'm completely ignorant and have no insight whatsoever :)
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I think what makes an Amiga is the whole package. What do i mean?
Well, the SAM440 is just a motherboard. You have to use your own case, keyboard, graphics card, power supply etc..
A real Amiga, from the A1000 up untill the A4000T always came as a complete package. They came with Amiga/Commodore branded keyboards and cases, mice, manuals, software, cables etc.. etc.. You bought your complete system and set it up, just as you would buy an Apple iMac or a Dell PC.
Looking at the mouse and keyboard of the X1000, i'm disgusted. The mouse is so obviously a Logitech mouse with a badly designed sticker over the Logitech one. I can also say the same for the keyboard and the Windows keys with cheap boing ball stickers over them.
I know that these days it makes no sense to have propriety keyboard/mouse ports and all, but for f**ks sake, they could have got their stuff branded properly.
In my opinion, the last REAL Amiga was the A4000T and A1200. The X1000 has potential but they need to put in that extra effort.
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There had to be one didnt there.... very useful contribution to the originals posters questions......
You don't get the point :( The op asks about Amiga setups, but then leaves out all of the actual Amiga computers: A500 to A4000. The only thing that remains then is emulation, while all the other so called Amiga machines, are just PPC with peecee parts. That's great, talking about Amiga setups and then excluding all Amigas! Makes sense, doesn't it :(
In my opinion, the last REAL Amiga was the A4000T and A1200.
You're absolutely right :)
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Emulation provides a steady starting point for testing, whether it be a system config or just a file you're having issues with, Amiga won't let you F12 out when the system goes borked.
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My aging 2000 stopped booting last year while I was developing a game on it. So I'd say the aging hardware is one reason to consider emulation. Although for me, dabbling with old Amiga parts is still more fun than just running an emulation on my pc.
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Had the Amiga kept evolving it would be a computer built out of energy now now out of plastic and silicon...
Seriously, I doubt anything like the X1000 would have been built. The AMiga probably would have moved to X86, moved to a UNIX kernel, added all the features that modern OSs have and be relatively indistinguishable from OS X...
He's also incorrect... I mean what exactly was the Amiga supposed to turn into? If it had kept evolving over the last 15 years it wouldn't be unlike the upcoming X1000... probably just higher spec... The SAM and X1000 carry the legitimate version of AmigaOS and for all intents and purposes the hardware is what it basically has to be (some modern variant) it demands my support and I shall support it...
As for the posters query, I can happily say I'm completely ignorant and have no insight whatsoever :)
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No it would be the xbox 360, with good OS and also come in a tower version.
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emulation can have its advantages:
Its useful for stuff you dont have the hardware for
Saving space
Saving money
I must admit, after getting a 1200 again, I've barely booted up UAE again though.
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First off, thank you to everyone for your posts here, most informative and usefull and best of all no slanging match (so far!). :)
I reckon the problem I've had with PCs & Macs is that I have only ever known people who own them only really use them for things like accessing the internet or burning the occasional cd and the likes and they have no idea about what the machine they are using is actually capeable of doing.
The little knowledge I have of PC/Macs leaves me wondering what to buy, I don't know what's the best processor/gfx card to go for etc...
I don't want to buy a second hand machine and if I am going to buy one I would want to be able to easily upgrade it hardware wise. I reckon I wouldn't want to spend any more than about £2000 for a machine at first, as I am still unsure of how much I would actually use it.
I know I said at the start of this thread that I didn't really want to get into all the technical details, a mistake on my part, but if anyone could let me know what type of machine/proccessor type I should buy then this would be very much appreciated.
(Thorham, don't worry I'm not abandoning my Classic Amigas, just reckon it's time I had a look at the other side and do a bit of tinkering around there...) :)
Thanks everyone for all the info you have given.
Cheers :drink:
Franko
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For 2000 pounds you could buy an absolute monster of a machine. As for what to buy, I guess it comes down to how much you want to spend. With a budget of 2k pounds an intel i7 of some description is the best bet, being that its the most powerful consumer cpu available. These come in 2 different sockets, 1156, which is the more mainstream variant, and doesnt differ greatly from the socket 1366 version, minus the fact it uses only a dual channel memory controller as opposed to the latters triple channel controller. Both use ddr3 ram from 1066mhz through 2200mhz(or higher if you want to spend the money) depending on a users wants. Obviously the faster the ram the better the performance, but dont disregard things like latency either,.... typically better timings equate to better performance than the higher speed (in mhz) variant with less tight timing. A step down the ladder would be something like an Intel i5-760, which is still quite a monster, although somewhat more affordable and is also a socket 1156 cpu. Incidently both are quad core systems (apart from the high end versions of i7, (i7-980)which can be hex core). Additionally they also support hyperthreading, which effectively means the system sees the cpus as having 2x as many cores as they physically do (not entirely accurate, but for conversations sake its near enough). As for AMD cpus theyre still quite powerful (as are all available modern x86 cpus), but theyre delegated to the budget segment for a reason,.... they simply cant compete with Intel for pure performance (or thermally) in most situations. Beware the 6 core AMD cpus, as although they look attractive on paper (reasonable prices) theyre often no better than the 4 core variants, even when multithreading is involved (software that can take advantage of multiple threads/cores). Lower clockspeeds vs the top end 4core versions as well as identical caches (ergo less per core) and no additional hardware to deal with internal cpu communications see to this. Another thing to be aware of with AMD cpus is that they wont work with faster ram and are restricted to ddr3-1600 (can go higher with overclocking and luck, but dont count on it). As for the very budget segment neither Intel nor AMD own this market in a clear manner. AMD is traditionally cheaper, but in terms of performance you get what you pay for, although the scales probably tip slightly in AMDs favor, especially for heavily threaded software (AMD's athlon x4 and phenom2 x4 cpus are quite cheap), although per thread Intel has the advantage. As for video cards, this isnt as clear as it was a few months back either. Had you asked then ATI/AMD wouldve been recommended without question for pretty much all pricepoints, but despite a few teething problems Nvidias Ferni range of cards are also a good buy. The new 104 based gpus (460) look especially attractive for thier price point. Really though apart from the budget segment (under 130$ where AMD are probably your best bet as they offer both superior performance and feature sets) you again pretty much get what you pay for with the exception of the afforementioined gf104 based gpus (460(which is both cheaper than a 5830 and performs more like a 5850, which is proportionally considerably more expensive)).
This is all assuming you go the non brand name PC route. A brand name usually adds a little to the price, especially when that name is Apple. While I have nothing against Apple products I'd never buy them myself as they simply dont offer the value (in terms of raw performance) I want. Others see value in different terms, and for them Apple products are worth the money (software bundles/osx/etc.).... each to thier own though.
I hope this is info. is of use to you and feel free to ask if you have any more questions.
p.s. Unless you want the absolute best available it'll be heard to spend 2k pounds. An Intel i7-860, 8 gig ddr3-1600, radeon 5870 (or nvidia 480), 2 terrabytes hdd space, bluray reader/writer, nice shiny case, nice sound card and 7.1 surround system and so on could be bought for well inside 1000 pounds...... you can of course go dual gpu, i7-980, etc., but Im assuming something that that would be overkill for you.... the above (or something similar) is a very nice "standard" high-end type rig.
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Thank you Fishy_Fiz... :)
A lot of info to digest there, but very useful and informative. From the various ads/sites I'd looked at I wasn't quite sure if Intel or AMD processors were better. From your info I reckon Id best go for Intel, don't fancy another mac though they seem very limited in the ability to upgrade them.
Cheers for all that info, it's given me a better idea now of what I need to buy. I learned a long time ago that your as well splashing the cash to start with rather than buying a new basic machine and then spending ages buying all the other bit's n pieces to upgrade it.
Cheers :drink:
Franko
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in the end it also depends on what its going to be used for.
Basic internet tasks, office crap and so on. Modest video card, a pile of ram and a half decent processor.
Hardcore FPS games, you'll want the biggest machine you can afford, which will give you a few years worth of computer.
If its going to run windows, toss in some extra RAM for good measure as vista and 7 will both pretty much sink your machine if you try to do more than one thing at a time.
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in the end it also depends on what its going to be used for.
Basic internet tasks, office crap and so on. Modest video card, a pile of ram and a half decent processor.
Hardcore FPS games, you'll want the biggest machine you can afford, which will give you a few years worth of computer.
If its going to run windows, toss in some extra RAM for good measure as vista and 7 will both pretty much sink your machine if you try to do more than one thing at a time.
Hi runequester,
I wouldn't be using it for games at all, I prefer the old style games of the Amiga and my SNES R.P.G. games, not interested in all the 3D games people play these day.
The main uses I would have for such a machine would be for audio & gfx, creating/editing DVDs, remixing audio tracks and some D.T.P. and the internet.
While I can do all this from my various Amiga set ups, it can become a bit of a chore at times and I reckon a new powerful machine would be good for the times where I put doing something off on my miggy cos I haven't the time or can't be bothered waiting for my miggy to do it.
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yeah, for graphics work, I'd definately splurge on the biggest, baddest machine you can get
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I reckon going for the best I can for around the 2 grand mark should do the trick, just needed a bit of advice and info from folk before buying such a beast.
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You might consider waiting. Both AMD and intel are changing their sockets around again. Intel is 1155 and 1355. AMD will be releasing a new core for their bulldozer series.
I'd reccommend a phenom II quad core system, the motherboard and cpu will be a lot cheaper so it's less of an investment. Quad core AMD will give you heaps of power for video work, just not as much as an i5 or i7. (It's slightly slower than a quad core i5).
Spend your the bulk of your money on goodies like an SSD or raid system.
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I reckon going for the best I can for around the 2 grand mark should do the trick, just needed a bit of advice and info from folk before buying such a beast.
Hi,
For two grand you could buy one hello of a computer in the PC market. In the MAC market you would probably have to add another 1000 to get half the power of an A500.
Anyhow, enough of the MAC jokes because MACs are a joke. Lets discuss why I use Cloanto's Amiga forever and Amikit. I basically use it because I know that the original Amiga hardware is getting scarce, if something goes bad in my Amiga 4000 or my A1200, it would be hard to find a place to fix them. So I use them when I want to update my data for my disk files, insurance photos and data, my pictures and home videos. I use the emulator when I want to try programming, play games or just experiment. You will find that the emulator works super fast with a quadcore intel PC, and it works just about as good on my AMD 3700+ PC (although it gets strangled on megaball when it hits a lot of blocks and skips on the sound during this time.
Now lets look at the cost advantage, $39 or $49 for Cloanto Amiga forever, I just received an Amiga video to VGA adapter and a PCMIA port for an Amiga 1200 that just about cost that much. How about a USB port for an Amiga, $105 for one for an A1200, and $150 for one for an A4000, comes free on most modern day PC's.
OK, now are you going to buy a system, or build a system, I use Tiger Direct at http://www.tigerdirect.com to buy most of my computer needs and I build most of my computers, I find it a lot cheaper that way and get the most bang for my buck, when building a computer don't skimp to much on the graphics card, you will be sorry if you do.
My 6 year old AMD 3700+ and ASUS motherboard, with 2 gigs of memory, and 80 gig ide hard drive, with an AGP Sapphire ATI Radeon 3850 is still hanging in there and it plays most modern day PC games, and emulates the Amiga quite well, Cloanto's Amiga Forever 2010 just about does anything that any Amiga /CDTV / CD32 will do and by doing this you are saving your Amiga Hardware.
Anyhow have fun, don't be like the rest of these tightwads that use an old 486 machine and expect it to do huge things, it just ain't going to happen.
Have fun looking, if you have any questions about building your own, just ask.
If you buy a MAC sorry can't help, I would rather use my A500, or better yet my emulator.
On my Quadcore 6600, with my ATI Radeon 5750, and 4 gig of ram, Amiga Forever screams, sometimes when playing megaball, you really have to keep on your game.
smerf
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The only problem with waiting is that there's always something new around the corner, so by the time what you're waiting for is released there's something else new around the corner again. Personally I'd go Intel at the moment, moreso becuase there's scope for improvement,... the am2/am2+/am3 systems have gone about as far as theyre going to with no scope for upgrading without the main core of the system being replaced. Little disappointed to say that really, I used AMD exclusively for quite some time and do like the barrack for the underdog, but when money is involved Im not one to let brand loyalty get in the way. Having said that though an x4 955 or 965 is still an ok machine, especially for thier price.
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in the end it also depends on what its going to be used for.
Basic internet tasks, office crap and so on. Modest video card, a pile of ram and a half decent processor.
Hardcore FPS games, you'll want the biggest machine you can afford, which will give you a few years worth of computer.
If its going to run windows, toss in some extra RAM for good measure as vista and 7 will both pretty much sink your machine if you try to do more than one thing at a time.
Extra Ram? Definitely! But Vista and Win7 sink multitasking? What kind of processor are you using? I've got a old dual core Athlon 64 X2 running at 3.0 Ghz and under either of those OS' I have just as good response as XP.
Of course I'd recommend at least 2Gigs of Ram (or better 4Gigs) because all NT kernel versions of Windows (basically everything from NT/2000 to Win7) can use the extra memory to buffer a lot of different hardware operations.
You want slow (or non functional) load XP onto a machine with less than 1Gig of memory and then open up a few dozen browers tabs or windows.
Your response will slow to a crawl or crash. Under Vista or Win7 (with enough memory) I've never had this happen. And, when you tell Vista or Win7 to shut down, they do so promptly. XP, if there's any processes running tends to sit there for a while like an Alzheimer paitent till it finally gets around to closing everything down.
Don't believe everything you hear about Vista or Win7. Pretending that either isn't a polished up version of XP is like pretending that WinME wasn't Win98 with a few minor changes.
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There are those who insist it's still 1989 and haven't a clue what Windows and OS X have done over the past two decades.
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There are those who insist it's still 1989 and haven't a clue what Windows and OS X have done over the past two decades.
Possibly. I look at my friends computers and see how they run. Not really interested in theoretical performance.
Its a bit sad really. My wife's G4 laptop with 512 megs of ram runs slightly slower, as a friend of mines desktop with vista and 2 gigs of ram.
My desktop came with a vista install and it was crawling with 4 gigs of ram before I wiped it.
7 seems to be better about actually doing stuff, though watching my friend Rubens netbook try to boot with 7 was a painful experience. I guess they are pretty much just giving up on that market and letting Google take it.
The desktops at work are mostly xp, with a few being updated to 7, and again, crawling, though its possible the network setup is whats doing the damage here.
The XP machines arent any better though.
I make it a point of checking out new windows releases, as I know a few people who always stay on top of the upgrade curve.
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Whenever I build up a machine I follow these guidelines.
1. Case, must be rugged and have plenty of room to move and expand. This computer's case is a CM Stacker, the only thing it lacked was a handle, so I gave it one.
2. Good quality PSU, why spend a million bucks on all the other hardware and skimp on the workhorse? Spend a few extra bucks get something decent and reliable. http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp for PSU calculation
3. Decide before hand whether you want dual graphics cards or more for future proofing your machine as much is possible, the hardware in this rig is nearly a year old and still plays everything that has come out before and since with every setting at maximum. Crossfire 4870X2 cards before you ask ;)
4. i7 processors seem to be the best bang for buck at the moment, but they are memory hungry bastards, feed them up well.
5. Solid mainboard with plenty of USB ports and PCI for any older cards required ( Catweasel ) and serial port / parallel port cards.
All I can think of for now.
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For 2000 pounds you could buy an absolute monster of a machine. As for what to buy, I guess it comes down to how much you want to spend. With a budget of 2k pounds an intel i7 of some description is the best bet, being that its the most powerful consumer cpu available. These come in 2 different sockets, 1156, which is the more mainstream variant, and doesnt differ greatly from the socket 1366 version, minus the fact it uses only a dual channel memory controller as opposed to the latters triple channel controller. Both use ddr3 ram from 1066mhz through 2200mhz(or higher if you want to spend the money) depending on a users wants. Obviously the faster the ram the better the performance, but dont disregard things like latency either,.... typically better timings equate to better performance than the higher speed (in mhz) variant with less tight timing. A step down the ladder would be something like an Intel i5-760, which is still quite a monster, although somewhat more affordable and is also a socket 1156 cpu. Incidently both are quad core systems (apart from the high end versions of i7, (i7-980)which can be hex core). Additionally they also support hyperthreading, which effectively means the system sees the cpus as having 2x as many cores as they physically do (not entirely accurate, but for conversations sake its near enough). As for AMD cpus theyre still quite powerful (as are all available modern x86 cpus), but theyre delegated to the budget segment for a reason,.... they simply cant compete with Intel for pure performance (or thermally) in most situations. Beware the 6 core AMD cpus, as although they look attractive on paper (reasonable prices) theyre often no better than the 4 core variants, even when multithreading is involved (software that can take advantage of multiple threads/cores). Lower clockspeeds vs the top end 4core versions as well as identical caches (ergo less per core) and no additional hardware to deal with internal cpu communications see to this. Another thing to be aware of with AMD cpus is that they wont work with faster ram and are restricted to ddr3-1600 (can go higher with overclocking and luck, but dont count on it). As for the very budget segment neither Intel nor AMD own this market in a clear manner. AMD is traditionally cheaper, but in terms of performance you get what you pay for, although the scales probably tip slightly in AMDs favor, especially for heavily threaded software (AMD's athlon x4 and phenom2 x4 cpus are quite cheap), although per thread Intel has the advantage. As for video cards, this isnt as clear as it was a few months back either. Had you asked then ATI/AMD wouldve been recommended without question for pretty much all pricepoints, but despite a few teething problems Nvidias Ferni range of cards are also a good buy. The new 104 based gpus (460) look especially attractive for thier price point. Really though apart from the budget segment (under 130$ where AMD are probably your best bet as they offer both superior performance and feature sets) you again pretty much get what you pay for with the exception of the afforementioined gf104 based gpus (460(which is both cheaper than a 5830 and performs more like a 5850, which is proportionally considerably more expensive)).
This is all assuming you go the non brand name PC route. A brand name usually adds a little to the price, especially when that name is Apple. While I have nothing against Apple products I'd never buy them myself as they simply dont offer the value (in terms of raw performance) I want. Others see value in different terms, and for them Apple products are worth the money (software bundles/osx/etc.).... each to thier own though.
I hope this is info. is of use to you and feel free to ask if you have any more questions.
p.s. Unless you want the absolute best available it'll be heard to spend 2k pounds. An Intel i7-860, 8 gig ddr3-1600, radeon 5870 (or nvidia 480), 2 terrabytes hdd space, bluray reader/writer, nice shiny case, nice sound card and 7.1 surround system and so on could be bought for well inside 1000 pounds...... you can of course go dual gpu, i7-980, etc., but Im assuming something that that would be overkill for you.... the above (or something similar) is a very nice "standard" high-end type rig.
I hate to say this but your two posts make me think of Kenny from South Park-i look at them and I just see incomprehensible mumbling. I'm sure what you have to say is useful..but please make it readable
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Franko, IMO Winuae is most useful when used as an RTG amiga. If you want to run 24 bit graphics software, 3d rendering then winuae has the biggest bang for your buck.
BUT if you want to run stuff that runs on the native chipsets then Winuae just "feels" wrong. This includes most games (but 3D FPS's run faster).
Running a Dpaint/Brilliance/PPAint, animations, a Scala presentation, a demo, a game or viewing some of the hand-drawn art on a 1084 with a good screen just looks so much better than when viewing it in winuae. There's something about the vibrancy of the colors, the blending of the pixels (probably due to the bell curve light distribution of the monitor pixels), the smoothness of the animation.
So for mine, if you want to run software that runs on the chipset, then nothing beats the real thing. If you want to run Amiga software that uses RTG or you need brute CPU speed for then winuae is cheaper and easier to acquire.
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To me, the perks were quite apparent.
Having an aging A1200, which is as expanded as it gets (unless towered),
I could now try out all of my favourite gfx-apps with RTG etc.
(I still find some of them doing a better job than modern-day pc-apps)
I could also have different environments that allowed me to run some of
them really old apps and games (1.3) without having to run a 'degrader'.
And as someone pointed out earlier, it saves space collecting all the machines
in one. (I love emulating various consoles/computers).
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A big thank you to everyone who has supplied me here with some very usefull and insightful information about PCs...:)
Its a fair bit to take in but at least now I have a good idea of what I need to buy and ask for when I go out to purchase one. :)
As I have said before I wont be abandoning my Amigas, but I do want to give a PC a go as I have learned about as much as I can about the Amiga over the past 20 odd years and fancy a new challenge and something different to tinker with and hopefully will find a use for. :)
Cheers Everyone :drink:
Franko
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7 seems to be better about actually doing stuff, though watching my friend Rubens netbook try to boot with 7 was a painful experience.
Netbooks run the Atom processor, which is more or less on the same performance scale as a Pentium 3 clock for clock. It is significantly slower than any current desktop cpu available by over a factor of 4 at this stage.
To be clear, OSX also crawls on an Atom based netbook. Neither really have any place on such hardware.
I guess they are pretty much just giving up on that market and letting Google take it.
I very much doubt it. Given the pains they went to to wipe Linux out of the netbook market, I can't see them being any more forgiving for google to step in.
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rugged
Mil-spec?
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I mostly play games. Having a dedicated Amiga hogging space to play some games isn't really practical. I'm not too interested in any of the other software.
and programming wise, you can do most of what you want with an emulator too. AmiKit makes it pretty streamlined. There's even a C hard disk image floating around somewhere which makes it even easier than even easy.
It's honestly easier to set stuff up that way than it is to locate, setup, and properly configure real hardware to a point where it's useable.
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I've said it before....
I used a real hardware Amiga 2000 for fairly serious/hobby work (not gaming) until 2008. This was a heavily expanded computer with lots of bits and bobs. I used it for music recording and graphics work.
The hardware finally failed in 2008 - I tried for months to get it going again, but it always meant having to hunt for some overpriced, extremely hard to find aging component.
I was pretty devastated, but I knew that the day would come. I was depressed about having to move to PC and Amiga emulation. I just thought it wouldn't be the same.
Then I got my PC up and running with UAE.
This has been the BEST Amiga experience I've ever had. All my productivity apps (rendering software, music software, graphics software) all run super fast now with loads and loads of RAM. I can transfer files back and forth between Amiga and Windows apps in seconds. I can get much more done with my Amiga.
And YES I *DO* consider it a real Amiga. It's smooth, it crashes far less than my real Amiga did, and it does everything my hardware Amiga did, and more.
So, here are the reasons that I would rather use UAE than an older classic Amiga:
1. more reliable
2. does everything a hardware classic Amiga can do, but faster, smoother with less crashing
3. hardware won't fail, or if it does, easy to find replacement parts at your local corner computer store (that was the most frustrating part about maintaining a real hardware Amiga)
4. I can now run Amiga applications much faster, or ones that wouldn't even run in the limits of my real hardware machine
...so I'm a much more productive Amiga user now.
I'm not knocking real hardware. I love the real tactile experience of real hardware if you have the space for it. But honestly, If I hid my PC under the desk and put a real Amiga in front of its monitor, I don't see how many people could tell that AmigaOS was running in emulation. The emulation is very good.
This is from a guy who knows the experiential value of older hardware - I have a fully working VIC-20 setup in the corner. Now THAT I prefer to emulation - because the VIC-20 was a much more differently tactile system than a modern PC - chunky keys, breadbox case, slapping a tape in the datasette, cartridges, the old raster lines of a 14" colour TV. My big-box Amiga, with a seperate keyboard, an RTG card and hard-drive, was a lot closer to the tactile experience of a modern PC.
I still keep my old hardware around. I think if anything, the only real hardware Amiga I'd set up to use again is an A500 for gaming only. That is the furthest tactile experience from a modern PC, and harder to replicate in software (but not as hard as a VIC-20).
For serious Amiga productivity work, my PC is a reliable hardware platform that runs AmigaOS 3.9. That's how I consider it.
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Strange thing, reckon I must be either really lucky or just very careful, but since my first Vic 20 (way back in 82), C64s and various Amigas, I have never had any of them break down on me. :)
The only stuff to break down or pack up are the add ons like CD/DVD drives, Monitors etc..
Am I the only one that's never had any problems with a Commodore machine... :)
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Strange thing, reckon I must be either really lucky or just very careful, but since my first Vic 20 (way back in 82), C64s and various Amigas, I have never had any of them break down on me. :)
The only stuff to break down or pack up are the add ons like CD/DVD drives, Monitors etc..
Am I the only one that's never had any problems with a Commodore machine... :)
^ Wow, Franko, you are really lucky..... and careful.... My first C= fatality was my original C-64, I spilled a glass of wine into it while on.... and didn't know enough to kill the AC right away, although in my defense, I was only 13 at the time......
Hmmm, 2 A500 systems, my dad's beloved A600, my first A1200, oh, can't forget that uber-piece of crap... my Micronik A1200T....
I refuse to admit my 4000T is 'broken' .... OK, I'm working on 'restoring' it.... one of these years. :roflmao:
:drink:
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I've wanted to start this thread for a long time. I feel the same way as Franko. I mean what is the point new amiga setups (sam boards, pegasis)? We all realize that modern machines are capable of these things. How is that impressive? To me the whole point is pushing the old hardware to its limits, and redefining what is possible. It's about the nastolga. Also, I don't like emulators, because its still just your pc doing all these things. Again, whats so great about that? To me, its classic hardware all the way...
Computers don't really wear out too much. I mean other than capacitors and motors on moving parts what else can fail? I suppose things like mice & joysticks, but usually that is a simple solder job. Capacitors are simple too. Chips should last hundreds if not thousands of years before they fail (do to electron mitigation). Chips should last a good long time as long as they are treated well (that is also presuming they were designed within their specifications) I always say that chips don't die, they're killed.
Also, if you want to tinker around with pcs, then I encourage you to try linux. It puts you back in control of your computer again, and gives me that same hacker-computers-are-so-cool spirit. There's a certain good feeling you get building your system from the ground up in software, and tailoring your OS for your system. Linux distributions like gentoo are really good at this particularly. Just don't let the popular Ubuntu linux distro ruin your test of linux. It is so buggy, convoluted, and inefficient, then people blame linux. It's not linux as a whole, just that distro. It's a good one for beginners though because it is simpler than most others.
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Ubuntu is simple AND convoluted ?
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I guess I kinda used a liberal interpretation of the word convoluted. Hmm... Last time I make a post past 10 at night
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I make it a point of checking out new windows releases....
"I'm kind of a linux fanboy "
I think you're telling porkies... ;)
FWIW I run both Ubuntu and Windows in equal amounts.
Benjamin... using Linux since Red Hat 5.2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Redhat_5.2_box.jpg) :) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Redhat_5.2_box.jpg)
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I think you're telling porkies... ;)
FWIW I run both Ubuntu and Windows in equal amounts.
Benjamin... using Linux since Red Hat 5.2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Redhat_5.2_box.jpg) :) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Redhat_5.2_box.jpg)
nah, most of my friends run windows and I know a couple of windows 7 fanboys. We tend to take turns playing "check this cool thing out".
Half of mine is on the amiga though ;)