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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: restore2003 on February 29, 2004, 01:10:52 AM
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I was a little shocked when i found out exactly how much ram my windows xp eats up!
When the system is freshly booted, and no programs launched, it consumes 200mb! :-o
In comparison, my overstuffed and overbloated winuae setup, with countless of patches, hacks, graphical enhancements, a cramped wbstartup drawer, 64x64 png icons, tons of software installed.....
When i tested the ram usage for os3.9, i ran ibrowse, yam, amigaamp, frogger with a divx movie, i loaded a huge 1600x1200 jpg picture with multiview, opened my sys/ drawer with 150 png deficons......
And the ram usage?
40 mb! :-o
Btw. Finally easy access smileys! :-D :-) :-o :-? 8-) :lol: :-x :-P :oops: :cry: :evil: :roll: ;-)
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Impressive!
I wonder how much RAM my G4 eMac is using right now??
I hope it's not as bloated as XP, but I doubt it runs as effeciently as OS3.9
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Windows is no dream, but keep in mind that it IS very cache heavy. Windows uses up as much RAM as it can for cache, and frees a lot of it when you run lots of apps. 200MB typical operation is nothing unusual for a modern OS. 200MB *required* is a different story, but even XP doesn't need that much. ;)
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@waccoon:
In the ram test in windows xp, no apps were running, just the usual background stuff, drivers etc.
And 40mb of the 200mb ram used is cache, but still...160mb in use???
Correction: The real mem usage on the os3.9 ram test was 48mb. :-)
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Yeah, and you just forget XP includes USB stack, DirectX and a decent browser. You also forget XP includes support for nearly all possible printers and Mediaplayer which can do bit more things than Frogger.
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Quite funny you are running AmigaOS 3.9 in Windows... Why not run AmigaOS without Windows? Now your AmigaOS needs 40MB + 200MB (Windows). How bloated is that :-P
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itix wrote:
Yeah, and you just forget XP includes USB stack, DirectX and a decent browser. You also forget XP includes support for nearly all possible printers and Mediaplayer which can do bit more things than Frogger.
Well, that's just the thing: Windows integrates USB, DirectX, Mediaplayer, etc. right into the OS, sucking up resources. The Amiga only loads its equivalents when needed.
Plus, efficiency is something lacking in Microsoft products.
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When the system is freshly booted, and no programs launched, it consumes 200mb!
Refer to WinXP’s "task manager" for loaded processes...
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Plus, efficiency is something lacking in Microsoft products.
Note that 3D layers would require optimization.
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The Amiga only loads its equivalents when needed.
Please tally Amiga's available services to Windows XP. Note that WInXP explorer(with browser engine) is it’s the main shell.
I don't recall AmigaOS 3.9 has the following
1. DirectX8/DirectX9 class APIs.
2. OBDC infrastructure(for basic application infrastructure).
3. OLE infrastructure.
4. Computer Browser//Keeps track of PCs in the LAN network.
5. Transparent CD-Burn and support for DVD-R/RW.
6. Local multi-user infrastructure.
7. Local Server services e.g. print and share.
8. MS/Roland GS Soft_syn (Midi).
9. 16/24/32bit Audio support (DirectX). Support HDCD (via MP9; included in WinXP MCE(2003) and 2003 Server).
10. HAL, "CPU driver", ACPI, Monitor profiles, Firewire, UDMA Mode 5 (133), Microcode Update,
11. Basic Terminal Service (expanded in SP2).
12. 'etc'.
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To be fair. WindowsXP has more than a few people doing the programming while the Amiga has just a tad bit less.
I would hope that with all the people programming for it that it would have an extremely long list of features that the more neglected systems lack. Is it enough to make me feel like I need all of it (or any of it)?
Nuh uh. Somehow I manage to get my work done without it. :juggler:
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Plus, efficiency is something lacking in Microsoft products.
Apparently efficient enough to run WinUAE...
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Nuh uh. Somehow I manage to get my work done without it
Note that Windows XP Home/Pro/MCE targets most needs and wants for the ~90 percent of the desktop PC market.
Secondly, comparable features set to Windows XP Home/Pro is MacOS X (non-XServe Edition), Lindows 4.5, Mandrake 9.2 and ‘etc’.
Nuh uh. Somehow I manage to get my work done without it.
Why not try doing your work on the cut down Windows XP Embedded Edition or Windows XP Pre-install Edition or Windows CE 4.x** (X86). Note that no one forced you to upgrade to Windows XP i.e. Windows NT 4.0(SP6a) may be sufficient for your work.
Most’s windows application infrastructure is hidden from normal users.
** For Windows CE 4.x's desktop screenshot http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/desktop_startmenu.gif
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itix wrote:
Yeah, and you just forget XP includes USB stack, DirectX and a decent browser. You also forget XP includes support for nearly all possible printers and Mediaplayer which can do bit more things than Frogger.
Well, yeah, MS has a programming staff to be jealous of (in size, if not quality of output), so all these things should be available if needed or desired.
But I'm not sure why having support for nearly all printers is usable in defense of requiring so many resources just to boot the OS. Why would any efficient OS, by default, load drivers for printers at startup?
All these can and arguably should be created as standard features, and of course, any system that will run this monstosity would need to have more resources available. But where in all this does it say that it's okay to be inefficient or buggy?
And don't defend it by saying 'it's an OS, it's very complex'. Bull. MS has a staff of a least, what ,say 100 people? Get rid of the bugs! Make it less prone to crashes! (BEFORE you release another version...)
At that point, even I would defend it, and IMO anyone who still bashes it is just being silly.
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Essentially what you're saying is I should toss the systems that work very well for the work I do simply because everyone else uses Windows.
The first big game for the Amiga was Lemmings, wasn't it? I learned everything I need to know by playing Lemmings. :lol:
I do have a PC, I do run WindowsXP on it when I need to, and WindowsXP does have quite a list of features that my other OSs don't. However, I don't use Windows for my work unless I'm absolutely pushed into a corner to do so. I have other systems that allow the work to flow much more smoothly. For example, very frequently I need to access a window that's behind another window without moving it forward. I'm sure Windows has a way to turn off "always move my window to the front when I do anything more than look at it" somewhere, but even with that off, Windows has a climsiness to it that I just can't get all cozy with. Frequently, programs I run like to rearrange my windows without my input. I have a specific order I like to keep my work windows in, and Windows takes it upon itself to move and resize them at its whim. I can probably dig around and find the "don't rearrange my windows" setting, but I just can't be bothered to. After that, we have the "let's select the entire line and put the cursor at the end on single-click" feature. That one's fun too. The "whoops, you clicked close when you meant to click minimize" attraction has caught me a few times when I catch late-night, dreary-eye syndrome. The "resize the window at any edge" feature just about drives me nuts, and there are several more little things that just remind me that windows isn't there yet. It might be in a few more releases, but from what I'm hearing I'll be steering clear of those as well. Meanwhile, I'll be digging even deeper into the systems that do work well for me.
Oh yeah, my favorite one: I was working on a resume for a friend a few years back, and I used the word "focussed". Silly me, I used MerriamWebster.com to spell-check. Now you'd think that would be perfectly acceptable and everything would turn out fine. Well, unfortunately, the rest of the office world uses Microsoft Word now as the official English spell-checking reference, and since Microsoft Word rejected the properly spelled "focussed", the interviewer noted the "misspelling," the job was given to someone else (for whatever reason) and I got a face full of what-for until I proved that the dictionary, the real dictionary, says I really do know how to spell.
So, what do I use Windows for? As time permits, MajorMud, GTA Vice City and Warcraft III, along with a few other games that also won't let me choose what OS to run them on, and that's about as far as I'm willing to go with it.
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Apparently efficient enough to run WinUAE...
...barely, and I mean just barely on a 2Ghz processor. Everything else I multitask with WinUAE crawls to a standstill, and in some cases that'll take money off my paycheck.
Really, on 1GHz + processors, any OS should have enough efficiency to run UAE. I'd really worry about the ones that didn't.
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Right this second, after being on for a couple of weeks (and everything I'm normally running is on) - WinXP here is using about 630 megs of ram, and 710 megs of pagefile (with a peak of 900 megs - if I start playing with gfx that goes up another 700 megs ;-)
I'm running 780 threads on 40 processes, and the kernal (ie, core) is using 95 megs of the ram.
I'm also running WinUAE with 256 megs of ram allocated to it (and it actually runs a lot faster than my old 060 amiga - I'm on an athlon xp2600 - sounds like the slow WinUAE isn't using JIT).
On my old Amiga I used to have 128 megs ram (as opposed to the 1024 megs in the pc), which cost about the same in total, though there were a few years between purchases ;-)
Think my amiga tended to sit around the ~40 meg mark too, with web ib, webserver (thttpd), amirc,, rc-ftpd, etc all running... in fact, apart from the web side (which xp now handles) WinUAE still has the same things sitting on it ;-)
So all in all, xp might use more memory, but at the same cost... until you start going on about electric bills and energy usage ;-)
Robin
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But these drivers shouldn't be already loaded to memory ! They should be loaded when they're needed !
Hmm I think the RAM abuse is due to the "multitasking" implemetation ... and some say to sell some RAM chips ;-)
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Wrong ! CPU power instead !
Pause a bit and try to realize the meaning of GigaHertz ;-)
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Waccoon wrote:
Windows is no dream, but keep in mind that it IS very cache heavy. Windows uses up as much RAM as it can for cache, and frees a lot of it when you run lots of apps. 200MB typical operation is nothing unusual for a modern OS. 200MB *required* is a different story, but even XP doesn't need that much. ;)
Agreed. This explains why I actually managed to get XP to run on a system with less then 100megs of ram. It's possible, but not an enjoyable experience to say the least. And btw, just for the record, my current XP system with Eudora Running and two browsers is taking up only 170MB (Total commit charge) out of the possible 512MB I have installed. If XP takes up 200MB just after a reboot, then I suspect you're running way more services then you need.
- Mike
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I did the same test on xp as os3.9 now, running IE6, outlook express, winamp, divx movie, loaded the same 1600x1200 picture, and a folder full of thumbnails.
Ram usage: 510mb
os 3.9 was 48mb
This is my point ;-)
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by Hammer on 2004/2/29 2:07:30
5. Transparent CD-Burn and support for DVD-R/RW.
Speaking of DVD burner and XP, what apps are out there that support DVD burning? Anything Open Source?
Dammy, why does my favorite game run slower on XP then ME...
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Dammy, why does my favorite game run slower on XP then ME...
There could be many reasons. For starters, XP will be a tad slower on most things, as it uses extra clock cycles to provide for greater integrity. For example, NTFS is far superior to FAT32 in terms of reliability and integrity, however, FAT32 is a bit faster. Also, XP has real mem protection, while ME doesn't.
Aside from that, older games may run better on older OSes simply because they aren't optimized for the newer OS. Also, drivers for XP might not be as optimized as they are for ME. This is mostly true for older hardware where developers/manufacturers don't feel like re-investing in their older, obsolete products (quite often, the "XP" driver for older hardware is just a NT/Win2000 driver clone).
- Mike
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I did the same test on xp as os3.9 now, running IE6, outlook express, winamp, divx movie, loaded the same 1600x1200 picture, and a folder full of thumbnails.
Strange. I currently have loaded: Eudora, IE6 (8 instances), ZoneAlarm Pro, Trend's OfficeScan, Yahoo Messenger, Free Surfer mkII, Windows Explorer, Adobe Premiere 6.5 and WinWord XP, with a total memory footprint of 445MB (65MB kernel). Oh, I just launched 3ds max 5 and my memory footprint went up to 535MB. Launching Roxio's DVD builder shot it up to 559MB. I seem to be able to fit a lot more in my memory then you can fit in yours. Strange indeed!
- Mike
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But I'm not sure why having support for nearly all printers is usable in defense of requiring so many resources just to boot the OS. Why would any efficient OS, by default, load drivers for printers at startup?
The point was that Windows offers lot more functionality than AmigaOS 3 (or OS4/MOS for that matter) ever could. You can make comparisons how much less IBrowse needs than IE, but then IE can do CSS and Java and everything else. And compared to mother of bloat, Mozilla, IE is actually very efficient. I also wonder how well laser printers are supported in AmigaOS 3.9 or if it is possible to use network printers. Or use file sharing even. And what else.
And don't defend it by saying 'it's an OS, it's very complex'. Bull. MS has a staff of a least, what ,say 100 people? Get rid of the bugs! Make it less prone to crashes! (BEFORE you release another version...)
Point me an AmigaOS version which was bug free.
(No, I don't think Windows is the best OS. I've been told VMS is the best OS ever, but without further clarification I cannot confirm that.)
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@glaucus:
Argh! I probably need to reinstall Windows XP again :-(
I refuse to buy extra 512mb ram just to have a smooth running windows! :-x
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...barely, and I mean just barely on a 2Ghz processor. Everything else I multitask with WinUAE crawls to a standstill, and in some cases that'll take money off my paycheck.
Sorry but today so called true Amigans seem to be WinUAE users. Nothing wrong in that, but Windows can't be that bad then.
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I am testing Mozilla Firefox now, they stated that this browser wouldnt fall into the same trap as the original Mozilla 1.6.
But....firefox consumes 28 mb??? Its hardly any better... :lol:
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On power UP my WinXP system uses 96Megs of RAM.
I do not have any virtual memory (due to my intense dislike of it).
I have 512Megs installed on the machine.
It runs perfectly.
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@restore2003,
Well, perhaps that's what you need, or perhaps you just need to clean up some of your services. Here's a good start: Windows XP Home and Professional Service Configurations (http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm). And be sure to setup a second Hardware Profile to preserve the original services configuration: Windows XP Services Profile Guide (http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/xpprofiles.htm). It's not that hard, and once you learn how to use services.msc you'll be able to tweak your system a lot better.
Other tools worth getting is SysInternal's (http://www.sysinternals.com/) AutoRuns (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/autoruns.shtml) and even HijackThis (http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html) (the latter is great for tracking down spyware as well). Just be careful how you use these tools, otherwise you may be forced to do a complete re-install! :-)
- Mike
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@glaucus:
Yay! Thanks! :afro: :pint:
I guess im better at tweaking the amigaos than windows :-)
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Dammy, why does my favorite game run slower on XP then ME...
What game do you run? What kind of hardware do you have?
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what apps are out there that support DVD burning
Ulead Studio 7 SE and Ahead Nero 6.
Open source
Refer to http://www.k3b.org
"K3b is a CD and DVD burning application for Linux systems optimized for KDE."
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I can reduce Win2k/XP's memory usage to between 35 and 90 MB, depending on things like driver size variations.
There are install guides on my site you might want to have a quick run-through (www.legolas.com/wac/), aside from getting the usual crap from running on startup.
When picking new hardware for PCs I tend to check how big the driver downloads are... souncards with 20MB drivers for example aren't my first choice :-)
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Sorry but today so called true Amigans seem to be WinUAE users. Nothing wrong in that, but Windows can't be that bad then.
The Windows product itself is not quite the issue i.e. its Microsoft’s business practises. If one looks at the mirror, Amiga related companies such as Amiga Inc (Bill Ewen) and Genesi (Bill Buck) has their own issues.
If one looks at the mirror, Amiga related companies such as Amiga Inc (Bill Ewen) and Genesi (Bill Buck) has their own issues.
Note that, the Amiga use to the reputation for the usage for cut edge technology.
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Sorry but today so called true Amigans seem to be WinUAE users. Nothing wrong in that, but Windows can't be that bad then.
Guess again, if only just for me.
Amiga4000 Power Tower, 2MB Chip - 16MB Fast
CyberStormPPC 68060/60MHz 604e/233MHz 128MB
CyberVisionPPC Graphics, Toccata Audio
PFS3, Algor USB, GVP I/O Extender
Canon BJC 250, Plextor CDRW
Samsung 171v Flatscreen Monitor
AmigaOS 3.9 BB2
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You can make comparisons how much less IBrowse needs than IE, but then IE can do CSS and Java and everything else.
Somehow I doubt that IBrowse with CSS and decent enough plugin capability to allow for things like Java "and everything else" will be anywhere near the size of IE. I could be wrong, but I'd have to see it before I believed it.
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ok, imagine while booting up an operating system, starting a graphics engine as complex as explorer, and copying most if not all of your operating system into ram? or virtual ram?
all at the same time.
sounds painfull. thats why you have a 200mb cache from your virtual memory. one word. fonts. if you have a stack load of fonts installed, its going to slow your boot time considerably, as its loading all these things into ram, and paging into virtual memory.
have a look on www.tweekxp.com for ideas on how to optimize your system services etc.
as for the network thing, the network services tcp stacks (browse master, etc) stuff only takes about a few meg of ram
and the USB stack can fit in a meg or so too. so nothing really to worry about....
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That´s an Amiga Forum right ?? ...
The real Amiga Hardware is just right for my pleasures. I don´t need any WinUAE ... Only AmigaOS and my Linux ;-))
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as for the network thing, the network services tcp stacks (browse master, etc) stuff only takes about a few meg of ram and the USB stack can fit in a meg or so too. so nothing really to worry about....
On XP, I save between 30 and 50 megs of RAM by stopping unnecessary services. On win2k I usually see reductions of about 20MB.
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I ran XP on 64 megs of RAM when a memory unit failed. By tweaking the OS I managed to cut down memory usage to 38 megs bu shutting down unneccesary services and minimizing the disk cache and the icon cache. Running without ActiveDesktop objects and wallpaper helps a lot.
It should be noted that that machine was used for surfing only, and there was no printer attatched to it.