PC still playing Amiga catchup

[smerf]

"could it be that all you young ones now playing with computer's know no better."

I also would like to see a return to wood-fired ovens. Nothing beats flame grilled.:madashell:

Hi,

With the world economy going the way it is you may soon have your wish. Just think roasting marshmellows over an open wood fire. Potatoes roasting in the hot embers, no more electricity, no more micro wave ovens, no more gas, no more electricity for stupid computers. The way the world economy is going we may all be cooking over wood fires,

GOD BLESS  AMERICA

smerf

[smerf]

Well, I am trying to stay far away from this debate, but when I read that Linux is EASY, I just can't help but wondering what he has been smoking! Linux (to a newbee) IS far from easy and one of the most frustrating things in the world to get up and running (unless you have a "Live Boot" cd). I can walk through over the phone anyone through a Windows format and install because Microsoft has  it down to a science. I have many times tried to "get into Linux" by trying to install it on various machines, and it has always failed for one reason or another. Linux is wayyy to advanced for the uneducated home user.

But this is way off topic, I have been hearing the same song and dance from Linux fans since 1996 and so far nothing has changed. ABSOLUTELY nothing except that some brand names have tried to bring linux out on their machines (ASUS) and even 90% of those sold with Linux, were sold with an XP license and  upgraded to XP.

Hi,

@quarkx

OK, Have you tried Ubuntu, this Linux version is so good that even Maximum PC, has put articles on it, it is one of the easiest Linux versions on the PC to install. There are only a couple of interactions between the user and the computer, just RTFS (read the frappin screen), all updates to Ubuntu are easy to install and about 10 to 20 times faster than Winblows. Now here is one for the books, I just went to print out a picture on some glossy inkjet paper, in Linux no problem, it took it and ran and gave me an excellent print, then I tried the same picture on glossy paper with Windows Vista (your trouble free easy software for the masses) not only did it print the picture to dark, but it only printed half of it (sigh) and I thought I would get a better print from Winblows, but lets face it Winblows has not let me down yet, it loses data, it never does what I think it will do, I have to try it 2 or 3 times before I get it done the way I want it. You can keep your OS for the masses, I stay with the hard to set up Ubuntu Linux, keep my data, and have it do stuff the right way the first time I do it and you know what it cost me to get stuff done right, not $159.00 like Windows Home Version of Vista, but $.12 cents what it cost for me to put the ISO on a CD and install it. By the way don't try to burn an ISO in VISTA because they gave you burn programs but no ISO burn, but you can get ImgBurn off the internet to burn ISO's.

smerf

[smerf]

"could it be that all you young ones now playing with computer's know no better."

I also would like to see a return to wood-fired ovens. Nothing beats flame grilled.:madashell:

HI,

@Fanscale,

No, you don't know any better, Microsoft is trying to take over the compute world, they are trying to knock out all competition, they are doing underhanded stuff, like telling software companies that they will only support Microsoft based products, or they will lose there license rights for Windows, since Microsoft owns about 80% of the computing world, they can get away with this. Pretty soon Microsoft will be telling you what you can or cannot put on your computer, if they don't like what you are doing they can shut down your computer, ( I know mine has been shut down 10 times already for doing hardware upgrades during the past year that I have owned VISTA) I am getting to know the people in India better than I know my co-workers at work. So keep supporting Winblows, one day you will be screaming like I am, I just learned it faster, Microsoft is out to control your private computer.

smerf

[smerf]

@quarkx

Regarding the default gui on ubuntu, you do realise that you can change the entire look and feel of pretty much any linux distro as much or as little as you like, right? There are a dozen window managers, all of which are customisable to the hilt.

As for Vista, yeah it isn't great. But it does have DX10. Which is all I really use it for

Hi,

@Karlos

Yea we were all suckered into buying VISTA for DX10, then after it came out, they upgraded it to 10.1 which threw a lot of the new amazing cards out, causing bugs in their coding. Case in point nvidia 8800 cards. So really you are using DX10.1, I could look back in my Max PC mags to put down all the details but very few people know about that.

I like Ubuntu for the ease of use, fast loading, fast updates, and FREE SOFTWARE!!!
What more could you ask for. The Synaptec software manager is great, makes putting on new software in Linux a breeze and compiz is an amazing gui. Just Love It. Plus I can put it on as many computers as I want without breaking any EULA's. The Open Office Suite is fantastic, and GIMP is always good and improving. Now if we could only get the game Co.s to write games for Linux, they would put MS out of business.

smerf

[smerf]

Current CUDA GPUs can enable some DX10.1 features via NVAPI. Best example is FarCry2 PC.

"FarCry 2 reads from a multisampled depth buffer to speed up antialiasing performance. This feature is fully implemented on GeForce GPUs via NVAPI. Radeon GPUs implement an equivalent path via DirectX 10.1. There is no image quality or performance difference between the two implementations."

Hi,

@Hammer,

Know what you mean, I was really ticked at MS when I read about the new 10.1. There was a big billiwac by both nvidia and MS on this. Both companies are still fighting about who was right or wrong on this. All i have to say is that a lot of people spent a lot of money (like I did) for nvidia 8800 graphic cards that were now not up to date because of MS changes in their coding. One of the major things I noticed was when playing fallout 3 in SLI mode, I had to disable SLI while playing fallout 3 because of 10.1 programming errors. SLI worked great using windows aero but tended to crash and cause screen distortions while playing this game. I usually crashed 3 times a night while playing until I learned to disable the SLI mode. I paid a lot of money to get SLI in order to have the faster frame rates, but MS frapped me up there. I HATE MS and their buggy bloated OS that you have to pay money for. By the way I had the same problem playing far cry in SLI, but when I played it on Linux using cedega, it played without any crashes or problems.

smerf

[smerf]

In general they do fix bugs as versions keep going up and up, but in one sense you can consider adding more functions a type of flaw as well since that means original was missing things that are now present.

Some even divide up the number of the version into some major function change or bug fixes...

Hi,

@amigaski,

Do you ever have any idea what you are talking about, well lets explain it to you in very easy terms

Once upon a time a great computer was developed, it was called an Amiga, it had great features like stereo sound, great graphics, and a new feature called muti tasking meaning that it could run several programs at once due to pre-emptive tasking. This great computer held this domain for about 10 years until the big bad microsoft company developed windows with much support from hardware developers to take over the Amiga kingdom. Now Amiga owned by Commodore didn't have this support because they squandered all the money on such things as the PC-10 and PC-20 instead of improving the King Amiga, when the coffers went dry due to overspending in other areas the Amiga finally succumbed to being bankrupt, a great savior called Gateway said they would help poor king Amiga, but they to gave up because it seemed that microsoft had their hands into everything, it was rumored that microsoft paid Gateway a huge sum to drop development of the new Amiga. Now no one really has proof of this and it is just rumor. Then a new savior emerged, another Mister Bill, but alas all he could do was rewrite games for iphones (not very good ones either). Now during this time the hardware was advancing and the speed of the hardware increased, the graphics cards displayed more colors, and then came up with such things as shaders and math calculations to do such things as display vapors, fogs and dust on the new graphics hardware, poor Amiga was still bragging about faster boot times, and joystick speed ( I threw joystick time in because I know how hard you fought for this Amigaski) so as you can see children the versions of DX weren't really flawed they just imporoved with time, and if the evil microsoft would of told about their improvement in the shaders from version 10.0 to 10.1 then the hardware developers would have used it to improve their hardware.

have a nice day Amigaski, as much as I hate to say this, the old saying that the Amiga can emulate a PC, but can the PC emulate the Amiga is over, done with and no longer valid. The PC can not only emulate a PC, but has actually improved the Amiga through emulation, for now today the Amiga emulator program can use USB, DVD's, and even usb digital camera's, sata drives and most modern day hardware.

Amiga wins by default, because I still like it.
and thats all that counts

smerf

[smerf]

Smerf, I don't often agree with what you write, but every once in a while you'll produce a gem like this and I'm left with my jaw on the floor.

Bravo sir, and may your miggies continue to trundle on far into the future!

Thats actually brightened my day :afro:

Hi,

@the leander,

I am glad I brought some joy into your day, a lot of times I just like to troll, and stir up the pot. Yes I still like the Amiga and still use it daily. but it is very limited in its features today and even though I hate to say this my Amiga is like an old Model T roadster, fun to play with. fun to soup it up and hot rod and fun to see how far I can take it to compete with modern day computers. Lately I have been gathering all my Amiga schematics to see what I can do to bring it up to modern day values, after a year of examining and looking at it, I have decided to take the original block diagram as developed by Mr. Jay Miner and build from there. I have decided to go with an Intel Q6600 processor, and try to develope from there, looks like a lot of work but it might be a challenge. I now have the original block diagram, Amiga 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 and CD32 schematics. Now I am trying to match modern day tech to the block diagram and make decisions on the type of hardware and coding that I will have to use, my main problem is this house, every time I get started something breaks in the house that I have to fix (usuall a 6 month to a year project) and by the time I get back to the Amiga I forgot where I was at and have to spend another month calculating, and planning which way to go, by this time the technology has advanced and I try to start there. (never ending story)

Glad to see I brought you some joy, but I was getting tired of someone comparing old tech with new tech, sort of like saying a P51 could take on a F18 hornet because it can make the turns tighter.

smerf

[smerf]

It sounds like you don't understand the main point either.

Hi,

@Amigaski,

What exactly is the main point, according to wikipedia API's sound like something brought about in programming. In todays programming environment, code is made up and kept in libraries that anybody can access and use. This cuts down the programming environment and yes if someone does write some bad code for hardware and it isn't caught can trickle into any program developed for it, but on a sad note this can also happen in the Amiga. Now most of the code written for the Amiga was developed 20 years ago and today all the buggy stuff has been found and trashed. So the Amiga has less buggy code than the PC, since new hardware is being developed every day for it. What was new yesterday is old today with the PC, the Amiga on the other hand has very little hardware developed for it, case in point was the buddha ide that I just bought for my Amiga 4000. The new hardware was shipped to me and I had to go to the company to get new software in order to make it work. The software that shipped with it was bad.  OK case in point API's do have faults, but not only for PC's.

Buggy code is prevelent in all computers.

smerf

[smerf]

I was speaking about all APIs not just for PCs.  See post #570.  My main point is that it's better to have compatibility on the hardware level so person has option of going through API or using hardware directly.  Now the circular reasoning presented to me is well "nobody in their right mind would go directly to hardware on modern systems since it may not work on another system."

Hi,

@Amigaski,

Really don't understand the debate here, the application programming interface as I stated before is usually kept in a library so that programmers can use that library to cut down on there programming time, why re-invent the wheel, most of this coding is written by the hardware deveopers to aid programmers in the use of their hardware. Now the Amiga was different since most hardware was kernal controlled and all hardware developers had to follow Commodores instructions on the developement of new hardware, that way when the Amiga was in the startup it would call out who or what is out there, and then the hardware would say I am here waiting your instructions. This way the Amiga knew what it could use and what kernal instructions to use to command the hardware, I could be wrong on this since it has been a while since I read the books on the Amiga, but pretty soon I will be breaking out those books to see exactly what Commodore was doing since I am trying to design a computer similar to the Amiga using an Intel Q6600 (yeh, if I can get my darn house to co-operate with me). I believe that if you use the sysinfo program you will see the kernal in action, the unknown boards will show up because someone broke Commodores instruction base for hardware development or the hardware was made after Commodores downfall. The only difference between Amiga and PC was that Commodore had a Kernal and PC had the command.com for normal hardware, then the PC had config.sys and Amiga had the startup-sequence. Which one did I like better, the Amigas startup instructions, because you could put the device drivers and the libs in their folders and you knew where they went and what they did, while the PC's are scattered through a numerous amount of directories. I don't even think wild bill gates actually knew what was going on in his system.

At this time I don't see any point to this debate because the applicatin programming set is used by both computers, the only difference is that Commodore had a built in Kernal, while the PC had a Command.com for hardware, while the application programming instruction set can also be used also for applications. If anything the Amiga wins this bout just by having its kernal in memory and didn't have to depend on mechanical means (hard drive) to load its instruction set for the normally used hardware, but also by todays modern bios, most instructions are already configured for the hardware in todays PC causing a lot slower boot time due to everything it has to find and control hardware wise, while the Amiga was pretty standard with no new advancements in hardware design.

smerf

[smerf]

Hi,

@Amigaski,


>>>

As I said before, I write something using OCS hardware registers and it will work on OCS, ECS, and AGA-- nothing to modify between the machines.  Incompatibilities were not caused by these hardware registers.

Sorry you are wrong the only way to get AGA to work was with the setpatch command that was put in your startup sequence.


>>>No, it works right now.  If people use hardware standards rather than APi standards, you have better computers to program.  You are in some fairyland because you don't even understand what is being discussed.

The only way to program the hardware was through the machine language where you could bang the hardware with machine code instructions. Not recommended by Commodore.

>When you state that the Amiga is superior to the PC, you are talking about now.

>>>Straw-man argument.  I stated that because of having hardware compatibility, Amiga will do better in certain real-time programs.

Sorry wrong again, if you can bang the Amiga hardware, you can certainly bang the PC hardware the same way, and since the new hardware is faster it will execute faster.

>No, you supplied data that showed nothing.

>>>Bullcrap.  Go re-read the data.

Excuse me if you are using joystick data, I had a PCI card where i could use an Amiga Joystick on it and it worked just as fast as the Amiga (new hardware wins again)

>You were actually given a suggestion by Karlos on how you could actually test just how sensitive the Amiga was thus proving one way or the other, with no room for doubt if your hypothesis was correct. You chose instead stuck to your flawed data.

>>>The data is REAL data as sampled from REAL joystick used in a REAL game on a REAL computer.  Go learn what a debounce switch is and analyze the data.  Your thinking is flawed.  I did do another test where I just press fire button and let go and there's no multiple hits registered in the recorder (just two states).

I believe you there, the PC joystick cards using variable resistors instead of switches was terrible, but my card which used the PCI slot for Amiga/Atari joysticks was just as fast if not faster than the Amiga.

>I think I understand the problem better then you do.

You think you do.

>...say well played to you, you're right the joystick is capable of responding to hits at X speed quicker then a USB based approach.

>>>That's not even the point.  Joystick on Amiga is faster even if you do one sample every 1/60 second.  And why are you narrowing to just USB; Gameport is also a valid joystick port for millions of PC owners.

OK I will agree with you on this one, the Amiga joystick was faster than most PC joystick cards but it was slower than the PCI card I had for Amiga/Atari joysticks, actually had to calibrate it to go slower so youn could see the cross hairs.LOL

>...that and repeat. Lies was perhaps the wrong choice of word, wilful ignorance would probably be a better fit.

You're in ignorance.

HI,

@Amigaski,

Sorry to tear you up like this, but the PC did have all kinds of special stuff made for it that was comparable or faster than the Amiga.

smerf

[smerf]

Hi,

@Amigaski,

A Palette Swap is a concept most commonly found in fighting games. Palette Swaps occur when two or more characters share the same style sprite or character model with only minor color or cosmetic changes. Although visually similar, pallet swap characters may have very different moves and personalities.

So far as I can find a palette swap is used in only 38 games.

Oh my God that is a lot of games, how can I cope with this grave defect in API's, I am going to junk my PC and return to the Amiga because of this defect, to think that I am slowing down my computer when I play these 38 games out of thousands that are out there for the PC.

Thank You Amigaski for bringing this grave defect up, I will always be grateful to you

Palette swap games as follows:

1.  Battletoads
2.  World of Warcraft (now wonder I always lose, I didn't think I was that crummy)
3.  Bionic Commando Rearmed
4.  Soul Calibur IV
5.  Super smash Bros. Brawl
6.  World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
7.  Phantasy Star Universe
8.  Mortal Kombat Armageddon
9.  Soul Calibur III
10.  Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting
11.  Samurai Shodown V Special
12.  Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
13  Soul Calibur II
14.  Supr Smash Bros. Melee
15.  Advance Wars
16.  Diablo II
17. Diablo Gift Pack
18. Sour Calibur
19.  Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven
20.  Mortal Kombat 4
21.  Samurai Shodown IV: Amakusa's Revenge
22.  Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars
23. Mortal Kombat Trilogy
24.  Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
25.  Lufla II: Rise of the Sinistrals  
26.  Mortal Kombat 3
27.  Killer Instinct
28.  Mortal Kombat II
29.  Battletoads In Battlemaniacs
30.  Mortal Kombat
31.  SuperMario Bros. 3
32.  Final Fight
33.  Goldern Axe
34.  Barbarian
35.  Super Mario Bros.
36.  Mario Bros.
37.  Joust
38.  World of Warcraft

There you have it people the 38 games made that have the critical pallette swap error using API,

Thank You Amigaski for this very important information, we are very obliged to you for this information.

Now can you tell us what kind of drugs that you are on, we would all like to get some of it because it has to be really good stuff.

smerf

[smerf]

Hi,

@Amigaski,

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
So far no one has shown how to surpass Amiga joystick port in speed using Game port nor via USB joysticks available
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 Sidewinder Precision Pro packet
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  SW PP probably sends the same packet layout as the FFP version. This wasn't
  tested yet, though.

  Sidewinder hat data (for SW 3DP, FFP and PP)
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      Value   Direction
   0   Center
   1   Up
   2   Up-Left
   3   Left
   4   Down-Left
   5   Down
   6   Down-Right
   7   Right
   8   Up-Right

  Sidewinder GamePad packet
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   Bit    Button
    0   Axis 1 Up   (y)
    1   Axis 1 Down   (y)
    2   Axis 0 Right   (x)
    3   Axis 0 Left   (x)
    4   Button 0   (A)
    5   Button 1   (B)
    6   Button 2   (C)
    7   Button 3   (X)
    8   Button 4   (Y)
    9   Button 5   (Z)
   10   Button 6   (L1)
   11   Button 7   (R1)
   12   Button 8   (Start)
   13   Button 9   (M)
   14   Parity

  Can be either organized as 15 triplets carrying data in bit 0 only, or can
  be five triplets (15 bits) using all three bits. The type of packet the SW
  GP sends seems to be random? Because there can be more than one SW GP
  chained, the data stream can be 15*n or 5*n bits long.  The 15-triplet mode
  allows connecting the SW GP only to a half of the joystick port.
  Transmission speed is 100 or 300 kbit/sec, packet takes 250 us or 150 us
  to transmit, depending on mode.


Joystick extensions
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Additional buttons and hats ala CH Flightstick Pro
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Button state   Meaning
    0   Nothing pressed
    1   Button 1
    2   Button 2
    3   Hat 1 left
    4   Button 3
    5   Button 5
    6   Hat 2 down
    7   Hat 1 down
    8   Button 4
    9   Button 6
   10   Hat 2 right
   11   Hat 1 right
   12   Hat 2 left
   13   Undefined
   14   Hat 2 up
   15   Hat 1 up

  If more than one button is pressed they are either ORed together, or the
  lowest one is signalled, depending on joystick model.


  Hat switch ala TM FCS
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Axis 3 resistance   Meaning
    0.2 kOhm   Up
   20.0 kOhm   Left
   40.0 kOhm   Down
   60.0 kOhm   Right
   82.0 kOhm   Center


  Digital mode of MS SideWinder joysticks
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  SideWinders send data through buttons. The transmission starts on a normal
  measure trigger (out to port 0x201).  Button 0 is used as clock (100 kHz),
  other three buttons carry data. Data is valid at clock 0->1 transition,
  LSB is transmitted first.

Maybe if you read this you will see that the 1khz is far surpassed by a PC joystick that clocks at 100khz or 300 kbit speeds.

and these results came from Radio Shack using Linux drivers on their gameports.

Once again can I get some of those drugs you are using, they have to be really good.

smerf

[smerf]

I think he meant the practice of changing the onscreen colours in non true colour systems, such as the index based palette colours used on the Amiga and VGA/SVGA 256 colour mode. As in, when you change (or swap) colour one from blue to green and all pixels which where blue are now green.

Which is not relevant in todays games anymore at all because no games made these days still use index colour modes like the old ones did and GFX cards are fast enough* to change every pixel on screen from one colour to another in less time than it takes to draw the pixels on screen anyway.

It was a cool trick back in the days though. Lots of copper tricks are based on the index colour nature of Amiga displays. Colour cycling is also one of the tricks make possible using this technique. Then again, they had to because the machines back then where 'not very good' at displaying true colour images. These days all these effects can be done the brute force way and developers no longer really care about 2D performance anymore.

*) By at least one order of magnitude, probably way more.

Hi,

@Roondar,

Yes, I know, but I just wanted to show him just how signicant this is with today's modern graphic cards. I mean really you are comparing a chip that moves at a speed of no more than 14 mhz -28 mhz compared to a modern day graphics card that has core clock speeds of 400 mhz to 800 mhz or faster and is moving pixels like a freight train moving at the speed of light.

I mean come on I like the Amiga too, but after using Amiga Forever on my PC than going back to my Amiga 4000 it does seem like it is moving slow, but I like it like that because it keeps me from turning it on that much, should make it last longer.

smerf

[smerf]

An internal Blu Ray drive will run around US$110.  So it should have been a bog standard PC + US$110.  The news said the US turned off it's non-HD TV last Saturday, where does that leave non-HD Amigas?

Hi,

@persia,

Well we might be able to get one of them there boxes that you add on to get high def, I hear that a lot of places have $40 coupons to help ya all by one.

Another thing we can do is write to them there Amiga Inc. people, and get hold of errr whats his name Bill Gat err no McCooin ahh no Bill CoonMC, darn I must be getting old that don't sound right either, oh now I remember Bill Mckewn, no that don't seem right either you know he is the guy that says:

"Amiga has an established reputation for delivering phenomenal graphics and high performance multimedia on PCs and mobile devices."

Was that Bill McEwen, nah he never said that above stuff because he has never done anything yet, well anyhow maybe we could get him to make a HD card to replace the NTSC on the girl (Amiga).

smerf

[smerf]

You must be on drugs if you think doing serial access via 201h is going to outdo the Amiga's move instruction.  USB would be faster than 201h serial protocol.  And we're not trying to surpass 1khz.  Which is faster is the point.  1Khz is not the top limit for Amiga--  that was another subject regarding some applications requiring 1Khz sampling.

Hi,

@Amigaski,

How did you know I was on drugs, I just got back from the dentist after having 2 molars pulled and she gave me some wonderful drugs that puts me in la la land, but I am not la la'ed out as much as you are.

Using the Algorithm that the human body can sense, even if the PC was running at 500 hz the eyes would not see any change in the movement of the cursor even though the Amiga's joystick port was moving at a hz speed of 50% faster. In this case the human body (eyes) would sense a faster movement only if the difference in speed was 3 times faster. Which means that you are probably correct, the joystick does move faster but the human eyes would not see it until it was moving at least 3 times the speed of the PC joytick.  In other words just for the heck of it, try this:

Hook yourself up to a 1000V, then 3000V, then 9000V, they 27000V and then tell me at what voltage that your body has sensed a change in?

Then come back with an answer.

smerf

[smerf]

The brute force approach.

Killer Nic:

http://www.bigfootnetworks.com/bandwidth-vs-latency

Just in case you haven't drooled over it already.

Hi,

@Fanscale

Didn't you start this thread?

smerf