How is OS4 ?

[gazgod]

@tmhg

I thought the slowest Sam ran at ~400MHz ish?

@Karlos

No they just feel like it

[gazgod]

To counter the rose-tinted view of OS4 submited here, here is a link to a post I made about my opinions of Sam ownership, It was made some time ago but from what i can see is very little has changed except the available cpu's are slightly faster.

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=521419&postcount=17

I still haven't bought OS4 for my Peg and really can't see the point. I've tried very hard to like OS4, not only did i by the Sam, I previously bought (and subsequently sold) it for classic. I'd much rather use 3.9 or Morphos (at least I can use USB2 on those).


Gaz

[gazgod]

You should always judge a system on it's own merits. There are cheerleaders in pretty much every OS camp. If you paid any attention to any of them, you'd end up not wanting to use any of them.

Nail, Head, Hit

[gazgod]

@gazgod
Well I bought a SamFlex (1GB ram/128Mb Radeon 9250) when you wrote that piece, and comparing the experience I had of that Beta version of 4.1 and today's Update 2 it is more or less night and day.

OWB was slower, less featured and crashed a lot (3.28 is Rock Solid and faster) UAE before a serious settings analysis and before a Sam specific version (and RunInUae), seemed unusable, now I run the big majority of A500 games 1:1 (read here), DVDs play better, usability and stability, graphical appeal, all has improved a ton.

Consider also that 533 and 667Mhz are no longer available and very soon the only Sam you will be able to buy will be the 460EX with L2 cache and 1.0Ghz clockspeed (as usual A-cube will factory overclock the best samples worry not, probably to 1.2Ghz as they mentioned they had a sample with that clock in the past).

@DAX

I rarely surf on any Amiga platform except for them aminet and occasional forum visits so OWB was not an issue with me. Neither was UAE, I have several real Amigas for my gaming fix.

A faster CPU with no cache just wastes more clock cycles waiting, If the other speeds are the same it still has to wait the same time.

I still have contact with my ex sam (it went to another member of my user group), And it now has all the updates on it, the most generous thing I can say about it is it slightly improved. But all the points in my post from 2009 are still valid IMHO.

Gaz

[gazgod]

From reports everywhere Sam's 800Mhz version run faster than the 667Mhz EP even with no cache at all, but you might be happy to know that the faster CPU in the 460EX DOES have L1+L2  cache (all the better).

@DAX

I fail to see your point.

Of coarse the 800 is faster than 667. Its simple maths. But a slightly faster slow cpu is still a slow cpu.

The 460 isn't for sale yet so its performance is just speculation.

Maybe I've been spoilt but to me its all about the feeling I get when I use an OS. When you own multiple machines running similar OS's Its difficult not to compare them, but ultimately I found I would rather use 3.9 on my classics than OS4  on the Sam (granted my 2 main classics both have 060's) and Morphos on my 1 gig Peg 2 is way out in front as my machine of choice.
I not someone who goes for cpu speed at all costs, I have here a 1.5 Gig G4 mini which I bought new when the Intel version was released, I keep considering putting Morphos on it but my peg is great for my needs.

I wonder if you tried any of the alternatives before putting your cross and sizeable AWN post count behind Sam and OS4?

Gaz

[gazgod]

@takemehomegrandma @gazgod
As I said, I come from the commodore days and when i came back I didn't even know MOS or AROS existed, since my favorite OS is still alive and kicking I don't need substitutes,nor running away from it searching for features (or lack thereof compared to my PC) until AmigaOS adds them one by one, I have plenty of them on my powerful Win7 beast.

So you just got behind the flag of the ONE TRUE AMIGA then, I figured as much.

You do realise that the only thing that OS4 has over the other alternatives is the name? They are all an interpretation and reimplementation of Commodores Amiga OS, nothing more.

While its refreshing to see some people coming back to the hobby, a hobby is all the Amiga is in any of its incarnations or clones. Telling every one that OS4 is the best when you have no real experience of the alternatives make my blood boil. I am a believer that you cannot know ANY OS until you've lived with it, fought it, sworn at it and maybe forgiven it.

[gazgod]

@runequester


I'm glad you got answers, I did start in this thread by giving my genuine experience, as someone who's tried to ignore all the camps.

As for the Morphos hardware lock, I agree it is a pain, but if you buy a OS4 machine and it dies outside warranty, as you can't buy a replacement without also buying OS4 you are kind of hardware locked with that too.