PC still playing Amiga catchup

[amigaksi]

By the very nature of evolution within computer hardware, at some point you have to let go of hardware compatability or you are forced to produce ever more drastic hacks in order to maintain it. At some point the value of creating these hacks for infinatesimal improvements, not to mention newer concepts within computing make this a no go. It is far easier to produce an API to bridge basic support (such as VESA) then to build it into hardware.
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Sorry you missed the point of how VGA is backward compatible on hardware level with EGA/CGA.

>You cannot say that given that you made no effort to test that the data you were recieving wasn't infact signal noise, indeed your "proof" was and is as it stands utter garbage. You were given a solution that would test it one way or the other. I have yet to see you put your hypothesis to an actual test yet. Simply repeating "it's better" over and over does not make it so.

You missed that point as well then.  I gave you LOGICAL statements how you can have millisecond readings which you NEVER replied to.  Just declaring it "garbage" does not change reality.  You are as biased as they come.  It's faster EVEN IF YOU DON'T SAMPLE AT 1KHZ.

>There is always likely to be bugs in software, but that is not the same as a flaw in an API and you should damn well know that! Also, DirectX now supports a great many things that it didn't in the past, the reason for version changes was to allow for the addition of newer capabilities, bug fixes have nothing to do with the DX version number.

I said it's not my argument but I know there are bugs in implementation of the API where certain video cards don't work the same for the same function.

>Correct. But also wrong. You are also limited by your own abilities. Doing things your way means extra work and hassle for everyone else.

Yes, you are limited by your abilities, but you are more restricted with just an API rather than both API and hardware level compatibilities.

>...software finds out that it's been hardcoded for something he doesn't own instead of using the OS's APIs

You are caught in a cyclical reasoning loop.  We are claiming it's better to have hardware compatibility.  Given that, you can do both-- API and hardware level programming.  You are now claiming, suppose he doesn't own that piece of hardware.  Well, that assumes it's not hardware compatible.

>No, you really didn't. Making baseless claims does not constitute an answer.

I gave a general answer-- any application employing time-critical loops.

>Which part of Commonly used desktop program was not clear? Joystick recorders and floppy drive simulators do not constitute anything like commonly used, I doubt even within development circles they're used all that often.

It's commonly used for me.  That's subjective really to say "commonly used".  And why does it matter-- it's an application that can be written only if you have hardware compatibility.

>Secondly with regard to your alledged DOS program, prove that a modern day OS using an OS friendly program that allowed for realtime effects couldn't do as well if not better. I mean real proof.

Only if the real-time effect you are trying to do is supported by an API call.  But as I stated before, you can manipulate I/O ports in so many ways and not all of them will have APi equivalents.

[amigaksi]

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You are failing (actually, I suspect wilfully ignoring) the fact that to access even a large subset of the full capability of for instance a modern GPU in a reasonable timeframe the only way to do it is with an API. Also, I/O has improved a great deal in computing. The only remaining bottleneck is optical and hard drives, with the latter being slowly overtaken by SSD's that are an order of magnitude faster.

I don't see the argument why you MUST have an API access only.  And if hardware compatibility can help make things more efficient, why not spend the time.  I/O has improved but not as much as processor speeds.  And I gave the example of palette changes which (if you go time them) you will find they are not that much faster than amiga changing palette.  This is just one example.

[amigaksi]

True... But on the Amiga the hardware, bandwitch, etc... directly limits your creativity
You want to do C64 like graphics (looking in the PAST), you can, sure. But what about 3D ? Yes, you can be creative and want to do some nice beautiful 3D...

You want to do real-time HD raytracing on the PC, fine. You want to render crysis like graphics, fine.

You want to do something like that on the Amiga. You cannot. No matter you use an API or hardware banging code,... You simply cannot. Because the PC took over the Amiga since years. And there's no way it will change.

The PC wins. Over. Next thread...

You just expressed your emotional fanaticism of PCs without even addressing the point.  It's better for PCs to have both APIs and hardware level compatibility than just API access.  You have less options with just API access.  Now given you just have APi access vs. an Amiga which has both, for certain real-time applications, Amiga does better.

[amigaksi]

What happens to Deluxe Music if Protracker "hitting the metal" Paula’s audio hardware? Who will arbitrate the hardware access?

I was making the point that certain applications go directly to hardware yet don't effect the multitasking OS.  They return and OS is still stable as it was.  Even the examples of audio playback in Compute! magazines are directly writing to hardware registers rather than making APi calls.

[amigaksi]

Let me get this straight. Something must be buggy since it exists in a high version number?

It's true that there are bugs in all versions of DX, like there are in any software (and hardware), but this isn't the reason it's up to V10. It's up to V10 due to the inclusion of more and more features.

You only have to look at the featureset of a typical DX10 game compared to one that'll work on DX3 to know that :lol:

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...

[amigaksi]

You have not yet proven that the Amigas joystick port is capable of actually being able to support anything like that rate.
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You must have missed some posts.  I can read the joystick on Amiga way faster than 1Khz.  Try it out yourself if you don't accept.

>That is not the same though as what you said originally, is it? In fact it's nothing like what you said originally.

I know what I stated original which you have misconstrued: from post #570: "Amiga has both API and hardware level compatibility-- that's better than relying on some API which may be bugged, you have little information as to what it actually does, and is definitely slower."

>You've said this time and time again. Prove it.

I prove it for myself.  You have to go repeat the experiment and prove it for yourself.  Why haven't you replied to my posts where you were refuted rather than wait a while and restate the same argument again.

>Excuse me? I've said from the beginning that banging the hardware on the modern desktop PC is an exersise in stupidity for many of the reasons given here already.

Because the point is not banging the hardware on modern existing systems where one system's hardware differs from another.  Point is, IF HARDWARE WAS BACKWARD COMPATIBLE, it's better to allow for API access as well as going direct to hardware.  

>...hardware legacy compatability. Do not try to turn this around because you've been called on your BS.

Your misunderstanding is NOT my problem.  The only part of modern hardware that you can do direct access via hardware is the legacy compatible ports and memory map areas.  That's a good thing.  Your the one who is trying to cheat by trying to misconstrue clear cut things.

>No it isn't. Unless you're trying to play some kind of pathetic game of semantics. "Commonly used desktop programs" is quite clear in of itself. But if you want to be a pedant, fine.

I don't care if you call them "common" or not.  They are USEFUL programs that require going directly to the hardware.  And there are thousands of such programs out there that require precise control of hardware and can't rely on vague, inexact API calls.

>That is a given. I note that you still managed to dodge the point again however.

You keep missing the simplest of points-- the joystick is faster to read on Amiga.  How can you possible understand something like real-time events.

>Yes, and how many of those ways can be done without it having a detrimental effect on other processes. Further how can you maintain compatability across the huge differences between computers?

That's not the point.  You only go directly to hardware if it's backward compatible and you know it will work the same on other systems.

[amigaksi]

DOS TSRs and device drivers(e.g. CD-ROM) also run in real mode. Anyway, my SoundBlaster X-Fi USB2.0 is not SB16 backward compatible in REAL DOS mode.

First of all, my application that I used to test several SB cards does not require any drivers, TSRs, or even COMMAND.COM/BIOS/etc.  It runs by directly going to the hardware I/O ports, DMA channels, IRQ vectors.  I am not saying *ALL* sound blaster cards are backward compatible.  I was giving an example, that it is possible for sound cards to maintain backward compatibility on the hardware level and the bullcrap about it's too complex nowadays is just that-- bullcrap.

[amigaksi]

Specifically addressing DirectX, you'll have DX8, for instance. then you'll have bugfixes so that when you run something like dxdiag, you'll end with DX8.000000005 or something. A change from 8 to 9 specifically means a jump in capabilities, for instance shader support.

 

Things being done now probably weren't even a hardware developers wet dream 20 or more years ago! Technology advances, capabilities improve. To try to write it off as flawed because the guy who helped design the XT didn't forsee oneday that graphics processors would become fully programable and that hard drives would be in the Terabyte range is beyond retarded!

You're seriously pulling at straws now. The wise thing to do would be either to retire or concede.

Your getting too emotionally and can't think straight anymore.  Concede to a point that's irrelevant to my point is retarded for you to come up with.

[amigaksi]

And what sort of "hardware access" stanards do you propose for modern GPU's? You're thinking is so yesteryear with rgards this branch of hardware than you seemingly fail to note that modern graphics hardware has all but completely evolved away from fixed function pipelines into turing complete programmable devices.

Do you, in all honesty, even have the faintest notion how modern graphics hardware works?
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All I am stating regarding hardware standards is that they base it on I/O ports and memory maps like VGA/EGA/CGA was rather than API calls.  That way, you don't have to rely on any drivers and API calls although those can also be present in a system.

>From the above statement, clearly not. I could program a "pallete change" for my GPU that simultaneously sets every colour register in parallel in a couple of shader clock cycles.

Now you call an API to do that which works on majority of PCs and see how well it performs as compared to Amiga swapping two palette registers or to a standard VGA swapping color registers.  You can't just target your machine since we are talking about making it work in general; that's why I am talking hardware compatibility to begin with.

>However, palette changes are a thing of the past for modern hardware. I haven't used a indexed colour mode for more than a few hours (usually when retgrogaming) in almost 10 years, even on the Amiga.

That's subjective.  But regardless, I was giving example where I/O accesses are better than API calls and Amiga I/O accesses aren't that slow.

[amigaksi]

On the contrary, when you say something as retarded as you did I will respond in kind. You brought it up, you were shot down and tried to squirm out of it any way you could.

And now this... :laughing:

Read post #570; that's where I brought up "bugged" APIs and now you have distorted it to the point as if that's required to support everything I have stated here.  It's irrelevant to my point that APIs are inferior to direct hardware access.  I see you can't address the relevant points and have to resort to stupidity of just saying things like "prove it" after it has already been proven.

[amigaksi]

Hi,

@amigaski,

Do you ever have any idea what you are talking about, well lets explain it to you in very easy terms
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It sounds like you don't understand the main point either.

[amigaksi]

...Thats actually brightened my day :afro:

I already know you are in the group of "blind following the blind".

[amigaksi]

The data was torn to shreds, all you've recorded is signal noise. You have yet to show that the computer can actually react to anything like the numbers you suggest.

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PROVE IT.  I torn to shreds someone's speculation that it's noise.  And NOISE is ALSO REQUIRED to be recorded for a joystick recorded in order to repeat the performance EXACTLY.  Get a brain before you reply.  And you have yet to reply to the LOGICAL facts already posted of why it's NOT noise.

>Ahh, back to your make belief world. Sorry, this is the real world, you've had it explained why your make belief world doesn't work at least a dozen times now.

It's not make believe.  Amiga has both hardware compatibility and API.  VGA is also.

>Cheat nothing. I understand fully what you're saying, what you're saying is demonstratably false at every turn you take in order to justify your position.

That's you blurting out blindly whatever comes on the top of your head.  Go prove it for yourself.  I'm not your slave.  I have evidence and can repeat the experiment anytime.  All you have is your BLIND belief.  You look like your too emotional biased to look at it rationally-- it shows when you start taking people's quotes and modifying them so you don't have to address the points.

>Dodging the question again eh? Guess that proves that you've no answer.

No, I only use PCs for internet and floppy simulations so that's COMMON application for me.  You dodged the question-- WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE COMMON to be useful?

>...common desktop user, yet there have been plenty of examples of where it isn't by other commontators.

I am a common desktop user.

>You have not proved that the amiga will actually respond at anything like that sort of speed yet.

Huh.  I guess I'll leave you to your ignorance on that.  

[rest of the rubbish deleted since it was already addressed refurted several times]

[amigaksi]

To amigaksi:

Would you agree with the statement, "The smaller the number of instructions to complete a task, the faster that procedure will run" ?

With caching and misalignment causing delays, you can have some larger piece of code execute faster than a smaller piece of code.  Also depends on what the instructions are.  One IN on PC is much slower than 100 MOVs if processor is like 1Ghz.

[amigaksi]

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You're right, I've not replied, because others, with greater skill and knowledge than myself have already explained it to you earlier in this thread.

They haven't either.

>No, the Amiga has partial hardware compatability.

Wrong.  AGA is compatible with OCS.  But again you miss the point that hardware compatibility is better than being forced to go through APIs.  I wasn't talking about what it is now.  Just another case of you twisting things around in an attempt to miss the main point of discussion.

>It is not the job of others to prove you wrong, which btw is indicative of fundie thinking. It is your job to prove your point correct.

I already did.  Logical deduction is superior to experimentation and I gave both.

>No, you misunderstand, I do that when people start blatantly lying to me, or if I'm bored. Since you're both boring and either wilfully ignorant or just flat out trolling, you get the full service.

You can't understand is the problem.  Where's the lies?  Go time the joysticks yourself and go see the timing for yourself.  It's not that hard to do.

[amigaksi]

Hi,

@Amigaski,

...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

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."