PC still playing Amiga catchup

[amigaksi]

Re-target capability.

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If most of planet is PC-based, retarget capability is minor in comparison to what you get with hardware level compatibility:

(1) Faster code
(2) Faster response time (worst case analysis) and exactly knowing what is happening (for real-time stuff)
(3) No drivers required; they all use same driver (like VGA standard)
(4) Smaller and efficient code means less resources are used.
etc.

>Less efficient when dealing complex abstract objects.

I have yet to see someone here to prove to me that API is required once you make a piece of hardware have more functionality.  Making a piece of hardware more complex has no realtionship to whether it uses API-based compatibility or hardware compatibility.

>My CUDA GPU is faster than Amiga's changing palette capabilities i.e. the compute wavefront is larger. The purpose pixel shader is .... pixel processing.

"My" is the keyword.  Is it generic enough?

[amigaksi]

MPEG-4 came out 3 years after DirectX 1.0.

MPEG was there in the Matrox video cards and some ATI cards in early 1990s.  It may not be called MPEG4 but it was for video encoding/decoding.  Another big bug with DirectX was that it was API-based and hardly any existing video cards at the time supported it's functions.

[amigaksi]

Nope.

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What's in a name?  "A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet."  Matrox card I still have supports MPEG in hardware.  DirectX isn't always doing it in hardware also if you want to get picky.

>How is this a bug, exactly?

Besides actual bugs, it's flawed that they gradually added functionality that already existed before it was introduced.  Why couldn't they do it in 1.0?

>Besides, DirectX isn't API based. It is an API.

They are both correct.

[amigaksi]

On slower GPUs that take an order of magnitude longer to code for.


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I was speaking in general about API vs. hardware level compatibility not GPU.  

>Which works fine right up to the point your "perfect" app ends up in IRQ or I/O conflict with one or more other applications.

Wrong as already explained.

>lulwut? Of course a driver is going to be required, do you seriously intend to have everyone write their own partial drivers implimenting only the bits they need... Your way would make Windows95 look stable by comparason.

Wrong, drivers aren't needed.

>It does when your application has to acces that functionality in terms of the time it takes to build, it is not that you get more functionality, it's that you get that functionality with far far less effort with an API.

"It takes less effort" is subjective and your opinion nor is it a strong argument given the gains of having hardware compatibility.  

Stop misquoting me-- you did it again.

[amigaksi]

Your point was irrelevant as a parallel port from 20 years ago is still a parallel port today, it's not been improved upon or had its function changed in all that time. Yes you could get some PCI card to add back that functionality. But then you're fighting your own complaint about it being nonstandard. Things have changed. USB is pretty much all you'll find on the back of a PC these days. As I stated (and you ignored) once you move beyond the basics and start having to add support for as many layers as have been added to GPUs you are creating sreious headaches for yourself.

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This shows your ignorance of parallel ports.  As I said "get a clue".  The example is good.

[amigaksi]

It seems like all the arguments are falling down. Why not just call it a day Amigaksi eh?

Come on! You've dragged this thread on for far too long. It stopped being funny a long time ago. :rolleyes:

So far no one has shown how to surpass Amiga joystick port in speed using Game port nor via USB joysticks available.

So far no one has shown why API-based systems are superior to hardware level compatibility.  

So far no one has shown that simple example of palette index swap is faster using APIs.

So I don't know what you are reading.  Perhaps you need glasses.

[amigaksi]

Why is is quicker to have the main CPU(s) interacting with the memory space of the GPU?  Is that just a waste of CPU cycles?  Why should the CPU even be concerned with graphics once it's passed off the information?  Aren't modern GPUs just and extension of what the Amiga was trying to do with it's graphics chips?  

In a way you could say that Amiga lost the computer race but it's ideas and goals won.

The point is that whatever the API-based set up would do, the hardware level interface would do better.  Even GPUs would have to offer similar functionality just as processors offer compatibility between Intel processors and AMD or some other processors.  

So the points are valid as stated:
(1) Faster code
(2) Faster response time (worst case analysis) and exactly knowing what is happening (for real-time stuff)
(3) No drivers required; they all use same driver (like VGA standard)
(4) Smaller and efficient code means less resources are used.
etc.

[amigaksi]

Every GPU presently available is faster at writing to it's own register set than all versions of the amiga chipset are at changing their palette registers.

Even my old Permedia 2, which doesn't really count as being a GPU (there's no real programmability), can load it's RGB registers via the FIFO in less time than it takes OCS to do it.

Is that generic enough for you?

Well the example is quite precisely defined.  You need to swap two color indices.  I know even for standard vga there's a fast way to upload entire palette but doing particular indices is slower per index time.  So let's see the code where user requests index 3 swapped with index 15 and works for majority of PCs.

[amigaksi]

Out of curiosity, given that most (if not all) PCs are capable of running a 32bit screendepth, how necesary would it be to swap and change parts of the palette? I mean I can understand if you're working in a colour limited environment like OCS or AGA, but truecolour? How common would such a requirement be?

That's the spirit-- just dismiss the whole argument by saying "it's useless."  
The point was that APIs are slower so going directly to hardware on Amiga can in certain cases out-do PCs going through APIs.  I gave ONE EXAMPLE of this and you want to dismiss it.

[amigaksi]

Ok then, what do they have now that wasn't in good quality gear from 20 years ago? And how many itterations are there? Also, just as one final point. What can you do with them now, that wasn't possible 20 years ago?

Either way you failed to address the rest of the point.

Go look it up yourself how the parallel ports did enhance-> SPP -> BPP -> EPP -> ECP and also ISA -> VESA-based -> PCI.

[amigaksi]

No, I don't think you did, how do you propose to prevent these sorts of conflicts outside of an API, remember we did have this, much to the detriment of stability, see Win95 and 98 for details.

Just because you can create the "perfect" app doesn't mean that everyone can.

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If hardware that is backward compatible uses same I/O ports, IRQs, DMA channels-- there no conflicts to be resolved.  When hardware vendors use their on I/O ports arbitrarily, their own IRQ channels, DMA channels then you have conflicts to resolve.  

>If you're having to reinvent the wheel and have every application bang the metal to the extent the app requires, you are in effect writing a (partial) driver or framework for your application to sit on...

Ahhm, did you miss the list I gave of advantages; you wouldn't rewrite the driver-- the OS would have the functionality built-in without needing drivers and application would be able to go directly to hardware where driver functionality is not supported or inefficient (like palette example).  

>The gains of hardware compatability, yes, lets add 10, 20, 30% extra silicon to every major I/O chip for stuff that's no longer used and long dead... Your entire argument is based on a fairytale world.

Sorry, you keep missing the point.  That's your speculation 10-30% extra silicon.  Even with some extra silicon, it's worth it given the benefits.  

>Not in that post I didn't.

Okay, atleast you admit you did in some other posts.

[amigaksi]

Liar.

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I told you go time the joystick ports-- it's not something that complex.  Amiga is faster-- whether you use standard PC Gameport or serial protocol of USB joystick.

>They have, that you dismissed the points out of hand, moved the goalposts or just attacked the poster and continued to bang on about your fairyland instead is irrelevant.

You like to reply before you understand what is being stated.  There's no fairytale that Amiga OCS is compatible with AGA at hardware level.  PCs are forced to go through APIs for using modern hardware.

>I believe Karlos did that already, you then moved the goalposts.

Another false accusation.  No one has posted any code to swap palette indices on PC faster than Amiga does it.

[amigaksi]

Using OpenGL, a GPU could probably swap the entire scene out and redraw it faster than an Amiga could swap two colour indexes.

People have problems in this thread sticking to the example.  I can also switch entire frames by changing a video memory ptr on Amiga.  But that isn't the point.

[amigaksi]

Seriously nobody in the PC architecture world is trying to catch up with the Amiga. They just couldn't give a damn about a retro platform that only a few people use. Seriously they are not losing sleep over abandoning joystick ports.

Find and quote for us just one PC engineer that is actively working on a mission to play Amiga catchup and I will say that you have ground for your arguments.

Oops! That just negates this whole thread. Sorry!

Can someone Start serving those pankakes. There's a hungry crowd out here. :lol:

The fact that they recently dropped the Gameport and decided to use USB joysticks (which are still slower to read) should tell you that someone is giving a hoot.

[amigaksi]

So far no one has shown the advantage of surpassing (or even equaling) the Amiga joystick port.

We could go on and on like this... and the day will come you'll be the only one talking... and maybe (but I'm not even sure) that day you'll discover how useless it is... and that day you'll buy a cheap USB joystick and enjoy nice games of today... wondering... "how did I miss these jewels ?"

I guess we all agree the Amiga's joystick port is more precise than anything available elsewhere. The fact is this doesn't make the Amiga better than anything else... nor does it make anything else catching up the Amiga...

Now if we could simply move on...

BTW: I'm still waiting for you to show me a single Amiga commercial game that cannot be played with an USB joystick because the interface is too slow for it...

I did move on but some person still is denying the fact Amiga joystick is superior.  

As for "it's still useable".  I say that about Amiga to: "I can still use it for what I do without needing the 3Ghz processor."

[amigaksi]

To answer the question.
 
NO.  The PC is terms of hardware alone passde the Amiga well over ten years ago.   Probably more like 15.   Lets get real.

We already have so many speculations, but we are trying to get to the facts.  Gameport was supported in XP so your claim it surprassed it 10 years ago is false.  They still sell gameport based joysticks.  Even USB ones are inferior in speed of accessing.