MiniMig + Demo's

[Ohno]

Thanks to Wizard66 I've had a MiniMig sitting on my desk for a couple of days now. The MiniMig works great and Wizard66 clearly put a lot of effort into it. The device looks amazing.

I've pulled out my old Euroscene CDs and started testing some demos and I put the results so far on the MiniMig compatibility list.

It's been a long time since I last used my Amiga and watching those demo's sure brought back a good feeling.

Also it was obvious that most of the effects on those demos ran far more smoothly than I've seen anything run on Windows, even though modern Windows games run at hundreds of frames per second.

Of course the low resolution is very obvious on modern TFT monitors and some demos are too long winded and end up being pretty boring by todays standards. But there are some masterpieces out there that I really enjoyed.

Thank you Dennis and Wizard66 for making it possible for me to bring back those good memories!

[Ohno]

Oh come on, are you trying to spoil my fun? :-P

This has absolutely nothing to do with either WinUAE (I hardly ever use it), nor with enabling vsync (I always enable that in games when I can).
Windows just interrupts every program too often, causing stuttering in the application once every couple of seconds. This kills smoothness and the MiniMig just made me clearly aware of that running side by side with my Windows machine.

[Ohno]

Magic-Merl wrote:
Thanks for the list.  Don't let negative comments ruin your fun.  Enjoy your Minimig for what it is.  How about a thorough review of the hardware though?

Don't worry, I won't let any forumpost spoil my fun, Alexh must just be jealous :-D

I wouldn't know what to write about the hardware. I'm not really a hardware kinda guy, that's why I didn't solder together the MiniMig myself.

[Ohno]

I agree with alexh, you need to tweak your WinUAE settings and/or tune your Windows install.

No I don't. I've got a MiniMig :-D

Something to keep in mind -- there are plenty of PC demos which run 100% smooth,

I've seen a lot of them and although there are some really beautiful ones, they suffer from the same issues on all Windows systems I've seen. It's not the programmers' fault. it is simply Windows.

and plenty of super-picky PC FPS gamers who are NOT complaining about hiccups.

 

First of all, most of those gamers are not used to the way things were with Amiga and even if they were, they long forgot all about it and only compare things to other PC games.
I've had numerous discussions with some of those gamers. They say something runs smooth, while I see hickups. Also, lookup any guide on modern games programming. The thing they teach these days is to measure the time that elapsed between your last redraw and the current and adapt your motion and actions to that time.

Why? Because timing is not constant and if you want to keep your game running as smoothly as possible, you need to work around that.

[Ohno]

Doesn't happen here. Maybe you should uninstall Norton Antivirus and whatever else you've got lurking in the background.

I indeed have a lot of stuff running in the background and my machine is optimized for web development, not for running games and that's not my intention either.
The thing is that I've never seen a Windows machine run anything without a stutter here and there. Even at friends that are gamers and have their machines optimized for games. Obviously you don't share the same experience and that's fine. The point I was trying to make is that the MiniMig runs very smoothly and I like it.

Out of interest, what did you pay for your MiniMig?

I used the 'buy it now' option on eBay (€ 305) and an extra € 15 for the power supply.