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Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #14 on: June 02, 2009, 08:54:59 AM »
Quote from: Karlos;508702
Re: Joyport / Parallel port. Current PC's don't have either port to compare against. Your inability to use your "low level" coding skills to write an accurate timer for x86/HPET is no reflection on the hardware..

Re: bootup times:

From cold, timed this morning:

My A1200T (25MHz 68040, 240MHz 603e, 256MB 60ns RAM, BVisionPPC)

SCSI check: 10sec
Floppy check: 2sec
Initial startup, 3.9 ROM loading: 4 sec
Reboot pause: 3 sec
SCSI check: 10sec
Floppy check: 2sec
Startup: 26 sec
End of WBStartup activity: 5 sec

Grand total: 62 sec

PC:
POST Test: 5sec
DPMI Verification: 3 sec
GRUB wait for user select: 10 sec
Linux Kernel decompression&initialisation: 1 sec
Startup to login screen: 22 sec
End of post login window manager activity: 3 sec

Grand total: 44 sec

Waiting for stuff occupies the lion's share of both. Suffice to say, no matter how fast a CPU is, they all wait at the same speed...



Or talk bollox.


You have a Frankenstein A1200.

My system: A1200, 68060, 32 meg ram, OS 3.1 (Magic menu, tools menu, magicwb, toolmanager docks, 1 gig flash card):  

Boot up time when hard drive light stops and i can use the OS without delays, stutters :4.0 seconds.  

Shut down: flick of a switch ( how fast can you do that)

Good luck beating that.
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #15 on: June 02, 2009, 09:51:08 AM »
Quote from: Karlos;508712
No, I have an expanded A1200. Nothing frankenstein about it. The PPC card is a standard trapdoor expansion. I'm using the basic IDE port.


The PPC card is NOT standard anything.  It is a rare add-on, that was intended to act as bridge in the Amiga's move away from 68K to PPC. The owner of Amiga had no input or control over it.There are major performance bottlenecks that occur in that card due to to context switches, especially when you run 68 k software, the PPC has no caches etc, the memory busses are designed to work with a 68K CPU in mind.  Stick to Classic Amiga ie 68K for a valid comparison.

 
Quote from: Karlos;508712


You are using OS3.1. Try upgrading to OS3.9. Frankly I'm shocked you haven't. Call yourself an Amiga user?


I upgraded when OS 3.5 and later OS 3.9 came out.  I have it installed on my A4000 68060.  It boots in 7 seconds because it loads cybergrpahx.  There is no functional advantage for me to use OS 3.9 on my A1200.

Quote from: Karlos;508712

Besides, my boot times were from switching the machine on from cold.


So are mine.

Quote from: Karlos;508712


The 1200 and A1 can be switched off like that. So can the PC, as long as you don't mind corrupting your data, which is equally possible on the Amiga if disk writes are happening :rolleyes:


Not EQUALLY POSSIBLE especially if you use PFS 3 or SFS or, if you use FFS, you wait, lets see, 1 second to make sure your hard drive light isn't on (oh yeah there's no swap file read/write nonsense going so hard drive writing occurs when you are saving something, which the user would know about. As an side you of course know your PC is slowly but surely killing your hard drive: my 40 MB 2.5" seagate on my A1200 is still OK as is my 120 MB Seaget from the A4000..I have several 20 Gig dead drives courtesy of Win 98..)
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #16 on: June 02, 2009, 10:51:45 AM »
Quote from: Karlos;508723
In case you hadn't noticed, the PPC board has a 68K processor that runs pretty much everything in OS3.x. The PPC itself is totally irrelevant as regards the boot time.

Is it?  I seem to recall that the 68040 on a ppc card was slower at the same clock speed than a non-ppc 68040.  
 
Quote from: Karlos;508723


You said "from the moment the hard disk light goes out".


To mark the end of the boot process on the Amiga, and to distinguish it from  PC's which are still loading stuff off hard drive and people say the PC has stopped booting coz they can bring up a stuttering start menu

Quote from: Karlos;508723

There's no swap file because you don't get any virtual memory support in 3.x. One other basic feature taken for granted on pretty much every other modern OS.

you don't need virtual memory when you have a very efficient OS and lean apps.  And if you really want it you can still do it.  *I* have NEVER run out of RAM, but I concede someone somewhere out there might need more than 128 meg.  In which case virtual memory can be done.

Tell me Karlos, with 4 GB of ram running at 1333 mhz and 4 CPU cores with caches that are big enough to hold the entire AmigaOS 3.1, why does your PC need a swap file even when you have nothing but a clock utility loaded?  Surely there's enough RAM there, and its faster just to load stuff in and out of your superfast, huge capacity RAM and CPU Caches rather than reading and writing to an albeit superfast Hard drive?
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #17 on: June 02, 2009, 10:55:04 AM »
Quote from: adz;508721
I'd like to see how long it takes an 060 (or even a 240MHz 603e) to open a 78MP (446MB) TIFF image, just for comparison, it took me 4 seconds ;)


That settles it then...
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #18 on: June 02, 2009, 11:50:46 PM »
Quote from: paolone;508786
even more ridicolous than the old boot-time whining, .


"Boot-time whining"?  You don't think boot times are significant?  Why then at many Windows discussion forums do people regularly make posts about boot times being too long for Windows based PC's especially those that run Vista, why are there so many articles about how people can modify windows to improve boot times, why is Microsoft itself making a big deal that Win 7 boots faster on the same machines than Vista?  The woman in charge of Vista has publically said that Win 7 & MS will attempt to address something they have failed to do in the past: make the PC responsive to the user, put the user in control, meaning that its an admission that its previous OS's weren't this, something the Amiga always has done.  Boot time is one of the top two or three things that concern MS and PC users, it MATTERS.
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #19 on: June 03, 2009, 12:50:05 AM »
Quote from: bloodline;508851
I use a Mac, I rarely turn my machine off... I just put it to sleep... I don't care about boot times.

@ Karlos
@meega.

I see.  The solution to slow boot times is ........don't turn of fthe computer. May be OK for the minority-yes the majority of users power their machines down.  My A1200 hasn't crashed in many months: but then I don't have a Frankenstein hack, I don't use software written by amateurs.

So you admit the PC is still playing catchup with the Amiga then.  No amount of work around will change the fact that PC's take a factor of at least 10x longer to boot, despite having clock speeds in every hardware component that are factor of 100 faster.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2009, 01:07:28 AM by stefcep2 »
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #20 on: June 03, 2009, 01:15:33 AM »
Quote from: meega;508863
I do power down my computer - every time it hibernates it shuts down completely. That's what hibernating is all about.

 On vista on my laptop thats a few months old, I can resume fairly quickly from sleep, but resume from hibernation is not apprecaiably faster than cold botting: why would it be.  hibernation just saves everything to the hard drive and opens them up again when you resume by reloading from hard drive.
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #21 on: June 03, 2009, 01:35:59 AM »
Quote from: Karlos;508864
Try running your amiga for several weeks continuously and see how stable it isn't.


My A4000 6-7 years ago was a used as a server for 6 months straight without rebooting.

Quote from: Karlos;508864

When you say slow, you are still talking about a minute at most. Which is only slow if you suffer from some form of attention deficit disorder. If your boot is taking longer than that, perhaps you have a totally clapped out unmaintained heap of scrap for a PC, because it really shouldn't.

One minute?  We've been down that path with your souped-up, hardware hacked/overclocked, custom_OS running PC that you run 24/7.  You are in the infinitesimal minority of PC users.  Your experience doesn't count.  Further you've resorted to calling me and the millions of Windows users and MS itself, for whom boot times matter, "insane", and we are all "suffering from attention-deficit disorder". Name-calling is the last resort of those who simply can no longer defend their argument.

Quote from: Karlos;508864

Nope. See my earlier post. My PC boots faster than my A1200 running an otherwise base OS3.9. Whereas my A1200 loads a fairly minimal OS3.9 for my needs, my PC loads a full desktop OS and an entire suite of server services. It may be a factor 100x (not 1000) faster by CPU clockspeed, but it does more than 100x the amount of work, every second it is up.


We've talked about your frankenstein A1200 before.  It doesn't count.

You have 4 CPU's running at 2,400 mhz. 4x2400 about 10,000.

One 14 mhz 020 boots faster than your 10,000 mhz of total CPU power machine.'  Nuff said.
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #22 on: June 03, 2009, 01:47:05 AM »
Quote from: meega;508868
Now who's having the tin bath?

You think restoring the system state by copying a single contiguous file off hard disk back into RAM will not be appreciably faster than starting all the processes one at a time off that same hard disk?


If hibernate powers down the system, then those processes would need to be started up again, no?  Theoretically having everything as one contiguous file rather than having the hard drive seeking for individual files ought to be faster, but in my subjective experience-i haven't timed it yet-it is not signficantly different from just cold booting it up. Consequently the only time I hibernate is when the system forces me into it, due to my battery running out of power.
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #23 on: June 03, 2009, 01:54:23 AM »
Quote from: adz;508869
And one 0.89MHz MOS 8501 boots faster than your 14MHz 020, 'nuff said

BTW...Still trying to load that 78MP TIFF image :lol:


How much faster does the MOS 8501 boot?

What use would an average user have for a 78MP TIFF image?  How long will your PC take to finish the calculations that are done by IBM's network of supercomputers in one second?  Pointless argument..
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #24 on: June 03, 2009, 02:07:26 AM »
Quote from: meega;508872
Do you even know what hibernate does?

 
i believe so: it copies whatever is in RAm to the hard drive as a file, and then powers down.  Hardware resources still need to be re-initialise when resuming, and yep it generally ought to be faster than a cold boot, but 1. it may not always work at all on all hardware and 2. not all PC's are appreciably faster resuming from hibernate.
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #25 on: June 03, 2009, 04:30:23 AM »
Quote from: adz;508890
As stated earlier in this thread a C16 boots in under a second, but to quote you, it's a "Pointless argument.."

The 78MP TIFF image is just an example, ripping a DVD, something that the average PC user does quite a lot of, is another example of something that would take a ridiculously long time on an Amiga.


A PC has 100-1000 times CPU cycles of a 14 mhz Amiga but boots 150sec/5sec=30 times slower.  The 14 mhz 68020 is has about 10 times the CPU clock cycles of the c16 but boots 5sec/1sec = 5 times slower..waiting for 4 seconds more is a lot more tolerable than waiting for an additional 150 seconds..

Ofcourse things that are CPU-intensive take longer on slower CPU's. BUT starting your PC, issuing commands and general responsiveness via the GUI is still slower on the PC than the Amiga.
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #26 on: June 04, 2009, 06:37:40 AM »
Quote from: Trev;509110
That's not uncommon, unfortunately, and it's a product of many poorly written programs stepping all over each other. Vendors like HP and Dell sell services, so of course, they pre-install software-based advertisements geared at separating consumers from their money.

One very common slowdown is a product of I/O latency introduced by antivirus software during updates, at which time access to files is blocked or significantly delayed. I wish we lived in world where antivirus products were unnecessary, but unfortunately, the world is peopled with a**holes intent on making everyone else's life miserable. Like hardware vendors, antivirus vendors also sell services, so their consumer products are laden with yet more software-based advertisements.


Someone mentioned the security problems with Win PC's.  i would go so far as to say that PC security software ought to be cosdiered as part of the PC operating environment, without security software installed all the arguments about up-time, data reliabilty etc go out the window ( no pun) in the REAL world.  Then consider the responsiveness and boot time and the user experience..
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #27 on: June 04, 2009, 12:32:23 PM »
Quote from: Linde;509126
Oh yeah, Windows XP is insecure.

1. It's besides the point. We're still discussing PC:s here. Stop making invalid arguments based on the assumption that PC:s = Windows.




OK I'll say it again: more than 90% of PC's use Windows.  Some figures say 95%.  An assumption that is correct 95% of the time would be an acceptable one everywhere else except a few anal people on Amiga.org.  Linux has its own special shortcomings from a user perspective which i'll get to in a later post, and Macs are NOT PC's in the context of the original post.
Quote from: Linde;509126


2. If we compare to Amiga OS, Windows XP actually is pretty damn secure.



2.  You miss the point:  if you take out third party security software from Win XP you are very likely to get infected with any number of malware very quickly.  This might result in your losing your life savings.  Its a pretty big risk.  So you HAVE to use your XP PC with your security software..your PC takes a huge performance hit and what does that do to the responsiveness of your PC and the quality of user experience?  I actually have no qualms using my Amiga on the net without any security software.  Could someone hack into it and install malware?  Yep. Will it happen?  Nope.
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #28 on: June 04, 2009, 02:10:04 PM »
Quote from: GadgetMaster;509121

I haven't heard a conclusion or summing up of you arguments yet. If you are on the Amiga side of the argument I challenge you to condense all your arguments into one post and conclude why or in what sense you think PC architecture "is still playing Amiga catchup"

We've had plenty of responses from the PC side that make perfect sense so the ball is in your court. The gauntlet has been thrown at your feet.

Make coherent finalised argument or else just admit you are trolling for the sake of flames.


Some preliminaries:

1.  Who appointed you to judge whether "the responses from the PC side make perfect sense".  Give examples of these perfectly-sensible arguments that do not centre around the raw processing power of modern hardware, but instead focus on the user-experience.  In particular focus on the 90%+ of PC's in the real world that run on Windows, most of which are XP machines with single core CPU's with 1 gig or less ram running vital security software that strangles the hardware.  Thats the experience of most users.

2. The question is not: "Can an Amiga do everything as fast as PC".  Can the Amiga open 78 MP pictures, encode DVD/audio as fast as a PC blah blah.  Can your PC do it as fast as IBM supercomputers?  Thats simply new hardware crunching numbers faster than old hardware.  Its a meaningless argument. Take raw processing power out of the equation, what do you have left?  The user experience.

3.  PC =x86 hardware running Windows for anywhere between 90 and 95% of the worlds computers.  Its therefore reasonable to say "PC"= computer that runs Windows.

4.  I only need to demonstrate ONE area where the PC is still playing catch-up.

Quote from: GadgetMaster;509121


Do you think the Amiga can be used in any serious business environment without security software installed and be a mission critical system?



An A1200 with 8 meg ram and OS 3.1 can be used to write letters, store customer accounts, issue mail shots, print receipts, analyse financial data using spreadsheets.   The software is there, and the hardware is capable.  The basics of business don't change, even if computer hardware and OS's do.  Whether people choose to use it or not is a different question. Format your drive with PFS 3 or SFS and you won't lose data on your hard drive even if your switch the power off mid-write. You can back it up if you want to CD-RW like we still do at my job on a PC.  You won't lose your data.  If your Amiga hardware is flaky then don't blame the system, fix the hardware.  Mission critical enough?  Secure enough? Amiga will do the job.

Two current real world examples:  My dentist uses Scala on an A1200 with a touch screen to display information in the waiting room.  He scans images with a UMAX scsi scanner, and set it all up himself.  My dentist is also my brother.  An aged-care facility uses an A500 (!!) to display meal times, announcements etc 24/7 to all of the residents room TV's and to TV's throughout the facility, and this is set up by the receptionist!!  It boots off a floppy in 10 second.  A PC can do digital signage as its now called,  but at a cost of many thousands of $ both in hardware, software, professional set up costs.

Quote from: GadgetMaster;509121


Is that how the Amiga is streets ahead of the PC? Is that what this thread is about? Windows ? not PCs? How come your arguments are not consistent?


Oh the linux fan boys:  i can get a responsive fast PC by compiling my own custom kernel, and with 4 cores at 2600 mhz and huge CPU caches and 4 gig RAM running at 1333 mhz and a 640 MB GPU overclocked it can boot a few seconds faster than a 15 year old computer with crippled CPU card.  

And now the typical Linux user:  "just bought a PC, booted with  ubuntu/mandriva/fedora/PCLinuxOS 09 blah blah and i get a kernel panic/white screen/vesa only video/no sound/mobile modem not detected/no wireless/doesn't see hard drive.  Search through gazillion forums to find: sorry your chipset/video card/sound/modem/wireless isn't supported, wait for the next kernel in 6 months.  Or follow this obscure guide which doesn't work. oh yeah thats right it doesn't, its out of date, go to this guide..still no luck? wait 6 months..new kernel/distro, Ok i can boot and install but....refresh is funny on my screen/wireless doesn't work/sound is scratchy/ wait 6 months more..yep it works, except for the wireless.  And my printer.  Should have got a HP printer.  But it IS a HP.  Is it a supported model...erm no. Packages are great:  but what i wan't isn't in the repo: tough.  OK I installed something from the repo, it said it needed to download dependencies, so i said yes, and now I can't boot, something about KDE..what did you install? Oh yeah that installs a small library that KDE uses but was updated and KDE will need to be updated and you can do that by cutting and pasting CLI commands..BUT I can't boot.  Sorry boot using your installation CD..blah blah blah.

Amiga: stick workbench floppy in, switch on, follow instructions, boot.  Hardware detected, configured. Done.  Soft reset. Boot off hard rive. Install app software: double click on install icon.  Done.  

Which user-experience would you prefer?

1. Boot times:  Amiga's boot faster.  No question.  Even if you allow for the additional processes that the PC has to perform at boot times,  PC hardware resources are many, many factors greater than that available to an Amiga.  Put another way: the Amiga does less at boot time, but has less hardware resources to do it with.  Waiting is waiting, no matter why it happens.  And no hibernating isn't a solution because you can hibernate on PC but you may not awaken from it and its not a HUGELY faster than cold booting anyway.

2.  greater malware prevalance on PC introduces higher risk of data loss, passwords being stolen, identity theft.  Third party security software is mandatory, but that diminishes the responsiveness and therefore the quality of the user experience.

3.  general responsiveness of the GUI fluctuates on Windows PC's far more than Amiga. AmigaOS prioritises user input eg mouse pointer, menu opening when background tasks are running more highly than Windows.  I experience more wait cursors on a Win PC than  i do on Amiga.

Thats enpough for tonight.
 

Offline stefcep2

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Re: PC still playing Amiga catchup
« Reply #29 from previous page: June 04, 2009, 02:21:23 PM »
Quote from: Linde;509138
If we are discussing PC:s here, that's still not an assumption we can make as long as anyone uses anything other than Windows. Running Windows or not is totally irrelevant to this topic ("PC still playing Amiga catchup").


Like i said anal people on Amiga.org, but I've dealt with the Linux fan boys as well.

Quote from: Linde;509138

Let's for the sake of the argument assume that Amiga OS is the most popular OS, and Windows XP is in far minority. How quickly do you think the system would be taken down by malware, and how much extra protection would be needed? Any 14 year old could write an Amiga program to fuck the whole system up.


yeah BUT ITS ISN"T AN THEY DON"T.  Imagine if we could get OS 3.1 running natively on quadcore machine.  We can't so we have to deal with reality, not what if fantasy..


QUOTE=Linde;509138]
And no, an antivirus program is no excuse for a 20 minute boot time. That is more likely the result of an incompetent user. Aside from the built-in firewall I use the free avast antivirus for virus protection, and there's no noticeable slowdown or startup delays.[/QUOTE]
  No.  ALL PC's get slower the more you use them; the registry gets clogged with shit, the hard drive gets badly fragmented and malware does god-knows what.  the Amiga GUI deosn't slow down as it gets used more.