PC still playing Amiga catchup

[Daedalus]

Last I heard, MS-DOS whips AmigaOS in boot time, shutdown time, application launch time.

I think you'll find that MS-DOS only equals AmigaOS in shut down time i.e., instant. While I do think anyone saying their classic machine beats any modern PC at anything other than reading Amiga floppies is nuts, I will say that the "average" PC experience of myself and everyone I have contact with in the real world is one of waiting - waiting for the list of apps to appear in the Start menu, waiting for a window to minimise so they can access the window open behind it. This is an everyday thing that everyone I work with just accepts, but does my head in because I know it doesn't have to be like that. True, they're not cutting edge machines, but they're all only running XP OTOH which is now 7-ish years old. This is most definitely a Windows thing rather than a hardware thing, and maybe with some better programming of the Windows task and memory handling it could be much better. But as it stands, the average Windows machine that people use every day can't hold a candle to a top-end machine running Linux, or even AmigaOS4 in terms of responsiveness. Responsiveness is really where it ends with AmigaOS though; a well configured, high powered PC can do it, but the average machines that most office workers in the world have to use simply can't, and that is actually the average experience.

[Daedalus]

@Trev

Yup I do know I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about things like the border being drawn, but instead of the list of applications, for about a second you get the "searching" flashlight until the icons appear. Same with the task switching, I'd guess it's VM-related seeing as it'll only happen if the inactive window hasn't been touched for a while, but it does seem to be common to most average-spec machines that are a year or two old, and for most users, most of which don't do anything more extravagant than send mail and run Excel.

[Daedalus]

@DonnyEMU
Well, I've no delusions about the many weaknesses of the Amiga, but to be honest, I do like the fact that I can boot it up, do a quick Google and shut it down again before my Windows system has become responsive. That's a positive asset for me, in a real situation. Don't get me wrong, the PC is probably used more than the Amiga in my world, but it takes so long for the PC to boot that I don't really use it for looking up something quickly. Hell, fiddling about on my phone's browser is usually faster, and I don't have to go upstairs

I don't like having computers turned on all the time; they generate heat and use electricity. And those hardware guys should have been able to tell you, that hibernating a computer is pretty much the same as a full shut down/start up as far as the PSU and hard drives are concerned. Sleeping might be a little less harsh on the PSU, but I'd be far more worried about the starting/stopping of the mechanical hard drives. And that's the same whether you sleep or shut down a system.

[Daedalus]

Come on, you need more than one button for some games, no amount of programming can make that easier. I don't like the other extreme - the PS1/2/3 controller still annoys me due to the number of buttons. Best controller I've used so far? The Gamecube. Just the right number of buttons, a nice big "Go" button under your thumb, and analogue shoulder buttons that can also be used digitally. But come on, 3 buttons is probably a bare minimum for a lot of games these days to avoid reaching for the keyboard from time to time. I remember hating the Amiga version of Street Fighter compared to the SNES because of the lack of buttons. Less than three might make it easier to play, but imposes tough limits on the flexibility of the game. Hell, I remember Spy Hunter on the Atari 800 had support for a special 2-button joystick (was actually wired as a second joystick's fire button), so you could use 2 different weapons and drive at the same time. It was great!!

[Daedalus]

You can get away with a couple of buttons by separating the game selection/starting to be separate from the joystick.  Atari 800 had the console keys separate from the joystick button.  Atari 7800 had the two button joysticks.  They would also work on Amiga.

Yeah, I understand that, but what about using 3 different weapons for example? Or a driving game with more than just accelerate/brake? Or even Street Fighter? High punch, middle punch, low punch. An awful pain if you have to combine a button with a joystick movement to choose a different attack. And it rules out attacks while jumping, crouching etc. Yes, 10 buttons is making things overly complicated, but so is limiting yourself to 3 or less. Of course start/pause/reset can be moved away, but sure you don't need more than that anyway - game select screens shouldn't need more than direction and one button.

[Daedalus]

I guess example of data compression is appropriate here.  If you take majority of games, and take down how many buttons are a must to play, you will end up with a series of number with some maximum and minimum (0 for pacman, 2 for defender, 176 for Flight simulator, etc.).  Now rather than carry lg(MaxButtons-1) bits, you simply use the lg(majority of cases for buttons-1) and have special codes/cases for those exceptions.  So for example, Atari 800 games generally only need one button so in case of Defender they used the Space bar for Smart Bomb and some other key for hyperspace.  That makes it simple for the user to figure out and not need a manual everytime he puts some game in.  Nowadays, you switch games and you have to remember which button did what in addition to making learning curve bigger for each game and less responsive due to bigger choice of options for buttons.

I agree that too many buttons are unnecessary and make things too difficult to remember (PlayStation controllers are my example here), but I stand by too few also being an issue. Why would you not need a manual to look up which keys on the keyboard are for the hyperspace and smart bomb? There are something like 60 possibilities there instead of the 6 you'd have with e.g. a CD32 controller. It's something I never liked as I tended to play games holding the joystick base with one hand - look at the ZipStik and tell me how you use a keyboard without losing either the fire button or directional control...

[Daedalus]

Never heard of OpenCL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL

[Daedalus]

I'm a huge fan of analogue joysticks - I had a PC one attached to my Amiga for years. Hell, I even made an adaptor circuit for it and mounted it inside my case so I could just plug it into the PC-style gameport on the back. I even used the analogue joystick to play Geoff Crammond's F1GP because it was so nasty to play with a digital joystick and one button. It's pretty much essential for any decent flight sim too.

Incidentally, the whole thing with a PC analogue joystick not giving a full deflection on the Amiga is a limitation of how the Amiga treats the paddle inputs, not because of a poorly designed joystick. It's well documented that some modifications are needed to improve its action on the Amiga, hence the adaptor circuit I build for my A1200 tower.

[Daedalus]

LOL, just noticed the tags at the bottom of the thread... Quite appropriate IMO!

amiga , anal retentive , catchup , circle jerking , cloud cuckoo land , complete bollocks , delusional fanaticism , denial , fantasy , flamefest , loljoystick , perpetuum argumentum , playing , sit on the joystick , troll , uninformed  

[Daedalus]

yea this is normal behavior for an lcd tv. it has to do with the responsiveness in color changing. the tv can't keep up with the changes. they are getting better but have not beaten the responsiveness of a crt yet. i personally still use a hdtv crt atm. and just as the leander said upscaling plays it's part in this issue too.

Oooh, I always wanted a HD CRT! What model is it?? Could only find one on sale in Ireland when I went looking, and it wasn't great. I'm still gutted the whole world went with LCD seemingly to do with fashion rather than quality. I still have a lovely Trinitron monitor for my computer and a (non-HD) Philips CRT TV.

As for the artifacts, it's not just the responsiveness of LCD panels, a large part of it is simply the compression used by the digital broadcaster. It's like what you see when you watch a YouTube video for example, fast changing lines don't survive the compression particularly well. This will also show up on a full 1080p panel with a 1080p source if it's to do with compression. And HDTV signals tend to be compressed like that, so even with a full-HD decoder and a full-HD TV, you'll get more artifacts on channels which use more compression.

[Daedalus]

HDTV CRT: Geez you would've paid a packet for that new.  I've read the best CRT can still outdo the best plasma/LCD for responsiveness, color balance and sharpness.  Do tell: what model is it?

Even an average CRT can still outdo LCD in many areas. I still use a lovely 32" Philips CRT without HD and I find it nicer to watch most things with than most LCD panels. Don't get me wrong, the image from a good 1080 LCD and a PS3 is incredible! But LCDs constantly disappoint me in the low light or high contrast areas compared to a decent CRT, which probably cost about half as much.