How fast is "fast enough"

[A6000]

We have 020's at 14 mhz w/FastRam, 030's at 25 to 50 mhz, 040's at 25 to 40 mhz, and 060's at 50 to 90 mhz,

Now, putting aside the view that a computer can never be "too fast", what would be the minimum useable processor and speed.

[bloodline]

A6000 wrote:
We have 020's at 14 mhz w/FastRam, 030's at 25 to 50 mhz, 040's at 25 to 40 mhz, and 060's at 50 to 90 mhz,

Now, putting aside the view that a computer can never be "too fast", what would be the minimum useable processor and speed.

For me the minimum is currently 2.33Ghz... and even that is starting to become a limitation as I need to push my creative abilities.

[Krusher]

Fast enough?

3d Studio Max spitting out realtime images with Final Render with Global Illumination on and caustics, while rendering at HD Full resolution  :-D

Oh and with AA ofcourse and plenty of polygons  :lol:

[Terse]

A 17.5Mhz 68010 is just about right.

[Akiko]

Any new G3, G4 accelerator for my 4000T.

[matthey]

It depends on what you are using your Amiga for. For mostly older Amiga software and games a faster 68030 works great. For more modern computer needs a fast 68040 or 68060 will allow you to do 90% of what most people use modern computers for. For some CPU intensive tasks the classic Amigas are just not up to par. A G4 PowerPC Amiga is probably fast enough for 98% of what modern computers are used for. The lack of good modern stable Amiga software becomes more of a concern with the faster processors IMHO.

[persia]

If you have a couple quad core processors then 2 GHz for each core should be enough.

[dannyp1]

060 at 50 does most of what I need to do on my A4000 except for watching DVD's.  So I guess it would be nice to have it run a little faster.  But if I need something really fast I just use my clone.  If I want to have fun and enjoy myself I use the Amiga

Dan

[ChuckT]

How fast is fast enough?  Let me put it to you this way:

I'm using the 768 Kbps DSL which is the slower speed and I think I'm using a 802.11 G modem/router.

If you want DVD quality video then you would either need FIOS (I haven't figured out the speed) or 802.11 N which is about 74 Mebabits a second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11

I've been reading the following link on PC chips to try to determine how efficient and fast a processor should be because the Pentium 4 lost speed to the AMD Athlon:

http://www.emulators.com/docs/pentium_1.htm

This article talks about keeping the pipeline to a chip full because if you don't then useful work is not being done and it is called a "Stall".  Another thing is that the old Machine Language programming was written serially and now the programming is written on a schedule where you can get two instructions in instead of one so in order for a computer to be efficient, you have to keep the processor efficient and reduce bottlenecks:

CLOCK SPEED IS NOT EVERYTHING! So many people stupidly go out and buy a new computer every year expecting faster clock speed to solve their problems, when the main problem is not clock speed. The problem is poorly written code, uneducated programmers, and out of date compilers (that's YOU Microsoft) that target obsolete processors. How many people still run Microsoft Office 95? Ok, do a DUMPBIN on WINWORD.EXE or EXCEL.EXE to get the version number of the compiler tools. That product was written in an old version of Visual C++ which targets now obsolete 486 processors. Do the same thing with Office 97 or Office 2000. Newer tools that target P6. Wonder why your Office 97 runs faster than your Office 95 on the same Pentium III computer? Ditto for Windows 98 over Windows 95. Windows 2000 over Windows 98. Etc. etc. The newer the compiler tools, the better optimized the code is for today's processors.

-Ibid.

[Ral-Clan]

My 68040 Amiga is generally "fast enough" for most of my needs, including using effects in ImageFX (so I have to wait 30 seconds for an effect to render, no big deal).  It's also fine for desktop publishing using Pagestream, CD-burning and 99% of the games out there (I don't do much gaming though).

However...."how fast is fast enough"?  Well, I do a lot of music on my Amiga (MIDI stuff and 2-track stereo editing).  The one thing I would like to be able to do is run a full multi-track suite (like HD-REC or Audio Evolution) on my Amiga (8-tracks minimum, but preferrably 16-tracks).  If my Amiga could handle this, I wouldn't have to rely on a PC for this sort of stuff.  I think at minimum an 060 is required to run any of the current Amiga multitrack software.

So an 060 would probably be enough for me (I'm hoping Natami actually is produced for this reason).  An 060 Amiga would probably make me happy for a LOOOONG time.

However, talking entirely no-limits.  The any Amiga that could handle doing multitrack audio, plus non-linear digital video editing would be the ultimate computer for me (probably not even the top of the line PPC would fulfill my needs).  Even an older PC can handle this nowadays, so I do not require cutting edge technology, just something that can get the job done.

[melott]

A6000 wrote:
We have 020's at 14 mhz w/FastRam, 030's at 25 to 50 mhz, 040's at 25 to 40 mhz, and 060's at 50 to 90 mhz,

Now, putting aside the view that a computer can never be "too fast", what would be the minimum useable processor and speed.

I don't necessarily see it as a CPU speed problem.
I see what the programmers did on the old C=64 with a
1 mhz 6502 processor and what they are doing on a 2 gig PC.
As I see it, its the programmers that have gotten LAZY.
They don't optimize their code for speed, if it works its
good enough (the processor will take care of speed).

Mel

[thanos]

One Billion Gigahertz...

I dunno, I thought my C64 was fast enough.

Why did I even post?

[meega]

How long are pieces of string?

[A6000]

Thanks for all the replies so far.
My question was related to running the sort of AMIGA software you are still running now, most of this was written for a base machine at 7 or 14 mhz and should run on that machine but a little extra speed is usually good, so I was wondering which speed is usable, I know PC's are faster but most of that speed is wasted running windows, and even that machine will be OBSOLETE in 18 months if not sooner.
A lot of people are trying to find 060 accelerators, but could they be satisfied with an 030 or 040 if they dont want to play DVD's, I can buy a brand new DVD player in my local supermarket for under £15 which is better and more economical than trying to make the amiga do it.

[orange]

when it comes to Amigas, I also think 040 is good enough for  most things.

of course PCs will never be "fast enough". Sooner or later 3D monitors will be mass produced, and demand for speed will increase dramatically.