PC still playing Amiga catchup

[amigaksi]

I have stayed out of this topic, but I agree with Karlos quite a bit on what he's been saying. There are a lot of modern pitfalls in both PCs and Mac that don't exist with Amigas, but honestly if I had to say it my PC today lets me do 1000 times more (and when you boot up actually doing 1000 more things in the background that you don't know about)  and working faster in realtime than I could ever do on Classic Amiga hardware and still quite a bit on newer A1 technology.
...

Nice story (with some speculations), but the point was is PC playing catch-up in some areas when compared to Amiga.  For example, what has been mentioned so far is in split-screens VGA standard only supports two split screens.  Amiga joystick ports are superior to PCs.  Amiga boots up faster.  And a few more things will be mentioned...

>The people who complain the loudest about the PC are usually fanboys of other platforms who are "religious" about their OS experience, and people who have gaps in knowledge about their OS and how to get help not to have issues..

Usually.  And in other cases its people who know more about both platforms.

>There are user groups and places they could go to learn.

Or teach.

[Karlos]

@Karlos

Set your RAM:FSB ratio to 1:1 and then you'll be able to get some uber low latencies :cool:

It is. The FSB is 1333. If I ever overclock, I have some headroom in the RAM.

[adz]

It is. The FSB is 1333. If I ever overclock, I have some headroom in the RAM.

Think base frequency, not QDR or DDR, your FSB has a base frequency of 333 (4 x 333 = ~1333) and your RAM has a base frequency of 667 (2 x 667 = ~1333), at the moment you are running 1:2, try underclocking the RAM to a base frequency of 333 and then drop your latencies.

[Karlos]

Amiga joystick ports are superior to PCs.  Amiga boots up faster.  And a few more things will be mentioned...

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 teach.

Or talk bollox.

[Karlos]

I'll post the A1 boot time when I have a moment, right now I need to get ready for work. I suspect it'll be the fastest of all of them.

[Karlos]

Think base frequency, not QDR or DDR, your FSB has a base frequency of 333 (4 x 333 = ~1333) and your RAM has a base frequency of 667 (2 x 667 = ~1333), at the moment you are running 1:2, try underclocking the RAM to a base frequency of 333 and then drop your latencies.

-edit-

Scratch that, it's already running at 333x8 (dual channel interleaved). DDR3 latencies, eh?

[stefcep2]

I didn't suggest it was a garden variety, merely recent. Less recent than yours, too. Ironically it cost about the same to build as the A1. Less if you factor in inflation :-o

When your PC was made is not relevant IF you go out and buy the top of the range (or near) hardware  you can get at the time.  When XP came many new PC's were being sold with 128 meg ram ,then 256 meg and 18 months ago a mate of mine bought a Dell PC with XP and 512 meg.  Its pitifully slow and unresponsive.

I think you have neatly summarised  your argument:  Basically what you are saying is: " You have this PC with high-end CPU ram, MB, graphics card, all of which which you have tweaked/overclocked, you are  running an OS that is not mainstream, probably hacked and slashed for performance, all probably at an increased risk of stability, and now you are happy that you can match the responsiveness of a stock standard A1200 running at 14 mhz with 4 meg ram".  If you see nothing wrong with this, then good luck to you.

[stefcep2]

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.

[Karlos]

You have a Frankenstein A1200.

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.

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.

 


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

Besides, my boot times were from switching the machine on from cold. Any sucker can quote their boot time from the moment the OS starts booting. If I do that after a fresh reboot from RAD I can get it down to about 6 seconds, on the 040 which is ~1/3 the speed of the 060.

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

Good luck beating that.

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:

[stefcep2]

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.

 

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.

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

So are mine.

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..)

[adz]

-edit-

Scratch that, it's already running at 333x8 (dual channel interleaved). DDR3 latencies, eh?

Eh? :lol:

Try running the CPU at 7 x 400 (QDR1600), that'll put you at 2.8GHz, you shouldn't need any voltage adjustments, then drop your RAM to 400MHz (DDR800) and theoretically you shouldn't have any troubles running your RAM latencies at 4-4-4-12. Or then again, you could just leave it all stock

[adz]

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

[ElPolloDiabl]

Try running your PC without the level 1 cache, it is like applying the handbrake while you've got the pedal to the floor.
Do that with your 030/040/060 on Amiga and the OS speed penalty is marginal. Due to the on board co-processors. It's unique to Amiga.

I also have a Power Mac with OS8 it's slow down is caused by turning on pop-up help.

There are some arguments against the PC design. The availability of an 'OS co-processor' card could settle that.

[Karlos]

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.

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.

 

So are mine.

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

Not EQUALLY POSSIBLE especially if you use PFS 3 or SFS or, if you use FFS, ... *snip*

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.

[Karlos]

Eh? :lol:

Try running the CPU at 7 x 400 (QDR1600), that'll put you at 2.8GHz, you shouldn't need any voltage adjustments, then drop your RAM to 400MHz (DDR800) and theoretically you shouldn't have any troubles running your RAM latencies at 4-4-4-12. Or then again, you could just leave it all stock

From wikipedia

Latencies

While the typical latencies for a JEDEC DDR2 device were 5-5-5-15, the standard latencies for the JEDEC DDR3 devices are 7-7-7-20 for DDR3-1066 and 7-7-7-24 for DDR3-1333.

DDR3 latencies are numerically higher because the clock cycles by which they are measured are shorter; the actual time interval is similar to DDR2 latencies (around 10 ns). There is some improvement because DDR3 generally uses more recent manufacturing processes, but this is not directly caused by the change to DDR3.

As with earlier memory generations, faster DDR3 memory became available after the release of the initial versions. DDR3-2000 memory with 9-9-9-28 latency (9 ns) was available in time to coincide with the Intel Core i7 release.[7] CAS latency of 9 at 1000 MHz (DDR3-2000) is 9 ns, while CAS latency of 7 at 667 MHz (DDR3-1333) is 10.5 ns.

That makes 6-6-6-21 (the current settings) look pretty good from here...

[stefcep2]

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.  
 

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

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?