PC still playing Amiga catchup

[warpdesign]

The people who don't understand the argument are stupid. Doing a MOVE.W $DFF00A,D0 is superior to polling an analog joystick (period) via port 201h or via USB.

It certainly is. The point is: who cares ?

If this was a real problem I'm sure someone would have adressed this issue on PC hardware. But it seems everyone is living with it. Not to mention no one ever used it or mentionned it on the Amiga either.

So what's the point ?

[bloodline]

If there is variance of clock speed (even by a fraction of a second) between two otherwise identicle systems using the same cycle, both cycles will still be identicle, but the timing will be different. This is demonstrable for anyone who owns more then one Amiga, even of the same model.

You're mixing up your definitions again, I personally think deliberately here.

I have an A500 here, with an ActionReplay Mk3... I can show the system clock speed down (to assist with difficult parts of games), despite changing the clock speed, the A500 remains cycle accurate.

By Amigaski's definition, my A500 is no longer cycle accurate... weird thought... also by slowing the machine's clock speed down I can test if any game really does use a sampling frequency higher than the frame rate.

[shoggoth]

Bullcrap.  You are taking only a small part of the data where fire button and joystick directions are changing.  It's not obvious if you take the data as a whole and see that the sub-millisecond timing only occurs sometimes.  If I stated microsecond changes as "accurate user input", I wouldn't be stating 1Khz.

Even if that was right, you still honestly believe that sampling the transition stages from e.g. left to right would have any impact on gameplay? Which planet are you from? What matters to the application is the intended directional input from the player, which renders the transition stages to be A: inaccurate and B: useless.

[juan_fine]

@Smurf,
I need Windows for my work, so I have one of those Frankenstein Machines, as they are called here. It has all sorts of nifty ports; 2xDVI, 1xSVHS, 1xHDMI, 1xVGA, 2xFirewire...but not a single game port - what WAS I thinking?
I have to admit that there are annoyances with Windows, but I don't do that much gaming on this maching, mainly just Recoil, and I just turn off the network when I do - you're right about the updates, but Avast! is the one that always gets me, it doesn't need a reboot, but I end up with an ugly blue box at the bottom of my right monitor.
I had a dream last night that someone in this thread claimed to have SoftAGA working...

Hi,

@Juan_fine,

Yes I am very disappointed with the PC joystick port, (by the way where is it located on the PC's I have spun my computer around several times and I can't locate it, but also I can't ever remember using a joystick on the PC and I play all the latest games, like far cry, far cry II, Doom3, fallout 3, Quake IV, crysis, and a lot of the old ones like half life the original, half life 2, Castle Wolfenstein, call of duty/2/3/4/??? or what ever ones I buy my son it is on here I just haven't got around to playing them, interesting.

Well anyhow seeing that having a joystick on your computer is very important by this forum, I have decided to take one of my old Amiga 500's that died, and remove the joystick port and circuitry for my PC, after all I put a lot of time and money in my new game rig and I want the best joystick port made.

I suggest that you do the same, remove the port from an old fried Amiga that you have been carrying for parts, and put it in your PC, I know it can be made to work somehow.

As far as the PC playing catchup to the Amiga, hey the PC can out do the Amiga in just about all major areas, like graphics, sound, games, media, and multi tasking. The things I still find irratating, are OS install time and reboots during installation, BOOT UP TIME, and untimely updates by microsucks, ever been in the middle of a game and you are finally beating the on slaught of the N. Korean troops in crysis, and you are saying yeah I got those &%$#%%$#@# beat and then your screen goes blank, a blue screen comes up with the sentence on it that reads your computer will reboot in 6 seconds to install updates and then you think back and say so thats why the game seemed slower today and then it hits you NO, NO, NO, I have to do that part all over again.

On the sleep mode, hey there are so many types of PC's and laptops, everyone is different, I may have disabled that mode in my computer when I first built it, etc. etc. etc. I mean I could dabble for hours one end in my BIOS, I have a motherboard book that is about an inch and a half thick on the things you could do with it, but there is one thing I am sure I can depent on with a PC:

1. They crash at least 3 times a night while playing fallout 3.
2. They do updates a the most inconvenient time, I turned auto off.
3. Every time I call that American company called microsucks, I get some person in India and you know they talk funny and probably say the same thing about me but you know I have them beat in being rude, yeah the old smerf still has it when he needs it.
4. You basically have to run micro soft if you want to play the newest games, it seems that the software compainies are just atuned to micro shaft. Hey software companies you ever hear of LINUX, if you started making games for LINUX I bet micro shaft would fall flat on its face, BECAUSE WE ALL HATE MICRO SHAFT and the only reason we use it is to play your stupid games, maybe we should all endorse micro shark an quit buying your stupid games for micro $$jerk.

smerf

[smerf]

Karlos,

Yep, you've got it, the Amiga reminds me of a much simpler time, I can just fire up a game and suddenly it's 1989 again and I'm in the wild old days, it's nostalgia, and in a way I get the same feeling from my iPhone.  But as far as dong serious video, image or music editing, well, I wouldn't dream of using my iPhone or Amiga, all though the iPhone, no, scratch that thought...

I live in the present, I don't have time for the Amigas frequent trips to the guru, lack of software, and seriously low powered hardware when I have work to do.

Hi,

@persia,

I hear that work for you is having to turn on your computer, is that true?

Dong serious video? This sounds kinky

I still use the Amiga for some video, like when I am redoing a VHS tape, yes VHS still exists.

but

I can also do VHS onmy PC, I bought a little box for that by ADS called DVD express, rather old now about 10 years but it works great with my sync box for copying my old VHS protected tapes to DVD either on the Amiga or PC. I use the Amiga 4000 just about every day as a matter of fact is sits on the same desk as my PC and makes a great monitor stand, speaking of monitors, I can switch mine on the fly to either the Amiga or the PC so it works out really great. The PC use the DVI and the Amiga uses the VGA ports.

smerf

[smerf]

Hi,

@Karlos,

Huh!

I can tell how outdated your machines are, I upgraded my computers to an Atomic frequecy timing standard about 5 years ago. My machines are very stable and very accurate. My computer clocks are right on the money, they vary by maybe pico pico second every 20 years.

smerf

[smerf]

Hi,

@Amigaski,

Will you take your darn joystick and sit on it?

That should give you the greatest pleasure

smerf

[smerf]

You are making an absurd claim.  PC timers also claim a certain accuracy and their crystals are subject to same conditions as Amiga timers.  And that has NOTHING to do with latency.  Latency is the hardware deviating by a few cycles from the exact point when the event was supposed to occur.

>Furthermore, the clock speed is slightly different between NTSC and PAL Amigas. For example, in a base A1200, the CPU is driven from the same clock as the rest of the native hardware and the stated clock speeds are 14.32 MHz for NTSC and 14.18 MHz for PAL.

Just answered that for someone else:

The NTSC/PAL crystals are by spec given a fixed frequency.  Now even if they deviate by one billionth or something, it's within the tolerance of the TVs and they are still considered to be at the same frequency.  You don't say my TV runs faster than yours.  Amigas use the same timing as NTSC/PAL crystals.  So I can say that CIA interrupts, Audio Interrupts, Copper lists, etc. all run at the same frequency across the board for OCS/ECS/AGA.


T = 1/F that's how you get 558ns.

Hi,

The true def for latency is:

Definition:
[noun] (computer science) the time it takes for a specific block of data on a data track to rotate around to the read/write head
Synonyms: rotational


[noun] the time that elapses between a stimulus and the response to it
Synonyms: reaction time, response time, latent period

Just thought you would like to know

smerf

[Karlos]

Hi,

@Karlos,

Huh!

I can tell how outdated your machines are, I upgraded my computers to an Atomic frequecy timing standard about 5 years ago. My machines are very stable and very accurate. My computer clocks are right on the money, they vary by maybe pico pico second every 20 years.

smerf

That's the sort of thing you'd expect in the Fallout universe, eh? :lol:

[smerf]

There could be any number of reasons for this. Bad application, dodgy drivers etc. However, if the machine is new, unless it's dirt cheap, it's unlikely to be down the the hardware.

Hi,

@Karlos,

I know I am a little late on this one, but this is very noticeable in Windows, on somethings it multi tasks really great on, on some things you might as well walk away from the PC until it gets done, like when I am playing fallout 3, the machine sometimes slows to a crawl, then I go to my main screen and usually Winblows is updating, very aggrevating, especially when your at a really good part in the game and then it reboots to install updates, had this problem for 2 or 3 times before this idiot got smart and shut off auto updates, don't know what is going on with this board but all I did was fire up the Amiga.org site, and my virus stopper went off like a stealth bomber being shot at by a sam missle in Iraq. Had 3 virus warnings in about 3 seconds, don't know if it was the site or somebody trying to invade through the internet. I use Avira virus checker, this was recommended by maximum pc as being one of the best for catching virus's.

smerf

by the way I have never noticed this on Linux, or the virus's either, Linux just keeps on ticking.

[smerf]

That's the sort of thing you'd expect in the Fallout universe, eh? :lol:

Hi,

@Karlos,

you bet ya!

Hey don't knock out fallout 3 man, this is one of the best games I played in years, they just came out with a new episode that i bought for my son, now he is up in Alaska. Have to wait for him to get done playing so I can.

You really need a good machine because it pounds the hardware don't you know.

Trying to finish Doom3 now while my son plays fallout, can't wait, he should be done in another day. My old slow fingers just don't move on the keypad and mouse like they used to, don't you know.

If you notice I said keypad and mouse, not joystick, the new PC's don't have a joystick port, I am working on removing it from the Amiga to put in the PC so I will have the best joystick port made to man and throw Amigaski's claim right out the windows.

smerf

[Karlos]

Hi,

@Karlos,

you bet ya!

Hey don't knock out fallout 3 man, this is one of the best games I played in years, they just came out with a new episode that i bought for my son, now he is up in Alaska. Have to wait for him to get done playing so I can.

Moi, knock Fallout 3? Why my dear fellow, I have completed it twice and clocked over 250 hours in there in total

I have the first two DLC packs but I don't have Broken Steel yet. Needed to wean myself off the addiction a bit

You really need a good machine because it pounds the hardware don't you know.

It's not that bad. The lack of real time shadows means it runs a lot faster than some titles. If you want something that really pounds your hardware, run Crysis with all the detail jacked up. I dread to think how intensive it's lighting engine is alone.

[slayer]

I did Broken Steel first, then the Pitt... Just started the Alaska thing last night...

went back to Fallout3 to get away from The Last Remnant... lol

Waiting for Mass Effect 2! or god forbid, KoToR III? heh

and err, to stay OT here... The Amiga is timeless... hmmm... Ma just txted me an hour ago and said my new Flex had arrived via UPS... off home tonight to swap out my 667 for 800 heh...

Alaska will have to wait ;-)

[amigaksi]

It certainly is. The point is: who cares ?

If this was a real problem I'm sure someone would have adressed this issue on PC hardware. But it seems everyone is living with it. Not to mention no one ever used it or mentionned it on the Amiga either.

So what's the point ?

People participating in this topic should care.

Because PCs were originally business machines so they failed to address or did not both addressing issues related to gaming (which relates to multimedia as well)-- sprites, multiple audio channels, joystick types (digital vs. analog), joystick ports, timing, etc.  These things were not needed to do word processing, communications, running excel, or doing mathematical computations.  Gradually, they started addressing these things-- adding in audio cards, faster local bus graphics cards, better ways to time video-related stuff, etc.

So the points so far are as stated in msg #275.

[amigaksi]

Even if that was right, you still honestly believe that sampling the transition stages from e.g. left to right would have any impact on gameplay? Which planet are you from? What matters to the application is the intended directional input from the player, which renders the transition stages to be A: inaccurate and B: useless.

You are still speculating.  First of all, those transitional stages aren't just going left to right and even that is accurate and useful.  Even if you sample at lower rate, you may get that transitional state in your sample.  Secondly, the fire button(s) are indepependent of the joystick directions so you can get minute values for timing of the states.  It's not a matter of opinion whether you THINK it has impact on gameplay.  It's more accurate to take into account all the various states of the joystick just like it's more accurate to sample sound at 44Khz although it may make little difference to many people if they sampled at 32Khz.  Or another example was the MP3 which distorts some samples compared to lossless audio.

As far as which planet I am from.  Well, that's a tough one-- if I take into account reincarnation, it could be many.

[amigaksi]

The 1 second periodicity was only an example. You could trigger it every 10 seconds. What matters is whether the game responds to the 1ms wide pulse whenever it is issued. If it doesn't then the game simply isn't sampling at a rate that guarantees a sample is read within a 1ms window - ie it isn't sampling at 1kHz. By gradually increasing your pulse width to the point where you get a consistent response (eg 9 in 10 pulses trigger the action) then you know you are in the right approximate resolution of the application's sample rate.
...

I do have some source code for games that just poll the joystick without waiting for VBI.  In the case of River-raid, it does not let you fire again until the missile hits its target or is off the screen.

>As for the rest, they could but that still does not demonstrate that any particular game title samples this quickly. You need to actually test with real applications that were written, not software you write purely to demonstrate that it is possible.

They are both useful.  See if they exist in existing applications and to show that it's more accurate to sample at higher rates.

>PS, see my other crazy idea to allow 1kHz sampling an analogue joystick. In case you can't find it, a quick recap:

>Use the X/Y potentiometers to adjust the left/right volume of a simple hardware oscillator running at several kHz that is sampled by the soundcard at 44.1 kHz. Calculate the RMS power for frames of 441 samples (one frame for left and one frame for right) and look up the RMS value in a suitable calibration table to determine X and Y position.

Computing an on-going RMS may slow things down though.  How about, just looking for a max/min value every millisecond or so and using up 4 channels to get a digital joystick out of it.