PC still playing Amiga catchup

[Roondar]

Hi,

@Roondar,

Yes, I know, but I just wanted to show him just how signicant this is with today's modern graphic cards. I mean really you are comparing a chip that moves at a speed of no more than 14 mhz -28 mhz compared to a modern day graphics card that has core clock speeds of 400 mhz to 800 mhz or faster and is moving pixels like a freight train moving at the speed of light.

I mean come on I like the Amiga too, but after using Amiga Forever on my PC than going back to my Amiga 4000 it does seem like it is moving slow, but I like it like that because it keeps me from turning it on that much, should make it last longer.

smerf

Like how I develop my C64 programs on WinVice these days and only test them on the real hardware afterwards. Don't wanna break my lovely 8-bitter!

Anyway, you are of course correct - modern day GFX cards run at silly speed (thats several steps above ludicrous speed by the way). The day for Amiga custom chips is long past.... Though that doesn't mean I don't love the old Ami

[smerf]

An internal Blu Ray drive will run around US$110.  So it should have been a bog standard PC + US$110.  The news said the US turned off it's non-HD TV last Saturday, where does that leave non-HD Amigas?

Hi,

@persia,

Well we might be able to get one of them there boxes that you add on to get high def, I hear that a lot of places have $40 coupons to help ya all by one.

Another thing we can do is write to them there Amiga Inc. people, and get hold of errr whats his name Bill Gat err no McCooin ahh no Bill CoonMC, darn I must be getting old that don't sound right either, oh now I remember Bill Mckewn, no that don't seem right either you know he is the guy that says:

"Amiga has an established reputation for delivering phenomenal graphics and high performance multimedia on PCs and mobile devices."

Was that Bill McEwen, nah he never said that above stuff because he has never done anything yet, well anyhow maybe we could get him to make a HD card to replace the NTSC on the girl (Amiga).

smerf

[amigaksi]

Out of curiosity, given that most (if not all) PCs are capable of running a 32bit screendepth, how necesary would it be to swap and change parts of the palette? I mean I can understand if you're working in a colour limited environment like OCS or AGA, but truecolour? How common would such a requirement be?

That's the spirit-- just dismiss the whole argument by saying "it's useless."  
The point was that APIs are slower so going directly to hardware on Amiga can in certain cases out-do PCs going through APIs.  I gave ONE EXAMPLE of this and you want to dismiss it.

[amigaksi]

Ok then, what do they have now that wasn't in good quality gear from 20 years ago? And how many itterations are there? Also, just as one final point. What can you do with them now, that wasn't possible 20 years ago?

Either way you failed to address the rest of the point.

Go look it up yourself how the parallel ports did enhance-> SPP -> BPP -> EPP -> ECP and also ISA -> VESA-based -> PCI.

[amigadave]

:argue:  ---->:swords: --->:uzi::destroy: ---> :insane: + :crazy:


Where did the Popcorn smilie go to?

[amigaksi]

No, I don't think you did, how do you propose to prevent these sorts of conflicts outside of an API, remember we did have this, much to the detriment of stability, see Win95 and 98 for details.

Just because you can create the "perfect" app doesn't mean that everyone can.

...

If hardware that is backward compatible uses same I/O ports, IRQs, DMA channels-- there no conflicts to be resolved.  When hardware vendors use their on I/O ports arbitrarily, their own IRQ channels, DMA channels then you have conflicts to resolve.  

>If you're having to reinvent the wheel and have every application bang the metal to the extent the app requires, you are in effect writing a (partial) driver or framework for your application to sit on...

Ahhm, did you miss the list I gave of advantages; you wouldn't rewrite the driver-- the OS would have the functionality built-in without needing drivers and application would be able to go directly to hardware where driver functionality is not supported or inefficient (like palette example).  

>The gains of hardware compatability, yes, lets add 10, 20, 30% extra silicon to every major I/O chip for stuff that's no longer used and long dead... Your entire argument is based on a fairytale world.

Sorry, you keep missing the point.  That's your speculation 10-30% extra silicon.  Even with some extra silicon, it's worth it given the benefits.  

>Not in that post I didn't.

Okay, atleast you admit you did in some other posts.

[amigaksi]

Liar.

...

I told you go time the joystick ports-- it's not something that complex.  Amiga is faster-- whether you use standard PC Gameport or serial protocol of USB joystick.

>They have, that you dismissed the points out of hand, moved the goalposts or just attacked the poster and continued to bang on about your fairyland instead is irrelevant.

You like to reply before you understand what is being stated.  There's no fairytale that Amiga OCS is compatible with AGA at hardware level.  PCs are forced to go through APIs for using modern hardware.

>I believe Karlos did that already, you then moved the goalposts.

Another false accusation.  No one has posted any code to swap palette indices on PC faster than Amiga does it.

[amigaksi]

Using OpenGL, a GPU could probably swap the entire scene out and redraw it faster than an Amiga could swap two colour indexes.

People have problems in this thread sticking to the example.  I can also switch entire frames by changing a video memory ptr on Amiga.  But that isn't the point.

[amigaksi]

Seriously nobody in the PC architecture world is trying to catch up with the Amiga. They just couldn't give a damn about a retro platform that only a few people use. Seriously they are not losing sleep over abandoning joystick ports.

Find and quote for us just one PC engineer that is actively working on a mission to play Amiga catchup and I will say that you have ground for your arguments.

Oops! That just negates this whole thread. Sorry!

Can someone Start serving those pankakes. There's a hungry crowd out here. :lol:

The fact that they recently dropped the Gameport and decided to use USB joysticks (which are still slower to read) should tell you that someone is giving a hoot.

[amigaksi]

So far no one has shown the advantage of surpassing (or even equaling) the Amiga joystick port.

We could go on and on like this... and the day will come you'll be the only one talking... and maybe (but I'm not even sure) that day you'll discover how useless it is... and that day you'll buy a cheap USB joystick and enjoy nice games of today... wondering... "how did I miss these jewels ?"

I guess we all agree the Amiga's joystick port is more precise than anything available elsewhere. The fact is this doesn't make the Amiga better than anything else... nor does it make anything else catching up the Amiga...

Now if we could simply move on...

BTW: I'm still waiting for you to show me a single Amiga commercial game that cannot be played with an USB joystick because the interface is too slow for it...

I did move on but some person still is denying the fact Amiga joystick is superior.  

As for "it's still useable".  I say that about Amiga to: "I can still use it for what I do without needing the 3Ghz processor."

[amigaksi]

To answer the question.
 
NO.  The PC is terms of hardware alone passde the Amiga well over ten years ago.   Probably more like 15.   Lets get real.

We already have so many speculations, but we are trying to get to the facts.  Gameport was supported in XP so your claim it surprassed it 10 years ago is false.  They still sell gameport based joysticks.  Even USB ones are inferior in speed of accessing.

[amigaksi]

A yawn subject.

...

Hey I stopped arguing since it's obvious Amiga joystick port is faster, butl someone started to challenge it again.

>APIs enables the hardware to change significantly and reduce hardware complexity i.e. save on
>1. Transistor usage,
>2. Energy consumption.
>3. Maximised math units.

Hardware can be enhanced significantly and retain hardware  compatibility.  As for reducing hardware complexity-- well why do they retain processor compatibility then-- same argument can be applied there as well.

[amigaksi]

I think I agree with you here. The thread does seem to have run out of steam at this point.

Oh well. You could always start another controversial topic that will keep us entartained for pages and pages. or not.  :lol:

It'll sure keep the site lively.

At least you should wait for the person arguing to reply before declaring the subject closed.

[amigaksi]

I think you're mixing up the USB stack and the API. The USB stack can have a hickup from time to time (well, in Windows that is). But an API is just a redirection, which, especially nowadays, doesn't cause any noticeable delay.
Eh? Palette index swapping? For at least 10 years, that isn't been used anymore. (when a 32 bit palette became common in 3d acceleration)

You have to do many I/O instructions to get the joystick status compared to a MOVE.W $DFF00A,D0.  As for palette modes, they still have them in Photoshop; the point there was an example where API access would be inferior to the extent that Amiga would out do it.

[amigaksi]

Hi,

...
Maybe if you read this you will see that the 1khz is far surpassed by a PC joystick that clocks at 100khz or 300 kbit speeds.

and these results came from Radio Shack using Linux drivers on their gameports.

Once again can I get some of those drugs you are using, they have to be really good.

smerf

You must be on drugs if you think doing serial access via 201h is going to outdo the Amiga's move instruction.  USB would be faster than 201h serial protocol.  And we're not trying to surpass 1khz.  Which is faster is the point.  1Khz is not the top limit for Amiga--  that was another subject regarding some applications requiring 1Khz sampling.

[amigaksi]

Oh, my...

1. http://www.overclock.net/faqs/73418-how-improve-mouse-response-accuracy-changing.html

After many pages reading your silly rants about a joystick port that should be polled faster than on 20-years-later technologies, I simply got bored and entered "USB polling frequency driver" into Google, which gave me many interesting results. Just read what the first result has to say, "Windows by default has the usb ports working at 125Hz of 1000Hz that USB is capable of, giving 8ms response times. You can change the frequency to 250Hz(4ms), 500Hz(2ms) and 1000Hz(1ms) to get better response times" and please don't bug everyone else with your foolish assumptions.
...

Which is faster: MOVE.W $DFF00A,D0 or going through a serial protocol?  I hope you know when you write a general application for some PC, you cannot assume they have some specialized card in there.  You have to take the general case of Gameport or standard USB joystick.

>2. That's not true. Everyone else here explained you that APIs are better just because they allow programming in shorter times, compatibility-friendly with more HW configuraions..


Bullcrap.  You can have APis on top of standard hardware and those systems are better.  You can do things that APIs don't allow or are more inefficient at it.

>3. You don't even need an example, it's plain logic. Every time your OCS chip does a clock cycle, any modern, low-value GPU has already executed thousands of instructions.

Then give the APi calls that will swap the index #3 and #15.  And I'll time them on my machine.

>4. No, he doesn't need glasses. YOU need a reality check. Or maybe a travel ticket to fantasyland, to Amiga Neverland or so.

I timed it myself.  You go repeat the experiment and then reply.