PC still playing Amiga catchup

[Wayne]

Is it about time to close this thread as pointless bickering over a subject which is clearly not true?

[amigaksi]

i have seen very few joyports on motherboards and the lack of joyport joysticks are deafening. in the past joyports were mounted on sound cards and not the motherboard. and those ports were most often used as midi ports.

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Your original argument was they all went toward USB.  But from your own links-- they have parallel port, PS/2 ports, etc.  They did make machines w/o gameports from same companies that also offered models w/gameports.  Yeah, you had to get a sound card for those machines that didn't have a gameport in order to get one.

>a few serial port mobos
>http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128357

That link shows parallel port as well.

>and even if they don't have one on board
>http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&>Order=BESTMATCH&Description=serial+port&x=0&y=0

You can also buy gameport cards as well.  

>i would assume so. if they didn't then they are crazy.

Yeah, so someone was giving a hoot about gaming interfaces.

[GadgetMaster]

Is it about time to close this thread as pointless bickering over a subject which is clearly not true?

Seeing as the thread starter himself mentioned that it's time to quit the argument I would think locking it would be a good thing.

I think it's already gone beyond the "lively debate" stage and is now just going all over the place. :crazy:

[amigaksi]

i see you really don't know what an api is do you? hardware errors are fixed in the driver NOT the api. the only reason an api changes if there is new additions to the api. aka the difference between directx 9 and 10.

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Just as you avoid erroneous API calls or work around them, you can deal with hardware bugs and work around them.  It's the same for both-- but I would say worse for APIs as too many versions confuse things.  

I know how IOPM works.  You have a very shallow understanding of it.  You can go direct to hardware and still have IOPM.

[ElPolloDiabl]

Is it about time to close this thread as pointless bickering over a subject which is clearly not true?

and then some.


:madashell:.:madashell:.:madashell:.:madashell:

[the_leander]

If you think I need data to back up a logical statement that APIs are slower than going direct to hardware, you have a problem.

When it's tied to such gems as "PC I/Os aren't that fast". You're right, I do have a problem, because as has been pointed out, any reduction in performance by the API has more then been offset by the increase in hardware speed. Unless you can show the numbers, the whole argument fails. This is what I was trying to get accross to you with the point about objectivity - you don't dismiss something that big and get to claim to still be objective or logical.

Give the link.

Start at the beginning till you're back here.

Wrong.  Some people sided with me.  But you haven't even replied to refutations handed to you so why would you read those.

Those "refutations" have been sliced and diced by better folk than I. And the of those that "sided with you", with the exception of stefcep2, each and every one of them did so with caveats that tore the argument propper to pieces.

You have no understanding of what I wrote

I question that you understand half of it, certainly given your responses at times.

Because insults don't seem to change the truth or affect me.

You're quite correct, doesn't change the point that you're wrong on every level on this one.

Amiga can sample at 15Khz not just 1Khz.

Oh it's 15khz, got anything to prove that the Amiga can actually differentiate the signal bounce from the actual pulse then?

Go reply then.  All my arguments have a REALITY basis.

Why? Others already have, in far greater detail and covering points I would not have thought of.

If you read your own comments in this thread, you will see that you have modified your views.  I can still use Gameport under Vista/XP and I never dismissed USB either which by the way can also be put in Amiga machines.

And again, you can use ISA on XP as well (why you'd want to is another matter entirely).

[amigaksi]

1. It might be, but the question still remain the same: who cares?
...

Cop out.  That's what you always wind up with when you have no arguments left-- who cares?  Well, who cares about 2Ghz or 7Mhz?   To me (and millions of others) having IN AL,DX is more significant than processor speed.

>2. And you're twisting YOURS. You started this silly argument saying that Amiga game port can poll joysticks 1000 times every second (be aware you haven't yet proved it), thus making the (classic) Amiga platform "more suitable for games".

It can do more than 1Khz.  You are twisting things again.  All I said was some games can use the 1Khz.  It's more accurate.  And AMIGA IS FASTER in reading the joysticks regardless of the sampling rate of the joystick.

>"ANY USB port can handle 1 KHz as well, even more", and this ends up the argument. YOU decided to complicate it introducing "hardware banging" and assembly lines. And here started bullcrap.

You don't even follow the flow of arguments.  API vs. direct hardware is a separate point (more generic).  Joystick polling is slower on PC whether you use API or direct hardware.  Stop misquoting me.

>3. and 4. The installed park has nothing to do with this discussion. There are plenty of 486 and Pentium - Pentium III machines out there, but they aren't anymore reliable for gaming.

Sorry, but you said there NO gameports out there.  I don't see how you equate # of gameports with 486/Pentium/P3s.  

>That's evolution, a word that the Amiga community didn't know until it killed us all.

Sorry, Amiga also involved quite a bit and with hardware level compatibility.  Your speculation that it killed us all is absurd.  Why not state something logical or something people can prove.  Anyone can state his opinion.  The point is PC still hasn't equalled or surpassed PCs in all respects not "who cares".

>5. Ok, here you have touched the sum of ridiculous. I can start ignoring you.

That's what you done anyway thus far in this thread.

[amigaksi]

When it's tied to such gems as "PC I/Os aren't that fast". You're right, I do have a problem, because as has been pointed out, any reduction in performance by the API has more then been offset by the increase in hardware speed. Unless you can show the numbers, the whole argument fails. This is what I was trying to get accross to you with the point about objectivity - you don't dismiss something that big and get to claim to still be objective or logical.

...

Don't mix things again to confuse people.  Chewbacca Defense.

PC I/O is slower than processor speed and memory speed (separate point).
Regardless of how fast the hardware speed, APis are slower than going direct to hardware.

>Those "refutations" have been sliced and diced by better folk than I.

IF you think so, then let them refute other things as well.  

>You're quite correct, doesn't change the point that you're wrong on every level on this one.

All you do is blurt out the same FALSE statements "torn to pieces" or similar remarks like "wrong on every level".  Shows how inept you are at understanding technical facts.  As I stated above, leave it what you consider "better folk".

>Oh it's 15khz, got anything to prove that the Amiga can actually differentiate the signal bounce from the actual pulse then?

Here it is again: Chewbacca Defense.

[Hammer]

Cop out.  That's what you always wind up with when you have no arguments left-- who cares?  Well, who cares about 2Ghz or 7Mhz?   To me (and millions of others) having IN AL,DX is more significant than processor speed.

>2. And you're twisting YOURS. You started this silly argument saying that Amiga game port can poll joysticks 1000 times every second (be aware you haven't yet proved it), thus making the (classic) Amiga platform "more suitable for games".

It can do more than 1Khz.  You are twisting things again.  All I said was some games can use the 1Khz.  It's more accurate.  And AMIGA IS FASTER in reading the joysticks regardless of the sampling rate of the joystick.

>"ANY USB port can handle 1 KHz as well, even more", and this ends up the argument. YOU decided to complicate it introducing "hardware banging" and assembly lines. And here started bullcrap.

You don't even follow the flow of arguments.  API vs. direct hardware is a separate point (more generic).  Joystick polling is slower on PC whether you use API or direct hardware.  Stop misquoting me.

>3. and 4. The installed park has nothing to do with this discussion. There are plenty of 486 and Pentium - Pentium III machines out there, but they aren't anymore reliable for gaming.

Sorry, but you said there NO gameports out there.  I don't see how you equate # of gameports with 486/Pentium/P3s.  

>That's evolution, a word that the Amiga community didn't know until it killed us all.

Sorry, Amiga also involved quite a bit and with hardware level compatibility.  Your speculation that it killed us all is absurd.  Why not state something logical or something people can prove.  Anyone can state his opinion.  The point is PC still hasn't equalled or surpassed PCs in all respects not "who cares".

>5. Ok, here you have touched the sum of ridiculous. I can start ignoring you.

That's what you done anyway thus far in this thread.

If game controller in question is a usb device and running Windows XP SP2, "usbport.sys" can be hacked(via Hex edit) to support higher poll rate.

For 2006 Linux, the mainline kernel was patched to allow for the USB polling rate to be changed. There are two ways to do this. First a parameter can be added to the kernel commandline:
-usbhid.mousepoll=[polling interval] (e.g. for polling interval, 250, 500, or 1000 would be entered.)

The second method is when the driver is built as a module in which case the following command would go into either /etc/modprobe.conf or /etc/modules.conf depending on the distribution:
- options usbhid mousepoll=[polling interval]

[amigaksi]

And we have been arguing back, that its illogical to use that as an argument because the PC is not aiming for that market.

The point being, the fact that the PC cannot do things as real-time as the Amiga is not a failing of the PC so is not "playing catchup".  The PC has evolved to do what the "average user" wants it to do.  If you want to do something specialised, use specialised hardware - thats the point.
...

If PCs don't care about doing the real-time stuff and leave it to hardware, then Amiga wins.  If PCs don't care about digital joysticks or making interface faster, then Amiga wins.  I can say Amiga wasn't meant for faster and faster processor design.  Actually, even Atari ST was faster than Amiga in terms of processor speed although Amiga came out afterwards.

>Also any argument about digital joysticks is pointless.  

There's good reason for it.  Most computer companies used digital joysticks while PCs went for analog ones.  Amiga also has analog interface as well, but people purposely chose digital joysticks.

>Bottom line, the power of the Amiga joyport is not an advantage for games.  As others have said, there is no logic to reading what the user is doing any faster than the screen redraw rate because you need the user/game feedback.  

That was already refuted a few times.  Even if you don't need the high rate to read the joystick, you spend LESS CPU TIME if your joystick is faster.

Even for analog inputs, Amiga just has to start the POTGO and read the value at end of frame.  It's done by hardware.

[jkirk]

Your original argument was they all went toward USB.  But from your own links-- they have parallel port, PS/2 ports, etc.  They did make machines w/o gameports from same companies that also offered models w/gameports.  Yeah, you had to get a sound card for those machines that didn't have a gameport in order to get one.

uh? do you not understand what moving toward is? i mean if they were eliminated you wouldn't need to move toward anything. i said there was resistance to eliminating ps2, that there is still industrial apps for serial and to a lesser extent parallel. i did say the transition from joyport to usb was an easier switch since joysticks in general are not super popular and in particular joyport versions.

That link shows parallel port as well.

yes i know i put one in there on purpose. there are so few :roflmao:

this is the model they are going for(without the ps2 ports(stillto much resistance to completely get rid of em yet.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128387

You can also buy gameport cards as well.  

and yet i didn't say they were not available just being actively phased out.
btw AT adapters are available for keyboards too. but are they mainstream?

Yeah, so someone was giving a hoot about gaming interfaces.

For a GAMING CONSOLE for them to ignore the gamepad would be stupid.

[amigaksi]

Is it about time to close this thread as pointless bickering over a subject which is clearly not true?

How is it clearly not true?

PCs have been playing catch-up ever since Amiga was introduced.  They have had higher processor speeds/computational power even before Amiga was introduced.  They are still playing catch-up in some areas.  Their API method of approach is making it worse for them.

[the_leander]

Don't mix things again to confuse people.  Chewbacca Defense.

I think you should re read what you've written.
 

PC I/O is slower than processor speed and memory speed (separate point).
Regardless of how fast the hardware speed, APis are slower than going direct to hardware.

Which has for the last time been noted, but with the caveat that the I/O in question is an order or two of magnitude faster then what you're comparing it against, the result being that the speed loss in software is more then made up for in raw hardware performance.

How are you not getting this?

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWW

>Oh it's 15khz, got anything to prove that the Amiga can actually differentiate the signal bounce from the actual pulse then?

Here it is again: Chewbacca Defense.

I do not think that phrase means what you think it means.

Until you can show (with real, verifiable evidence) that the Amiga can react to such input your whole argument is bunk.

[amigaksi]

uh? do you not understand what moving toward is? i mean if they were eliminated you wouldn't need to move toward anything. i said there was resistance to eliminating ps2, that there is still industrial apps for serial and to a lesser extent parallel. i did say the transition from joyport to usb was an easier switch since joysticks in general are not super popular and in particular joyport versions.

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The part about serial being more significant than parallel:  I have dealt with hundreds of machines including laptops and parallel port is there but serial is not.  

Some companies never had a gameport on the motherboard to begin with-- they were targetting businesses.  So audio cards w/gameports were used and still available along with corresponding joysticks.  So I think not supporting gameport would be dropping quite a few users out there.

>and yet i didn't say they were not available just being actively phased out.
btw AT adapters are available for keyboards too. but are they mainstream?

The gameport support is more recent phenomena than AT keyboards.  I bought a surround-sound souped up audio card w/game port just 3 years ago.

>For a GAMING CONSOLE for them to ignore the gamepad would be stupid.

They ended up using those controllers on PCs as well.

[Hammer]

How is it clearly not true?

PCs have been playing catch-up ever since Amiga was introduced.  They have had higher processor speeds/computational power even before Amiga was introduced.  They are still playing catch-up in some areas.  Their API method of approach is making it worse for them.

APIs enables the PC to quickly adapt and assimilate technologies.

[amigaksi]

...

Which has for the last time been noted, but with the caveat that the I/O in question is an order or two of magnitude faster then what you're comparing it against, the result being that the speed loss in software is more then made up for in raw hardware performance.

How are you not getting this?
...

You are not getting it:  if I have IN AL,DX which takes 1 microsecond and w/API bullcrap it takes 1.2 microseconds then if you speed up hardware so IN AL,DX takes 0.6 microseconds then the API version will still be slower.

>I do not think that phrase means what you think it means.

If you purposely try to confuse things to escape from your dilemma of being wrong (being refuted), you are using Chewbacca defense.

>Until you can show (with real, verifiable evidence) that the Amiga can react to such input your whole argument is bunk.

That's wrong.  Faster interface is useful even if user cannot react to such input.  You are toggling back and forth between different views.