Amiga os 3.1 vs amiga os 3.5

[barney]

What is the difference between OS 3.1 and OS 3.5?  Is it a big differences?  Is it really worth upgrading to this newer version?  Thanks.

Barney

[klx300r]

yes it is if you like glow icons and cool backdrops :-)...downside is that I noticed some WHDLoad games stopped working properly compared to 3.1

[Karlos]

What is the difference between OS 3.1 and OS 3.5?  Is it a big differences?  Is it really worth upgrading to this newer version?  Thanks.

Barney

I pre-ordered 3.5 originally and never regretted it. You do need a modestly expanded system to really appreciate it though. However, if you have the required specs to run 3.5, you are probably better off going the whole hog and getting 3.9.

A few general improvements of 3.9 over 3.1:

Updated user interfaces (based on Reaction, which is an evolution of ClassAct), improved icon set.

Updated workbench. Has asynchronous delete/copy/rename, arexx port, find tool, smooth scrolling of window contents etc.

Improved HD support. Drives greater than 4GB are supported (your WB partition needs to be in the first 4GB though).

TCP/IP stack included.

Most of the preference editors, tools and utilities have been updated.

It's possible to get 3.1 updated to include most of these features, but you are talking about a lot of 3rd party hacks and patches and the stability issues those imply.

In order to install 3.5 or 3.9 you'll need a working CD drive.

[barney]

Put it this way.  I am running an Amiga 2000 with 18mb fast ram, 68030 GVP Accelerator/SCSI card and flicker fixer/scan doubler.  I do not have a graphics card.  I am using the stock amiga graphics so I only get 16 color in hi-res within workbench.  In this case would I be better off with 3.1 instead of upgrading to 3.5 or 3.9?

Thanks.

[AmiKit]

@barney

Go upgrade to 3.9 even without gfx board.. I have never had one and 3.9 was/is great!

[barney]

Is my stock Amiga graphics issue going to be a problem?  I know Amiga OS 3.9 graphics are prettty amazing.  Is it going to be flat out ugly on my system?

[ltstanfo]

As Karlos has already stated, if you are thinking about upgrading from OS3.1, just go ahead and go for OS3.9.  I have owned both updates and (IMO) only 3.9 is worth having.  3.5 was a good first effort but it also had some application issues.

Interestingly, I have gone back to OS3.1 on both occasions, which is what I still use.

Regards,
Ltstanfo

[pan1k]

For me.. I don't have a reason to use 3.5 or 3.9. I like fast over shiny and pretty. All of my classic WB apps work.. and WHDLOAD too!

[Karlos]

Is my stock Amiga graphics issue going to be a problem?  I know Amiga OS 3.9 graphics are prettty amazing.  Is it going to be flat out ugly on my system?

I used to run OS3.5 on AGA for a while. I used a hand-picked 16-colour 640x512 (it was bigger due to overscan but I can't recall how much) PAL interlaced display that worked well. I installed a bit of software called MagicTV which aims to reduce interlace flicker on interlaced modes.

It was perfectly usable, however, I was using a 68040 CPU along with FBlit and a few other patches.

[stefcep2]

I have had all three and I'm back to 3.1 (my HD is 4 gig).

Its fast and functional and compatible.  Sweet

[itix]

What is the difference between OS 3.1 and OS 3.5?  Is it a big differences?  Is it really worth upgrading to this newer version?  Thanks.

Barney

OS 3.5 only contains some Aminet stuff you can get for free anyway. OS 3.5 and 3.9 were never real OS upgrades and run slower than 3.1.

[NovaCoder]

If you're going classic it's OS3.9 all the way baby.

[Tempest]

I actually downgraded from OS 3.9 to OS 3.1

This was my setup on my a4000 and a3000T and this is my current setup on my a2000 and a1200. Although my a1200 and a2000 could easily run OS 3.9 I prefer OS 3.1, it's smaller and faster.

I've got a nice OS 3.1 setup with different options at boottime:

No action > Scalos 1.2d
Left mouse > Opus Magellan II
Left mouse and Shift > plain Workbench 3.1
Right mouse > CLI with Parm

[polardark]

Other than the extra added pieces of software, are there any notable improvements in 3.5 and 3.9 that might be relevant for people running more low performance amigas?

I did buy 3.9 but i never used it much on my 030 A1200. The "big" installation was a bit too demanding. Are there any good ways to "pick the raisins out of the cake", and take the best out of 3.9 for running on a relatively low spec amiga like my 030 A1200 or even an A600?

[AmiDude]

OS 3.9 is terrible slow and looking ugly if you don't have a 040/060 CPU + GFX card.
It just don't look good on an ECS machine with 16 colors, or even if you have AGA with
030/50Mhz it's too slow and it's very annoying.
OS 3.9 was running good on my A3000/040/40Mhz + CyberVision64, but I like the
classic look of OS 3.1. So I'm back from 3.9 to 3.1.