Which Amiga OS to install

[clusteruk]

Hi All

Just got myself an A4000 from a friend and added a mediator and radeon, nic, 16 bit sound.

Question is, the initial setup is OS3.9 but it is unreliable and could be a mismatch or files. So I want to reformat and start again.

So the question, which OS should I install, I know )S3.9 is the latest, but experience is requested, I like MUI and MagicWB.

All help greatfully received or I will order a 3.9CD
Steve

[save2600]

IMO - even on a stock A4000, I'd go 3.9. But especially so for your setup. Buy the CD, you'll be glad you did and besides, OS3.1 is on there as well...

[Dragster]

@clusteruk
 
I'd also install AmigaOS3.9 + BB2, it has some nice features and big HD support which make it better over AmigaOS 3.1. Looks like you already have the right hardware so go for it and get the OS 3.9 CD.
 
Cheers

[Tension]

Yeah, definately go for the 3.9 CD.  It`s a lot more stable than 3.1 with a ton of 15 year old hacks running.

[DiskDoctor]

Just for the record, you're not thinking of a PPC card, do you?

[clusteruk]

guess I will go for OS3.9, thanks for advice. I am having great fun with it, will set up Siamese System on it again. Funny that I do not have a copy considering it was my product.

Thanks for all your help.

[Nostalgiac]

just one thing I want to add/warn:
If your A4000 is the 040.. go for 3.9

If you have one of the 030 cpu models... stick with 3.1

I tried 3.9 on a 68030/25 ... and it was to slow.

regardless - have fun !
Tom UK

[Cammy]

3.9 is slow because of Picture Datatype, among other things. On an AGA machine, it is very slow remapping all images internally from 24bit to your palette-mapped Workbench screen. Since you're using a graphics card there shouldn't be any remapping needed, and images should display directly without the slowdown they'd get on an AGA system. Sticking with 3.1 won't hurt, but 3.9 does offer a lot more options and fixes, and should run quite well thanks to your RTG card.

[clusteruk]

Trouble is at moment, I have 3.9 but not sure if there is a mismatch of files because I keep getting spurious crashes on boot up, (AddDataTypes and Iprefs). Hence the reinstall. But I remember 3.0 being very stable and fast. Hence asking the original question.

[AmigaPixel]

3.9 is slow because of Picture Datatype, among other things. On an AGA machine, it is very slow remapping all images internally from 24bit to your palette-mapped Workbench screen. Since you're using a graphics card there shouldn't be any remapping needed, and images should display directly without the slowdown they'd get on an AGA system. Sticking with 3.1 won't hurt, but 3.9 does offer a lot more options and fixes, and should run quite well thanks to your RTG card.

I am concerned about that issue. I have an Amiga 2000 with a Video Toaster but no graphics card. I am planning on upgrading from 2.1 to OS 3.9. Is there a way to fix this remapping issue and keep it from slowing things down?

[AmigaPixel]

I should add that I am using a 030 at 50mhz and 68882 At 50mhz. Not the fast cpu but  I was hoping it could be optimized.

[Matt_H]

For a Toaster system, I'd suggest sticking with 3.1.

[Cammy]

I agree with Matt H. There's really no point using 3.9 on a system like that. Our 030/50/FPU A1200 sticks with 3.1 and is much, much faster than it is running 3.9. There's no way of making picture.datatype faster unless someone smarter rewrites it.

[cha05e90]

@cammy
"3.9 is slow because of Picture Datatype, among other things. On an AGA machine, it is very slow remapping all images internally from 24bit to your palette-mapped Workbench screen. "

Hmm, this is only true if someone uses 24 - 32Bit stuff all the time (WB backgrounds, icons etc.). This will be slow on a 3.1 system (with appropiate patches) as well. A 3.9 system can look and feel speedwise like a 3.1 system incl. all nice stuff you gain from the 3.9 update (AmiDock, AsyncWB, semi-kernel patches from BB2 et al.). It is always depending on how you configure/tweak your system. Due to a CRT problem I used my 030/OS3.9 for some time even with a A2024 (!) - 4 colours on Workbench (!) - without any real (speed) problem.

[Cammy]

Unfortunately picture.datatype in OS3.9 is just much slower than the 3.1 version, no matter what bitdepth the images being used are. I have pre-remapped every image I use in all of my programs to a special, locked 16 colour palette. In a program like YAM, which needs to load many of these images on startup, the difference in load times between 3.1 and 3.9 is very noticable. It takes less than a minute to load in 3.1, but over a minute to load in 3.9, and all the images it's loading are 4bit 16 colour iffs.