Lightwave benchmark for users with PPC, 060, PiStorm, Vampire accelerators

[grond]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Proliferation of these emulators will not help the retro community. They are for people who who actually hate the Amiga, and wish it was a gazillion times faster with ludicrously high screen resolution and gigabytes of RAM etc., ie. people who want it to be a modern PC.

Strange to hear this from someone who owns a Vampire. The same argument was used against the 080 and there even a single AMMX-instruction is enough to make a piece of code unusable on any other 68k-Amiga. Code designed with the Pi in mind at least will use binary-compatible code and may be useful to people with lesser processors even if by mere conincidence.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by grond

Code designed with the Pi in mind at least will use binary-compatible code and may be useful to people with lesser processors even if by mere conincidence.

And let’s not forget emulators (the platform of choice of many contemporary Amigans) - code written for the PiStorm will run on them without any compatibility issues since the PiStorm sticks (at least for now, but I can’t fathom PiStorm adding PiStorm exclusive instructions to their project) to what a real 68k would run.

[trixster]

Can we remain on topic, rather than going down another pistorm/vampire/060 debate? There are other threads for those.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by trixster

Can we remain on topic, rather than going down another pistorm/vampire/060 debate? There are other threads for those.

We can but this discourse is inevitable when people are posting benchmarks of 68K Amiga applications.

[Seiya]

off topic post

[Karlos]

Using UAE for development is a gift: you can get something done and in a working state ready for testing on real hardware without ever risking said hardware during the perils of the development, crash, debug cycle.

[Ferry]

Originally Posted by trixster

The results spreadsheet is here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_Vx...ew?usp=sharing

To be fair, in that spreadsheet PiStorm should be in the "68 software emulation" section: it's not a real 68k, it's not a FPGA. In fact, it's a software program that emulates the 68k on another CPU.

Make no mistake: I'm fan nr. 1 of PiStorm, I've collaborated with its documentation and I'm partially responsible of some "tricks" (Amiga HDF shared with Linux, putting Musashi and Emu68 in the same SD and booting both from the Emu68 0x76 drive, mounting 0x76 drive in Linux…), but things are what they are, and PiStorm is a software-emulated 68000 CPU, in both Musashi and Emu68.

Saluditos,

Ferrán.

[Ferry]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

What's the problem you say? The problem is it makes 'Amiga' a meaningless label. Right now there's a game on Aminet for 'm68k-Amigaos' that purports to require an 060 with FPU. That's bad enough, but soon we may see 'Amiga' software that actually requires a minimum of a Raspberry Pi 4B. And anyone who objects will be told 'just buy a Pistorm - they're dirt cheap!' (but they aren't, and Pis are impossible to get).

First of all, they are dirty cheap and not that difficult to get, at least lower models (RPi 3A+ is available in several places, check rpilocator).

And what's wrong with people doing software for the CPU of their preference? Are you meaning that all software made for 68020 and above is "not real Amiga software" because it doesn't run on a stock Amiga 1000?

And "requires a minimum of a RPi 4B" it's a nosense, emulator is exactly the same for all RPi models, the difference is performance.

And about "it makes 'Amiga' a meaningless label", well… Why? It's only a substitution of the CPU, as an accelerator would be. Would it be "less Amiga" if I designed a 3GHz 68000 chip? Wait, there was a project for this, the Buffee… Anything above a 7MHz 68000 is "not an Amiga", any software that cannot run on a stock A1000 is "not Amiga"?

Proliferation of these emulators will not help the retro community. They are for people who who actually hate the Amiga, and wish it was a gazillion times faster with ludicrously high screen resolution and gigabytes of RAM etc., ie. people who want it to be a modern PC.

Well, what can I say: here one of those "haters", Amiga user uninterruptedly since 1988. I am guilty: I have an AmigaOne G4 (for which I was translator and OS4 betatester), which does not have a 68000 family CPU, it has it emulated by software, it has been my main computer until 2008 (before it, it was my A1200+060, until 2001), until software development lagged so far behind "modern computing" that I could not access bank pages and other modern webs.

An Amiga hater would have thrown all that low powered junk to the trashbin and bought a modern, fast, capable computer. Well, I bought that modern computer for work, I had no option, but my Amigas, all three, are still there and still in use, and still being updated.

And PiStorm was GREAT NEWS for my A500, stored, now it is working again, showing me new things, making me feel the old good vibe again, the shiver in the spine, the smile in my face…

Yeah, I am an Amiga hater…

Saluditos,

Ferrán.

[Cool_amigaN]

Originally Posted by klx300r

Q over at Hold and Modify on YouTube just posted a Lightwave Raytrace Scene benchmark and I absolutely love this type of stuff so if you're interested please follow the link below to follow the simple steps to run the benchmark and post your results & system specs

[ Show youtube player ]

For those that don't want to watch the whole vid here's the quick setup:

1- File-Load Scene-Benchmarks folder-choose Raytrace scene
2- Camera Panel- set to low resolution- set to square pixels
3- click Render or hit F9

Q's system results:

A3000, Phase5-MKII (060@50), OS3.2.1- 52m24s
A1200, TF1260 (060@50)128MB, OS3.2.1-54m22s
A4000, BFG060 (rev6) 060@50, 128MB, OS3.2.1- 43m46s
A2500, PP&S (040@25), OS3.3.2.1- 2h2m8s

Ok, did that benchmark too:

Lightwave 5.00r, MorphOS 3.17, PMac 3.1 Sawtooth with upgraded CPU 7451 (G4) Version 32768 Revision 515, CPUClock 1.6Ghz / BusClock 100Mhz, 2GB Ram, Radeon 9800Pro 256MB - 2m 37s (157 seconds)

Note: Walkero's reply over at amigans.net is correct since altering the camera panel (basically the settings of the benchmark), differentiates drastically the results and provides a false image to the unaware reader. Just to place the above into perspective, running the same scene from cli,on the same system, with the same LW version results to: 9m 49s (589 secs) in contrast.

It's much more fair to follow Walkero's guidelines as posted on his YT link.

[klx300r]

@ Cool_amigaN

I can’t see what Walkeroo wrote in the shell to get the scene to render! I said so over at amigans and no reply yet so can you please post it here so I can try it out

[walkero]

@klx300r
The command for the shell is:
Lwsn.fp -3 scenes/benchmark/dof.lws 0 0

This runs the Lightwave Screamernet for this scene. Sorry if I missed your message at amigan.net.

Also, based on the tests we run with the 4 benchmark scenes on different machines I did the following post today, with all the result and some findings

https://ko-fi.com/Post/Lightwave-5-b...ings-Z8Z3I8IOX

[klx300r]

@ walkero

Thanks

Just tried and it’s telling me -3 is an unknown option ?

[Seiya]

mmh, i hadn't read very well the topic. I delete my posts because off topic.

[Cool_amigaN]

Originally Posted by klx300r

@ walkero

Thanks

Just tried and it’s telling me -3 is an unknown option ?

This is due to an older LW version you have. Check with ver. 5.00r and will work

[klx300r]

Originally Posted by Cool_amigaN

This is due to an older LW version you have. Check with ver. 5.00r and will work

pretty sure it's v5 but will check, thanks

[walkero]

Today I ran the Jubimark on the following machine and here are the results:

X5000 with MorphOS : 256 sec
X5000 with AmigaOS 4 : 364 sec
microA1 : 766 sec

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Ferry

First of all, they are dirty cheap and not that difficult to get, at least lower models (RPi 3A+ is available in several places, check rpilocator).

7 pages of suppliers throughout the world. Only 2 have something. One has a Pi Zero W, the other a Pi 3a+ with 512MB. Both are in Europe, on the opposite side of the world to me. Every other supplier is out of stock of everything.

And what's wrong with people doing software for the CPU of their preference? Are you meaning that all software made for 68020 and above is "not real Amiga software" because it doesn't run on a stock Amiga 1000?

Some real Amigas have 020+, and some software only works on them. In many cases that makes sense (eg. AGA titles, programs requiring a very powerful CPU). However in most cases if a 68000 Amiga could be suitable the developer will produce a 68000 version. We should not forget those who have faster 68000s, or who don't mind if it runs slower.

And "requires a minimum of a RPi 4B" it's a nosense, emulator is exactly the same for all RPi models, the difference is performance.

Right now that's (almost) true, but will it stay that way?

And about "it makes 'Amiga' a meaningless label", well… Why? It's only a substitution of the CPU, as an accelerator would be. Would it be "less Amiga" if I designed a 3GHz 68000 chip?

Yes.

Well, what can I say: here one of those "haters", Amiga user uninterruptedly since 1988. I am guilty: I have an AmigaOne G4

Yes, you are. An A1200 wasn't good enough for you, even with 060. You didn't like the A500 until you put a PiStorm in it.

But don't take it the wrong way. I was an Amiga hater too. I hated them so much that only a few years ago I threw away a perfectly good A600 with 030 accelerator, and two CD32's that were probably repairable. In the old days I destroyed many A500 motherboards to get bits off them, and I sold my A3000 with 060 and RTG etc. for a pittance just to pay the bills. Then I locked the A1200 away in a dark cupboard while I played with my numerous PC's.

More recently I bought another A600 and put a Vampire in it. Probably not such a good idea because Vampire owners are universally hated - for good reason.

[Bruce Abbott]

I was thinking of benchmarking my Vampire 600 V2, but Lightwave 5 doesn't seem to be available for download. Is this viable or should I just leave it to people who already have Lightwave on their machines?

[Karlos]

Nobody is a hater for wanting more processing power. That's an absurd argument to make. Unless your needs are so basic, more is always more. As a musician and huge fan of OctaMED sound studio, I'll happily eat as much CPU as I can give it to have more and more channels. I don't want to use some other similar tool on another platform. I don't even want to use the version of OctaMED that was released for PC.

As a dabbler in graphics I want as much power as I can throw at photogenics, ImageFx, etc.

As a gamer I'd like to see games like AB3D 2 running as Andy Clitheroe must've imagined it when he wrote the main comments at the top of the source code.

Finally as a programmer I want to see what can be done with more power at my disposal.

And while I can do all that in UAE, I'd much rather be doing it at an A1200. Preferably in its original case.

If that makes me a hater, well that's your own definition.

[Korban]

It could be argued that wanting to restrict a platform and needing to rely on other systems for tasks that could be done on an Amiga if it had more raw grunt would make the person who wants it restricted a "hater".
Those of us who enjoy the Amiga typically want to do as much as possible on it without having to resort to using other systems.
It's not like having raw grunt available automatically makes people waste resources. The PC scene shows this. There's still plenty of people who like to squeeze as much as possible out of slow systems there despite the crazy amounts of processing power available to the platform.
And those who rely on raw grunt on the Amiga often don't have the skills to make optimized software either, but still want to have creative fun. Others may like the idea of creating software that would otherwise not be possible.
There's nothing lost, only things to gain.