Unreleased Amiga chipset better than anything today?

[MigaTech]

The Amiga chipset when the right software is presented can be quite incredible. It was never really ever pushed to its true limits.

Though some may disagree.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by MigaTech

You missed the abbreviation DP was meant for David pleasance.

I was going to say Double Penetration but Deluxe Paint seemed more appropriate.



And DPaint IV for HAM8 AGA support, DPaint V was so much slower and didn't really work well for RTG either.
I didn't like PPaint because it didn't support HAM8.
Brilliance was good too, but DPaint IV had better animation.
I used TVPaint a lot for 24 bit.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Once again - in Amiga times even 64MiB of RAM was huge amount of memory - you are referring to technology created 10..20 years after Amiga (Commodore) bankruptcy. It is quite obvious that technology progressed significantly since AGA times.
Amiga OS memory limitation is not substantially different than other 32 bit OS's from beginning of 90's.
Even NT was severely limited in terms of addressable memory despite being oriented toward professional use cases.
I recall many statements around 80/90 that 32 bit address space is huge and RAM size will be NEVER able to achieve 32 bit address limit (physical limitation).

Btw - if you willing to check conflicts in 24 bit address space you should definitely get more familiar with PC XT/AT limitations...

PC has 32 bit DOS extender and games like Doom have used it e.g. DOS/4GW.

MS DOS's EMM386 and XMM config sys are annoying, hence I prefer to run AmigaOS's DOS PC game ports in the AmigaOS environment.

DOS's Soundblaster IRQ, Interrupts and DMA issues, and DOS sound drivers that locked on particular X86 chipsets are also annoying i.e. they wouldn't run on 1st generation Core i7 era P55 chipsets and I still have my SB Live 5.1 PCI and Yamaha XG YMF724E PCI cards. I don't feel like digging out the ATX size Pentium II Slot 1 motherboard from storage. I tested open-source SBemu which works with Doom, but it has incompatibility issues with other DOS games.

With Windows XP and Windows 7 32-bit, the mentioned PCI sound cards are fine. Yamaha XG YMF724E's MIDI PCM playback is still good. I have S-YXG50 plug-ins running on Windows 11 64bit.

A modern PC hardware running retro DOS also has retro EMM / XMM config issues.

Originally Posted by pandy71

PCMCIA is not conflicting - simply this address is shared - you could at least in theory use FC lines to isolate PCMCIA from general memory range thus avoid conflicts - there is multiple if then but this was never big problem as rarely amount of RAM in A600/A1200 in 24 bit space exceeded 4MiB (and it was never issue in 32 bit space).

A1200 PCMCIA issues are "Gayle reset" and 24-bit memory address conflicts (depending on the RAM expansion card).
I purchased a "Gayle reset" adapter to fix the boot freeze with my Prism2-based WiFi issue with A1200's PCMCIA slot.

I do have AmigaKit's A1200 8 MB Fast RAM FPU expansion cards, and it has jumpers for 4MB, 5.5MB, and 8 MB modes. The user needs to be aware of it.

TF1260 (with a full 68060 rev1) doesn't add Fast RAM in the 24-bit address space.

Emu68's default behavior was modified to not add Fast RAM in the 24-bit address space.

From AmigaOS 3.2 baseline, wifi internet is not a plug-and-play experience. I use "CoffeineOS 921 Storm" for wifi internet and NetSurf 3.10, hence the Amiga programs can be downloaded from the internet without using an internet-connected Windows PC.

Certain Amiga users poured on a guilt trip about CoffeineOS Storm's piracy issue and I do have an AmigaOS 4.1 FE license with RoadShow TCP/IP bundle. LOL

[Pyromania]

@Hammer

Remove the Pirate flag from your ship mattie and sail the open internet seas. You have purchased enough Amiga goodies to be golden and licensed.

[Locutus]

Originally Posted by pandy71

I recall many statements around 80/90 that 32 bit address space is huge and RAM size will be NEVER able to achieve 32 bit address limit (physical limitation).

That's silly, the first 64 bit address space CPU's came out in 1991 and 1992 (MIPS R4000 and Alpha 21064).


Yes, those where pretty far high end at the time, but as far as technology path goes quite clear. 'Big systems come down'

[Pyromania]

I’m saying it now, 640 Yottabytes is enough for anyone.

[TCD]

Can we first max out Petabytes please?

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Locutus

Yes, those where pretty far high end at the time, but as far as technology path goes quite clear. 'Big systems come down'

Not as quickly for 64bit address spaces. Just try to find a consumer CPU that has even a 48bit address bus. That's 256 terabytes of RAM. That's going to take a while.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Locutus

That's silly, the first 64 bit address space CPU's came out in 1991 and 1992 (MIPS R4000 and Alpha 21064).

Saying 'never' is always silly, but 'for the forseeable future' could be as little as 10 years depending on your business model. In 1992 4GB of RAM was an incredibly large amount that was literally worth a fortune. Most PCs sold today don't have more than that, 30 years later. If they didn't have 64 bit CPUs they wouldn't even need that much.

Yes, those where pretty far high end at the time, but as far as technology path goes quite clear. 'Big systems come down'

Sure, but designing a home computer based on what might happen in 30 years time is silly.

Amiga fans love to ding Commodore for not thinking forward enough in their designs, but this is ridiculous. By the time 4GB of RAM has come down to a reasonable price CPUs will be 100 times faster and the entire architecture of your low-end personal computer is way out of date. You make machines to sell now, not 30 years into the future.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Most PCs sold today don't have more than that, 30 years later.

No idea about New Zealand, but here in Germany PCs with 4 GB or less are the minority. Most have at least 8 GB (entry level 'business' PCs that is).

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by hammer

A1200 PCMCIA issues are "Gayle reset" and 24-bit memory address conflicts (depending on the RAM expansion card).
I purchased a "Gayle reset" adapter to fix the boot freeze with my Prism2-based WiFi issue with A1200's PCMCIA slot.

The silly thing about the 'Gayle reset' problem is that it was just a software issue (which I didn't know about when I developed the hardware fix, due to poor documentation of the AGA chipset). I presume newer versions of the OS have fixed it.

The PCMCIA RAM conflict is a result of Commodore not considering the possibility of people having 8MB Fast RAM as well as a PCMCIA I/O card. In the A600 this wasn't possible because you could only add Fast RAM via PCMCIA. I guess they figured 4MB was plenty enough for a low-end A500 replacement, but then they were stuck with the same memory map on the A1200. Still, 4MB Fast RAM is plenty enough for what most people would be doing on a 14MHz A1200. If you want more then get an accelerator card!

TF1260 (with a full 68060 rev1) doesn't add Fast RAM in the 24-bit address space.

AFAIK most A1200 accelerator cards are the same, which makes sense because a contiguous memory space is better than being split into several separate areas.

Certain Amiga users poured on a guilt trip about CoffeineOS Storm's piracy issue and I do have an AmigaOS 4.1 FE license with RoadShow TCP/IP bundle. LOL

Funny how Amiga fans are getting guilty now, when back in the day they copied everything in sight (then argued they would have bought it if it was any good / a reasonable price etc.). I had been using AmiTCP 3.0b2 for decades but recently purchased Roadshow because it is much faster, and I bought an IBrowse upgrade this week. If we want to see continued development of high quality Amiga products like this we need to pay for them!

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TCD

No idea about New Zealand, but here in Germany PCs with 4 GB or less are the minority. Most have at least 8 GB (entry level 'business' PCs that is).

I was talking about 'home' computers, not 'business' PCs.

Most PCs sold here are laptops, and all the 'low-end' models only come with 4GB. BTW did you know the official minimum memory requirement for Windows 10 is 1GB? Imagine how bad that would be...

It's a well known fact in the PC world today that to reach full potential you need at least 16GB and a high spec SSD. Virtual memory was supposed to make huge amounts of RAM unnecessary, but in practice you don't want to run out of physical RAM with a mechanical hard drive. When my Linux system does this it slows down ridiculously, and there's nothing I can do but wait (sometimes for 10 minutes or longer) for it to sort itself out. Very frustrating! Give me an OS that tells me how much RAM I have and limits apps to that much.

[grond]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I was talking about 'home' computers, not 'business' PCs.

Um, today "business PCs" are the low-cost models, "home computers" have expensive graphics cards and much more RAM than "business PCs" these days.

You will have difficulties finding a preconfigured PC with less than 8GB of RAM. But we can agree that the 32bit address barrier has only recently become truely relveant ("recently" compared to the almost 30 years since Commodore went down).

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Most PCs sold here are laptops, and all the 'low-end' models only come with 4GB.

Okay, the low end ones still come with 4 GB, but the majority also for laptops comes with 8 GB or more. The cheapest on a popular German website is 199 € with 4 GB and the cheapest with 8 GB is 299 €: https://www.notebooksbilliger.de/not...price_link_asc

Windows 11 has a minimum RAM requirement of 4 GB, so getting a 4 GB today is pretty... unclever

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by MigaTech

The Amiga chipset when the right software is presented can be quite incredible. It was never really ever pushed to its true limits.

Though some may disagree.

'Incredible' might be a bit over the top, but certainly its full potential hasn't been reached. I am amazed by what people are doing today with a stock A500.

The trick is to not set your sights too high. When AGA came out people said oh goody now we can have 256 colors and 4 times the resolution and run in 31kHz, then were horribly disappointed when it was slower (of course nobody compared it to a typical ISA bus VGA card of the day, which was just as slow or worse).

This is what I call 'user bloat' - a compulsion to push the hardware until it creaks and then get upset about it having limits. If Hombre was produced you can bet that as soon Amiga fans got their hands on it they would be turning everything up to 11, then complaining about how they were 'only' getting 60fps at 1280 × 1024 in 16 million colors.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TCD

Okay, the low end ones still come with 4 GB, but the majority also for laptops comes with 8 GB or more. The cheapest on a popular German website is 199 € with 4 GB and the cheapest with 8 GB is 299 €:

So 50% higher price just to get an extra 4GB?

Originally Posted by grond

Um, today "business PCs" are the low-cost models, "home computers" have expensive graphics cards and much more RAM than "business PCs" these days.

Around here we call those 'gaming' PCs. Not generally availabe in stores because the average 'home' customer doesn't need or want one.

[grond]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

turning everything up to 11

Hehehe...

[grond]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

So 50% higher price just to get an extra 4GB?

Usually they add more into the whole deal. 100€ for 4GB would be quite ridiculous. Btw, even my mother's laptop (she died in 2019 and already had the laptop for a couple of years) has 8GB of RAM. And that was the cheapest laptop available at the time that came with a decent display. Admittedly it came with 4GB of RAM and I added the other 4GB when my kids had to use it for home schooling during the covid period.

Around here we call those 'gaming' PCs. Not generally availabe in stores because the average 'home' customer doesn't need or want one.

OK, let's rephrase: home computers have dedicated graphics cards, gaming PCs have very expensive graphics cards. Oh, and they sell gaming PCs in supermarkets over here (of course none that an ambitious gamer would consider buying but nonetheless these are computers with graphics cards that alone cost more than a "business PC").

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

So 50% higher price just to get an extra 4GB?

Yeah, I know it's crazy. I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find a 4 GB one for 150 €. That would be half the price of the 8 GB model!

Imagine that people pay 10x as much for a PC that runs everything you throw at it smoothly. What kind of mad person would do that? I mean excluding myself of course.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by TCD

Imagine that people pay 10x as much for a PC that runs everything you throw at it smoothly. What kind of mad person would do that? I mean excluding myself of course.

Well not me that's for sure. For a start I can't stand Windows 10/11 and wouldn't pay anything for it. I'm not into the latest PC games so I don't need a fancy graphics card etc., and people keep giving me PCs that are plenty powerful enough for what I do.

Unfortunately the 64 bit gaming PC with 4GB RAM that a workmate gave me in a box of 'electronic junk' a couple of years ago died last week. Can't be bothered trying to fix it, so I just whipped out the 'dead' laptop someone recently gave me - which actually had nothing wrong with it (just needed to let Windows 10 sort itself out). This machine is only used for watching online TV shows so it doesn't need to be anything fancy - however I will say that Windows 10 sucks at it compared to 64 bit Linux on a similarly specced machine.