Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask

[DamienD]

Thanks for the detailed post Daedalus

Originally Posted by Daedalus

If that's the case (and you're using 3.1) then scratch my whole post :/

I am using 3.1.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by idrougge

SORT wasn't added until a bit after OS 3.1 (first in the Envoy package, I think), wasn't it?

List was included in 2.04 already.

Thank you Daedalus for that introduction to list! I feel more confident about the command now

[Daedalus]

Yeah, List itself is there since 2.0, but possibly not the SORT option, which kinda makes the example useless for DamienD's purposes. I'll check it out when I'm home later on. Still, the rest of the info stands

[Jope]

The separate sort command (for sorting ascii text files) has been there since at least 1.2 .. Just write a nice shell script. :-)

[s2325]

Are fumes in level 1 of Running Man have some function? Is it possible to hit camera man?

[E-Penguin]

I have an A500+ with WB2.04 (I discover, thanks to the previous answers here on how to tell!).

Is there much benefit to upgrading to WB2.1? Other than getting Locale: support.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

I have an A500+ with WB2.04 (I discover, thanks to the previous answers here on how to tell!).

Is there much benefit to upgrading to WB2.1? Other than getting Locale: support.

I would say it is a good idea to run 2.1 if you want to have 2.04 ROMs in the machine.

This assuming, that you have a hard disk. On a floppy only system, WB 2.04 is more usable due to not being spread out on as many disks.

I must say I don't really see the allure of sticking with 2.x, as 3.1 is just as fast on a 68000 machine.

[ajk]

As a general rule of thumb:

If you run a bare bones floppy based system (A1000, A500, A600 mainly) use 1.3.

If you have a hard drive and some extra memory, go for 3.1.

If you have an expanded and accelerated system, consider 3.9.

[E-Penguin]

Thanks, I have 1.3, 3.1 (and 3.9) installed elsewhere and in general I totally agree that 2.x has nothing to commend it over versions with a 3 in them.

Maybe I'll try both in winuae for a while and see which I prefer. 2.1 doesn't seem to bring any more or less compatibility over 2.04 from what I can tell.

[Daedalus]

Yeah, since 2.1 is a Workbench-only update (i.e., keeps the same 2.04/2.05 ROM), compatibility with most games etc. remain unchanged. The addition of Locale is the big change in 2.1. I can't think of any others at all in fact other than minor updates to various components - features-wise I don't think there was anything else.

[Jope]

Basically it's a backport of 3.x concepts to 2.x users and it has some bugfixes. In any case a 2.x user should find the latest setpatch that still runs on their machine, the one from 3.9BB2 actually might.

[Amiga1992]

I quite like 2.1 and used it for many years, it has many of the niceties of 3.x but runs on 2.x Kickstarts.
I never found a problem using it. then again, I am not a heavy Workbench user.
If it is not your main machine, you might as well leave it be. No need to upgrade o 3.x if you are just gonna play games off disk.
ajk's advice to go 1.3 on floppy-only systems might be the wisest move.

[wiz12]

I currently have an A1200 Tower setup with an Elbox Zorro IV daughter board and Picasso IV gfx card. Would there be any benefit in changing this setup to a newer Mediator PCI 1200 TX with Radeon 9200?

[Daedalus]

Yep - more video RAM and much higher resolutions. Also, faster at those high resolutions for most things. Downside is that Mediators are expensive and can be tricky to get working reliably.

Edit: And DVI out is pretty handy these days too.

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Yep - more video RAM and much higher resolutions. Also, faster at those high resolutions for most things. Downside is that Mediators are expensive and can be tricky to get working reliably.

Edit: And DVI out is pretty handy these days too.

So does software or games that use the gfx card like e.g. Napalm run faster or would there any compatibility issues since the Radeon isn't a true Amiga gfx card?

What about using a Soundblaster, can you mix CDDA & Paula audio through it?

[Daedalus]

Well, there aren't that many real incompatibilities. Software that works on graphics cards uses the P96/CGX API, so should work on any supported graphics card. The API calls are accelerated by the GPU on the card, so certain drawing operations will be faster, which will speed up the game overall, and also allow much higher resolutions to be used. The extra RAM will mean that you're less likely to run out of it, which causes swapping with fast RAM, and slowdowns as a consequence. You'll see that when having many high-resolution, high depth screens open for example.

As for sound cards, yes, you can run Paula outputs into one of the card's inputs. The Mixer program (and the various 3rd party replacements) let you set the levels of each of the inputs, so you can also mix in CDDA audio.

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Well, there aren't that many real incompatibilities. Software that works on graphics cards uses the P96/CGX API, so should work on any supported graphics card. The API calls are accelerated by the GPU on the card, so certain drawing operations will be faster, which will speed up the game overall, and also allow much higher resolutions to be used. The extra RAM will mean that you're less likely to run out of it, which causes swapping with fast RAM, and slowdowns as a consequence. You'll see that when having many high-resolution, high depth screens open for example.

As for sound cards, yes, you can run Paula outputs into one of the card's inputs. The Mixer program (and the various 3rd party replacements) let you set the levels of each of the inputs, so you can also mix in CDDA audio.

Thanks Daedalus.

[ViLXDRYAD]

for some reason this message always pops up when i start my workbench 3.1


here is the assign list


any help is much appreciated ;-;

[Daedalus]

Looks like something was installed or set up to look for a disk called System:, which has since been removed or renamed. You can either find the culprit (check S:Startup-sequence and S:User-startup to start with) and correct the issue, or work around it by adding an assign for System: to your boot drive by adding this before the offending line in one of the startup scripts:

Assign System: SYS:

[ViLXDRYAD]

OMG there was one entry on SYS:S/User-startup that pointed to a System: drive; i changed it to SYS: and it worked like a charm! =' D thanks you so much, Daedalus! x3 you are a pro!