@BigD Quote:

the days of Amiga being about 'ease of use' computing are dead and gone aren't they!!?

No need to get upset! With the death of Commodore/etc, AmigaOS fell far behind modern standards (after being ahead of them).

With Hyperion in charge (but on a limited budget), we are gradually getting back up to par. But you can't expect everything to be perfect right away. If you do, then AmigaOS (and clones) is not for you at the moment. But we've made tremendous progress in the last year or so, and I expect that momentum to continue.

Quote:

It sounds altogether that the Sam is far too much effort for too little gain for my £700 big ones

OS4.1 *beta* has been what you would expect from beta software - it works (sometimes quite well), but there are problems doing certain things. With the release of Update 1, I expect things to be quite a bit better on Sam440. It's just a pity that it took this long (presumably due to the law suit draining money + MAP draining resources).

Also, software for OS4 is still being developed. e.g. It wasn't that long ago OWB was unusably slow & buggy, now it is preferably to IBrowse in most situations.

In the end, for £680 from AmigaKit (plus P&P), you are getting pretty much what you should expect: The only new hardware capable of running AmigaOS4 ! If you prefer(ed) AmigaOS over Mac OS X or Windows or Linux, then this is the obvious way to go. If you would rather being using a Mac or WIndows, well, that's your choice...

Last edited by ChrisH on 18-Dec-2009 at 04:14 PM.
Last edited by ChrisH on 18-Dec-2009 at 04:08 PM.
Last edited by ChrisH on 18-Dec-2009 at 04:07 PM.
Last edited by ChrisH on 18-Dec-2009 at 03:57 PM.

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@BigD
Quote:

It's a fudge is what it is! The Sam can't even upload a picture to eBay!!@$!! - away with you and take your hobby mobo with you!!!

You know what? I never tryed the loading picture feature over at ebay. I never used what ebay offers, I have a pre-made template where I only change pictures and text descriptions since 2002 (and it works with SAM so I suggested my method) .

But I think the ebay thing its just a bug that should be reported, no need to make a fuss about it.

_________________
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AmigaCD 32

@BigD

Quote:

BigD wrote: @$!! - away with you and take your hobby mobo with you!!!

Let's keep it civil please. There is no need to depart from polite conversation.

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@DAX

Look, I am speaking with facts. VGA didn't worked and I was forced by a failure of my Sam to buy a new monitor which supported DVI. Well, I did, I paid 200 extra euros for one 19inch Samsung. Which resolution will I use with it? 640x480? The native resolution for the monitor is 1680x1050, nothing more and nothing less. I am not going to use native resolutions of ScummVm because in this case the game will look like a dot on a great dark area around it. And because I widen the screen area of the game, the graphics are slightly distorted, so I have to patch it with video filtering.

Regarding using 16Bit Workbench, like ChrisH wrote, well I have to say that in 13 days we are entering 2010, so short answer is "no". 32Bit or nothing.

My experiment regarding Wesnoth is ok by my standards. I open Ctorrent and start seeding something, then open Battle for Wesnoth on a window, start playing, I get bored, I leave it running, I open OWB, then open 5 tabs all of Amiga Forums for reading and having a break, while I would like to listen to audio streaming via Tune-net and/or playback a video clip of a song. I return back to the game, scrolling sucks, game slows down cpu 100%, the end.

Regarding 3D games. True, we have outdated games (Shogo is awesome btw, shame that OS4.1 doesn't support it, if you have a capable OS3.x machine which can run, I strongly suggest you to play with it!). But the truth is that we also have inadequate performance. I play at 1280x1024 QuakeLive (www.quakelive.com , free port of Quake 3) from inside Firefox browser (!) and I get 125fps constantly on a 4 years old pc. How much fps would I get at the very same resolution, of my Sam, 20?

But, while we agree that OS4.1+Sam on 3D games, and area in general I would say, has some weakness, please inform me, which is the strong point of Sam+OS4.1? If not 3D, is it multitasking, is it the modern workbench experience (while we struggle to get features on Filer implemented by Opus ten years ago?), is it the 5.1 audio which doesn't work due to AHI faults, is it the capability to play 720p movies in straight way, is that OWB is lacking in features behind the port OWB for Mos?

_________________

Its not the performance that puts me off buying a SAM its the price. Its great that we have new hardware and obviously Acube have to make a profit. Its just a pity a mobo+os is not around the £300-£350 mark (¤350-¤400) .

@Cool_amigaN
Sad to hear about your monitor mate, once I burned a 25" CRT TV with a NEC PC Engine I know how it feels. (my VGA output works fine thankfully enough).

As for the rest you should understand that we are talking two different things. Nobody here is saying that Sam is a Cray supercomputer, and probably to those like you that love to have 10 applications running at the same time it might be of little use.

However what most people here is saying is that from the point of view of users that prefer to concentrate on what they are doing like watching a beautiful movie, listening to a great song, playing a great game etc Sam is just enough.

There are amigans like me and many on this thread that simply prefer to give quality time to each app (how can you truly "feel" a song, watch a movie and play a game simultaneously while browsing the net with your feet??).

Moreover nobody here is comparing Sam to other systems, just talking about the good time Sam can deliver to fans of AmigaOS.

P.S.
Some of the stuff you mentioned was not related to Sam, but to OS4.1 in general. Fret not my friend as time have changed for the better very recently. The situation we are in is the ill fruit of past blunders and does not represent what's ahead of us. At least wait for Hyperion to reveal the MAP

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SamFlex Complete 800Mhz System + AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4
Amiga 2000 DKB 2MB ChipRam GVP G-Force040 Picasso 2 OS3.9 BB2
AmigaCD 32

Quote:

Cool_amigaN wrote: ... Quake III on adequate resolutions (1280x1024@32bit) has low fps. The above list is of demanding applications. I do not dare to think how Gnash, Timberworlf or OWB with NPAPI support will react on the system.

Quake III is really fast on my Samflex at that resolution ...bring on Timberwolf please ..I owuld recommend waiting until OS4.1 final update release is out to judge the speed of many applications

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Quote:

BigD wrote: .......The Sam can't even upload a picture to eBay!!@$!! - away with you and take your hobby mobo with you!!!

wait until OS4.1 final update & also TimberWolf is released ....there is hope in the horizon o misguided one

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mancave-ramblings
X1000 I BELIEVE

@klx300r Quote:

Quake III is really fast on my Samflex at that resolution

I imagine that your 800MHz helps here, but care to post your Q3 settings?

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@Cool_amigaN Quote:

The native resolution for the monitor is 1680x1050, nothing more and nothing less. I am not going to use native resolutions of ScummVm because in this case the game will look like a dot on a great dark area around it. And because I widen the screen area of the game, the graphics are slightly distorted, so I have to patch it with video filtering.

Maybe we have a mix-up here. When I say "use native resolutions", I mean for a game that wants a (say) 320x240 display, to actually use a 320x240 screen mode. Which requires creating one in Radeon monitor tooltypes. This should be displayed at FULL SCREEN, not a tiny postage-stamp size.

As for handling video distortion due to using wide-screen display for non-widescreen output, you should be able to fix it without filtering: You need to create a "native" screenmode which is proportionally wider. For example, say you want to show a 320x240 screen without distortion. Take 240 *1680 / 1050 = 384. So create a 384*240 screenmode in your Radeon monitor tooltype. Now get your game to use that (I think it should use it automatically, as long as you do NOT have a 320x240 screenmode available.)

Quote:

32Bit or nothing.

Sigh. I know it may not be desirable to use 16-bit (although I can't tell the difference 99% of the time), but 32-bit is simply not realistic with 1680x1050 on the Sam440-ITX's built-in 64MB of gfx-ram. If you had a SamFLEX then this would not be a problem.

If you had a FLEX, then you would not have needed to buy a DVI monitor either. (The Sam440-ITX's built-in gfx does not seem designed for such large resolutions.)

Quote:

My experiment regarding Wesnoth is ok by my standards. I open Ctorrent and start seeding something, then open Battle for Wesnoth on a window, start playing, I get bored, I leave it running, I open OWB, then open 5 tabs all of Amiga Forums for reading and having a break, while I would like to listen to audio streaming via Tune-net and/or playback a video clip of a song. I return back to the game, scrolling sucks, game slows down cpu 100%, the end.

You seem to be really trying to kill your Sam's performance here, but it should be possible under AmigaOS if it is set-up right:

First, you need to identify the CPU-heavy taks. My guess is that CTorrent is a big one. So ensure that it runs at a priority of less than zero (e.g. -1). If CTorrent is started from the Shell, then type ChangeTaskPri -1 before starting CTorrent. CTorrent can now use 100% CPU without slowing-down anything else!

For OWB, check that you do not have any video animations (usually adverts) visible, as this may slow the system down. This would happen on IBrowse too, except that it offered the option to disable GIF animations when the window was not active, so really this is a limitation of OWB.

TuneNet should be fine, so no worries here. VIdeo playback should be fine as well, as long as you don't have it playing while trying to play your game!

Finally, check your video memory usage (add "%mgm MB video free" to the Workbench titlebar if not already). If it is getting very low, then you HAVE to switch to 16-bit screenmodes OR disable compositing (or possibly both). Or use a Radeon 256MB PCI card instead (will be faster on a Flex but should still work on your ITX).

Quote:

Shogo is awesome btw, shame that OS4.1 doesn't support it,

More like Shogo does not support OS4, because like many old PPC games it uses heavy magic (hitting hardware, etc!) to achieve reasonable performance on those old PPC accelerators. Hyperion really should release a fix...

Regarding 3D games, stuff less demanding than Quake 3 runs fine, e.g. Quake 2. And some people with faster Sam440-Flex's seem to indicate that it runs OK on their system.

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@Cool_amigaN Quote:

which is the strong point of Sam+OS4.1?

It's strong point is being an up-to-date & (relatively) modern version of AmigaOS running on relatively modern/fast hardware. Really, there is no comparison to OS3.9 on an accelerated A1200, even with a slow RTG graphic card.

Does that mean Sam+OS4 cannot be even better? Of course not! After being ahead of the PC, the Amiga fell a long way behind while it lacked any real owner. Only now is it starting to catch-up again. Some stuff works great, but there are clearly many areas where things can still be improved (and no-doubt will be given time).

Should you have bought a Sam440+OS4? Yes, but I think you should have delayed it by 6-12 months. I think if you had waited for a pre-built 733/800MHz Sam440 FLEX, then a lot of your problems would not exist. Also OS4 support for Sam440 was beta, and you do not seem to have been happy dealing with those problems (a few of which we are still waiting to be fixed in Update 1). Then perhaps you would not have such a negative opinion, and so be willing to try to work-around/fix any remaining issues...


As for why you'd want a modern-ish AmigaOS - because of how it works, many Amigans find it a joy to use (fast/responsive GUI, instant screen switching, fast boot, clean/modern-looking GUI, active window does not have to be the front window, more modern programs than OS3, easy to modify/fix the system due to simple layout, etc).

Last edited by ChrisH on 20-Dec-2009 at 10:29 AM.
Last edited by ChrisH on 20-Dec-2009 at 10:26 AM.

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@klx300r

Could you provide us some benchmark of Quake III on your Sam ? (and with your settings please)

Quote:

Sigh. I know it may not be desirable to use 16-bit (although I can't tell the difference 99% of the time), but 32-bit is simply not realistic with 1680x1050 on the Sam440-ITX's built-in 64MB of gfx-ram. If you had a SamFLEX then this would not be a problem.

Confirmed, no troubles running my sam at 1600x1050@32Bit color (using a Radeon 9250 with 128MB of VRAM).
By the way, one can add a Graphics Card to Sam440EP too in case he cannot live without higher resolutions...

As for Scumm and other emulators I will tell you this: upscaling with filtering sucks. BIG TIME Sucks.
I have a VGA->Scart RGB converter since way before I got my Sam (a mid range one although now I'm targeting a £123 top of the line model) even though on my windows RIG I was able to play Dungens and Dragons Shadow over Mystara on my HDTV with top of the line filters applied (at 60FPS with no frame skip of course).
The reason is, no matter the filter it will never look authentic/the same as the original. Try the above game on a Japanese Sega Saturn connected through RGB scart to a CRT TV/Monitor and see what I mean.

So I now created a Set Up to play it on a 21" Sony CRT TV and it looks just the same as it looked in the arcades or import Sega Saturn.

If one can cope with "differences" than it will be no problem creating a real "native" screen mode and play on a PC monitor full screen at that resolutions. Otherwise get yourself a nice converter and leave filters alone.

Last edited by DAX on 20-Dec-2009 at 01:44 PM.
Last edited by DAX on 20-Dec-2009 at 12:13 PM.

_________________
SamFlex Complete 800Mhz System + AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4
Amiga 2000 DKB 2MB ChipRam GVP G-Force040 Picasso 2 OS3.9 BB2
AmigaCD 32

@Daff

sure but what do I use to benchmark it ..as for settings I don't recall messing with them really other than loading the game file from the Arena PC CD...

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@klx300r

Info on testing and tweaking Quake 3 can be found here/.

@klx300r

Open the console of Quake III.
Type "timedemo 1"
Type "demo four"
Show the demo
Return to the console and see the results (fps)
Don't forget to give us your settings (resoluation, details, etc.)

Here with Pegasos II G4, Radeon 9250PRO, AmigaOS 4.1, resolutions 1280x1024, max details, 32 bits : 9,4 fps.

@DAX

Well, technically, I am one of a few new users, my last OS amiga type was 1.4.

Now I cam beack to OS4.1

Ironic I know.

Cheers

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Flex is 800mhz
A1000 with Classic 520 Amiga OS3.2.1
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https://blitterwolf.blogspot.com

@ChrisH

That is silly what you are suggesting.

That means because I or my friends who arent as computer orientated, posting on car forums are also Geeks???? What are you on about.

Cheers

Last edited by Gebrochen on 21-Dec-2009 at 05:31 AM.
Last edited by Gebrochen on 21-Dec-2009 at 04:38 AM.

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Courtesy of SAM440Flex & Amiga OS4.1 only
Flex is 800mhz
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AmiKit 12
MorphOS PowerBook G4 (which can play youtube vids)

https://blitterwolf.blogspot.com

I'd happily buy a motherboard for Amiga OS as long as it has a CPU that's as least as fast as my 6 year old pc. Doesn't even have to be dual core.

I do insist on PCI-E graphics, though. And at least 4 PCI slots.

And like Ancalimon, I wouldn't mind programming on an Amiga. As long, that is, as it runs Java. I like Java a lot.

And don't worry - the Java software I'm writing now will run on an Amiga. Or under Windoze, or under Linux.

It'll even run on a phone. As long as it's not an iPhone, that is.

(I'm even less likely to buy an iPhone than I am to buy a SAM).

@Gebrochen Quote:

That means because I or my friends who arent as computer orientated, posting on car forums are also Geeks???? What are you on about.

If being interested in an obscure computer/OS (or computers in general) isn't pure "geek", then I don't know what is! Maybe we have different definitions of "geek"?

BTW, it used to be derogatory term, and can still be, at least in the UK.

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