Hello Robert;
On 06-May-99, Robert L. Williamson wrote:
> We really don't have the same comparison basis, of course. I have a
> slightly
> crippled '040 Amiga (no RAM on the accellerator), and a slightly slower PC
> (it has a Celeron, rather than a P-II). My machines are definately not
> comparable.
Your PC is actually quite comparable. The Celeron 400 gives away little to
the P-II 400, and if you were to overclock it, you could get significantly
better performance than I'm capable of.
>
> The difference is clock speed. I think that the Amiga's completely
> integrated
> GUI/graphics environment is a distinct advantage over the PC, but when it
> comes to pure number crunching, it doesn't matter what machine you have.
> The only important thing is how fast the processor can calculate, and all
> the
> Amiga's inherant advantages have no effect, there.
That's absolutely true. I ran a Cinema4D test on all my machines, seeing how
fast they could render the Staircase test scene at 1024x768x24. With v2, the
miggy managed it in 9:20, the PMac did it in 4:50 and the PC did it in 29
seconds. Things got worse when I tried v4 on the miggy. It seemed to dislike
my '060 and took over an hour, and even at that the output was horrible. And
yes, I had set all the prefs to the maximum values. So I'm very familiar with
the absolute tyranny of clock speed, and also the reality that Intel CPUs are
much better, qualitatively, than many people give them credit for.
The PC can also play Doom very rapidly at 800x600, and with 3D acceleration,
1024x768 and above is easy. The miggy can only usefully play Doom at 320x200.
That's what Mhz means to me!
> Any more I consider all promises to be vapor until they actually appear.
> I'm
> not holding out any hopes at all for AMozilla.
I'm holding out hope, albeit a dim one. I've been battered about myself,
having pre-ordered a Siamese PCI and a PIV Voodoo module. At least the
Siamese folks speak every now and then. ;>
There are certainly Amiga products which could have made a difference had they
appeared on time -- imagine if the Boxer had been ready last year when the
A4KT injunction resulted in the sudden death of nearly all the Toaster/Flyer
shops across the USA? Let me rephrase that, not so much Toaster/Flyer
shops but computer video shops that still had support for Toaster/Flyer.
Techs could have been retained, the market could have advanced thanks to new,
low pricing, but instead it all went bust.
So the Boxer is more than a year behind schedule.
The Siamese PCI is nearly a year behind schedule and if it ever does appear,
it will be nearly two years behind schedule.
The PIV Voodoo Module was supposed to be released in March. It was supposed
to be a fast project since most of the design work had already been done for
the Mac board, which had initially been tested on a PIV anyway. At the
current rate, by the time it appears no one will care.
The Escena Brainstormer G3 board was supposed to appear in March. Who knows
when it might appear now?
People like to rag on Phase5, but the odds are that if anyone can deliver a
G3/G4 board in our lifetime, it will be them and it will be good. They have a
track record for being late, but at least they have a track record............
This is the reason I have to have a PC. If I only had an Amiga, I'd go nuts
waiting for things to happen. With a PC, if I want a new video board, I get
one. If I want anything, I get it. If I need to get it fixed I take it to
the shop. Simple. Peace of mind. The Amiga fulfills the quixotic side of my
computing experience, the PC the safe side. :>
>
>> It's already defunct technology. You're from Kansas City? Where can you
> take
>> an Amiga for repair?
>
> Nowhere. Never have been able to (fortunately, my Amigas have never needed
> repair).
Lucky, very lucky.
>>> And for an extra $200 you can buy a Pentium-class machine that will run
>>> circles around your upgraded A1200 in virtually any application
> environment
>>> you care to suggest.
>>
>> Not true. You can buy the PC for that price, but it will not run circles
>> around an '060 Amiga to the extent you describe.
>
> I guess our information doesn't match, then. If I shop around I can get a
> 450MHz PII for under $1000. Sorry, but I don't see any '060 being able to
> beat
> that machine's raw computing capacity.
Never said it could. I only disagreed with the broad extent of your claims.
There's lots of application environments where 'raw computing capacity' means
little, and others where it means everything. However, as time goes on and
the mainstream boxen march forward, while we stay behind, we will eventually
lose out in every environment.
> Again, it boils down to MHz -- not
> operating systems. If you're doing word processing, it doesn't matter much.
> The
> PC just spends much more of it's time waiting on you. Anything requiring
> much
> number crunching is going to be *much* faster on the PC -- unless they've
> got
> 450MHz '060s (I don't think so, but I could be wrong).
When we get 1Ghz PPCs and Pentiums, we can probably emulate the '060 at those
speeds, if not faster. A P-II can already emulate a 400Mhz '040, according to
the Gemulator guys.
> I know other
>> people with Amigas having a full-time ethernet connection to the internet.
>> CPU speed has very little to do with internet speed, as you should well
> know.
>
> Of course not. Here we are once again talking about the Amiga's outdated
> interfacing hardware (in this case the serial port). I get comparable
> connect
> times, but the Amiga falls behind very quickly after that. On my Amiga I
> used
> to dread downloading files from Aminet. Now it's a snap with my PC.
I can understand, although in my experience the miggy was pretty quick
downloading with its old 28.8 USR and the old serial port. But 28.8 was
obviously where it was going to end.
> Yes (sort of) and no. There is an I/O Extender built into my GForce card,
> but like
> much of the rest of the card it doesn't work, anymore (the memory went bye
> bye,
> too).
Bummer!
>> I like the environment. I like the MUI interface and the fast response.
>
> Some people love MUI and some people hate it. I, for one, happen to like
> the fact that Ollie chose MUI for Voyager (yes, I registered both).
Same here. I register as much shareware as I can. However, I haven't been
utterly thrilled with registering at German sites that lack online purchasing.
As a result I haven't done much of that lately, though there's apps I'd love
to get the full use of. Alas, I can understand why so many authors can't
afford to make online purchasing available. :<
> I use IE5. Haven't had a single crash. For that matter, Voyager has never
> crashed on me, either (although MUI did on a few occasions and took Voyager
> with it).
Older versions of Voyager used to crash frequently -- and hard -- on my
machine, complete with ugly disk invalidations. Since 2.95, it's been so long
since the last crash that I can't really remember it. :>
BTW, in the 'your mileage may vary' department, Netscape Navigator has never
crashed on my PC, but it almost always crashes on the Mac. The PC version is
also ten times faster at some operations.
> Well, I have to agree with you completely about Voyager. I just recently
> downloaded
> UAE. When I get it to working the first application I'll be installing on
> my PC is,
> you guessed it, Voyager (well, actually MUI, but that's only so I can run
> Voyager).
I've already installed MUI on my PC (Amiga Forever). I'll get around to doing
more in the coming months. Voyager will be on the list, you can bet!
Obviously, we agree a lot more than we disagree. :)
--
Best;
Steve Duff Team AMIGA
QuikPak A4060T 82MB/1GB SCSI/4MB CV64-3D w/Scan Doubler
Melody Z-2/4X SCSI CD-ROM/GVP I-O Extender
"Every little breeze seems to whisper Louise"
--Maurice
Chevalier
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