SAM Flex Stuttering Issue workbench or software use / games

@Gebrochen

After testing it myself!

@Gebrochen

In addition...

Quote:

If you see where that is you'll see it's giving the G3D rating for 3D. The 5450 has no direct 3d support in OS4 so this figure is irrelevant to OS4 really. And for supported 3d cards, the R7 240 and HD 7770 as examples, the figure is only relevant when hardware 3d drivers are installed and used. Such as Warp3D Nova and modern software using the modern drivers.

For Workbench use what important figure to look at is the G2D rating. Since that would be relevant for 2D compositing. Which is included in the full RadeonHD driver regardless.

In that case a 9250 gets 127, 5450 gets 140, R7 240 gets 273 and HD 7770 gets 461. You can see the 5450 is slightly better than the 9250 which isn't half bad. 7770 gets best score.

Of also to note is that any HD card and above needs to go through a PCI bridge. And some like the 9250 design for PCI can be better for some operations over the PCI bus. I did read of some latency with copying to VRAM. With 3d this doesn't look crippling given textures would be uploaded to VRAM for GPU operations. Though I would have thought even for 2d images would be uploaded as well so hardware would simply copy internally.

@Hypex
Quote:I don't know what that G2D rating uses. While the AmigaOS IGraphics->CompositeTag(s|List)() function is mostly used for 2D operations like scaling, rotating, alpha blending, etc., it's based on the 3D features of GPU. Of course there is CPU based fallback code as well, but very slow compared to a GPU supporting it.
So even if you aren't interested in using OpenGL (MiniGL, GL4ES, etc.) based 3D games or applications you still benefit from using a gfx card with fast 3D.

Theoretically it would be better to compare the results of different gfx cards on https://www.hdrlab.org.nz/benchmark/gfxbench2d/OS/AmigaOS but since that was flooded with useless results from WinUAE and especially QEmu users (you have to ignore everything with uaegfx and SiliconMotion 502 gfx card, best results with real hardware are on page 3, best with a Sam460 on page 11 and best with a Sam440 on page 30) it's no longer usable.

@joergQuote:

That's good to know and I do recall something about 3D for 2D operations. Unless I'm thinking of something else. When I upgraded my lite RadeonHD driver to full version it was noticeable the increase in resolution and snappyness on the 5450 I was then using. But, it also has no 3d support, yet it didn't appear to be software rendering.

Quote:

Thanks for the link. I do remember this one. It's unfortunate it is flooded as it's harder to navigate than PasssMark. I got SSL or TLS errors. And no direct way to sort or search.

@Hypex
Quote:Even Radeon HD cards without complete 3D support (Warp3D Nova, GL4ES, MiniGL, etc.) may still use the 3D features of the GPU for compositing.
You can test it with something like the Composite3DDemo from https://ns.hdrlab.org.nz/projects/amiga-os-4-projects/c3d/

@Hypex

I'm back....

So it seems I've missed a it again.

So looking at what you've written here, its basically not comparable due to how Amiga OS works with these cards versus any other modern operating system that actually has support basically.

Mmmmmm, might explain why when I bought and downloaded Ztools, the sys mon had its own bench marking system included....

is there a web site that shows comparisons to what Im getting with a card on a system compared to other users using the same card?

@joerg


Yes I had noticed that the 9250 did dragging the size of windows in Amiga os with fast speed versus the 5450, which I found bewildering before all this saga started with my forum post....

TBH even know its a bit bewildering with the answers received, only because Im living in 2024, not 1990...... lol

All good though, I still like the overall feel of the modern amiga os versus the classic in many ways, including the ease of use....

Installing something on the classic then trying to get it to work is 80% of the tie spent mucking around trying to get things to work, atleast fr Amiga os4.1fe, that percentage number has decreased significantly, but it's still there ofcourse...

Many ported games for example arent just a straight forward install.....

Im baffled why the community didnt continue with the idea that WARGUS put upon the community, a user may have an original CD, and there fore could physically install the copy....

Alas, I understand many of the users will also be like me and be carrying over the licensed copy from their steam, gog, epic, or whatever accounts on their pc's to their amigas to use their amigas with said games....

Anyhow, I digress, thanks for clearing up my own thought process regarding the GPU's and how I should go about looking for on in future should I need to. (I think I have enough of them now, so probably more time to get that adapter geennaam keeps telling me about)

@joerg

Yes, that's the one, that's the 3D on 2D compositing I was thinking of.

@Gebrochen

Quote:

Yes, pretty much. And also something I forgot to mention. How the card interfaces with the computer matters as well. So a 9250 PCI is designed for a PCI system and can work well. The Sam supporting a 66Mhz would help if it does have full support. But a 5450 and above with a PCIe interface needing a PCI bridge would have a bottleneck. Some 5450 cards had PCI interfaces on the hardware but I don't know if they would perform any better being a legacy interface.

My XE, though is has a 66Mhz PCI slot and AGP, doesn't miss out on bottlenecks either. The 66Mhz slot, it it can work, is not plug and play, needs some config in UBoot and conflicts with AGP. The AGP is set at 2x speed, but in reality, only works at 1x speed. Also, funny enough, when I set it up and bought my 9200SE with 8x AGP from a normal computer shop, I sent messages about it to OS4 people, and was told an 8X card will never work in my XE AGP slot. I forget the details, but I plugged it it in, and it worked fine as it does now almost 20 years later.

I'd expect for the PassMark tests that the PC hardware plugged in, especially PCIe, was plugged into a native PCIe slot. Working at full speed. With drivers optimised for maximum efficiency.

Quote:

Well, yes, that would be results on the HDRLab site Joerg linked too.

The Composite 3d demo could also be good to test as well.

Quote:

Well, they still do for some ports. Wargus is one example. There would be others. A recent example is the Quake 2 OS4 update which uses a PC CD for data files. But that one is strange, as it's a paid product update of the Hyperion port from years ago, that needs the data files. I'd expect if paying for a game that it would all be included.

@Hypex

:D

This isn't windoze Hypex, ofcourse it isn't included.....

They even only included an extremely basic Radeon HD Driver with Amiga os4.1FE release, what about all the people that may have already upgraded their cards and did not keep their 9250 or whatever???? lol

I could continue but I won't, as I really am a little hopeful that Amiga Os4.1fe is still under going development to see the light of perhaps Amiga OS4.2 or Amiga os 5.0, LOL

Call it being in dream land or la la land if you will, but the hopefulness is still there.

I'm even hopeful they've re-coded it all to be able to be on more accessible hardware for all of us that remain, I dont mind if it went ARM even, if this is an easier plausible action to complete.

Anyway, I suppose maybe thats why they released the first enhancer for free to allow users to atleast have a driver that could work with some of their more basic cards that werent 9250s?

Cheers

@Gebrochen

Well it should be included. The original Amiga releases had the files included on CD. The recent Heretic II re-release would be all complete I'd expect. And Shogo you would know included all the files. For free its fine. But once you charge money you gotta step up your game.

The OS4 CD has had the OEM Lite driver for a while by arrangement. It's meant to be a basic driver just to get the OS installed. It's fine for the intended use but the license agreement ran out so all they left is an obsolete version on the CD that can't support above a HD7000 or something.

So the user must buy the full driver off AmiStore or AmigaKit and then assemble their own bootable OS4 CD. Or create a recovery partition. This happened with OS4.1 which was cheaper than OS4.0 and you can see why.

What was meant to be OS4.2 ended up in OS4.1 like updated shell and some other things.

AmigaKit are already proofing their concept with the A600GS and ARM optimised graphics. Though its 68K based, this would be the bridge to their own System 54. Which is their plan to replace OS4 but needs OS4 components still. Included in Enhancer.

But the free Enhancer, or Enhancer Core, doesn't include any Radeon drivers I'm aware of so users are still stuck!

So something peculiar happened the other day when I had turned on the sam flex to for fun start using a drawing tablet, the driver being UGtablet by memory from Broad, well works well with os4.1fe and the tablet does atleast recofnise the pen and allow for use of said tablet.

This is however where I ran into some interesting things......

For example, not all software ofcourse has the ability for senitivity regarding the touch pad (well pen touch pad) in regards to pressure.

But Andy Broad, true legend that they are, has atleast given the community a secondary option other than Wacom tablets.

Im using an XPPen Star 03 tablet, not even the tablet the driver was designed for as such, but same branding though. I believe the driver was designed for draco or deco?? forget now, from the XPpen range.

I Digress again, it's been a while since Ive been on here.

So, I worked out while I can use it for general workbench use as well as for drawing programs, so far ive had the most fun in Art Effect 4, but Sketchblock has a good sensitivity range to change it enough to allow for softer touch.

But I have also used my XIPaint 4, albeit may not have pressure options, but it was still somewhat fun to use.

I find any program that offers the possibility of layers, and then being able to if you will, trace over a photo, by changing the opacity of said photo, is a very unique way to get used to the drawing tablet and co ordination.

There are other programs, I had a look and found out Photogenics 5, FXPaint (think Trixie told me about this one) that also would have pressure options and Tablet support to a degree.

I am unsure if personal paint, grafx2, or some other programs that are out there would have pressure sensitivity, and if Amiga community could enlighten me for fun on what may or may not have the option would be kind of cool for knowledge base.

Also, lets not forget some of these programs may not be obvious about it, and one may need to search through the respective menu system.

Anyhow STUTTER wise, well, let me start a new thread and explain another peculiar thing of late.

So the second peculiar thing of late, and I've been noticing recently, is the dragging of windows sometimes started to not lag as much as before..

One of the things I thought it was, was the simple change of a wireless mouse, as that evening it was really smooth compared to before, and not super slow but somewhat nice....

But tonight Im using (early morning technically) the wired mouse again and it is working somewhat well.

I'm going to keep an eye out on it, as I did some minor changes to the system, including a 120mm fan blowing onto the board / CPU area somewhat, its not directly on the CPU no, it's actually screwed onto the case side panel, the one normally would need to take off to investigate things (SO I really try not to open the case anymore, lol)

I am wondering why the sudden change, as it is still using the 5450HD Radeon card after all.

Even now while typing this to the Amiga people, with MickJT Mplayer running, while using Odyssey, and a WhatIFF magazine open, the whole system just seems to be running better overall for the most part...

I still get minor hick ups on ocassion, I could even have CyberLemmings running in the backgrund, mmm, let me try that now and hope I don't loose my typed information.

Amazing, but that has spiked things up a bit, wowsers, CPU hittin between 58% - 74% if spiking.

for the most part stays around 60%

Can someone explain to me if it truly could be what mouse one uses with their system that it could effect the system also?

Or is it truly a simple case of CPU runs a tiny bit cooler, even if it may only be 3 - 5 degrees, and this is already making a difference?

Cheers