Andrew Tait was saying..
> I think the whole hardware out-of-date-in-6-months argument for PCs
> died a long time ago,
Hey, it was only a light jest, although I still feel it to be mostly
true. :)
> need for a 500MHz system to get 50fps out of the latest 3D games, but
> we aren't talking about games here, are we?
Well, yes and no. The NG Amiga may be aimed at a more serious market,
and for myself I don't play that many games, but ask people why they
want their Amiga to run faster than the current models and
a lot of them will answer that the latest pc game is desirable, if
only the hardware were there to do it. :-/
> PentiumII 350, the highest is a PentiumIII 450. PentiumII 350 is now
> basically obsolete, and could be considered entry-level by a lot of
[....]
> two years old, and /are/ faster. The 10 month old Pentium II 350 is
> just blindingly quick.
So 10-month old hardware *IS* obsolete then? :-)
> very cheap. I totally agree with Chris's argument that a PIII 550
> running UAE would outperform an 030/50, plus you'd have all the
> benefits of the 8/12Mb GFX card, integral sound card, tower case etc.
Yes, but I don't want to sell my current Amiga and buy �1000 of new
machine in order to run my software at a quarter the speed it runs
now. Still less will people like yourself who have PPC cards. The
Amiga emulation wont have all the benefits of a gfx card and stuff
because UAE is native-chipset emulation. (Although you'd hope it
wouldn't take a genius to get round that.. maybe they already have.)
And frankly, the box it comes in is immaterial - standard Amiga
hardware wont work and any extra stuff you have will have to be
supported by the emulation before it works on the Amiga side (3d gfx,
mpeg hardware, internal modem etc)
> Considering that Intel will have 800MHz systems in the next six
> months, and GHz system in the next 12 months, I still beleive that a
Why bother with that outmoded stuff? :-) Other chip manufacturers have
made GHz stuff and have forgotten about it already. Intel
architecture is slowed drastically by ram accesses and there are many
better systems around.
> Pentium based, as opposed to PPC based, NG Amiga, with Classic
> emulation would be a stronger, more future proof system than any other
> type of hardware.
One of the visions of the new Amiga is supposed to be its
processor-independence. When you say Pentium or PPC based it is not
important - you can select the hardware of your choice, provided there
is an AmigaOS compiled for it. - Rather like the free UNIX clones.
However, if Amiga choose to make a specific pilot machine, and they
make it Intel based, one of two things are likely to happen, IMO: a)
The machine is no different to a good PC but costs more so no one will
buy it. Or b) its actually better than common pc's at a good price so
people will buy it to run Wintel software just as they do now, the
Amiga bit will only be a curiosity because it runs no faster than
Classic machines. AmigaSoft-oriented development will be slow because
there is no demand.
Personally, I prefer scenario c) which is that Amiga have been talking
to leading software companies (including games) in secret and will
release the machine with impressive software ready for it. :-)
Unlikely as that may be..
Cheers,
Ian
===
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