Re: Accelerator //e

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article pubpc1@library.ucla.edu writes...

>Mitchell Spector wrote:
>> In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...
>> >Are you saying that a 3.6mhz non-caching accelerator can run
>> >things faster than a 15mhz caching accelerator like the Zip GS?
>>
>>     Yes and no. It has to do with the caching accelerator dropping back
>> down to 2.6 MHz under certain conditions. For example, if you look at
>> Atari's Ms.Pac-Man for the 8-bit Apple II, running it on my 15 MHz GS
>> generally runs it much faster, _except_ when the speaker is toggled
>> (i.e. eating dots or when the ghosts turn blue). During that time, it
>> drops to 2.6 MHz--it's always speeding up and slowing down.
>
>That's a feature of the Zip GS.  If you turn off Speaker Delay and
>Control Panel Follow, those old games would no longer slow down
>like that.

    I completely forgot about disabling the delay--and your right,
it no longer slows down when you change the settings. I just tried
Ms. Pac-Man again and it plays almost at a blurr now. :) There are
some catches however, it would be an inconvience, to say the least,
leaving the Zip configured as you mention above (more below).

>Note: this only works if you run the game from a hard
>drive or a 3.5" drive since disabling Control Panel Follow makes
>the 5.25" drives unusable.

    Actually I was able to boot from the 5.25 drive, although that
proved a bit difficult as Apple-Control-Reset and Control-Reset
wouldn't work (I managed to use TaiFunBoot to boot slot 6). While
I was able to accelerate the 8-bit game at a full 15 MHz, the GS
was put in an unusable state changing those settings.

>> >If this is true, CMD's non-caching accelerators for the Commodore
>> >64 and 128, with 64K and 128K of memory respectively, must
>> >really pack a punch at 20mhz.
>>
>>     Probably, but your still dealing with the limitations of the
>> 65C816 processor (even an ancient 386SX does math better, and in
>> a lot of cases a 286 or 8086) and the bus speed of the C64/C128.
>
>(1) When running my Zip GS set to 10Mhz, it runs everything, math
>    or not, faster than my PC Transporter (equivalent to a 186
>    10Mhz).

    Are you sure about that? I recall several people mentioning
they were able to decompress ZIP archives faster through the
PC Transporter running MS-DOS unzippers, than with PMPUnZip.
The NEC V30, incidentally, is more similar to the 8086 than
the 80186.

>(3) GS programs are more tightly coded and better optimized.  PC
>    programs are bloatware.  The overall user perceived speed of
>    a 13.75MHz Zip GS is better than that of a 486SLC 25MHz.
>    (no need to bore us with a lecture about what the SLC is or
>    is not)

    Do you have QPV for DOS? It's a shareware JPEG viewer you
can find on most FTP sites, try comparing it with jpeGS or
JPEGView on the IIgs and see if the overall perceived speed
is faster. ;) My point was in terms of math the GS is going
to act like a snail. In its own rights, it is quite speedy
with an accelerator, but your trying to compare it with
more modern machines which is kind of taking things out of
perspective, no?

    I think Supertimer made a very good point in response to 
this very message thread. At least I think so, since I like
the GS in its own rights and for the fun of pushing it beyond
what it was originally designed to do (in both software and
hardware). Not trying to compare it directly against 486's
and Pentiums; if I were to do that there would be little 
reason for me to hold my interest in it. I accept and can
acknowledge all its limitations, but it doesn't mean I hold
any less interest in the machine.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca