Re: AE PC Transporter Questions...

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

"Paul Grammens" <grammens@svn.net> wrote:

>"Supertimer" <supertimer@aol.com> wrote
>>
>> I had a PCT and used an XT and an IBM AT (286) as well as
>> a IIGS.  The stock IIGS could outperform either PCs and the
>> PCT anyday.
>
>One thing about the 286's and later is that they went faster and faster. I
>think the 286 started out at 6 MHz, and ended up at 20 MHz. I don't know why
>the ROM 3 had the same clock speed as the ROM 0.  No way you can keep up
>with the competition that way.

Indeed, it was political reasons at Apple more than anything.
Even if you take the fact that WDC did have faster chips
(which ultimately reached 20Mhz as used on CMD's C64
and C128 accelerators...yes these faster chips came later
but support from Apple could have accelerated the process).

>> I know many will disagree, especially those who jumped
>> ship early in the PC's history to use the available MS-DOS
>> business programs but speaking objectively, the PC pretty
>> much sucked up to about 1995-1997.  That was when Win 95
>> came out, PC sound move beyond the 4-voice SoundBlaster,
>> SVGA became popular, and it was just before the AMD
>> K6-2 CPU and the 3dfx Voodoo graphics chipset was
>> released.
>
>Sorry, but even my old 386DX-25 had way better graphics and better
>performance than my accellerated IIgs.  Try playing Wolf3D on each. It's
>painful on an unaccellerated IIgs. It's more stable, runs faster, and has
>better resolution on the 386-25 compared with an accellerated IIgs. My 386
>had SVGA in '90. The sound wasn't as good as the IIgs, but frankly, the
>screen resolution is a LOT more important to me.  My PC is silent 99% of the
>time. I'm looking at it 100% of the time. To say that the PC didn't exceed
>the performance of the IIgs until Win95, the K6-2, and 3dfx is absurd.  A
>486-66 with Win3.1 and a fast video card was also damn good. I played a lot
>of Doom on one of those.  ;-)

I will grant that displaying still graphics, VGA looked very
pretty.  My point is that while the IIGS had no hardware graphics
acceleration, the PC wasn't that good at it either.  You bring
up Wolf 3D and Doom and true enough I did see Wolf 3D on
my roommate's computer back in the days of the 386 but
it did not impress me.  Neither does Wolf 3D on the IIGS.  The
still graphics of VGA did impress me but not moving graphics.
If you want to see what real gaming was at that time, the
Commodore Amiga with its blitter chips blew away anything
on the PC.  Only gaming consoles had such hardware
acceleration.

Until 3dfx and the Voodoo graphics chipset.  That changed
everything.

I seemed to be taking a lot of heat for recognizing this but
there can be no denying that hardware graphics acceleration
(3D, that is, not 2D which came before) coupled with low
cost processors which for the first time could run fast
enough to keep the first 3D accelerators fed revolutionized
home computing.

>> Fantasy.  PCs have left the Mac in the dust.
>
>I don't think that's true.  The Intel clock speed is higher, but as we all
>know, the G4 and even the AMD chips are more efficient.  Seems to me it's
>more of a see-saw battle, with AMD and the Mac pulling ahead now and then in
>true performance.  I wish them well. It will be a more boring world if Intel
>"leaves them in the dust."

AMD versus Intel, this is true.  An AMD XP 2200+ operating
at 1.8Ghz walks all over an Intel P4 operating at 2.2Ghz.
Unfortunately, Intel has taken the clock speed even higher
negating this advantage.

While the G4 may be as efficient as the AMD Athlon when
run at the same clock speed, Athlon clock speeds are
double that of the G4.  True enough when comparing the
new iMac to an Athlon XP 1600+, Maximum PC found that
the iMac was about half as fast in benchmarks across the
board.

That's why the Mac is left in the dust.  The chip might be
faster clock for clock but efficiency and clock speed must
be combined to overcome Intel.  On the PC side, AMD
knows this.  The Athlon is reaching the end of its life and
it will take the K8 (Opteron aka. Hammer) to beat Intel.
What does Motorolla have?