Why do demos need 2 GHz?

[villerk]

I mean, what's the point in making new demos to some 2 GHz Thundergirds, which need over 1 GB RAM and a GF 3? I thought the basic idea in making demos was that it's so optimized code that it works on almost any possible configuration. If you look at the this year's Assembly demos, almost all of them say "You can't run me if you haven't a Thundergird and enough memory, 1 GB". Take a look at Amigas. The Amiga demoplayer at Assembly has been the same since the first Assembly (some '95 or so), but the PC has been upgraded every year and STILL Amiga demo won the whole contest. That's because the demo code in Amiga demos has been optimized so well. There wouldn't be any need for new CPU's and such if developers would just optimize their code properly!!

[mdhome]

Hello Villerk

I was halfway through writing a reply to this when I was called upon to make this evenings dinner. Therefore I have scrubbed what I had written and replaced it with this simple line.

The Amiga people obviously love their hardware.

Cheers MD

[Technoid]

Because very few people that program on PC knows the word "optimising"!

[Indiana]

Originally posted by mdhome
Hello Villerk

The Amiga people obviously love their hardware.

You can bet they do (but then they have to...)!

[villerk]

But, what if

• PC programs were optimised
• PC had lost (and Amiga would rule )
• Amiga had developed at the same speed as PC
• etc

Would the world be any better? Maybe PC would now be where Amiga is now and the opposite. All PC users would then optimise their stuff and such. How 'bout it?

[Drizzt]

villerk, it's a way too complicated question...

[Gurm]

Villerk:

It's a logical fallacy. You cannot assume that there would ever exist a world where Commodore would have become concerned enough with REAL programs to take away the "Crayon Look 'n' Feel" of the Amiga.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my Amiga. Was sorry to see it go. But I'm not under any illusions as to its usefulness (i.e. next to none) for anything but gaming.

- Gurm

[Maggi]

It is really sad,
that old school is dead ...

I'm still waiting for those G4 turbo boards that are supposed to come for A1200T/A4000 btw ...

[Wombat]

Gurm,
You forgot video editing. Even now there are companies buying up Amigas and video toasters, as back-ups for the ones they're already using. A lot of graphics on TV (like the score overlays for tennis and other sports) are still done on this old hardware.

[Drizzt]

First of all, I'd like to clarify that Amiga has been Killed.


Then, it's impossible to say

"what if,

PC programs were optimised

PC had lost (and Amiga would rule :cool

Amiga had developed at the same speed as PC
"


There can be no optimization on PC, not like the one intended on Amiga.



Gurm, it' been not the missing of REAL program that has moved users from Amiga to PCs.
It's been gaming market that did that.

[villerk]

Amiga and video editing

Gurm (and others as well), Amigas were used for example in the making of Babylon 5. They had A4000T's with G3 and video toasters. ALL effects were made with them. That's pretty impressive, if you ask me. To me it A4000T with G3 seems to be like 400 MHz Pentium II, so even I could also generate pretty neat graphics with my K6-2/500... I don't of course have the necessary tools. Although in Season 1 the graphics were pretty lame, it developed amazingly towards the end. I've never seen better effects in any other sci-fi series than in Season 4 and 5 in Babylon 5! I just hope they are still using them in the upcoming movie and series.

[Indiana]

Originally posted by Maggi
It is really sad,
that old school is dead ...

I'm still waiting for those G4 turbo boards that are supposed to come for A1200T/A4000 btw ...

Maggi, heard about Pegasos (from the MorphOS team)? Should arrive SOON

and villerk, you're right, the Amiga was VERY usefull if you knew which programs to use - and VERY cheap, too because of the many great freeware programs (maybe one additional reason for the systems death (together, of course, with C='s/ESCOMs/AmigaInt./whatever ignorance). Just take DirOpus I'm still using it sometimes for things like reordering files, (un-)crunching,.... that aren't anywhere as comfortable/easy/configurable on the PC. AmigaAMP, BurnIT, ADPro, the quite good (even though not very comfortable) CLI, ShapeShifter, LAME, IBrowse, Cinema4D, PageStream... are many other examples of really good software on the Amiga.
The Amiga was actually lacking in games, which - together with missing "major"/"certain brand name" office apps - most probably was one of the key resons for it's death.