MorphOS on G4 & G5 Mac hardware is great and very fast, but the user experience of speed does not seem (at least to me) to be any better than many operations, such as opening windows, moving them around, reactions to mouse clicks, and multitasking, as the original 7mhz Amiga hardware and OS.

Maybe my perspective is biased due to fond memories, and if I objectively sat down with both systems side by side, I could see that MorphOS is faster, or just as fast, at those mentioned tasks, as the original Amiga was, in 4, or 8 color mode. One of my biggest complaints or disappointments with modern hardware and Windows, MacOSX, and Linux, is the fact that even with the tremendous increase in hardware capabilities, none of the most popular OSes on the planet, running on the fastest hardware available, feels as fast and efficient as the original Amiga to me.

Is it reasonable to expect a new version of MorphOS for x64 to perform noticeably faster and more efficient than main stream OSes? It is easy to see (and measure) that MorphOS on Mac hardware is faster and more efficient than MacOSX, but some might argue that MacOSX provides more features than MorphOS, which accounts for some of that speed difference. I was just wondering how high my expectations should be for MorphOS-x64, and if anything will ever seem as fast, efficient and elegant as the original Amiga hardware and OS did in 1985? Since most of what we experience on computers today comes from a web browser and the Internet, maybe we will never get the same feeling we once enjoyed on an Amiga not connected or dependent on an ISP's performance.

The elegance of the original Amiga hardware and OS, and the experience it gave to its users is (IMO) what keeps so many of us interested in using it occasionally for fun, and keeps us interested in new hardware and software for such ancient systems. It fuels the continued interest in projects such as the Apollo accelerators, and the soon to be completed project from Individual Computers, which I can't remember the name of at the moment.

What are your expectations for speed, efficiency and over all user experience for MorphOS on x64?

Edit: fixed spelling and/or grammar errors.

[ Edited by amigadave 10.06.2016 - 14:53 ]

I don't need more speed, I would prefer more apps. What speed gives you with no software to use it.

Oh, one other thing.

Probably the most disturbing thing about Windows (and MacOSX & Linux to a lesser degree), is that it takes dozens and dozens of processes and tasks to run in the background, which are cryptically named, and I have little or no idea of what they are doing, and I don't trust Microsoft, and most Windows application companies & programmers. We already know how Windows10 and Cortana reports so much of your personal information to Microsoft, and how difficult it is to keep all those reporting processes turned off (or I should rephrase that to read how easy it is to accidentally turn some of those reporting processes back on after you have disabled them).

One of the things I am pretty sure of, is that MorphOS on x64 will be almost transparent in letting the user know what is going on in the background, and it won't need dozens and dozens of background processes and tasks (which slow down any hardware), to keep it running and provide functionality.

Also, my hope is that MorphOS-x64 will be built in such a way that allows easy creation of new, and porting of existing software, so it will not take too long for our community to provide us with all the software we need to use our MorphOS-x64 systems for (almost) all of our computer needs, and allow us to (for the most part) leave Windows, MacOSX, and Linux behind, or only use them for 5% of our computing needs, plus any what ever time you choose to spend playing any of the latest games, which we can't yet port to MorphOS-x64.

Quote:

I'm sure we will at least have UAE ported to the new x64 version of MorphOS, so you will still be able to run all of the existing Amiga software, but I know what you mean. That is why I added the last paragraph to my previous message. I hope that the MorphOS Dev. Team makes it a high priority for MorphOS-x64 to have the tools necessary to easily create new software, and also easily port existing software.

I am sure that the Dev. Team does not plan on "reinventing the wheel", so they will leverage as much existing Open Source software as possible, to reduce the time it will take to create this new version of MorphOS, as well as hopefully making it easier to do what I wrote above. They know how important it is to the success of this MorphOS-x64 to have software to run as soon as possible, so I have confidence that they will not create something that requires every new software application or game for it to be completely re-written from scratch.

Comparision to 7MHz Amiga:

- you can't just move windows around, you only move a frame at which the window will be moved in an instant
PowerWindow does "fix" that, but will be sluggish on anything else but emulation

- getting a 68000 Amiga to noticeable lag when opening menus, windows or anything else is easy but might also be due to sloppy development of the application used


MorphOS-x86:

AmigaOS (and by heritage MorphOS) are very simple in design and not very "deep" when it comes to the layers between the user and the HW. This makes it much easier to create a responsive system, but also quite easy to make the system response super slow by bad coding.

As for x86 making it easier to port/create SW, only thing sure is that endian-issues while porting will disappear.

Making it easier could mean better tools (nothing specific to x86 here) or implementing things that make MorphOS more similar to mainstream OSes. This could lead to GUI-toolkits and other libraries ported right to the point where OpenOffice is just one "/./configure&make" away.
Result would be another bloatware infested *nix-clone without the benefits of actually being a *nix (see AmiCygnix).
NO THANKS.

Essentially, MorphOS will be MorphOS. I don't see how it magically would get as abstracted (or bloated) as Windows just because of the ISA change? Where would that suddenly come from? The underlying CPU architecture is so much faster though, which of course will show. So yes, it will be faster.

i don't think it will be groundshaking different to MorphOS as it is now. It will support a few modern features like SMP, 64 bit addressing scheme, full resource tracking and proibably drop some old things (e.g.AHI), but all in all it will stay as similar as possible to the current incarnation.
It will run on selected hardware only and the user base will hopefully rise, but will probably stay very small (if we are lucks we'll see a 5 digit number of users).
I guess except the few softwares that are stuck due to endian issues (odyssey!) going x64 wil have not too much impact on the software porting side I guess.

My guess is we already happy MorphOS users will stay pretty happy with MorphOS x64, a few will moan though, (hopefully) a few more will join and the rest of the world will just not even notice.
And i guess it will take quite some time until it will come.
A few years back (2011) I wrote what I would like to see: http://via.i-networx.de/q86.htm - Would still like to see those two boxes, but guess it's just too much work.

Quote:

It has been a very long time since I have used Workbench on a 7mhz Amiga, so I am sure my memories are very skewed by time away from the original.

Quote:

Again, my most prominent memories are of myself comparing the performance of my Amigas to the DOS based 286 or earlier Intel boxes at work, which couldn't do any multi-tasking and often crashed, where the Amiga was so far above and beyond the PC, it seemed like magic.

Quote:

I agree, we don't want anything like AmiCygnix, or a bloated MorphOS infested with "nix-clone" code, but if there is any way to take advantage of Open Source tools and applications, perhaps via recompiling, instead of having to re-write everything, then hopefully the Dev. Team will figure out some way to take advantage of all the code already written as Open Source, so our community can more quickly build up all the software we need and want.

Quote:
You should definitely try one again Maybe at AmiWest this year.

I vividly remember how long it took to load software from floppy disks. Thank god we have SSDs nows.

Quote:
"Feeling fast" is very subjective. It would be interesting to see exactly what hardware and configuration you are running. In some cases, just a cheap mouse or bad input settings can make a computer "feel slow" even though the hardware is quite fast.

Quote:

5 digit number of users?

Why and where?

Content decides about success and failures... People always point at Aros for not having many supporters and software despite running on fast and cheap hardware. Why should there be everything different just because it is MorphOS? Expecially if you are forced to buy dedicated new hardware to use it? As long there is no real special new software there will be no fundamental change. Some current software will be easier to port because of no endian-issues and it will beat AmigaOS in benchmarks even more. People are looking at ISA change as a kind of holy grail, if MorphOS does it it will left off... I do not understand why people think this

Quote:
Please read again what Zylesea wrote. He did not say that he was expecting the OS to hit these numbers. He was stating that even with lucky circumstances the user base would remain in a small niche with 5 digit numbers at best.

Quote:
Nobody said it would be.

That being said, both projects are not fully interchangeable equivalents. Historically, one has been focused on increasing hardware compatibility aiming to lower the barrier to access for users as much as possible (even across multiple processor architectures). The other focused on providing a polished end user experience on a limited set of specific hardware targets (which all utilize a single processor architecture).

Quote:
Depending on the official target hardware, many people may not have to. Given the state of the market for personal computers, it is likely that hardware platforms will standardize even more due to increased cost pressure.

Quote:
You see, nobody in this discussion thread actually claimed that it would suddenly take off...

Without unix new morphos x86 will be what aros x86 is.
Not worth of use crap which has all amiga os drawbacks but has not biggest amiga os adwantage - integration with old 68k software.


[ Edited by ppcamiga1 11.06.2016 - 17:04 ]

Quote:

No. It will be what MorphOS is (minus binary compatibility with current SW), but on x86, and presumably with features that no Amiga incarnation has, including AROS.

Quote:

BTW, do we actually *know* exactly what features it will have? Or are we just assuming and hoping?

Quote:

Your opinion is noted (and for my part dismissed).
UNIX, seriously?
I'd rather use Linux, and I don't want either incorporated into MorphOS.
As far as legacy 68K, I use it very infrequently and have Amiga hardware for that.
I won't miss it in MorphOS.

Instead of insisting that MorphOS be something it is not, why don't you switch to FreeBSD?



[ Edited by Jim 11.06.2016 - 14:06 ]

Quote:

AFAIK we (= no MorpOS devs) don't know, and it's only guesses. We don't even know what or if anything at all is set in stone already or whether development has started.
Anyway, next stop is 3.10 for ppc.

Quote:

Some POSIX compliance would be handy to have but it doesn't need to be based on or a clone of UNIX to have that. NT, QNX, Haiku and others all have varying degrees of POSIX compliance for easier porting of software but none of them are UNIX.

Quote:

I specifically did not mention program loading speed, or floppy drives, as I well remember how noisy and slow those were. I upgraded my A1000 with an internal 105mb hdd as soon as possible.

Quote:

The Windows hardware systems I am currently disappointed with are, my 2.5 year old, 2.4GHz i7-3630QM w/NVidia GeForce GT 650m discreet video, 8gb RAM, 480gb mSATA, 128gb SSD, 1tb hdd, Bluray optical & 17-inch 1080p LCD display, running 64bit Windows10, and my desktop, also about 2.5 years old, 3.7GHz i5 (forget which model # of the CPU), w/Radeon 7950 video card, 16gb RAM, 480gb mSATA & 1tb hdd, DVDRW & Bluray/HD-DVD optical drives, running 64bit Windows7 Home Premium. I have a 1 year old Belkin ACS wireless router, which might be slowing down my already weak ISP via micro-wave dish, due to no hard wire Internet providers available where I currently live.

So, I don't have the fastest Windows hardware, but I don't think it is the worst either, and should perform much better than it does (IMHO).

> As for x86 making it easier to port/create SW, only thing sure is that endian-issues
> while porting will disappear.

...as well as ASM-issues. In some projects, x86(-64) assemly is used exclusively for certain code parts. And even when it's just implemented as an alternative to a high-level implementation, MorphOS/x86-64 could benefit from the higher execution speed.

> I don't see how it magically would get as abstracted (or bloated) as Windows just because
> of the ISA change? Where would that suddenly come from?

As has been told by MorphOS team members, the ISA change won't be just that. It will also entail incorporating features from mainstream operating systems. Nothing magical about that. And whether or not this will significantly increase the bloat remains to be seen.

> Without unix new morphos x86 will be what aros x86 is.

http://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=11137&start=385