Author: FatRakoon (host62-7-45-26.btinternet.com)
Date: 01-26-2002 13:50
Thanks to everyonefor allthe replies to this one.
I see that while I was corrected, I do still feel that I am right.
Contradictory I know, but thats certainly how I feel it is.
Ok, so a complete re-write is probabl;y not going to help all that much,at least I can agree, that the benefits are going to be too small to make it all worth bothering with, ad yes, there is also going to be the issue of debugging.
Also, one thing I didnt think about, which I should have, is that with Magic & MiNT now replacing most of the actual TOS routines anyway, a re-write of TOS would in fact be utterly useless! - I dont think anyone mentioned that, so I suppose I should!
Make the whole thing worthless now doesnt it?
Anyway, this is what drove to ask this one:-
I have been writing some small routines that do nothign except waste CPU time.
under TOS, on the TT, I was able to kill off 50% CPU time, so the thing seemed to run half the speed yes?
( this is going by another little routine that just checked the speed - nothing special here, just little bits of code done as an ACC )
Now, under Magic, the 2 same programs showed me, that I was now taking up only 18% CPU Time with these programs, so there was a big increase, and with NVDI, I was now taking up just 12%
Thats ... erm 50-12 = ??? a lot, a very lot
( hehe ) CPU time that is then useable for other stuff.
I looked further into that, and I saw that I can write a small routine that just plonked some gfx into a window, that took up less than that extra 38%, and so this made thing run still faster than the standard TOS, so in effect, I had my counter, my time waster, and the GFX filler, all running, and I was still runningfaster than I would be in standard TOS
Can you see where I was heading?
thinking about that, I saw that while NVDI ONLY does the graphics, as we all know ( dont mention Printer- thats not the point ) the Atari spends most of its life, updating the screen, and so having faster updates of the screen, also means having that little bit extra CPU time for everythign else, thus making a full software accelerator.
I merely thought, that if just doing the GFX this way, then surely doing some other areas of the system, would also make things go better.
Like I said though, while you all pretty much corrected me, I still dont think I was wrong.
Dont reply to this unless I have pointed out somethign stupid, its merely an after though.
Thanks.
Damion.
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