OS4 Release 3 report - by Fuzion
So, I get home, play Resident Evil 4 & chill out after work. I stroll my way to my computer completely unaware what is going on. Boot up, check e-mails, play some music then head to AW.net.
OH WOW! It's here NOW?
In an instant I decided to note down what happens, what I notice & what I test out first. This is by no means the definitive review, this is a first impressions kind of thing, like a diary? Maybe? Feel free to add & expand on this:
Naturally, I began heading to the Hyperion site to download the ISO. Burnt it to a CD using the instructions that Hyperion have kindly written to burn the disc with MakeCD. I then copied my entire SYS: partition in 2 places. One in SYS:BACKUP (Yes, on the same HD) & another in Files:BACKUP. Being the kind to 'try' things out, I decided to attempt an install straight after, no reboot.
Installed first time! All the files copied across to SYS: & I gave her a soft reboot (No time to waste) but when I saw a 4 colour screen, I decided to do a hard reboot. Picasso96 kicked in with no troubles (Radeon 8500, I think, I forget).
What do you try out first? That's always a hard decision. I aimed straight for the menu bar. Why? To drag the screen of course. Within a couple of seconds the memories came flooding back. I even remembered doing something as a kid. Dragging the screen right down, letting go of the mouse button but still moving the mouse downwards. It drags the screen down & the mouse then pushes it back up. I know I'm mad. Then I try holding down each of the 'qualifier' keys until I find the one that allows the dragging of screens in any direction. Right-Shift done it. HOW smooth & slick is this? 3 hours later, I move on... [Hehe, I jest].
The next thing I clock is the working mouse wheel. The mouse wheel, what an invention. It's like having one of those executive toys that you can fiddle with. That is, until it has a function. Clicking around some directories & I start my annoying habit only to have the Workbench windows roll up & down with my finger. I never expected that.
After a little look through some directories, I decided to grab my Prefs settings from my backed up system, copied my fonts back over & began to bring over some PNG icons (After installing the latest Powericons). Here is where I got my first (And only so far) Grim Reaper. Only once, but it happened. And it's happened before. Occasionally, dragging a PNG icon into RAWBInfo to replace an icon, a Reaper kicks in. A swift click of Continue on the new layout Reaper & all was good. The Reaper didn't happen again.
When cleaning up my icons I noticed the new shortcuts for the menu option, "Icons/Clean up by". Right-Amiga+6, 7, 8 & 9 clean up by Name, Date, Size & Type respectively. Thanks guys.
After this, I decided to do a Soft Reboot before heading into the actual Prefs programs to look for new options. Another surprise hit me here. The soft reboot now does not have the 2-3 second wait before the screen goes black & begins the reboot. As soon as you press the reset keyboard combination, the system reboots. 3/4 seconds later & she's back up. Even faster now that pause is gone? Swish!
A couple of highlights in the Prefs programs are:
- Input: The mouse speed now has more a larger range. Standard speed s now known as 1:1. Tap the speed up a notch & it becomes 3:2, then 2:1, then 3:1 & 4:1. Very handy for lower resolution meeces that are a little slow. It also now goes the other way. 2:3, 1:2, 1:3 & 1:4. Right down to a quarter of the speed. There should be a setting for everyone here now.
- Screen Blanker: At first it just didn't click that I was looking at a ScreenBlanker Prefs icon. Until I clicked on it. I thought I was going to see the usual ScreenBlanker window. Until I saw this new window...
A very nice touch too is. A new module based screen blanker. Click on 'Module Preferences', as you'd expect, you get a preferences window pop up. Another nicey is that it pops up to the right of the preview view that you see & the changes you make to the preferences are reflected in real time in the preview window. Meaning you don't HAVE to click the 'Test Fullscreen' button to see how your changes look. Another nice touch though, if you DO want to test the fullscreen blanker, you don't have to close the preferences window. Just click from here.
It doesn't stop here. Not everyone likes screen blankers & the Hyperion team have thought of you too. Click this image now, you'll see...
See that? Built in DPMS support. Niiiiice. It works too. Sadly I cannot test the Stand-By & Power Off options, but the Suspend worked prefect. There's even an option to ignore the mouse when you're on Stand by to save any unwanted accidental mouse knocks bringing your screen back up.
There's also customisable Hot Keys for each function with a "Learn" button for your shortcuts. All we want now are some Screen Blanker wizards out there to build us more modules.
Heading back to other directories. One particular special was when I popped into Tools/Commodities. In here is a VERY welcome friend in the form of a CrossDos icon. Welcome home I haven't used it yet, but I thought some of you might like to hear that.
Ok, this isn't a review per se so I'll test out some 68k apps & see what all the fuss is about Petunia.
I'll begin with: O-M-G!
This beast is FAST. It's that simple, complete with a Compatability Prefs program allowing the addition of problem programs, Petunia is one comprehensive Interpreter/Emulator.
First up in my tests was Photogenics 5. A very processor intensive graphics program that made the fastest classic Amiga break into more than a sweat. If you've seen this in person you'll understand. Now Grab a 1024x768 image & fill a layer with the highest setting (29.5) Gaussian Blur. Go for a coffee & come back in a bit. Not so with Petunia. Fill the layer & in less than 15 seconds, you're done. You can even slide the settings up & down, give it a few seconds & see the changes almost in real time. Quality!
Needless to say, most of the other effects are less processor intensive & as a result most of them are near enough real time whether you apply a full layer or paint a layer yourself.
Next test, HD-Rec: I'm really waiting for a fully featured sequencer for OS4. BnP has a lot going for it, but I think this is a dark horse. Previously, HD-Rec really struggled on OS4. The 68k interpreter in Update 3 & before simply didn't cut it. HD-Rec would ALWAYS report a 100% CPU usage. Even when nothing was going on. Add 2 effects to a track & it'd grind to a halt. You simply could not add real time (68k) effects.
This grab shows 6 (Count em) real time effects on the go. Look up the top right of the screen. Go on. And again. Take a second look... Now a third!!!
That's not bloody right is it! 0% CPU usage. 6 effects & they aren't even denting the CPU. The only time the CPU usage bobbed up was when I was sliding sliders back & forth & actually changing the effect myself WHILE the audio was playing. Even then, the highest I saw was aroung 34% & when I had found the setting I wanted, down the CPU usage went again.
I even got a message from HD-Rec saying I could not add any more effects. Time to extend that limit me thinks.
BTW: This really IS a fantastic piece of software. If anyone out there is even slightly interested in making music on the Amiga. My vote is here.
Last up, Cinema4D: This had troubles in Update 3 so I was very interested to see what update 4 delivered in terms of Cinema4D stability. Some of you may well have seen my PackMan render from Cinema4D. It's going back a while but I find it a nice scene to test renders with.
Well, here's another scene on the same theme. The original took my A1200, Blizzars 1260/50Mhz, 1:30:15 to render. I'd disappear & play a game.
Click the image & check out the rendering time at the bottom right of the grab.
15 minutes. This is with the Depth of Field filter (Focusing) & 8x8 Anti-aliasing on Edges&Colour. In technical terms, that's quite a lot of anti-aliasing. As a matter of interest, I tried the render out without anti-aliasing as this adds more to the rendering time than anything else & we managed to render at the same resolution (1024x768) in just under 2 minutes. That very scene there. 4 light sources. 2 of which casting a hard shadow, 1 casting a soft shadow. A little reflection just to test it out & again, the depth field. 2 minutes.
Remember, these tests are under emulation on an 800Mhz G4.
@Rachy
What an awesome job you & the team have done on this. Excellent work... Really!
That'll do me for now I think. This is just the tip of the iceberg & I'm sure there's users out there that have more to add.
Right, I'm off to drag some screens around.
Biiiiiig up to all the Hyperion team & testers. I can't say anymore.