Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sunic!sics.se!bula!bjornk From: bjornk@bula.se (Bjorn Knutsson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Multitasking is slower Message-ID: <7695@bula.se> Date: 5 Jun 90 17:10:58 GMT References: <279@smosjc.UUCP> <4039@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <1990Jun5.082227.29350@agate.berkeley.edu> Sender: rnews@bula.se Reply-To: Bjorn Knutsson Distribution: comp Organization: Bjorn's Amiga, Sweden Lines: 50 In article <1990Jun5.082227.29350@agate.berkeley.edu> laba-1ei@e260-3c.berkeley.edu (Joseph Chung) writes: >In article <4039@darkstar.ucsc.edu> davids@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Dave Schreiber) writes: >>>NO! For a program to allow multitasking, it has to be "nice". It must own >>>and disown the system resources (esp. blitter) using OS calls, and do so >>>often enough to allow other tasks a chance to use them. Depending on the >> >>Are you reading all of the original message? If the machine is in a state >>so that the game is going "without anything else running", then there won't >>be "other tasks" that demand system resources like the blitter. This >>seems fairly self-evident. > >Hold on a minute. If I want to multitask, I must nicely ASK for resources >to be given, therefore incurring an extra overhead. However, if I take over >the machine, I TAKE whatever resources I want, bypassng the boss. Yes, this is true. On the other hand you only have to allocate most resources once. The obvious exception being the blitter. Now, one solution to this is to simply allocate it and use it, but give it back whenever you don't need it for a while, as well as giving it back if the user signals (in some way) that he wants to access other screens. Now, I'm sure there are some shoot 'em ups that more or less requires continous use of the blitter, and I guess I can live with them allocating and using the blitter for longer (several seconds at a time) periods. But I'm equally sure that I would survive if they weren't quite as fast and didn't allocate the blitter for longer periods, if the programs didn't disturb the rest of my system. >I have a question here: Does WB count as a process/task? Cuz if it does, >then exec must time-slice in order to share it with a running game. No >matter how small that slice of time is, it is still taken; otherwise, how >will WB know to respond when a mouse is clicked in its domain? Well sort of, but what has WB to do with the mouse? WB is only waiting for a message from intuition and waiting consumes no time at all. If your programs wait for mouse events by busywaiting I suggest you reread your RKMs. >-jc > >-- >Joseph Chung >== You can always find what you're not looking for! == >laba-1ei@web.berkeley.edu --- Bjorn Knutsson / USENET: bjornk@bula.se or sunic!sics!bula!bjornk Stangholmsbacken 44 / Phone : +46-8-710 7223 S-127 40 SKARHOLMEN / "Oh dear, I think you'll find reality's on the S W E D E N / blink again." -- Marvin The Paranoid Android