NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/sys/amiga/graphics/2531

Internet Message Format | 1996-08-05 | 5.3 KB

Path: asbe05.phx1.aro.allied.com!usenet
From: [e-mail] (Steve Rifkin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Some Picasso-board-in-an-A2500 questions and thoughts
Date: 29 Mar 1996 18:05:41 GMT
Organization: AlliedSignal MTC
Message-ID: <4jh8pl$[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
NNTP-Posting-Host: caess1.cae.aro.allied.com

The following I sent out to some friends who have Picasso boards, and I was
reporting back to them.  I thought I'd post this to this group to see if anyone
could comment.  IF you do respond as a post, could you also send me
a copy via e-mail.  I don't always have access to news.  Thanks!
Steve Rifkin ([e-mail]):

(Note: I'm using a 2000 with the 2630 accelerator card.  No flicker fix yet,
but a super vga monitor and my rgb monitor are both connected.)
                        ======================
Hey guys!

Well, I just installed Picasso into my Amiga... and... it works...
well... with some of my stuff.  I'm a kinda depressed by some of it.

First in Workbench, I have it in 640x400.  The 800x600 works but flickers heavily
with the monitor I'm borrowing.

I've experienced some problems with it, though.

Every now and then, if I do a warm boot (or if I guru and have to boot)
I get a "can't open vilintuisup.library" error.  Why?  Because after examining,
it can't find the Picasso card.  Again, this is just once in a while.  I'm on a 2000
with a Commodore accelerator.  A friend says that it's probably a timing problem that
once in a while on a warm boot, it won't see the card.

What platform do you use?  And has this happened to you ever?

Anyway, it's pretty infrequent.

I have my rgb monitor connected to the rgb port on the computer.  The vga monitor is
connected to the picasso port.  That works nicely, and autoswitching works fairly well.
But I have several apps that guru the machine when trying to run on the PICASSO  or when
being switched by the picasso to RGB.  These are older items with custom screens.


Do u use silicon menus?  (allows you to get your menu bar anywhere on the screen, instead
of just at the top border.)  silicon menus worked fine for me before picasso.  With
picasso, it's functions (displays the menu on the screen), then when the menu disappears,
it leaves colors in it's place, and soon after... a guru.

When I get a flicker fixer, I'll be able to get rid of the rgb monitor and connect all
to the picasso, however, some of my aps that display in 600x200 Hires in RGB are going
to look blocky through the Picasso from what I'm told.  The 640x400 or larger
display of the same programs (in my case, Bars&Pipes Pro) displays too small to be
workable at those resolutions.  I'll miss my non-interlaced HIRES rgb screen.

Speed.  With my accelerator on my 2000, Picasso is still as slow as my rgb when colors
are set.  In 4 color it's about as fast as usual.  Going to 8, 16, up to 256 colors,
windows refresh and display slower and slower.  This is all at Picasso 600x400.
Not much difference in speed compared to using my RGB (except, I can get the higher
# of colors with Picasso).  I assume the slowness (I can see the backing of the workbench
being painted in strips when redrawn with the picasso modes I've tried, in most of the
color settings (8 on up) is based on the fact that I'm using an A2500-type machine with
zorro II slots and the bottleneck is at the slot... what do you think.
I still have a couple megs of fast when using picasso.  I have most all my chip mem left
over... that's a plus (except IBrowse uses chip memory to store its graphics, and doesn't
give it up afterwards.  The higher the # of colors, the slower it takes directory windows
to open and display.  Where is this speed increase?  I would think 16 colors would
still run as fast as 4 color without picasso.  256 colors' speed is unusable for
Workbench... BUT... the 256 color mode works GREAT with IBrowse.  That went flawlessly.
I guess I'm going to have to have a limited workbench but nicer custom screens.

I tried running shapeshifter with Picasso, and after I choose the display in Shapeshifter
and it starts to run the emulator, all I get is a white screen (600x400 mode) on the vga
monitor.  If I switch to NTSC hires, my rgb monitor displays the mac screen as it should.
Any ideas on this one?

My usual WB3.0 pointers look awful on the picasso.  I'm told that the default pointers
aren't hires, so I've downloaded some hires ones that I will try.  My busy pointer used
to look great in RGB, and it spun (clock-shaped) smoothly.  Now, in Picasso, it looks
jagged, big, and spins erractically (movements every 4-5 seconds or so.)
Any solutions to this?

I have mixed feelings about the whole picasso thing.  with my A2500, picasso seems usable
for me in 16-256 color mode with some custom screen apps, not with workbench (too slow).
And I've lost some of my neat WB application capabilities.  I crash an awful lot, mostly
when running some older software.  Seems like the only reason Picasso seems worth it to
me is to run IBrowse in 256 colors.  I can't have the fancy workbench screens I see
everyone having because many of them have 256 color backdrops, and that's way too slow
to work on my system.

Oh, a lot of my 3.1 icons now looked squished due to the higher resolutions.  Is this
solvable with using hires icons?


Please, make me feel better about my purchase.

Thanks,

Steve Rifkin
([e-mail])