Graffiti Card

Can a small box really offer a new and exciting graphics mode? David Taylor gets his teeth into the Graffiti's new chunky pixel mode.

Getting the Graffiti to work is simplicity itself. The hardware sits between the RGB port and the monitor cable. The Amiga's Screenmode preferences then need to be set to suitable mode and must have a maximum of 16 colours - that's either 1, 2 or 4 bitplanes. If the screen is set to any more colours, then the Amiga will use its standard bitplaned graphics.

Software needs to be written specifically to make use of the Graffiti's modes and the board comes with four disks showing some of the software currently available. As yet the software seems to be only coming from shareware authors, but it's quite surprising what there is on offer.

The chunky pixel mode is ideal for quicker animations and areas where graphics need to be calculated quickly, like the aforementioned Doom clones.

For serious users, there is a picture viewer. It's a German version and only has German documentation but the results are fine, although it's only a picture viewer. Also included is a set of video drivers for the Macintosh emulator, ShapeShifter. Unfortunately though you need a full graphics card to make use of any external viewer in ShapeShifter .

Slick and Smooth

The other disks that come with the Graffiti are full of demos and there's even a game. The demos show a variety of impressive plasma effects and examples of Gouraud shading. However, you're not, as a user, going to want to buy a card to see a load of plasma, however smooth it might be. Thankfully, there is also a game included for you to try. Called Trapped, it's a Doom type game - surprise! However, it is amazing how smooth and slick it is. Running at 192x192 size in Graffiti mode, it is remarkable and has some nice touches like lens flare that moves as you approach light sources. The game does require extra RAM and an AGA machine to run, but it's still well worth seeing.

There is some configuration software that examines your machine and tells you how you should have the DIP switches set on the box. To be honest there are only two switches and it is easy enough to set them from the manual.

To help circulate any software created for the Graffiti card, there are plans for a CD which will be released every three to six months. In order to encourage programmers to submit their efforts, they will receive a free copy of the CD. More importantly, anyone who publishes a program on the CD will get an extended three month warranty after the publication of the CD. This means that should anything go wrong with their card, it will be replaced the same day that it is received by the manufacturers, no matter how old it is.

The CD will retail at around $7 (about 5) and I certainly hope it will be better compiled than the software we received. The utility disk had no English documentation and the ShapeShifter drivers and configuration software had no documentation at all. The demos were all supplied as Lha archives simply stuck onto a disk. Although they are simple enough to extract if you know how, it would have been better with a decent installation script. Even when they are extracted they are untidy, not kept in separate directories or even including icons.

It could be that this software is not planned for release with the card to the public, but this would be a serious drawback to users who would really get nothing with the card to try out. And that would be somewhat pointless. A little more work in this department please and even some other examples would be good too.

The manual for the Graffiti has been written by a hardware designer and is very difficult to read through. After a few introductory paragraphs, it jumps straight into the information for programmers but then again there's not much point general users reading the manual as the Graffiti is so simple to use. Programmers can also take a look at some example code to see how to program for the card.

I suspect that the majority of people first attracted to the Graffiti will be programmers who want to try out programming for the new modes to see what results they can get. No doubt this will result in a proliferation of shareware Doom clones and animation players and some demos flooded with plasma and landscapes. It's worth noting that without a Graffiti card attached, software written for it appears to be a corrupted greyscale picture.

It is a shame that hardware like this is now left to drum up its own business. Before major developers consider writing for it, it will have to prove that it has achieved a massive user base and it won't receive massive sales unless users can see that there is a wealth of software available to use. It's a vicious circle.

The programmer's home could therefore be where Graffiti will find its niche. Of course, users could hunt around to find software before buying the card to see if they like the sound of what's available, but although this little box is an interesting development it's hard to see it becoming a fixture on everyone's machine. a

Distributor - Power Computing

Price - 69.95

System requirements - All Amigas. Expanded AGA recommended

VERDICT

speed ****

Watching the demos and playing the game, it's exciting to see the refresh rate and quality.

manual ***

It is technical, but users needn't read it. It's there for the programmers to write for the Graffiti.

Accessibility *****

Come on. You plug it in and set your preferences.

features l l l

Well, it adds this new chunky pixel mode. That's what it says it does and it does.

value ****

Programmers will definitely get their money's worth but what does it offer home users?

"An interesting development. Programmers should take a look and users should hunt around for software first.''

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