| From: | Bart King |
| Date: | 4 Jul 2000 at 19:28:17 |
| Subject: | Re: Gfx cards |
Matt Sealey <matt@kittycat.co.uk> wrote:
> That's rather mean. I still use AGA, and coupled with FBlit and a few other
> neat patches it goes like a (to me, anyway) bomb. Nowhere near as fast as
FBlit doesn't specifically speed up AGA, it just allows a medium range of
programs to use Fast RAM as graphics memory. But since Fast RAM is faster
(hence the name) than graphics memory, there will be secondary speed
increases.
However, FBlit still eventually relies on the Amiga's Blitter, which must
have data in graphics memory before it'll do anything correctly. This is
what causes AGA to be slow (trust me, it is). Graphics cards have their
own Blitter and their own memory, which means nothing moves off the
graphics card so the CPU on the computer virtually does nothing.
As a game developer, AGA is very slow. Simple things like scrolling or
layers are poorly implemented and take a while to process. I'm told AGA is
usable on an 060/50 - but my graphics card is very usable on my 040/33 -
I've not used an AGA screen for years (partly because my monitor doesn't
work with AGA anyway).
> a proper gfx card would get you, but then I do have the privilege of having
> to maintain labs full of crusty 486 machines until the end of the summer,
> and the ISA graphics cards on those are MUCH slower.
ISA cards tend to have no - or pretty basic - blitters (yes, PC cards have
blitters too), thus relying on the CPU to do the graphics moving. And
since a 486 is not very good at this, it will seem slow (especially if it's
running Windows 3.1 or something).
But, you'll note that things like Doom run well on 486's - this is because
it uses custom graphics processing.
Compare your AGA Workbench with a PC running Windows and an AGP graphics
card. You might think that's not a very fair comparison, but it's where
the PC world is - even PCI graphics cards are now becoming obsolete.
> > 16-bit desktop's are so useful as well.
>
> I don't see why. All of my work on the Amiga is mainly web graphics: for which
> GIF predominates my work. I don't need 24bit glory, nor do I require 1000
> pixel wide screens to generate the graphics on. I certainly don't need hundreds
> of colours available to open a shell.
Well, GIFs are 256 colors. Have you ever required the need to work with
more than one image at a time? Most artists do. The more colors on the
display, the more images can be worked on. Yes, PPaint has two swappable
buffers, I know :).
About 24-bit: you're quite right - you don't need 24-bit. No one does -
it's just a little overkill for everything. I don't even use 24-bit on my
PC - it just wastes graphics memory. Granted, 32-bit displays look good in
Unreal Tournament, but not for typing in a document - or even drawing
something.
You say you don't need large screens. Sorry, but the smallest resolution I
use is 640x480, with largest (on the Amiga) being 1024x768. I regularly
work with images many times this size. The higher the resolution, the
lower chance of noticing pixels, thus a cleaner looking image. You don't
scan a full-size image in at 320x256 do you? Of course not.
16-bit desktops are useful. I have my Workbench in 16-bit, and all the
programs I use will use the Workbench screen (except PPaint, of course).
No more flicking through hundreds of screens to find what you want. All
the information is there in one place - greatly increases productivity and
user friendliness. And of course, one screen saves a shed load of memory!
In 1024x768x16, I have all the required debug, source and documentation
windows I use during development on the same screen, meaning I can access
things quickly and watch it all at the same time. Sometimes, 1024x768 is
too small! There's a good example of big screens and development on page
38 of AA10.
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