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- From: boschetm%IPFWCVAX.BITNET@uwavm.u.washington.edu
- Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
- Subject: Re: TECH: Amiga VR?
- Message-ID: <1992Dec14.014958.6861@u.washington.edu>
- Date: 13 Dec 92 17:58:53 GMT
- Article-I.D.: u.1992Dec14.014958.6861
- Sender: news@u.washington.edu (USENET News System)
- Organization: University of Washington
- Lines: 95
- Approved: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu
- Originator: hlab@stein.u.washington.edu
-
-
- Just to clarify some things about the Amiga. First the chip bus is much faster
- now than it used to be. I can get a little over 30 fps on an Amiga 4000 just
- using the custom chips. The CPU is much faster but a new chipset has been
- announce by Commodore that will make the old chipsets look like turtles.
- Also on an Amiga programing the chip registers is not an approved way of doing
- graphics due to the fact that the registers may change between different
- revisions of the chipset. The OS is the only approved way of doing graphics.
- The OS has been stable since at least Release 2.0 and the current Release is
- 3.0 with 3.1 expected soon with built in networking. Below is some of the
- improvements that are planed for release. They are comments made by Lewis
- Eggebrecht, VP Engineering, Commodore at the World of Commodore show in Toronto.
-
-
-
- ENGINEERING'S MISSION
-
- The goal of Commodore Engineering is to enhance and extend the Amiga
- architecture by adding new features and increasing performance. New
- procedures have been put in place enabling Commodore to design and build
- new products quickly; for example, the manufacturing facility in the
- Phillipines was built in only one year. Other foundries are used to
- build components designed by Commodore; for example, the new Lisa chip
- was made by HP.
-
- Much of the focus in engineering is directed to improvements to the
- custom chips that make the Amiga unique. The next generation chips are
- referred to as either the low end or high end chips.
-
-
-
- LOW END CHIP SET
-
- The low end chips represent an incremental improvement of the AGA chips:
-
- - 2 chips about 100 K transistors each
- - synchronous design architecture, 57 mHz clock
- - supports 32 bit video random access memory (VRAM)
- - supports 68020, 68030, 68040 and 68060 processors
- - 4 megabit/sec serial data processing
- - cyclical redundancy checking (CRC) in hardware
- - supports 4 megabyte floppy disks (2.88 MB formatted)
- - 24 bit true colour
- - chunky pixels
- - 2x blitter versus current ECS or AGA
- - 8x memory bandwidth of current systems
- - up to 8 megabytes of CHIP RAM
- - 800 x 600 x 256 colour "rock steady" screens at 72 Hz
-
-
-
- HIGH END CHIP SET
-
- At the increased speed of these surface-mounted chips, the buyer should
- think of "system" upgrades rather than "chip" upgrades. The high end
- chips represent a complete redesign of the custom chips:
-
- - up to 4 chips and one million transistors
- - asynchronous design, modular architecture
- - backward compatible except for timing dependent code
- - video clock independent of the processor clock
- - dual ported VRAM with 32-bit and 64-bit access
- - video clock greater than 100 mHz
- - 12x to 20x memory bandwidth depending on VRAM speed and VRAM bus width
- - 8x performance 32-bit blitter with bit blits and word blits
- - 1024 x 1280 (sic) screen resolution
- - 2 K by 2 K screens supported with upgrades
- - true colour
- - 72 Hz displays
- - includes framegrabber
- - includes genlock
- - high performance general purpose serial port supports CD-ROM
- - on demand DMA provides 16-bit audio, more than 100 kHz rates, 8 voices
- - compressed video decompressed on the fly for playback from VRAM
-
-
-
- PRODUCT PLANS
-
- Commodore is increasing the pace of introducing new products:
-
- - SCSI II 32-bit bus master board, 10 MB transfers, shipping January 93
- - DSP on processor board, expect by late spring, details at the Orlando
- Developers' Conference in January
- - CD-ROM will be integrated across product line, A1200 and up
- - work in progress to support full motion video
- - A4000 Tower and A4000s with 68030 and 68EC030 processors coming
-
-
- Michael Lee Boschet, Jr.
- BoschetM@rvax.ipfw.indiana.edu
- BoschetM@IPFWRVAX
-
- All opinions expressed are mine and not those of my employer and university.
- All quotes and other facts are reprinted without permission.
-