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- Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!barrett
- From: mussi@snoop.alphanet.ch (Rene Laederach)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
- Subject: REVIEW: CyberVision64 64-bit graphics card
- Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
- Date: 23 Jun 1995 15:14:45 GMT
- Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
- Lines: 391
- Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
- Distribution: world
- Message-ID: <3selp5$far@kernighan.cs.umass.edu>
- Reply-To: mussi@snoop.alphanet.ch (Rene Laederach)
- NNTP-Posting-Host: astro.cs.umass.edu
- Keywords: hardware, graphics, 64-bit, Zorro III, commercial
- Originator: barrett@astro.cs.umass.edu
-
-
- PRODUCT NAME
-
- CyberVision64 64 bit graphic card
-
-
- BRIEF DESCRIPTION
-
- It's the new graphic card from phase5 Digital Products which is said
- to be very fast. I will tell you if it is.
-
-
- AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION
-
- Name: phase5 Digital Products
- Address: Homburger Landstrasse 412
- 60433 Frankfurt/Main
- GERMANY
-
- Telephone: +49-(0)69-5488130
- FAX: +49-(0)69-5481845
-
- They speak English, but they prefer German. I have not tested their
- French knowledge.
-
- I bought this piece at:
-
- PROMIGOS Bern
- Herrengasse 6
- 3000 Bern
- SWITZERLAND
-
- Telephone: +41-(0)31-3123775
-
- Adrian Etter speaks German, French and English.
-
-
- LIST PRICE
-
- The list price is 898 DEM. I paid 898 CHF. This is for the 4 MB
- version that I highly recommend. The 2 MB version costs 698 DEM and
- respectively 698 CHF at Promigos.
-
-
- SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
-
- HARDWARE
-
- A Zorro III Amiga is required. This card has no Zorro II
- mode. That is, you need an Amiga 3000, 3000T, 4000 or 4000T.
-
- phase5 says that 2 MB RAM are enough, but remember that more
- is better. They recommend 4 MB, and I do recommend at least 8
- MB if you want to do some serious multitasking.
-
- A buster rev 11 is "recommended" for optimum performance.
-
- SOFTWARE
-
- I suspect you need at least AmigaDOS 2.04 to run the
- Cybergraphics system. I only tested it with AmigaDOS 3.1. I
- also suspect you need at least AmigaDOS 3.0 to get advantage
- of 256 colors.
-
-
- COPY PROTECTION
-
- Terrible. :) You can't put your card into a photocopier and make a
- copy - actually, it some sort of a hardware dongle. I haven't managed to
- copy it. :)
-
- The Cybergraphics disk is not protected.
-
-
- MACHINE USED FOR TESTING
-
- Amiga 3000/25, 0 MB Fast RAM onboard, 2 MB Chip RAM.
- Motherboard rev 9.3, Buster rev. 11, DMAC rev 02, Ramsey rev 04.
- CyberStorm 040 40 MHz with 16 MB FAST RAM on RAM module of
- Cyberstorm accelerator.
- 1 internal 1660K floppy.
- Quantum Empire 1080 MB hard drive.
- Archive Viper 525 MB tape drive.
- Toshiba XM-3601 CD-ROM drive.
- No-name monitor 17".
- AmigaDOS 3.1, Kickstart 40.68 and WB 40.42.
- Cybervision 64 with 4 MB RAM.
- All the above is in a tower casing from CompZ.
-
- All SCSI devices are attached to the A3000's internal SCSI.
-
-
- INSTALLATION
-
- Installation of the card is a breeze. I had to remove the tape drive
- in the lowermost 5.25" slot to be able to insert the Cybervision64 card into
- the ZorroIII slot. Then I had to connect the pass-through cable and to
- connect my monitor to the Cybervision64 card.
-
- The software installation was very easy too, and in less than 10 minutes,
- I was running my Amiga on Cybergraphics.
-
-
- WHY THE HECK ANOTHER GRAPHICS CARD?
-
- Well, when I installed my Cyberstorm 040 last Friday, I noticed to
- my outmost disdain that my Retina Z3 wouldn't work. Of course, my dealer
- knew the solution: Buy a Cybervision64.
-
- Until I had installed my Cyberstorm accelerator, I was very happy
- with my RetinaZ3, but when I decided to go for speed, my RetinaZ3 refused.
- Not willing to buy a crappy EGS card (Piccolo SD64, EGS Spectrum) and then
- to pay another 50 DEM to register Cybergraphics, I decided to go for the
- latest hardware on the Amiga and went to my dealer and asked him if I could
- get the card and pay him the first half today and the other at the end of
- the month. He agreed and gave me the card while I have him 500 CHF for the
- time being, intending to pay him in full when my employer decides to
- transfer me my salary.
-
-
- THE QUANTUM LEAP
-
- No, not the hard disk. But I used lousy graphic systems like EGS
- (some software simply decides not to run on EGS and it eats some memory and
- does not work for the software you need it). Definitely not the thing I can
- use. That's also the reason I never bought EGS for my RetinaZ3 (another
- reason was that it never supported the blitter mode of the RetinaZ3).
-
- With Cybergfx, everything changed. For the first time in my miserable
- life, I was able to open a 16-bit Intuition screens, although Intuition is
- not yet aware of the real screen depth. Only programs that are written for
- Cybergraphics will take advantage of deeper screens. Cyberview, Cyberwindow,
- the saver module for PhotoGenics and AdPro and later on (when do I get the
- full version? :( ) PhotoGenics 1.2 will support Cybergfx. I'm already
- looking for Version 1.2 of PhotoGenics.
-
-
- THE INCLUDED SOFTWARE
-
- As everyone who once had or still has a graphic card will know for
- sure, is that the software included with the graphic card is almost more
- important than the graphic card itself and the hardware performance. That's
- why the IMHO crappy Piccolo and GVP EGS Spectrum were so preferred over
- Retinas. With Cybergraphics, this era is stone-age now. For the
- above-mentioned cards (and some more) and the CyberVision64, a Cybergfx
- monitor file exists. I made the RetinaZ3 work on my Retina before I bought
- my Cyberstorm accelerator, but the Cyberstorm accelerator cut short the idea
- of registering cybergfx. And them, why send some money to Frank Mariak
- (author of Cybergfx) when he already gets paid by phase5?
-
- The software includes the Cybergfx software with all libraries and
- the CyberVision monitorfile. As add-on, CyberView (a graphics viewer),
- Cyberwindow (displays graphics on a intuition screen with at least 16 bits
- depth in a window), CVMode (a program which lets you design own monitor
- definitions so you can use a 82 or even 86 KHz monitor on the
- CyberVision64), NewMode (a screen promoter program which is IMHO very
- usable, but you could just use any promoter program on Aminet which suits
- your preferences) as well as drivers for PhotoGenics, ADPro, Maxon Cinema4D,
- ImageFX PhotoGenics (only saver), PhotoWorx display driver and Real3D. This
- is by no means complete, but the cybergfx authors count on the shareware and
- freeware authors as well as commercial developers to write additional
- software. There is already a software for the VLab digitizer board and
- PhotoGenics 1.2 which runs completely (no wimpy PhotoGenics saver) on
- Cybergfx. If anybody knows of other software, it would be very kind to tell
- me (email addresses below) if other software is coming or has already been
- released.
-
-
- EVERYDAY USAGE
-
- The card performs better than any AGA AMIGA - see my AIBB at the end
- of the review section. It feels like an AGA machine if it comes to behaviour
- - I have not yet found any productivity software which did not run on
- Cybergfx except if it was written for an non-Cybergraphics graphic card like
- the Retina or any EGS program.
-
- The promoter is a nice piece which not only gives you the choice to
- choose the screen mode you want to promote a program to, but you can also
- select the 16 bit and 24 bit modes if you do not want to filter them out.
- NewMode also allows you to filter the EHB and HAM modes if you wish so. I
- did not. Of course, you can save which screens NewMode should promote and
- which not. A good candidate not to promote is the Trapdoor screen because it
- does neither need terrific speed nor many colors.
-
- I'm impressed with the speed. That beast is really faster in almost
- all disciplines than the Retina Z3. At the end, there will be the uuencoded
- AIBB module for those people, who absolutely must compare their system to
- mine. But my score is hard to beat. :)
-
- My Amiga's UI has become very snappy - at least now PC folks can go
- home if they see how fast my system is compared even to a Pentium. I know it
- because my father has one 15 meters away and I had to use it many times -
- and the user interface is slower despite the Diamond Stealth64 graphics
- card. But this is also because of my cyberstorm accelerator that the system
- feels so snappy.
-
- One of the programs that does not work directly on a cybergfx screen
- is AIBB. The workaround is not to promote the screen and then to select the
- screen mode in which comparisons are made in AIBB - the tests are then done
- on the cybergfx screen.
-
- Also, NewMode is IMHO one of the best promoters around - I never
- loved the EGS and the Picasso promoters much, but NewMode is freely
- distributable and can be used with them if you like. IMHO the best solution.
-
- The picture viewers that come with the cybervision (and you can
- download updates from the Aminet) are very nice if it comes to compatibility
- - but they don't have a very smart user interface - one point where
- RetinaDisplay is much better - you can drop picture files on the
- RetinaDisplay and it displays them. Also, RetinaDisplay's JPEG routine is
- much faster when I compare it to CyberView. The very same picture took only
- 1.5 times longer to decode on an A3000/25 than on my cyberstorm equipped
- A3000 now. This is not very good as my Amiga with 040/40 MHz is six times
- faster than the A3000/25 when it comes to CPU speed. On the other hand,
- they're very handy if you want to do a slide show with them.
-
-
- EXPANDABILITY
-
- The Cybervision64 card can be expanded with a video add-on module and
- some other type of module, maybe a digitizer or a connection to the planned
- 2GO! board which includes a DSP and some other goodies to raise the speed
- when rendering pictures with programs that support the 2GO! board.
-
-
- DOCUMENTATION
-
- The docs that comes with the cybervision are not that good. Although
- reviews in the German Amiga magazine state that there is an online
- documentation, I could find none on my disk. But it seems this is pretty
- identical with the AmigaGuide documentation from the cybergfx40_47.lha
- archive.
-
- The printed manual which shows you how to install the card into your
- Amiga and is very good - there are no badly dithered pictures like in the
- cyberstorm manual, but clear drawings.
-
-
- AIBB MODULE
-
- Here is a uuencoded AIBB module for the Cyberstorm. To decode it,
- use the "uudecode" command available on Aminet in util/arc.
-
- begin 644 Cybervision.AIBB
- MH;M@4%-N;V]P`&%C:&EN90``````!P`#``<``F5X<&%N<VEO;B!M96UO<GD`D
- M```````````````````````````````(````"0````$`````*``@0.1!B&-H2
- M:7`@;65M;W)Y`````````````````````````````````````````!```"``"
- M```?\`#_]@`@0@39/0```````````````````````````````````````````
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````$?@
- M\``````"0`````0```!```0`(4`B`((P``````#I`````0```.D``0@L$`#!(
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
- M`$(@``!"(```@``1$0@$HZP``(````````@$H```````"`2@``@`"G`(`")HM
- M")3&G`#X````*`!$``0"`0$`,C(`"M,#`"@`"@@`!_@`*`!5"`"C1``H`!@(;
- M`#FD`"@``P@`[^P`*``!"`!J6``H``(``!9T0!(``P```H````#(````"```Y
- M`T````!&`!8`%@````$&!@8`0WE"15)V:7-I;VXZ,3`R-'@W-CAX,C4V````H
- M``````!`X%<]R]TK.0$!041R7X`````!`4#G>:'Y\;#G`0%!.HS>``````$!%
- M02Z$@``````!`4%)\)\``````0%`,>P\/#P\/`$!0+$]#)J@79(!`4#@0`!+K
- MNP*S`0%!0"R?@`````$!0.=YH'\^>KD!`4$[*1X``````0%!),"```````$!>
- M035<O@`````!`4`Q:2?4WG:2`0%`L;-`A))-!0$!07E*G``````!`4%$<E\`5
- M`````0%!-,"```````$!07=8C^`````!`3_&BB^TD.T=`0%!?Y$-\`````$!8
- M07$J@0`````!`4$VXUX``````0%!>4#7X`````$!0429;P`````!`4$RZ[\`X
- M`````0%!=W^?X`````$!/\:?PKVQKY@!`4%_E>_@`````0%!<30]<`````$!2
- M03;C7@`````!`4%#UA\``````0%!"MKP``````$!025<N@`````!`4%&1Q^`W
- M`````0%`$+3RHG$7I0$!04X/3X`````!`4%!V08``````0%!*:)\``````$!E
- M04/6'P`````!`4$*VO```````0%!(X?Z``````$!04:5/P`````!`4`/@^*(2
- MS/FY`0%!3@]0``````$!04&R!``````!`4$IHGP``````0%!.MK_``````$!*
- M00AI\``````!`4$E7,```````0%!1FXO@`````$!0`^#XHC,^;D!`4%"G:"`*
- M`````0%!-:'$``````$!02K;```````!`4$ZVOX``````0%!"MKP``````$!3
- M02+KN@`````!`4%"3W\``````0%`#X/BB,SYN0$!04+$KP`````!`4$T(CX`F
- M`````0%!*W<\``````$!061\)H1FM98!`4!$,JZSL"$)`0%`1&PC+D-N20$!1
- M034.GP`````!`4#*8KQP\%;:`0$D5D52.D%)0D)-;V1U;&4@-BXP("@T+S$O=
- %.3,I````5
- ``
- end
- size 1760
-
-
- BUSTEST RESULTS
-
- BusSpeedTest 0.07 (mlelstv) Buffer: 16384 Bytes
- ==================================================
- loop overhead: 3.4ns
- register move: 24.4ns
- memtype op cycle bandwidth
- fast readw 48.6ns 41.2MByte/s
- fast readl 78.6ns 50.9MByte/s
- fast readm 84.0ns 47.6MByte/s
- fast writew 68.6ns 29.2MByte/s
- fast writel 145.9ns 27.4MByte/s
- fast writem 137.4ns 29.1MByte/s
- chip readw 972.3ns 2.1MByte/s
- chip readl 973.0ns 4.1MByte/s
- chip readm 973.1ns 4.1MByte/s
- chip writew 747.9ns 2.7MByte/s
- chip writel 747.0ns 5.4MByte/s
- chip writem 741.6ns 5.4MByte/s
- rom readw 165.3ns 12.1MByte/s
- rom readl 319.0ns 12.5MByte/s
- rom readm 323.0ns 12.4MByte/s
- $40000000 readw 690.1ns 2.9MByte/s
- $40000000 readl 690.1ns 5.8MByte/s
- $40000000 readm 693.7ns 5.8MByte/s
- $40000000 writew 538.2ns 3.7MByte/s
- $40000000 writel 538.7ns 7.4MByte/s
- $40000000 writem 538.2ns 7.4MByte/s
-
- This piece is definitely faster than Zorro II. :)
-
-
- LIKES
-
- Speed. Compatibility. Expandability. Pass-through port for the Amiga
- video signal.
-
-
- DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS
-
- I don't like that card is not as expandable as the Merlin board - a
- digitizer and a genlock module would be cool. Maybe they will make a
- Cybervideo64 card, a successor to the aging IV-24 and OpalVision?
-
- Also, the thing with the online documentation is one thing phase5
- will have to remedy.
-
-
- COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS
-
- I've used the Retina BLT Z3 before. It does not have a pass-through
- port for the Amiga video signal and you can only add a video module. The
- speed is mostly inferior, and the blitter mode (which is mostly slower than
- the Cybervision) is not extremely compatible with the existing Amiga
- software.
-
-
- BUGS
-
- I have found none to date.
-
-
- VENDOR SUPPORT
-
- I have not contacted phase5 for the Cybervision64.
-
-
- WARRANTY
-
- phase5 gives a warranty of 12 months against manufacturing defects.
-
-
- CONCLUSIONS
-
- The product is very good and I'm satisfied. If there were not the
- missing online-documentation, I would rate this card with 5 out of five. With
- the missing on-line documentation, I can only give a 4.8, which means almost
- totally Doggy (1 is "no meat" and 5 is "Totally Doggy!").
-
-
- COPYRIGHT NOTICE
-
- This review is (c) by Rene Laederach and freely distributable as
- long as you don't use it commercially, that is, print it in a commercial
- magazine. If you want to print it in whole or in parts, just ask for my
- written permission.
-
- You can reach me at:
-
- mussi@snoop.alphanet.ch
- C-B.maus (Mausnet)
- 2:301/723.4@fidonet
- 39:110/312@amiganet
- 44:8010/312@aminet (Swiss Aminet only)
-
- ---
-
- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
- Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu
- Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu
- Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu
- Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews
-