Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:66718 comp.sys.amiga.tech:14613 comp.sys.amiga.hardware:3684 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!twg.com!david From: david@twg.com (David S. Herron) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.tech,comp.sys.amiga.hardware Subject: Re: 24 bit graphics Message-ID: <7984@gollum.twg.com> Date: 23 Sep 90 19:07:27 GMT References: <1990Sep22.222816.28754@zip.eecs.umich.edu> <10918@life.ai.mit.edu> Reply-To: david@twg.com (David S. Herron) Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga Distribution: na Organization: The Wollongong Group, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 92 In article <10918@life.ai.mit.edu> rjc@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >In article <1990Sep22.222816.28754@zip.eecs.umich.edu> gilgalad@dip.eecs.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) writes: >>.... I do not think that HAME or DCTV are the answer >>at all, as they are very much a kludge and are CPU intensive. > > Huh? How is HAME and DCTV CPU intensive? Its hardware. Maybe you mean that >they use up memory bandwidth like a 16color HIRES display does. ... > My question is, can those 24bit high resolution boards animate in real time? >(60fps) And do they offer compression? DCTV seems to compress video real >well for the amount of colors and can animate in real time 24bit without >requiring 7megs of VRAM for animating or holding images. > By the way, a kludge is anything that gets the job done, and DCTV and HAME >provide short term solutions. Maybe I recommend a IBM+VGA or $10,000 Mac II? Yes, at least DCTV can animate real-time. At the demo they put on for FAUG a couplea months ago they were: hiding their data inside a normal ILBM/IFF file. The data happened to be the same size as a normal hi-res picture file, its just that the encoding was different. using DPaint-3 (the one with animation) to read one of these files and animate it. DPaint-3 simply displayed whatever bits wuz there, magic cookie and all. All the manipulations it did were transparent on through all the Amiga software & hardware and decoded just fine inside the DCTV box. Since the amount of data is the same as normal hi-res pictures any system that can shovel that many bits around to make a hi-res animation will also be able to shovel that same number of bits around to make a DCTV encoded 24-bit animation. They are assumably going to get, or have already gotten, an officially blessed IFF type assigned to them. Since DPaint-3 was able to read their file when it was hiding inside an ILBM file, all that will need be done differently for the DCTV IFF format is to prevent the user from mucking with the pixels that do the magic cookie. >>Someone should produce a 24 bit graphics card (there are quite a >>few companies doing this right now it would seem): ... > Yes, but there is no device independant graphics library so this is no >different than IBM's CGA/EGA/VGA KLUDGE! (develop code for each board instead >of having the OS do it) ... > >>-RISC processor, or 34020 to keep the graphics stuff non-cpu-intensive Graphics is, by its nature, CPU intensive. It just helps a whole lot to have a processor that's suited to the task. An i860 for instance ;-). >>-large dual port memory helpful >>-support for NTSC resolutions >>-support for 8 bpp, 16 bpp, 24 bpp >>-support for user upgradeable memory to say 16 megs of video memory why that small?? :-) >>-support for interlaced and non-interlaced displays >>(24 bit images are quite large after all) >>-support for high resolutions with additional memory in the board >> -say up to 1600x1280 (this would certainly appease quite a >> few people) again, that small? I want a wall-sized monitor! >>- BNC connector, RCA connector and RGB connectors for multiple outputs >>- software-wise there should only be the device driver stuff, since >>Commodore is going to take care of the niceties of having Retargetable >>Graphics. > > The only thing Commodore should do is develop a seperate retargetable >graphics library and define a standard. The rest should be left up to >third parties. Why must Commodore always be the one to do everything? >'Commodore should make a DSP' , 'Commodore should make a 24bit board', >'Commodore should upgrade the custom chips to 32bit color and megapixels' There should definitely be a standard graphics library for many types of output device. That there isn't is a real big problem .. -- <- David Herron, an MMDF & WIN/MHS guy, <- Formerly: David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <- <- Sign me up for one "I survived Jaka's Story" T-shirt!