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From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: So, does *anyone* make 1024x768 x256 for the A3000?
Message-ID: <20946@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 25 Apr 91 15:43:50 GMT
References: <1991Apr24.043853.20723@coplex.uucp> <15230@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 32

In article <15230@helios.TAMU.EDU> n298ad@tamuts.tamu.edu (John Jordan) writes:
>Digital Micronics has a 1024 x 800 with 8 plane color (256)
>that has been shown at a few expos.  But it is expected to cost
>around $1000.  

Indeed.  Add Commodore's own A2410, which does 1024x768 with 8 bits/pixel,
driven with a TI34010.  There are a few others, too.

This is a trend I would expect to see continue.  Sure, you CAN build a no-brain
VGA-type display that will do 1024x768 (though the cheap ones are generally
interlaced, while most of the high end stuff is noninterlaced).  However, that
is exactly what you wind up with, a no-brain display.  A 1024x768x8 display 
has ten times as many pixels to push around as a plain old 640x480x2 
Workbench screen.  Doing it via a VGA chip interface makes this even worse,
since you have contention with the VGA circuitry.  So, the bottom line is, I
don't expect you'll see any real low end video displays for the Amiga, 
expecially not until retargetable graphics comes along.  You don't want to
plunk down $1000+ for a monitor, $150 for a card, just to get a 10x graphics
slowdown, no matter how nice all those pixels look (as a user of a 1000x800x2
display on the Amiga myself, I realize how nice all those pixels look).  A
bit more money can at least try to give you the same kind of graphics
performance you're used to by supplying some kind of pixel processor, like
the TIGA chips.  Actually, TIGA is probably going to catch on big, since it's
already supported under UNIX.

>John


-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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      "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" -R.E.M.