Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!emory!gatech!taco!hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu!kdarling From: kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: AMIGA Message-ID: <1991May6.171846.27937@ncsu.edu> Date: 6 May 91 17:18:46 GMT References: <&i4Gzkv*1@cs.psu.edu> <1991May05.171856.13398@ariel.unm.edu> <1991May5.185506.5004@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <1991May5.212810.28755@wam.umd.edu> Sender: news@ncsu.edu (USENET News System) Distribution: usa Organization: North Carolina State University Lines: 27 ddev@wam.umd.edu (Don DeVoe) asks: > I'm curious...what is the maximum frame rate that can be acheived on the > Amiga, and how does this speed compare to other platforms, Playback from memory? Since personals (including the Amiga) ordinarily only use the cpu for this, the playback rates are a function of cpu speed, video ram access, resolution, delta encoding method and the amount of data actually changing between frames. That's a lot of variables ;-). Even if the latter two are comparable, you may not be able to find the exact same resolution (read: total number of changed bytes) between machines. And the the cpu/videoram speed can vary a lot too, of course. Hmm. As a general statement, I'd say that the Amiga was no better/worse than most other platforms. I've seen Amiga animations played back on good VGA cards; and have done so myself on non-Amiga 68K machines. No big deal. The _factual_ reasons why the Amiga has a great animation reputation are: 1. Programmers have been supporting it for a much longer time on the Amiga. 2. It could do double-buffering, which some others didn't have at first. That's it. But now that PC programmers have recently "discovered" that VGA cards have double-buffering after all (as detailed in my article in the alt.pixutils group a coupla weeks ago -- I'm not a PC user, but do try to watch for new developments), there'll soon be better PC animations and tools available, for example. The same will also happen eventually for most other machines. best - kevin