Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!atha!aunro!alberta!herald.usask.ca!regina!hercules!cazabon
From: cazabon@hercules (Charles Cazabon (186-003-526))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: TAD/ADpro information.
Message-ID: <473@regina.uregina.ca>
Date: 28 May 91 02:47:40 GMT
References: <1644@tronsbox.xei.com>
Sender: news@regina.uregina.ca
Reply-To: cazabon@hercules.uregina.ca (Charles Cazabon (186-003-526))
Organization: University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan
Lines: 28

In article <1644@tronsbox.xei.com> bleys@tronsbox.xei.com (Bill Cavanaugh) writes:
>I've been thinking of purchasing the Art Department, having spent a few
>hours playing with the demo.  I'm VERY impressed with the look of the
>program, and it's amazingly simple interface.  I've got a few questions
>for people who've used it...
>
>When I run the demo, I often get a message that I don't have enough
>memory to handle the picture.  I'm trying to load a 120K gif, and I've
>got 3 megs of ram on a four-year-old A500.  Is this part of the
>crippled nature of the demo?  If not, has the problem been addressed in
>the current release of the software?
>

The reason that TAD or ADPro require so much memory is that when they load
in a picture, they convert it to either 24 bit colour information or 8
bit greyscale information.  Couple on top of this the fact that GIF pictures
are stored in a file with a compression scheme similar to LZH, and you get
mega-memory requirements.  For example:  a 256 colour GIF picture that 
occupies 120K of disk space will, when loaded, take up (on average) 180K
of ram.  This is for 8 bit colour data, so to get 24 bit colour, triple it.
That is a hunk of contiguous memory 560K long.  Then on top of that, you have
the memory that is needed for the display (say, roughly 100K for a 320x400
HAM image), and then on top of that, the memory needed for the program itself.
I think that five megs is the minumum to use the program well.  

Hope this was of help.
					-Chuck
					cazabon@hercules.uregina.ca