Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!mintaka!wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu!rjc From: rjc@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Amiga bashing Message-ID: <1991Jun21.113939.14446@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Date: 21 Jun 91 11:39:39 GMT References: <1991Jun20.200326.16487@bmerh409.bnr.ca> <1991Jun21.024820.27900@Sugar.NeoSoft.com> <1991Jun21.073046.8276@ncsu.edu> Sender: news@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu Organization: The Internet Lines: 53 In article <1991Jun21.073046.8276@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes: >peter@Sugar.NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >>In article <1991Jun20.200326.16487@bmerh409.bnr.ca> drews@bmerh796.bnr.ca (Drew Stevens) writes: >>> Also, a $100 SuperVGA card provides resolutions up to 1024x768 >>> (non-interlaced up to 800x600) and a quarter-million colour palette. >> >>Yes, but the AT bus puts enough wait-states on I/O to the card that it's >>barely adequate for animation. > >Funny, I don't recall him asking about animation :-). Jest kidding, Pete. > >Comparing animation on resolutions like those, to animating much smaller >resolutions (read: far fewer bytes) on the Amiga, isn't quite fair tho. >Drop back to 320x200x8-bit color on a decent VGA card with even a lesser >Intel cpu, and it can play back animations just as well as the Amiga can. >I've seen it, and so have other Amigans here in town. However, the Intel >wasn't multitasking at the time, either :-). Well, animation capabilities go hand in hand with fast screen refresh. Let's imagine I have a 1024x768x8 Shell window and I send it to back on this VGA card ....wait....wait....wait... ahhh it finally finished refreshing the screen. Common, a $100 VGA card? You can tell this thing doesn't have any co-processors on board nor will it have any mechanisms for moving huge chunks of graphics, in short the 1024x768 (interlaced?) mode is fairly unusable unless you are used to Xwindows. Now that I look at it, HAM-E, DCTV and Colorburst kick VGA's butt as far as displaying nice graphics. >Still, I thought we already covered the number of waitstates in higher >(read: decent) AMiga gfx modes? It's not real impressive either. In HAM mode you only have 50% wait states, and we've already seen HAM animations with 15-20 fps on a 68000. The point is, 1024x768 and no coprocessor are just too many pixels to move around. So Super-VGA gives you a nice static display, but I bet dragging icons around in it and changing windows will be ugly. >Friends, it's getting about time that you should start opening your eyes. >In other words, repeating old chants won't work forever, y'know :). >Apologies: this was a kneejerk reaction to a too common kneejerk comment. It's also time to realize this VGA card is no miracle, it's a cheap slow static display. You get what you pay for. > - kevin -- / INET:rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu * // The opinions expressed here do not \ | INET:r_cromwe@upr2.clu.net | \X/ in any way reflect the views of my self.| \ UUCP:uunet!tnc!m0023 * /