Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!coy From: coy@ssc-vax.UUCP (Stephen B Coy) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: MY THOUGHTS (ones that count :-) (Was: How about Sliced EHB) Message-ID: <3071@ssc-vax.UUCP> Date: 17 Dec 89 23:08:59 GMT References: <857@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> <1337@xyzzy.UUCP> <19331@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics, Seattle WA Lines: 48 In article <19331@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, rsingh1@dahlia.waterloo.edu writes: > These last 2 modes are GREAT for display (slide show's). Recently, I did > a job where I converted 640x480 HAM's to GIF (reduced to 256 colours) for > display on an IBM VGA. The results were nice, but I realized that now I > could display BETTER images with these dynamic modes. Remember, you started with HAM images. That means that most of the color information was already thrown away when you had to reduce to 4 bits per primary. No wonder the VGA images looked bad. If you want to do a real comparison start with 24 bit data and convert for each machine. I'd be willing to bet a 6-pack that in 90% of the cases the VGA will look better. Why? Because the VGA palette uses 6 bits per primary. Unless the colors in the image are very evenly spread thoughout the color cube the extra bits available in VGA will produce much smoother shading gradations. A degenerate though frequently occurring case is grey scale images. The Amiga, no matter how you slice it, will only produce 16 levels of grey. A VGA board will do 64. The difference is amazing. If you add dithering the VGA image will approach black&white photo quality while the Amiga image will still be trying to catch up with the straight VGA. Now, before anybody starts flaming let me add some disclaimers and other comments. I am an Amiga owner and damn proud of it. I got my 1000 back in October of '85 and have been hacking with its graphics ever since. This summer I also bought a 386 clone with an ATI super-VGA card. This card will display 256 colors in 320x200 640x400, 640x480 and 800x600 resolutions. Over the past couple of years I have been working on THE killer ray tracer. :-) Right now it runs on both machines just fine. I've put a lot of time into conversion routines to create both HAM and GIF images out the the ray tracer's 24 bit results. I haven't had a chance to play with dynamic hires yet but it does look like it will be the best way to get the most out of the current Amiga hardware. But I still think that the lack of color resolution will give the edge to the VGA for the large majority of cases. > /Paul Anton Sop (Esquire?). rsingh1@dahila.waterloo.edu/ > /Graphic Designer 4 Spaghetti Western Words and Images / > /100 Kinzie Ave, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, N2A 2J5 / > /(519) 578-8525/742-0372 (if seriously really desparate)/ Stephen Coy uw-beaver!ssc-vax!coy ps The ray tracer is called Vivid and will be released as shareware in about 3-4 months, or less if I can manage it. (Eeek! I guess since I've just announced it to the whole world I really have to get it finished up now. :-)