Native Video vs RTG Graphics Cards

[Hyperspeed]

I would say that if you're keeping to the standard chipset keep your
Workbench screen to 16-colours and your browser to 32-colours. I hear
a lot of people reccomending 64-colours but that is slightly tipping
the balance towards sluggishness.

Set yourself up an NTSC screenmode with maximum overscan and
32-colours and you will get 724x482, 60Hz vertical refresh (highest
AGA will do), 15Khz horizontal refresh (good for TV and
monitor).

DblPAL/DblNTSC are extremely slow and Multiscan whilst nice and 1:1
ratio is a drain on the custom chip bandwidth due to the 29Khz
horizontal refresh and no interlacing.

If you load your system up with all the BlazeWCP and Fblit stuff you
will eventually encounter conflicts with software and they could prove
dangerous when using things like Executive, ReOrg, DiskSalv and
HDToolBox etc.

A good start would be to make things pretty but yet low-resource with
a package like Magic Workbench 2.

A cheap Spectrum/Picollo graphics card though would be ideal for
someone lucky enough to have an A2000.

:-D

[Hyperspeed]

tomekm: How does 27Khz work on an SVGA monitor, don't they need a
minimum of 30Khz? This has made me wonder if the Microvitec 1438,
1538, 1764/1701 can take video modes as well as SVGA. A handy range of
monitors to have!

Do you have a SysInfo module to demonstrate your graphics speeds at
800x600 on AGA? Sounds like a very slow system at 27Khz AGA.



ckillerh3 - If you can find a PicassoIV get that over a PicassoII, get the cheaper Cybervision 64 or
Cybervision 64-3D if you can't get the PIV. Maybe you could get a
PicassoII for less than 50USD though, it's a great card.

:-)

Cyberstorm: That ACK turboboard you mention sounds interesting - an
integrated GFX chip on an A1200 accelerator would rock. Busboards are
the bane of the desktop user! Hopefully if it comes out it'll be a lot
smaller and better ventilated than the PowerUP+BVision combo.

Also with regards to flicker fixers - they only seem to activate in
15Khz modes. It would be nice if they flicker-fixed anything that was
interlaced but they don't seem to do that. Multiscan:Productivity is
just passed through without being scandoubled or flicker-fixed.

I wonder if there is software for people using the custom chips to
make their own screenmodes like P96 users have. This would be great
for getting an LCD panel happy on a classic non-RTG system.

[Hyperspeed]

MULTISCAN:Productivity is 58Hz, 29.29Khz. This might not make it on
some SVGA monitors that don't like going below 31Khz.

Also 58Hz is less than NTSC's 60Hz.

You do get a nice 1:1 crisp mouse pointer in this mode but the
horizontal scanrate I believe slows down the custom chips two-fold.

There is also a double-height version called MULTISCAN:Productivity
Laced which is 640x960. Because it is double the height the display is
updated in two mesh-style fields to make a single picture. It thus
flickers like hell - something a flicker-fixer could correct if it
wasn't limited to 15Khz modes.

One advantage of MULTISCAN:Productivity on pass-thru with a
scandoubler is that you aren't limited to the 16-bit boundary of the
5:6:5 (or the aweful DCE 8:4:4) colour reduction mechanism and can
utilise full 18-Bit Ham8 in 262,144 colours instead of 16-Bit 32,768.
Four times as many colours for SVGA monitor owners with a Scandoubler
who would normally use PAL/NTSC modes...

[Hyperspeed]

patrik: Ahhh I get you... wondering where you got the extra few Hz...

;-)

So MULTISCAN as it is, with less than 31Khz is designed to cope on
15Khz monitors as well as PAL does, but with the VGA-Only thing it
bumps up to dedicate to VGA rates. (?)

I'm seem to remember MULTISCAN:Productivity working on my old telly, I
could be wrong. I know the old 25" was displaying 1024x512 interlaced
which is kinda HDTV (PAL:Super-High Res Laced)

:-D :-D :-D

On another thread I came across this file:
http://de.aminet.net/aminetbin/find?monitortest

It's a small (apparently retargettable) program that gives you a
screen tester like you'd have on the old TV broadcasts. A sort of
video-signal but with colour testing, gradients etc.

I found out my Eyetech EZ-VGA Plus is a 5:6:5-bit which is 32x64x32 =
65,536...  the balance making gradients a little more AGA than the DCE
standard.

Now I know why Amiga Format gave the add-on CyberVision64 scandoubler
a poor mark compared to the GOLD-Award winning Picasso-IV (which had
the scandoubler&flicker-fixer integrated).

I think I'll try this Euro72 when I have a chance too... I doubt my
NEC Multisync will like it but I can try.

;-)

[Hyperspeed]

Well Super72 wouldn't work on my monitor but Euro72 and Euro36 did.
However I found them inferior to NTSC in every respect (although they
didn't need a scandoubler).

Unfortunately, to get the same resolution as NTSC:High Res Laced at
31Khz you cannot get Euro72 flicker-fixed and it has a smaller
overscan.

I think I'll stick with NTSC for the time being since I have an EZ-VGA
Plus Scandoubler/FF.