Amiga Animation and CHIP RAM versus FAST RAM

[Rowbeartoe]

 

Zac67 wrote:
Actually, there's no sense in running any anim with >30 fps - your eyes wouldn't see the difference anyway (60 fps vs 30 fps with every other frame skipped). That's the exact reason why cinema/PAL/NTSC work with 24/25/30 fps: their designers wouldn't waste film/bandwidth.

The Amiga programmers were obviously aware of this and just coded that way.

No disrespt, but I so strongly disagree- ever play video games that play at 30fps versus 60fps?- try car games, you'll notice the differnece.  In short, especially back in those days, I could see a differnce simply becuase motion blur wasn't working- a trick that works real good with "low" frame rates. Movies drive me crazy at 24 fps when they pan left and right quickly- but this isn't my question- this is a whole entire differn't argument or opinion.  I used to make lots of animations on my Atari ST, and 60fps was clearly better when lots of frames where included.  Boing on the Amiga, would be smoother for example at 60 verus 30fps.

 

[Rowbeartoe]

tonyp12 wrote:
If all the frames in raw format would been able to fit on chip ram:

Then 60fps would be not problem and would only use
1% cpu power as just simple changing the mem pointer in the copper list.

But if you use delta compression such as IFF anim when the cpu would have to go to work

And if you have to copy from fast ram to chip ram you could not use the blitter.

I was watching these demos at my work on an Amiga 500- that translates to all Chip RAM.  Again, I keep reading the Amiga can, or the Amiga should have no problem, or the Amiga has no need too, but the reality is, in my visual experience at the time, the Amiga animation demos, as with Sculpt 3D, or Antics Cad 3D 2.0, or the Juggler Demo, these animation programs stopped at no greater than 30fps.  My question again is, why? And is everyone that says it can, better programmers than the software makers of these programs, or is it because of other reasons?  I'm just curious, because the Atari ST was pounded for being inferior by experts all the time, and i really don't care what was better- to me it was a win win, because Amiga to be is an Atari computer (sorry if that upsets Amiga fans), and I enjoyed my Atari ST software very much as well.  I keep reading all my old magazines reviewing animation software or demos, and none mention 60fps as was bragged about with Atari ST's Cad 3D and shown all the time with Spectrum 512 page flipping.  Again, if the Amiga was limited to this page flipping, was it just the software, the speed of Chip RAM, the 7.1 MHz clock speed, the more memory intense files?  I duno.  sigh.

Thanks again everyone for trying to help.

[Rowbeartoe]

Zac67 wrote:
To repeat my theory: The programmers coded that way to allow non-interlaced as well as interlaced anims - you usually program as universally as reasonable. They regarded 30 fps as sufficient (which it usually is, at least if the frames are made for it (video captured / motion blurred).

The Atari programmers didn't have to watch for non-/interlace differences since the STs can't output the former (only with tricks).

So is this a confirmation that the software writen for all these animation programs by 1989 never let the users to 60fps?

Thanks again everyone.

[Rowbeartoe]

Well I just wrote a novel and I forgot to post it.  In short, I did some research and have concluded that perhaps I was runing a Antic CAD 3D "demo" on the Amiga.  However Antic did release Design disks for the Amiga that were basicly Atari ST designs from it's CAD 3D.  O- and Zoetrope on the Amiga was Atari ST's Cyperpaint.  My question once again was why did Juggler, Sculpt 3D, and this Demo of CAD 3D on the Amiga never allow speeds to go faster than 30fps as they did on the Atari ST?  

As for the Graphic superiority of the Amiga- well overall I agree the Amiga was better- but I would argue and have some proof from pictures I've made using Spectrum 512, that some things at 320x200 looked better than the Amiga Ham-6 pictures.  Spectrum 512 wasn't just a 16 colors per scan line program like Apple IIGS graphics were, you could display almost 50 unique colors per scan line- this offered some advantages over HAM-6 which had to modify one of the 16 unique colors RGB values to display up to 4096 colors- the look would look smudgy at times.  I had fun converting GIF and BMP pictures to HAM-6 and Spectrum 512.  Amiga wasn't always better.  And I made some beutiful 512 color pictures on my Atari ST that HAM-6 simply couldn't convert as well.  I wish I could upload a PNG file to show.  In addition, the monochrom 640x400 non-interlace display was nice for desktop publishing- the Amiga "flicker" at the resolution was greart for pictures, but not text.  But- again this isn't about graphics, this is about my question as to why Amiga animation software appeared to always be limited to 30fps on the store Amiga 500.  hmmmm.

Thanks again everyone for your help and time.

Below is a link to see some Spectrum 512 examples- some were Amiga HAM-6 pictures converted to Spectrum 512.  The other is a picture I made showing all of the Atari ST's colors and the conversion to HAM-6.  I realize and acknoledge however, that some HAM-6 pictures looked really bad converted to Spectrum 512- the point is, HAM-6 wasn't always better.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0c/Spectrum_512_power.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/ST_versus_Amiga.png

[Rowbeartoe]

O- and the software from Spectrum 512 let you page flip up to 60fps.  As for advertising it, the manual I believed in Spectrum 512 mentioned it- but it was obvious just from using my function keys.  The Catalog (Antics software store) mentioned 60fps for it's CAD 3D.  And without motion blur, you could still see stepping even at 60fps with the naked eye.  Wasn't Boing only 30fps as well?

Thanks again for your help everyone.

[Rowbeartoe]

bloodline wrote:

Rowbeartoe wrote: Below is a link to see some Spectrum 512 examples- some were Amiga HAM-6 pictures converted to Spectrum 512. The other is a picture I made showing all of the Atari ST's colors and the conversion to HAM-6. I realize and acknoledge however, that some HAM-6 pictures looked really bad converted to Spectrum 512- the point is, HAM-6 wasn't always better.

But the "Spectrum 512" trick requires CPU time, a significant amount since you need to interrupt at the end of every scanline... HAM-6 requires no CPU time... HAM-6 is better, in every regard... it is more complex to set up the picture to look good, but it is better.

Spectrum 512 and other paint programs that followed on the ST did offer some advantage over Ham-6.  But Ham-6 had advantages 2.  But this isnt about spectrum 512 versus Ham-6.  

[Rowbeartoe]

-D- wrote:

Juggler, Sculpt 3D,

Sculpt 3D was the first animation program for the Amiga (what Juggler was done with), maybe that had something to do with it. Again, the authors may not have seen a point (for reasons already listed).

and this Demo of CAD 3D on the Amiga

Link?

this is about my question as to why Amiga animation software appeared to always be limited to 30fps on the store Amiga 500.  hmmmm.

So all we've really established here is that whatever was running in your store (you seem to not be sure, or think it might have been "demo" software) may have been limited to 30 fps, and not "all Amiga animation software." Why not research the mountain of other Amiga animation titles (aside from the very first one in '86) and see what ya come up with?

That's why I'm asking.  In my first post, I was asking about all the animation software available for the Amiga at the time I was a computer salesman-  I've been re-reading all my Amiga magazines up to late 1989 (I had to keep up to answer all the questions people might have had), and all the reviews never mention the speed being able to surpass 30fps- some just don't say at all.  In addition Juggler was not Scult 3D.  If you look at all the posts, somewhere in here you'll see me talk about the Juggler.  The Antic Demo might have been CAD 3D coming soon- or could have been it's Antic Design disks available for Scult 3D and Videoscape.  But Zoetrope was Cyperpaint, and we know the ST version did 60fps- so was Zoetrope?  The Info magazine review of Zoetrope said the animation files were not the normal Anim files.  This really just has to do with the Animation players available for the Amiga.  Did the HAM-6 animation players or the 32 color IFF players allow the user to go up to 60fps after they created their animation using paint or animation programs?  I had so much fun with CAD 3D- I even made a demo for my store on the ST.  O- the good ol days.  

Thanks again for all your help

[Rowbeartoe]

amigaksi wrote:

"I have one of those pictures you linked to in a Newtek Demo and it's better on the Amiga-- there are more shades in the picture.  The Atari ST is limited to 8 shades/color whereas Amiga is 16 shades/color."

That picture was an Amiga picture just converted to Spectrum 512- so of course it would look better on the Amiga- I'd love to have the orginal photograph and then convert it to Spectrum 512- otherwise at best, it can only look the same.  BTW- two of those pictures were also VGA 256 color GIF pictures converted as well (I wonder how they would look in HAM-6?.  The picture on the top right I believe was an Amiga SHAM picture converted to Spectrum 512 format- so that too would look better on the Amiga since that's what it was.

SHAM was HAM-6 per scan line, so same limitations only you get a fresh 16 colors every line.  Sham was soon after I left the computer store I believe.  1990 probably or even later- and by that time- Amiga and Atari had better machines available.  I'm sure there was better hacks after Spectrum 512 for Atari ST as well to display more colors per scan line with overscan etc.  But back to my comparison- around 1987-1989 the software available for the ST and Amiga used HAM-6 and Spectrum 512 for animations.


amigaksi wrote:

"By the way, you mentioned Mega ST w/4MB RAM for animations; well if you are going to go to high end machines, I just ran that same code on the Amiga 4000 and it does 120fps in 16 color mode and 85 frames/second in HAM-6 mode. And that code was brute force frame painting with no compression."

I mentioned the Mega ST4 because it was available in 1987 about the same time Amiga released the 500 and 2000.  As I'm sure you know, the 500 and 2000 were basicly a 1000 with either more expansion slots, or a closed case like the 1040ST.  The Mega ST2/4 offered the ST its first Blitter Chip and limited expansion- it was more like the Amiga 1000.  These computers are what I'm trying to compare for animation speed as these were what was available when I was a computer salesman.  By 1990- Atari released the STE (4,096 colors, blitter, better sound) and the TT- the first true next generation Atari after the ST.

But lets get back to my question.. this can get way out of hand.  =)

Thanks again everyone for your help.

[Rowbeartoe]

Like I said we can easily get side trackd from my question on this forum.  The STE was a slight improvement but it was overall outdated when it was released in my opinion- when compared to the Amiga 1000 or the 520ST released 5 years prior.  Lets keep with the Amiga 500/1000/2000 versus 520/1040/Mega ST RAM and Animation comparison.  Thanks again everyone.

[Rowbeartoe]

I said "SHAM was HAM-6 per scan line, so same limitations only you get a fresh 16 colors every line. Sham was soon after I left the computer store I believe. 1990 probably or even later-..."

amigaksi
"It's not the same limitations since you have fresh 16 colors out of 320 pixels and the hold-and-modify option for those 16 colors.
Well, if we are talking hardware capabilities, it was possible to have a better HAM in 1985. I'm sure people were modifying palettes on the Amiga using copper list before the dynamic HAM mode."

Isn't that what I said "a fresh 16 colors every line" plus hold and modify?  Well if not, that's what I meant.  Still even so- I could do some things in Spectrum 512 that would still cause even SHAM problems.  But obviously, the reverse is possible as well- even more so with SHAM.  And like I said, by the time SHAM was available (I'm not sure if paint programs supported it?) I know the demo world was even pushing the ST with more colors on scan lines and overscan etc.  

BUT! and this is a big BUT (notice the one T) my question was to the common folk who could only make animations using programs such as Scult 3D for example or CAD 3D for the ST.  Followed by was it possible at all for the Amiga since I still witnessed demos such as Juggler (a HAM-6 demo) not doing 60fps.  Or boing (a low color demo) apparently wasn't doing 60fps either.  I know for a fact, the Atari ST did allow users of Spectrum 512 and it's 16 color programs such as CAD 3D and Cyper paint to do 60fps as well.  And the time frame of course I was asking was no later than 1989 when I was a computer salesman.  I'm just fascinated by this.  The ST got away with this apparently because of it's 16 MHZ RAM- 8MHz for 68000 and 8MHz for video.  Simple, cheap, and effective at a time when RAM was faster than CPU's.  It's MMU and Shifter chip allowed some cool intrupts too, but required major CPU time to edit the pictures, but once you put those pics in memory- BAM- you had up to 60fps 320x200 500 color page flipping animations.  Not bad at all. As for the Amiga- Well Im not sure about it's 4,096 color HAM-6 mode or it's 32/64 color modes being able to page flip at 60fps at 320x200.  Amiga clearly was graphicly more capable overall, but I'm just curious if the software or demos ever did 60fps for the Amiga 500/1000/2000.  That's all.  And if future demos could, why did the orginal ones fail?   BTW- I loved Fuji Boink on the ST- it was boing, but with raster color intrupts back in 1986.  It was the first "high color" demo I saw on the Atari ST about the same time I saw the "high color" Juggler demo on the Amiga.  Boy that was an exciting time.

Thanks everyone.


amigaksi
"Didn't they make accelerated Amigas or accelerator boards by 1987? The 120fps I got was in OCS mode on an Amiga 4000. I got 39 fps on Amiga 500/1000 at 7.16Mhz."

Yes, and by 1989 I remember Transputer boards available for everybody- Atari really went crazy with that for a bit too.  But I'm not asking about board accelartors- I put one in my ST too.  Just curious about the stalk machines, because as a saleman, I could never answer that question.  

Thanks again everyone for your help.
 

[Rowbeartoe]

WOW- I'm sorry for doubting the Ability of the Amiga- but again all I have is what I saw as a computer salesman and tons of magazines with software reviews never mentioning doing more than 30fps.  Understand I'm in the states, so we had the 60hz monitors for 60fps.  

Spectrum 512 was NOT 16 colors per scan line.  That would be very limiting graphicly as is evident from Apple IIGS pictures.  To clarify and understand Spectrum 512.  Every scan line was interupted 3 times- meaning 16 colors about every 100 pixels PER scan line.  I have a link to a picture I made in Spectrum 512 that gave HAM-6 a hell of a time.  The reason- well the picture has 33 colors on a scan line with the color black between each one.  That will give Ham-6 hell.  The other link is just an example of what Spectrum 512 pictures could do, including converting 2 famous 256 color GIF pictures and 1 Amiga HAM-6 and 1 Amiga SHAM or DHAM picture.  Followed by some BMP pictures and 2 pictures I made displaying the colors.  I included both links.  Overall- they are impressive and comparable to 320x200 HAM-6 in my opinion.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/ST_versus_Amiga.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0c/Spectrum_512_power.png

Now I hope that clarifys the 16 colors per scan line misunderstanding of Spectrum 512.  

Spectrum 512 included at slideshow program and a simple script editor that allowed me to type in each picture in what ever order and then page flip them using the functions keys- 60fps being the fastest.  What many Atarians did was take some Amiga HAM-6 demos and run them on the ST up to 60fps.  The juggler for example was on the ST and would run faster with the spectrum 512 slideshow program-  as was the Scult 3D raytrace demo of that 5 ball thing bouncing under a lamp.  Again the ST could run this demo faster.  

So, every demo I saw on the Amiga was not going at 60fps.  Every magazine review of animation never mentioned they could.  That's why I question and could never honestly tell people if the Amiga could at that time.  

My ST still works- I'd love to just show people what I'm talking about here.  I wish I also had an Amiga 500 with some HAM-6 demos runing at 60fps.  Perhaps an improved juggler with that feature would be satisfying enough to me?  

I have a hard time just accepting people saying it could.  But I'll just take the word of everyone here.  The Amiga could, the software demos just sucked at achieving 60fps, and move on.  

O and yes my MegaST4 was a blast at home, because I could have 60 or more 500 color pictures displaying at 60fps (the pictures were compressed SPC- because SPU files took up 50K versus about 20-30K).  But most demos, would have about 10-30 frames like the juggler just repeating.  The juggler demo is below.  I paid $1800 for my 4 megabyte Atari ST in 1988.  I had to sell my 520ST to help pay for it then.  But 4 megabytes was great to digitize music and page flip large animations.  

http://home.comcast.net/~erniew/juggler.html

Thanks everyone.  

[Rowbeartoe]

shoggoth wrote:

JetRacer wrote:
Fun fact: even modern PC's have major difficulties working under similar conditions (read: massive MB 320x200 raw animation replayed with flawless 60hz fps). It's ofcourse the OS of Win/Linux/Mac that bogs down performance and nothing else.

I beg to differ. Having programmed low level VGA stuff, I can assure you that this is not an issue. Maybe if you're running XP with little memory and virus scanners and {bleep}, but well... that's not a proper comparison.

Not to get sidetracked, but my Dad was a PC guy, and around 1990 when 256 color VGA was afforadable and common along with 16MHz 80286 clones, he had demos doing 60fps page flipping as well.  This was the DOS days, and the program used GL files I believe.  I remember a 256 color jolt can spinning around.  But by this time, Amiga and Atari have been doing these kinds of demos for almost half a decade.  =)  The PC was very slow in catching up.  Prior to 1990 you had to pay over $5,000 to use a Mouse, 3.5" disket, Soundblaster card, VGA, and a 16-Bit 80286 with a megabyte of RAM.  All about 5 years after the ST and Amiga.  

[Rowbeartoe]

shoggoth wrote:

Rowbeartoe wrote:
I have a hard time just accepting people saying it could.  But I'll just take the word of everyone here. The Amiga could, the software demos just sucked at achieving 60fps, and move on.  

Dude, why ask a question if you don't want to trust the answers you get anyway?

Because I'm a skeptic, and must be convinced. Some people are just so biased, that they will say it can.  I know you understand that.  I was hoping to hear someone say, for example, that old ANIM players were limited to 30fps then improved.  

[Rowbeartoe]

amigaksi wrote: >...The reason- well the picture has 33 colors on a scan line with the color black between each one. That will give Ham-6 hell... I would need the original image that you believe will give HAM-6 hell. JPG will distort the image. Halfbrite mode can do 33 unique colors easily and the copper can change 32 color registers in a scanline without involving the processor. >I have a hard time just accepting people saying it could. But I'll just take the word of everyone here. The Amiga could, the software demos just sucked at achieving 60fps, and move on. .. >http://home.comcast.net/~erniew/juggler.html If that's one of the animations (juggler) then you can calculate yourself the frame rate given the speed of full frame updates vs the percentage of changes in the picture (in this case appears to be less than 1/3). Do you have a more complex animation where more things change? I remember Amiga had a demo of cat walking and spinning. The jolt can demo has the same issues of less than 1/3 of the screen updating.

Sure, i know it's off topic, but i can give  u several spectrum 512 pictures in bmp or png format.  how u  want them?