Native Video vs RTG Graphics Cards

[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.

[adolescent]

@Hyperspeed

Multiscan Productivity mode is 60Hz, 31.44Khz.  It doesn't need doubling or de-interlacing.  It's pretty much solid (ie. better than the "no flicker" on my standard VGA monitor).

[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...

[patrik]

@Hyperspeed:

If you put the VGAOnly file in your DEVS:Monitors/ most modes including Multiscan Productive will get a frequency-bump. I think Multiscan Productive ends up at 31.44kHz, 60Hz. I must say that the Euro72 Produductive screenmode very nice, almost no flickering at all with its 70Hz and a extremely smooth moving mouse-pointer.

Btw, the DCE 8:4:4 might give you a theoretical 32768 different colours, but as only the red colour-channel has 8-bit depth it looks pretty much like OCS/ECS.

I wonder how many flickerfixer/scandoubler solutions made for AGA that actually features 8-bit depth for all colour-channels. The only ones I know of are the PicassoIV flickerfixer and the DblScan 4000 scandoubler.

It is not very hard to find out if ones flickerfixer/scandoubler features 8-bit depth for a colour-channel or not. Start a paint-package with AGA support that can edit palette-colours ok. In the palette, choose to edit the background colour (so you will be changing the colour for most of the screen area) and try increasing say red from 0 to 255 - one step at a time. If it does support 8-bit for that colour-channel the background-colour will change for every step, if it doesn't you will only see changes to the background colour about every eight increase. Then just continue to the next colour-channel und so weiter.


/Patrik

[A3KOne]

You are right... all the talk about which machine and configuration to use is pointless if the A2K is a 68000 with OS1.3.

If the A2000 is 3.0 or better, 030 or better, and you don't mind throwing $100 or so at it for a Picasso 2 or a Retina Z2 or the ilk, it is a no brainer to go with the big box machine.

If you are talking bare bones Amigas... the 1200 is the only one usable and even it is not going to work well if you only have 2  megs of ram.  With 2 megs, even a TCP/IP stack is tricky to get working.

[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.

;-)

[tomekm]

Hyperspeed wrote:
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.

No, svga monitors normally do not handle 27kHz. I use Amiga M1438S to achieve this. As to speed: I use CGX-AGA and FBlit, and performance is very well (as for AGA, ofcoz). I will pmail you the performance test results from SysSpeed, when I make a module. If I haven`t forgotten, tomorrow.

P.S. U can also use ie. NEC Multisync 3D instead of M1438S. It is better because it`s a digitally-adjusted parameters display.

[tomekm]

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.

;-)

try it, it WILL like it:)

[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.