Retina GFX Card Questions

[amiga1084]

Hello All,

I got Retina card (revision 1.1) in A2000 which I bought
on ebay.The card was throw in as bonus(I got original Retina
software with the card).My local Amiga User Group tells me
the Retina GFX card first version is useless for anything as
nothing supports it like CyberGFX or Picasso96  does not
support the card.

Can I display 24bit Workbench screen or am I limited to 256
colors.I would like to hear your comments on this card.
Thanks in advance Merv

[Effy]

I have the identical card and was wondering the same question ...

[KThunder]

256 color wb is the highest you can go. it is faster than aga but not by much. in other words 640x200x8bit is nice and fast 640x480x8bit slows down a bit anything over that is a bit to slow to use imo. so even if you could use 16 bit color you would only want resolution of 320x200 or so.

this card is a zorro2 card so it hits about 3mb per sec transfer rate and the memory is segmented like pc vga and old svga cards so that slows it down a little more. it is a very decent card but zorro2 only if you want a much faster card (pci speed transfers) than get a zorro3 card like the retina z3 or picasso  IV

BTW the higher resolution modes of this card are great for painting and dtp apps but nothing that requires a high update rate at high resolution

[Lemmink]

You can even use 24bit, as long as you have enough RAM on the card (is came in three versions 1,2 and 4 MB). The major downside is that it is only supported by it`s own RTG system. The software works a little bit different and asks you everytime you start a new programm for the first time if you want it to open on a Retinascreen, kinda like Modepro. Some Programms get along with that approach other refuse to work as they rely on CGX or P96 functions. Screenupdate speed is quite poor as the mainfunction of GFX-cards in that time was displaying big still pictures in lots of colors, like a ready rendered scene.
There are a few driver around that use the Retine Z2 natively, like a driver for the VLab that gives you a color preview screen on the Retina instead of the default grayscale.

Have a look at here

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=460