P96 and/or CGX4 on PicassoIV

[TanZyr]

Ok.

Let me preface this in advance. This is NOT to become a "RTG war"... that's not the purpose. Just info.

With that out of the way, let me state for the record I've got a PicassoIV. I've had it for years now (about 5) and have been using P96 (naturally, since it comes with the card).

When I asked which RTG software to use back then, I was told by the card's prior owner that there's really no reason to bother with anything other than P96 for the PIV. However, these days I've grown more than merely curious about CGX.

Is there anyone here that owns/owned a PIV, and has tried BOTH (either separately or at the same time, since I'm aware even that can be arranged, via careful S-S editing), that can give me an accurate assessment about whether or not it'd be worth it to me to even bother trying CGX?

If you need more details about my system, feel free to ask.

L8r...
TanZyr

[Karlos]

A mate of mine back home ran CGX on PicassoIV. Not sure if he still does but I'll ask him some point this weekend.

Personally I use CGX because having a BVision I don't have much choice :-)

On a related note, I've been looking for permedia 2 hardware info all week and found a fair bit of linux source for frame buffers etc. Does anybody know if this material would help write a Picasso96 driver for BVision/CVision? I ask since I'm doing quite a lot of gfx programming just now and haven't touched P96 (since I can't test it)...

[AmiDelf]

I've allways been using Picasso96. Its really stable, it can run cgfx programs and I havent experienced many problems with it.

It runs really great.

So for me and for you!... use Picasso96. Thats the best system for me, and maybe also for you...

_Its your choice...


Regards,
AmiDelf

[Kronos]

Well I don't have a PicassoIV, only a Picassso_2 and a CV-64,
but I tried both CGX_4 and P96 on both and there is a good
reason why I use CGX_4 ....

Slighly more stable, a bit faster on true/high-color-SW,
and easier to setup.

The only prob with the P_4 would be that only P96 supports
the Paloma-add-on, but if you only got the "naked" card
CGX is the way to go.

[Roj]

I've had both set up at one time, with a little utility I wrote to handle moving the files to their proper places via gui when I wanted to switch between them. I've stopped using CGX altogether though because if you don't know enough about display settings, you can overclock and burn out your PIV. There's nothing in CGX to let you know when you've gone too far, and you can go way too far without knowing it. I know a couple of others who did just that with CGX.

CGX has more features than P96, and is considerably quicker because of superlayers. In P96, when you have a window open using "smart refresh" behind other windows and you move it, the refresh slows to a crawl until the window is slowly redrawn. You can't move your mouse pointer, and the system feels like it's locked up except for the slow refresh going on. In ImageFX, having more than two image buffers open can get downright ugly. CGX doesn't have this problem.

CGX also has screen dragging, which is nice at times. The only drawback is that screen switching with dragging enabled can take longer. (Not nearly as long as Windows though :-D - GTA3 anybody?)

If you know not to overdo it on pixelclock speed, CGX is definitely the way to go. To play it safe, either stick with P96, or make notes of the settings in Picasso96Mode and import them into CGXMode.

[neonblaze]

I've also always been using Picasso96. However, it buggers frequently. I don't why, does anybody know why? :p

[QuikSanz]

Both have been used on my machine. currently I use CGFX so I can switch between two monitors, PIC4 does not support the spectrum card. the screen drag option is nice also. but, as said watch those freqs.

Chris

[TanZyr]

All: Thank you for the replies. Now for a few of mine (not in order)...

Roj: I'm extremely careful about setting up screenmodes, so that's not even a problem. In fact, the best way is to do it on paper first, the fine-tune the horiz/vert positioning using whatever "Test" mode buttons P96Mode/CGXMode has. Or your suggestion of P96Mode->paper->CGXMode to move the settings from one to the other.

And I know EXACTLY what you mean about ImageFX. Even with simple refresh, it's a dead-crawl. Oh, is that util to move files around avail on Aminet somewhere?

Karlos: If you could ask your pal about it, I'd certainly appreciate it.

AmiDelf: It runs fine here, but crawls on some things (see Roj's ImageFX example). Also, it's CGX emulation is WAY old and not entirely supported anymore (A/NES CGX, a lot of CGX demos). I'm basically trying to push myself into testing CGX myself without losing any current speed P96 gives me.

Kronos: My P-IV's naked as a jaybird. Besides, the Paloma wouldn't do much for me, as the NTSC tuner software sucked and didn't fully work - if I recall correctly. Guess it was the European response to the Video Toasters being NTSC only. [shrug]

Anyone else with firsthand experience they'd like to share?

TanZyr

[Roj]

Oh, is that util to move files around avail on Aminet somewhere?

I never put enough into it to warrant uploading it, but I'll have a look through my backups (yeah, I have those :-D) and see about it.

[Quixote]

TanZyr:

Anyone else with firsthand experience they'd like to share?

;-) Just thought I'd point out a detail that Kronons missed:  CyberGraphx 4 is commercial software, while version 3 and earlier are free.  That may or may not matter much to you.

I currently have CGX 4 on my A4000 with PicassoIV, because some of the software that I wanted to run required it.  Also, the original drivers had the occassional glitch on the screen now and then.

I don't really use the A4000 for much beyond e-mail and web surfing, now, so my memory's a little faded about the details.

[zipper]

At least for me CGX4 initializes the PIV FliFi badly, the interleaved screen parts stick to the screen and refresh maybe after seconds leaving partial ghost pictures on the screen. No bigger problem, as I now use P96 for my Prometheus/Voodoo and CGX only occasionally.