Picasso II questions and anticipatory excitement!

[save2600]

Sometime this week(I really hate waiting for things to arrive from the land of fruits and nuts), I'm awaiting 8 new 60ns 256x4 chips that will increase my Picasso from 1mb to 2mb of memory. This should allow for more colours to be displayed across the higher screen modes. 1024x768 looks great right now at 8-bits, but 16-bits would allow it to look smoother and more modern. That's the "exciting" part... Amiga goodies delivered to the mailbox :-)

Questions I have, have to do with 2 screens at once on an Amiga system. I've seen pics where people had a native 15khz game playing on a 1084 and then their fancy WB screen on a VGA monitor. Talk about multi-tasking! lol  Would that VGA screen have just been static/frozen?  Or is it possible to do WB tasks, such as surfing the net while playing a game like Lemmings? Is this possible on the Picasso? I have yet to see an extended desktop mode or dual monitor mode anywhere. And what does the option 'keep Amiga video @ 15khz or 31khz' supposedly do? It's not like the Picasso is trying to act as a FF/SD. 'Fake Native Modes' is another puzzling option that seems to do nothing. Can anyone shed some light on what these are supposed to do or how/when to use them?

[Matt_H]

The Picasso has a built-in monitor switcher, meaning you can plug the Amiga's output into the Picasso's input and the Picasso output will automatically switch between them depending on which kind of screen is frontmost. It's a fantastic feature and it's incredibly unfortunate that the more recent graphics cards don't have it.

Point being, you don't need two screens (provided your Amiga's output is scandoubled or your VGA monitor is 15KHz-capable).

With 2 monitors or a switch box, whether an RTG screen remains static or not depends on whether the Amiga mode takes over the system. So, WHDLoad will freeze the RTG output, whereas a multitasking-but-chipset-only program like DPaint won't. IE, I'll still see my DOpus clock ticking on the RTG Workbench screen if DPaint is up on the other monitor.

Keep Amiga Video will do the same for native screens, I think. So if your Workbench is NTSC and you run Photogenics on an RTG screen, your Workbench will remain visible and your clocks will keep ticking away. There's a chipmem access speed penalty, according to the CGX docs. Might be slightly different on P96.

Fake Native Modes is an attempt to do just that - create fake Amiga native screen modes if you don't have a way to display chipset video. It hasn't worked very well in my experience - no better than ModePro.

[save2600]

Matt_H wrote:
The Picasso has a built-in monitor switcher, meaning you can plug the Amiga's output into the Picasso's input and the Picasso output will automatically switch between them depending on which kind of screen is frontmost. It's a fantastic feature and it's incredibly unfortunate that the more recent graphics cards don't have it. Point being, you don't need two screens (provided your Amiga's output is scandoubled or your VGA monitor is 15KHz-capable).

Yeah, I'm aware of this and more than aware that ALL VGA monitors, even the dubious 'multi-syncs' produced within the past 15+ years for the U.S. do not sink anywhere near 15khz.
 

Fake Native Modes is an attempt to do just that - create fake Amiga native screen modes if you don't have a way to display chipset video. It hasn't worked very well in my experience - no better than ModePro.

Ahh okay. That's been my experience too. Nice that such a "feature" gives up your hope like that. I wonder... does a different monitor driver need to be in Devs:Monitors you think? I should try that in a little bit and see what happens. With a VGA or Multisync monitor driver in Devs:, maybe the Picasso software would have better luck "mode promoting" then.

[Matt_H]

With a VGA or Multisync monitor driver in Devs:, maybe the Picasso software would have better luck "mode promoting" then.

I highly doubt it'll do anything, but no harm in trying.

Let me know if I can help in any other way. It's been a while, but I used a Picasso II for many years.

[save2600]

Thanks Matt! Out of curiosity, what are you using now if not a Picasso?

[Matt_H]

Upgraded to a CV3D. It's faster, but the 3D capabilities are laughable.

[terminator4]

laughable? not in 1997.  I think this card compares to my 4mb S3 Virge AGP card from same era??? sorry its been a while since i used it. :-P

[save2600]

Update: So I received the 60ns chips for my Picasso II card, bringing its memory to the full 2mb. I did this so I could use the 1024x768 resolution in 16-bits. Turns out that POS Hanns monitor I recently purchased will NOT sync to that mode (I've tried all the settings: 31khz-64khz)! And any others besides 800x600 in 16-bits (and that was a trick shot too!). My old 17" NEC CRT can't even handle many of the modes native to the 16-bit standard, although I can get the 1024x768 @ 16-bits to work in interlace mode only. Seems when you enable more colours, the vertical khz rate is a lot lower. Horizontal refresh rate is low enough (30khz) at this depth. My brand new Hanns, even though it claims it works with 31khz+ signals, conflicts with what I am seeing in Picasso96mode. That monitor simply will not work at all until I drag the horizontal rate up to mid or high 40's+. I've tried all the settings possible with varying results, but have not used any 3rd party monitor setting programs to tweak anything though. Anyone know wtf is going on here? I'd really like to use the LCD if possible, but it seems as if there are only a number of preset sync rates and if you stray et all from them, forget about it.  

[zipper]

(I've tried all the settings: 31khz-64khz)! And any others besides 800x600 in 16-bits (and that was a trick shot too

You need to do fine tuning using the pixel clock slider to hit the sweet spot of the monitor. The working refresh range may be just a couple of Hz - as my Benq accepts about 59.5 Hz - 61.5 Hz and then about 70 Hz again.

[save2600]

I have fiddled with the pixel clock, but perhaps not as closely as you are suggesting. I'll have to give that a try later. I do have the specs and supposed varying frequencies of this Hanns... but they don't really do me much good since the very basic of modes (31.5khz) doesn't even work. Is there a math here I am forgetting needed to properly calculate these things?? When I tell PicassoMode to display a screen at 31-33khz, the Hanns will not work (be it regular, interlaced or doublescan)! And I tried the tiniest of variances between 30-33khz - nothing.

[zipper]

Forget the kHz, you need to get the right Hz for every single screenmode, for a LCD it is 60 Hz most probably.

[save2600]

The magic number for this silly monitor is 75hz and the Picasso II just doesn't output what this thing is looking for. I wasted a few more hours today trying to get the blasted thing to work right and am giving up. LCD looks terrible compared to CRT on the Amiga anyway. I have yet to get decent results from one anyway. And the main lesson learned here is that just because an old video card for the Amiga has a VGA output, does not guarantee it'll work with a new or semi-modern VGA monitor very well!

Oh well. My iBook and iMac will make use of it as an extended desktop, so no big whoop.   :idea: