Native Video vs RTG Graphics Cards

[ckillerh3]

Hi -

I have both an A1200 and an A2000.
My project is to connect one of them to
the Internet for web page browsing.

My question is this - it seems to me that neither
machine will properly display web pages with graphics images without one of those fancy Cybervision or Picasso
cards.  

What will I be able to see with the native amiga graphics?

Stephen in NJ

[Alma96]

Hello,

If you don't have a flickerfixer-scandoubler in your A2000, you will only  be able to display PAL or NTSC interlaced screens with a generous overscan, and get a sufficient resolution for web browsing (around 700 x 550 pixels). But you will only display 16 colors which will make pictures and web pages a little ugly. A flickerfixer scandoubler will be easy to add to your setup and will allow to display flicker-free screens onto a modern VGA screen, which will improve a lot. But you will stick with the only 16 colors.

The A1200 is theorically able to display 256-color screens but  graphics will be very slow and experience seems to show that 64 colors is a maximum for a best speed-color compromise. The A1200 still has interesting Dblpal/Dblntcs modes which can be flickerfree and displayable on a compliant VGA monitor.

A graphic card such as the Cybervision 64/3D will bring dramatic display improvement with rapid high resolution - high color graphics, even on a Zorro-II based machine such as the A2000...

[KennyR]

If you mean the ugly dither pattern in pictures, then yes, you need a graphics card which will display in 16 or 24 bit and eliminate the dither. And be a lot faster too.

But if you mean web pages not loading properly...your problem might be that none of the Amiga browsers properly support any modern web standards, one of which is CSS, the lack of which really breaks some webpages and results in graphics all over the place.

ckillerh3 wrote:
Hi -

I have both an A1200 and an A2000.
My project is to connect one of them to
the Internet for web page browsing.

My question is this - it seems to me that neither
machine will properly display web pages with graphics images without one of those fancy Cybervision or Picasso
cards.  

What will I be able to see with the native amiga graphics?

Stephen in NJ

You can use FScreen, FBlit, FText and BlazeWCP to speed up AGA performance on your 1200.

SystemPatch and the Exec v441 rompatch will also speed up your 1200 a lot.

There is also an AGA driver available for Cybergraphx.  I doubt it will speed up your system though.

FBlit
FScreen
FText
BlazeWCP
SystemPatch
Exec V44.1
CGX V3 r71 with AGA Driver - Needs a PPC card though.

Hope this is of use to you.

-edit

What you may want to do is install DblPAL_ME2, plug a vga monitor into your 1200 and have a nice 256 color 768x576 screenmode for browsing the net with.

[odin]

CGXAGA is only worth using for apps which insist on using a CGX screen, it will actually slow AGA down alot. I.e. it's meant for making CGX only progs working on AGA, I think it never got out of the 'neat-novelty-but-nothing-more' stadium really.

[Matt_H]

Also, if your monitor can display 24KHz screenmodes (few can, however), you can use Super72 on your 1200. It'll give you 800x600, but it's quite slow.

[ckillerh3]

This is a great user community !  Thank you for all the suggestions !  I am using a Commodore 1950 monitor on the Amiga 1200 - I will try some of the software links provided and see what works best.  

Some of the accelerator / graphics card combos for the Amiga 1200 are very pricey.  I looked at Software Hut and it would seem that both together are about $500 !

Stephen in NJ

[ckillerh3]

Your note was very extensive.  Thank you for taking the time to post your suggestions. The DblPAL_ME2 is probably a good cost effective solution.  I will have to think hard about investing in a new accelerator / graphics card for the Amiga 1200.  That is big bucks !

Stephen Wagner

[Hyperspeed]

I would say that if you're keeping to the standard chipset keep your
Workbench screen to 16-colours and your browser to 32-colours. I hear
a lot of people reccomending 64-colours but that is slightly tipping
the balance towards sluggishness.

Set yourself up an NTSC screenmode with maximum overscan and
32-colours and you will get 724x482, 60Hz vertical refresh (highest
AGA will do), 15Khz horizontal refresh (good for TV and
monitor).

DblPAL/DblNTSC are extremely slow and Multiscan whilst nice and 1:1
ratio is a drain on the custom chip bandwidth due to the 29Khz
horizontal refresh and no interlacing.

If you load your system up with all the BlazeWCP and Fblit stuff you
will eventually encounter conflicts with software and they could prove
dangerous when using things like Executive, ReOrg, DiskSalv and
HDToolBox etc.

A good start would be to make things pretty but yet low-resource with
a package like Magic Workbench 2.

A cheap Spectrum/Picollo graphics card though would be ideal for
someone lucky enough to have an A2000.

:-D

[tomekm]

I use 800x600 provided by Super72. By eliminating overscan I managed to improve the parameters to 27kHz/84Hz!!! The flickering is almost invisible... There`s other solution for CGX on AGA- CGX-AGA patch that can be found on AmiNet. I use it for years.. I have 040/40MHz and in companion with FBlit it works reaaaaly much faster than normally. Usng 256 color screen in not really comfortable for Workbench, but 128colors mode is several factors faster. I use 800x600, 128 colors for workbench and it`s really fast, because it is promoted to load images to fast ram, use simplegels and fastlayers. Few days ago i noticed that using Fusion wbwRefresh driver on my WB is t least 2 times faster than using any fullscreen driver! And all this on AGA... Using AWeb in this resoluton is comfortable, too.

If you want me to help you setup CGX-AGA in your system, please pmail me.

[PMC]

A little off topic, but you might also try using StackAttack, which will automatically apply the stack size to any program you launch, thus improving IBrowse's stability.

As for the general appearence and responsiveness of your system, a gfx card is well worth considering and if you own a towered A1200 then there really is no excuse for not fitting a Mediator & Voodoo combo as they are available for not much dough.  

This will of course free up some valuable Chip RAM so you can listen to .mod files whilst browsing the net too... :-)

[ckillerh3]

Hi -

I in fact, do have a nice Amiga 2000.  Is the Village tronic Picasso 2 card any good for such things?  I thought that the A1200 would be the better machine to work with for web surfing, but maybe not?

Some of the folks on the site here are very savvy regarding all the new hardware and software.  I'm still struggling to get my machine configured right to do something useful with it.  

Regards,

Stephen Wagner

[CyberStorm]

An interesting solution may be the ACK turboboard with PPC and graphics onboard for the Amiga 1200. Said to be released this quarter, but haven't heard anything about the price yet. Maybe someone know more about this one?

Another intersting solution could be the Dragon, if the Amiga 1200 is housed in a tower. Dragon offers a 266 MHz Coldfire and AGP so that a cheap graphicsboard can be fitted. The price of 350 Euro may be a bit costly but will probably give a nice performance. However this turboboard too is not yet released, but should be in the end of the month.

Otherwise if your monitor works with 800x600 this is quite nice too, does somebody knows if flickerfixers works with this resolution? Quite flickering otherwise.

[CyberStorm]

The Picasso II will be very nice for use with internet and much better that the AGA modes of the Amiga 1200.

I guess you have a faster processor than the original 7 MHz and some memory in the A2000?

[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.