Speed of icons and background loading on gfx card

[AmiDude]

@MarkAshley

In order to speed-up the drawing of the Workbench
contents, you can use the following programs(only WB3.5+):

ftp://de.aminet.net/pub/aminet/util/boot/fblit.lha

www.stephan-rupprecht.de/downloads/WBCtrl.lha

Put it in your startup-sequence somewhere after the
Setpatch command.

C:FBlit
C:Wbctrl IMT=ICONFAST

Also, it's best to use a backdrop picture in the same
resolution as you Workbench and make sure it's in
IFF/ILBM format.
I use this settings with my A4000/060/PIV and the
Workbench backdrop (24Bit - 800x600) loads within 2 seconds!

:-)
 

[Framiga]

FBlit with a GFX card? i don't think so! ;-)

[AmiDude]

@Framiga wrote:

FBlit with a GFX card? i don't think so!

Well, it sure works fine for me though! :lol:
Fblit comes with a GUI to change the settings.
 :-)

EDIT:

Read the docs carefully. then you'll see it's possible
to use FBlit with a GFX-card. (I use it with P96 drivers)
FBlit can be used with WB3.0+ and WBctrl with WB3.5+
 :-)

[MarkAshley]

Doesn't "C:Wbctrl IMT=ICONFAST" make the icons load in fast ram? I thought you could do that anyway in 3.9?

[Framiga]

AmiDude

used to use FBlit since 3.0 here with AGA . . no need to read anything :-)

With GFX cards . . . still a nonsense to use it.

[AmiDude]

@MarkAshley

The "C:WBctrl IMT=ICONFAST" in combination with
the FBlit command loads any imagedata in FastRam,
so not only icons but also your backdrop picture.
And it's speeding up the loading process.
 :-)

[Mad-Matt]

fblit is totly redundent on gfx cards and will only hurt the system, as the p96 or cgx will be patching the same stuff to speedup there own blitting.

Setting icons fast though still works a treat.

[AmiDude]

@Framiga

I've used FBlit before I had the P-IV installed
in my A4000. When I later installed the GFX-card,
the commands where still in my startup-sequence,
and the system was running fine with both the FBlit
and WBctrl commands. I know it makes very little
difference if used with a GFX-card, but without
GFX-card it sure increases the loading of Worbench
and icons.
 :-)

[MarkAshley]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I have converted my 24bit JPEG background to a 24bit IFF. This matches the colour depth of my Workbench. It still seems to take a long time to load though.

I put WBCtrl in my startup-sequence and icons to seem to load a bit faster. Exoticons still take forever to load. Would making the icons a bit smaller help?

Thanks
Mark

[Karlos]

Are you sure your workbench is 24 bit deep? Most cards use 32-bits as the alignment allows for faster rendering.

That said, IFF should be fast to decode anyway. You could also try PPM if you have a suitable datatype, but the file will be very large (probably take longer to load than rendering will).

[Framiga]

its a while the i don't use P96 anymore (it was on CV64 and a 040-30Mhz)

Have you set in PVS(?)

Plane2Fast

and in Prefs:Workbench Images to Other Memory (or so)

[MarkAshley]

Karlos wrote:
Are you sure your workbench is 24 bit deep? Most cards use 32-bits as the alignment allows for faster rendering.

According to ScreenMode Prefs it is set to "Voodoo: 1024x768 24bit BGR" and the slider is set to 16M colours (but is greyed out and thus not adjustable).

Framiga wrote:
Have you set in PVS(?)

Plane2Fast

What are they?

Framiga wrote:
and in Prefs:Workbench Images to Other Memory (or so)

Yes I have done that.

[Framiga]

is one of the Variable for P96.

Don't you have PVS program in Prefs: dir?

or goto "SYS:Prefs/Env-Archive/Picasso96/" and check if the "PlanesToFast" variable is set to YES.

[Karlos]

MarkAshley wrote:

Karlos wrote:
Are you sure your workbench is 24 bit deep? Most cards use 32-bits as the alignment allows for faster rendering.

According to ScreenMode Prefs it is set to "Voodoo: 1024x768 24bit BGR" and the slider is set to 16M colours (but is greyed but and thus not adjustable).

That sounds nasty, generally it is reported as 32-bit BGRA (or little endian 32-bit ARGB if you think about it). Anyway the point is, if you are using some sort of packed pixel mode that genuinely has 24 bits for each pixel (not 32) you can expect a performance hit for graphics operations. Generally you only need to use 24-bit modes like this if you are short of memory or you don't have the bandwidth to show a high refresh rate. Neither of these apply to the voodoo.

Perhaps your settings are awry, the voodoo I have handy always shows 32-bit BGRA

[Framiga]

@MarkAshley

erm . . . are you 100% sure to have P96 installed and not CGX3?

http://www.globaldialog.com/~bandr/AU/brad/001022

interesting readings!

(scroll down to E L B O X   C O M P L A I N T   R E   V O O D O O )

[MarkAshley]

@Framiga
I definitely have P96 installed.

@Karlos
I don't really understand what that means. Should it be using 24bit or 32bit? And should the BGRA bit be there or not?