Amiga Animation and CHIP RAM versus FAST RAM

[amigaksi]

>So is this a confirmation that the software writen for all these animation programs by 1989 never let the users to 60fps?

You need to make it clear whether you want to compare what frame rates the softwares written for both machines can accomplish or what the hardware is capable of doing.  My Atari ST disk drive is down right now-- perhaps someone can write code or port the one I wrote previously to see what frame rates they get on the ST at 4bits/pixel.  I guess on the ST everything is fast RAM or everything is chip RAM.

Sorry for delay in replying-- was too busy discussing death here: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=123710

[Zac67]

A standard ST can be considered 'chip RAM only' since framebuffer data can be put everywhere.
The ST uses a static bus priority scheme where half of the cycles are used by graphics/sound/whatever DMA and the other half is used by the CPU. A plain 68000 can't use any more cycles anyway. This explains why the ST can only do 16 colors in 15kHz and two in 31(?) kHz.

This is in contrast to the Amiga's dynamic bus scheme where up to half of the CPU's cycles can be reissued to chipset DMA (with the blitter nasty bit all of its cycles) - actually it's rather like the CPU is DMAing into the memory belonging to the chipset (i.e. connected to Agnus).

[Damion]

--edit-- Old progressive resolutions are indeed capable of 50/60 fps :/

Bottom line -- NTSC video (like Amiga/ST used) is capable of displaying 30 frames per second, or 60 interlaced fields per second. Amiga/ST monitors are probably not capable of displaying 60 non-laced (progressive) frames per second.

Conclusion -- there is essentailly *no* difference between Amiga and ST fps capability on non-laced screens (aside from Amiga advantage of better quality graphics). Whatever you were changing with the function keys to get "60 fps" sounds like some kind of marketing gimmick.

Do some research on NTSC video here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntsc

Rowbeartoe wrote:

tonyp12 wrote:
If all the frames in raw format would been able to fit on chip ram:

Then 60fps would be not problem and would only use
1% cpu power as just simple changing the mem pointer in the copper list.

But if you use delta compression such as IFF anim when the cpu would have to go to work

And if you have to copy from fast ram to chip ram you could not use the blitter.

I was watching these demos at my work on an Amiga 500- that translates to all Chip RAM.  Again, I keep reading the Amiga can, or the Amiga should have no problem, or the Amiga has no need too, but the reality is, in my visual experience at the time, the Amiga animation demos, as with Sculpt 3D, or Antics Cad 3D 2.0, or the Juggler Demo, these animation programs stopped at no greater than 30fps.  My question again is, why? And is everyone that says it can, better programmers than the software makers of these programs, or is it because of other reasons?  I'm just curious, because the Atari ST was pounded for being inferior by experts all the time, and i really don't care what was better- to me it was a win win, because Amiga to be is an Atari computer (sorry if that upsets Amiga fans), and I enjoyed my Atari ST software very much as well.  I keep reading all my old magazines reviewing animation software or demos, and none mention 60fps as was bragged about with Atari ST's Cad 3D and shown all the time with Spectrum 512 page flipping.  Again, if the Amiga was limited to this page flipping, was it just the software, the speed of Chip RAM, the 7.1 MHz clock speed, the more memory intense files?  I duno.  sigh.

Thanks again everyone for trying to help.

[Zac67]

NTSC and PAL are very well capable of displaying full 60/50 fps NON-INTERLACED. In interlace mode the frame rate drops to half, but vertical resolution doubles (same horizontal scan rate of course).

[Damion]

Zac67 wrote:
NTSC and PAL are very well capable of displaying full 60/50 fps NON-INTERLACED. In interlace mode the frame rate drops to half, but vertical resolution doubles (same horizontal scan rate of course).

DOH! I stand corrected, 240/288p is indeed capable of 50/60 fps. The fields are scanned one atop the other twice as fast, at half resolution of normal interlace. (I suppose there'd be quite a bit more flicker if it was done the way I was thinking). Seems *I* needed to do a bit more research, LOL ;-)

[Damion]

One question though:

"We even had Antic software with Cad 3D 2.0 on both computers, but the Amiga was limited to 30fps at best."

Everything I've searched sez CAD 3D 2.0 was an ST only program?? So I'm wondering how you had them both side by side running the same software/animations… It would be interesting to know what exactly the Amiga was running, since (once again from what I’ve researched) Antic CAD 3D 2.0 was basically considered the pinnacle of the genre on the ST (yet, in reading the old reviews I find no mention of the "highy advertised 60 fps" thing)... so if you were comparing that to some ropey PD software on the Amiga, that could definitely explain it.

I also found this interesting bit (more on this page):

"Yet the biggest new feature by far in CAD-3D 2.0 was the ability to render to the new "delta-compressed" animation format developed by Mark Kimball. The basic idea was to start with a picture, and then for each subsequent "movie frame" store only the parts that change, rather than storing each frame as an entire picture, thus wasting data. Mark Kimball implemented this process as an Atari ST desk accessory called Cyber Smash."

Anyhow, after reading the entire thread (and exercising some common sense), it's obvious the OCS Amiga would have no problem matching/surpassing the ST's animation skillz, one guy even posted the code to prove it. Whatever differences existed were down to file formats (with tricks/gimmicks like posted above) or screenmode differences, not the actual hardware. (I would imagine raising the small MHz difference is a non-sequitur in light of the Amiga's co-processor scheme.) Also (as has been mentioned), there were a ton of 60 fps games/demos running on low-res screens (glad I got that sorted ) on OCS machines, and a ton of graphics/animation software available (which was not limited to 320x200 and 16 colors like Cyber Paint btw). As the Amiga was basically the home animation "King" at the time, I’m sure both the hardware and software was able to match whatever the ST could do. (As an aside, anything intended for broadcast would obviously be 30 fps/interlaced due to NTSC broadcast regulations.)

[Rabbi]

I also found this interesting bit (more on this page):

"Yet the biggest new feature by far in CAD-3D 2.0 was the ability to render to the new "delta-compressed" animation format developed by Mark Kimball. The basic idea was to start with a picture, and then for each subsequent "movie frame" store only the parts that change, rather than storing each frame as an entire picture, thus wasting data. Mark Kimball implemented this process as an Atari ST desk accessory called Cyber Smash."

This is exactly what Magic Lantern (ver. 2.0), written by Michael Todorovic's company, Terra Nova Development, did for 24-bit graphic cards for the Amiga.  I've got it & it's pretty impressive.

[Rowbeartoe]

Well I just wrote a novel and I forgot to post it.  In short, I did some research and have concluded that perhaps I was runing a Antic CAD 3D "demo" on the Amiga.  However Antic did release Design disks for the Amiga that were basicly Atari ST designs from it's CAD 3D.  O- and Zoetrope on the Amiga was Atari ST's Cyperpaint.  My question once again was why did Juggler, Sculpt 3D, and this Demo of CAD 3D on the Amiga never allow speeds to go faster than 30fps as they did on the Atari ST?  

As for the Graphic superiority of the Amiga- well overall I agree the Amiga was better- but I would argue and have some proof from pictures I've made using Spectrum 512, that some things at 320x200 looked better than the Amiga Ham-6 pictures.  Spectrum 512 wasn't just a 16 colors per scan line program like Apple IIGS graphics were, you could display almost 50 unique colors per scan line- this offered some advantages over HAM-6 which had to modify one of the 16 unique colors RGB values to display up to 4096 colors- the look would look smudgy at times.  I had fun converting GIF and BMP pictures to HAM-6 and Spectrum 512.  Amiga wasn't always better.  And I made some beutiful 512 color pictures on my Atari ST that HAM-6 simply couldn't convert as well.  I wish I could upload a PNG file to show.  In addition, the monochrom 640x400 non-interlace display was nice for desktop publishing- the Amiga "flicker" at the resolution was greart for pictures, but not text.  But- again this isn't about graphics, this is about my question as to why Amiga animation software appeared to always be limited to 30fps on the store Amiga 500.  hmmmm.

Thanks again everyone for your help and time.

Below is a link to see some Spectrum 512 examples- some were Amiga HAM-6 pictures converted to Spectrum 512.  The other is a picture I made showing all of the Atari ST's colors and the conversion to HAM-6.  I realize and acknoledge however, that some HAM-6 pictures looked really bad converted to Spectrum 512- the point is, HAM-6 wasn't always better.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0c/Spectrum_512_power.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/ST_versus_Amiga.png

[Rowbeartoe]

O- and the software from Spectrum 512 let you page flip up to 60fps.  As for advertising it, the manual I believed in Spectrum 512 mentioned it- but it was obvious just from using my function keys.  The Catalog (Antics software store) mentioned 60fps for it's CAD 3D.  And without motion blur, you could still see stepping even at 60fps with the naked eye.  Wasn't Boing only 30fps as well?

Thanks again for your help everyone.

[bloodline]

Rowbeartoe wrote:

Below is a link to see some Spectrum 512 examples- some were Amiga HAM-6 pictures converted to Spectrum 512.  The other is a picture I made showing all of the Atari ST's colors and the conversion to HAM-6.  I realize and acknoledge however, that some HAM-6 pictures looked really bad converted to Spectrum 512- the point is, HAM-6 wasn't always better.

But the "Spectrum 512" trick requires CPU time, a significant amount since you need to interrupt at the end of every scanline... HAM-6 requires no CPU time... HAM-6 is better, in every regard... it is more complex to set up the picture to look good, but it is better.

[Rowbeartoe]

bloodline wrote:

Rowbeartoe wrote: Below is a link to see some Spectrum 512 examples- some were Amiga HAM-6 pictures converted to Spectrum 512. The other is a picture I made showing all of the Atari ST's colors and the conversion to HAM-6. I realize and acknoledge however, that some HAM-6 pictures looked really bad converted to Spectrum 512- the point is, HAM-6 wasn't always better.

But the "Spectrum 512" trick requires CPU time, a significant amount since you need to interrupt at the end of every scanline... HAM-6 requires no CPU time... HAM-6 is better, in every regard... it is more complex to set up the picture to look good, but it is better.

Spectrum 512 and other paint programs that followed on the ST did offer some advantage over Ham-6.  But Ham-6 had advantages 2.  But this isnt about spectrum 512 versus Ham-6.  

[Damion]

Juggler, Sculpt 3D,

Sculpt 3D was the first animation program for the Amiga (what Juggler was done with), maybe that had something to do with it. Again, the authors may not have seen a point (for reasons already listed).

and this Demo of CAD 3D on the Amiga

Link?

this is about my question as to why Amiga animation software appeared to always be limited to 30fps on the store Amiga 500.  hmmmm.

So all we've really established here is that whatever was running in your store (you seem to not be sure, or think it might have been "demo" software) may have been limited to 30 fps, and not "all Amiga animation software." Why not research the mountain of other Amiga animation titles (aside from the very first one in '86) and see what ya come up with?

[Rowbeartoe]

-D- wrote:

Juggler, Sculpt 3D,

Sculpt 3D was the first animation program for the Amiga (what Juggler was done with), maybe that had something to do with it. Again, the authors may not have seen a point (for reasons already listed).

and this Demo of CAD 3D on the Amiga

Link?

this is about my question as to why Amiga animation software appeared to always be limited to 30fps on the store Amiga 500.  hmmmm.

So all we've really established here is that whatever was running in your store (you seem to not be sure, or think it might have been "demo" software) may have been limited to 30 fps, and not "all Amiga animation software." Why not research the mountain of other Amiga animation titles (aside from the very first one in '86) and see what ya come up with?

That's why I'm asking.  In my first post, I was asking about all the animation software available for the Amiga at the time I was a computer salesman-  I've been re-reading all my Amiga magazines up to late 1989 (I had to keep up to answer all the questions people might have had), and all the reviews never mention the speed being able to surpass 30fps- some just don't say at all.  In addition Juggler was not Scult 3D.  If you look at all the posts, somewhere in here you'll see me talk about the Juggler.  The Antic Demo might have been CAD 3D coming soon- or could have been it's Antic Design disks available for Scult 3D and Videoscape.  But Zoetrope was Cyperpaint, and we know the ST version did 60fps- so was Zoetrope?  The Info magazine review of Zoetrope said the animation files were not the normal Anim files.  This really just has to do with the Animation players available for the Amiga.  Did the HAM-6 animation players or the 32 color IFF players allow the user to go up to 60fps after they created their animation using paint or animation programs?  I had so much fun with CAD 3D- I even made a demo for my store on the ST.  O- the good ol days.  

Thanks again for all your help

[meega]

On the Amiga that you saw, was it running the original Juggler version or the revised bug-fixed version?

[Damion]

In addition Juggler was not Scult 3D.

Not technically, but kind of:

http://home.comcast.net/~erniew/juggler.html

"Eric rendered the frames in a raytracer he wrote called ssg, a Sculpt precursor. The rendered images were encoded in the Amiga's HAM display mode and then assembled into a single data file using a lossless delta compression scheme similar to the method that would later be adopted as the standard in the Amiga's ANIM file format."


In regard to Zoetrope, I have no idea what the limit was. (Nor can I find anything about max fps with Cyber Paint, btw.) I will stress again though that anything intended for NTSC broadcast would obviously be limited to 30 fps. (Some Amiga programs did however take advantage of "field rendering" (60 fields/sec) in interlaced modes, for the appearance of smoother motion. Naturally, this would be a non-issue on the ST since there were no laced modes.)

[amigaksi]

>As for the Graphic superiority of the Amiga- well overall I agree the Amiga was better- but I would argue and have some proof from pictures I've made using Spectrum 512, that some things at 320x200 looked better than the Amiga Ham-6 pictures.

I have one of those pictures you linked to in a Newtek Demo and it's better on the Amiga-- there are more shades in the picture.  The Atari ST is limited to 8 shades/color whereas Amiga is 16 shades/color.

> Spectrum 512 wasn't just a 16 colors per scan line program like Apple IIGS graphics were, you could display almost 50 unique colors per scan line- this offered some advantages over HAM-6 which had to modify one of the 16 unique colors RGB values to display up to 4096 colors- the look would look smudgy at times. I had fun converting GIF and BMP pictures to HAM-6 and Spectrum 512. Amiga wasn't always better...

I would not give credit for scan line changes to Apples IIGS-- they were trying to imitate the Atari/Amiga DLI/CLI on their platform.  I heard that Newtek invented a mode called Dynamic HAM which changed colors every scan line in HAM mode to prevented that problem where you had to wait up to 3 pixels to change a RGB completely.  Perhaps, someone knows the link to that new mode.

By the way, you mentioned Mega ST w/4MB RAM for animations; well if you are going to go to high end machines, I just ran that same code on the Amiga 4000 and it does 120fps in 16 color mode and 85 frames/second in HAM-6 mode.  And that code was brute force frame painting with no compression.