Want to hold on to my Chip Ram

[punkyclown]

Just upgraded my A1200 with an A1230 with 32 megs of ram.  Works great, now is
there some way I can put up a decent Workbench image without chewing up all my chip ram?
Is there anyway to load images in graphics programs larger than 2 megs or does every graphics program and the like use only chip ram to display images?
Thanks

[Damion]

Just upgraded my A1200 with an A1230 with 32 megs of ram.  Works great, now is
there some way I can put up a decent Workbench image without chewing up all my chip ram?
Is there anyway to load images in graphics programs larger than 2 megs or does every graphics program and the like use only chip ram to display images?
Thanks

Install fblit and ftext, that will help tremendously.

[smf]

and in sys:prefs/workbench you set the icons to be loaded to fastram if you use os3.9

[NovaCoder]

and in sys:prefs/workbench you set the icons to be loaded to fastram if you use os3.9

But don't do this is if you use FBlit/FText...bad idea.

[NovaCoder]

Just upgraded my A1200 with an A1230 with 32 megs of ram.  Works great, now is
there some way I can put up a decent Workbench image without chewing up all my chip ram?
Is there anyway to load images in graphics programs larger than 2 megs or does every graphics program and the like use only chip ram to display images?
Thanks

Hiya,

Yep the AGA chipset must use chipram to display everything (and play sounds) so that 32 megs cannot be used directly.

I don't know what resolution you are running in but AGA slows right down at 32+ colours in the higher resolutions.  Now if you are running at say 32 colours with a resolution of say 1024x768 you should not end up with a 2 meg image file

What you need to do is take your image and using a paint program, resize it to your WB's resolution and drop the colours (eg palette match) to your WB's bit depth.....easy

[tone007]

Regarding fblit, not sure if this is a problem for everyone, but trying to use it with color modes higher than 32 on my 1200 always gave me trouble (corruption, etc.)  32 color 1024x768 works well though.

[smf]

But don't do this is if you use FBlit/FText...bad idea.

And why is that a bad idea? i have no problems with it

[NovaCoder]

And why is that a bad idea? i have no problems with it

It gave me some nasty graphics glitches and if you think about it, it's trying to do the same thing as FBlit so it's better to use one or the other and not both

[smf]

It gave me some nasty graphics glitches and if you think about it, it's trying to do the same thing as FBlit so it's better to use one or the other and not both

I'm not conviced that you're right yet my memory tells me that you could save some chipram in os3.9 by doing this and that it caused no corruption for me.
But i will shut up now unless i has some real evidence. Until then you're right!
 i would test it by myself ASAP if i still had OS3.9 installed on my AGA machine

[CSixx]

This sounds odd, but...

I had the same graphics corruption on screen after putting fblit in my startup-sequence (os3.9).

I took it out of my startup-sequence, and put it in my WBStartup folder instead.

The corruption no longer happens. If i put it back in startup-sequence, the problem reappears (did this just to test).

Maybe it will help you.

[motrucker]

Just upgraded my A1200 with an A1230 with 32 megs of ram.  Works great, now is
there some way I can put up a decent Workbench image without chewing up all my chip ram?
 Thanks

No matter what you do, this is still going to chew up large amounts of Chip RAM. With much tinkering you will most likely find a happy medium.
I gave up on this idea on all of my computers. It doesn't make them run any better.... I'll save the RAM for other uses!

[Damion]

and in sys:prefs/workbench you set the icons to be loaded to fastram if you use os3.9

That's true, it works (in conjuntion with FBlit) and saves some chipmem when a bunch of icons are on the screen. BUT

You need to download WBCtrl, add it to your startup-sequence directly before LoadWB:

WBCtrl IMT=ICONFAST
LoadWB SIMPLEGELS

Then there shouldn't be any issues (been working here for years.) See the FBlit docs and here for more details.

[Everblue]

Should Fblit and Ftext still be used if an RTG such as Picasso IV is installed?

[Damion]

Should Fblit and Ftext still be used if an RTG such as Picasso IV is installed?

No, only native graphics.