Min. 256 color desktop.

[NovaCoder]

Sure, but don't you also have something like an 80MHz '060?

Not anymore my friend

Seriously though, with the correct patches and the new icon.library a 256/128 color desktop is usable on AGA for most processors.

[fishy_fiz]

Usable is in the eye of the beholder.  
64 colors is the absolute maximum if sluggish displays bother a person regardless of CPU being used. To each their own, but I don't know how novacoder can stand that sort of performance. It drives me batty.
Other than sluggish displays though, chipram is a big consideration. 128/256 colors puts a serious dampener on amount of screens concurrently usable, along with their resolutions and color depths. And yes, this is even with fblit, ftext, cyberbugfix, etc. Installed.
And really, a well constructed palette, especially at higher resolutions, makes a massive difference. 16 colors is maybe a couple too few, so dithering, etc. will always be apparent, but up that to 32colors, or 64 and some creativity, time and effort can result in a desktop that looks as nice as anything out there.

[utri007]

640x512 256 colors works here very well and fast.

fishy_fis: You haven't configured FBlit right if you have speed problems with 256 colors.

[utri007]

I don't know. I've never tried something like HAMWB.
 
Try it out, report back and upload a screenshot. Thanks!
(Don't use background images or patterns)

I asked would icon.library work with HAM screen

[guest11527]

I asked would icon.library work with HAM screen

Depends on your definition of "works". Yes, it will render icons correctly, but it will only use the colors in the palette for that (16 colors). You can still use a HAM background image, though may observe artefacts at edges.

[fishy_fiz]

@utri007

Nope, all configured correctly.
Heck, you'd have a completely unusable system without it. Couldn't have more than 2 screens open.
As I said, usable is in the eye of the beholder.
256 colors is too slow for my tastes when using aga. Period.

[utri007]

Depends on your definition of "works". Yes, it will render icons correctly, but it will only use the colors in the palette for that (16 colors). You can still use a HAM background image, though may observe artefacts at edges.

Peterk has made icon.library replacement wich supoort quite much every possible icon format natively. I can even use OS4 icons with it, etc.

[PPC]

Peterk has made icon.library replacement wich supoort quite much every possible icon format natively. I can even use OS4 icons with it, etc.

Yes true you can use almost every icon format with peterk's icon library and it's really much faster, like a hell of a lot faster,major speed increase!
Also big dir's with a 100 icons/drawers almost load instantly now on my A600 with V600, even the prefs drawer loads instantly now

[guest11527]

Peterk has made icon.library replacement wich supoort quite much every possible icon format natively. I can even use OS4 icons with it, etc.

Yes, but your point is? It is still not able to render icons with HAM colors except the 16 palette colors in the HAM palette, simply because this is beyond its responsibility. As soon as the icons are moved around, they are simply graphics.library GELs, and graphics knows only very little of the workings of HAM. In particular, it does not contain any code that recomputes a given GEL when repositioning on a HAM background. This is a major art completely outside of the Os, and in particular of the icon.library.

[paul1981]

@utri007

Nope, all configured correctly.
Heck, you'd have a completely unusable system without it. Couldn't have more than 2 screens open.
As I said, usable is in the eye of the beholder.
256 colors is too slow for my tastes when using aga. Period.

That doesn't sound right regarding your two screen limit. What resolution are these screens and what are they? I also have no complaint regarding speed of 256 colour modes with FBlit, but like you say, it depends on individual tastes. 64 colour screens I found plenty fast even when I was running a 68020 A1200 with Fast RAM only.

[SnkBitten]

I agree with fishy_fiz that an AGA 256 color workbench is just not smooth/fast enough for use, at least for me either.  Layer.library patched, Fblit in use and definitely configured properly.  However...my system was using a monitor that required DblNTSC which eats a ton of bandwidth of the chipset as well.  I installed an Indivision AGA MKIIcr but still kept color resolution at 32 colors.  

Granted, I had mostly been using Amithlon (1680x1050 @ 32bit color) and WinUAE 1680x1050 @ 32bit color) displays for AmigaOS, so switching to an Amiga 4000D/T the 256 color displays on those were horribly slow.

If I was running a stock setup, I'd lean towards 32 colors with FBlit to keep everything more responsive.

[utri007]

Thomas: Thanks for the clarifigation.

OK, I understand, speed is a opinion. At least we all agree that FBlit makes huge difference.

Sad that there hasn't been any further develobment with FBlit. Original author has a plan to make a FBlit screenmode, that would make things easier and faster to test.

By the way, FBlit sources https://github.com/SamuraiCrow/fblit

[golem]

I'm another one using FBlit on AGA/Indivison and finds that 256 colours is too slow and memory consuming. 64 colours is optimum for me on OS3.9. There is no colour benefit to Newicons if you increase to 128 colours it seems also.

[matt3k]

Agree you will need a decent graphics card for your 2000.  ECS and AGA for that matter are just to slow with a large palette and high resolution.

For a 2000 a nice Picasso II or Spectrum are decent budget choices.  Never ran them on a 68k system though.

For Z3 systems a CV64, BLT Z3, or Picasso IV are nice solid choices.  

A good graphic card will make a much bigger improvement than a faster cpu.

[yssing]

Maybe go for the Indivision ECS or even better the VampireII.

[guest11527]

For a 2000 a nice Picasso II or Spectrum are decent budget choices.  Never ran them on a 68k system though.

The P96 software requires at least a 68020. It does not run on a plain 68000.