Fastest AniPro VGA Card?
9 messages in this thread
I've been pleased with Animator Pro's performance with my 486/33's Metheus
1mb Premier VGA ever since its release last summer. My only disappointment
has been an occasional problem with a "tear" in large graphic objects while
crossing an imaginary horizontal position about 70% down from the top of
the screen.
I've guessed that this was symptomatic with a limitation of my VGA card and
have been considering the purchase of one of the new breed of graphics
accelerator cards. I recently read on another CIS forum, however, that new
cards like those based on the S3 chip are actually SLOWER with bitmaps than
more conventional VGA cards. AniPro FLC's are actually just rapidly played
bitmaps, right? If so, even though S3-based cards like Diamond's Stealth
V-RAM may be considerably faster in displaying typical windows graphics, it
sounds as if they may not be any better with Animator Pro, right?
Could you (or someone else) here help with some suggestions about the very
fastest VGA performers with AniPro?
Thanks,
Lee
Lee, unfortunately, I'm the farthest thing in the world from a hardware
expert. I'm so deep in the code mines that I barely even know what an S3
chip IS. We recently had to bring our display/rendering ADI interface up
to full 4.1 compatibility so 3DSr2 can run elegantly with all the new
HiColor and TIGA devices that'll be available this year.
I _did_ hear about the ultimate AA Pro machine. Apparently Dell is about
to release a 486/50 with a linear address bus directly from the hard disk
to display memory. It's supposed to be able to do 1024×768 AAP flics
without ANY image tear.
There are a bunch of folks here on the forum who understand the hardware
issues better than I do. Maybe they have some good suggestions for you.
– G
Thanks for your kind assistance! I'm about to upgrade my office desktop
anyway, and will definitely look hard for the new Dell model you spoke of.
I hope others here on the forum can respond with any pertinent wisdom they
might be able to offer.
Thanks again,
Lee
From what you've said about the potential advantage of the unreleased Dell
486/50 ultimate AAPro machine, it seems that the internal architecture of
the PC creates a data transfer bottleneck that not even the fastest
graphics cards can avoid. Does that mean that no conventional hardware is
completely "tear-proof" even at 640×480 resolution?
I called Dell today. The salesperson I spoke with didn't seem to know what
I was talking about (only about their 486/50 EISA machines) when I
mentioned the new architecture. But she referred me to a tech support
person who did. He wasn't able to predict, however, how long it might be
before Dell is ready to release such a product. I assume its price will be
high-end whenever that day comes…
Thanks again,
Lee
I'm amazed that you were actually able to get a Dell tech support person to
talk to you on a Sunday. Plus, you got someone who was willing to discuss
an unreleased product. That's even more incredible!
I'll try to find someone who can tell me a model number for it.
Regarding your question re display cards being bus-limited. You are
exactly correct. As long as the hard disk is writing to display memory
uncompressed data through the bus (be it EISA or ISA), the speed of the VGA
card is not the limiting factor. This is why HiColor animation is going to
be such a bitch in ISA bus machines, and not very easy for 640×480 in EISA
machines either.
I've heard that one of Dell's primary goals with their new machine was to
allow 1280×1024 Animator Pro animation for the CAD market. They are trying
very hard to steal Compaq's thunder in the Intel workstation market.
– G
Thanks again for your very helpful reply!
I noticed you've referred to the transfer bottleneck between the HARD DRIVE
and the graphics display. Thus far, with 16mb of RAM, I've been able to
structure the recording of my Animator Pro animations in such a way that
I've been able to edit each section entirely on to my master from RAM.
(It's a tight squeeze sometimes, requiring the ANIPLAY program instead of
ANIPRO but it's worked.) Ultimately, I'll probably need to spring for an
additional 16mb of RAM.
When playing back AniPro animations entirely from RAM, is the computer's
architecture still apt to be more of a bottleneck than the speed of the VGA
card? Or does the source of any speed bottleneck then shift to the card
itself?
Thanks again!
Lee
Even when playing back from RAM, you've got to move the data through the
bus out to the card. THAT's the bottleneck. The bus.
– G
Just FYI, the S3 based cards should NOT suffer the same bottle-neck that
TIGA and 8514 cards suffer. With those type of cards you tend to operate
either in the accelerated mode, or in a standard VGA mode via a Pass
through type operation.
From the way I understand things one of the big advantages of the S3 chip
is that it merges the best features of a VGA with direct memory addressing
and all that, and a card with on-board smarts like a TMS34020 or 8514
clone. It would appear to give you the best of both worlds, co-processing
capability without the slowdown normally seen for non-co-processed
functions like writing directly to memory.