CompuServe Thread

Speed Razor?

7 messages in this thread
#173258From: Mark ChambersJun 2, 1995 8:34 AM
Jamie- I was looking forward to the release of Speed Razor yesterday. The person I spoke with at In:Sync said that it was delayed because you were waiting on the release of the Perception. She told me that Speed Razor had to have the Perception to work with. Tell me it's not so!! (After I've invested in the Par and TBCIV). Anyways, I've checked your BBS and HomePage and have been unable to find any info, Press releases, etc. about Speed Razor, so I was curious if you had any info you could post or tell me where to look. I'm trying to make some HW/SW decisions and could really use it to be sure I don't make another purchasing mistake. Also, a list of features would be much appreciated. Thanks, -Mark
#173691From: Jamie CarrJun 5, 1995 8:49 AM
Mark, We are waiting not for the release of Perception but the release of the NT drivers for Perception. They are being tested by DPS as I write but they are not yet complete. As soon as they are ready we will be implementing the final piece of the puzzle. I will let you know the moment we are ready, best case scenario we are looking at two weeks delay right now. Sorry for the delay ! The full feature set will be released very shortly – we are finalising whether a particular set of features will be included or not – and as soon as that's done we'll post the set. (a day or two) Jamie Carr in:sync
#173728From: Mark ChambersJun 5, 1995 11:56 AM
Jamie- I understand how delays can happen. However, from your message I infer that the new Razor will be for 1)NT and 2) the Perception card. Can you at least tell me if it will run with my Win3.11/Par/TBCIV system, or will I need to change all of that out to use Speed Razor? I'm mainly trying to decide when to make the jump to NT and how much to budget for new hardware if it will only run with the Percetion. Thanks. -Mark
#173890From: Brendan GallagherJun 6, 1995 8:04 AM
Jamie, I too am quite interested as to whether or not you will continue to support my /Par/TBCIV system, at least for the next 6 to 9 months. Many users will require at least that much time to migrate 'all' of our software investments over. Actually I'm starting to feel like a sheep being herded into the 'Dip Tank'…… " You need this, you don't know that you need this, but, you need this." : ) Baaaaaa ! Brendan G.
#176277From: Jamie CarrJun 20, 1995 1:24 PM
Brendan, We are absolutely supporting the existing PAR/TBCIV system. We released a new version of our Windows 3.1 version two weeks ago – version 1.0f. We are releasing another upgrade to our Windows 3.1 – version 2.0 in the next two weeks. This version has been developed alongside our existing version and features: – a new orientation effect, which field renders and antialiases images – a lens flare effect which allows you to add a lens flare to an image (of course the lens position and the brightness of the light source can be changed over time – several strobing effects – sparkle effect and some others… as well as numerous bug fixes, and a new much improved manual. The upgrade from 1.0f to 2.0 will be $100.00. In addition if you want to upgrade to our NT version there will be Windows NT drivers for the cards and the Windows NT version of Razor PRO, Speed Razor. To get an idea of the advantage of using Windows NT, we took our most complicated effect, the orientation effect which allows you to adjust the rotation of an image in the X, Y and Z axes (amongst other things) and we applied it to a 640×480 image. I should explain that we have more than one type of orientation effect and this one is the slow one. We spent 4 man months developing it and we made it as perfect as possible. It fully antialiases the image and field renders the result for perfect subpixel positioning and rotating. Our other effects take nowhere near as long and the times should be taken as an indication of the improvement of speed rather than as how long something takes. I will perform some tests using the crossfade to find out how long it takes. To put it into perspective a crossfade on a Windows 3.1 machine normally takes 2 seconds. Here are the figures: All machines have 32 MB RAM. Windows 3.1 Pentium 90 44secs Windows NT Pentium 90 15secs Windows NT DEC Alpha 150 MHz 7.5secs Windows NT IBM PowerPC 7.5secs Windows NT Aspen Alpine 275 MHz 4secs As you can see there is a three fold increase in speed on the same machine just by running Windows NT and our Speed Razor version. not bad eh? Because we realize that people who have systems aren't going to jump to a new O/S we will be supporting Windows 3.1 machines and the existing hardware and we will continue to upgrade the Windows 3.1 version. You shouldn't feel like a sheep. In fact the reverse is true, its comments and expectations from our customers which are actually pushing us to develop our new products. The figures give you an indication of why we are developing in this direction. Jamie Carr in:sync
#176519From: Brendan GallagherJun 21, 1995 4:51 PM
Jamie, I love you guys…. ( well.. you know, in a married guy kinda way… : ` ) ) I love 1.0f , I don't know what you did but it really cruises !!! Look forward to all your upgrade paths and thank you for covering all the bases while some of us little guys play catch up… on the OS/Hardware end. Brendan G.
#176687From: Eron Bruce CohenJun 22, 1995 11:00 AM
Thanks for the compliments Brendan. We are really working hard to try to cover every base. Speed Razor will be here soon. Eron