#Imagine under OS/2
21 messages in this thread
Hi Mike, as you might have seen from my other message, I 'm trying to
run Imagine in a DOS session under OS/2. It didn't work, so I was
asking the guys at the OS/2 froum. They said it might be that Imagine
is trying to access extended memory dirextly (not by XMS or DPMI). He
also said, if this is so, I can't run it under OS/2. Does Imagine
access memory directly? How about 3.0? -David
There is no value to running Imagine under OS2 or any other
OS. Imagine does acces its own Extended memory handler. You can not
run Imgaine under OS2 or Windows. THere may come a time in the
future when we need to address other types of CPUS, when this occurs
Imagine will run under Windows NT. But for the moment it is not
possible.
>> There is no value to running Imagine under OS2 or any other OS.
The point is that OS/2 is a much better OS than DOS. That's why I
would like to use it.
>> …Imagine will run under Windows NT.
Great 🙁 Windows NT is not a big deal for the normal user. It is too
expensive and it needs very powerful and expensive hardware. If you
have 16 mb RAM, how much will be left for the renderer? 8, 6, 5?
How much will you work station be? I don't want the exact price…
[ ] < $3000
[ ] from $3000 to $5000
[ ] > $5000
🙂 -David
David,
Our workstation will probably be from 6 to 10K but it will not just be
a pc. It is a complete digital video editing station with full non-linear
capabilities.
As for the speed side, we will probably use either several 486 cpus or
a ALpha at 350mhz.
It is too soon to give you too many answers we are not done with
certain things at hand.
As soon as I can I will give you more information.
Mike
Mike,
very interesting. Ok just one final quetion. Will it do PAL also?
-David
All those years when I was considering an Amiga because everyone raved
about its multi-tasking capabilities, and now I find out there is no
benefit to stable multi-tasking and memory management, not to mention
speed? Hmmm.
Daivd,
It is my opinion, and just an opinion that the PC is not yet a
multitasking platform and will not be until they change the mother board. The
Amiga is the only computer that has this power at the price point available.
There are many good points to Multi tasking, but not all that glitters
is gold. (dumb phrase)
I like the PC for the speed, I hate the OS, I still have an Amiga mind
set but I need the speed. 66 Mhz is simply faster and with the new Alpha chjp
we can get 250Mhz and more.
Did you get your mail yet and has the software arrived
Mike
You lose on the motherboard argument. To my knowledge (and please
correct me if I'm wrong) there is nothing on the PC motherboard of a
386/486 that makes it particularly bad for multitasking. A large
number of good true multitasking OSs have been written for and work
very well on the PC platform (SCO Xenix, Sun's Solaris, NextStep 486,
Novell Netware, OS/2 and Win NT to name a few). The bottleneck of
the 16bit 8Mhz ISA bus has been broken with the now almost standard
33Mhz 32bit VESA local bus, the EISA bus and the forthcomming Intel
PCI local bus. A number of companies offer PC's with one or more of
the listed bus's and also allow multiple CPU's allowing at least NT
to not just multi-task but multi-process. Most PC graphics cards
even have there own custom processors and accelerators to take the
work off the CPU, a feature that made Amigas stand out early on (we
have a $400 2M VESA local bus ATI Ultra Pro that screams at
800x600x24bit). With PowerPC and Alpha chips being put on much the
same mother boards (there will even be a PowerPC chip that fits in a
486 chip slot) the power, expandability, and number of hardware and
software options available for PCs blow the Amiga away.
I'll give you some slack on your OS points. OS/2 isn't that popular,
NT is new, and Win 31 ain't too pretty under the makeup. But all are
hardware independant and so allow you to write programs not drivers
and the tools you can get are like nothing I've ever seen.
I'll admit some OS bias (Windows in all it's incarnations) and
platform bias (PC) but facts are facts.
BTW, got and installed the software. Haven't managed to get my wife,
Kerry, away from it. She's the real artist, I just talk.
John,
Hope you get to play soon.
I guess my comment was that the Amiga has some dedicated
goodies that handle the nigley part of Multi Task. There is nothing
on the board to stop it just aint that fast. Correct with the new 32
bit bus I am sure that things will open up in this area. As for the
other os thingies. Most of them dont find their way to the user .
The seem to be the herald and bastian of programmers and others who
deal with the machine differently than the everyday run of the mill
PC.
We are trying to appeal the the broadest base. THere is lots
of software for other machines on the high end, not too many can
afford or justify the price for these HIGH END products. This month
of Novemeber I noted that Computer Graphics world talks about the
HIGH END like everyone with a PC or MAC or AMIGA can run down to the
local 7/11 and drop 5 to 50 grand on a new 3D rendering and animation
system
Software costs too much in most cases, so it ends up being the
property of the very well to do. I would like to see a PC that runs
at 250MHZ and costs, well not too much. Under $2000.00.
Then multi tasking would be a snap.
Have fun and tell me what you wife thinks.
Mike
>> I would like to see a PC that runs at 250MHZ and costs, well not too
>> much. Under $2000.00.
Where is the problem? Make one! 😉
-David
David,
We are working on just such an animal (computer) 8:{'
Mike
I'm waiting to find out if 3.0 has bona fide bi-directional DXF capabilities.
Can you post info regarding this?
David,
What we are shipping right now is version 2.9. When we
finally ship 3.0 to users that have purchased 3.0 there will be a
robust DXF handler. The problem we have is this. We signed up as a
developer with AutoDesk. THey sent us some info and we applied what
they sent. It appears that what we have is by no means the answer.
WE have found what we think we need to know.
I hope what we ship for 3.0 will indeed meet your needs.
Mike
Any difference in cost between upgrading to 2.9, then to 3.0 vs. waiting for
3.0 to come out?
David
no
mike
Howdy Mike, Got my Imagine today. At least I think I did. Haven't had a
chance to rip open the package yet hehehehehehehehe.
Pete,
How long ago did you order it?
I PRe ordered the upgrade back when the last Newsletter came out sometime
in August.
Peter,
I look forward to your comments, get ripping will ya.
Mike
I "PLAYED" with the Particles a bit last night. I read the Bit about
the "TV SHOW" with the Asteroid and duplicated it a bit. The only
thing is the Coloring seemed to CYCLE. It Started off a nice Dark
blue and ended up a Light Blue by the anims end. Is there some
Requestor I missed that controls this? Thanx for the help. Looks
Great. Also LOVE that DINO texture.
BTW weren't us POOR DCTV user's supposed to get an option to do 3 OR 4
bit plane DCTV images? Will the final version have it? Did I just
miss something???
I would have put more thought into a commercial dos extender. We
used Rational (DPMI compliant) on a job we just finished. The program
uses the Flat memory model, the full blown dos4g extender, fully
supports VESA, it even plays 8 bit sound samples. We have no problems
under OS/2 DOS box. I can't tell ya how much we paid to get a no
royalty deal, but I can tell you it was less than what a average
programmer makes in 1 year! It was worth it, and saved us a lot of
problems!