#no 24bit on PC?
23 messages in this thread
Hi, just a small note about the palett, that, according to the pre
releas manual, is a problem on the PC and not on the Amiga. I don't
know about the Amiga, but it is no prblem on the PC at all. I guess
everyone who works with graphics and Imagine has a true color video
card (you can get them for $80). Since Imagine supports VESA only,
why is it a problem to use the VESA true color mode? Every little
shareware program can display 24 bit pics on a VESA card with true
color DAC, only Imagine can not. Why? -David
David
Not all boards are created equal, and I do think that Imagine 3.0 will
in most cases support true color.
Mike
True color is about the only advantage my PC has over the Amiga I
sold. I'm very surprized that you don't support this. Will it run
under windows? This is mandatory since rendering cannot be expected
to tie up the whole system for days. Since Imagine for the PC is so
much more expensive I see this as a major oversight.
Daniel,
More expensive than what,. 3D Studio is $3000.00 apx, Real 3D is
$1200.00 and Envisage is $1595.00 these are the ones that begin to compare with
Imagine.
Secondly, Windows is very very slow, Imagine runs very very fast. But
only in a 32 bit environment, which is what dos is with the 386/486.
We will support True color with the final release of 3.0. SO you should
be very happy when we ship the final version of Imagine 3.0.
Hope that helps.
Mike
>> True color is about the only advantage my PC has over the Amiga I
>> sold.
The other advantage is the speed. A 486-66 is just faster than a 68040 at 33
mHz. And if you can afford a 586 (Pentium) you gonna fly twice as fast.
-David
>>> True color is about the only advantage my PC has over the Amiga I >>
sold.
>>The other advantage is the speed. A 486-66 is just faster than a 68040
>>at 33 mHz. And if you can afford a 586 (Pentium) you gonna fly twice as
>>fast. -David
PMJI: Well, speed is a PC advantage for some stuff, but not
necessarily graphical stuff. For animation work, especially not.
Check out the December COMPUTE column on Video for Windows, where the
guy basically says it's no go for most video, though still-frame
grabbing works pretty well. Even with a maxed out 486 and local bus
video, the frame rates just aren't sufficient, yet. And, for quirky
architectural reasons, some gear won't work in systems with more than
8 megabytes of RAM. I've seen 3D CGI animations on 486s running
jerkily in little windows, and am amused that my lowly, '030-based
A2000 can outrun them and in full screen.
All of which is not to knock the PC environment generally; I have a PC
and they are advancing rapidly (and if you've got the bucks, you can
advance with them). But for animation work, I think the Amiga is
still boss for most purposes. When MPEG is firmly entrenched on the
Amiga and all other platforms, taking over from Quicktime, Indeo,
Video for Windows, et. al., that advantage probably will be gone. —
Ron Legro from Milwaukee via AUTOPILOT
>> it's no go for most video, though still-frame grabbing works pretty
>> well. Even with a maxed out 486 and local bus video, the frame rates just
>> aren't sufficient, yet
You are talking about additional hardware that plugs in the PC. Frame grabber
cards don't use the processor of the PC, they have their own.
I really DON'T want to start one of these endless useless Amiga vs PC threads,
but just seeing render speed (which depends on the CPU) the PC is faster.
-David
Oh, I'm not trying to start a flame war, just gabbing.
I believe it's quite fair to say that a top of the line 486 running
can out-render a top of the line A4000 running similar software. The
Virtual Reality Labs boys had some numbers supporting that with both
versions of VistaPro. Of course, let's wait and see what happens when
the Toaster Screamer, Warp System parallel processing board, and
other super-fast rendering engines start coming into more general
Amiga use.
Like I did say, with respect to playback, it's no contest. And add-on
cards like the Personal Animation Recorder or even the lowly but also
cheap and serviceable DCTV make real-time playback of 3D anims on an
Amiga child's play. Heck, a Toaster 4000 on an AGA Amiga can do
real-time playback of sufficient quality for industrial video.
Nothing like that on a PC, at least not in a competitive price range,
that I know of. Bang! Right away if my Amiga garage operation is in
competition with some guy with a PC, I save money since I don't have
to invest in a single-frame controller and let my record deck endure
all that wear and tear, not to mention agonizing capture speed. —
Ron Legro from Milwaukee via AUTOPILOT
(The only way to fly)
I never realized that all the 24 bit True color cards for the Amiga got
sucked into a Vortex never to be heard from again. This msg is more for
Daniel than you David.
Oh, they are there, but they are more expensive and less prevalent than PC
counterparts. I doubt there are Amiga 24 bit video cards available for less
than $100.
It is my unbderstanding that those $129 SVGA "24 BIT" cards have a 24 bit
Pallette and Display only about 64,000 colors. I of course could be
mistaken. Cheapest Amiga 24 bit Card I know of is the Opalvision at $399
Also aren';t the $129 24 bit cards the NON ACCELERATED type?
Most of those cards will do 24bit at 640×480 (1M SVGA). A 2M card (they start
at less than $300) will do 24bit at 800×600, 16bit at 1024×768 and 8bit at
1280×1024. Our ATI Ultra Pro 2M Accelerated local bus card was something like
$450.
BTW I would wait on looking at the Alpha. NT is going to be ported to the
PowerPC which should be price competitive with the Pentium and somewhat faster.
Assuming Impulse writes an NT version it'll be a real toss-up as to what to
get. Whatever happens the current version will only work on Intel chips.
Limey
Hmmmm, Thanx for the info. I always thought the Cheapo 24 bit Cards were
24 bit pallette only. I guess I WAS mistaken after all.
I think that some of the "24bit" bargain basement cards, particularly
older ones, are only a 24bit pallete but there are certainly many
cheap cards that are true 24bit (it's best to make sure). Even so I
would recomend a midrange ($350-$650) accelerated VESA or PCI local
bus card with at least 2M (800x600x24bit) for graphics work in
Window's. With a 3M or 4M card (I've even seen some of these under
$1000 and some of the 2M cards are expandable) you can get something
like 1024×768 and 1280×924 at 24bit and 1600×1200 at 16bit. Of
course at this point you need a $2000 21inch monitor but such is
life.
Limey
Thanx for the info on 24 bit Cards on the PC/Clones.
Speaking of Pentiums, I just got a P5-60 from Gateway at the office. This puppy
has 32 megs of RAM, a 17-inch monitor, 2x CD ROM and 500 meg HD standard!
Anyway, I was very pleased to see that Imagine now runs exactly TWICE as fast
on the Pentium as it did on my 486/66. –Rick Rodriguez
Grrrr, making me jealous Rick. I want a DEC Alpha based machine for
running Imagine. Any known problems???
>> I was very pleased to see that Imagine now runs exactly TWICE as fast
>> on the Pentium as it did on my 486/66.
This makes me envious :-> OTOH I'm just planing to buy a faster
mother board and I was considering one of these new Pentium PCI
boards. The problem is that the Pentium CPU is twice as fast as a
486-66, but costs three times as much! Plus the pentuim boards are
more expensive that 486 boards. I don't think it is a good time to buy
a Pentium now, but rendering can never be fast enough… -David
Rick, glad to hear you are now the proud Pentium owner. The Gateway
uses the PCI bus, and I heard that there was a bug in the early PCI
chipset that prevented the system from working in conjunction with an
ISA bus without turning off the cache's on the Pentium chip. Is this
true, or bogus. This is the major reason I've held back from buying
one, because PCI seems to be the bus design with a future.
I don't know if caches are on or off, but I've seen nothing but speedups on all
my software, particularly the 3D variety. –Rick
Yeah, I can't imagine that the Pentium would be exactly *slow*. Reading Nov.15
issue of PC Week confirms that early PCI chipsets did not allow the Pentium to
use a write-back cache, only a write-through cache. Apparently write-back cache
is faster, although my concern was really about compatibility. Glad to hear you
have no problems. My pentium machine from Dell should be here around
mid-December. With the new particle system in Imagine I need way more than
16meg of ram, ack!
Andrew.
>> and I do think that Imagine 3.0 will in most cases support true
>> color.
🙂 you "think"? You should know <g>
-David
David,
OK I KNOW
Does that make you feel better.
Mike