Oh, Rubbish
24 messages in this thread
Anyone who wants a 68030 Amiga can stick a CSA board into an A2000 and go.
Atari Abaq, my eye!
You eye, eh? I like the Amiga, but the harsh reality is that we are limited to
12 bits of color and 640 x 400. What about the graphics side? When will the
"great" video port be use?
Alex
Alex,
I take it you concede leadership to Amiga on pure muscle terms since the
68030 board is shipping _now._
So, you're retreating to a supposed limit of 640 x 400 x 12 bit video.
Rubbish again. Deluxe Paint II supported Overscan (for higher resolution
images) fourteen months ago. I can't remember how many zillion-color boards
were shown at AmiExpo last October, but I bet there were at least four at
AmiExpo Los Angeles.
Zillion color boards? I can't think of any that can handle DP II. The
Mimetics framegrabber remains vaporware, and it cannot support real-time
access, and it only supports NTSC colors within those limitations, which
means that it can't display all colors on a single scan line, similar to
the way HAM works. What other boards are you refering to?
Overscan is purely trivial, allowing a few more pixels in each direction,
which doesn't even work with some display screens. No, the Amiga isn't
limited to 640 x 400 x 12 bits, it cannot even perform a 640 x 400 x 12 bit
screen. Four more boards to provide 24 bits of color, but that would be
limited in the sense that there is no way for an end user to make their
software library use it.
Yeah, but is overscan "trivial" on a Mac or Pee Cee or an Ess Tee?
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It's a not-so-subtle point, I think. How can you call something "desktop
video" without being able to send it to tape? Or remove a fixed color border?
I mean, TV sets don't have borders.
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The Amiga has overscan out of the box. as far as I know, the only other
computer that has/had that was the Mindset.
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Alex,
It seems to me that while the MAC II and PC/2 have PALETTES of millions
of colors (24 bits), they can only DISPLAY 256 or maybe 512 of those colors.
So while the Amiga has a smaller PALETTE, it can display more of
colors.
I have read that of the one or two frame buffers that are going to be
produced for the Amiga (Mimetics and/or NewTek), there will be software (Sculpt
3D?) that can take advantage of the 24 bit color.
It's vapor until it's out, but you can't dismiss it yet.
Lloyd
But the trade-off is questionable as to which way it better. Is it better to
have an ability to display many widely-varying colors at once, or to be able to
have a picture with fewer colors, yet with easier transitions between
consecutive colors?
Alex
Alex,
I can't quite follow your thinking. In the mode that allows the most
colors on-screen, with the VGA, the PS/2 gives you a max of 256 colors ON
SCREEN in LOW RESOLUTION (320 or 350 X 200). This is about the same has the
Amiga's HAM LoRES, but far short of the 4096 colors. So even though the VGA
gives you a larger PALETTE, you CAN'T DISPLAY IT ALL.
How do you get "fewer colors, yet with easier transitions between
consecutive colors"?? It's been my observation that the greater the # of
displayed colors, the "easier the transition" – it even makes the image look
"sharper" (at least more realistic) than it normally is.
Lloyd
In I think the Sculpt-3d documentation, I think they said that there is a 3%
transition between consecutive colors, making two adjacent pixels which are
consecutive colors not as easily blended by the human eye.
alex
Alex,
OK, I'll take that as a given, even though I haven't read it.
And that's using Sculpt-3D using HAM mode, no? 4096 colors?
So, what kind of transition would you get with a machine (PS/2 – VGA)
that can only show 256 colors at once? You could probably get a very fine
MONOCHROME image, or an image with very few colors – you could have a few more
shades in certain ranges by limiting you total color palette.
Would there be THAT much of a difference, and would it be worth it?
Lloyd
Alex,
You are contradicting yourself, you state fewer colors on screen is ok
but allows you to have easier transitions between consecutive colors.
The more colors you can have on screen at any one time allows you to
have more intermediate colors between color A and color B.
Don
Don, not necessarily. If you can only have up to (say) 16 colours on the screen
at one time, but can draw from a palette of (say) a zillion colours, then the
16 you use can all be taken from the range that lies between two neighbouring
colours in the Amiga's more limited spectrum, giving you very smooth
transitions but not much variety. Just one more trade-off.
Nick
Nick,
I may be wrong, I'm certainly not a color expert, but I would think
that with the 4096 colors available on the Amiga you could make a transition
just as smoothly (visualy) as you could when you had 16 zillion colors.
Now, if you were strictly limited to a 16 color pallet, then yes you
are severely limited in what you can do.
I think that when you get much above 1024 colors, it's all a matter of
subtleties that most (if not all) won't see. I've seen some amazing tricks
pulled via aliasing and dithering and high resolution with some rather limited
color pallets.
Don
Don:
All dithering tricks aside, I believe that playing with a color palette
requester (Access, Dpaint, etc..) will convince you that even with 4096 colors
you could see and appreciate shades BETWEEN those that can be achieved with 12
bit color. While 4096 sounds like alot, this range must be spread out over the
entire visible spectrum. 16 Million might SEEM like alot, but by using
intelligent algorithm's (and digitizers) you can improve the detail in a
picture greatly, EVEN IF you can only show fewer of them on the screen at once.
I think that "image enhancement" routines become useful in direct proportion to
the number of colors they have to play with (especially anti-aliasing and
contrast enhancement).
Sure, we could live with less than 16 million, but 24 bits (8 per
color) is such a natural size (and pleasant for software work — no
masking/shifting) that it's the one to head for IMHO.
Ariel
IN fact, the eye can read 1 more bit of green, so we aren't perfect until we
hit 32 million.
Alex
Don, the human eye can easily recognize up to 8 bits each of red and blue and 9
bits of green.
Alex
Alex – I don't know where you got your facts – but, for the average person, my
understanding is that for _grey_ levels, (which you are more sensitive to) the
average person can't do 256 levels. I have several graphics texts that make the
unambiguous statement that 8 bits/gun is >enough. Where _did_ you get your
facts??? –Ben–