naivar@hc.UUCP (06/05/87)
Hi there. I'm thinking about designing a graphics system around the "hot new" graphics processor from AMD: the Am95C60 Quad Pixel Dataflow Manager (QPDM) and I have a few questions for all you graphics "experts" out there. But first, let me explain the basic layout of the system I have in mind. The system will consist of the QPDM, from 2-4 Megs of VRAM and a color palette. Not really sure just how many bit-planes I'm gonna end up using: probably 8. Right now the plan is to connect the whole thing to a SUN, but who knows? But anyway, here's what I need to know (pardon my ignorance, but this is all new to me.): 1. From what I've read so far, it seems that the speed you run the graphics processor at is independant of the resolution obtainable. Is this true? Is the shift speed of the VRAMs and/or the color palette the only things that determine resolution? 2. Is it fairly easy to make VRAMs out of "normal" RAMs by adding data serializers? What are the pro's and con's of doing this? 3. Are there any good books or magazines out there that would be helpful for this project? Especially the nitty-gritty details of the proper signals required to generate an image on a graphics screen, and maybe even timing diagrams of vsync, hsync and blank. 4. What are the things I really have to look out for when designing a system of this sort? I'd really not have to find all the pitfalls by experiencing them myself. 5. Eventually, I hope to add some sort of processor to the system to allow animation. Is there some sort of "standard" command set for animation processors? 6. Any other stuff you think I may be overlooking or that will give me problems later on. Right now I'm kinda being overwhelmed by all these new concepts. Any references to books would be great if you don't want to spend the time trying to get the concepts through my thick head. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, as they say. I've posted to several news groups (hopefully all are at least somewhat appropriate..) so just e-mail to me. If there is enough interest, I will post a summary of what I've found out. By the way, would there be much interest out there for a board such as the one I described? Just curious........ :-) -Mark naivar@hc.dspo.gov {ucbvax!unmvax,ihnp4!lanl}!dspo!naivar
einstein@vmix.UUCP (Fredric J. Einstein) (06/09/87)
In article <4332@hc.DSPO.GOV>, naivar@hc.DSPO.GOV (Mark A. Naivar) writes: > > > Hi there. I'm thinking about designing a graphics system around > the "hot new" graphics processor from AMD: the Am95C60 Quad Pixel > Dataflow Manager (QPDM) and I have a few questions for all you graphics > "experts" out there. But first, let me explain the basic layout of the I am using a four plane board based on the AMD QPDM (I wrote an MS-WINDOWS driver for it. The current state of the QPDM involves some VERY serious software bugs that won't be fixed till AT LEAST November, 1987. Among these bugs are the inability to write bitmap data from the host to the graphics board and to read back bitmap data from the board due to bugs in the chip's firmware. Although the chip is incredibly fast and easy to write software for (especially MS-WINDOWS and DRI GEM drivers -- I've written them for INTEL '786, TI-34010, and the VMI PGL interfaces), these bugs really throw a spanner into the works. If you don't care about these SERIOUS bugs having to do with bitmap data, the AMD is a great, fast and flexible (if not cheap) graphics co-processor. As far a speed is concerned, the biggest bottleneck in any PC-based graphics system is the board communication with the host. Number of planes etc make little difference except for the number of bytes that must be transmitted between the host and the graphics engine. I don't know anything about the SUN, but on the IBM-AT bus, this is what really slows everything down. Fred Einstein