daly@ecs.umass.edu (10/29/90)
They're finally here! The ATI 256 color windows drivers for 800x600 and
1024x768 (1MB boards only) have arrived at Cica! And you guys thought we would
never see them.
They actually do work, but performance is slow. Text scrolling in a Wincomm
seesion gave me the impression that I had a 300 bps hookup, instead of a 9600
bps one. (It looks like I'm going back to a character mode terminal program.)
The earlier version of Winfract does not work (gives "unable to allocate global
memory" error) but I haven't tried the new version yet. I was also unable
to get a 256 color .bmp as background, but that is probably due to the fact
that I only have a 1MB 286 motherboard. (Yet another reason to upgrade)
I did get the .bmp to load into paintbrush, where it looked fine.
My overall impression is that, while the driver works, it slows the screen
display performance down to the point where it might be worth it to go back to
the 16 color driver if you don't need the 256 colors (At least on a 12 MHz 286,
this is true).
Are there any good apps that actually use the 256 colors to any advantage?
Bryon Daly
daly@ecs.UMass.edu
sig for sale - CHEAP!
mussar@bcars53.uucp (G. Mussar) (10/30/90)
In article <11183.272b0b98@ecs.umass.edu> daly@ecs.umass.edu writes: >They're finally here! The ATI 256 color windows drivers for 800x600 and >1024x768 (1MB boards only) have arrived at Cica! And you guys thought we would >never see them. These do not appear to be official ATI released drivers. The ATI BBS doesn't have these drivers. More likely they are beta drivers that someone has leaked. > >The earlier version of Winfract does not work (gives "unable to allocate global >memory" error) but I haven't tried the new version yet. I tried the 1024x768x16 mode and the problem of FFW drawing outside its window seems to be fixed. The 800x600x256 mode works OK, however, I brought up a plasma cloud and found that some data is drawn outside the window. Since the previous drawing outside the window seemed to be a driver problem... this might be too. Like I said, seems to be beta software. Don't rag on ATI (at least about bugs in this driver) until you get an offical release from ATI (RSN and I was there when they saw Elvis). > >My overall impression is that, while the driver works, it slows the screen >display performance down Hopefully the 800x600x256 driver is riddled with debugging code and the official release is going to be faster (hey, isn't that Jimmy Hoffa with Elvis?). -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gary Mussar |Bitnet: mussar@bnr.ca | Phone: (613) 763-4937 BNR Ltd. | UUCP: ..uunet!bnrgate!bcars53!mussar | FAX: (613) 763-2626
burgoyne@eng.umd.edu (John R. Burgoyne) (10/31/90)
The bottom line is that the 256 color drivers are a trade off. The VGA Wonder board is cheap, but offers very good display quality if not mega speed for the buck. If you want speed, you must buy a TI 340xx based video board. For the amount of money each of us spent on the ATI board, it is a real value to be able to have the option of reasonably fast 800x600x16 OR a much slower, but beautiful 800x600x256. (Wait until you load your first 256 color .pcx file in Paintbrush - Just don't drool.) Anyone who complains about screen writing speed, write yourself a batch file which copies one of two archive versions of system.ini, for example: system.16 & system.256 to the real system.ini. Voila, the best of both worlds. Thanks ATI, I have really gotten my money's worth. If ATI comes out with a reasonably priced 340xx board, I'll buy it. No affiliation with ATI, just a satisfied customer. Robert *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* | Robert Burgoyne CALCE Center for Electronics Packaging | | Industrial Liaison University of Maryland | | burgoyne@eng.umd.edu College Park, MD 20742 | | (301)-405-5323 | | Compu$erve: 76234,2425 | | | | "Improving the quality of electronics hardware through software | | development and research into physics of failure models." | | | | I speak for myself, CALCE has enough people speaking for it already. | *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
jls@hsv3.UUCP (James Seidman) (10/31/90)
In article <1990Oct30.160757.2809@eng.umd.edu> burgoyne@eng.umd.edu (John R. Burgoyne) writes: >The bottom line is that the 256 color drivers are a trade off. This is true. In general, *any* 256 color driver for any SVGA will be slower than the 16 color driver for the same resolution. (Ah, but don't WinGif and WinFract look nice... :) >The VGA Wonder board is cheap, but offers very good display quality >if not mega speed for the buck. If you want speed, you must buy a TI >340xx based video board. I disagree with that last statement. It really depends on what you're trying to do. Depending on the implementation, drivers, etc., an SVGA could conceivably be as fast as a 34010 based board. Also, don't forget other coprocessors like the i860. -- Jim Seidman (Drax), the accidental engineer. "There's a certain freedom to being completely screwed." - The Freshman UUCP: ames!vsi1!hsv3!jls Internet: hsv3.UUCP!jls@apple.com