[comp.sys.mac.hardware] RasterOps video boards and Apple acceleration "standard".

pascal@CAM.ORG (Pascal Gosselin) (10/17/90)

 Greetings (once again),

   I spent the better part of the day figuring out the various QuickDraw
acceleration "standards" and have figured out the following (please correct
me if I'm wrong).

SuperMac PDQ  - Accelerates only itself, totally proprietary
RasterOps Graphics Accelerator board - I got contradictory info !!!!
Radius QuickColor - Accelerates Radius boards + some Apple boards ?
Apple 8*24GC - The "standard" (whatever that means!)

Now, the Raster Ops press release for the Graphics Accelerator Board and 
the Raster Ops ads seem to contradict what I was told by a guy at
Raster Ops tech support (I'm hoping the guy was a dunce, but I'm making
sure just in case).

Ok, the press release states:

" The Accelerator takes advantage of Block Mode Transfer to move data to the
display board. Display boards using this mode can move data at a rate up
to 36 megabytes per second, while non-Block Mode Transfer boards will also
benefit in performance speed. In addition, the Accelerator works as a
Bus Master capable of accelerating all the display boards in any
Macintosh II system, including the new Macintosh IIfx. "

Great, that means that this card will accelerate other Raster Ops boards
and possibly quite a few others.

Now, the guy at Raster Ops tech support told me that the 8*24GC could not
accelerate Raster Ops' new 24L board (24 bit for 19 inchers).  I don't
see the logic in this, since both boards support Block Mode Transfer and
supposedly thus comply to Apple's "standards for quickdraw acceleration".

Who's right?  Does that guy know what he's talking about???  Why is
Raster Ops' Graphics Accelerator board so CHEAP ????

Also, does anyone have benchmarks on these various acceleration schemes
that they could share with the net ???


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