dean@coplex.uucp (Dean Brooks) (04/24/91)
Well, I have owned an Amiga 2000 for several years now, and I am getting ready to buy a 3000, but I have one serious question before I even begin to get the money ready. Does any company have plans to make a video card that will allow the Amiga to display 1024x768 resolutions with at *least* 256 colors? For $130.00 I can get a Trident card for a 386 PC to do the same. I am *very* surprised that C= didnt make this a standard video display mode, or at least something similar. Seriously though, anything less that 1024x768x256 just doesnt hack it for good looking video anymore, and I am curious if the Amiga 3000 will ever handle it. The Viedo Toaster solution is obviously not the way to go. It is sort of embarrasing to see a PC display 1024x768x256 for a total investment of around $150.00. (not including monitor) So, anyone know? Or is the Amiga doomed to be stuck with 640x400x16 for the rest of its days.... (If you haven't seen 1024x768x256 before, look at it. It *IS* impressive. -- dean@coplex.uucp (Dean Brooks) Copper Electronics, Inc. Louisville, Kentucky
n298ad@tamuts.tamu.edu (John Jordan) (04/24/91)
Digital Micronics has a 1024 x 800 with 8 plane color (256) that has been shown at a few expos. But it is expected to cost around $1000. They have plans for 1280 x 1024 with 24 bitplanes using the TMS 34020 controller chip that will come with 1 Meg of memory and 4 Megs of VRAM, and a 34082 FPU. The 1024 x 800 x 8 uses the 34010 chip. John
sschaem@starnet.uucp (Stephan Schaem) (04/24/91)
Well the amiga can go 1024x400 interlace (with 4 color max from a small palette).But I dont think this what you are looking for :-) 64kh monitor are not that cheap, but you can break the 16 color barier and get a 24 bit frame buffer.
Fletcher@cup.portal.com (fletcher sullivan segall) (04/25/91)
> > Well, I have owned an Amiga 2000 for several years now, and I >am getting ready to buy a 3000, but I have one serious question >before I even begin to get the money ready. > > Does any company have plans to make a video card that will allow >the Amiga to display 1024x768 resolutions with at *least* 256 colors? >For $130.00 I can get a Trident card for a 386 PC to do the same. I >am *very* surprised that C= didnt make this a standard video display >mode, or at least something similar. Commodore West Coast showed the ULowell card at the last FAUG meeting here in Palo Alto. It was attached to an A3000 running UNIX/SVR4. The representative said that there wasn't yet any planned release date for the card. I don't doubt that once it is released that someone will be working on an Intuition driver for it. > > Seriously though, anything less that 1024x768x256 just doesnt hack it >for good looking video anymore, and I am curious if the Amiga 3000 will >ever handle it. > What do you mean by video. The video I'm interested in doesn't have anything to do with higher resolutions, it has to do with more colours. > The Viedo Toaster solution is obviously not the way to go. It is >sort of embarrasing to see a PC display 1024x768x256 for a total >investment of around $150.00. (not including monitor) > The toaster is a wonderful way to go if you want toaster output. But since you seem to want 1024x768x256 I would suggest that you get a PC Clone. I have no doubt 1024x768x256 cards will forever be cheaper on PC Clones that any other equipment available. Personally I still wouldn't take one if you gave it to me. (But then I have this bias against Intel architectures.) > So, anyone know? Or is the Amiga doomed to be stuck with 640x400x16 >for the rest of its days.... (If you haven't seen 1024x768x256 before, >look at it. It *IS* impressive. > Ever look at the price tag on the monitor? Now that is what I call impressive. My personal opinion is that the high resolution cards have a long way to go before they really become useful. Right now they are dead-slow. Manufacturer's are only beginning to put intelligent controllers on the display cards, without which a 25MHz 386 Clone slows to a crawl. Very few programs support these cards. Many of the card manufacturers include patches to make some of the more popular programs run with their hardware, but this is a kludge at best. The current state of graphics in the PC world requires a program to create all of its graphics itself. You don't call BIOS to perform a line draw, and the variety of available cards forces the writers to create a program that works with the lowest common denominator... each bit is written, one at a time. So even if your more expensive display card has a built-in controller, the program can't use it. If you are a programmer, I would strongly recommend the Amiga. As a development platform for moderate to large sized programs it is much more enjoyable and easy to use than the PC (or UniX IMHO). On a PC you can watch your run-times more than double just because you need to run in protected mode (ie use more than 640k of memory). The Moniterm display is an exceptional high-resolution display. The mouse is much more responsive, the multi-tasking is to die for. (I wrote my own pre-emptive scheduling multi-tasking scheduler under MSDOS. It is important to realize that MSDOS is non-reentrant. Every task that wants any DOS service under my environment first has to gain exclusive access to MSDOS, or risk the infinite loop.) Enough gibbering, I've already made my decision. Hope you are as happy with yours as I am with mine... -F. Sullivan Segall _______________________________________________________________ /V\ E-Credibility: (n -- ME) The unguaranteed likelyhood that ' the electronic mail you are reading is genuine rather than someone's made up crap. _______________________________________________________________ Mail to: ...sun!portal!cup.portal.com!fletcher or fletcher@cup.portal.com
kudla@rpi.edu (Robert J. Kudla) (04/25/91)
In article <41634@cup.portal.com> Fletcher@cup.portal.com (fletcher sullivan segall) writes: > The Viedo Toaster solution is obviously not the way to go. It is >sort of embarrasing to see a PC display 1024x768x256 for a total >investment of around $150.00. (not including monitor) since you seem to want 1024x768x256 I would suggest that you get a PC Clone. I have no doubt 1024x768x256 cards will forever be cheaper on PC Clones that any other equipment available. Personally I still wouldn't I don't think resolution of display is the primary purchasing factor for this person or anyone else.... but as far as price goes, cheaper is one thing, 1/10th the cost is another. > So, anyone know? Or is the Amiga doomed to be stuck with 640x400x16 >for the rest of its days.... (If you haven't seen 1024x768x256 before, >look at it. It *IS* impressive. Ever look at the price tag on the monitor? Now that is what I call impressive. So do I..... $350 or a multisync (or at least trisync) monitor, $150 for the card. Poof, you've got 1024x800x8 color for $500 - and about 2 programs that use it. (My roommate just did this less than a week ago, and now feels silly because he's got a nice 14" megapixel monitor which he uses mainly to play games in 320x200x8 mode and the only program which actually takes advantage of the screen size is Lotus, and the characters are small enough to give even me a headache). Anyway, the incompatibility thing is what would make me prefer a Mac or Unix/Xwindows box over a PC or Amiga if I wanted to make the most of a megapixel display. My personal opinion is that the high resolution cards have a long way to go before they really become useful. Right now they are dead-slow. Ever used a Sun Sparcstation IPC? Pretty nice, if real expensive. If you are a programmer, I would strongly recommend the Amiga. As a development platform for moderate to large sized programs it is much more enjoyable and easy to use than the PC (or UniX IMHO). On a PC you For big program development with a steep but very rewarding learning curve, surely. For banging out programs by the dozen though, I have to recommend the Borland Turbo series on the PC, much as I hate the machine itself. They're fast and concisely documented compilers. Enough gibbering, I've already made my decision. Hope you are as happy with yours as I am with mine... I am..... I use PC's at work, IPC's and Macs elsewhere, and I go home, sit down at my Amiga, and feel much more comfortable. Robert Jude Kudla <kudla@rpi.edu> No more bars! No more cages! Just rollerskating, disco music, and the occasional light show....
dean@coplex.uucp (Dean Brooks) (04/25/91)
dean@coplex.uucp (Dean Brooks) writes: > Does any company have plans to make a video card that will allow >the Amiga to display 1024x768 resolutions with at *least* 256 colors? >For $130.00 I can get a Trident card for a 386 PC to do the same. I >am *very* surprised that C= didnt make this a standard video display >mode, or at least something similar. (So I am quoting myself (-8 ) Anyway, does anyone have any experience with the HAM-E product? I have noticed the ads before, and the attractive pricing, but I was curious as to the quality of the output, and what features it had to offer for such a low price. -- dean@coplex.uucp (Dean Brooks) Copper Electronics, Inc. Louisville, Kentucky
tope@enea.se (Tommy Petersson) (04/26/91)
In article <1991Apr24.043853.20723@coplex.uucp- dean@coplex.uucp (Dean Brooks) writes:
-
- Well, I have owned an Amiga 2000 for several years now, and I
-am getting ready to buy a 3000, but I have one serious question
-before I even begin to get the money ready.
-
- Does any company have plans to make a video card that will allow
-the Amiga to display 1024x768 resolutions with at *least* 256 colors?
-For $130.00 I can get a Trident card for a 386 PC to do the same. I
-am *very* surprised that C= didnt make this a standard video display
-mode, or at least something similar.
-
- Seriously though, anything less that 1024x768x256 just doesnt hack it
-for good looking video anymore, and I am curious if the Amiga 3000 will
-ever handle it.
-
- The Viedo Toaster solution is obviously not the way to go. It is
-sort of embarrasing to see a PC display 1024x768x256 for a total
-investment of around $150.00. (not including monitor)
-
- So, anyone know? Or is the Amiga doomed to be stuck with 640x400x16
-for the rest of its days.... (If you haven't seen 1024x768x256 before,
-look at it. It *IS* impressive.
-
---
-dean@coplex.uucp (Dean Brooks)
-Copper Electronics, Inc.
-Louisville, Kentucky
Commodore will RSN (?) sell the ULowell board (TIGA-based) for their
Unix 3000's. What's lacking is the software for AmigaDos.
No pricing info available.dltaylor@cns.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Dan Taylor) (04/27/91)
In <8=vg2!m@rpi.edu> kudla@rpi.edu (Robert J. Kudla) writes: >I don't think resolution of display is the primary purchasing factor >for this person or anyone else.... but as far as price goes, cheaper >is one thing, 1/10th the cost is another. What 1/10th? The Toaster is oriented toward broadcast video standards, therefore provides full color, but at broadcast resolutions. The PC versions cost MORE, not less. The Toaster, in addition, provides double buffering for realtime output, and support for special effects. Right this minute, no one is selling a 1024x768 display adapter for the Amiga. There are several under development, but every one I've heard of has a co-processor, like a 34010 or 34020. These cards are more like the $1000 PC cards, so there isn't anything to compare the $150 cards against. It wouldn't cost much more to build a "dumb" Amiga display adapter to put out that resolution, mostly just the volume discount on the parts. But, such a card has minimal functionality in an Amiga, so why bother? Dan Taylor.