mkh6317@zeus.tamu.edu (HOWARD, MATTHEW KENDALL) (05/29/91)
In order for the 8*24GC card to produce dramatic aceleration the running application must make use of the so call G_world calls. Are there ANY presently available programs which support the GC card? Do we know of any forth-comming programs which will support the GC card? If not, then the GC is an incredible rip-off. Matt
frankb@sumac15.cray.com (Frank Barriuso) (05/30/91)
In article <16613@helios.TAMU.EDU>, mkh6317@zeus.tamu.edu (HOWARD, MATTHEW KENDALL) writes: > In order for the 8*24GC card to produce dramatic aceleration the > running application must make use of the so call G_world calls. > Are there ANY presently available programs which support the GC > card? Do we know of any forth-comming programs which will support > the GC card? If not, then the GC is an incredible rip-off. > > Matt I just bought a IIfx with a 8*24GC card and then purchased MacroMind Director only to find out that the current version (I believe it is version 2.0.2) is not compatible with the GC card. I called MacroMind and they said that version 3.0 will support the GC card. They expect to release 3.0, "sometime in the middle of the summer." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Frank Barriuso Cray Research, Inc. Multiprocessing Software Group 655F Lone Oak Drive ARPA: frankb@cray.com Eagan, MN 55121 UUCP: uunet!cray!frankb ----------------------------------------------------------------------
paul@taniwha.UUCP (Paul Campbell) (05/30/91)
In article <16613@helios.TAMU.EDU> mkh6317@zeus.tamu.edu writes: >In order for the 8*24GC card to produce dramatic aceleration the >running application must make use of the so call G_world calls. Depends on what you mean by 'dramatic' >Are there ANY presently available programs which support the GC >card? Do we know of any forth-comming programs which will support >the GC card? If not, then the GC is an incredible rip-off. Umm, how about: the menu manager in system 7, the standard controls in system 7. There are a number of programs that use gworlds, mostly they are new high-end color programs, this is because most system 6 macs out there don't have gworlds (ie all the compact macs - which is most of the market). If you are writing a program that you want to run across the full range of macs out there you don't want to have to burden yourself with using 2 different ways of doing something like offscreen (if you are going to have to do it yourself you might as well do it that way and use it on all the machines). Hopefully after System 7 has been out a while 7 specific applications will start using gworlds on all macs. Also people with applications out there don't say to themselves "gworlds, what a neat idea, I'll spend 3 months gutting my application so it can use them" because the user (except of course those with graphics accelerators) don't perceive a lot of benefit from them. I think that there are going to be 3 classes of applications that use GWorlds: - applications that need a temporary bitmap (for example somewhere to save the bits under a pulled down menu), they probably wont usually see a big speedup (pulling down menus already runs fast enough) - applications that use a gworld as a backing store for a window, these applications will do window updates (for example when you bring a window to the front or when you move an overlapping window) much faster, also scrolling around in a window might be faster (but remember that gworlds require lots real RAM for performance - paging in the stuff isn't goingto be much of a speedup - a full screen at 24-bits/pixel requires about 4MB) - finally there will be some applications that get much more performance out of gworlds/accelerators, they are going to be the ones that use them in new novell ways to overlap screen drawing and image drawing to give superb graphics performance (for example doubled buffered animation and video stuff) On then other hand there is a class of applications that can't use gworlds, (at least not in a big way), they are the high end image manipulation packages that need to manipulate images that are many times larger than physical memory (for example a 24-bit 300dpi full screen image that is displayed on a 1152x870 monitor at 72dpi requires 4MB*(300/72)*(300/72) = ~70Mb this is also why image compression is becoming so important) the people who write such programs do their own 'virtual memory' since they can't depend on there being 'real' virtual memory. I think thatthe main thing about expecting 'dramatic' acceleration from gworlds is that they might not accelerate what you want (depends on what the programmer used them for and of course on what exactly it is that you want) and you might be disapointed. BTW if you are a programmer and you want to use gworlds read the docs very carefully, always call getpixbaseaddr before touching your pixmap directly (this makes sure that the GC is finished with it) and always swapmmumode to 32 bit addressing before you touch it (because the pixmap may have migrated onto the card). I think that gworlds are important and that everyone should use them - Apple should make them available to the low end machines even on future system 6 systems - I think that 6 months from now there will be a lot more applications out there that do (because system 7 has now shipped and because it takes a few years for a new technology to get adopted) and you will start to see performance increases soon, they will probably be in a 'snapier' user interface on the other hand you probably wont see MicroSoft using them for Word or some such (on the other hand people like MicroSoft and Aldus could use them to make scrolling of 24-bit pictures in text speed up a lot). Paul -- Paul Campbell UUCP: ..!mtxinu!taniwha!paul AppleLink: CAMPBELL.P My son is now 2 months old, in that time he has doubled his weight, if he does this every 2 months for the next year he will weigh over 300lbs.
mkh6317@zeus.tamu.edu (HOWARD, MATTHEW KENDALL) (05/31/91)
In article <858@taniwha.UUCP>, paul@taniwha.UUCP (Paul Campbell) writes... >In article <16613@helios.TAMU.EDU> mkh6317@zeus.tamu.edu writes: >>In order for the 8*24GC card to produce dramatic aceleration the >>running application must make use of the so call G_world calls. > >Depends on what you mean by 'dramatic' If you attended the IIfx and GC roll-out or saw the video of it, you know what I mean. Two examples especially caught my eye. A color version of the diatom line drawing program and dragging a lassoed bitmap region in a color (24-bit?) paint-type program. The crowd, to a person, gasped "oh-wow". Thats what I mean by dramatic. >>Are there ANY presently available programs which support the GC >>card? Do we know of any forth-comming programs which will support >>the GC card? If not, then the GC is an incredible rip-off. >Umm, how about: the menu manager in system 7, the standard controls in system 7. No, as you point out later, menu drawing is fast enough. > >There are a number of programs that use gworlds, mostly they are new high-end >color programs, Could you name one? -- The IIfx and GC were introduced at the same time although the GC didn't actually ship until much later. I appears though that the benefit of the GC is still "pie-in-the-sky". I feel that the roll-out demonstration must have been horribly misleading. Matt
peirce@outpost.UUCP (Michael Peirce) (06/01/91)
In article <16613@helios.TAMU.EDU>, mkh6317@zeus.tamu.edu (HOWARD, MATTHEW KENDALL) writes: > In order for the 8*24GC card to produce dramatic aceleration the > running application must make use of the so call G_world calls. > Are there ANY presently available programs which support the GC > card? Do we know of any forth-comming programs which will support > the GC card? If not, then the GC is an incredible rip-off. I'm working on a rather low end graphics program that makes good use of GWorlds. It's System 7 specific though and probably won't be out until the fall. I'm pretty sure that "Michael's Draw" from Event One uses GWorlds. It's been out in a preliminary version since January and will ship final next month. -- mihcael -- Michael Peirce -- outpost!peirce@claris.com -- Peirce Software -- Suite 301, 719 Hibiscus Place -- Macintosh Programming -- San Jose, California 95117 -- & Consulting -- (408) 244-6554, AppleLink: PEIRCE
paul@taniwha.UUCP (Paul Campbell) (06/01/91)
In article <16688@helios.TAMU.EDU> mkh6317@zeus.tamu.edu writes: >In article <858@taniwha.UUCP>, paul@taniwha.UUCP (Paul Campbell) writes... >> >>Depends on what you mean by 'dramatic' > >If you attended the IIfx and GC roll-out or saw the video of it, you >know what I mean. Two examples especially caught my eye. A color >version of the diatom line drawing program and dragging a lassoed >bitmap region in a color (24-bit?) paint-type program. The crowd, to >a person, gasped "oh-wow". Thats what I mean by dramatic. But neither of these two things use GWorlds - and besides acceleration of both vector drawing and lassoed dragging of 24-bit bitmaps were already available from 3rd parties at the time the GC was rolled out >>>Are there ANY presently available programs which support the GC >>>card? Do we know of any forth-comming programs which will support >>>the GC card? If not, then the GC is an incredible rip-off. > >>Umm, how about: the menu manager in system 7, the standard controls in system 7. > >No, as you point out later, menu drawing is fast enough. What I mean is that they (sort of) use GWorlds - you asked if there were any applications that used them I pointed out that there are parts of the OS that do (but that it doesn't necessarily give you a massive speedup >> >>There are a number of programs that use gworlds, mostly they are new high-end >>color programs, > >Could you name one? I know of a video editor that is, but as it hasn't yet been released I can't name it ..... >The IIfx and GC were introduced at the same time although the GC didn't >actually ship until much later. I appears though that the benefit of >the GC is still "pie-in-the-sky". I feel that the roll-out demonstration >must have been horribly misleading. Actually I have to disagree, I don't think that the demos were misleading, if you have used a 24-bit card before people started selling accelerated 24-bit cards they were almost unusable - the demo of dragging a 24-bit chunk in a paint program was exactly the sort of thing that you couldn't do accurately before acceleration became available. Scrolling on a 24-bit card before acceleration was so slow that people would only put their boards in 24-bit mode only when they really needed it for a particular application. I'm typing this on an accelerated card which does 24-bit acceleration but not 8-bit - when I switch it back to 8-bit I really notice how much SLOWER it is. On the other hand vector drawing is great - if you have vectors to draw - but if you look at almost every Mac desktop the only vectors you will see are horizontal and vertical which can be sped up in different (faster) ways from arbitrary diagonal lines. I really should announce my biases here - I design graphics accelerators for one of those 3rd parties ... Paul Campbell -- Paul Campbell UUCP: ..!mtxinu!taniwha!paul AppleLink: CAMPBELL.P My son is now 2 months old, in that time he has doubled his weight, if he does this every 2 months for the next year he will weigh over 300lbs.