mcclend@infonode.ingr.com (William D McClendon) (05/16/91)
You people miss the point!!!! It does not matter if the 040 is faster that the 030 + Blitter for animation or that the Next has this combination and that the Amiga has the other. What matters is the total system architecture!!!!!! If a system has a fast processor but loads it with device control, I/O bad code, whatever it will be slower that a system with dedicated coprocessors. This is a fact of computer life. Amiga/Commodore did not invent this, it has been around longer than we have! How do you think the graphics boards for Mac's can get bigger and better without lost performance? This is why people yell at dumb laser printers driven by the CPU!!! Something like the blitter is for animation display, along with a FAST I/O model. The 040 is important for CALCULATING raytraces, animations, compression, etc. Then you have to display it!!! Flames to hell!
chucks@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Erik Funkenbusch) (05/20/91)
mcclend@infonode.ingr.com (William D McClendon) writes: >You people miss the point!!!! > >It does not matter if the 040 is faster that the 030 + Blitter for animation >or that the Next has this combination and that the Amiga has the other. > >What matters is the total system architecture!!!!!! > >If a system has a fast processor but loads it with device control, I/O >bad code, whatever it will be slower that a system with dedicated coprocessors. >This is a fact of computer life. Amiga/Commodore did not invent this, it >has been around longer than we have! How do you think the graphics boards >for Mac's can get bigger and better without lost performance? Excuse me? since when do Mac color video boards have high performance? they don't. they are limited by a 10 Mhz bus. using 24 bit on a mac is slow as malasses no matter what cpu you have in it. the only exception is some of the quickdraw acclerator boards that intecept the quickdraw calls. it still takes a LONG time to load 24 bit data into the card though since it must all go through that 10mhz bus. > >This is why people yell at dumb laser printers driven by the CPU!!! > >Something like the blitter is for animation display, along with a FAST I/O >model. The 040 is important for CALCULATING raytraces, animations, >compression, etc. Then you have to display it!!! not to mention that the blitter can be programmed by the copper. which is a co-processor for programming the custom chips. i've seen animations (that need very little cpu to keep them going once the copper lists are thrown into memory and the copper is started. also the blitter is used for more than just graphics. it's used to encode the MFM for floppy drives, AND does more than just animation. it does fast (~1 cycle) bit manipulations as well. if it takes on cycle to XOR a 1000x1000 bit bitplane, that's awfully fast and can't be touched by even an 040, since each longword would have to be loaded in individually flipped and re-written. > >Flames to hell! .--------------------------------------------------------------------------. | UUCP: {amdahl!tcnet, crash}!orbit!pnet51!chucks | "I know he's come back | | ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51!chucks@nosc.mil | from the dead, but do | | INET: chucks@pnet51.orb.mn.org | you really think he's | |-------------------------------------------------| moved back in?" | | Amiga programmer at large, employment options | Lou Diamond Philips in | | welcome, inquire within. | "The First Power". | `--------------------------------------------------------------------------'