From: skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu (Skip Sauls)
Subject: Re: Comdex/Quicktime released for the PC
Organization: University of Mississippi, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 18:04:25 GMT

In article <C0D75M.DJF@starnine.com> mikeh@starnine.com (Mike Haas) writes:
>In article <1992Dec31.175534.4724@pcnntp.apple.com> Dale_Adams@gateway.qm.apple.com (Dale Adams) writes:
>>In article <BzqvGB.3Ht@starnine.com> mikeh@starnine.com (Mike Haas) writes:
>>> Again, what is the point?  Your own posting indicates that QT only BEGINS
>>> to provide entry-level animation (30 fps 320x240 ... w-o-w) on the top
>>> of the line macintoshes?  It is quite pitiful, actually.
>>> 
>>> In other words, whatever it does, it needs to do less of it, because
>>> the underlying graphics a5rchitecture is antiquated and slow.  The
>>> QT facility fails to provide adequate animation on even the average mac
>>> and it is a statement about how little the Mac can accomplish in 
>>> real-time work.
>>
>>If QuickTime were the only means of providing animation on a Mac,  I'd 
>>agree with you.  If the Amiga had software remotely approaching what QT's 
>>doing that was running faster than QT on a Mac, I'd agree with you.   It's 
>>not, and it doesn't.
>
>If QuickTime were ported to the Amiga, you'de finally see what it could
>do.  As long as it's on the Mac, you won't.

While it might be a neat trick to play QuickTime animations on the Amiga,
I'd be happy if Commodore would release the CDXL software that they are
sitting on.  30fps full-screen animations off a hard drive are rumored to
be possible, with 12-15fps off a CDROM.  I have no idea what resolution
and depth the rumors refer to, but I sincerely hope it is not 320x200 in
32 color or HAM.  640x480 256 color or HAM8 would be nice...  :-)

>>> Just the fact that an 8 MHz 68000-based machine can do better
>>> at all that your $10,000 Quadra says it all.  And they call the
>>> Mac a GRAPHICALLY-ORIENTED MACHINE?
>>
>>No, it doesn't do better than the Quadra.  You're taking two entirely 
>>different situations and comparing them.  Show me an Amiga that can do 640 
>>x 480 8-bit video animations at 30 fps when updating every pixel on every 
>>frame.  This requires a memory bandwidth of over 9 MB/sec.  It's my 
>>understanding that the A4000's (the top of the line Amiga) bandwidth into 
>>chip memory is only 7 MB/sec, so it couldn't do this due to hardware 
>>limitations.
>
>I thought I heard (how does one hear on the net?) that the chip bus
>of the A4000 is not only 32-bit, but clocks at twice the rate of
>earlier Amigas, or 14.32Mhz.

I'm going out on a limb here as I'm certainly not a hardware type, but 
what the heck, this is .advocacy, isn't it?  :-)

The Lisa chip allows for 64bit access to video memory, whereas the older
Denise chip is 16bit.  The clock remains the same at 7.16MHz, but I've
heard that some parts of the chips run at 14.32 and 28.64MHz.  Commodore
claims that the AGA has 4x the bandwidth of previous Amigas, which would
imply that the A4000 could do 28MB/sec...

Of course, I really don't believe that this is true, but it sounds great,
doesn't it?  :-)  

It would certainly be nice if a few of the C= engineers would step in and
set us all straight on these matters.  Any takers?

>>> And why don't we stop talking about Quadras?  It's always
>>> mind-boggling the number of times PC & MAC fanatics want to compare
>>> the animation capabilies of their QUADRAS and 486's to an Amiga 600!
>>> Notice they NEVER allow a 4000 (the flagship amiga) to enter the fray!
>>> 
>>> Hey one of you 4000 owners... how fast can you animate 640x480x8?
>>
>>Yes, what actually is the bandwidth into the A4000's video memory?  If 
>>it's not at least 9 MB/sec., the A4000 can't animate 640x480x8 at 30 fps.
>
>4000 owners... take it...

I wish that I knew.  There are supposed to be animations by Chris Green
which are 30-60fps full-screen, but I've not seen them myself.  Apple
seems to be a bit better than Commodore at releasing internal software
which promotes the machine.  Boing!, Fields, RoboCity, and other demos
convinced me to buy an A1000, but there is nothing like that which shows
of the features of the AGA machines, which is a shame.  Oh well...

Skip Sauls, Amiga Advocate who wishes there were AGA demos available...
skip@tacky.cs.olemiss.edu