From: kholland@hydra.unm.edu (Kiernan Holland)
Subject: Re: Falcon030: Higher res. simple!
Date: Thu, 01 Oct 92 07:28:21 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <1992Sep22.060336.22558@news.Hawaii.Edu> jww@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jack W. Wine) writes:
>In article <1992Sep15.185445.19395@cc.umontreal.ca> kosmatoo@JSP.UMontreal.CA (Kosmatos Odisseas) writes:
>>Aparently, it is easy to get the Falcon030 to display higher resolutions
>>than the ones it comes "standard" with. At the Atari Messe, a company
>>called OVERSCAN explained that the Falcon can accept an external monitor
>>frequency sync. signal. It is a built in feature of the Falcon that is
>>quite interesting. You can, by using an apropriate external sync. generated
>>by a crystal, increase the resolution in the Falcon to things like
>>1024x800 in 256 colors, or what have you. This does not slow down the
>>computer at all, until you increase the resolution to the extent that
>>the video chip starts hogging its share of the memory bandwidth.
>
>Atari said 640x480 with 65K colors exceeded the memory bandwidth
>so the limit must be less than 36 MB/s [640*480*2 bytes*60 hertz = ~36 MB/s]
>
>800x600 256 colors use less than 30 MB/s so that might be possible and 
>1024x800 16 colors takes about 24 MB/s so the Falcon might handle
>that too.  1024x800 mono is 6 MB/s so if possible would be great! 
>
>The specs mention that the memory controller operates in page mode so
>that might mean that 32 bits are fetched multiple times and average
>about 240/2 (160 ns cycle + 80 ns thereafter) = ~120 ns for memory
>reads.  With a 120 ns average then memory bandwith would be 32 bits
>times 1/120ns = ~32 MB/s.  The 68030 would have less time for high
>resolution and color but the application could make the best choice.
>
>My guesses could be all wrong though.  :D            
>
>Jack
>

I'm a one of the most talkative Amiga users, but 
I just wanted to say that I'm waiting to see what the 
Falcon will be like becuase of the DSP and such.  
The Amiga 4000 looks super but it seems that 
Atari hasn't been making systems like crazy which is a 
blessing in a way becuase if you look at me, I have a 
3000, 6 megs and a 68030 and now the 4000 is selling around the 
price I bought my system, and I can expect this one will 
be extinct in several years.
 
Anyways.. To show you how much of an Amiga user I 
am, I am listening to Todd Rundgren's Anthology and 
I'm multi-tasking all sorts of stuff. But I want change, 
and it could either be selling my Amiga and getting a PC or a 
Falcon (or two).

Anyways (part 2)
You left out Delta-Compression on the animation stuff,
becuase delta compression will make your animation 
speeds faster. 

Now, about 256,000 colors, I bet the A4000 only does 
that in hires-lace which is 640x480. I know PC cards 
that will do this resolution... It is no big deal. 
24-bit color will allow 640x480 resolutions with 256K 
colors, so I suspect that the A4000's graphics system 
is like this. But I bet the Falcon could handle 
30fps animations if it can handle 30 megs a second,
but of course you have to figure in things like
drive access, transmission speeds, etc. However, 
if the Falcon will come with that MPEG card that 
I have been told will be available, then you 
should be able to get data speeds of 30 megs a second. 

I'm no rocket scientist, but 30megs per second seems a little 
unrealistic becuase my 3000 with its 16mhz 32-bit 
bus can hardly do 1 meg per second from the hard drive,
so it is probably just a hype-figure that companies 
like CBM shoot out just to get more customers. 

I know, I even heard from a PC user that the local bus systems could do 66mhz
on thier bus. That is unrealistic since the ram is probably 
not fast enough move its data that fast and the CPU is probably 
not fast enough either. I heard a quote of something like 
33 megs per sec is how fast a RISC 6000 could move memory. 
And a Amiga 3000 with Page Mode ZIPS can only move 3.3 megs per sec, 
or something like that. 



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