From: lindblad@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Jarkko Lindblad)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: **** A1200 Info **** (200+ lines)
Date: 5 Nov 92 15:41:48 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Natuerlich! (wallmann@backus.pu.informatik.th-darmstadt.de) wrote:

> 	Ok it's not -useless-, but not as useful as a 'real' graphics mode. 
> 	For that I argue you can't compare a HAM mode to a 'real' graphics 
> 	mode 1:1.

HAM is as real graphics mode and I can compare it to any other
graphics mode if I wish.

> Wrong. There *are* games in HAM. You obviously have some wrong image of
> what HAM is and can do. It's not as limited as you obviously think.
> 	
> 	Well there are just obvious limitations of HAM you can't escape even 
> 	if you are a devoted Amigoid and really really wish it to be a real

There is also one very real limitation in 16-bit truecolor-modes in
Falcon - they're dog-slow (in the usefull modes). 

> 	graphics mode. You can't just allocate 8bits per pixel and hope to
> 	get 16 or 24bit per pixel performance out of it. You save RAM, but

One quite often gets better performance by using 8 bits instead of
24...:) And 8 bit HAM should definately not be looking any worse than
16-bit truecolor, especially nt when one can use two times the
resolution...
	It's actually quite funny when you bash HAM and praise the
16-bit truecolro-mode in Falcon and fail to see that the truecolor
mode in Falcon has one quite similar limitation: it's not too usefull
except for picture viewers and some multimedia software. And _if_ one
still has to reset the machine to change the display type in Falcon...

> 	you pay in terms of flexibility and access speed from the software
> 	side.

And in Falcon you slow your CPU down by using truecolor modes. This in
addition to having to use 2 bytes for each pixel...
	I however agree that it is easier to make programs for
truecolor-modes than it is for HAM. Usually.

> 	From the followup discussion I deduced that there is ONE game that
> 	uses HAM. How fast that game runs I can't comment on. It's not 

At least two. There was an old game that uses it (was it Pioner
Plague), and then there is this new golf-game of which name I don't
remember.

> 	technically impossible doing animations in HAM, it just sucks.

If 'animation' now means shoot 'em up's and other games, then you're
right, however the truecolor modes in Falcon aren't really better
because of the lack of speed in those modes. If you mean displaying
movies, you're simply wrong - having less bytes giving better results
and with greater speed is usually considered as an advantage.

>    I have a simple argument that shows why the "true color" mode in the
> falcon is inferior to HAM8 (or even HAM). Consider the 320x200 "true color"
> mode in the falcon.  How many max colors can you have on screen? 65,536?
> From a palette of what, 65,536?  (I'm not sure whether it's supposed to 
> be 32768 or 65536 since the falcon specs are vapor whereas the A4000 is
> actually shipping)
> 	Falcon pallete is approx. 260000 

It is not in truecolor modes - you can not choose what of the 256k
colors you use.

> 	Snort, I doubt that this will look any good. It seems to me, although
> 	I am not entirely familiar with HAM-8 (you have ample room to

We know that :-)
(sorry)

> Oooh!  I see!  You want to run games in 16bit direct!  Well, ok, thats cool.
> Especiallly when you get only 15Khz resoltions anyway (except 320x200 VGA,
> right?).  
> 	Hngh?? Are 90% of Amiga games running in 640x400 (interlaced) or
> 	in 320x200 (non-interlaced) ???

Actually 640x400 is rarely used - I only know one "action" game that
uses it and it is a flight simulator (gives 25 Hz with 8 colors in
that resolution), instead most games that use higher resolution than
320*200 use 640*200. Or some parts of the screen may be in 320*200,
others in 640*200 (and this waits 0% CPU time thank's to copper). Or
some games may even have more different resolution-color-combinations
at the same time in screen.

> With the amount of bandwidth the Falcon has available, I suspect
> you couldn't do 16-bit fast either.
> 	You can do 16-bit graphics quite fast, since you don't have to

Not in any higher resoltution with single bus systemad 68030...

> The falcon runs only 3x faster than an STE, and you're telling me it SLOWS
> DOWN while running 800x600?  How usable is THIS gonna be?
> 	I'll assume its gonna be better than twice as usable as an ST. 

Actually in practise Falcon does probably run less than 2 times faster
than ST - of course in those ST-modes it may well ru at 3-4 times the
speed of an ST, but using the true color mode you waste half of the
speed of 68030 and blitter simply due to the fact that there is not
enough bandwidth available.

> 	Falcon I can do it in a window, in arguably not bombastic but still 
> 	AA-bashing 640x200x65536 colors.

This 640x200x64k colors dies in front of 1450x566xHAM8 even as the
latter is interlaced.

> 	I am also talking games of course..

Games with mostly static graphics, yes.

> 	Of course you wouldn't. Seems to me that SCSI-2 will be standard
> 	pretty quick, whereas IDE will hopefully die.

DO you honestly think that all those dozens of PC-cloners will move to
dramatically more expensive SCSI-II when there is much cheaper IDE
available when 95% of users don't know or care what advantages each
has over the other.
	Hmm...as it was you, I guess SCSI-II will became a standard
just because Atari will sell 100 million Falcons in your dreams.

> Are you familiar of the Amiga's screen concept? A 'screen' on the Amiga acts
> as an individual monitor display, with it's own individual screen and colour
> resolution, private windows etc.
> 	Well nice, but you have then (hopefully) two windowed environments.

What? What the hell?

> 	That doesn't quite fit the bill of using HAM as a graphics mode for
> 	windowed applications. Maybe your windowed application opens another

I bet you don't want to use true color modes with windowed
applications due to lack of speed and resolution.

> 	screen, but I can't use a HAM window. Screen swapping was cool on

You don't have an Amiga, that if probably why you can't use a HAM
window. One can of course use HAM-windows - the only problem is that
one should not overlap windows.
	Anyhow, it's noice to see that you forget that there are no
screens on Falcon. If there were, you could view those gif-pictures in
64k colors one one screen and still have a GUI of usable speed on the
other screen.

> Trivia note:
> 	The Atari TT has a HAM mode.

Another:

I don't think so.

-- 
Jarkko Lindblad         | Those people who tell you not to
lindblad@cc.helsinki.fi |   take chances
------------------------| they are all missing on what life is about
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